Any plans for SOTI's 60th?
Well?
It had its world premiere in New York on May 28, 1954. It deserves an anniversary party. Time's a-wastin'.
Is the cinema still standing where it premiered in New York?
If so, I suggest we all meet there for a pisco sour or two!
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
I don't know -- I don't know which theater it was. But I bet I know someone who does...!
If JB doesn't show his face here over the next 24 I'll PM him into action!
After the pisco sours we can sit down to a traditional Andean repast, a Peruvian specialty originally made in honor of the film's cast and crew, Guinea Pig a la Jerry Hopper. With Bananas Heston for dessert.
Do they sell Pisco Sours in New York, hob?
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Don't ask me how I know this, but the answer is yes, at least if I'm thinking of the right thing. (Or is this a joke of some sort?) Didn't James send us info on that Peruvian or Incan tour or something that included drinks and dinner at a Peruvian restaurant in New York? Anyway I've been to a Peruvian restaurant and the food and booze were excellent, though I don't recall having a Pisco Sour or not. You can pretty much get anything in New York, probably even more so than in London.
shareHi hobnob and Os
The New York cinema where SECRET OF THE INCAS premiered on 28 May 1954 was the Victoria, which was situated at 1547 Broadway. In 1982 it was flattened by a wrecking ball despite the efforts of a few old die-hard preservationists (so we can't have SOTI's 60th birthday celebrations there). Ironically, the Victoria lives on in a couple of movies that were filmed on location in New York. In Stanley Kubrick's 1955 melodrama KILLERS KISS, the Victoria can be seen in a night shot showing a James Mason British movie, THE MAN BETWEEN. Two decades later, in glorious Technicolor, MIDNIGHT COWBOY used the Victoria as a background shot, displaying DOCTOR DOOLITTLE on a block-long billboard.
28 May 1954, apart from being the day SECRET OF THE INCAS premiered in New York, was also the day that Kirk Douglas (37) wedded producer Ann Buydens (24) at Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas.
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
They tore down that beautiful cinema for this!!!!
http://www.oyster.com/new-york-city/hotels/marriott-marquis-new-york/p hotos/the-hotel-marriott-marquis-new-york-v76185/
So Kirk would rather tie the knot again rather than go and see "Secret of the Incas", is that what you are telling us, James? what a maroon (Kirk - not you!)
Just had a thought, Kirk Douglas as Harry Steele. What do you reckon?
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Well, just as I was about to go get James, he came here all on his own. Or did he? Anyway....
I know this area very well. It's in Times Square, as you obviously know the rough New York equivalent of Piccadilly Circus in London. Each month I go to a meeting held at a law firm in the CondΓ© Nast building a block or so away. (I was going to be there again this past week but the trains were canceled after a gas explosion leveled two buildings near the tracks in Harlem.) As you can see from Oswald's link, it's at the nexus of 7th Avenue and Broadway, which intersect and cross over at Times Square.
I have no particular memory of the Victoria but I can tell you both that the entire Square had really hit rock bottom by the 70s, before they began clean-up efforts at the start of the 80s. Most of the stuff in the area was garbage -- porn shops, peep and strip shows, sleazy little merchants, crummy eateries, most of the old theaters and movie palaces run down and given over to -- what else? -- porn, prostitutes and drug addicts on the streets. It was decaying and dreadful. Today the whole area is revitalized, and while some have decried the "Disneyfication" of the place (a view with which I'm in some sympathy), it's a hell of a lot nicer, cleaner and brighter than it was 30 or 40 years ago. I can say there was nothing special about the Victoria that warranted saving it. Not everything old is a national treasure.
I'm almost afraid to ask how James knows the two movies with those background shots of the Victoria Theater, let alone what films were playing in the theater at the time. (In America we don't say "cinema", but "theater", which admittedly is confusing since we use the same word for the "legitimate" theater, with a stage. Also, in keeping with American spelling we end that word -er rather than -re, except that "theatre" is often used out of a misguided sense of pretentiousness and faux sophistication.) I'd be almost certain there are some other NYC-based films that caught sight of the Victoria somewhere in the background: Sweet Smell of Success, perhaps (a lot of it was filmed in and around Times Square), or some others. Something to keep an eye out for, out of curiosity.
I also have no idea how James knew off the top of his head that May 28, 1954 was the date Kirk Douglas wed his second wife, or why it has relevance here. I'm beginning to suspect he's catalogued every occurrence on that date just to note what else was going on in the world the day Secret of the Incas had its world premiere. And I thought I was obsessive! It was a Friday, the start of Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. (Memorial Day is the last Monday in May, and is considered the unofficial start of the summer season.) I can make a guess where I was, age just under 1 year, 4 months. Probably about eight miles away. Beyond that I haven't researched anything.
Kirk in Secret of the Incas? Maybe. He worked a lot for Paramount and it's the kind of role he could have played, but in fact I do think it was much more of a Heston role. The closest actor I can think of as an alternative Harry Steele is Stewart Granger, who did many such roles, but he was an MGM contract player and so an unlikely choice.
Anyway, the Victoria may have gone the way of the Empire, but the address remains, so I'm sure someone could arrange a sidewalk remembrance of the film's opening for its 60th anniversary. It's on a Wednesday this year, and after Memorial Day, so it'll be a bit less hectic than during the lead-up to that weekend. I wonder who we could get to volunteer to go down there and stand with a sign reading, "On this site 60 years ago 'Secret of the Incas' had its world premiere", until the cops hustled him out of there as just another crank.
Hmmm.... When and where did it premiere in London, James?
I think Kirk Douglas as Harry Steele would have been something to see, so long as he didn't sing! (leave that to Yma, Kirk ... please!!!)
There would have been a lot more pointless grinning and teeth grinding with Kirk in the role, but it would have been memorable. But Chuck could never be beaten as Harry Steele, he was perfect for the arrogant slimeball.
Now that you come to think of it, Stewart Granger would have been excellent in SOTI as well. He played his fair share of adventurers and he looked the part, also. Good call, hob.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Yeah, Granger got typed as a great white hunter after his first American film, King Solomon's Mines. He only got that role after Errol Flynn, at Metro on a two-picture loan-out from Warner, opted to make Kim instead because he didn't want to be in the middle of Africa with no bars in sight. (True.) Granger would have been good in SOTI, but MGM kept him close at hand. I understand he could be a real bastard in private life but I always rather liked him.
Okay, Os, here's one I'm sure you know: what was Stewart Granger's real name?
The more I think of it, the less likely Kirk becomes as a candidate for SOTI. I can see him in it, but something's just not right. But as to singing, remember that same year he sang
Got a whale of a tale to tell ya lads/
A whale of a tale it's tru-ue/
'Bout a flappin' fish and the girl I love/
On nights like this with the moon above/
Whale of a tale and it's all true/
I swear by my tatoo.
in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. He was really good.
Let's see Yma Sumac pull that one off!
hobnob53 - you have actually caught me out on a SOTI question, well done my friend. I cannot find one date or venue of when SECRET OF THE INCAS premiered in London. I know for a fact that it didn't get a West End premiere, because 'The Times' doesn't have any listing it for it at all in August 1954. SECRET OF THE INCAS went on general release in Great Britain on 9 August 1954, but I think it actually premiered at the Regent cinema, Brighton, on 29 July. That is the earliest date I have for it in this country.
SOTI played on four occasions in my hometown Lincoln over a nine year period. I was a month short of my second birthday when the movie was initially screened on Monday 30 August 1954 at the Savoy cinema. My local newspaper 'Lincolnshire Echo' calls Heston "Charles" in the advert, which always made me angry seeing his name misspelt as a kid. The Paulette Goddard thriller THE STRANGER CAME HOME was the co-feature. The paper also reports what was showing on the A.B.C. MINORS PROGRAMME on the following Saturday, which I joined three years later when I was a five-year old, with my older sisters. There was a couple of cartoons, something called RADAR SECRET SERVICE, plus episode 2 of the kids serial ATOM MAN v SUPERMAN. In capital letters the 'Echo' proudly advertises UNCLE ARTHUR AT THE MIGHTY ORGAN, which was a lot more innocent than it reads today! A guy dressed like a TOP HAT extra suddenly used to appear slowly rising from the pits cheerfully playing his organ.
SECRET OF THE INCAS got quite a big write-up in the 'Echo', but the main review was for RIVER OF NO RETURN, which the paper reported: "Put Marilyn Monroe in Cinemascope and Technicolor and you get a box-office attraction. A packed Ritz last night proved it." I wonder how many Lincolnians went to see Chuck in Cuzco when Marilyn was the main opposition at the Ritz? At the Regal that week in 1954 DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK was playing and the Disney feature THE LIVING DESERT was at the Grand. An old Rex Allen western called REDWOOD FOREST TRAIL was playing at the Exchange cinema. I wonder if prints of that still exist?
hobnob53, re: my "obsessive" behaviour. I have to own up to it I'm afraid. Whenever I get interested in any subject I have to find out everthing about it, no matter what. My wife and kids used to call me Rainman because I can remember obscure dates and trivia. There was a guy on American television that was always impersonating Charlton Heston in SOYLENT GREEN called Phil Hartmann, and here is some more useless trivia for you. The day SECRET OF THE INCAS premiered in New York, the five year old Hartman had exactlly 44 years to live.
I wish the Victoria cinema in New York was still standing. That giant lump of plastic lego-land in it's place just hasn't got any character. I hate to see old cinemas flattened. I was heart-broken when my favourite flea-pit The Regal was demolished in 1966 to make way for a Littlewoods store. I went to the Regal every week in the early sixties because it was so cheap to get in and it showed 1950's double-features. I laughed my head off one Saturday evening after arriving home for my tea. My dad asked me what film had I just watched at the Regal, "It was a Randolph Scott western, Dad, called CANADIAN PACIFIC". As mum put our plates on the table, the tv announcer said "And now on BBC the Saturday Night Western, Randolph Scott stars in CANADIAN PACIFIC". My Irish parents said in virtual unison what an "eejit they had reared" spending his pocket money on a film that was on the telly the same night! We all had a good laugh about it - happy days!
I watched SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS last night and the Victoria cinema is in it, so well done hobnob. I couldn't make out what movie was playing though.
PS: Happy Saint Patrick's Day to SOTI fans. I'm Irish, and I know that you, hob, and Oswald have Irish surnames, so lets all have a spiritual pint of Guinness together. Three of the cast of SOTI had Irish parents: Thomas Mitchell, Glenda Farrell and Marion Ross.
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Happy St. Paddy's day to you as well James. Yes, there are Irish on both sides of my family - which is to be expected, Liverpool being the unofficial capital of Ireland, no less.
If it's a toss-up between "Secret of the Incas" and "River of no return" I would easily plump for the Heston flick. RONR may have the delights of Marilyn but the studio shots of them going down the river are pathetic. You can almost see stage hands throwing buckets of water at them. I never thought Hartmann was any good as Heston in "Soylent Green". Some people seem to laugh at anything!
"Sweet smell of success" is a stinker. What an over-praised load of codswallop. Burt Lancaster has never been more wooden, especially when he says "Match me Sidney". He seemed to fancy his sister to me to me, which doesn't make for ideal entertainment in my book.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
I liked it Os. Tony Curtis was great in it. Burt Lancaster's character was based on Walter Winchell, the guy who started that rumour about Yma Sumac really being Amy Camus. I wish Lancaster's performance had had a bit more humour in it though. How about him saying to Curtis "Scratch me Sidney!"
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
You lost me with that last line Jimbo. Tony Curtis was never great in anything. He only made about four good movies - his best performance was when he mimicked his idol Cary Grant in SLIH.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
I hope TRAPEZE is one of the four, but I think he made far more than you say Oswald.
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Rounding up, in the spirit of Rex Allen, the preceding exchanges.... All of this is for both of you, Os and James, but divided according to who said what, with however some overlap. There will be a test afterward.
JAMES:
First, what's with this recent trend of yours calling me "hobnob53", so formally? That's the sort of salutation I'd expect to get from someone who's never replied to me before. You don't call Os "oswaldshotkennedy". I'm hurt!
More importantly, I can't believe I've asked a SOTI question to which you have no answer. Now, I'm wondering whether the film might have had its UK premiere in Brighton on July 29 and not in London earlier. I mean, Machu Picchu is sort of a rock, and Brighton is known for a sort of a rock.... Okay, in any case, maybe there was no London showing until the film went into general release in August. Have you ever found a cinema or dates when it was playing in the capital, even if only in August?
Interesting to see the mix of flicks playing in cinemas in Lincoln that summer of '54. I didn't at first recognize the Paulette Goddard film you mentioned (actually called A Stranger Came Home, not "The") because it had a different title in the US (The Unholy Four), a typical practice of the time for films chugging both ways across the Atlantic, as you know. Its co-star was William Sylvester, an American who worked in Britain for 20 years or so before going home, the co-star of one of my favorite monster films, Gorgo in 1961. I also know the serials you mentioned, Atom Man vs. Superman and Radar Secret Service, among the last serials ever made, and mostly fun.
I can see the battle at the box office between River of No Return and SOTI, and frankly, I'm sure more people went to see RONR first. I saw it again recently and it's okay but was never anything great, except for the scenery of the Canadian Rockies. (Os, you're right about the rafting close-ups looking like the crew was throwing buckets of water on the actors, which is of course exactly what was going on. Did you think they'd tie a CinemaScope camera to the front of the real raft, and shoot Mitchum and Monroe and Tommy Rettig on it getting drowned?!) But I find the combination of other features a bit odd. Drums Along the Mohawk, a then-15-year-old movie, with The Living Desert, initially released just the year before?
Loved your story about Canadian Pacific. In 1966 my high school held a fund-raiser at which the attraction was a showing of The Hustler -- two days before it ran on network television. In those days, though, the TV showing would have been pan & scan. I never knew whether the school's print was p&s or 'Scope. Most people back then weren't clued into such niceties.
But I wanted to check out the Rex Allen western you mentioned, Redwood Forest Trail. Allen was signed with Republic Pictures, and indeed the film was made by Republic, released in 1950, so that was another slow-crosser. The Republic library seems to be intact, so I was pretty sure this film would still be around, and indeed I found it's supposed be on DVD, at least here in the States, though I suspect it's out of print. (Republic's library is now owned by Paramount, which has leased it to Olive Films.) Nevertheless, I went on Amazon to see if some DVD still existed. None does, but I had to share what popped up in its stead: a workout DVD called Nude Trails -- Redwood Forest with Madison Page! Apparently this is a video you're supposed to run while working out, the incentive being that the longer you work out the more items of clothing you see Miss Page (who is a gorgeous blond) discard. Evidently she's seen running along trails in California's redwood forest, and about every 5 minutes she tosses off another bit of clothing. If you're a good boy and finish the workout you get to watch five minutes of her totally nude, lying out and stretching in the sun. This was but one of several advertised nude videos to help you get chores done, including Nude Housecleaning -- Top to Bottom, plus a collection called Pure Nude Yoga with subtitles such as Ocean Goddess, Zen Garden Goddess and Worship the Sun. Thankfully, none of these features a nude Rex Allen.
Poor Rex! Born December 31, 1920, so he had to wait all year for his birthday, and then he died December 17, 1999 -- 14 days before his birthday, and 15 days before the 2000s. But the manner of his death was also deplorable: he suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed in the driveway of his home near Tuscon, Arizona, and then was run over by his assistant when he came to help him! I think that's what they call Last Aid.
Offhand I don't recall seeing Phil Hartmann imitating Charles Heston in Soylent Green, though something nags at me that I did. I disagree with you, Os -- I liked Phil Hartmann very much, thought he was quite funny. He also did a great Frank Sinatra, among others. He had a terrible end from that nutjob woman he was married to (who killed herself a few hours after shooting him in his sleep), and was genuinely mourned by his fellow performers over here. I still think humor does not travel well between our countries. Most of the British performers I've seen on TV in the UK (who are unknown outside Britain) I find crashingly silly and unamusing in the extreme, with a few exceptions. I'm sure the reverse is equally true. As for Phil, the fact that it was 44 years to the day after the premiere of SOTI in NYC is too far off to be of much interest, I'm afraid, James. May 28, 1954 was also the 1st birthday of an old girlfriend of mine...amazing! It was also just one day before John F. Kennedy turned 37...for the last time!! Os, I'm sure you'll appreciate that irony.
I had a feeling the Victoria might be in Sweet Smell of Success. I'll have to look at it myself to see. As to which....
OSWALD:
I have to side with James about both that film and Tony Curtis (the latter, up to a point). It took me a while to really get into SSOS but it's actually quite good. The only thing I dislike about it is the "break up my sister's romance" angle, which is trite and very boring. (Also Susan Harrison was very poor as the sister.) This not-inconsiderable criticism aside, the movie does capture the seedy side of the old press agent scene in NYC (now long gone). I think Lancaster and Curtis were both very good, Curtis especially, and I don't agree that Lancaster said his line, "Match me, Sidney" stiffly or badly at all. Quite the contrary: I think he's brilliantly sinister and frightening when he says that. I also thought the choice of director, Alexander MacKendrick, to be an extremely odd one (a Scotsman, though born in Boston, known for comedy?), but he did a very good job. It was based on Walter Winchell, as James said, who did many worse things than start the Amy Camus rumor. He could be a vicious mother. He was one of the most famous newspaper columnists and radio personalities of the 30s and 40s but by the 50s his power was on the wain, probably why they felt they could surreptitiously attack him in SSOS. He had a slight revival in popularity when he was hired to narrate the TV series The Untouchables from 1959-1963, but his influence ended for good after his longtime paper, The New York Mirror, a tabloid, folded following the crippling New York newspaper strike of 1963.
I thought Tony Curtis could be a very good actor when given good material. Too often he was in routine comedies and action films. He wasn't bad in them but they didn't give him much of a showcase. He did more than four good films, though some of these were ones in which he only played a bit role early in his career (such as the excellent western Winchester '73). His best films where he was a star include Houdini, Trapeze, SSOS, The Defiant Ones (his only Oscar nomination), SLIH, Operation Petticoat, Spartacus (though I wasn't overly impressed with him in that), and The Boston Strangler. I was never a huge fan of his but liked him all right. Hey, he had a cool daughter -- not terribly pretty, but sexy, great body, and apparently very nice. (And Charles Heston appeared in one of her films. Oh my God!!!)
But Os -- what's with you comment about Lancaster's character in SSOS, cut and pasted verbatim here: "He seemed to fancy his sister to me to me, which doesn't make for ideal entertainment in my book." (Italics added.)
"He seemed to fancy his sister to me to me"? Hmmm.... Of course, literally what you're saying is that, as far as you can see, Lancaster fancied his sister over you. Did you and Burt have a thing, there, Os? Was there some reason you'd expect him to fancy you over his own sister? This board gets weirder and weirder.
THAT SAINT PATRICK'S DAY QUAFF.....
Well now, umm-hmm, 'tis a day past, isn't it lads, it is, it is an' more, and Oi've nivver been one t' take a shoine to the Guinness meself. But th' ol' lady here, she once worked fer the Charman o' th' Board o' Guinness, kin ya believe the luck? Used t' hafta go round to all the poobs and check to make sartin they was displayin' all the company dribble they'd been sent for the Grand Day, all over London and even soamtimes t' Dooblin. Knew everybody in the brewery there, too. Explained the whole bit abote the "parfect pour" in draftin' the shtuff. So's if ye don't moind, Oi'd batter be bringin' her into any toastin' to the day...even tho' she ain't got enough Oirish in 'er blood to doy the Liffey a pale green!
Hi hob - back to informalities.
It is interesting to note that the highest grossing film in British cinemas in 1954 was the Dirk Bogarde comedy DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, it slaughtered every other film released that year, but has only got one post on the message boards! Regarding the film that supported SECRET OF THE INCAS. It was always called THE STRANGER CAME HOME, not beginning with 'A'. Even that months edition of Monthly Film Bulletin reviews it with title 'The' at the beginning.
I actually watched CANADIAN PACIFIC again that evening on the BBC even though I had just paid to see it that afternoon at the Regal. That was the first time I noticed how much is missing from a movie when it is shown on television. Years later when BEN-HUR had its tv premiere I was shocked at how much was chopped on the small screen compared to my numerous cinema viewings of it. It is actualy pointless watching BEN-HUR when it is shown on the telly - you are only seeing a third of the picture!
That workout DVD called Nude Trails -- Redwood Forest with Madison Page sounds much more interesting than the Rex Allen western!
It is a shame what hapened to Rex Allen, as a trivia buff I am thankful for that information, hob. It was most interesting.
Did you watch SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS last night, if so did you manage to see what movie was showing at the Victoria cinema on Broadway?
I loved the last paragraph hob, as one of the sons of Erin, I would like to wish top of the morning to yee!
Here is a cropped photo of SECRET OF THE INCAS playing at the Victoria https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BbJ2gC_CcAAGI9M.jpg:large
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Oh, I know how big Doctor in the House was in the UK. Kenneth More got I believe his second BAFTA nomination as Best Actor for it even though Dirk was the nominal star. That film did very well in the US too, though the sequels did much less business over here. Genevieve was also big in the US (released here in 1954) after being one of, if not the, top-grossing film in Britain in 1953. I've never been to the IMDb board for DITH and I am shocked that there's only one post there! I have been to the Genevieve board and there were a few threads there as I recall.
I think the biggest-grossing film in the US in 1954 was On the Waterfront but I might easily be wrong. The Caine Mutiny and Them! were also huge. It would be interesting to get the grosses and compare both countries' tastes!
I re-checked several source regarding this little film A/The Stranger Came Home. IMDb says "The", as do Halliwell and Katz, while Maltin and wikipedia say "A". On the weight of evidence I'll go with "The". (I'd forgotten I actually have this film on a DVD of Hammer Noir but it's one I haven't watched yet. But the DVD cover just calls it by its American title The Unholy Four.) This is not the first time such a problem has cropped up concerning articles or prepositions in the title of a film. Is the ultra-cheap 1956 British sci-fi opus Fire Maidens of Outer Space or from? I have the film and it says "of", which is logical for the plot (the five bozos fly to the Jovian moon where the titular maidens reside), but some insist they've seen a print saying "from", and posters for the film give both. On such matters do the fate of nations pivot. I understand it was precisely an argument over Fire Maidens that brought down the Ukrainian government...made all the more senseless because in Ukrainian and Russian "of" and "from" are the same word. People!
I haven't watched Sweet Smell of Success yet. It'll probably be a while before I get around to doing so. But I will check for the Victoria.
I'm a bit mystified by your saying how much of Canadian Pacific was lost on TV vs. the cinema. It was made in 1949 and so was not a widescreen film. Of course, even in films shot in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio some bits of the picture are lost. Years ago in the US the government actually changed its broadcast regulations to compel channels to show more of a picture on the screen than they had been doing, so some portions at the top and bottom that were previously cut off started showing up. Still, such losses were miniscule compared to the wholesale loss of half or more of a picture via the panning and scanning of widescreen movies. (Do you know the people who invented that method got an honorary Academy Award in 1961 for their development?) Early CinemaScope films (1953-1955) using stereophonic magnetic sound were shot at an a.r. of 2.55:1, but with the switch to optical sound in 1955 the a.r. was reduced somewhat to the standard 2.35:1, later reproduced by Panavision and others. But you're absolutely right about how bad Ben-Hur looks when cropped for a "full screen" TV presentation. That was shot at an a.r. of 2.66:1, meaning it's two and two-thirds times wider than high, so in a "full screen" TV broadcast it's not only a jumble of crowded images with 60% or more of the picture gone, it's also grainy and indistinct, an unavoidable by-product of zooming into the film when making a p&s dupe for television. Not many films were shot at that wide an a.r. (The Great Escape was another) but even standard 'Scope films look grainy, quite apart from missing half their picture.
I remember the great joy and modest awe I felt in the early 90s when I first saw a bunch of films I grew up watching in p&s versions on TV in the 60s and 70s in their widescreen format for the first time. The thing that instantly -- instantly -- leaped out at me was not their width or the portions of each frame I'd previously missed, but the clarity of the picture. You never realize how grainy and indistinct pan & scan images are until you finally see a film properly for the first time. Today, of course, it's common practice to broadcast films letterboxed, and of course most DVDs are widescreen too. But Canadian Pacific wasn't a widescreen film, so you must have just been losing images around the edges -- which can be blatant enough.
You know of what they call "windowboxing" I assume? It's a method used on some DVDs for films shot in a standard 1.37:1 aspect ratio, whereby the original image is reproduced by having not just "black bars" at the top and bottom of the screen (as in letterboxing) but slightly at the sides as well. This insures you get all the picture, not losing even the tiniest bits at edges. Criterion has done this on some of its releases in the US, such as 49th Parallel. I was actually able to get a supposed "goof" removed on that film's site because the windowboxed edition proved that the claimed goof (the date at the bottom of a calendar) did not exist.
I've had a lot of arguments with people about letterboxing. They simply can't stand the black areas atop and below and insist on so-called full-screen prints. They prefer a less-clear image and loss of a portion of the picture to having images smaller and with black "bars" at the top and bottom. I've always thought the studios make a huge mistake calling those areas "bars". The word makes it sound as if some of the picture is being blocked from view -- being barred. It's an improper word technically too. I always thought of it as the screen onto which a film is being projected. But some people simply don't get it and cinematically prefer to lead lives of quiet deprivation!
Take a look at this Mormon list of the biggest U.S. box-office movies, hob. You will be pleased to learn that WHITE CHRISTMAS was numero uno in 1954.
http://www.ldsfilm.com/misc/lds_Top5_boxoffice.html
The article also claims that the Voice of God in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS wasn't spoken by Charlton Heston but Delos Jewkes! read this cut and paste edit-
Latter-day Saint actor Delos Jewkes provided the voice of God for the film. In 1956 DeMille (the film's director) spoke at a BYU commencement, where in the midst of his talk he turned to Pres. McKay and said, "David McKay, almost thou pursuadest me to be a Mormon." DeMille notes in his autobiography that one of the reasons he decided to premiere "The Ten Commandments" in Salt Lake City was so that he could spend some time with his good friend David McKay. Arnold Friberg was a costume designer and assistant art director for this movie. Friberg is well known to Latter-day Saints because he painted the muscular paintings which appeared in the missionary editions of the Book of Mormon for dozens of years.
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Bloody hell! I don't rate the top 5 most popular films at American cinemas in 1954. None of them are anywhere near as good as "Secret of the Incas" or "The Naked Jungle", or even "River of no return" for that matter.
The two James Stewart films are passable at best, I find "Rear Window" to be totally theatrical and completely ridiculous. I'll pass on "White Christmas" too, it's total nonsense, and who the hell wants to see Bogey go nuts? I don't -ever again!
If these were the top five movies of 1954 I'll start eating my wife's Yorkshire's Puddings again!
1 White Christmas
2 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
3 Rear Window
4 The Caine Mutiny
5 The Glenn Miller Story
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
I take it Os's list is the Mormon one JB provided a link to. (Bloody Mormons! Must they make lists of everything? They're already making unauthorized baptisms of the dead.)
I disagree about Rear Window -- theatrical, yes, but then Hitchcock almost always is -- it was his style. I also very much like The Caine Mutiny and somewhat less so, 20,0000 LUTS. Glenn Miller? Best target the RAF ever hit during the war was unloading their bombs over the channel with the real Miller's plane on an unauthorized route underneath. The movie is typical Hollywood fiction. I only regret June Allyson wasn't on the plane with him. As for White Christmas, we've exhausted our quota of slanders on that one.
1954 wasn't a bad year for movies. Executive Suite, Sabrina, The High and the Mighty, On the Waterfront, A Star is Born, The Country Girl, Them!, The Barefoot Contessa, not to mention Killers From Space.
David McKay was the last progressive president of the LDS Church. McKay is a common name in Utah. But I remember seeing in some book about American history or culture or lifestyles, something of that nature (I have it someplace), a photograph taken in Salt Lake City on a summer evening in 1956, showing lots of cars parked in a drive-in, the Wasatch Mountains in the background, while up on the screen the film being shown is The Ten Commandments...the photo snapped at the parting of the Red Sea.
I understand afterward the patrons were reluctant to leave for home since, of course, parting is such sweet sorrow. For the drive-in's owner, on the other hand, a packed lot brought the sweet smell of success.
Out of this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_1954 my top ten would be as follows-
1. SECRET OF THE INCAS
2. THE NAKED JUNGLE
3. VALLEY OF THE KINGS
4. THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
5. GREEN FIRE
6. THEM!
7. DANGEROUS MISSION
8. SILVER LODE
9. ON THE WATERFRONT
10. DIAL M FOR MURDER
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Before looking at your post, James, I went back and added another title to my previous list, one I can't believe I forgot since it's one of my favorites, Executive Suite. Then I saw your post, so clicked the link and read over the releases. More on that in a moment.
What strikes me about your list is -- surprise! -- the number of movies dealing with exploration, or being off in wild places, you have on it: Secret of the Incas, obviously, but also The Naked Jungle, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Green Fire, Valley of the Kings, as well as two other "outdoor adventure" films, Dangerous Mission and Silver Lode. Such films account for 7 of your top 10, and four of those are "jungle" films. Do I detect a theme here? (How come you didn't add the jungle-set Jivaro -- which I'm not sure I recall seeing on the wiki list, though it was 1954?) To me the most curious curio on your list is Dangerous Mission, a small, odd little picture that I also like but isn't much on people's radar. I guess Killers From Space (also from RKO) is my riposte to that choice!
My top ten of 1954 -- confined to the wikipedia list -- would be (with several close runners-up):
Executive Suite
Them!
The Naked Jungle
The Caine Mutiny
Rear Window
Killers From Space
The High and the Mighty
Dial M for Murder
Woman's World
Night People
However, this is from a list containing only American films. If I could pick my top ten from anywhere I'd have to insert two Japanese releases of 1954, Gojira/Godzilla and Seven Samurai. Gojira would be #2. No, this is not the "Americanized" or "international" version of the film, with Raymond Burr in American-made inserts, the film cut and reedited into Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956). I'm talking about the original Japanese picture, a very different film.
As you can see, I like sci-fi, action and good talk.
The wiki list is missing one film I know of -- Riders to the Stars, from Ivan Tors, whose other 1954 film Gog is on the list. This may be because it was copyrighted in 1953, but it was released in January 1954, which is what counts. The list also includes Robinson Crusoe, but I'd dispute this inclusion because, first, it wasn't an American film (it was Mexican), and second, it was released in 1952; its US release was '54.
And, what the hell, I'm sorry I couldn't squeeze in as favorites (as opposed to "best") On the Waterfront, A Star is Born, Vera Cruz, The Raid, Gog, Riders to the Stars, His Majesty O'Keefe and, yes, God forgive me, Secret of the Incas!
hob, I like the fact that we both like three out of the 1954 top ten Wiki list. I'm also very surprised that you misspelt the title of that wonderful western SILVER LODE, that's not like you at all!
The reason why I omitted JIVARO from my list is because I have never seen it. Is it any good, hob?
ON THE WATERFRONT is excellent, and I particularly liked seeing Abe Simon, Tami Mauriello and Two Ton Tony Galento, three old Joe Louis opponents, as 'heavies'. My nephew, like me a former boxer, can doing amazing word-for-word impersonations of some of the scenes in this movie.
I love DIAL M FOR MURDER, its my third favourite Hitchcock film - Ray Milland is splended in it. Milland came to Lincoln and hated the Cathedral bells chiming every 15 minutes while he was in his hotel trying to sleep after a very late night. Oh, and Grace Kelly is in another one on the list, GREEN FIRE, in which Stewart Granger impersonates Chuck Heston again. What a great role that would have been for Heston. I also wish Chuck had played the lead in VALLEY OF THE KINGS as well, but Taylor was okay in it.
I like your list hob, but I confess to having never even heard of KILLERS FROM SPACE!
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Gosh, I guess I was in just too much of a rush to load my words onto the page to pay sufficient heed to the mother lode of vocabulary we have at our disposal. My error did come across as rather scatological. I've gone back and corrected it. Thank you, James, particularly for saying that such a mistake is unlike me. If you only knew!
I'm so grateful that I won't even comment on the fact that you misspelled "misspelt"!
Silver Lode is an offbeat western, with its unsubtle political overtones. I had barely heard of it until a few years ago and had no idea what it was about. Good choice for the ten Faves of '54!
Jivaro is set in the Amazon jungle, where a bunch of treasure-seekers run across the Jivaro headhunters. It was made by the "Dollar Bills", the cost-conscious team of William Pine and William Thomas, who later got slightly bigger budgets and made the Heston film The Far Horizons. Shot on the Paramount back lot but looks reasonable enough. Its stars are Fernando Lamas, Rhonda Fleming, Brian Keith, Lon Chaney, Jr. and Richard Denning. It's not really all that good but not terrible, enjoyable enough after a slow start, with a few good moments. It's one of those films I first saw around age 8 or 9 that made an impression. I hadn't seen it in years but recently bought it from the same guy from whom I bought my DVDs of SOTI!
One of my interests in On the Waterfront is a quick, rather amazing, and completely coincidental shot the film just happened to catch. Toward the end, when Terry (Marlon Brando) is on the roof of his apartment building after he's found the kid has killed all his pigeons, he's looking out across toward the Hudson River while Evie (Eva Marie Saint) tells him he should move away. There's a shot lasting about 4 or 5 seconds showing what Brando is looking at, and we see an ocean liner heading down the river and out to sea. The vessel is the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria, two years before she was struck by the Swedish ship Stockholm and sank. I realized this about twenty years ago and had one of my dearest friends, a man who was the world's leading expert on ocean liners (really), confirm my sighting for me.
Have you ever seen or read the play Dial M for Murder? It's a bit different than the movie, and in my opinion the film is superior. Frederick Knott wrote both, so it's not untrue to the play.
I take great exception to your assertion that in Green Fire Stewart Granger "impersonates" Charlton Heston -- let alone "again". If anyone impersonated anyone, it was the other way around. Granger got there first -- in King Solomon's Mines and other adventure films. He was always being typecast as great white hunters, adventurers, and the like, long before Heston got any such roles, and he played many more of them. Just last week Os and I had an exchange about possible alternate actors for SOTI, and I said Granger was the only person I could see in that role. Os agreed with me. I can see Heston in either Green Fire or Valley of the Kings (a film I'm not terribly fond of), though frankly I think the latter picture was better suited to Taylor than to either Heston or Granger. But of course any switch of actors was highly unlikely, since both GF and VOTK were MGM films using MGM contract players, whereas Heston was of course at Paramount.
Speaking of Green Fire, the night Grace Kelly died an American news program called Nightline scrambled to find people to comment on her, and the lone former co-star they could get in time was Stewart Granger. Granger recalled that he had been invited to attend a charity event in Grace's hometown of Philadelphia a few years before, at which they screened some of her films, including GF. Grace only made 11 films, and it's fair to say that Green Fire was the least known and least heralded. Granger said that after the showing, Grace came over to him and said, "You know, Jim, that wasn't a bad film at all." Granger said he replied, "No, it wasn't," whereupon Grace said, "Maybe we could do another one someday." Of course, both knew such a thing would never happen, but it was a nice thought. My favorite actor in that film, though, is Paul Douglas.
Ah, Killers From Space. Another very low-budget sci-fi film from my childhood that scared me then and which I've loved ever since. The plane carrying an American scientist monitoring an above-ground A-bomb test in Nevada crashes and he's presumed killed. A few days later he shows up at the base unscathed. He then sets about trying to steal secret data while being plagued by nightmares of two huge eyes looking at him. After a car accident he's given truth serum where he says that a race of malevolent aliens from the planet Astron-Delta are hiding underground, tapping the energy from our atomic blasts and building an army of giant mutated animals that will kill off mankind, then in turn be killed by the aliens so they can settle here. The aliens have developed huge eyes to combat the growing darkness on their home planet, where their sun is about to expire. The scientist figures out a way to blow them up and after a chase manages to do so. Oh, should I have said, "spoiler alert"?
This ultracheap little flick had a pretty decent cast, considering, headed by Peter Graves. It was directed by W. Lee Wilder, older brother of Billy. W. Lee (real name: Willy) had emigrated to the U.S. ten years before his brother and become a wealthy manufacturer of ladies' gloves (he lived not far from where I do now). After his brother became famous in Hollywood, Willy sold his business, moved to California around 1944 and started making B pictures, which got cheaper as time went on. He also re-styled himself "W. Lee". Apparently his output at the lower end of the Hollywood spectrum distressed his brother at the top echelon, and the two rarely spoke. W. Lee had his revenge for Billy's real or imagined slights, however. Soon after the release of Billy's Stalag 17, Willy grabbed Graves -- who of course had had a major role in Stalag -- to star in Killers From Space. Then, later in 1954, W. Lee made another cheap movie called The Snow Creature, about an expedition to the Himalayas that finds the abominable snowman (a tall guy in a fuzzy parka never seen except in shadows), gets permission from the Nepalese authorities (all of whom speak Japanese) to transport the creature back to Los Angeles in a refrigerated phone booth, where, while customs officials debate whether he should be classified as an animal or freight, he escapes, heads for the sewers and is finally gunned down by policemen who afterward laugh about it. (It's not as good as it sounds.) Anyway, the name W. Lee used for the character of the police officer who leads the chase for Snowy was...Lieutenant Dunbar -- the name of the officer in Stalag 17 (Don Taylor) whom the POWs try to spring at the end!
Peter Graves took his starring role in KFS well, though. For about 15 years starting in 1988, Graves hosted a nightly program on the A&E cable network called Biography, where they ran bios of famous people. For the show's tenth anniversary in 1998, they did a bio of Graves himself, and when I watched it I joked to myself about whether they'd talk about Killers From Space. Well, damned if they didn't! They showed several scenes form the movie -- with the bug-eyed aliens (apparently ping-pong balls cut in half, with eyes drawn on them and worn by the actors), wearing black outfits with striped school-guard-crossing bands around their waists -- then cut to Graves laughing about it. The reason? As Graves said, after nearly 50 years in Hollywood, having appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows, he still received more fan mail for Killers than for anything else he'd ever done -- more than for Stalag 17, more than for Mission Impossible, more than for Airplane!, more than for almost everything he'd done put together. (And he'd done other popular low-budget sci-fi films as well.) As he said, well, it's better to be remembered for something than not to be remembered at all. Most of the actors who made such low-budget films found the same thing -- far from disappearing and being forgotten, such films are what most of their fans best remember and like them for.
It's now available on DVD in the UK in a fair print for a few quid. Marvelous movie -- it definitely has its moments!
Hey hob, regarding Grace Kelly and Stewart Granger. I was reading a book in a charity shop a couple of months ago and it mentioned "Green Fire." It stated that Grace Kelly hated Granger with a vengeance, she went on to say what an arrogant, pig-headed oaf he was, and that she couldn't wait for filming to end on the picture. I have no idea what the book was called, I think it was on the 1950's, and I only browsed the entertainment section of it. I wished I had bought it now, but the price of it was too inflated for me.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
I'm not surprised. Granger had a bad rep back in his heyday for being arrogant and full of himself. He and James Mason were the two biggest male movie stars in Britain in the late 40s and neither made any secret of the fact that their sole goal was to get out of grim postwar England and go to America, where they could make lots of money, live in a sunny place with no rationing, and become international stars -- Granger in particular, who never met a mirror he didn't like. Jean Simmons, to whom he was married from 1950-1960, never sounded charitable about him whenever she found herself compelled to mention him in later years. I remember her in an interview in the early 80s when she was forced, because of her story, to name the man to whom she was married when she came to America, uttering it hesitatingly, in clipped, disdainful tones, calling him "Mr. Granger" in a very formal, almost spiteful, way.
I know I mentioned this and I think we settled it, but to reiterate, the reason Grace called Granger "Jim" is because his real name was James Stewart, a name already taken when he got started professionally.
Anyway, people mellow after many years, I guess. Granger certainly spoke lovingly of Grace after her death, not that I would have expected otherwise. Or, as his co-stars may have said about Stewart Granger, "Time wounds all heels."
Hob, you are a remarkable salesman. After reading your excellent post I now want to see KILLERS FROM SPACE, you sold it to me with that great write-up!
I'm so grateful that I won't even comment on the fact that you misspelled "misspelt"!
I spelt 'misspelt' the same way that it is in my dictionary, hob!
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
I'm dyslectic - I had a misspelt childhood.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Funny about that, Os. I think a young LHO exhibited the same symptoms.
shareI wouldn't kill anyone just to see a Van Heflin film though, hob.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Oh, I don't know, Os. You know Lee -- anything to save 65Β’ on a movie ticket!
shareOh my God, James!! You're really going to watch Killers From Space?! Okay, but just remember, while I love it as vintage 50s sci-fi despite (really because of) its weaknesses (plus it does have some cool plot aspects), most people give it very poor reviews. But then remember Peter Graves's fans loved it above all his other work, so what do reviewers know?
I only wish there were a really good DVD of it. Oddly, there was an excellent VHS, but this never made it to disc. The UK DVD seems to be the same print used by Alpha Video here in the States.
You might want to check out its IMDb board for some useful insights. I haven't been there for quite a while, but there should still be some posts from yours truly on it. Also check out the goofs section to enhance your viewing pleasure.
Oh, I bet your dictionary tells you to spell color "colour", marvelous "marvellous", organization "organisation", license "licence", program "programme" and many other such things, so plainly any objective reader can see it's sorely in need of repair!
Lee spent his last cent in the coke vending machine at the TSBD remember.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
No, he had enough to pay for the taxi he took away from the scene -- evidently the first taxi ride of his life, if you can believe it (also his last) -- plus he had enough money for bus fare once he left the taxi. He had a little with him after leaving the TSBD. He ducked into the theater without paying because he had the opportunity to do so more than because he didn't have the price of a ticket, though by then he might not have had much money left.
shareOswald apparently had $17 on his person when arrested by the Dallas police. Just think, if he had only paid to get in to see those terrible movies starring Van Heflin and Audie Murphy he might have got away with it for a bit longer - until he had thought of a plan, anyway. Whenever I sneaked into the pictures in the 60's I never had 30 policemen drag me outside, beating me up, and screaming "kill the president, will ya?"
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
Yeah, well, only because you didn't have a president!
shareWatch this space, when Liz goes to her great throne in the sky, anything could happen in our little island.
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
You planning on being annexed by France?
shareIn four weeks time it will be the 60th anniversary of the SECRET OF THE INCAS world premiere at the Victoria Theater, 1547 Broadway, New York. Here is an atmospheric b/w photograph (cropped unfortunately) of my all-time favourite movie playing at the Victoria.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BbJ2gC_CcAAGI9M.jpg:large
Those pigeon's great-grandchildren will star in another Heston movie a decade later!
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
I take it the pigeons' descendants migrated to Italy for tax purposes? Or was it just for the better pasta?
shareThey were fans of Gina and Sophia, two of the loveliest birds I have ever seen, hob!
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
And don't forget what Heston's "pet" name for Betty Hutton was in TGSOE:
Pigeon!
As I bill and coo.
Hey hob - that's another feather in your cap, well done mate!
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Shucks, you could have just tweeted me, James.
shareOne more week, and SOTI is 60!!!!
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
If I knew the exact time of its first showing, I could start a 168-hour countdown beginning today and set off fireworks in Times Square at the appointed hour next Wednesday. You guys will post bond, right?
shareOf course we will hob, we're all as daft as a brush on this side of the pond.
One week, eh? I'll have to think of something special to celebrate this great event.
Can't you look up THE NEW YORK TIMES newspaper for 28 May 1954 in your local library? I would love to know the exact time SOTI started that day in New York, hob.
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
THE POST-STANDARD, Syracuse, New York, Thursday, June 10, 1954.
================================================================
SEARCH FOR INCA TREASURE
"Secret of the Incas," with Charlton Heston, Robert Young, Nicole Maurey, Thomas Mitchell, Yma Sumac, Glenda Farrell, Michael Pate and Leon Askin. A Paramount picture in Technicolor. Searching for the golden treasure is a time-honored plot and as good a peg as any to hang up some excellent Technicolor scenes taken in Peru. In addition there is a fine cast topped by Charlton Heston as an American adventurer in Peru, who will lie and steal his way into and out of any deal. Keeping in line with the make-believe character of the plot is the entrance of the heroine, a beautiful refugee from the Iron Curtain. She is chased by the Rumanian consul who has a private plane-just what Heston has been dreaming of stealing so that he can get to his treasure in the high Andes.
FEMININE LEAD
Nicole Maurey (last seen as Bing Crosby's leading lady in "Little Boy Lost") is a charming bit of femininity nice having around while flying to the Andes to find the golden Sunburst, legendary treasure of the Incas. Twentieth Century searching for loot is homewhat hampered by the fact that when they reach the tomb at Machu Picchu, high in the mountains, an archaeological expedition is already there representing three museums and the Peruvian government. Nevertheless, within the party there is Robert Young as the professor who discovers that Nicole is more fun than digging the crumbling ruins. The "running out of gas" story the two give the expedition is bad enough but their lies run even thinner as Thomas Mitchell reaches them. Also an American, he is a down-at-the-heels adventurer who has reached the end of his rope and will do anything to get his hands on the treasure.
FEMININE LEAD
Nicole Maurey (last seen as Bing Crosby's leading lady in "Little Boy Lost") is a charming bit of femininity nice having around while flying to the Andes to find the golden Sunburst, legendary treasure of the Incas. Twentieth Century searching for loot is homewhat hampered by the fact that when they reach the tomb at Machu Ficchu, high in the mountains, an archaeological expedition is already there representing three museums and the Peruvian government. Nevertheless, within the party there is Robert Young as the professor who discovers that Nicole is more fun than digging the crumbling ruins. The "running out of gas" story the two give the expedition is bad enough but their lies run even thinner as Thomas Mitchell reaches them. Also an American, he is a down-at-the-heels adventurer who has reached the end of his rope and will do anything to get his hands on the treasure.
SUMAC'S DEBUT
Yma Sumac, the five-octave singer (in Syracuse last season) makes her film debut. The Peruvian "extras' can hardly conceal their smirks as she dishes out a Brooklynish version of ancient Inca chants. Her Peruvian yodeling with undertones of the Cuban rumba, is entertaining, but don't confuse it with the genuine scenery and colorful costuming of the natives, and glimpses of those peculiar llamas!
A bit part is taken by Glenda Farrell and she really adds some pungent humor as the American Tourist with a roving eye. Best of all in the histrionics, however, is Heston, who manages a realistic transformation in character to his "engagement" present to his girl.
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/24311500/
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Wow James, you're far better at digging out these old reviews than Harry Steele is at finding Inca gold!
The Peruvian "extras' can hardly conceal their smirks as she dishes out a Brooklynish version of ancient Inca chants.
That review is an example of why I despise film critics so much (but not as much as I absolutely detest art critics). Did that "Post-Standard" movie critic really think that the citizens of Syracuse were really that dim that they couldn't differentiate between the Yma Sumac studio scenes and the footage that they shot on location of the Indians grinning?
Sumac didn't sound anything like a resident of Brooklyn, either, unless hobnob knows different. Answer me truthfully hob, have you ever heard a "Brooklynish" accent that sounded like Yma Sumac?
"The internet is for lonely people. People should live." Charlton Heston
No, not all the people born in Syracuse are "really dim."
Robert Henry De Niro, better known as Robert De Niro, Sr. was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro. For persons interested in trivia, of which two at least are residents of this board, Robert De Niro, Sr. died on the same day as he was born (May 3, 1922 β May 3, 1993).
Tom Cruise was also born in Syracuse.
http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2013/06/07/old-new-york-in-photos-29/
ABOUT MRS. LESLIE replaced SECRET OF THE INCAS at the Victoria Theater on 27 June 1954, after SOTI finished it's month-long run. I wish the photographer had took some photos of the Victoria when SOTI played there, though - but it's nice to see what the cinema looked like back then, in the link above. If only the photographer had took some photos of Broadway a month earlier!
Do those photos bring back nostalgic memories, hob?
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
I like these 1954 movie posters, including Secret of the Incas.
http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/the-first-year-of-widescreen
Haddock, thanks for that link. I am a massive fan of old movie posters, too.
http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/27716238/
This link is from an American newspaper, The Evening Standard, exactly sixty years ago today publicizing tomorrow's premiere of SECRET OF THE INCAS.
============================================================================
Hollywood : Roundup By JIMMY FIDLER
HOLLYWOOD, May 28, 1954
Nicole Maurey, the red-headed French beauty, is Bing Crosby's recipe for dynamite. She's a combination of Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich and the farmer's daughter says Bing. I'll add that these could be understatments, for Nicole possesses personality that doesn't melt quickly. Bing formed his impressions as he worked with her in "Little Boy Lost." I was ready to agree with him after an interview, just before the girl left Hollywood, for a personal appearance tour. Now, after evaluating her fine work in "Secret of the Incas," I say frankly, without reservation, that Miss Maurey is definitely on her way to stardom. She'll not have to travel much farther after moviegoers have seen her in the South American story in the role of a refugee from the Iron Curtain countries. So let's go behind the scenes on this girl. She was born in Paris and educated there. Her parents gave her dancing lessons early in her young life. I am told they had ambitions for their daughter to become a Pavlova. Being practical with Nicole, they saw to it that she learned English. That would aid a theatrical career, although the girl has no theatrical heritage. So in her teens her career actually sought her out. Before she hardly realized it, she was doing parts in stage plays as well as in pictures - all French, of course. Before she was twenty, was a favorite with moviegoers.
Bing Crosby in Paris takes credit for her discovery.
He had gone to Paris to locate an actress for the starring role in "Little Boy Lost." He took one look at Nicole and she was elected. Now, after appraising her Work in her most recent picture, I have no doubt as to her success in American films. She has what it takes - beauty, poise, personality and the will to succeed.
==============================================================================
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
James, in what city was "The Evening Standard" published?
shareUniontown, Pennsylvania, hob.
Ever been?
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Happy 60th birthday to SECRET OF THE INCAS.
Another movie, much more celebrated than SOTI, opened in New York on 28 May 1954, Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER. "The New York Times" sent it's top film critic Bosley Crowther to review that, and somebody with the initials A.W. went to the Victoria Theater to have a peek at SOTI. Crowther liked the Grace Kelly movie, too, which is almost shocking (he seemed to slam everything he saw).
Dial M For Murder (1954)
May 29, 1954
' Dial M for Murder' Is Shown at Paramount
By BOSLEY CROWTHER
Published: May 29, 1954
THE elegant coils of murder drama that Frederick Knott contrived in his play, "Dial M for Murder," a recent favorite on the Broadway stage, are given a proper twisting in the transmission of that play onto film. In the pliant hands of Alfred Hitchcock, past master at the job of squeezing thrills, the coils twine with sleek and silken evil on the Paramount's screen.
Let's understand at the outset that Mr. Knott's one-set play is a difficult chunk of melodrama for an hour-and-three-quarters cinema. All of its critical action logically takes place in one room, and its considerable plot development must necessarily evolve from lots of talk.
The dark machinations of a London husband to get his wife bumped off and then, failing that, to twist the evidence so that it looks as though she willfully murdered the man who tried to murder her are matters of wicked rationalization rather than physical activity. The thrills come in following a succession of dawnings in people's minds.
But Mr. Hitchcock has presented this mental material on the screen with remarkable visual definition of developing intrigue and mood. His actors unfold the drama in their very appearances and, as the chic and malevolent plot thickens, so do their various attitudes.
This is a technical triumph that Mr. Hitchcock has achieved βthe tensing of interest and excitement with just a handful of people in a room. It is one for which he needed good actors. He has themβand the best of the lot is John Williams, late of the stage play, who is the detective who solves the sinister ruse.
Mr. Williams, a virtual stranger to movies, tosses knockouts with a flick of his mustache, a lifting of an eyebrow or a mild exclamation of "oh!" Wisely, of course, Mr. Hitchcock has worked him in close camera range. It is as thrilling as watching Native Dancer just to see Mr. Williams perform. Ray Milland as the machinating husband is excitingly effectual in using expression, too, and Grace Kelly does a nice job of acting the wife's bewilderment, terror and grief. Anthony Dawson, also from the stage play, has the manners and appearance of a snake as the hired murderer. Robert Cummings is negative as a fiction-writing friend.
Excellent color and color combinations add to the flow and variety of the drama's moods. Shot for 3-D but offered here in "standard," the film is vividly pictorial right straight through.
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
If I may be permitted to steal another film's title for present purposes!
(That's for Kurt Katch.)
PS: I've been trying to find out who the critic "AW" was. I recall the initials but haven't been able to dope out his name. I have another resource that possibly might have the answer but unfortunately I can't get to it for another day or so. Will keep you posted, as it were.
http://www.newspapers.com/image/55330050/
BROOKLYN EAGLE
Sat., May 29, 1954
By JANE CORBY
Charlton Heston Virile Star Of Peruvian Adventure Film
"Secret of the Incas," romantic melodrama, was filmed in the Andes and the backgrounds and the natives give a big assist to the reused plot.
A star who can bring a character to life on the screen and a fresh, exciting background can do a lot to invigorate a familiar type of adventure story, and that's what Charlton Heston and filming in the Andes have done for "Secret of the Incas" at the Victoria Theater. This Technicolor saga of a hunt for lost treasure is cheerful fare, flashing with the colours of the gay costumes of the Andes natives and bright with the blooms and lush foliage of the region.
Charlton Heston gives a virile performance as a fellow out to make a fast dollar on unwary tourists while scheming to grab a million-dollar diamond-studded sunburst, a relic of the ancient Incas, supposed to be still hidden in the tomb of a long dead Inca chief. This rather straightforward plan of his is both accelerated and complicated by the arrival of a refugee girl, Nicole Maurey, who has escaped from an Iron Curtain country without any kind of passport, but with considerable experience. The two team up, more or less accidentally, and are presently atop the mountain where the tomb is in process of exploration by scientific Robert Young and his aides, with an assortment of Peruvians in funny hats looking on, winding in long queues up and down the mountainside, and obliging with an occasional native dance.
The actual plot of the story, which has Heston getting the treasure and turning it over to the proper authorities, which is always done in treasure hunts of this kind, doesn't matter much. It's Heston, as a picturesquely shady character, who gives the film most of its verve. He doesn't get to wash his face or shave for three-quarters of the picture, and his clothes have seen hard wear, but he's a devil of a fellow with the ladies and has to keep brushing them off right and left.
Miss Maurey, French importation, is a neater, feminine counterpart of his type. While men of his dubious caliber are usually reformed by a girl as he is here, partially at least. It's an odd quirk of characterization in this film to give the girl a seamy background, too.
In addition to the natives girating and dancing among the boulders, the film presents Yma Sumac, famous Peruvian singer in three songs by Moises Vivanco, high, wild compositions called "Virgin of the Sun God," "Earthquake" and "High Andes." In Peruvian costume she's a brilliant addition to this slightly musical comedy department of the picture.
Of the others in the cast, Thomas Mitchell looks a little silly trying to outwit and outrun Charlton Heston in the race for the treasure. Robert Young is a bit oversusceptible as the aging archaeologist who falls for Miss Maurey at first sight, and Glenda Farrell, as a middle-aged tourist, is much too obvious in her entirely unrequited efforts to get Heston's attention.
"Secret of the Incas" would be no fun without Heston and the mighty Andes.
Times- 10.29, 12.27, 2.25, 4.22, 6.21, 8.19, 10.17, 12.15.
(Finally found out the time when SOTI premiered, hob. Took some digging though!)
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
So it first ran at 10:29 AM. I have to say, the start times listed in that review are pretty weird -- :29, :27, :22, :21 past the hour. I don't recall ever seeing any any movie start times that didn't end in either a 5 or a 0. I wonder whether the theater management was actually that precise!
Anyway, James, a multiplicity of congratulations on digging that info out, to use an appropriate phrase.
Ah, the old Brooklyn Eagle. It was a legendary, longtime local paper, once the biggest afternoon paper in the U.S., and published from 1841 until January 1955, when it closed due to the effects of a prolonged strike. So it got its SOTI review in just in the nick of time. Its name was revived in an unrelated paper published beginning in 1996 but it's nothing like the original.
No. I know of Uniontown but have never been there. It's way down in the southwestern corner of the state. I have driven on Interstate highways 76 and 70, which cross maybe 40 or 50 miles from the city, so I guess I've come close!
There are also Uniontowns in the states of Maryland, Ohio, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas. Popular name, I suppose.
I love them old "Brooklyn Eagle's," hob, especially the movie reviews. Did you notice the little side-bar next to the SOTI review?
ATTENTION THEATREGOERS!
If you wish to keep theatre prices at present levels, you must assist in defeating the proposed 5 percent tax on amusements.
Write to Manager, Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Wonder if he was related to Natalie's husband?
http://www.secretoftheincas.co.ukhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhSPcAyCgwE
Robert F. Wagner, Jr., was the Mayor of New York City (1954-1966). I even met him once as a kid, and years later knew his then ex-wife. "Manager"? It must have been "Mayor".
The theater (meaning cinema, to you) tax was a big thing in much of the country back then. The story goes that in Louisiana in 1956, former Governor Earl Long (brother of Huey) was running for his old office and accepted a $25,000 campaign contribution from the Louisiana Theater Owners' Association, delivered by a State Senator who was in their pay to introduce legislation favorable to their needs. Long took the money and promised to back repeal of the tax. After he got back in office, the Senator came to his office with a draft of his repeal bill. He was shocked when Long told him that the state needed the money, and not only would he not back the bill, he would do everything to have it beaten in the legislature, and would veto it if it passed and got to his desk. The Senator, appalled that Long had taken the money and was now turning on the people who gave it to him, sputtered, "But what will I tell the theater owners?" "Tell them," Long answered, "I lied."
Long was kind of a nut (even briefly committed by his wife to an insane asylum while in office), but he fought for ordinary people and was extremely colorful, outspoken and cheerfully dishonest if it was in a good cause. Paul Newman, who bore no resemblance to him whatever, played Long in the 1990 film Blaze, about Long's affair with stripper Blaze Starr. In 1960 he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives and defeated an incumbent in the Democratic primary (at that time tantamount to election), but died the next day. The gallery-watchers in Washington had been relishing the idea of Earl holding forth in the House and were bitterly disappointed by his untimely demise.
Those times for Secret of the Incas are interesting. So the film played 8 times in one day! And there wasn't a co-feature accompanying it, either?
Can you please tell me if that is the "norm" in New York, hob?
Also, do many New Yorkers actually queue up to watch a film at 10.30 in the morning?
Good point, HCH -- no co-feature. That hadn't occurred to me. That was definitely not common back then, when most theaters did run two features. For the past 40 years or so it would normally be just one movie, of course, but into the 60s two was the norm. But obviously it did occur sometimes. Unless the theater was an early example of a multiplex, one cinema with more than one screen, showing two or more pictures simultaneously. But I'm not sure if many, or even any, such theaters operated at that time.
Also, do many New Yorkers actually queue up to watch a film at 10.30 in the morning?
Only if they're hung over from the night before. share