Thursday, March 30, 2017

Movie review - "Island of Doomed Men" (1940) **1/2

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Enjoyable B picture from Columbia - I'm not that familiar with that studio's B output but presume they made a lot of them. It benefi...
Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Movie review - "West of Shanghai" (1937) **

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Boris Karloff appeared in a fair bit of yellow face during his career - Fu Manchu, the Mr Wong series, this... He plays a Chinese general wh...
Saturday, March 25, 2017

Book review - "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volume One" by Edward Gibbon (1776-89)

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Classic tome about the very long fall of Rome, basically from the reign of Commodus onwards... all the way to the fall of the Byzantium. Whi...

Book review - "The History of the English Speaking Peoples" by Andrew Roberts

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Really should have been titled History of why critics of the English speaking peoples are wrong . There's no reason why some historian s...

Script review - "Rope" (1948) by Ben Hecht, Arthur Laurents

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This tends not to be regarded among top flight Hitchcock - I've never been sure why. Maybe because James Stewart is so patently miscast ...
Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Movie review - "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962) ***1/2

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I was surprised by the emotional reaction I had to this film. My expectations were so low going in - I'd seen clips with Jimmy Stewart a...
Saturday, March 18, 2017

Book review - "Joseph Kennedy Presents" by Cari Beauchamp

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For whatever reason it took me about ten or something goes to finish this book. No criticism of the author or subject matter - it was just o...