Singer Pat Boone made the colorful musical Mardi Gras3D at the height of his popularity. In this silly romance, directed by Edmund Goulding, a group of Virginia Military Institute cadets organize a raffle: the “prize” is French movie star Michelle Marton (Christine Carere), queen of the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Boone plays cadet Pat Newell, […]
Oscar Movies: Maids of Wilko (1979)–Polish WWI Tale from Wajda
August 28, 2014 by
Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda directs this psychological drama Panny z Wilka, released in the U.S. as The Young Girls of Wilko and aks Maids of Wilko. Set in the 1920s, based on the book by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, it centers on WWI veteran Wiktor Ruben (Daniel Olbrychski), who returns to the town where he had spent […]
Oscar Movies: Mambo Kings (1992)–Cuban Musicians in New York
August 28, 2014 by
New York art dealer Arne Glimcher made his feature directing debut in Mambo Kings, a romantic melodrama about two brothers who flee Cuba in the 1950s to make it as musicians in the America. Cynthia Cidre wrote the literate screenplay adapted from Oscar Hijuelos’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Cesar […]
Oscar Movies: Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)–James Cagney Shines as Lon Chaney
August 28, 2014 by
James Cagney is well cast as film icon Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces, Joseph Pevney’s biopic, which, despite whitewashing its subject’s career and personal problems, is still compelling. Man of a Thousand Faces Theatrical release poster The tale begins as Chaney, the son of two deaf parents, gets successful in vaudeville as […]
oscar Movies: Mahogany (1975)–Starring Diana Ross
August 28, 2014 by
Directed by Berry Gordy, Jr. as a vehicle for his star Diana Ross, after her stunning turn in The Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany traces the life of a poor girl who makes it in the fashion world, first as a model, then designer. She deserts her boyfriend (Billy Dee Williams), hooking up instead with […]
