Producer Dino De Laurentiis made this big budget remake of the classic 1933 picture King Kong. John Guillermin, who made the disaster blockbuster, The Towering Inferno in 1974, directs from a workable (but not great) script written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. Updated to the 1970s, Robert Armstrong character is now Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), a […]

This Technicolor adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta The Mikado itries to be faithful to a performance of Britain’s D’Oyly Carte opera company. Tenor Kenny Baker stars as Nanki-Poo, the minstrel who wanders into a curious set of situations in the Japanese village of Titi-Pu. D’Oyly Carte Martyn Green plays the leading role of […]

It took Robert Redford eight years after sweeping the 1980 Oscars with Ordinary People (Best Picture, Best Director) to helm his second film, a more overtly political saga. Set in a rundown Hispanic community in New Mexico, which borders rich housing development, the tale centers on a group of white men who control the local […]

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis, Minstrel Man concerns a performance man searching for his daughter. The film stars Benny Fields and Gladys George. Oscar Nominations: 2 Song: Remember me to Carolina, music by Harry Revel. lyrics by Paul Webster Scoring of Musical: Leo Erody and Ferde Grofe   Oscar Awards: None Oscar Context: The Song […]

Some viewers were apparently outraged by Miracle's plot device. “Many letters have been received here,” wrote Sturges, “including bitterly denunciatory ones from analphabets who believed the sextuplets were the result of the heroine having been promiscuous with six different men.” “Education,” Sturges noted, “though compulsory, seems to be spreading slowly.”