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From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label Charlton Heston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlton Heston. Show all posts
Anthony Mann's El Cid may have the most braggadocio tagline (IN A THOISAND YEARS!)
QUICK REVIEW:
This is the story of the Spanish folk hero, who stubbornly resisted the dictatorship of the monarchs and fought against the African Islamists, - side by side with the Spanish moors.
Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur (1959)) and Sophia Loren (Aida (1953)) are formidable in this epic, which has everything that its kind should have of intrigue, murder, love and self-sacrifice, shot on location in Spain and in Rome. El Cid packs grand sword fights and battle scenes; Miklós Rózsa's (Ben-Hur) Oscar-nominated music is eminent. The film only has slight, visual imperfections and a somewhat muted color scheme, (unless this is just a decision on the part of the restoration team?) In any case, El Cid is a solid, fine film that remains relevant today. It is directed by Anthony Mann (Winchester '73 (1950)), whose 4th to last film this is.
The Italian poster for Anthony Mann's El Cid unsurprisingly pushes Sophia Loren's involvement to the forefront
Watch the film's epic trailer here, which stresses its countless great qualities!
Cost: 6.2 mil. $ Box office: 26.6-30 mil. $ (US only) = Big hit (at least!) [I have only been able to find the American box office numbers, which vary as noted. Depending on how big a hit the film was abroad, (probably big in Europe especially), it might have bee not only a big but a huge hit, (although it certainly did not cap William Wyler's spectacular Ben-Hur.) El Cid was Oscar-nominated for Art Direction, Score and Best Song.] What do you think of El Cid? Other fine Mann pictures?
Snowy adventure blasts from this poster for Ken Annakin's The Call of the Wild
QUICK REVIEW:
The Call of the Wild is a pretty entertaining and unusual adventure dog movie based on the classic Jack London novel about a gruff man and his sleigh dog Buck. With another guy and a bunch of dogs, among them the evil Spitz, they head North to Yukon with the mail and meet ladies and hoodlums etc. on their way. - A lot of stuff happens. Call of the Wild curiously fell into public domain shortly after its release, and there are therefore many very shabby quality versions out, and I saw one of them. It is a shame, since this film is definitely worthy of a decent restoration. As far as my research goes, it has not been given this yet, which is a disgrace. The film was shot in Finland and has many exciting highlights among them a sled-pulling contest, and Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur (1959)), here as the tough John Thornton, is a personal favorite of Film Excess. Again in Call of the Wild he is a man who basically hates all people: "You can all go to hell!", as he says himself. - Cool! The Call of the Wild is directed by English director Ken Annakin (The Informers (1963)) as an English-French-West German-Italian-Spanish (!) co-production. Heston in his autobiography In the Arena wrote that he was very unhappy with the film and asked people not to see it. The film had a bad reception and wasn't released in the US until '75. - But I'm telling you, it's actually pretty good!
Another cool, 70's poster for this languishing pearl, Ken Annakin's The Call of the Wild
In lieu of a trailer here is a scene from the film. This has clearly been restored, so I am curious, if there is a restored version of the film out there somewhere
Cost: Unknown Box office: Unknown = Unknown What do you think of The Call of the Wild? Other Ken Annakin films that you can comment on? Please let me know if a restored version of The Call of the Wild exists
Epic proportions are teased on this magnificent poster for William Wyler's Ben-Hur
Judah Ben-Hur is a Jewish prince from Judea at the time of Christ, who gets deceived by his old friend, Messala (Stephen Boyd (The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964))), and is made a slave to the Roman galleys, while his mother and daughter are thrown in the slammer. But Ben-Hur has to go through much more in his life... Ben-Hur is written by Maxwell Anderson (Death Takes a Holiday (1934)), S.N. Behrman (Two-Faced Woman (1941)), Christopher Fry (Sister Dora (1977, miniseries)), Karl Tunberg (Taras Bulba (1962)) and Gore Vidal (I Accuse! (1958)), adapting Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) by Lew Wallace (The Prince of India (1893)), and directed by German-born American master filmmaker William Wyler (Lazy Lightning (1926)), whose 40th feature it was. The novel was previously adapted as Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925).
The film is an exuberant retelling of the Christian messages; to love one's enemy, to stand fast and turn the other cheek and to take the punishment and the pain, and to forgive and be forgiven; and it is an excellent and deeply moving film unlike any other. - Additionally it is probably the great Charlton Heston's (Planet of the Apes (1968)) best role and the greatest epic film ever made. Heston is phenomenal as the man, SPOILER who finally after so many trials gets his vindictiveness turned and finds faith and sees a miracle happen for his loved ones. The photography in Ben-Hur, - by the phenomenal Robert Surtees (The Last Picture Show (1971)), - is spectacular in all its full, vivid details and unparalleled grandeur. The film was the biggest in terms of sets and the most expensive film ever made at its time. It was so big that it was a make-or-break effort for its studio, MGM. Had it not triumphed, for instance, who knows if the world had met James Bond on the silver screen? Especially two major scenes in Ben-Hur are always highlighted as truly unforgettable: The violent galley scene and the legendary, extraordinary chariot race scene, an eight-minute scene that took 5 weeks to shoot in the biggest set ever built, outside of Rome at Cinecittá Studio, a chariot stadium so grand that one damns the fact that it is not left for cinephiles to peruse to this day. The scene is so influential and amazing that it stands alone in cinema history and is surrounded by myths: Its number of extras going upwards of 15,000; the number of horses that died from the effort ranging from none, (and that the horses were treated with the utmost respect to boot, as you can read in the IMDb trivia page), to as many as 100, as is the number given in The Hollywood Reporter's new Animals Were Harmed-special. Whichever is the actual truth, the scene is made and should be treasured for all the wonders that it contain. But there are many other fantastic, unforgettable scenes that are less mythologized: The beautiful opening with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem; Ben-Hur's meeting with Jesus, who gives him water, when he is thirsting in chains, - a remarkable and moving scene, - and Ben-Hur's terrible discovery that his kin have become lepers.
A tragic fact, though, is that the film's producer Sam Zimbalist (Quo Vadis (1951)), perhaps understandably in light of the intense stress he must have been under every day for months, had a heart attack and died on set, two months before production ended, at age 57. His wife subsequently took home the Best Picture Oscar in his place. Ben-Hur has an epic span of nearly 4 hours, which nevertheless doesn't detract from its impact, which is that of an unmissable masterpiece, a gift to humanity, - a truly great film.
See some glimpses of the grandeur in this not-so-humble original trailer for Ben-Hur
Cost: 15.175 mil. $ Box office: 146.9 mil. $ (initial release only) = Blockbuster (returned 9.79 times its cost)
[Ben-Hur premiered 18 November (New York) and runs 212 minutes, excluding overture, intermission and entr'acte. The film was developed as a direct attempt to save MGM with a religious epic that would rival Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), also starring Heston. The writing was a contested process with several chefs that ended in a WGA lawsuit over credit. Wyler was hired with a historic fee of 350k $ plus 3 % of the net profits, a deal that allegedly netted him 1.1 mil. $ over time. Heston was paid 250k $ for 30 weeks, plus traveling expenses paid for his family as well. Shooting took place from May 1958 - January 1959 in Italy, including in Rome, California and in Mexico. The budget ballooned from 7 mil. to 15.175 mil. $ due to the lavish, larger-than-life production solutions chosen: 70 mm lenses, 6 of them, at 100k $ each, shipped to Rome. 15k sketches. 1 mil. props. 200 camels. 2,500 horses. 300 sets. 10k extras. 40 miniature ships and two 175-foot seaworthy Roman galleys. The 18 acre chariot set, the biggest ever built, using, among other elements, 36k tons of sand from the Mediterranean, - the scene reportedly cost 1 mil. $ to produce. A 125k $ set dismantlement cost. More than 1.1 mil feet of costly film used for a film of ultimately 19k feet. A 100 piece orchestra score. 3k rioting poor Italians who were not hired as extras one day. Costumes, backdrops, friezes and wigs in colossal numbers. The film was backed up with a massive 14.7 mil. $ marketing campaign and merchandising to the hilts. It was #1 in North America for a reported 6 months, grossing 74.7 mil. $ (50.9 % of the total gross). It was the year's highest-grossing and at the time the 2nd highest-grossing of all time, only beaten by Gone with the Wind (1939). It saved MGM and reportedly accrued 20.4 mil. $ in profits in its original release and another 10.1 mil. $ on its 1969 re-release. It was nominated for 12 Oscars, winning an unprecedented 11, only losing Best Adapted Screenplay to Neil Paterson for Room at the Top. It won Best Actor (Heston), Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffiths (Luther (1974)), Art Direction/Set Decoration - Color, Cinematography - Color, Costume Design - Color, Director, Special Effects, Editing, Score - Drama/Comedy (Miklós Rózsa (The Jungle Book (1942))), Picture and Sound. It also won a BAFTA, 2 David di Donatello awards, 4/5 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for a Grammy, won 3 National Board of Review awards, among other honors. IMDb's users have rated the film in at #183 on the site's Top 250, sitting between 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Blade Runner (1982). The novel has been adapted several times since. The film's 1971 TV premiere became one of the top-rated of all time with 85.82 mil. viewers. Wyler returned with The Children's Hour (1961). Heston returned in Alcoa Premiere (1961, TV-series) and theatrically in El Cid (1961); Jack Hawkins (Jane Eyre (1970, TV movie)) in The League of Gentlemen (1960). Ben-Hur is certified fresh at 85 % with an 8.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Big names on a deliciously orange, sweltering backdrop adorns this poster for William Wyler's The Big Country
The Hannasseys are primitive louts, the Major says, - but what does McKay say about the matter, now that he is engaged to the Major's spoiled daughter and has bought Big Muddy, the land that the two families are fighting over?
The Big Country is written by Sy Bartlett (That Lady (1955)), James R. Webb (Kings of the Sun (1963)) and Robert Wilder (Flamingo Road (1949)), with Jessamyn West (Stolen Hours (1963)) and Robert Wyler (Murder Goes to College (1937)) contributing writing, adapting Donald Hamilton's (The Demolishers (1987)) Ambush at Blanco Canyon/The Big Country (1957/1958), and co-produced and directed by German-born American master filmmaker William Wyler (Lazy Lightning (1926)), whose 40th feature it was.
This is truly an astounding western from the hey-day of the genre.Co-producer/co-star Gregory Peck (The Guns of Navarone (1961)) plays McKay, the annoyingly pacifist hero, who almost seems to revel in humiliations. Some western experts say that The Big Country was the initiator of the wave of pacifistic westerns in the coming decades. Charlton Heston (Ben Hur (1959)) and especially Burl Ives (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)) weigh up for Peck's cotton-mouthed McKay. They both play eminently. Everything is big in Technicolor and 'Technirama', - one of the period's many new formats designed to lure people away from their new TV sets and back to the cinemas to buy tickets. The cinematography (by Franz Planer (Roman Holiday (1953))) at times leaves you breathless, as the filmmakers really succeed in capturing the feeling of 'the big country'. Despite Wyler and Peck clashing throughout production, culminating in the latter walking off set and the former telling journalists that he would never again work with Peck, - not even for a million bucks (!), and that they could quote him for it, - the film impressively enough bears no witness of the strife. The score by Jerome Moss (Wagon Train (1959-1964)) is also grand. The Big Country is a swell time full of adventure, love, action and swooning landscapes. A certified classic.
Cost: Reportedly 4 mil. $ Box office: In excess of 3.5 mil. $ (North-American rentals alone) = Uncertain
[The Big Country premiered 13 August (USA) and runs166 minutes. Shooting took place from July - November 1957 in California and Arizona. Little is available online concerning the film's commercial reception: It was reportedly a 'big hit', the year's 2nd biggest hit in the UK, - however the high cost means that it may not have turned profitable. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it "simply the best film ever made", screening it on 4 consecutive nights at the White House. It was nominated for 2 Oscar, winning Best Supporting Actor (Ives) and losing Score - Drama/Comedy to Dimitri Tiomkin for The Old Man and the Sea. It was also nominated for a BAFTA and won a Golden Globe, among other honors. Wyler returned with Ben-Hur (1959). Peck returned in Pork Chop Hill (1959); Heston in The Buccaneer (1958); Ives in Wind Across the Everglades (1958). The Big Country is fresh at 100 % with a 7.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
The plentiful text promises lots of excitement on this poster for Ted Post's Beneath the Planet of the Apes
A rescue mission carrying astronaut Brent crash-lands on the planet of the apes and discovers a harrowing truth in tunnels beneath their civilization!
Beneath the Planet of the Apes is written by Paul Dehn (Orders to Kill (1958)), with Mort Abrahams (Route 66 (1962-63, producer)) contributing story elements, and directed by Ted Post (The Peacemaker (1956)). It is the first sequel to Franklin J. Schaffner's science fiction masterpiece Planet of the Apes (1968).
The film, in short, is not as successful or innovative as its predecessor but still solid entertainment. Both effects and the action elements have been upped, and yet the debate-sparking elements in the original's storyline are also intact, this time in the forms of war-loving, brutal gorillas, protesting chimpanzees, against the simians' special culture surrounding violence against women. - And then there's the extremist, bomb-worshipping mutants! All in all Beneath has a lot of 'stuff' in it, for lack of a better word, to spur thoughts and parallels to the real world, making it highly successful SF, - if not, however, as revolutionizing as the groundbreaking original. SPOILER The story about Charlton Heston's (Ben Hur (1959)) character Taylor from the first movie, who now has to be saved 2000 years into the future is a little thin, and the mutants are a bit far-fetched. If one wants to be critical about Beneath the Planet of the Apes. - But their pastel-colored costumes are prime kitsch, and I bought into the story irregardless. James Franciscus (The Cat o'Nine Tails (1971)) is the new hero, - cast because of his resemblance to Heston, - and he is a woolly, poor hero. But then Heston reappears! SPOILER The ending, (in whichTaylor blows up planet Earth), is quite something, and it is also in great alignment with the dystopic end of the original.
Kim Hunter and James Franciscus are photogenic and sexy as human prisoners in Ted Post's Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Watch an original TV promo for the film here
Cost: 2.5 mil. $ Box office: 18.9 mil. $ (North America only) = Huge hit (returned 7.56 times its cost domestically alone)
[Beneath the Planet of the Apes was released 23 April (Italy) and runs 95 minutes. Pierre Boulle, author of the 1963 Planet of the Apes novel that started the franchise, wrote a script that was thrown out by the studio. Heston agreed only to a brief appearance and wanted his salary to go to charity. Schaffner was not able to return to direct due to his work on Patton (1970). Shooting took place from February - April 1969 in California, including in Los Angeles. Fox cut the budget in half to 2.5 mil. $ due to several recent, costly flops, and one cost-cutting strategy was the incorporation of sets from musical Hello, Dolly! (1969) in the film.It opened #9 to a 250k $ first week in 4 theaters, and it reached #1 in its 6th week with 863k $. The success immediately prompted another sequel to go into production: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). Post returned with 9 TV and TV movie credits prior to his theatrical return with The Baby (1973). Franciscus returned in Night Slaves (1970, TV movie) and theatrically in The Cat o'Nine Tales (1971); Kim Hunter (The Kindred (1987)) in 5 TV credits prior to her theatrical return in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). Beneath the Planet of the Apes is rotten at 37 % with a 5.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Beneath the Planet of the Apes?
The gorgeously painted poster in booming colors for Nicholas Ray, Andrew Marton and Guy Green's 55 Days at Peking
American Marine Major Lewis has to get his Western counterparts to stand shoulder by shoulder in Peking around 1900 in the bloody 'Boxer Rebellion'. Charlton Heston (Planet of the Apes (1968)) is the angular strong-man, who falls for a stoic beauty from Russia (Ava Gardner (The Barefoot Contessa (1954))). David Niven (The Guns of Navarone(1961)) beautifully portrays the over-courteous and feeble-minded Brit, a character who grows in the course of the film. Dmitri Tiomkin's (Rio Bravo (1959)) music is grand. He was both Oscar-nominated for his score and for the song So Little Time, with Paul Francis Webster (Paytonn Place (1957), lyrics). 55 Days is also the kind of epic where its sets are so big and detailed that one feels compelled to watch without blinking. Wisconsinite Nicholas Ray (Rebel without a Cause (1955)) was a great director, and he was hired to direct:However, somewhere in the course of doing this, he became so overworked that he collapsed on the set, and Guy Green (A Patch of Blue (1965)) and Andrew Marton (The Longest Day (1962)) finished the job uncredited. Save for a lost horror film and an experimental film, We Can't Go Home Again (1973) and some shorts, this became Ray's last film. 55 Days is written by Philip Yordan (The Bravados (1958)), Bernard Gordon (Crime Wave (1954)) and an uncredited Ben Barzman (The Heroes of Telemark (1965)), with Robert Hamer (They All Died Laughing (1964)) supplying some dialogue. The film contains both suspense, glamour, destitution and tragedy, SPOILER although the latter is ultimately lightened some by a humane decision committed by Heston's wonderful character. - Epic historical dramas rarely get finer than 55 Days at Peking.
The marvelous water color title still, created by Chinese-American artist Dong Kingman for Nicholas Ray, Guy Green and Andrew Marton's 55 Days at Peking
Here is a short trailer for the film
Cost: 17 mil. $ Box office: 10 mil. $ (North America only) = Uncertainty (likely at least a big flop) [55 Days at Peking premiered 4 May (UK) and runs 153 minutes. The period in Chinese history that the film portrays, influenced, naturally, by its own time, is still controversial today. Ray was reportedly paid a very high salary for directing the film, which made him uneasy that it should become his last, which it sort of did. Filming took place near Madrid in Spain, and 4,000 extras were employed, including many Chinese, who were recruited from restaurants and laundries across Europe, as Spain didn't have enough Chinese people for the mass scenes. The film became the 20th highest grossing in North America for the year, but with its massive budget, it was still a financial disaster, although it was reportedly more successful internationally. - Without those figures, however, it is impossible to make out its precise status, although it was likely at least a big flop. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: It lost Best Score to John Addison for Tom Jones and BestSong to Call Me Irresponsible from Papa's Delicate Condition. Ray returned with now lost horror, The Doctor and the Devil (1965). Green returned with A Patch of Blue (1965). Marton returned with The Thin Red Line (1964). Heston returned in Kraft Mystery Theater (1963, TV-series), The Patriots (1963, TV movie) and theatrically in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); Gardner in Seven Days in May (1964); and Niven in Burke's Law (1963, TV-series) and theatrically in The Pink Panther (1963). 5,288 IMDb-users have given 55 Days at Peking an average rating of 6.8/10.]
