AFI Names Top Ten Epic Films of All... Jul 28, 2008
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov. Director: Stanley Kubrick. (Suite101.com)
Killer attitude Jul 27, 2008
Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) "Night of the Hunter" (Charles Laughton, 1955). Even if you have never seen Laughton's feature, you will probably recognize Robert Mitchum's Preacher Powell -- the smooth-talking snake oil salesman with "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on his knuckles. (CNN -- International)
AFI Names Top Ten Courtroom Dramas ... Jul 27, 2008
AFI Names Top Ten Courtroom Dramas of All Time: To Kill a Mockingbird is the Top Choice of American Film Institute. AFI Names Top Ten Courtroom Dramas of All Time. (Suite101.com)
'Hellboy' star buries himself in roles Jul 13, 2008
" While Perlman never set out to become Hollywood's go-to guy for roles behind masks, one of his most-moving experiences as a movie fan came when he first saw Charles Laughton in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame. " "The most human character who happens also to be a gargoyle that you've ever seen on screen," Perlman said. "I remember how much humanity he was able to evoke with one eye kind of by his left cheek and the other eye above his forehead and this huge hump on his back. (CNN -- Showbiz)
Movie Classic: Spartacus (1960) Apr 12, 2008
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus also featured the talents of Laurence Olivier, Tony Curtis, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Nina Foch and a cast of thousands ... They got them, with Laurence Olivier (Marcus Licinius Crassus), Jean Simmons (Varinia), Tony Curtis (Antoninus), Charles Laughton (Sempronius Gracchus), Peter Ustinov (Lentulus Batiatus), John Gavin (Julius Caesar), Nina Foch (Helena Glabrus), John Ireland (Crixus), Herbert Lom (Tigranes Levantus) and... (Suite101.com)
Jules Dassin: Master of the Heist Apr 7, 2008
In The Canterville Ghost (1944), Dassin's job was to referee between two shameless scene-stealers: Charles Laughton and the seven-year-old Margaret O'Brien. If there's a magic moment in any of these features, it might be the climax to Two Smart People (1946), where gunzel Elisha Cook, Jr., falls dead off a balcony during Mardi Gras and lands on a firemen's cloth hoop held by the crowd of revelers, who gaily keep bouncing the corpse into the air. (Time.com)
Reflections on the Oscars Mar 17, 2008
After all, in 1935, Clark Gable, Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone, of Mutiny on the Bounty, were all competing for Best Actor, and, so, Victor McLaglen won for The Informer. . (Townhall.com)
"The Other Boleyn Girl," Mar 1, 2008
The movie has only a casual relationship with historical reality and gets lots of the details wrong, including the fact that Henry VIII looked a lot more like Charles Laughton than Eric Bana. Yet, however embarrassed you might feel in the morning, this in an enjoyable movie with an entertaining angle on a hard-to-resist period of history. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)
Other Boleyn Girl is trashy, but entertaining Feb 28, 2008
Bana is sex on a crumpet when did movie Henry VIIIs stop looking like Charles Laughton. and both Portman and Johansson are filmed to maximum effect, even with their cleavage disappearing inside those 16th century dresses (and those headpieces that make women look like playing cards). (MSNBC -- Movies)
Blood, sweat and oil Feb 2, 2008
I leave him inspired to re-examine the films of Montgomery Clift and Charles Laughton. When he talks about his own country, surely Day-Lewis must now mean Ireland. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Joe Orso: A Christmas of divided emotions Dec 21, 2007
Michael Welch wrote on Dec 20, 2007 10:57 AM:" Well Harsch is a big stupid jerk NAAAA NAAAA NAAAA 'n' so's his old man! So there! Hmmmp! But seriously folks -- especially 'Mis-tuh Christian!' (a la the wonderfully malignant performance of Charles Laughton as a sado 'Captain Bligh' in the most entertaining film version of 'Mutiny on the Bounty') I'd disagree again as per 'Christians under siege.' After all they have inordinate influence on one of the only two significant political parties (though... (La Crosse Tribune, WI)
Letters: More favorite character actors Dec 17, 2007
Editor - Charles Laughton, George Kennedy, William Bendix, Raymond Burr, Martin Balsam, Eli Wallach and Warren Oates. Favorite Peter Lorre role: "Casablanca.". (San Francisco Chronicle)
Norman's brutal conquest Nov 24, 2007
Around then, Adele recalled in her book, Norman sold the film rights to The Naked And The Dead to Charles Laughton for the princely sum of $100,000, and in 1956 the couple moved to a farmhouse in Connecticut. Norman built an art studio for his wife in the attic, and money was plentiful; the level of luxury they enjoyed, Adele says, makes her current circumstances especially hard to take. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
The Beachcomber Nov 21, 2007
Somerset Maugham's story was first filmed as Vessel Of Wrath in 1938 with Elsa Lanchester as a missionary's spinster sister who falls for a drunken beachcomber played by Charles Laughton. This version, set in the Dutch East Indies, stars Robert Newton as The Hon Ted, a ne'er-do-well pisspot whose antics infuriate a righteous missionary in the Welcome Islands. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
Life of Galileo: New CHS drama director opens with avant-garde play Nov 12, 2007
Play by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Charles Laughton. Admission: 8 for adults, 5 for students, available at Grass Roots Books and. (Corvallis Gazette Times, OR)
Food on film Sep 23, 2007
In the 1933 Alexander Korda film The Private Life of Henry VIII, starring Charles Laughton, the famous eating scene in which Laughton rips a chicken apart is all about kingly indulgence and nothing to do with dinner. Likewise, the celebrated meal in Tony Richardson's adaptation of Tom Jones is about shagging, the most hackneyed and least convincing of metaphorical uses of food in film. (Guardian Unlimited)
Civil War epic to open Theatre Northwest season Sep 18, 2007
In 1953 actor/director Charles Laughton adapted the piece for the stage (and later the screen) in a version starring Judith Anderson, Raymond Massey and Tyrone Power. Directed by Dr. Theo Ross, professor of communication, theatre and languages, the Northwest production of "John Brown's Body" is being staged as reader's theater, a format, Ross said, that is "more for the ear than for the eye" and in which costumes, scenery, props, lighting and other traditional stage elements are used sparingly. (Maryville Daily Forum, MO)
Jane Wyman dies Sep 11, 2007
Her two other Oscar nominations came for the 1951 drama Blue Veil with Charles Laughton and the 1954 Douglas Sirk-directed romance Magnificent Obsession, opposite Rock Hudson. She later appeared in Sirk's All That Heaven Allows. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
Jane Wyman, 90, star of film and tv, is dead Sep 11, 2007
Two other Oscar nominations as best actress came for her roles as a backwoods mother in "The Yearling" (1947), also starring Gregory Peck, and as a saintly nursemaid in "The Blue Veil" (1951), with Charles Laughton and a young Natalie Wood. A capable singer she sang on the radio in the 1930s Wyman shared a hit record, "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," which she recorded with Bing Crosby in 1951 for the movie "Here Comes the Groom." The song, a Hoagy Carmichael-Johnny Mercer composition,... (International Herald Tribune)
DiCaprio mooted for I, Claudius movie Sep 6, 2007
The tale was first adapted by director Josef von Sternberg in 1937, with Charles Laughton in the title role. In 1976 it was overhauled as an acclaimed BBC miniseries, starring Derek Jacobi and John Hurt. (Guardian Unlimited -- Film)
MOVIE OF THE WEEK Aug 19, 2007
August 19, Mutiny on the Bounty Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone1935, 132 Minutes, Black and White. Search events. (Florida Times-Union)
Hinson: How well do you know Elvis? Aug 13, 2007
That honor went to British actor Charles Laughton. This is a doubly sad week around Graceland. (Tallahassee.com)
* First impressions count Jul 20, 2007
Charles Laughton envisaged his film as "a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose fairytale" and fashioned an introduction so jarringly dreamlike it verges on the comical. Disembodied Lillian Gish is floating in the stars, serenaded by a children's choir as she warns against "ravening wolves" that come in sheep's clothing. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- World)
A history of faux fat in film Jul 19, 2007
Charles Laughton for classical gravitas, Sidney Greenstreet for silken menace, S.Z. (Cuddles) Sakall for chubby amiability, Robert Morley for haughty or jolly eccentrics. Today, though, Hollywood accepts the dictum that no one can be too rich or too thin. (AZCentral -- Entertainment)
Glitzy and occasionally touched by scandal May 16, 2007
THE first Cannes festival was held on September 1, 1939, lasted barely 48 hours and just one film was screened - The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara. The festival was billed as the free world's cinematic answer to fascism, but the lights of Cannes went off on September 3 when Hitler invaded Poland. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
New on DVD: Hail Mirren's 'Queen' Apr 27, 2007
The '35 version is better, thanks to Fredric March (hounded con Jean Valjean) and Charles Laughton (hounding Inspector Javert). But though their running times are comparable, the '52 has a lot of exposition the '35 leaves out, so you may want to give it one viewing. (USA Today -- Life)
Edward Norton's favorites Apr 16, 2007
Ask Edward Norton what three movies he'd want with him on a deserted island and he'll need time to think about it, at least beyond his top choice "Ruggles of Red Gap," a 1935 film that starred Charles Laughton ... Ask Edward Norton what three movies he'd want with him on a deserted island and he'll need time to think about it, at least beyond his top choice "Ruggles of Red Gap," a 1935 film that starred Charles Laughton. (Herald-Tribune)
Despite valet problems, Reel Experience delivered Apr 16, 2007
Ask Edward Norton what three movies he'd want with him on a deserted island and he'll need time to think about it, at least beyond his top choice "Ruggles of Red Gap," a 1935 film that starred Charles Laughton. "It's one of the funniest movies ever made," Norton told the Sarasota Film Festival's "In Conversation With. . ." question and answer session Sunday with his colleague screenwriter and producer Brian Koppelman at the Historic Asolo Theater. (Herald-Tribune)
'It's me, isn't it?' Mar 6, 2007
Osborne modelled him on a defeated entertainer he saw at the old Chelsea Palace giving a terrible impersonation of Charles Laughton playing Quasimodo. The anonymous man possessed a suicidal valour, and died a death at every performance. (Guardian Unlimited)
Oscars highlight changing world of film Feb 27, 2007
In 1933, Charles Laughton surprised the locals by winning best actor for his lusty performance in the England-made "The Private Life of Henry VIII." The British were again coming in 1948 with Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" taking the picture and actor awards. Sophia Loren made a bit of history in 1961 as best actress in "Two Women." Her dialogue was entirely in Italian. (Seacoast New Hampshire)
Possible snags Jan 23, 2007
1933: Charles Laughton as Henry VIII in "The Private Life of Henry VIII.". 1948: Laurence Olivier as the troubled Prince of Denmark in "Hamlet.". (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Biographical dramas spin film gold Jan 20, 2007
1932-33: Charles Laughton, "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (Henry VIII). 1936: Paul Muni, "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (Louis Pasteur). (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PA)
The not entirely truthful tale of Beatrix Potter Dec 28, 2006
In the same way, the popular image of Elizabeth Barrett Browning became, in 1934, Norma Shearer on a chaise-longue, with Charles Laughton embodying the fierce father. For a biographer who has studied the minutiae of a life for years it can be irksome. (TimesOnline)
'History Boys' is a triumph Nov 21, 2006
Griffiths' ample girth seems an appropriate vessel for the largeness of spirit that works on the uncultured -- although frighteningly far from clueless -- boys in his pop-culture temple of a classroom festooned with such icons as Bette Davis, George Orwell and Charles Laughton. The boys are largely those who played the roles in London and on Broadway. (Newsday -- New York City)
Close Encounter Nov 6, 2006
" "Busker Alley" - music by the Sherman Brothers, who also scored "Mary Poppins" - is about a British street entertainer and the woman who loves him and then leaves him for the stage. Theater buffs know it as the show that derailed en route to Broadway the moment its director and star, Tommy Tune, broke his foot. "Sorry, Tommy, you're too good-looking," Dale jokes. "It's the 'Beauty and the Beast' story - Charles Laughton and Vivien Leigh played it in the movie. " As far as he's concerned,... (New York Post -- Entertainment)
Genteel face of a favourite '50s screen mum Oct 26, 2006
For two years she alternated between Berkshire and Broadway, appearing with Charles Laughton, Louis Calhern and Osgood Perkins. While acting with Lillian Gish in Joyous Season in 1934, she got a contract offer from Universal Pictures. (The Australian)
'Father Knows Best' Jane Wyatt dies Oct 24, 2006
alternating between Berkshire and Broadway and appearing with Charles Laughton, Louis Calhern, Lillian Gish and Osgood Perkins. In 1935 she married Edgar Ward in Santa Fe, N.M., whom she met while in college. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Gays date Republicans Oct 20, 2006
It concerns the fight to nominate the president's candidate for secretary of state (Henry Fonda) despite the staunch opposition of southern congressman Seeb Cooley, played to the seersuckin' hilt by a game and twinkly Charles Laughton. Cooley thinks the candidate, Leffingwell, was once an underground communist, which is true - but the nomination seems secure until Brigham Anderson (Don Murray), the charismatic and decent committee leader, adjourns the hearings. (Guardian Unlimited -- Film)
- Alan Ayckbourn on returning to writing after a stroke Oct 4, 2006
"So he was sitting with his half of beer and all these crusty Yorkshire types, looking at him sideways. So he asked them why it was called the Old Vic, and they told him it was because Charles Laughton was born nearby.". As Ayckbourn has been such an advocate of new plays, is there a temptation, with revivals of his work, to tinker and begin again. (Guardian Unlimited)
Karloff a fright to behold in series of horror films Sep 28, 2006
Segueing to the 1950s, Mr. Karloff, as a loyal servant, takes a back seat to extravagantly perverse villain Charles Laughton in the 1951 Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation The Strange Door but reclaims his chiller chops as a resident physician/professional poisoner in the following year's The Black Castle, a gothic period piece with dark atmosphere to spare. While Boris hits nary a false note as a sympathetic scientist shanghaied by crooks, 1937's Night Key, with its emphasis on standard crime... (Washington Times, DC)
- Read the latest extract from Bill Bryson's new book Sep 5, 2006
Sal Mineo, Anthony Perkins, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, Batman and Robin, Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Liberace - all were unmasked by her penetrating gaze. She told me Rock Hudson was gay in 1959, long before anyone would have guessed it. (Guardian Unlimited)
50 Years Ago, We Got Shook Up Aug 21, 2006
Famed actor Charles Laughton hosted the show. . (The Ledger)
Flynn beats Depp in pirates poll Jul 10, 2006
Charles Laughton as Captain William Kidd - Captain Kidd (1945). 7. (India eNews.com)
Critics turned screenwriters: thumbs up? Jul 9, 2006
James Agee was a film critic at Time and The Nation and worked with director John Huston on the script for ``The African Queen" (1951) and with director Charles Laughton on ``The Night of the Hunter" (1955). Pauline Kael's quirky alternate for The New Yorker's film criticism column, Penelope Gilliatt, wrote the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for ``Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971).Newsweek '70s film critic Paul D. Zimmerman penned the screenplay to Martin Scorsese's ``The King of Comedy" (1983)... (Boston Globe -- Living)
Pirates delivers a blockbuster Jul 7, 2006
Sparrow can now stand on deck beside such iconic screen pirates as Robert Newton s Long John Silver, Errol Flynn s Captain Blood and Charles Laughton s Captain Kidd. Depp handles the film s action with equal aplomb and doesn t so much speak his lines as dangle them in our faces like verbal naughty bits. (Boston Herald)
- Maureen Lipman Jul 3, 2006
"The following Tuesday, before the big day, I was planning my plenary address to the conference - let me rephrase that - I was looking up "plenary" in the dictionary to see what might be expected of me. I got a bit side-tracked under P by "Pacino Al(fred James)". Alfred? Who'd have thought? "Studied under Charles Laughton. " Who'd have thought that? Anyway, I finally got to "Plenary; adj. (Guardian Unlimited)
4. Carnival re-invents its image Jun 5, 2006
The 1934 king and queen were decked out in robes that had been worn by movie stars Charles Laughton and Greer Garson. Nationally syndicated columnist Walter Winchell made an issue out of the fact that "it was silly to have the king and queen of cotton wearing silk robes," says Magness. (The Commercial Appeal, TN)
The Talking Cure May 15, 2006
Of the many images that the prolific actor and director Charles Laughton left behind in his relatively brief lifetime production stills, head shots, off-the-cuff newspaper photographs the most effective are Carl Van Vechten s 1940 portraits of the artist. Although he is out of costume and out of character, the Yorkshire-born star brings to these photographs something of his signature role, as Quasimodo in the heart-wrenching 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (New Yorker)
The KO blow from RKO May 8, 2006
Saddest of all, perhaps, is that he wasn't able to accept the invitation of Bertolt Brecht and Charles Laughton to direct the American premiere of Galileo. Three pages from the end, there's a heartbreaking story. (The Observer)
Sex Pistols join Walk of Fame Mar 14, 2006
Last Updated: Tuesday, 13 September 2005, 23:19 GMT 00:19 UK. Sex Pistols added to Walk of Fame. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Shelley Winters dies at 85 (Reuters) Jan 16, 2006
Winters was directed by a who's who of Hollywood's masters, including George Stevens, Robert Siodmak and Charles Laughton. Stanley Kubrick cast her in 1962 as Charlotte Haze, the mother of "Lolita.". (RSS - Yahoo News - Entertainment)
Winters brought depth to needy characters Jan 16, 2006
Winters took her art to heart, too, studying under esteemed mentor Charles Laughton (her director in The Night of the Hunter) and attending the Actors Studio. Her status was forever elevated once she dyed her hair mousy brown and went dowdy as the factory worker who stands between a social-climbing Montgomery Clift and a stunning Elizabeth Taylor in 1951's A Place in the Sun, which earned the actress her first Oscar nomination. (USA Today -- Entertainment)
Shelley Winters Jan 16, 2006
She drowned again in The Night of the Hunter (1955), the only film ever directed by Charles Laughton, whose Shakespearean acting classes Winters had earlier attended. Again she died in The Big Knife (1955), giving a touching performance as a starlet forced by her studio to "entertain" visiting exhibitors. (The Independent, UK)
Double OscarStar of stage and screen Shelley Winters dies aged 85 Jan 15, 2006
She returned to Hollywood three years later and, determined to realise her full potential, worked at the studio during the day and studied with one of cinema's outstanding actors, Charles Laughton, at night and at weekends. A plumper Winters, targeting less glamorous roles, was swiftly rewarded by an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Diary of Anne Frank. (BBC News)
From 'Double Life' To Double Oscars Jan 15, 2006
" Winters was nominated but did not win a best actress Oscar for the portrayal. But Winters did win in the best supporting category for her roles as Mrs. Van Daan in Stevens' "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959) and Rose-Ann D'Arcy, the abusive mother who tries to turn her blind daughter into a prostitute in "A Patch of Blue" (1965). The actress donated the first Oscar statuette to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Also among her 130 films was "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), which earned her... (Tampa Bay Online -- News)
