Motion Picture Gems : Glenn Ford

Showing posts with label Glenn Ford. Show all posts

6/11/2012

Midway (1976)

Midway was shown on American network television in June of 1992, and I remember watching it and really enjoying the battle scenes, and learning a little about the battle of Midway.

Toshiro Mifune plays Japanese Admiral Yamamoto and Henry Fonda plays American Admiral Chester Nimitz. The battle is planned and executed.

There is a subplot involving American naval captain Charlton Heston and his son played by Edward Albert, whose girlfriend is Japanese. The interracial romance was reflective of the times and relevant to the audiences of the 1970s but otherwise the film isn't too remarkable.

It's an all star cast, so if you know your classic movie stars, you can play the game "Oh look it's .....". James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Robert Wagner, Dabney Coleman, Pat Morita, Erik Estrada, Robert Mitchum, Hal Holbrook, Tom Seleck, Cliff Robertson and more.

Read another review from the blog Mike's Take on Movies here.

3/02/2011

So Ends Our Night (1941)

Glenn Ford and Margaret Sullivan

A two-hour epic tale of survival against Nazi forces in Eastern Europe, set in 1937.

The opening title card explains that in the present political climate, many political dissenters have been attempting to flee Nazi Germany without passports, including the characters played by Frederic March and - in one of his earliest film roles - Glenn Ford.

Erich Von Stroheim has a small but important part as a Nazi officer who interrogates March, a dissenter who refuses to answer any questions about his associates opposed to the regime. Stroheim - standing in a room with a huge Hitler poster...chilling - even asks him if he has a lover back home, and March still refuses to answer. But the truth is that March does - he's married to the love of his life - Frances Dee - whom he hasn't seen since he spent time in a concentration camp.

Francess Dee

March is later released and fends for himself on the streets, gambling to raise money to buy an illegal passport. Ford and some of the other refugees eventually make their way to Paris, where they find construction work. Several interesting sequences follow: one involves a character fulfilling a dream of eating several roasted chickens in one sitting; another takes place in an apartment where everyone struggles to get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower out of a awkwardly placed window.

During the course of the film, young Glenn Ford meets college student Margaret Sullivan. The two of them go to the movies (I love it when characters in movies go to the movies!), fall in love, and for a time they are separated also, both facing persecution for being Jewish. We're left to wonder if the two pairs of lovers (including Frederic March & Francis Dee) will ever be reunited. I won't give it away, but what happens in the end is emotionally powerful.

The film was released in February 1941, 70 years ago

117 min. • Available to rent via NetFlix. • 1 Oscar nomination: Best Original Music Score

Directed by John Cromwell • Based on the 1939 novel "Flotsam" by Erich Maria Remarque

10/06/2010

Top 10 American Movie Stars of 1959

1932| 1933| 1934| 1935| 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 |
1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948| 1949 | 1950 |

1951 |1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959|1960 |
1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 |1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 |
1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977-present

The rankings come from Quigley Publishing Co.'s annual list (since 1932) of top money making stars in the USA, which based on a poll of hundreds of theater executives. The list does not rank stars only on how much cash their films made, but on what theater owners say about who attracts audiences on their star power alone.

1. Rock Hudson