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“At my signal, unleash hell.” For those of us that were alive back in the year 2000 and avid movie fans, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was an event. While historical dramas aren’t especially rare nowadays, back then, they were relatively rare. Sure, there was the occasional Braveheart or Rob Roy, but they weren’t considered a bankable genre. Yet, that all changed when director Ridley Scott, whose career was at a low ebb following the failure of almost every movie he made in the 90s decided to revive the so-called “sword and sandal” genre with a gritty, lavish redux of the historical epic.

In the fifties and sixties, these types of movies were commonplace, although in movies like The Robe or Ben-Hur, they usually told biblical tales. That changed a little with Spartacus, El Cid, and The Fall of the Roman Empire, but before long the genre was considered a...

Russell Crowe starrer “The Last Druid” must rate as one of the highest-profile projects being brought to market at this week’s American Film Market. Its partners – Range Media Partners, Spain’s Nostromo, CAA Media Finance and AGC International – are aiming to shoot in Spain.

Norman Reedus, star of AMC Networks “The Walking Dead: Darryl Dixon” was besieged by fans late August as he shot Season 3 in Madrid, which looks set to double for London, double-decker red bus with signage for Trafalgar Square being caught on video cruising central Madrid streets.

Guy Ritchie filmed Henry Cavill starrer “In the Grey” for 35 days in Spain’s Canary Island of Tenerife last year, having also shot part of “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” in the country.

Led by “Game of Thrones’” Sean Bean, “This City is Mine,” produced by Left Bank Pictures for BBC One, shot in Marbella over March, April and early May.

It’s easy when writing about Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to place focus on it rivaling the budget devoted to any TV series, ever. But what are showrunners Patrick McKay and Jd Payne delivering that makes the continuation of the Jrr Tolkien mythology worthwhile? Season 2 has just arrived on Prime Video, and a viewing of the first three episodes shows a storytelling ambition that points to a deep love of Tolkien mythology that gives the show a template different from Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning Lotr trilogy. And also a storytelling runway that can stretch as long as the one that powered Game of Thrones and its spinoffs. Here, McKay and Payne take a deep dive into the mix of Middle-earth storytelling and spectacle, and their deep love of Tolkien’s world creation.

Deadline: You guys have been writing partners for 25 years. How did that begin,...

“When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free,” says Cesar Catalina, the futuristic architect at the beating heart of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (to give it its full title), a mad eco-sci-fi blockbuster some 40 years in the making. Catalina says it several times, and it’s one of the more succinct aphorisms that he spouts in a script that is stuffed with seemingly random literary allusions from the likes of Petrarch, Crassus and Marcus Aurelius to Goethe, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Watching Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire and eating cheese afterwards would be the only way to replicate its fever-dream grandeur, a series of stunning images, carried along by the loosest of plots, that pontificate on the self-destructive nature of humankind, the only species capable of civilizing itself to death.

True to the advance gossip, Megalopolis is something of a mess — unruly,...

There are ghosts on and off the screen in Ridley Scott’s 28th feature, chief among them being Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican military strategist who inveigled his way up through the ranks of the military to become the leader of France not once but twice. That at the age of nearly 86 Scott has stepped up to finish what Kubrick couldn’t is something the British director will no doubt relish. But though his take on the story is his own, there’s still something elusive about Bonaparte’s story that doesn’t make a coherent whole: as is consistent with history, Scott’s Napoleon is a lover and a fighter, an incongruity that leads to sharp changes in tone and a restlessly episodic narrative that can be overwhelming in its dates, names and places.

For Napoleon to work at all, it needs an imposing but charismatic presence,...

The origin of United Artists is well-known to any passingly devoted Hollywood history buff, and it can be found Tin Balio's book "United Artists, Volume 1, 1919 - 1950: The Company Built by the Stars." In 1918, Mary Pickford, Carlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith — four of the biggest celebrities of their time — felt something fishy was happening with each of their respective studio contracts. Each of their tenures was due to end soon, and none of them had yet received any offer of renewal. In order to find out what was happening, the quartet hired a private investigator (!) to look into what was going on. The P.I. found that the separate companies that each of them worked for planned on a giant merger, which would lock in standard five-year contracts.

The stars were not interested in such shenanigans and elected, instead, to simply form their own production company. As it was founded by artists,...

Any WW2 action adventure involving the Norwegian resistance is Ok in my book, and this big-star saga about sabotage efforts to stop the Nazis’ atom research is a natural — much of what happens in the story is true. The show can boast marvelous locations and excellent action scenes but the script and characters aren’t very strong. Did Columbia curb epic director Anthony Mann’s greater ambitions, or did star Kirk Douglas interfere to enhance his leading character into a combo scientist, playboy and sure-shot action man? Also starring Ulla Jacobsson, Richard Harris, Michael Redgrave, and every over-fifty English name actor not nailed down.

The Heroes of Telemark

Blu-ray

Sony Home Entertainment

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 130 min. / Street Date January 8, 2019

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Ulla Jacobsson, Michael Redgrave, David Weston, Roy Dotrice, Anton Diffring, Ralph Michael, Eric Porter, Karel Stepanek, George Murcell, Mervyn Johns, Barry Jones, Geoffrey Keen, Robert Ayres,...

Plummer in "Battle of Britain" (1969).

By Lee Pfeiffer

Christopher Plummer, the world-acclaimed star of stage, screen and television, has passed away at age 91. Complications from a fall in his Connecticut home were cited as the cause of death. Plummer never had to make his way up the ranks on the big screen. He received prominent billing in his movie debut in Sidney Lumet's 1958 production of  "Stage Struck"- and henceforth he would generally enjoy starring roles. Plummer moved with ease between films, stage and TV, earning critical plaudits along the way, as well as winning two Tony Awards and a late career Oscar for the film "Beginnings" in 2010. He was especially acclaimed for his work in Shakespearean productions in the U.S., England and Canada. Plummer, a native Canadian, became a legend by playing the male lead, Captain von Trapp, in the 1965 Oscar-winning film production of "The Sound of Music...

Update: “Beginners” director Mike Mills has spoken to IndieWire about the passing of Christopher Plummer, who won an Academy Award for his role in the film. Plummer played Hal Fields, an aging patriarch who comes out to his son late in life, and chooses to live his final years as an out gay man.

“It was a great honor to work with Christopher, to be in conversation with such a dedicated artist,” Mike Mills said. “In his 80s when we met, I marveled at his intense curiosity, hunger to make something vulnerable, and his need to challenge himself. Christopher was both dignified and mischievous, deeply cultured and always looking for a good laugh. As he said about playing my father who was dying ‘not an ounce of self pity,’ and that’s how he was. I’ll always be indebted to Christopher for honoring the story of an older man...

Christopher Plummer, the prolific actor who starred in The Sound of Music, Beginners, The Last Station and countless more, died Friday, February 5th. He was 91.

Plummer’s manager, Lou Pitt, confirmed his death, in a statement to Variety, “Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words. He was a National Treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will...

Christopher Plummer, whose long acting career included Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award wins, has died at the age of 91.

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old-fashioned manners, self-deprecating humor and the music of words,” Lou Pitt, Plummer’s longtime manager, said in a statement obtained by our sister site Deadline. “He was a national treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.”

More from TVLineFlight...

Star passed away peacefully at home in Connecticut.

Canadian actor Christopher Plummer has died aged 91. His family confirmed that he passed away peacefully at home in Connecticut with his wife of 53 years, Elaine Taylor, by his side.

Perhaps most famous for playing Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound Of Music, Plummer’s other film roles included The Fall of The Roman Empire, The Man Who Would Be King, The Last Station, All the Money In The World and Beginners, for which he won an Academy Award for best supporting actor in 2012 at the age of 82, making him the oldest actor to win an Oscar.

Christopher Plummer, the Canadian-born Shakespearean actor who starred in films including “The Sound of Music” and “Beginners,” died on Friday morning at his home in Connecticut. He was 91.

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words,” said Lou Pitt, his longtime friend and manager of 46 years. “He was a national treasure who deeply relished his Canadian roots. Through his art and humanity, he touched all of our hearts and his legendary life will endure for all generations to come. He will forever be with us.”

An imposing theatrical presence with a well-cultivated, resonant voice, that critic John Simon once observed, “in its chamois mode, can polish mirrors,” Plummer was best known for playing Captain von Trapp in the Oscar-winning musical “The Sound of Music.” He also won an Oscar in 2012 for his supporting turn in the film “Beginners,...

One of the more satisfying costume adventures of the ‘sixties is also one of its star’s best vehicles. Charlton Heston was born to play bigger-than-life historical types, and his Norman knight in this film has the benefit of an intelligent screenplay and a terrific supporting ensemble. This hero’s armor doesn’t shine — he’s more than willing to risk everything to possess a pagan woman with whom he’s become infatuated. Many would-be epics want us to think that the charms of unlikely damsels like Virginia Mayo and Claudette Colbert changed the course of history, but this show makes it seem more than possible. Plus, it features great action scenes and a terrific music score by Jerome Moross.

The War Lord

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 123 min. / Special Edition / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, Rosemary Forsyth, Maurice Evans, Guy Stockwell,...

Joseph Losey’s fortunes as an expatriate director took an upswing with this efficient, nervous and somewhat overcooked thriller with a daunting ticking-bomb deadline story gimmick — alcoholic wreck Michael Redgrave has only twenty hours to save his son from execution for murder. Losey racks up the tension, but he doesn’t give a hoot for Ben Barzman’s whodunnit scripting. Just the same, it’s good to see the director finally gaining traction — from this point forward most every Losey picture received serious international attention.

Time Without Pity

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1957 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 89 min. / Street Date October 28, 2019 / available from Powerhouse Films UK (Region Free) / £15.99

Starring: Michael Redgrave, Leo McKern, Ann Todd, Peter Cushing, Alec McCowen, Lois Maxwell, Richard Wordsworth, Joan Plowright.

Cinematography: Freddie Francis

Film Editor: Alan Osbiston

Original Music: Tristram Cary

Written by Ben Barzman from a play by Emlyn Williams

Produced by John Arnold, Leon Clore,...

Now Shipping Worldwide!

Cinema Retro proudly announces its annual Movie Classics special edition for 2018: Roadshow Epics of the '60s! This is an 80-page special that provides in-depth coverage of the making of five memorable epic films:

Mutiny on the Bounty

Lawrence of Arabia

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Khartoum

The behind-the-scenes struggles to bring these monumental productions to the screen often equaled the events depicted in the screenplays. Indeed, all but Lawrence of Arabia proved to be boxoffice failures (or disasters). However, Cinema Retro provides compelling evidence that all of them were superbly filmed and provided many grand, memorable moments. This special edition provides fascinating insights into the often seemingly insurmountable challenges directors, writers, producers and actors had to overcome in order to bring the films to completion. These are the kind of movies we think of when we hear it said...

Now Shipping Worldwide!

Cinema Retro proudly announces its annual Movie Classics special edition for 2018: Roadshow Epics of the '60s! This is an 80-page special that provides in-depth coverage of the making of five memorable epic films:

Mutiny on the Bounty

Lawrence of Arabia

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Khartoum

The behind-the-scenes struggles to bring these monumental productions to the screen often equaled the events depicted in the screenplays. Indeed, all but Lawrence of Arabia proved to be boxoffice failures (or disasters). However, Cinema Retro provides compelling evidence that all of them were superbly filmed and provided many grand, memorable moments. This special edition provides fascinating insights into the often seemingly insurmountable challenges directors, writers, producers and actors had to overcome in order to bring the films to completion. These are the kind of movies we think of when we hear it said...

Now Shipping Worldwide!

Cinema Retro proudly announces its annual Movie Classics special edition for 2018: Roadshow Epics of the '60s! This is an 80-page special that provides in-depth coverage of the making of five memorable epic films:

Mutiny on the Bounty

Lawrence of Arabia

The Fall of the Roman Empire

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Khartoum

The behind-the-scenes struggles to bring these monumental productions to the screen often equaled the events depicted in the screenplays. Indeed, all but Lawrence of Arabia proved to be boxoffice failures (or disasters). However, Cinema Retro provides compelling evidence that all of them were superbly filmed and provided many grand, memorable moments. This special edition provides fascinating insights into the often seemingly insurmountable challenges directors, writers, producers and actors had to overcome in order to bring the films to completion. These are the kind of movies we think of when we hear it said...

‘Things Blowing Up Good’ has been surefire entertainment since the beginning of cinema, but this ill-fated Cinerama extravaganza about the biggest explosion in recorded human history limps along despite some pretty darned impressive volcanic effects. It’s quite an entertaining spectacle, with various good performers in three soap opera plots, either overacting or loitering about with nothing to do. And don’t forget the from-left-field musical striptease.

Krakatoa East of Java

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 131 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Maximilian Schell, Diane Baker, Brian Keith, Barbara Werle, Sal Mineo, Rossano Brazzi, John Leyton, J.D. Cannon, Jacqueline (Jacqui) Chan, Victoria Young, Marc Lawrence, Geoffrey Holder, Niall MacGinnis, Sumi Haru.

Cinematography: Manuel Berenguer

Film Editors: Walter Hannemann, Warren Low, Maurice Rootes

Production Design: Eugèné Lourié

Costumes: Laure Lourié

Special Effects: Eugèné Lourié, Alex Weldon, Francisco Prósper

Original Music: Frank De Vol

Written by Clifford Newton Gould,...

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz... 

Stephen Boyd, Sophia Loren, and Alec Guinness in The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964)

190 BC Marucs Arelius, the Emperor of Rome, dies. Was he assassinated? That's the suspicion in most Hollywood accounts. He's been played by Alec Guiness (The Fall of the Roman Empire) and Richard Harris (Gladiator)

1906 Character actor of big and small screen Michael O'Shea, who later married Virginia Mayo, is born...

Julie Andrews, Max von Sydow and Richard Harris bring James Michener's true saga to life -- but it's the story of the destruction of paradise. A huge success just the same, producer Walter Mirisch's film testifies to the skill with which he brought together big talent for a show that doesn't compromise with a happy-happy historical revision. Hawaii Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 161 min. / Ship Date January 19, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Julie Andrews, Max von Sydow, Richard Harris, Gene Hackman, Carroll O'Connor, Jocelyne Lagarde, Manu Tupou, Ted Nobriga, Elizabeth Logue. Cinematography Russell Harlan Production Designer Cary Odell Art Direction James W. Sullivan Film Editor Stuart Gilmore Original Music Elmer Bernstein Written by Dalton Trumbo, Daniel Taradash from the novel by James Michener Produced by Walter Mirisch Directed by George Roy Hill

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Well, fans of James Michener that missed the...

Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who broke through barriers to become a major international star, has died in Cairo from a heart attack at age 83. In recent months, he had been battling the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Sharif and Peter O'Toole were virtual unknowns when they were cast as the leads by director David Lean in his 1962 masterpiece "Lawrence of Arabia". Both received Oscar nominations for the film and went on to become two of the biggest stars to emerge in the 1960s. Sharif reunited with Lean for another blockbuster, the 1965 production of "Doctor Zhivago" in which Sharif played the title role. He also co-starred with Barbra Streisand in her Oscar-winning 1968 film "Funny Girl" and appeared with her in the 1975 sequel "Funny Lady". Other prominent films Sharif appeared in during the 1960s include Samuel Bronston's ill-fated but underrated "The Fall of the Roman Empire", "Behold a Pale Horse", the...

Omar Sharif, the Egyptian-born actor known for his classic roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago, passed away Friday in a Cairo, Egypt hospital after suffering a heart attack. Both the actor's agent Steve Kenis and the head of Egypt's Theatrical Arts Guild Ashraf Zaki confirmed his passing;  Sharif was 83. It was recently revealed that the Golden Globe-winning actor was also suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Variety reports.

After beginning his career as a major star in Middle Eastern cinema, Sharif was cast to play Sherif Ali in 1962's epic Lawrence of Arabia,...

"Omar Sharif, best known for his roles in classic films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, has died aged 83," reports the BBC. "Egypt-born Sharif won two Golden Globe awards and an Oscar nomination for his role as Sherif Ali in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia. He won a further Golden Globe three years later for Doctor Zhivago." He also appeared in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and Genghis Khan (1965), "though his most famous non-Lean film may be the 1968 musical Funny Girl, which teamed him with Barbara Streisand," notes the BFI. We're collecting remembrances. » - David Hudson...

"Omar Sharif, best known for his roles in classic films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, has died aged 83," reports the BBC. "Egypt-born Sharif won two Golden Globe awards and an Oscar nomination for his role as Sherif Ali in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia. He won a further Golden Globe three years later for Doctor Zhivago." He also appeared in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and Genghis Khan (1965), "though his most famous non-Lean film may be the 1968 musical Funny Girl, which teamed him with Barbara Streisand," notes the BFI. We're collecting remembrances. » - David Hudson...

Legendary Egyptian-born, British trained actor Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83.

Though studying maths and physics at University, and working in the family business of precious woods, Sharif felt the lure of performing and ended up appearing in more than twenty productions in Egypt from 1953.

His big international break came in 1962 when he joined David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and scored both a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for his work as Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish. He went on to roles in various major movies including "Doctor Zhivago," "Funny Girl," "Behold a Pale Horse," "Che!," "Top Secret," "Hidalgo," "The Fall of the Roman Empire ," "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," "The Mysterious Island," "The Last Valley," "The Baltimore Bullet," "Mayerling," "The Night of the Generals," "Genghis Khan," "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna," "One Night with the King " and "Monsieur Ibrahim".

Surprisingly he also became famous...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of "Crash" (on May 6, 2005), an all-star movie whose controversy came not from its provocative treatment of racial issues but from its Best Picture Oscar victory a few months later, against what many critics felt was a much more deserving movie, "Brokeback Mountain."

The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.

Voice actor Robert Rietti has died, aged 92.

Rietti was known for lending his voice to James Bond villains when filmmakers wanted to re-record lines.

According to The Times, Rietti died on April 3.

Among the villains he dubbed were Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) in 1965's Thunderball and Ernst Stavro Blofeld (John Hollis) in 1981's For Your Eyes Only.

"In nearly every Bond picture, there's been a foreign villain, and in almost every case, they've used my voice," Rietti once said.

Throughout his career, he also voiced characters in The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Doctor Zhivago (1965), Barbarella (1968), Frenzy (1972), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Trail of the Pink Panther (1982).

Anthony Mann

As much as any other filmmaker who found a niche in a given genre, in the 10 Westerns Anthony Mann directed from 1950 to 1958 he carved out a place in film history as one who not only reveled in the conventions of that particular form, but also as one who imbued in it a distinct aesthetic and narrative approach. In doing so, Mann created Westerns that were simultaneously about the making of the West as a historical phenomenon, as well as about the making of its own developing cinematic genus. At the same time, he also established the traits that would define his auteur status, formal devices that lend his work the qualities of a director who enjoyed, understood, and readily exploited and manipulated a type of film's essential features.

Though he made several fine pictures outside the Western, Mann as an American auteur is most notably recognized for his work in this field,...

 

On December 7 there will be a rare big screen showing of producer Samuel Bronston's 1964 epic "The Fall of the Roman Empire" starring Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness and Christopher Plummer. The film's failure ended Bronston's career but it remains an impressive, thinking-man's spectacle. The movie will be shown at Concordia University and will be presented in Ib Tech!  For details click here

(Thanks to reader King-Wei Chu for the head's up!)  ...

Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba has revealed further details of The Queen Of Spain (La Reina De Espana), the new comedy drama he is planning to make with Spanish star and fellow Oscar winner Penelope Cruz.

The film is a follow-up to The Girl Of Your Dreams (2000), the Goya-award winning feature about a Spanish film crew shooting a film at Ufa Studios in late 1930s Nazi-era Berlin.

The other stars of the original film, among them Jorge Sanz and Santiago Segura, have also agreed to appear in the film and there is now a completed script.

Trueba talked about the project when giving the Binger/Screen International interview at the Holland Film Meeting in Utrecht on Friday evening.

The new film is set in the Franco-era Spain of the 1950s - as big American film companies begin to come to the country to shoot runaway productions like El Cid and The Fall Of The Roman Empire.

“One...

Universal Pictures

During the 1950s and 60s the historical epic was something of a staple of Hollywood’s output – from Ben-Hur to The Fall of the Roman Empire, sword and sandals tales on a huge scale were incredibly popular, guaranteed to draw huge crowds into the cinemas.

By the late 1990s, however, this was long a thing of the past. Studios were reluctant to pour the required millions into such lavish productions for fear that the public no longer wanted to see such movies, and for the most part they were right. Then Ridley Scott came along – collaborating with writers and producers David Franzoni and Douglas Wick, they pitched the idea of Gladiator to Universal Pictures who gave the movie the green light even before a script had been completed. It was a bold move, especially considering that the script would be under constant rewrites throughout the lengthy production.

The...

Men in War

Written by Philip Yordan

Directed by Anthony Mann

USA, 1957

Director Anthony Mann was a specialist at genre filmmaking. From early crime dramas like T-Men and Raw Deal, to historical epics like El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire, he seemed to have a knack for working within — and working with — the conventions of a given generic formula. His Westerns, especially, are among the best that that particular type of movie has to offer. And when he set his sights on the war film, his natural aptitude for genre would be as prominent as it was anywhere. Men in War, from 1957, his second war film of the decade (released two years after Strategic Air Command), contains much of what makes Mann a distinct filmmaker, and reveals much of what makes the war film its own unique form of motion picture.

Set in Korea, 1950, Men in War...

Readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts

What is the most critically acclaimed film that was a box-office disaster on release?

The Fall of the Roman Empire, directed by Anthony Mann in 1964, is frequently cited as being the most intelligently written, the most strongly cast, and most capably acted of all the movies in the sword-and-sandal genre that was so fashionable in Hollywood in the 1960s. Yet it lost a then-record $14.25m at the box office, at a time when studios were not able to recoup some of those losses by video or DVD sales.

Since 1964, and allowing for inflation, only a dozen films have lost more money, and given that they include such turkeys as Heaven's Gate and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, it is safe to say that none of them are in the same league as Mann's...

(Anthony Mann, 1947, Blue Dolphin, PG)

Anthony Mann (1906-67) is best known for 11 major Hollywood westerns made in the 1950s and two European epics (El Cid, The Fall of the Roman Empire) in the 60s. But in the 40s he directed a succession of noir movies, the second being Railroaded, made by B-feature specialists Prc (Producers Releasing Corporation), whose shooting schedules were rarely more than a week. Shot in high-contrast black and white, the film begins with an economically staged heist at an illegal gambling joint that goes wrong when a cop is killed and an innocent man is framed for the murder. The handsome hero's a dull guy. More interestingly, the killer (John Ireland) is a brutal fetishist who rubs perfume on his bullets, strokes his gun and abuses his drunken moll. Hardboiled screenwriter John C Higgins wrote five noir movies for Mann.

This is the first film in a new series,...

Outrageous beauty, a million dollar movie deal and a dream home outside Rome: it's hard being Sophia Loren

Many actresses have loved, before friends and certainly for the still camera, to play the "homebody": to show they can combine red-carpet smiles with a down-to-earth way in the kitchen garden; whistle up a rustic lunchtime banquet for 30 and serve it without fussings or frissons or primping about drips. Yet none with such verisimilitude as Sophia Loren; waiting tables, juggling seven hands and six different smiles, had been living through some very difficult teenage years.

Even here in 1964, living in her and producer Carlo Ponti's 50-room mansion near Rome's Lake Albano, complete with acres of poplars and sheep, and stuffed inside with medieval hangings and masters both old and modern, and having just made headlines for her $1m advance for The Fall of the Roman Empire, there's an earthy authenticity.

Playfoot/London Voices/Lso/Kaufman

(Lso Live)

Among the greatest Hollywood composers, Dimitri Tiomkin once made an Oscar acceptance speech in which he thanked Brahms, Strauss, Beethoven and Rimsky-Korsakov for teaching him his craft. He was much derided at the time, though in fact his classical pedigree was impeccable. Born in the Ukraine, he studied composition with Glazunov in St Petersburg and established himself as a pianist, specialising in Scriabin, before the Us beckoned. His music remained rooted in Russian late Romanticism. Borodin is never far away from his score for The Alamo, while the famous title theme for the TV series Rawhide gravitates, more than once, towards Glazunov. Elsewhere, Rimsky collides with Wagner in The Fall of the Roman Empire, while clotted, Scriabinesque harmonies accompany Ray Milland's terrorisation of Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder. This fine selection was recorded at the Barbican last year, and is...

I come to praise Sword & Sandal movies -- not to bury them. But with Wrath of the Titans and the Sword & Sandal/sci-fi mash-up John Carter not exactly setting the world on fire -- along with recent disappointments like Immortals and Conan -- it's getting more difficult by the day to believe that the Sword & Sandal movie can survive the recent fumbling of this otherwise great genre. And that's a shame, because the Sword & Sandal movie -- known for its gladiatorial games, pagan orgies, depraved emperors, and the occasional snarling cyclops -- may represent the most colorful and enduring movie genre of all time. So for the uninitiated, what exactly is a Sword & Sandal movie? Like its cousin the Biblical epic, a Sword & Sandal movie -- or 'peplum,' named after a type of ancient Greek garment -- is typically set in the ancient Mediterranean world, and dramatizes the fight for freedom.

Omar Sharif Jr., grandson of the Doctor Zhivago star, is currently in the news because he has come out as a gay man who happens to be half-Jewish (on his mother's side) in an essay found in The Advocate — one accompanied by a photograph showing a hairy, buffed-up, bare-chested man (Sharif Jr.?) holding the Egyptian flag. In the essay, the 29-year-old Montreal-born actor explains he wrote the piece out of "fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself." As per Sharif Jr., the problem is that in Egypt "the full spectrum of equal and human rights are now wedge issues used by both the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the Islamist parties, when they should be regarded as universal truths." Further down in his piece, he adds: And so I hesitantly confess: I am Egyptian, I am half Jewish, and I am gay.

Christopher Plummer Christopher Plummer — SAG Award winner for Male Actor in a Supporting Role — poses in the press room during the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. The SAG Awards ceremony was broadcast on TNT/TBS from the Shrine Auditorium on January 29, 2012, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/WireImage.) After expressing his pride in being a member of the world's "second oldest profession," Christopher Plummer went on to say that actors may be "wacky" and the like, but winning an award from them is like to be "lit by the Holy Grail." Plummer also thanked his Beginners co-star Ewan McGregor, who "makes acting look so easy," and the film's writer-director Mike Mills for creating "such a human story." Inspired by Mills' relationship with his own father, Beginners is the tale of a son (McGregor) who learns that his elderly father (Plummer) is gay. Plummer's competition consisted of Kenneth Branagh...

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from the BBC:

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(Christmas Eve; 10:40pm; BBC Four)

BBC Bristol’s Timeshift reveals the Ten Commandments of Big Cinema as it goes behind the scenes of the biggest film genre of them all - the Hollywood Epic. See the biggest sets ever known! Hear the sound of Ancient Rome! Count the spiralling costs as budgets soared!

From Ben-Hur to The Ten Commandments, from El Cid to Cleopatra, these were films that set a new standard in Big. In the days before computers they recreated ancient worlds on a vast scale, and they did it for real. Epic cinema hired armies, defied the seasons and changed cinema. Even the screen wasn't big enough for the epic, so Hollywood made it bigger - and some cinemagoers experienced vertigo watching these vast productions.

Today, the Epic...

A treasure trove of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia went under the hammer at an auction in Los Angeles on Friday, and two signed photos sent the bidding wild.

The Profiles in History Icons of Hollywood sale produced many big surprises as items went for much more than their expected price and Monroe's booty was a prize pick-up.

Camera negatives from the film Some Like It Hot sold for $1,500 (£937) - five times their expected sales price - and rare shots of Monroe and Clark Gable on the set of The Misfits went under the hammer for $2,000 (£1,250) - over three times what they were expected to fetch.

Highlights of the Monroe lots also included an autographed letter signed by the 18-year-old 'Norma Jeane' ($52,500/£32,800); a personal Monroe photograph signed by Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper ($60,000/£37,500); a portrait of a young Marilyn wearing a sheer lace trim, signed ($37,500/£23,400), and Monroe's invitation to a John F. Kennedy birthday celebration ($40,000/£25,000).

Other big items going under the hammer during Friday afternoon's auction session included the screen-used prop vellum treasure map from 1934 film Treasure Island ($60,000/£37,500); the Mattel hoverboard from Back to the Future II ($22,500/£14,000); Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly Clint Eastwood hat from Back to the Future III ($19,000/£11,900); Anthony Quinn's Auda Abu Tayi costume from Lawrence of Arabia ($22,500/£14,000); Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher’s marriage license from their Las Vegas wedding ($7,000/£4,400), and the Roman costume worn by Christopher Plummer as Commodus in The Fall of the Roman Empire ($15,000/£9,400).

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: The legendary Christopher Plummer, who has been earning raves for his performance in Mike Mills’ “Beginners” as a widower embracing his homosexuality, will receive the “Hollywood Supporting Actor Award” at this year’s 15th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Film Awards, presented by Starz Entertainment. The event is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 24, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Plummer, an Academy Award nominee for his recent performance in “The Last Station,” has been enjoying even more awards chatter as of late for his turn as Hal, a closeted gay man who didn’t choose to come out until his wife passed away … much to the surprise of his son (Ewan McGregor).

Plummer, who can be seen in “Barrymore” and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” later this year, will be on hand to accept the award.

His bio is below:

Christopher Plummer...

Here is a incredible collection of mindblowingly cool art from artist Ulises Farinas showing us a fantastic world of medieval DC superheros in the year 1000. Not only has he created the art, but he provides background information on many of the characters that includes Batman and Robin, the Legion of Doom and the Justice League. This could actually make for a pretty cool comic book series.

Check out the art and character information below, and let us know what you think about it!

Batman and Robin 1000 C.E.

Legion of Doom 1000 C.E.

Justice League 1000 C.E.

Backstory:

The Dark Ages. It has been nearly 300 years since the fall of the Roman Empire, a time of prosperity and the height of ancient culture. The Gods themselves walked amongst men, not as rulers, but as compatriots. But those times are over, and civilization has fractured, plunged into a chasm where greed,...

We’ve lost a classic star, one that was almost too good to be true. She had brains and beauty in copious amounts, and film fans loved her every moment she was on screen. Not going to go into any of the ill will people threw upon her, this isn’t about any of that. This is about the legend Elizabeth Taylor and what she meant to us, movie lovers the world over. Of course this isn’t a definitive Top 10. This is mine, but I would love for anyone and everyone to contribute their own entries that they would pick instead.

10. Cleopatra (1963)

This was the film that introduced me to Elizabeth Taylor at a ripe young age of 5. Once she came on the screen, I was in love. Taylor was probably the earliest crush I could remember having (besides Drew Barrymore in E.T.) and I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

In 1993, audiences gazing on the truly imposing sight of dinosaurs come to life in Jurassic Park felt the same sense of jaw-dropping awe displayed by the movie’s human characters. Nothing in movie history could compare to what Steven Spielberg and his CGI crew were able to put on the screen: not the herky-jerky stop-motion-animated lizards of 1950s monster-on-the-loose movies like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), nor the pet store lizards made up to look like supposedly threatening beasts in Irwin Allen’s back lot The Lost World (1960), and certainly not a man in a rubber reptile suit rampaging through a miniature Tokyo in the original Godzilla (1954). But as impressive a sight as it was, once the novelty of Jurassic’s CGI creations wore off, so did some of their appeal.

Jurassic Park earned a whopping $350.5 million domestic gross, and while its sequels were, without question, major box office successes, none...

Russell Crowe's dynamic Robin Hood repels foreign invaders in this blood-soaked interpretation of the folk tale

Ten years ago, Ridley Scott retrieved the Roman imperial epic from the 36 years of neglect that followed the failure of Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire. Recognising that what sank Mann's movie was its elegance, careful pacing and world-weary sophistication, Scott's Gladiator began with a ferocious pitched battle in Germania that established its hero, Maximus, as a courageous leader, followed by the death far from home of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the anointing of a weak successor. Scott's reworking of the Robin Hood legend begins in a similar fashion with a succession of violent scenes: the exploitation of provincial landowners in 12th-century England and a bloody siege of a French town by Richard the Lionheart on his return from the Crusades.

The first scene establishes that all is not well...

The Fall of the Roman Empire is one of the films examined in the TCM special.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Premiering on Turner Classic Movies without the usual fanfare, The Gigantic World of Epics is a truly superb one-hour production produced by Dreamworks and filmed by the ubiquitous Laurent Bouzereau. The special manages to condense the genre of Hollywood epics into a coherent, though far from comprehensive, study. Bouzereau wisely concentrates on a select number of films including Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Doctor Zhivago, Bridge on the River Kwai among others. There are intelligent commentaries by noted film historians and technicians as well as directors Kenneth Branagh, Steven Spielberg, John Milius, along with actors such as Martin Landau and Omar Sharif and Fraser Heston, son of Charlton Heston (who provides some tantalizing glimpses of the family's home movies on the...

The late '50s and early '60s produced their share of bloated, inert movies that confused extended running times and excessive art direction with top-flight, value-for-dollar entertainment. But the epic era also gave movie and history buffs unparalleled spectacles like David Lean's The Bridge On The River Kwai and Lawrence Of Arabia, and—almost as good—Anthony Mann's The Fall Of The Roman Empire. In the '40s, Mann was known for earthy noirs, and in the '50s for darkly pragmatic westerns, but in his last decade as a director, Mann helmed grand historical stories that dwelled on the strengths and weaknesses of men struggling with how to reconcile their sense of honor with their lusty desires. Though Mann split The Fall Of The Roman Empire into a series of intimate scenes, he didn't skimp on the pomp. The sets are enormous, the battle scenes well-populated,...