The 1974 movie Gold (not to be confused with the later Matthew McConaughey film of the same title) was one of two action movies Roger Moore made with director Peter Hunt in the 70s, in between James Bond assignments. (The other being Shout At The Devil). Its a terrific story, if one can get beyond…
The Heroes of Telemark
This 1965 WWII “men on a mission” film is based on the real-life exploits of a small team of Norwegian saboteurs, who were tasked with preventing the Nazis from manufacturing ‘heavy water’, essential for production of an atomic bomb. Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris offer strong chins and a miso-mash of accents as the leads….
French movie poster books
In addition to collecting movie posters themselves, I have also amassed a number of books about movie posters. Whilst some of these are in English, an equal number I have found in France, where I live. Some of these are translations of books that are available elsewhere in English, but others are more specifically about…
Film Review / Photoplay
I used to collect both of these UK movie magazines back in the 70s. I may be wrong, but my vague recollection is these were for sale both in newsagents and in cinema lobbies. In the pre-internet days, these were the best way of keeping track of upcoming releases and figuring out which movies I…
“Making of…” books
Here are a couple of examples of an interesting sub-genre of movie books – the ‘behind the scenes’ making of…. The Live And Let Die book, unusually, does seem to have been authored by Roger Moore himself (albeit probably with the help of a ghost-writer). It is an interesting personal journal of his journey becoming…
Horror movie books
Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History Of Horror Movies was the first movie-related book I ever bought. This would have been back in the 70s. It was quite instrumental, in retrospect, in me developing a love of movies in general, and horror movies in particular. I still have my copy! Author Gifford shows great affection for…
High Plains Drifter / Pale Rider
These are two mythical Westerns from Clint Eastwood, both of which essentially have the same conceit – the Clint character is the reincarnation of a dead lawman murdered by bandits, who returns to deliver justice to the perpetrators. High Plains Drifter was the first Western Clint directed himself, and the influence of Sergio Leone looms…
Movie novelisations
The movie “novelisation” is a concept that really took off in the late 70s. Movies adapted from novels have been a thing since the birth of cinema. A few selected movies also were published in book form way back when, notably the original King King. But the popularity of novelisations based on original movie scripts…
Movie Make-up
When I was a kid I developed a nerdy fascination with movie special effects and make-up. There was a point at which I tried (and failed) to build a dinosaur model out of wire, rubber and papier-mâché, in the style of Ray Harryhausen’s much-loved stop-motion monsters. (Quite why I bothered I don’t know as I…