Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Post about classic films and films related to combat sports and history.
I wanted to write about one of my favorite movies, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1935). It is an adaptation of the novel by the same name, written by Baroness Orczy. The film (affiliate link) concerns an English peer, who risks his life by saving French aristocrats from the guillotine. The story is complicated by the fact the peer is married to
In one of the last films in the series, British authorites recruit Sherlock Holmes to protect the young heir to a European throne. Universal Pictures released Pursuit to Algiers (1945) on October 26, 1945. Basil Rathbone returns for the twelfth of fourteen times as Sherlock Holmes. Nigel Bruce again plays his assistant Dr. John Watson. As the film begins, Sherlock
On August 19, 1943, Columbia Pictures released Passport to Suez (1943). Warren William plays Michael Lanyard, the Lone Wolf, for the final time in this film. The film opens in Alexandria, Egypt, where Lanyard has just arrived. Lanyard meets up with his old friend Johnny Booth, a successful cafe’ owner. However, Lanyard’s real purpose is a mission for British Intelligence.
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) is the first of twelve Sherlock Holmes films made by Universal Pictures. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce reprise their roles as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson respectively. Universal set the series in the 1940s despite the fact that the literary Sherlock Holmes was 60 years old in 1914. In a good deal
The Trap (1946) is the last Charlie Chan film starring Sidney Toler as Inspector Chan. The eleventh of eleven Charlie Chan films that Toler made for Monogram Pictures, it marks the return of Victor Sen Yung as “No. 2 Son Jimmy”. Toler was deathly ill during the filming, so Jimmy and Birmingham Brown, played by Mantan Moreland, handle most of
The Canary Murder Case (1929) was originally shot as a silent film. However, the Paramount Studio executive thought it would be better as a talking picture. The studio delayed the release until they could add sound to the film. The addition of sound was not without its challenges. Unfortunately, one of the main stars of the film, Louise Brooks, had
Since the beginning of commercial film making, production companies are always looking for new content. Film companies have always used popular books as a source of content and inspiration. Since the 1950s, popular television shows provided film adaptations and inspiration. In the early days of talking films, popular radio shows led to many film adaptations. Lum and Abner, Jack Benny,
Murder Over New York (1940) is one of the later editions of the Charlie Chan series for Twentieth-Century Fox Productions. In this film, Inspector Chan is assisting his old friend from Scotland Yard, Inspector Drake, find a group of saboteurs. The spies intend to sabotage some test air craft in New York. Inspector Drake is tracing Paul Narvo, who leads
H.G. Wells wrote the story of Things to Come, which was turned into a film in 1936. The film opens during Christmas 1940 in Everytown (obviously London) right before the outbreak of war. The war lasts almost thirty years before “the Airmen” led by John Cabal, a former resident of Everytown, leads the survivors to victory over the remaining war
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in one of my favorite holiday films, Babe in Toyland (affiliate link) or March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934). It is normally shown around Thanksgiving. This film features Stan Laurel as Stannie Dum and Oliver Hardy as Ollie Dee, who are trying to help Mother Peep, the little old women in the shoe. Barnaby, the wicked