Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about feature films.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) released Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) in November 1941. One of the later Thin Man films (affiliate link), the film contains interesting vignettes for wrestling fans. Nick Charles, played by William Powell, is pulled into a state investigation of a local gambling ring. Two local wrestling promoters run the gambling ring, which is art imitating life if
At nearly 70 years of age, Stanislaus Zbyszko made his film debut in Night and the City (1950). Billed as Gregorious, a retired wrestler and the father of London’s wrestling promoter, Zbyszko displayed his wrestling skills, even at his advanced age, in the film’s signature scene. The movie begins with a man chasing Harry Fabian, a London hustler always looking
Roland V. West directed fourteen films in his career. Critics consider three of his films to be excellent. West directed the silent thriller The Bat in 1926. West directed his most acclaimed film, Alibi (1929), which resulted in an Oscar nomination for his friend Chester Morris. In 1930, West and Morris again collaborated on his last classic, The Bat Whispers,
On January 10, 1927, Universum Film (UFA) released Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). The German film company produced a science fiction class, which still holds up today. On the Internet Movie Database website (IMDB), users rate it 8.3 out of 10 stars. It is #104 on the Top 250. In a theme society has wrestled with since the beginning of the
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) released After The Thin Man (1936), the sequel to the popular Thin Man (1934), on Christmas Day 1936. The film is one of 14 films William Powell and Myrna Loy made together. Powell and Loy play Dashiell Hammet’s characters Nick and Nora Charles respectively. Nick Charles formerly worked as a private detective before marrying the wealthy heiress Nora.
Fritz Lang made one of his early crime films in 1922. He directed Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922), which ran approximately four hours and thirty minutes. It tells the story of Dr. Mabuse, a professor of psychoanalysis. He is also the leader of a criminal ring in the mold of Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes series. In his multiple
On May 11, 1931, Fritz Lang’s classic film M (affiliate link) was released in Berlin, Germany. Besides being on most lists for the top 100 films of all time, Fritz Lang believed his finest film was M (1931). The film is the story of a series of child murders that are occurring in Berlin. The police are determined to catch the killer
On January 10, 1940, Rowland V. Lee released his low-budget feature film The Son of Monte Cristo (1940) through United Artists. Rowland V. Lee started directing films in 1920 and would make 59 films before retiring in 1945. In this film, Louis Hayward plays The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund Dantes, Jr. The Count inherits his father’s money and the
This film (affiliate link) was the first Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes. Sidney Lanfield directed The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) for Twentieth-Century Fox. Nigel Bruce co-stars as Dr. John Watson. Rathbone and Bruce would play Holmes and Watson in thirteen subsequent films, one more for Twentieth-Century Fox and twelve for Universal Pictures. This film is a
On November 13, 1930, Roland V. West released The Bat Whispers (1930), the talkie version of his silent classic, The Bat (1926). The film follows faithfully the script of the original. However, West is able to experiment with film techniques like tracking shots, still a novelty in early sound cinema. Editing still dominated as the continuity and story moving technique.