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White Christmas
My favorite holiday movie is now and has always been (after “Die Hard”) “White Christmas”. And as this is the case and it is 62 years old this Christmas season, I’m going to write about it. “White Christmas” came out in 1954 and quickly became the highest grossing box office hit of the year, earning what today would be $102.7 million. The film was also the first movie filed in VistaVision which allowed for a widescreen effect. It was supposed to be the third of a trio of movies starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as a musical showcase for Irving Berlin. However, Mr. Astaire declined the role and asked…
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Gene Wilder
“Time is a precious thing. Never waste it” – Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) Jerome Silberman was born on June 11, 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to William J. and Jeanne (Baer) Silberman. He would later adopt “Gene Wilder” as his professional name explaining, “I had always liked Gene because of Thomas Wolfe’s character Eugene Gant in Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River. And I was always a great admirer of Thornton Wilder.” Wilder first became interested in acting at age 8, when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to “try and make her laugh.” Around the age of 11, he saw…
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HISTORICAL INACCURACIES IN 300
Entertainment and history often cross because most of the time life is much more interesting and stranger than fiction. However, entertainment often takes liberties with the real story to dress it up or make it more “sexy”. That’s fine, since most of us know that a fictional movie is not a documentary. In the movie 300 we are discussing today, the creator Frank Miller was up front about it. He said, “The inaccuracies, almost all of them, are intentional.” and in the same interview, “I was looking for more an evocation than a history lesson. The best result I can hope for is that if the movie excites someone, they’ll…
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Historical Inaccuracies in Gladiator
I can understand why creative license is taken in film and television. We just do not know every tiny detail that happened throughout history. Sometimes creative license is taken to condense the events to fit into the relatively short time frame of movies and television. However, sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why major changes were made. Things have been unchanged needlessly and the real story is not given its due. Gladiator was a box office hit with all-star cast as well as being loaded with fighting, action and blood galore; a mixture for pure success. But what happens when that particularly popular movie tells…
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Brian Bedford
He was born in Morley, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Ellen (née O’Donnell) and Arthur Bedford. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1952 to 1954. As a stage actor, he was well known for his English-speaking interpretations of the French playwright Molière, including Tony Award nominated performances in Tartuffe, The Molière Comedies and The School for Wives, for which he received the Tony Award. He was a great Shakespearean actor, most notable for his role as Ariel in The Tempest. Angelo in Measure for Measure at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 1975 and 1976, andThe Public Theater’s New York Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Park productions of…
