Stormy Weather

The fourth and final movie made starring power couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the film noir crime drama Key Largo (1948) was co-adapted and directed by John Huston (The Misfits; The Asphalt Jungle), adapted from Maxwell Anderson’s Broadway play of the same name – something very noticeable with it basically being set in one non-moving location until the climax. Set on the titular island in Florida, army veteran Frank McCloud (Bogart – Dark Passage; The Harder They Fall) finally arrives at Hotel Largo to visit wheelchair bound James Temple (Lionel Barrymore – It’s a Wonderful Life; Grand Hotel) and the man’s daughter-in-law Nora (Bacall – Dark Passage; Misery) – James’s son, Nora’s husband, was under McCloud’s command when he died serving in Italy during World War II.

In 1955, Frank Sinatra used to sing that “love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage”, though the film noir today, titled Woman on the Run, which was released five years earlier in 1950, takes a wholly different look at the topic... centred upon an up and down, topsy turvy roller coaster ride of a relationship – which, of course, has its climax ending at an amusement park that, you guessed it, features a roller coaster. It only seems fitting then that one of its screen writers, Alan Campbell, had his own tumultuous relationship with his wife Dorothy Parker (they formed a popular writing team together), while the feature’s director, Norman Foster (Kiss the Blood Off my Hands; and a protégé of Orson Welles), also had his fair share of problems when he married Claudette Colbert... in other words, two complicated relationships that probably influenced this movie and its themes.

A stepping stone in the right direction for Tony Curtis, helping him move from his heartthrob era into a more well respected star in the late 1950s, 1952's Flesh and Fury (originally to be titled Hear No Evil), directed by Joseph Pevney (The Strange Door), demonstrated that he was someone who could handle more serious roles. Following a deaf and mute boxer named Paul Callan (Curtis – Some Like It Hot) – seemingly based upon late 1940s and early 50s deaf-mute boxer ‘Silent’ Hairston, he is a nobody until his bouts start catching the eye of some well respected people in the pugilist realm, arguably most importantly Jack ‘Pop’ Richardson (Wallace Ford – The Breaking Point), a kindly manager who has seemingly retired from the sport after one of his past boxers was killed in the ring – seriously traumatizing him.

Not the type of movie that will make you want to consider adoption, The Omen (1976) is the horror film that put director Richard Donner on the map. . . after which he would go on to an illustrious career, making feature films like Superman (1978), The Goonies (1985), the Lethal Weapon franchise (1987-1998), 16 Blocks (2006), as well as many others. A bit like the anti-Christ precursor to the Final Destination franchise, American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck – Cape Fear; To Kill a Mockingbird) has a difficult decision to make... as the on duty chaplain Father Spiletto (Martin Benson) offers him another child whose mother has passed at the same time that his baby sadly died upon its first breath. His wife Katherine (Lee Remick), unconscious from the arduous birthing, has no clue that this has happened to their newborn child.