Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...
- 8/12/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro: Silent movie star proves he can talk and sing (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Mexican-Born Actor Was First Latin American Hollywood Superstar.") On Ramon Novarro Day, Turner Classic Movies’ first Novarro movie is Rex Ingram’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), a stately version of Edward Rose’s play, itself based on Anthony Hope’s 1897 novel: in the Central European kingdom of Ruritania, a traveling Englishman takes the place of the kidnapped local king-to-be-crowned. A pre-Judge Hardy Lewis Stone has the double role, while Novarro plays the scheming Rupert of Hentzau. (Photo: Ramon Novarro ca. 1922.) Despite his stage training, Stone is as interesting to watch as a beach pebble; Novarro, for his part, has a good time hamming it up in his first major break — courtesy of director Rex Ingram, then looking for a replacement for Rudolph Valentino, with whom he’d had a serious falling out...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro: Mexican-born actor was first Latin American Hollywood superstar Mexican-born actor Ramon Novarro, the original Ben-Hur and one of MGM’s biggest stars of the late ’20s and early ’30s, has his Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" day on Thursday, August 8, 2013. First, The Bad News: TCM will not be presenting any Ramon Novarro movie premieres. And that’s quite disappointing. (Photo: Ramon Novarro ca. 1925.) There’ll be no The Midshipman (1925), the first time Novarro was billed above the title (back then the official recognition of True Stardom) and featuring one of Joan Crawford’s earliest film appearances, or Forbidden Hours (1928), a vapid but great-looking The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg redux, with the always charming Renée Adorée as the commoner loved by His Majesty, Michael IV — that’s Novarro. Excellent prints of The Midshipman and Forbidden Hours can be found in the Warner Bros. film...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Innocence of Muslims / 'Desert Warrior' director Alan Roberts best-known for '70s soft-core porn The polemical anti-Islam "film" (actually, a cheap, grade Z amateur video), now has not only a producer, but also a director. The "Israeli entrepreneur Sam Bacile" has been exposed as the Egyptian Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who allegedly misled all (or most) involved in the production. And Gawker has reported that Alan Roberts aka Robert Brownell, the director of a handful of softcore porn movies in the '70s and early '80s, helmed "Desert Warrior," a cheesy Arabian adventure that was to become -- following some sloppy overdubbing -- Innocence of Muslims. Besides the now infamous Islamophobic YouTube sensation, which has been blamed for riots in several Muslim countries from Tunisia to Pakistan, Alan Roberts' movie credits include several now long forgotten titles. (Please scroll down for more details.) Alan Roberts also produced several little-known movies,...
- 9/16/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Innocence of Muslims: Cast and crew repudiate rabidly anti-Islam 'film' An amateurish, rabidly anti-Islam 'film' -- actually, more like a homemade video made three decades ago -- whose Arabic-dubbed version was initially blamed for this week's attacks by Muslim fanatics against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Muslims was initially called "Desert Warrior." (Photo: Actor purportedly as Islam's prophet Mohammad.) According to 80 cast and crew members of the film, they thought "Desert Warrior" was going to be an adventure flick set in Biblical times. Indeed, the movie's casting notice on Backstage calls it a "historical Arabian Desert adventure film." Below is the statement submitted to CNN on behalf of those who worked on what eventually became Innocence of Muslims. (Please scroll down to check out: Innocence of Muslims creator: Coptic Christian involved in meth manufacture, bank fraud.) "The entire cast and crew...
- 9/15/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro, Barbara La Marr, Trifling Women Ramon Novarro Brutal Death Pt.2: Convicted Killer Blames Catholicism Ramon Novarro's extant films for Rex Ingram, The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), in which he plays the sly villain Rupert of Hentzau, and Scaramouche (1923), in the heroic title role, are also well worth a look. I haven't watched The Arab (1924), which has been recently brought back to the United States from foreign archives. My understanding is that the print is incomplete; even so, here's hoping The Arab will soon be restored and shown on TCM. The now lost Ingram-Novarro collaboration Trifling Women (1922) would probably have been a sumptuous treat — cinematographer John F. Seitz's work in that Gothic melodrama seems to have inspired his later chiaroscuro lighting for Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. The same goes for the idyllic Where the Pavement Ends (1923), a tale of interethnic romance set on a South Pacific...
- 10/31/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres in George Melford's The Sheik Long before they became Hollywood's favorite terrorists, Arabs were generally portrayed as lusty, uncouth, infantile beings in myriad Hollywood movies. Turner Classic Movies returns this month with their annual "Race & Hollywood" film series. The "race" this time around: Arabs. Frank Lloyd's long but generally entertaining 1924 epic The Sea Hawk is almost over. TCM has shown this one before a few times; long-thought lost, The Sea Hawk was restored about a decade ago. Popular leading man Milton Sills stars. Next are two silents starring movie idols of the 1920s: The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Sheik (1921). One of Douglas Fairbanks' biggest hits, The Thief of Bagdad was directed by Raoul Walsh; this Arabian Nights romp is probably Fairbanks' most enjoyable vehicle of that era. Quite possibly, it's Fairbanks best movie, period. Starring Rudolph Valentino, who set as many hearts aflutter as Justin Bieber,...
- 7/6/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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