The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The opening scroll from The Maltese Falcon is, sadly, completely made up. There was no real Maltese falcon, although the idea may have come from another magnificent bird, the Kniphausen Hawk, which was made in 1697 for a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. (more…)
Harvey (1950)
In Henry Koster’s 1950 comedy Harvey, James Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, a good-natured sort who’s befriended Harvey, a giant invisible rabbit. At least, he seems to be a giant rabbit, by the way that Stewart spends the film looking up at him. (more…)
The Caine Mutiny (1954)
There was a great deal of interest right from the start in making a film of Herman Wouk’s 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. Several studios tried to get a project off the ground, but always came up against the same stumbling block: the US Navy. (more…)
Dark Passage (1947)
In Dark Passage, Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a man wrongly convicted of his wife’s murder. At the start of the movie, he escapes from prison, and halfway through he gets plastic surgery to enable him to search for his wife’s killer without detection.
This gave the studio the problem of what to do about Humphrey Bogart in the early part of the film. (more…)
Local Hero (1983)
The iconic red telephone box featured in Bill Forsyth’s 1983 comedy Local Hero was just a prop: the tiny town of Pennan in Aberdeenshire didn’t actually have a phone box.
There’s nothing unusual about that, but in this case, life soon followed art as film fans and tourists lobbied BT to install one. And so they did, although in a slightly less dramatic position than the film’s booth. (more…)
The Birds (1963)
In The Birds, right after stopping in the street to respond to a boy’s wolf whistle, Tippi Hedren goes into a pet store. As she enters, out comes Alfred Hitchcock, along with two dogs. (more…)
The Birds (1963)
Near the beginning of The Birds, when Tippi Hedren is walking down the street (having just passed the San Francisco poster), she turns to acknowledge a wolf-whistle from a passing boy. This is an in-joke. (more…)
The Birds (1963)
After a couple of establishing shots showing Tippi Hedren walking through San Francisco’s Union Square in The Birds, the actress walks behind a large poster advertising the city (and clueing in anybody who still doesn’t know where the scene is set). The poster serves another purpose, however: it hides a cut. (more…)
The Ladykillers (1955)
The original 1955 Ealing film of The Ladykillers featured Alec Guinness as the leader of a band of robbers who find their plans scuppered by Mrs Wilberforce, an elderly widow. Alec Guinness also appears in a second, minor role in the film. (more…)
Zelig (1983)
There isn’t much film footage of author F. Scott Fitzgerald around, so it’s always a treat to see him crop up in Woody Allen’s 1983 faux-documentary comedy Zelig. (more…)
