Lugosi had a presence, a charisma, that shaped scenes and entire films. Was he a good actor? It’s hard to say. He wasn’t really given a chance. With his thick accent and less-than-perfect English, his roles were going to be limited. Add in the tendency to pigeonhole horror actors and his own poor choices, and
Maureen O’Sullivan was the great ingénue. She appeared to be sensual and exciting while simultaneously being innocent and cute. It was a balancing act few have managed to pull off. Unfortunately it put her in mainly supporting roles where she was the goal—of the eight films below, only two have her as the lead. The
Howard was a major star of early film, and a gifted actor, playing romantics, egotists, detectives, scholars, and even a swashbuckler, but he is primarily remembered for his gruesome role as the effete Ashley in Gone With the Wind. His legacy deserves better. Hollywood never quite figured out what to do with him. He was
Ah, the Bond title sequence. It is as iconic as Bond himself, or at least has been since the playbook was completed with Thunderball: Beautiful female silhouettes undulating about with weapons pointed at them or in their hands against surreal backdrops. Good ones can set the film up. Bad ones pull the audience down. I’m
Once a metaphor for Blacks in America, and now often seen as a commentary of how the LGBT community is treated, the X-Men have always meant a bit more than other comic book characters. The X-Men film franchise has, at times, been more successful with its political statements than the comics, but at other times
The 4th of the Big Three horror icons (of sound films), like Karloff before him, Vincent Price had a liquid-jeweled voice and range. Price’s early work was more often in Film Noirs, comedies, and a few adventure films. Except for brief sojourns, he didn’t switch to horror until 1953’s House of Wax, but once there,
