its the exchange of insults and injury that constantly amuses.

While not as consistent a collaborator as editor Barbara McLean, Leon Shamroy did some of his best work with Henry King. The Black Swan is filled with the orange glow of sunrises and candle lit windows. if one can glance away from Power and O'Hara trading barbs, there are flowers of the deepest primary colors in the background. Not only was Leon Shamroy one of the first cinematographers to shoot in the then new three strip Technicolor process, he was one of the first to pounce on the artistic possibilities. There are some flaws - a process shot is of two ships at sea, neither of them moving, and a scene with black character actor Clarence Muse is cringeworthy.Otherwise, the real pirates of the Caribbean are here in all their joyful glory.

September 12, 2010

Coffee Break

September 10, 2010

A Yank in the R.A.F.

Henry King - 1941
20th Century-Fox Region 1 DVD

A Yank in the R.A.F. was not a propaganda picture. It was a story worth telling, a story that was happening. At the time, North American Aviation in Los Angeles was building trainers (airplanes). Canada and England bought a tremendous number of them for their training programs because England was already in the war. They couldn't build, they had to buy outside. Civilian pilots here would fly these trainers up to a little place in Montana, just at the Canadian border. You couldn't violate international law, so the Canadians would throw a rope across and tie it onto the