Ben-Hur: The Gospel of Judah

Charlton Heston. Photo: MGM The kind of film that starts with a five-minute overture, Ben-Hur is about as classic a 1950s Hollywood blockbuster as they come. Burt Lancaster was reportedly…

2001: How the Solar System Was Won

Photo: MGM I remember watching this film for the first time when I was a teenager, or perhaps 20 years old. When it was over, I was so stunned and…

Snow White and Disney’s Most Bad-Assed Villain

Photo: Disney In 1937, Walt Disney certainly had made a name for himself, having supervised and participated in the creation of such enduring animated characters as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck,…

Shot in the Dark: Clouseau Finds His Mojo

Herbert Lom and André Maranne. Photo: United Artists When Blake Edwards's The Great Race was released in 1965 it was touted as "the great laugh show of all time". That…

Vertigo: I Put a Spell on You

James Stewart and Kim Novak. Photo: Paramount One of Alfred Hitchcock's three 1950s Technicolor masterpieces (the others are Rear Window and North by Northwest). Curiously enough, at the time of…

E.T. The Thing from Another World

Henry Thomas. Photo: Universal When Richard Attenborough accepted his two Oscars for Gandhi in 1983, he acknowledged the fact that he had just beaten one of the favorites. "I was…

The Graduate: Still As Seductive

Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. Photo: Embassy Pictures Reading Roger Ebert's two reviews of The Graduate, written thirty years apart, is a little strange. In my view he gets almost…

The Godfather II: From Rags to Riches

Al Pacino. Photo: Paramount The Godfather was an incredible achievement by Francis Ford Coppola. Making a sequel that meets at least some of the expectations is difficult enough, but actually…

The Godfather: Paying in Blood

Marlon Brando. Photo: Paramount There's a scene in You've Got Mail (1998) where Tom Hanks says, "The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to…