There are good films, there are great films and then there are films that ennoble the medium by their very existence. Lawrence of Arabia is such a movie: a singular towering achievement that made full use of director David Lean’s incomparable sense of the epic. Peter O’Toole launched his career as the titular British soldier, whose campaign against the Turks …
Today in Movie History: August 24
It’s a reasonably quiet day, so we’ll start with a reasonably quiet film: Brief Encounter, David Lean’s affecting romance about a married woman (Ceia Johnson) who meets a handsome stranger on the train and considers having an affair with him. It helped cement Lean’s reputation and opened the door to one of the most fruitful careers in the history of …
Today in Movie History: December 26
Dealing with relatives during the holidays can make you feel possessed… that might be why Warners scored one of its biggest successes of all time with The Exorcist, a film I suspect you all are familiar with. It opened today in 1973, keeping the Christmas spirit alive for one and all. It shares the release date with one of the great romantic comedies …
Today in Movie History: December 16
It’s another big day for movies and we’ll start with one of the very biggest: Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean’s breathtaking epic about the Englishman who rallied a nation to his side during World War I, then tried to give them their independence in exchange. You could call it the greatest movie ever made and not be immediately disputed. It …