The silliest, sexiest spy movie ever made: Monica Vitti and the folly of Modesty Blaise
The actress Monica Vitti, who has died at the age of 90, was one of the shining stars of post-war Italian cinema, not least for her professional…
‘I’m going to beat you to death’: inside Bob Wall’s war on Steven Seagal
Bob Wall, however, was happy to fight. “My instructor, Chuck Norris, has been challenged,” said Wall in a statement to the press. “Now, Chuck is a much…
The fishy tale of Pierce Brosnan’s near-unreleasable mermaid movie
The second was the involvement of Chinese finance in the international filmmaking business. The new Chinese studio Kylin Pictures was prepared to invest $20 million, making this…
John Cleese, untamed: the folly of Fierce Creatures
Curtis, who was missing her children, fought with Cleese openly on set; the producer Michael Shamberg’s driver head-butted other set drivers, and most of the supporting cast,…
The mystery of Agent 355, America’s first female spy
The legend of “Agent 355” originates in a single passing reference made in a letter written by Abraham Woodhull. Woodhull was one of the leading members of…
The Orson Welles frozen peas tantrum that inspired Steven Toast
After an absence of several years, Matt Berry’s cult sitcom Toast of London has returned for an extremely welcome new series. Co-written, as before, with Father Ted…
JK Rowling’s battle to make the Harry Potter films ‘100 per cent British’
Twenty years on, the intense furor around the casting of Harry Potter himself is sometimes forgotten – a kind of scrutiny usually reserved for a new James…
Overblown, daft and Americanised, Diamonds Are Forever made a fool of Sean Connery
Diamonds Are Forever marked a return to what felt like proper Bond: the glimmering title and Shirley Bassey theme tune, Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, and – of…
Black Hawk Down under fire: how Ridley Scott won the Battle of Mogadishu
Other true details include two Delta Force snipers, Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart and Master Sergeant Gary Gordon (played by Johnny Strong and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who were…
The Ipcress File: how a bespectacled ‘anti-Bond’ changed Michael Caine’s life
In 1964, a 31-year-old Michael Caine was having dinner with his roommate Terence Stamp at the Pickwick Club in Soho, when the big-cheese producer Harry Saltzman sent…
Conman, gambler and showman Michael Todd – the mad genius behind 1956’s Around the World in 80 Days
The idea for an adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days had occurred to another of cinema’s great visionaries, Orson Welles, but a 1946 stage version…
How The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe made the BBC take children seriously
But not everyone was a fan. The BBC’s Points of View read out letters mocking 13-year-old Sophie Wilcox’s weight and slating Dempsey. “Someone wrote in and said,…
‘The man was sick’: inside Susan George’s Straw Dogs ordeal
Hoffman, concerned that he had signed onto a doomed project, asked that Peckinpah be fired and the director Peter Yates, who had had recent success with the…
‘No Tom Cruise!’: Anne Rice’s vendetta against her Interview With the Vampire star
“To accuse me of taking all the homoerotic elements out of the movie, after I made The Crying Game? Me, of all people—why would I do that?,” said…
Tinkerhell: why Hook made Steven Spielberg age overnight
Spielberg wasn’t alone. There was, says Hook screenwriter Jim V Hart, “something in the zeitgeist”. “Everybody wanted to do Peter Pan,” Hart says. “Steven wanted to do…
Why the BBC flogged Only Fools and Horses to death
The trilogy won Only Fools two Baftas – Best Comedy and Best Comedy Performance for David Jason – and seemed to inspire a new Christmas telly trend:…
‘Warren Beatty should be spanked’: how Reds turned Hollywood’s golden boy into a monster
On March 29, 1982, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau presented Warren Beatty with an Oscar for Best Director for his epic film Reds, about the life of…
Christopher Nolan’s greatest trick: the dark magic of The Prestige
Christopher Nolan is mainstream cinema’s prince of darkness. From his 2000 breakout Memento, a nihilistic, time-turning revenge fantasy; through three gritty, decaying Batman movies (tied, indelibly, to…
The Beatles, the Bee Gees and the terrible Sgt. Pepper’s movie they’d all rather forget
Things take a dark turn when Strawberry Fields is killed and Frampton’s Billy Shears attempts to kill himself. All is saved in the film’s final, head-spinning twist:…
America’s saddest clown: the outrageous life of Rodney Dangerfield
One of the main reasons he invested $250,000 in his own Dangerfield’s comedy club in New York was because it meant he would not have to travel…
‘Why was this film ever made?’: the savage history of ‘Bloody Sam’ Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch
For all the dynamite and bloodshed, some of the film’s most powerful moments are its quiet, reflective exchanges. When Mapache abducts one of them – a native…
Kelsey Grammer is a great actor – why has he never made a great movie?
The team managed to wrangle a few concessions. Frasier would follow Crane’s return home to Seattle, trading the brawling stickiness of Boston for the Pacific Northwest’s newly-cool…