Tag: Freddie Francis

Campy Extraterrestrials – Michael Gough vs. Dudley Manlove

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I have written before of my admiration for the late Michael Gough (1916-2011), a British actor who could move effortlessly from the serious classical theater of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Harold Pinter, and Berthold Brecht, to the florid melodramas of Jimmy Sangster and Herman Cohen.  Which is another way of saying that – like Sirs Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, or John Gielgud [...]

Carl Dreyer says Drive Safely and Save Lives!

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They Caught the Ferry (1948) is a short highway safety film – much like the ones we used to watch in Drivers Ed. – produced by the Danish Film Commission, and directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the legendary auteur of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Vampyr (1932), Day of Wrath (1943), Ordet (The [...]

FREDDIE FRANCIS (1917-2007)

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I’d like to join Tim Lucas and others in acknowledging the passing of Freddie Francis, a fine underrated director and one of the greatest of English cinematographers. He deservedly won an Academy Award for his photography of Edward Zwick’s Glory, and probably should have won for his work with Martin Scorsese (the Cape Fear remake), [...]