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Feature Screengem

Screengem: The spittoon in Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)

Old pals John Wayne (as Sheriff John T. Chance) and Ward Bond (as Pat Wheeler, soon to be murdered, shot in the back) have a conversation that says much about the good guys’ dilemma in Howard Hawks’ classic Western Rio Bravo (1959). Wheeler: A game-legged old man and a drunk. That’s all you got? Chance: That’s […]

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Fashion & Film Feature

He Wore Black

Henry Fonda gone bad, one of cinema’s most memorable endings with two of the greatest outlaws on screen fading into a photographic memory, and Montgomery Clift bringing in a new type of manly ideal and rivaling the man who was no less than the epitome of American manhood. These are the anti-heroes from three of […]

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Fashion & Film Feature

Women and Men Share Friendships, Professions, Safari Style, and About Every Frame in Howard Hawks’ Hatari!

What drew me to Howard Hawks’ safari film, Hatari!, in the first place was something I had read about one of the female characters, Dallas (Elsa Martinelli), having been inspired by real life wild life photographer Ylla, considered “the best animal photographer in the world”, who was killed while on the job in North India in […]

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Feature Four Frames

Four Frames: John Wayne (1907 to 1979)

Mark Cousins, Northern Ireland’s acclaimed documentary filmmaker, said one of the things that first helped him realise there was more to the movies was “when my father cried at a John Wayne picture”. Yeah, Mark – we’ve all been there. The British critic David Thomson was an excoriator of Wayne – the man and his […]