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In honor of Gregory Peck's 101st birthday, which was on Wednesday, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you one of my favorite of his pictures. This also happens to be the first science-fiction film I have ever written about on this blog. Directed by Stanley Kramer, On the Beach (1959) begins in 1964, as the USS Sawfish arrives in Australia after an atomic war devastates the Northern Hemisphere. Royal Australian Navy Lieutenant Peter Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is assigned to liaison with Sawfish Captain Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) for a reconnaissance mission to track the deadly radiation circling the globe and prevent complete human annihilation. For assistance, they turn to hopeless nuclear scientist Julian Osborne (Fred Astaire). As the Sawfish is readied for the mission, Peter spends time with his wife Mary (Donna Anderson) and their baby daughter, while Dwight begins a romantic affair with his friend, the alcoholic Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner). Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anth...

Directed by Edward Dmytryk, The Caine Mutiny (1954) begins in 1944, when Ensign Willie Keith (Robert Francis) of the Naval Reserve is assigned to the dilapidated destroyer-minesweeper USS Caine , stationed at the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The ship is under the command of the casual Captain William De Vriess (Tom Tully), who is soon replaced by the tyrannical Lieutenant Commander Francis Philip Queeg (Humphrey Bogart). At first, Queeg's strict discipline appears to be an improvement on the Caine 's lax crew, but he quickly begins to behave erratically, displaying cowardice during a beachhead landing and drastically overreacting when strawberries go missing from the officers' mess. LEFT: Fred MacMurray, Robert Francis, Van Johnson and Humphrey Bogart. RIGHT: Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny .   As Queeg's mental condition worsens, Lieutenant Tom Keefer (Fred MacMurray) pushes the executive officer, Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (Van Jo...

In honour of Tony Curtis's 91th birthday, which is today, this week on «Film Friday» I bring you the film that gave him the only Academy Award nomination of his career. Directed by Stanley Kramer, The Defiant Ones (1958) begins when a truck transporting chain gang convicts crashes on a rainswept Southern road and two prisoners escape: Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier), a black man who reacts violently to racial insults; and John «Joker» Jackson (Tony Curtis), Southern white bigot. Despite their mutual loathing, they are forced to cooperate, as they are chained together. Meanwhile, Sheriff Max Muller (Theodore Bikel), a humane lawman, is pressured by the governor to organize a posse to capture the escapees. He also must contend with an agressive state police captain, Frank Gibbons (Charles McGraw), and a deputy, Solly (King Donovan), who values his bloodhounds more than the lives of the convicts.   Arriving at a small company town, Joker and Cullen are captured by its residents, who f...

To celebrate Judy Garland's 93th birthday, which was on Wednesday, this week on "Film Friday" I bring you one of my favorite films of hers. Oddly enough, it is not a musical. Original release poster Directed by Stanley Kramer, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) centers on a military tribunal convened in Nuremberg, Germany , in which four German judges and prosecut ors stand accused of crimes against humanity for their involvement in the at rocities committed under the Na zi r egime. During the long weeks of the trial, American judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) tries to determine whether the German people really understood what Nazi leader Ad olf Hitler stood for . In doing so, he talks with a number of Germans who have different pers pective on the wa r, including the aristocratic Frau Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich), the widow of German general who was executed by the Allies after the earlier trials . The prosecuting attorney, Colonel Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark...