114 thoughts on “Alan Ladd Movies”

1. 1 STEVE. For me nobody personified evil and menace better than Palance in Sudden Fear and Shane. On the strength of those performances he was as your video illustrates given a run of starring roles in films like Attack, House of Numbers, I Died a Thousand Times (a scene by scene remake of Bogie’s High Sierra) and The Big Knife. The latter seems to have particularly pleased him because he said in an interview “It lasts 111 minutes. I’m on screen for 110 minutes and in the minute I am off screen washing my hands those on screen are talking about me!”

   2 The gangly Palance was such a striking figure that he was poster-friendly and I particularly liked those from Arrowhead, Second Chance, Man in the Attic, Halls of Montezuma and of course Brigitte at her sexiest! Great stills of Jack as Attila the Hun, him with Cushing in Torture Garden and the iconic coloured one of Jack Wilson waiting to strike. Solid Top 5 with of course the correct one at No 1. Whilst in Shane and Sudden Fear Jack is in only supporting roles those were the kind of career-advancing smaller roles that the profile of any actor would be incomplete without. Great stuff and worth 9.3/10 in my estimation

   Reply

   1. Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing and rating my Jack Palance video, much appreciated.

      I agree, Palance was the personificaton of pure evil as the hired killer iin Shane, he made such an impact that he nabbed an Oscar nomination. He finally won his Oscar for the comedy City Slickers. That film was a big hit and they must have regretted killing him off, so in the inferior sequel his twin brother turns up, same mannerisms, voice inflection and everything, its the same character for chrissakes! 🙂

      Palance wasn’t the best looking actor around but like Charles Bronson I’m sure he had many female admirers, he was a professional boxer and I think during WWII his plane crashed and he needed facial reconstruction?

      Bruce might be a fan of City Slickers, has he done Billy Crystal? Palance deserves a page on Bruce’s site.

      https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVPRYo9hTtkRc-U2KSAJsGQ

      Reply

2. 1 For me Veronica like Paulette Goddard had Top B list/Bottom A list status in that if there was another very high prestige performer in the movie neither Lake nor Goddard would be the star as indeed your poster for So Proudly we Hail demonstrates perfectly by showing Claudette Colbert billed above both of them. Veronica will however always be remembered for her 1940s teaming with Laddie and historians have opined that the pair were perfectly suited because both were blonde, deadpan and slender of build.

   2 COMMENTS: (1) stupendous art work on the posters for Glass Key and Stronghold and I simply loved the one for Ramrod with the iconic McCrea peering over a six-gun at the reader (2)
   Great closing still of sexy Veronica and a super one of her and Golden Holden from I Wanted Wings (3) naturally I was delighted that the best 3 of the 4 Lake/Ladd [non ensemble] movies were in your Top 5 (4) you were right to pan the 4th one Saigon (5) again no Brucie Top 5 but here are the markings that above and on the McCrea page he has given 4 of your Top 5: Sullivan’s Travels 85.5/This Gun for Hire 80.0/Blue Dahlia 79.0/Glass Key 74.5. Your video was a super treat 8.5/10 despite the relatively low number of movies

   3 I notice that Deb Kerr has just popped up and Granger is in the pipeline. I remember David Baron Puttnam standing up at the Academy Awards ceremony when he won best picture for Chariots of Fire (1981) and brandishing his Oscar above his head he shouted out “The British are coming! The British are Coming!” This time one from Scotland and one from England.

   Thanks again for the entertainment BOB

   Reply

   1. Hi Bob, yep the British are coming, over the next 6 or 7 videos at least, the Brits were popular in the States. Heck even Hollywood legends like Cary Grant and Bob Hope were originally born in Britain. Chaplin, Liz Taylor the list goes on… 🙂

      As I was saying to Bruce on youtube I’ve only seen 5 of Lake’s movies, the top 5 on the video, I was interested in Saigon but if you don’t recommend it I’ll give it a miss. I also want to see So Proudly We Hail and I Wanted Wings.

      Thanks again for reviewing my videos and hopefully Bruce will one day give Lake her own movie page here. She’s only made a few films so it shouldn’t take long.

      Reply

3. 1 I disagree with it but would defend to the death your right to post it !!

   2 Actually Duck Soup, Rebecca, Rio Bravo and Night of the Demon (if you mean the Dana Andrews one and not the 1980 version) are excellent selections. I know that I am th odd man out in almost the entire film world but I never did like Some Like it Hot or The Exorcist.

   BOB

   Reply

   1. Hey Bob
      1. I agree with you 100% on this point.
      2. That is the Dana Andrews movie he is talking about….as for The Exorcist and Some Like It Hot…I think both movies are good….but they fall short of great in my book….the humor in Some Like It Hot has not aged very well at all.
      Good stuff.

      Reply

4. HI STEVE

   1 Sorry about the lack-of-header confusion – it was simply a mistake.

   2 As I’ve conceded I would NOT regard my list as the definitive ARTISTIC one but those were the films that have most ENTERTAINED me down the years as best as I can recall. Ben Hur etc are undeniably much greater classics with better artistic content than a lot of my choices but their length precludes the same opportunities for repeat viewing as for example Chuck’s The Naked Jungle does for me and I loved Chuck’s films in their ENTIRETY. [On my street we all idolised him when we were boys and his nickname among us was “Tweedie” because a pal in my gang had a granpa of that name who everyone thought looked like Heston.]

   3 I agree that if one of a person’s fave actors is in a movie it will obviously increase its entertainment value but it’s difficult to imagine Shane without Ladd and indeed that was tried on TV with David Carradine (1966) but for me it didn’t come off and others must have thought so too because the series lasted for just one season. Indeed when quizzed about Ladd’s casting George Stevens said that he operated from the principle “Give me the right star and I’ll build a film round him.”

   4 As Bruce has suggested in relation to my entertainers list it will simply not happen that two people’s tastes will coincide in their lists and for example those historians and critics who are supposed to be the connoisseurs of artistic movie taste produce lists chockablock with movies that the general public would not find entertaining, with quite often the likes of The 7th Seal, Bicycle Thieves, and Tokyo Story topping the chart and the likes of Jaws, Ben Hur etc nowhere to be seen.. As Gene Hackman said in Hoosiers [Best Shot over here] “MY team’s on the floor.”

   Have a good weekend.

   Reply

5. 1/Shane – Alan Ladd/Jean Arthur
   2/Bend of the River – James Stewart/Rock Hudson
   3/The Far Country – James Stewart/Walter Brennan
   4/The Shawshank Redemption – Morgan Freeman/Tim Robbins
   5/On the Waterfront – Marlon Brando/Rod Steiger
   6/The Godfather – Marlon Brando/Al Pacino
   7/The Big Country – Gregory Peck/Charlton Heston
   8/In a Lonely Place – Humphrey Bogart/Gloria Graham
   9/Red River – John Wayne/Monty Clift
   10/3.10 to Yuma- Glenn Ford/Van Heflin
   11/Warlock – Richard Widmark/Henry Fonda
   12/Breakfast at Tiffany’s – A Hepburn/George Peppard
   13/The Quiet Man- John Wayne/Maureen O’Hara
   14/The Natural – Robert Redford/Robert Duvall
   15/12 Angry Men- Henry Fonda/Lee J Cobb
   16/The Caine Mutiny – Humphrey Bogart/Van Johnson
   17/Pillow Talk – Rock Hudson/Doris Day
   18/Last Train from Gun Hill – Kirk Douglas/Anthony Quinn
   19/Rear Window – James Stewart/Grace Kelly
   20/A Lawless Street- Randolph Scott/Angela Lansbury
   21/Magnificent Obsession – Rock Hudson/Jane Wyman
   22/No Name on the Bullet – Audie Murphy/Charles Drake
   23/The Apartment – Jack Lemmon/Shirley MacLaine
   24/Force of Evil – John Garfield/Thomas Gomez
   25/The Great Gatsby!949)- Alan Ladd/Betty Field
   26/The Last Wagon – Richard Widmark/Felicia Farr
   27/Best Shot – Gene Hackman/Barbara Hersey
   28/North by Northwest – Cary Grant/Eva Marie Saint
   29/Along Came a Spider – Morgan Freeman/Monica Potter
   30/The Killing – Sterling Hayden – Director Stanley Kubrick
   31/The Fastest Gun Alive – Glenn For/Broderick Crawford
   32/All that Heaven Allows – Rock Hudson/Jane Wyman
   33/Sudden Fear – Joan Crawford/Jack Palance
   34/The Guns of Navarone – Gregory Peck/Anthony Quinn
   35/The Naked Jungle – Charlton Heston/Eleanor Parker
   36/While the City Sleeps- Dana Andrews/Rhonda Fleming – Dir Fritz Lang

   Reply

   1. Hi Bob, maybe you should have put a header on that list , My Favorite Films – or something like that. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at for a minute. I thought it was Dan with his Bacon Oracle posting with your name. 😉

      An interesting list, the newest film is Along Came a Spider, I have that on DVD, it wasn’t that good surely? Better than Ben-Hur? El Cid? Lawrence of Arabia? Spartacus? Space Odyssey? and on and on… we all have different tastes, there are a lot of films on your list I like and watch regularly, Rear Window and North by Northwest for instance, but my Top 50 would look a lot different to yours.

      Shane your no.1 film? A classic western for sure but it’s not one I’d happily watch over and over, you’re a huge fan of Alan Ladd, if he wasn’t in it maybe that wouldn’t have made your list at all. Tony Curtis as Shane? 🙂

      Problem with my top 50 or top 100 is that it changes all the time but William Wyler’s epic of epics Ben-Hur has been my favorite for a few decades now, when I was younger it was The Omega Man and a few years later it was Spielberg’s Jaws.

      Reply

   2. Ok…I found your list. Thanks for posting. I will get the rest of the comments done…and then really check out the list.

      Reply

   3. Hey Bob….good list. Let’s see I have seen 24 of the 36 movies listed. That includes the first 19 movies…but then my tally drops off quickly…as I have only seen 5 of the last 17. #21 Magnificent Obsession is one of my mom’s all-time favorite movies….but I have not seen the whole movie from beginning to end.
      Observations:
      1. Only two Brando movies in the Top 36? Did not see that coming.
      2. 4 Rock Hudson movies? Maybe I should update that page…lol.
      3. 2 Heston movies makes Steve happy.
      4. Widmark & Peck with only 2 movies?….somewhere Flora is sad.
      5. Three for Stewart….Two for Wayne….and none for Judd Nelson….have you not seen The Breakfast Club?….lol.
      6. The Godfather, North by Northwest, The Quiet Man, Red River, The Big Country and Rear Window would be strong contenders for my Top 50 movies.
      7. The most surprising selection? Best Shot with Gene Hackman…seen a ton of his movies….but not aware of that movie at all….did it even make my Hackman UMR page?…checking…no I did not….I will have to do some research on that one.
      8. Thanks for the look at your favorites…..this combined with your Top Stars list really helps understand the type of movies and performers you enjoy.
      I do figure you for not listing a single Michael Caine movie…..you can’t be right all the time….lol.

      Reply

      1. 1 My list is not of the movies that I considered the most entertaining but which entertained me the most ! For example on a one to one basis Chuck’s Ben Hur would probably entertain me more then his Naked Jungle but I have seen Ben Hur only a handful of times (a) because of its length, as it was not always easy to fit a 3 and 1/2 hour film into a busy schedule over the years I worked – you should know all about that ! and (b) for years because as it was considered a ‘preserved’ classic it was shown on only special occasions like Easter so there were not too many opportunities to see at all.

         2 Naked Jungle on the other hand was often repeated on TV here and was of a length that usually made watching it a practical proposition. In short if I add up all the hours I spent on Naked Jungle and those watching Ben Hur Naked Jungle had the opportunity to entertain me more.

         3 Also of course since like you I’ve watched thousands of films over the years 36 is just the fine-tuned tip of the iceberg in relation to the hundreds of films that I have loved and if I expanded that list to a 100 many of the films of Sir Maurice, Golden Holden etc would be ferociously bubbling under my 36 as contenders for the next 64 places.

         4 I admire Brando enormously for his acting skills and because he annoyed Tracy by changing acting dimensions, and also I know many more oddball stories about him than almost any other actor; but I agree with you that many of his movies are heavy going and although I like a number of them they do not entertain me enough to get into the 36 MOST ENTERTAINING.

         5 As for the Duke if again I went beyond 36 to a list 100 half of the remaining 64 might well be taken up by Wayne/Stewart/Peck/Laddie/Widmark movies – and Alfie, Ipcress File and 6th Sense would definitely be in top 50 !!

         6 You HAVE seen Best Shot and if on your Great Sporting Movies page you press the critic/audience sorter button you will see you have ranked that movie as No 18 with a high 81.5 score (which naturally delights me) and an adjusted gross of $62.5 million. Unfortunately on my list I used it’s GB title whereas you naturally give it the US one – so apologies for any confusion. ALL GREAT FUN THOUGH

         Reply

         1. Hey Bob….thanks for the sharing the reasoning of the ones that made the list and the ones that did not make the list.
            1. I agree with you about Ben-Hur….watching it takes a serious of “blocking of the scheduel”…I seem to rotate between watching Ben-Hur and Ten Commandments ever 5 years…so it turns out that about 10 years pass before I re-watch them again. I watched Ben-Hur a couple of years ago…so it must be time to re-watch The Ten Commandments.
            2. I want to see the Naked Jungle…but so far I have found that to be a difficult movie to track down.
            3. I do a Top 10 every year at Letterboxd.com of all the movies (current and classic) I watched that year …and it is always difficult to whittle down just 10…so when thinking about years and years…it seems the task is even more difficult.
            4. I agree with Most Entertaining…..there are lots of great movies that I will probably never watch again…Schlinder’s List, My Left Foot just to name a few….but many of my all-time favorites I can watch once a year…Butch and Sundance, Father Goose (my favorite Cary Grant role…though I know it is far from being a great movie), Raiders of the Lost Ark…and the list could go on and on.
            5. Glad to see The Sixth Sense get a mention….that movie has aged very well….I wonder if the movie will still be shocking in another 20 years.
            6. Ah…..now I understand…Best Shot is Hoosiers….and yes I have Hoosiers….and yes it is a great movie….the confusion is now fading away…lol.
            Thanks for the information.

            Reply

            1. MORNIN BRUCE

               1 New extended comments box working well for me – thanks!

               2 Cinema owners – and indeed probably most people with Steve Lensman’s exception – realised that youths wanted the action and adventure to come thick and fast in movies and wouldn’t have the patience to sit through over-long movies; so often in my boyhood to reduce the length of movies at kids’ matinees our local cinemas would make cuts in films. However as those were the cheap cinemas their technology was not that good and huge gashes would suddenly appear across the screen and we would all yell out “cut!”

               3 Hoosiers/Best Shot became a cult movie for me and my brothers when we were younger and we liked the scenes where Hackman and his players chanted their war-cry of “Team!” and gave each other high-fives before dashing out onto the basketball floor. At such moments we would all yell”Team!” in unison with Gene & Co and indeed when out jogging we would sometimes encounter each other and would again yell “Team!” even in public.

               4 Our other big family cult film in those days was A Shock to the System and when Sir Maurice started wiping out his corporate enemies in the film we we would all loudly cheer. It was a strong contender for my top 36 and it is in my opinion a film that was undeservedly neglected by audiences but IMDB and you [for audience/critic] give it respectable ratings, though you mightn’t be so generous today as Sir Maurice’s leading lady Elizabeth MCGovern was the narrator who in that Barbara Hutton documentary that I mentioned alleged Grant was a skinflint and “kept man” !!

            2. Hey Bob…glad you like the extended comment section. That should be long enough to show the last 24 hours of comments. B Westerns which kept the kids happy probably were about 75 minutes long….which goes well with your 2nd point. Glad that Hoosiers and Shock to the System are favorites of you and your family. Hoosiers has a great following here….but Shock to the System is a forgotten film…which I find sad.

      2. Yeah Bob has some good films listed up there, shame about the rest. [Stop it Steve!] I’m kidding Bob. Let’s see my top 75 would include Duck Soup, Brazil, Akira (1988), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Rio Bravo, Some Like it Hot, Night of the Demon (1957), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Rebecca and The Exorcist, how’s that for a weird list?

         Reply

         1. Hey Stephen….lol. Top 75? Now that would be another interesting list to look at. You listed 9….and science fiction and horror are already well represented. Let’s see….my memory of your favorites…Star Wars, 2001, Ben-Hur, Rear Window and Planet of the Apes (Heston of course)…thinking those movies would have spots in the Top 10. Good comment…as always.

            Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.