February 2015 - Kozak's Classic Cinema

That Hamilton Woman (1941). 128 minutes. Directed by Alexander Korda. Starring Vivien Leigh (as Emma, Lady Hamilton), Sir Laurence Olivier (as Admiral Horatio Nelson), Alan Mowbray (as Sir William Hamilton), and Gladys Cooper (as Lady Frances Nelson).

If you have heard of That Hamilton Woman, it may be for one of the following reasons:

First, it features Vivien Leigh and Sir Laurence Olivier cast as Emma, Lady Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson (respectively) in the period of the Napoleonic Wars. This casting is especially famous (or perhaps infamous) because Leigh and Olivier, while married to other people, had engaged in a well-known affair with each other prior to divorcing their partners and marrying each other, and in this film, in a situation that mimicked real life, they are cast as two people who are married to others and have a well-known affair together of international proportions.
Second, it was Winston Churchill’s favorite film. Churchill was fond of movies of

Greed (1925). Directed by Erich von Stroheim. 140 minutes (MGM) / 239 minutes (restored version, 1999). Starring Gibson Gowland (as John McTeague), Zasu Pitts (as Trina Sieppe), and Jean Hersholt (as Marcus Schouler).

Greed is based on the 1899 American novel McTeague by Frank Norris. It takes place at the turn of the nineteenth century in California and was one of the first Hollywood films to be shot entirely on location. As the story opens, McTeague, a miner, leaves his California mountain town to train as a dentist. When he opens a practice in San Francisco, he meets Marcus Schouler and Schouler’s cousin Trina, with whom McTeague falls in love. Trina wins $5000 in a lottery and marries McTeague, but soon she begins to obsess over her winnings and becomes miserly towards her husband. Because Schouler feels cheated both out of Trina, whom he loved, and her fortune, he reports on McTeague to the dental board, which determines that he … Read the rest

Kozak's Classic Cinema

Month: February 2015

That Hamilton Woman (1941)

That Hamilton Woman (1941). 128 minutes. Directed by Alexander Korda. Starring Vivien Leigh (as Emma, Lady Hamilton), Sir Laurence Olivier (as Admiral Horatio Nelson), Alan Mowbray (as Sir William Hamilton), and Gladys Cooper (as Lady Frances Nelson).

Greed (1925)

Greed (1925). Directed by Erich von Stroheim. 140 minutes (MGM) / 239 minutes (restored version, 1999). Starring Gibson Gowland (as John McTeague), Zasu Pitts (as Trina Sieppe), and Jean Hersholt (as Marcus Schouler).