Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Media


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The Olivia de Havilland Centenary Blogathon – Raffles, 1939

What’s wrong with Olivia de Havilland and me?
I don’t know – probably it’s all those movies with Erroll Flynn, but lovely de Havilland is one of those actresses that are a delight to watch, but for the life of my I never remember when it comes the time to make a list of the favorites.

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But that’s ok, anyway, because this is The Olivia de Havilland Centenary Blogathon, organized by the In the good old days of Hollywood blog and the Phyllis Loves Classic Movies blog – and you should follow the link and go there to check out the other entries in this blogathon.

Here on Karavansara, we’ll spend some time with Raffles – the amateur cracksman. Continue reading →


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Five classical beauties

guruMy web-thingies guru (don’t we all have one?) tells me it’s “good SEO” whatever that means, and a good way to get some extra traffic, to post list-themed contents.
“The Best Five… whatever”.
And who am I to doubt my guru?

So I thought I’d do a list sort of post – and a few nights back a guy pointed a loaded Marlene Dietrich at me1.
Boy was she heart-stoppingly beautiful!
And yet…

Fact: the world is filled with beautiful women. That’s one of the good things of being alive on this world. And if you love movies – like I do – you are certainly aware that there’s been a lot of incredibly beautiful women that have graced the screen.
Some names are legendary – Monroe, Harlow, Turner, the above-mentioned Dietrich…

So, what about my five favorite actresses from the classic Hollywood era?
Sounds like the sort of thing that might please my web-thingies guru… Continue reading →


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Merian Cooper’s “She”

Sometimes we look for something and we find something different – maybe something better.
Two nights ago I was talking with my friend Franco Pezzini about the Hammer version of H. Rider Haggard’s She – the one featuring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Ursula Andress.
It’s a very unfaithful adaptation, but a fun movie.
So I decided I’ll watch it again, and do a post or two on it.
But while I was looking for the old Hammer flick, I stumbled on something even older, something I did not know existed – the Merian C. Cooper production of H. Rider-Haggard’s She, dating from 1935.

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The movie was considered lost for decades, it was found in Buster Keaton’s garage, restored by Ray Harryhausen, and right now you can find it on Youtube, of all places – in a rather decent , if sadly colorized, copy. Continue reading →