David Niven | Karavansara

1 July 2016
by Davide Mana 14 Comments

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.

olivia-8

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 →

13 September 2014
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Fifteen impossible things before lunch

… well, maybe not fifteen.
The idea is doing the rounds, here in the Old C Block of the Italian Blogsphere – list fifteen (or twenty) things that happened to you, and that would never work in a story because they are too implausible.
Aw, c’mon, they would say – that’s just too much!

My friends are doing it in Italian, I’ll do it in English, just because.
As I said, I can’t assure you I’ll make it to fifteen. Continue reading →

3 October 2013
by Davide Mana 8 Comments

The Man That Would Be King, John Houston – 1946

Click on Caine as Bond to get the full list of the blogathon participants

Something different for today’s post – Karavansara is participating in The Great Imaginary Film Blogathon promoted by the fine ladies managing the Silver Scenes Blog.
The idea is simple – post an article about a movie that might have been.
Being Karavansara a blog about adventure, pulp and the Orient – we have obviously picked a nice pulpy adventure movie set in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, and based on a famous novella by Rudyard Kipling.
Being somewhat perverse, we also dropped a few dollops of uchronia in the mix, and hid a few bonuses in the following post.
And so, here goes our entry.

Enjoy!

Karavansara’s Imaginary Movie of the Week

Ava Gardner as Roxanne (photographer unknown)

. title: The Man That Would Be King
. year of production: 1946
. cast:

Clark Gable (Daniel Dravot)
Humphrey Bogart (Peachy Carnehan)
David Niven (Rudyard Kipling)
Ava Gardner (Roxanne)
Pedro Armendariz (Billy Fish)

. Directed by John Huston
. Screenplay John Huston, Leigh Brackett & Robert E. Howard, from the Rudyard Kipling story of the same title
. Paramount
. Technicolor
. Plot in brief: former British Indian Army NCOs Dravot and Carnehan travel to a secluded Himalayan valley, planning to set themselves up as war lords. Through a series of weird coincidences, the two rogues rise to the status of gods, but in the end they lose everything. Only Peachy survives the ordeal, and comes back to relate the story of Dravot’s rise to power and fall from grace.

I will not bore you with how great this movie is.
I’ll leave it to others, better than me, to provide some further information. Continue reading →