At one point Ioan Gruffudd* was trying to find investors to make some new Horation Hornblower vehicles either for big screen or small. That was years ago so apparently a no go, but I’m hoping it still happens, or another Patrick O’Brian vehicle. (Master and Commander: Far Side of the World made its money back and probably a lot more over the past decade, but it didn’t do well enough to make a sequel an assured hit.)
*Pronounced, roughly, Shi-nayd o kah-ner.
Honest question: are we still waiting for a decent biopic of Billie Holiday, or was Lady Sings the Blues actually any good?
One I’ve been waiting for for years: a movie on Two-Gun Cohen, Jewish hoodlum turned Chinese general. Will I be disappointed?
Didn’t Flashman make it to Little Big Horn? That is, he made it to the locality & discovered the true story–but avoided real danger, probably by engaging in some lascivious behavior…
It’s been a while since I read the book; details are unclear. The one Flashman movie was a Richard Lester romp starring Malcolm McDowell, I believe. But a good series of Flashman movies/miniseries could convey a massive amount of 19th century history. Along with cowardice, greed, wit & naughty goings-on…
“Lady Sings The Blues” was a good movie, but had little to do with reality. For example, Louis McKay was portrayed as the love of her life, when in real life he constantly cheated on her and controlled her with drugs. Then again Billie’s autobiography made up a lot of incidents of her life.
Once upon a time, a conquistador named Valdivia found himself besieged in his fort by natives who refused to act, y’know, conquered – and so, in hopes of seeking aid from Pizarro in far-off Peru, loyal Monroy and Miranda set out from Santiago in the dead of night with gold-hilted weapons on their belts, riding gold-shod horses with gold stirrups and gold bits; how better to spark interest, than by making the area look ripe for the picking to the point of having gold for the squandering?
We’ll never know; Monroy and Miranda were almost immediately taken prisoner by a completely different tribe of Indians, who spared their lives so they could serve as royal flute-players; it was months before Monroy could get the drop on a Spanish deserter and the magnanimous chief – leaving the latter dead, and the former bound and gagged to become the sole recipient of arrows shot at our riding-off-on-horseback heroes, who in turn got right back to work minus sword and armor, living off stolen llama meat on their way to finally beg assistance from – oh, wait, Pizarro’s dead, and his Valdivia-hating assassin is now in charge? Well, cue a hasty adventure across the snow-covered Andes to a small mining town, eventually convincing a ship to set sail through uncharted waters down to their embattled boss in Chile, but unsurprisingly overshooting the mark…
That’s kinda the nature of biopics anyway. Take a few set pieces from the subject’s life, and try to make an interesting story to tie them together.
The Marquis de Lafayette.
I nominated this once before – the Ironclad Board. Formed after the North realized the South was rebuilding the hulk of the Merrimack into an ironclad, the Board reviewed many proposals before accepting three. Only one, the outlandish and innovative Monitor, would be built in time (the first government project subcontracted, parts were made into subassemblies and shipped to the point of final assembly). Just in time. After almost sinking in a gale, she reached Hampton Roads the night after the Southern ironclad (now named Virginia) had sunk most of the blockading squadron. The next morning, as the Virginia steamed out to finish the job, Monitor was there to bar the way.
Not sure. David Morse did a pretty good Washington in the HBO John Adams series:
Did you mean T.R.? Because I thought Robin Williams was actually pretty good as him in the Night at the Museum movies: http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news_img/28561/robin_williams_28561.jpg
Chesty Puller.
Sorry, I’m typing this on a dumbphone and don’t have any links.
Fatty Arbuckle.
He was right in the middle of the danger. IIRC, the book suggested that Flashman might have killed Custer in a bit of accidental friendly fire.
Even better. Time to re-read Flashman. Still, I’d love to see his adventures on the screen…
Yes - when Flashy arrives at anywhere something dangerous is going on, he ends up in the thick of it despite himself. In this case he barely survived by lying among the dead bodies and being discovered there by his bastard son, who removed just enough of Dad’s scalp to count as taking a trophy from an obviously dead foe while not grievously injuring him.
Typical of Flashman’s luck was at Balaclava, when he stood with the Thin Red Line and charged with both the Heavy Brigade and the Light Brigade despite his frantic attempts to stay out of trouble.
I would love a movie version of Anya Seton’s 1963 historical novel “Avalon”. It is set in the Viking World, and speculates about Viking voyages to North America.
Here you go: Chesty Puller - Wikipedia
Which remind me, the Business Plot could be made into either a comedy or a dead-serious conspiracy movie: Business Plot - Wikipedia
After reading The Lost City of Z, nothing would make me happier than to see the book turned into a movie. It reads like an epic adventure.
its in the works, I know the director has been working on getting this rolling for a while.
I don’t understand why no one has made a big-budget motion picture out of Waverly yet. It has everything: a love triangle with two beautiful women, armies, escapes, royalty, subterfuge, revenge, torture, and highlanders. Lots and lots of highlanders. It’s a blockbuster waiting to happen.
The Marx brothers.