Hollywood

Most of Hollywood’s Arabian Nights fantasies are, of course, unadulterated tosh. The Middle East, wrote the American film critic William Zinssner, is transformed into ‘a place where lovely young slave girls lie about on soft couches, stretching their slender legs… Amid all this décolletage sits the jolly old Caliph, miraculously cool to the wondrous sights around him, puffing his water pipe.’ It is box-office commercialisation at its worst. As a cinematic franchise, however, Arabian Nights is the gift that keeps on giving, which goes a long way to explaining why Wikipedia has a list of 72 films (nowhere near complete) based on One Thousand and One Nights, starring everyone from

The film world is atoning for its crimes against diversity. On screen, strong women are supplanting Disney princesses. Superheroes, once uniformly white and male, are turning multicultural. Gay intrigue is edging out heterosexual romance. Away from the camera, bankable stars force studios to employ minority personnel by adding ‘inclusion riders’ to their contracts. Film-makers must repent ancient mis-speaks, beg forgiveness and denounce peers accused of transgressions. Abuse allegations against Woody Allen may be unproven, but actors who have taken his shilling disown him and donate their tarnished earnings to #TimesUp. Unsurprisingly, the current awards season reflects these rectifications. Of the eight nominations for best picture Oscar, six boast diversity credentials.

In 1950, Bette Davis had a string of recent flops behind her. She was 41, married to an embarrassing twerp (her third husband), and her career was spiralling above the plughole. She only got the lead part in All About Eve when Claudette Colbert — who was all signed up — ruptured a disc while doing a rape scene on another film. The story goes that with Colbert shrieking in traction, the producer Darryl Zanuck, who hadn’t spoken to Davis since using the words ‘You’ll never work in this town again’, was obliged to offer her the part. It didn’t take much. No sane actress could resist Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s

Gary Raymond must have been wondering if it was the end of a promising career — curtains. He was starring in The Rat Patrol, a wartime adventure series. Co-star Justin Tarr had managed to roll the jeep Raymond and fellow actor Christopher George were travelling in. Raymond escaped with a badly broken ankle (he tells me it still gives him jip). George had more serious injuries, including an injured back and a heart contusion. Raymond lived to act another day, but when The Rat Patrol ended after two series, it really was the end of his Hollywood years. But what a few years he’d had, in El Cid alongside Charlton

Ennio Morricone, the Oscar-winning Italian film composer, has died at the age of 91. Here, Richard Bratby spoke to the ‘Maestro’. Ennio Morricone’s staff wish it to be known that he does not write soundtracks. ‘Maestro Morricone writes “Film Music” NOT “Sound Tracks”’, explain the printed interview guidelines. ‘Maestro Morricone is a composer. Composers do not use the piano to compose music with, they write their music down directly in musical notes without the interference of any musical instrument.’ Well, that’s Beethoven told. In the classical music world, you hear tales about ‘riders’, the Spinal Tap-like lists of minimum requirements that pop stars issue before consenting to walk among mortal

The cast and producer of Crazy Rich Asians were present at the screening I attended and said a few words to kick us off. At this point the film — the first with an Asian-American principal cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993 — had been number one in America for three weeks, so they talked about a ‘cultural shift’ and how this was ‘as much a movement as a movie’. I confess, a lump came to my throat along with a tear to my eye, which is odd, given I’m usually such a hard-hearted old trout. It’s now difficult to know what to say next, but the safest

Ocean’s 8 is the all-female spin-off of the all-male Ocean’s trilogy and it’s a sop, with a third act that drags like nothing on earth. But its success — it earned an estimated $41.5 million during its opening weekend, which is better than any of the male versions — shows the market isn’t that bothered by content, which is equality of a kind. Women can now make dull formulaic franchise films too! Hurrah! We’ve arrived! And we can do this rubbish for ourselves now! The film is a straight-up-and-down remake, where the gender swap may, in fact, be the best idea, possibly because it’s the only idea. (The Ghostbusters remake

There’s nothing that screams 2018 feminism more than a bunch of celebrities holding hands on a red carpet. This year’s Cannes festival is the latest opportunity in a long string of awards ceremonies for the rich and famous to gain some brownie points. If there were an awards ceremony for the most right-on awards ceremony (please no one take me up on that), Cannes might well win. This year’s tote bags contained a flier emblazoned with #NeRienLaisserPasser (or, roughly, don’t let anything happen). ‘Let’s not ruin the party’ it said in French, warning attendees to watch their behaviour. Along with this, there was a new Cannes sexual-harassment hotline, set up

Fire up YouTube on the iPad, tap in ‘tap’, then wave goodbye to the rest of your day: clip after clippety-clip of the best and brightest stars rattling out impossible rhythms: Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling; Fayard and Harold Nicholas taking the stairs one split jump at a time; Gene Kelly singing (and dancing) in the rain. The American actor, writer and entertainer Clarke Peters (anything from The Wire to Five Guys Named Moe) was never dragged to tap-dancing classes as a boy in the late 1950s — ‘it was more ballet and jazz by then’ — but he remembers ‘trying to pick up moves from the films. I

Reading the lip-smacking reports of the latest troubled celebrity relationships  (Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux definitely high and dry, Cheryl Cole and Liam Payne allegedly on the rocks) I couldn’t help musing that stars – and more specifically, the place they occupy in our mass psychological landscape – have very much changed since the first mass-market celebrities emerged. The film stars of the fledgling Hollywood truly were worshipped as higher beings; a tribe of Pathan Indians opened fire on a cinema when they were denied entry to a Greta Garbo film while women committed suicide when Valentino died. Their marriages were regarded as heavenly unions; their romantic sunderings as tragedies.