93 Years Since Alan Ladd Was Born!


This is to put readers on notice that there will be a further (and more detailed) posting on Alan Ladd in the weeks to come, for no reason other than the fact that I consider him one of the great screen personalities --- an all-purpose definition of what being a movie star is all about. For the meantime, here’s a shot of Ladd in his most famous role to commemorate the ninety-third anniversary of his birth. So few of his films have been released on DVD --- Shane, This Gun For Hire, Whispering Smith, Branded, The Proud Rebel. The Carpetbaggers. Universal owns most of them now. A box set would be a welcome thing indeed. Copyright records indicate that Ladd’s family still owns a few titles, including Drum Beat and one of my favorites, Hell On Frisco Bay. Both of these are in Cinemascope, and I’d hope that some enterprising distributor would make an arrangement with the estate to release them. They may not be Hondo and The High and The Mighty, but they’ve been out of circulation almost as long, and I for one would love to see them again.