@TCManiacs Blogs: 07/27/09

Monday, July 27, 2009

King Solomon's Mines | Original Movie

King Solomon's Mines is a 1937 movie, the first film adaptation of the 1885 novel by the same name by Henry Rider Haggard. It starred Paul Robeson, Cedric Hardwicke, Anna Lee, John Loder, and Roland Young. The film was produced by Gaumont British Picture Corporation, adapted by Charles Bennett (uncredited), Michael Hogan, Roland Pertwee A.R. Rawlinson (uncredited) and Ralph Spence (uncredited). It was directed by Robert Stevenson.

The 1937 film follows the original novel faithfully, except for some musical interludes deliberately added to give Paul Robeson a chance to sing. The more famous 1950 Technicolor version severely alters the tale to make Allan Quatermain into a romantic hero who falls in love with the heroine, whereas in the original film Cedric Hardwicke played him as a professorial type completely uninterested in romance. -Wikipedia

Free download of 1937 version at the Internet Archive

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First, I'll tell you who I am not. I am not affiliated with TCM. I am not some superbot created by software developers. I am not being paid by TCM or anyone else to dedicate my time to tweeting. I am a real flesh and blood human being. I am a real maniac for TCM. I really do keep my TV tuned to TCM 24-7. I created the TCManiacs twitter as a result of my sincere passion for watching Turner Classic Movies.

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Well, I've been a fan of TCM since its inception. As I lay flat on my back recovering from a disabling health crisis unable to do little more than watch TV and surf the internet, I found refuge watching TCM round the clock. I soon developed an obsessive habit of keeping a browser tab open for the TCM schedule and beating Robert Osbourne's introductions to finding out facts for upcoming movies. My entire day and night became defined by the TCM line-up. At the beginning of 2009 I decided to check out twitter and lucked up on some fellow TCM fans to friend. During the 31 days Oscar I decided to dedicate a twitter just to share my TCM obsession by tweeting about every movie every day of February. I was totally overwhelmed by the number of fellow TCM maniacs that became my following. Its been a WIN WIN in everyway for me. I have had the opportunity to share fun stuff with some incredible fellow classic movie lovers and bloggers. With so many followers I became committed to maintaining the twitter schedule and finding fun stuff for upcoming TCM movies.

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