BEST HINDI MOVIES TO WATCH

Gifted English actor James Mason (1909-1984) played in 150 British and American (tv) films and was three times nominated for an Oscar. His distinctive voice enabled him to play a menacing villain as greatly as his good looks assisted him as a matinee idol with a dark side. He was born in Yorkshire and attended Marlborough and Cambridge, where he discovered acting on a lark and abandoned a planned career as an architect. Following work in stock companies, he joined the Old Vic under the guidance of Sir Tyrone Guthrie and Alexander Korda. Korda gave Mason his first small film role in 1933, but fired him a few days into shooting. Mason remained in the theatre becoming a prominent stage actor. From 1935 on he also starred in Late Extra (1935, Albert Parker), I Met a Murderer (1939, Roy Kellino) and many other Quota Quickies, the minor films to accommodate laws mandating a certain percentage of films shown in Britain to be British-made. He also starred in early tv films. During WW II, as an avowed pacifist, he refused to perform military service, a stance that caused his family to break with him for many years. In 1943 he caused a sensation as a handsome, sadistic aristocrat in the Gainsborough costume drama, The Man in Grey (1943, Leslie Arliss) and went on to become a popular star for his brooding anti-heroes in films like They Met in the Dark (1943, Carl Lamac), Candlelight in Algeria (1944, George King), The Seventh Veil (1945, Compton Bennett) and The Wicked Lady (1945, Leslie Arliss). He also starred with Deborah Kerr and Robert Newton in Hatter's Castle (1942, Lance Comfort) and played a mortally wounded Irish revolutionary in the suspense thriller Odd Man Out (1947, Carol Reed).

In 1949 James Mason went to America, where he starred in Caught (1949, Max Ophuls). In Hollywood he played somewhat more glamorous or heroic roles than in Britain in films like Madame Bovary (1949, Vincente Minnelli) and The Reckless Moment (1949, Max Ophuls). In 1952 while remodeling his home, he discovered several reels of Buster Keaton 's ‘lost’ films (Mason had purchased Keaton's Hollywood mansion) and immediately recognized their historical significance and was responsible for their preservation. As an actor he had international success in the remake of A Star Is Born (1954, George Cukor), playing a complex, Barrymore-style declining actor who marries a rising showgirl played byJudy Garland. His other roles include General Erwin Rommel twice - in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951, Henry Hathaway) and in The Desert Rats (1953, Robert Wise), a Nazi spy in 5 Fingers (1952, Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Brutus in Julius Caesar (1953, Joseph L. Mankiewicz), a world weary, complex hero-villain in The Man Between (1953, Carol Reed), the obsessed Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954, Richard Fleischer), a small town school teacher driven insane by the effects of Cortisone in Bigger Than Life (1956, Nicholas Ray), and a determined explorer in the Jules Verne adaptation Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959, Henry Levin). Probably his most famous roles are suave master spy Philip Vandamm in North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock) and Prof. Humbert Humbert in Lolita (1962, Stanley Kubrick). Later films are the Harold Pinter-scripted The Pumpkin Eater (1964, Jack Clayton); the John Le Carre thriller The Deadly Affair (1966, Sidney Lumet), The Last of Sheila (1973, Herbert Ross), the war drama Cross of Iron (1977, Sam Peckinpah), the tv series Jesus of Nazareth (1977, Franco Zeffirelli), Heaven Can Wait (1978, Warren Beatty, Buck Henry), Salem's Lot (1979, Tobe Hooper), and Yellowbeard (1983, Mel Damski), in which he played a surreal pirate captain. His tendency to take any job offered led him to have many unworthy credits on his resume, but throughout his career he remained a respected and powerful figure in the industry. His mellifluous voice and an uncanny ability to suggest rampant emotion beneath a face of absolute calm made him a fascinating performer to watch. One of his last roles, that of a corrupt lawyer in The Verdict (1982, Sidney Lumet), earned him his third and final Oscar nomination. He died of a heart attack in 1984 at his home in Switzerland. At one time married to actress (and later columnist and tv host) Pamela Mason, he was the father of actress-author Portland Mason and producer Morgan Mason.

Sources: Wikipedia, Turner Classic Movies, Jim Beaver (IMDb) and IMDb.

Belgian photocard by Kwatta, nr C 265. Photo by Metro Goldwyn Mayer for East Side, West Side (1949, Mervyn LeRoy).

Amtrak train number 6, the eastbound California Zephyr, rounds the curve on the old Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad line leading into the depot at Burlington, Iowa. The train is led by one of Amtrak's 40th anniversary "Heritage Units", this one sporting Phase IV stripes.

In the background, the classy old Hotel Burlington stands watch over the line as it has since 1910. It's scaffold sign was positioned to attract the attention of long ago railroad passengers who would be stepping off their trains onto the station platforms (behind me as I took this picture). Designed by Seth Temple and Park Burrows, two well-known Midwest architects, the hotel was the city's first "fireproof" steel frame, multi-story building. It was built as a seven story structure, with two additional floors being added in 1931.

Once among the finer hotels in the Midwest, Hotel Burlington struggled with the decline in passenger trains and the downtown area itself. After closing in 1980, the historic structure sat as an empty eyesore for years and in the 1990s faced demolition by a city that had become landlord through tax default. But then the City of Burlington tried one final effort, pledging to give a credible developer the $1.5 million that would have been spent on demolition. A Minnesota company was able to give the building a new lease on life, renovating it into apartments.

Hotel Burlington was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. ( #87002214)