Well, so far the Nicholas Ray Blogathon is quite a success. Lots of readers are stopping by and clicking on the links to read each submission. Many writers I admire are contributing. And I'm reading plenty of interesting work from new writers I hadn't been familiar with (though I'm already behind so please bear with me).
Those looking to contribute, feel free to keep sending links to your work in. No surprise here, I've got a lot of gaps for some of Ray's later work, post-Bigger Than Life.
I know I promised some additional links that had not been personally submitted to me, but this is more exhausting than it looks. Look for those in a later post near the end of the Blogathon.
Here's what I've got today:
) against the pugnacious Robert Ryan (
). Given its use of an incredible amount of actual war footage, I'm assuming the story was built around the footage used (especially with such unique images as a pilot bailing out of a downed aircraft). So it's funny to think of a left-leaning maverick like Ray having to conform to all of these elements—a notoriously demanding eccentric as his studio chief, an equally iconic star who no doubt had demands of his own (both right-wingers) and the limitations demanded by such specific footage—in order to complete the war movie.
