Sir Roger Moore is returning to familiar turf, co-producing (along with his son Geoffrey) a new TV movie based on the classic series The Saint. If successful, it could spawn a TV series. Moore rose to fame playing the charismatic Simon Templar in the smash hit TV show of the 1960s. Subsequent attempts to revive the franchise met with mixed results. There was a TV series with Ian Ogilvy and an ill-fated big screen version starring Val Kilmer. Reports say British actor James Purefoy is in negotiations to play the title role. Filming is set to begin next month in Europe. For more click here

We reported on the recent passing of Neil Aspinall, a man whose name was known primarily only to Beatle fans, but whose influence on the group cannot be overstated. Aspinall guided the group's career after the death of their original manager Brian Epstein and was largely responsible for turning Apple Corp into a major force in the music business, even after the group split up. Writer Darin Murphy has an excellent tribute to the man known as The Fifth Beatle. To read click here.

Charlton Heston with Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green.

The German-based website Madmind has an amusing article in which the German translations for well-known American films are critiqued - and some are as hilarious as they are inappropriate. Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West translates to Play Me the Sound of Death while Soylent Green becomes The Year 2022. Those Who Want to Live. Ach der lieber! Who comes up with these things?? To read click here

They don't make leading men like this anymore: Burt Lancaster in the famous beach scene in From Here to Eternity.

For all of you who accuse of printing sexually exploitive photos of women, feast your eyes on Moviefone's tribute to the hottest men in bathing suits. At least they covered the spectrum of decades going back to Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan right up to today, including two James Bonds:Sean Connery and Daniel Craig. (Sorry, George, Roger, Timothy and Pierce). The current crop of honorees include some well known names such as Will Smith and Jude Law, but also has a few "stars" no one outside of their friends and neighbors have heard of. Once again, your stalwart Cinema Retro publishers missed being placed on the list - this time narrowly being squeezed out by Orson Welles and Jackie Gleason! To view, click here

Van Dyke sings a classic tune from Mary Poppins at a fund raiser that also saw him reunite on stage with Julie Andrews.

Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, who starred in Walt Disney's 1965 classic Mary Poppins, were reunited on stage recently at a tribute to actress Annette Benning and studio chief Robert A. Iger that helped raise funding for the arts. The event took place at The Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. The highlight was Van Dyke's performance of the legendary song from Mary Poppins, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

For more click here

Universal has sent us these hot-off-the-press first photos of Benecio Del Tora as he appears in the forthcoming remake of The Wolfman. It's a startling and truly terrifying look - but it should come as no surprise because the makeup effects are by the legendary Rick Baker. Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Baker . To read the interview click here

As previously mentioned on this website, Hammer films have been busy producing their first horror feature film since To The Devil… a Daughter over thirty years ago. Titled Beyond the Rave, it follows a young man about to go off to war in Iraq, who happens to fall in with a group of vampires. As you do.

The film is due to be released through MySpace TV on April 16^th in twenty five-minute episodes. At some point after the final episode a DVD will be released. You can currently view the trailer on MySpace (where you have to be a registered user) or here - http://www.puregrassfilms.com/v2/project_details.php?film=13

Your Cinema Retro correspondent has to declare an interest in the film, as both my sister and I appear in the background as extras! However, judging from the trailer I can safely say that it looks very different from any of the traditional Hammer output that we all know and love. One Hammer star, Ingrid Pitt, was invited to the premiere, and you can read her reaction here - http://www.denofgeek.com/captainsblog/16775/the_ingrid_pitt_column_watching_hammers_new_film.html

It is great that Hammer are producing new films again, but one can only hope that they begin to create a series of films that are more recognisable to fans. There are currently rumours that Hammer are also producing a series of gothic horror tales with the BBC, so I remain ever hopeful.- Adrian Smith

For Cinema Retro's exclusive report on the making of Beyond the Rave, click here

Young Julie with her mother Barbara and stepfather Ted.

In her new autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Dame Julie Andrews reveals the trials and tribulations of growing up in a household in which her stepfather, Ted Andrews, tried to take sexual advantage of her. It began when she was nine and continued until her teenage years, when her aunt physically installed a bolt on her bedroom door. Andrews writes about the irony of the fact that her stepfather was the one who can be credited for launching her show business career. However, the memories of near sexual molestation haunt her until today. For more click here

Here is the publisher's description of the book:

Since her first appearance on screen in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews has played a series of memorable roles that have endeared her to generations. But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.

In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.

Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.

Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.

Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.

To order this book from the Cinema Retro Amazon store, click here

Here's another doozy of a movie synopsis from the good folks at Optimum Cable. This time, it's their unique ability to sum up Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie starring Sean Connery and 'Tippi' Hedren thusly:

"A rich man marries a kleptomaniac with hang-ups".

We're sure Hitch would have approved!

The mysterious Man With No Name, immortalized by Clint Eastwood in director Sergio Leone's "Dollar" film trilogy, will be starring in a new series of comic books based on the film. The series is produced by Dynamite Entertainment and the first issue, titled The Good, the Bad and the Uglier will debut in May. The series follows elements of the original films' plotlines to develop a sequel about the fate of the the characters. For an interview with the artist, Wellington Dias,  click here.  

If you thought the era of gloriously dumb caveman movies ended with Quest for Fire, there's good news. The release of the new film 10,000 B.C., which is far more relevant today's society than One Million Years B.C. for the simple reason that it shaves off, well, almost one million years of history. In celebrating the release of a new film in the honored genre, Newsday writer Lewis Beale takes a fond stroll down memory lane and recalls all the previously released caveman flicks. You know, the ones in which the men wear designer loin cloths, the women have mascara and Nair treatments and dinosaurs pose a constant menace because no one bothered to tell them they didn't exist by the time cavemen came about. From When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth to Teenage Caveman starring Robert Vaughn, who would become The Man From U.N.C.L.E. a hundred centuries hence, Beale pays homage to a longstanding Hollywood tradition that returns in all its glory, happily devoid of intelligence or believability. To read click here