Todd’s Movie Blog

Today is a sad day for movie fans, the great Charleton Heston passed away last night.  I’m not going to talk about his conservative political stance or his run in with Michael Moore when he was head of the NRA, quite frankly an actor’s politics are his business and don’t really influence my own views on the issues, I generally prefer to concentrate on their actual work. Heston had quite a run from his Hollywood debut in the Noir classic Dark City (1949) to his cameo in the remake of his own sci-fi blockbuster Planet of the Apes (2001).  Some of his high lights have included two films for Cecil B. Demille, The Greatest Show On Earth (1952) and The Ten Commandments (1956), one for Orson Wells, another Noir classic Touch of Evil (1959); and then there are his historical epics like the Lord of the Rings of it’s day Ben-Hur (1959), El Cid (1961), and The Agony and the Ecstacy (1965).  But for me he was at his best in the pre-Star Wars sci-fi adventures like the original Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1971), and Soylent Green (1973).  His passing so close to Richard Widmark’s is like a one-two combination sucker punch to our cinematic history.