Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, and Wesley Addy. It also features Maxine Cooper and Cloris Leachman appearing in their feature film debuts. The film follows a private investigator in Los Angeles who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery after picking up a female hitchhiker. The screenplay was written by Aldrich and A.I. Bezzerides, based on the 1952 crime novel Kiss Me, Deadly by Mickey Spillane.
Bomb disposal is an explosives engineering profession using the process by which hazardous explosive devices are disabled or otherwise rendered safe. Bomb disposal is an all-encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated functions in the military fields of explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and improvised explosive device disposal (IEDD), and the public safety roles of public safety bomb disposal (PSBD) and the bomb squad.
Madelyne Jennifer Pryor is a supervillain and occasional antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Paul Smith, the character first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #168. Primarily featured off-and-on as an antagonist of the X-Men, Madelyne Pryor is a clone of Jean Grey, the ex-love-interest and first wife of Cyclops, and the mother of Cable. She was a long-standing member of the X-Men supporting cast until a series of traumas eventually led to her being manipulated into becoming the Goblin Queen.
Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American revisionist Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison and Joaquin Martinez. The film, which was filmed on location in Arizona, was directed by Robert Aldrich based on a script by Alan Sharp. It portrays a brutal raid by Chiricahua Apaches against European settlers in 1880s Arizona. The bleak and nihilistic tone of U.S. troops chasing an elusive merciless enemy has been seen as allegory to the United States participation in the Vietnam War.
Robert Burgess Aldrich was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. An iconoclastic and maverick auteur working in many genres during the Golden Age of Hollywood, he directed mainly films noir, war movies, westerns and dark melodramas with Gothic overtones. His most notable credits include Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), Autumn Leaves (1956), Attack (1956), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).
Too Late the Hero is a 1970 American war film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Michael Caine, Cliff Robertson, Ian Bannen and Harry Andrews.
Jeff Chandler was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was one of Universal Pictures' more popular male stars of the 1950s. His other credits include Sword in the Desert (1948), Deported (1950), Female on the Beach (1955), and Away All Boats (1956). He also performed as a radio actor and as a singer.
Vera Cruz is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, featuring Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, Cesar Romero, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson and Jack Elam. Set during the Franco-Mexican War, the film centers on a group of American mercenaries tasked with transporting a large shipment of Imperial gold to the port of Veracruz, but begin to have second thoughts about their allegiances. It was produced by Hecht-Lancaster Productions and released by United Artists on 25 December 1954.
Juggernaut is a 1974 British crime suspense film starring Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, and Anthony Hopkins. The film, which was directed by Richard Lester, was largely shot on location aboard the TS Hamburg in the North Sea. It was inspired by real events aboard QE2 in May 1972 when Royal Marines and Special Boat Service personnel parachuted onto the ship because of a bomb hoax.
World for Ransom is a 1954 American film noir drama directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Dan Duryea, Patric Knowles, Gene Lockhart, Reginald Denny, and Nigel Bruce.
Robert Rae Cornthwaite was an American film and television character actor.
The Flight of the Phoenix is a 1965 American survival drama film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, based on the 1964 novel of the same name by English author Elleston Trevor. The story follows a small group of men struggling to survive their aircraft's emergency landing in the Sahara. It stars an ensemble cast, with James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Kruger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea and George Kennedy.
Lukas Heller was a German-born British screenwriter.
John Stuart Mould, GC, GM, was an Australian naval officer, bomb disposal operative and Australian recipient of the George Cross.
Chad Bannon, also credited as Chad Ullery, is an American television and movie actor. Standing 6’4” and weighing 250 pounds, he is best known for his role as Killer Karl in House of 1000 Corpses and playing D.O.A. on the sports entertainment program "Battle Dome". He also competed as a professional kickboxer and mixed martial artist.
The Angry Hills is a 1959 American-British war film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Robert Mitchum, Stanley Baker and Elisabeth Müller. It is based on the novel by Leon Uris.
Bryan Baker is an American former professional mixed martial artist who competed in the Middleweight division. A professional MMA competitor since 2007, Baker fought in various promotions, most notably World Extreme Cagefighting and Bellator. Baker was also a competitor in the second season of Bellator's Middleweight Tournament in 2010, reaching the final against Alexander Shlemenko.
The Garment Jungle is a 1957 American film noir crime film directed by Vincent Sherman and starring Lee J. Cobb, Kerwin Mathews, Gia Scala, Richard Boone and Valerie French.
Voodoo Tiger is a 1952 American adventure film directed by Spencer G. Bennet and starring Johnny Weissmuller in his ninth performance as the protagonist adventurer Jungle Jim. It was written by Samuel Newman and produced by Columbia Pictures. It features James Seay as the film's antagonist. Jean Byron also stars.
The Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces dropped 2.7 million tonnes of bombs on Europe during World War II. In the United Kingdom, the German Luftwaffe dropped more than 12,000 tonnes of bombs on London alone. In 2018, the British Ministry of Defence reported that 450 World War II bombs were made safe or defused since 2010 by disposal teams. Every year, an estimated 2,000 tons of World War II munitions are found in Germany, at times requiring the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents from their homes. In Berlin alone, 1.8 million pieces of ordnance have been defused between 1947 and 2018. Buried bombs, as well as mortars, land mines and grenades, are often found during construction work or other excavations, or by farmers tilling the land.
