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In fairness to the movies that shamelessly ripped off Indiana Jones, creator George Lucas took inspiration from earlier works as well. Borrowing ideas from prior stories and characters is part and parcel of the creative process of filmmaking. Sometimes, this results in blatantly shameless copies that don't offer much else except a rehash of already known and established tropes, with some Indie ripoffs even crossing over into so-bad-it's-good territory. However, this can also lead to compelling films that both challenge and contribute to the development of the original premise, character, or story. In fact, Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones himself is an amalgamation of prominent works from way before Indy's time.

Indeed, George Lucas' vision for Indiana Jones was inspired by noir films from the '40s like The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, as well as serials from the 1930s such as Zorro and Flash Gordon. Moreover, Indy also bears...

By winning the Best Cinematography Oscar for a second year in a row, "Birdman" director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki has joined a truly elite club whose ranks haven't been breached in nearly two decades. Only four other cinematographers have won the prize in two consecutive years. The last time it happened was in 1994 and 1995, when John Toll won for Edward Zwick's "Legends of the Fall" and Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" respectively. Before that you have to go all the way back to the late '40s, when Winton Hoch won in 1948 (Victor Fleming's "Joan of Arc" with Ingrid Bergman) and 1949 (John Ford's western "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"). Both victories came in the color category, as the Academy awarded prizes separately for black-and-white and color photography from 1939 to 1956. Leon Shamroy also won back-to-back color cinematography Oscars, for Henry King's 1944 Woodrow Wilson biopic "Wilson" and John M. Stahl...

Since January 27, Geoff Manaugh of the widely acclaimed Bldgblog has been hosting Breaking Out and Breaking In: A Distributed Film Fest of Prison Breaks and Bank Heists, "an exploration of the use and misuse of space in prison escapes and bank heists, where architecture is the obstacle between you and what you're looking for." The idea is to have anyone and everyone watch the films, wherever we may be, and then discuss them at Bldgblog: "It's a 'distributed' film fest; there is no central venue, just a curated list of films and a list of days on which to watch them. There's no set time, no geographic exclusion, and no limit to the food breaks or repeated scenes you might require. And it all leads up to a public discussion at Studio-x NYC on Tuesday, April 24." Discussions opened so far: Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937), Bresson's A Man Escaped (1956), John Sturges...

Clint Eastwood's longtime collaborator Bruce Surtees has died at the age of 74.

The Oscar-nominated cinematographer passed away last Thursday, according to Variety. No more details about his death were known as WENN went to press.

Surtees was the son of legendary Hollywood cinematographer Robert L. Surtees, who won Oscars for King Solomon's Mines, The Bad and the Beautiful, and the epic Ben Hur, and he is best known for his extensive work with Eastwood.

He made 14 films with the veteran actor/director, including 1971's Dirty Harry, and Eastwood chose Surtees as his director of photography when he made his directorial debut on Play Misty for Me in 1971.

Surtees won an Oscar nomination in 1975 for his work on Bob Fosse's Lenny Bruce biopic Lenny and his other film credits include Risky Business and Beverly Hills Cop.

The late actor was celebrated for her beauty and talent, but she had a streak of mischief that made her unforgettable

Jean Simmons was only 12 years older than me, and as I grew up I cut out a lot of pictures of her from magazines like Picturegoer and the Sunday papers. Can you credit that in those days – the late 40s and the early 50s – there were Sunday papers in Britain (such as the Pictorial, the Graphic, the Dispatch) that ran pictures of pretty movie stars in their underwear or swimsuits?

Well, Jean was pretty; I believe the captions also added that she was "saucy" (and I supposed they knew). The big picture for Jean's fans, who had scissors and a scrapbook ready, was The Blue Lagoon. That was 1949, and it had Jean and Donald Houston washed up on a desert island, doing their best for clothes and falling in love.

Deborah Kerr, the elegant, red-headed actress best known for her roles in The King and I and From Here to Eternity, died Tuesday (10/16) of Parkinson's disease in Suffolk, England. She was 86. Kerr was born in Scotland in 1921. A former ballet dancer, she acted on the stage as well but was quickly put before the cameras. She was 20 when she was cast in a supporting part in Major Barbara, opposite Rex Harrison and multiple roles in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp as Blimp's (and the directors') ideal woman. Her next role for Powell, a lead part as a Catholic nun in Black Narcissus five years later, made her a star and got the attention of Hollywood. On contract with MGM, she was often cast as a refined paragon of womanly virtue, appearing as the virtuous Lygia in Quo Vadis?, the headstrong Beth in King Solomon's Mines, and Portia, the noble wife of the equally noble Brutus (James Mason) in Julius Caesar. Kerr went decidedly against that typecasting when she landed the part of the adulterous Karen Holmes, who has an affair with one of her husband's subordinates, played by Burt Lancaster, in 1953's From Here to Eternity. Kerr and Lancaster's lusty beachside romp, one so intense that they seem oblivious to the pounding waves about them, became one of the most notorious and famous kisses in movie history, perhaps all the more so due to Kerr's established image of reserve and civility. She went on to return to that image in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's musical The King and I. Marni Nixon was dubbed in for Ms. Kerr's singing voice, but it was all Deborah filling the screen as the prim but level-headed Anna Leonowens. The film was a smashing success and earned nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Though her co-star, Yul Brynner won for Best Actor, Kerr was not to win for Best Actress (that went to Ingrid Bergman for Anastasia). Indeed Kerr was never to win an acting Oscar though she was nominated six times in twelve years. Kerr followed King with more memorable roles, including Terry McKay, the vibrant, witty woman with whom Cary Grant has An Affair to Remember, the matriarch of an Australian family of sheep-drovers in The Sundowners, a nun again, shipwrecked with a hard-living Marine (Robert Mitchum) in Heaven Knows, Mr. Alison, and a governess utterly unable to comprehend her charges in The Innocents. Kerr acted sporadically thereafter and moved to Switzerland for many years before returning to the UK in the face of her illness. Married twice, she is survived by her second husband, screenwriter Peter Viertel, two children from her first marriage, and three grandchildren. In 1994 she received an honorary Oscar for being "An artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance." -Keith Simanton, IMDb...