Hey folks, Harry here... This past year at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9, I showed my personal favorite Richard Widmark film. A little movie he shot with Sam Fuller called PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET - I liked showing it knowing he was still alive... somewhere out there in the world. His Skip McCoy is one of the greatest heroic cads in the history of cinema. A pick pocket that's a Minnesota Fats with the pool table of life, knowing all the angles, or at least thinking he does. I've often said that Richard Widmark was a Warner Brothers character brought to life... A fully realized psychotic Daffy Duck... A worldly wise Bugs Bunny.... And even a weary Elmer Fudd.

Widmark is probably best known for his turn as Jim Bowie in John Wayne's THE ALAMO by the general public, while critics and cinephiles will never forget Widmark's first screen character... perhaps the greatest psychopath in the history cinema in KISS OF DEATH - I have the original one-sheet behind me now! Tommy Udo is easily right there with Cagney's Cody Jarrett.

But Widmark played in so many great films... Just check out THE STREET WITH NO NAME or NIGHT AND THE CITY or PANIC IN THE STREETS or the original NO WAY OUT. One of my favorite Widmark roles was in JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG and I'm a big fan of his Captain in CHEYENNE AUTUMN.

But honestly... the movie that introduced me to Richard Widmark wasn't any of these great films... It was the Oscar Nominated Irwin Allen "classic" - THE SWARM - in which Richard Widmark was cast as a general having to do battle with a billion evil bees - way meaner than those pussy Seinfeld bees. So, while I'd like to give the best to Widmark's family and friends... I'm angry he is not here... we are now at the bees mercy. Mankind is doomed. So sad.