To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
To what fear did Lee Van Cleef admit before performing his first bed scene with an actress?
From: HOLLYWOOD EXILE Or How I Learned To Love the Blacklist by Bernard Gordon
"We were well along in the production when (Carroll Baker) had to play a fairly explicit sex scene with Van Cleef, both of them lightly clad under the covers and presumably naked. Baker went along without demur and disrobed above the waist. Van Cleef, also undressed, had to appear to be making love to her.
"He was alarmed. 'What will I do if I get an erection?' he demanded. I was not on the set at the time and the problem did not have to be resolved by me. After a hurried consultation with (director) Alex (Singer), the matter was turned over to (producer/writer) Milton Sperling, who came up with a quick answer.
'"Fuck her,' Sperling replied gleefully."
By what name is Jack Stuart better known?
Tom Betts, Bertrand van Wonterghem, George Grimes and Angel Rivera knew that it is Giacomo Rossi Stuart.
VIVA CARRANCHO! was a sequel to what film?
Tom Betts, Bertrand van Wonterghem, George Grimes and Angel Rivera knew that it was LOS PISTOLEROS DE ARIZONA, aka $5,000 ON AN ACE.
German actress Barbara Frey was married to what American actor?
Tom Betts, Bertrand van Wonterghem, George Grimes and Angel Rivera knew that it was Mark Damon.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which American, who had been a "close friend" of a young Stanley Kubrick, directed a Western in Spain?
Which Italian Western spoof starred Lando Buzzanca and Gloria Paul?
Which Italian actor was once considered to play the lead in LE FATICHE DI ERCOLE and would go on to appear in six movies starring Steve Reeves?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Tom Betts and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Antonio Sabato in DUE VOLTE GIUDA, aka TWICE A JUDAS.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo from LA REGINA DI SABA, aka THE QUEEN OF SHEBA.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes identified last week's photo of Luciano Catenacci, Tomas Milian and Nello Pazzafini in MILANO ODIO, aka ALMOST HUMAN.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes, Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera identified last week's frame grab of Bolo Yeung and John Saxon in ENTER THE DRAGON.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
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I am interested in knowing what movies you have watched and what you enjoyed or not. So please send me an email at scinema@earthlink.net if you'd like to share. Here's what I watched last week:
Enjoyed:
ABC Stage 67 "Noon Wine" (1966) - After the debacle of THE CINCINNATI KID, Sam Peckinpah returned to working on television. With interiors shot on videotape and exteriors on film, Peckinpah crafted this adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter's short novel, which was such a critical success that he was nominated by the Writers Guild for Best Television Adaptation and the Directors Guild of America for Best Television Direction. A depressing little drama, this showed Peckinpah's ability with actors in a non-action scenario. Producer Daniel Melnick would work with Peckinpah again on 1971's STRAW DOGS. Jason Robards starred as a dairy farmer who took on drifting stranger Per Oscarsson as a hired hand. Olivia de Havilland played Robards' sickly wife with Steve Sanders and Peter Robbins as his young sons. After three years, Theodore Bikel showed up to arrest, or kill, Oscarsson as an escaped inmate from an insane asylum. Tragedy ensued and Sheriff Ben Johnson. from MAJOR DUNDEE was called in. Also from MAJOR DUNDEE was L.Q. Jones who appeared as one of Robards' neighbors. Robards and Peckinpah worked together again in 1970's THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE.
AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON (2015) - Because Marvel Studios made changes to his film, Joss Whedon left the MCU. As he began working with Warner Bros. on The Nevers, he was asked to take over JUSTICE LEAGUE which precipitated a chain of events which ruined his reputation.
ANT-MAN (2015)
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016)
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre "Trouble At Tres Cruces" (1959) - After helping to create The Rifleman with his Zane Grey Theatre script "The Sharpshooter" in 1958, Sam Peckinpah returned to Zane Grey with this episode which he also directed. It became the pilot for his excellent series The Westerner. Brian Keith starred as a man going to Mexico to help out Uncle Ted de Corsia. Arriving in town, Keith was informed by Frank Silvera that the Greek, Neville Brand, working with the local police, killed de Corsia, with the assistance of henchman Michael Pate. Fancy firearms were the rage of TV Westerns at the time, with The Rifleman featuring a rapid-fire Winchester Model 1886. Here, the fancy gun is a Winchester Model 1895 with a sniper scope - the kind featured prominently in 1971's THE HUNTING PARTY. Peckinpah had worked with Brand when Peckinpah was an assistant director on director Don Siegel's RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11. Australian actor Pate played a Yacqi working for the Mexican police in this show. Five years later, Peckinpah used him as a renegade Apache in MAJOR DUNDEE.
The U.S. and the Holocaust episodes two and three (2022) - "If we're going to be a country in the future, then we have to have a view of our own history which allows us to see what we were. Then we can become something different. And then we have to become something different if we're going to make it." - Timothy Snyder, Historian.
Red Election season one episode 8 (2012)
She-Hulk Attorney At Law episode seven (2022)
Mildly enjoyed:
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre "Miss Jenny" (1960) - Vera Miles stars in this half hour drama as Adam Williams' wife. Williams has brought his wife to Oregon hoping that a new start will bring them better fortune then they've been having. Unfortunately, when they stop for the night, Ben Cooper comes down from the mountain looking for a wife and decides to challenge Williams for Miles. Director Sam Peckinpah gets good performances from his cast, but the show seems stretched too long even with Jack Elam showing up as a peddler with two children giving Miles more people to try and keep safe. Cooper worked with Peckinpah again the 12th episode of The Westerner series, also in 1960, while Elam had to wait 13 years before Peckinpah used him in PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID.
THELMA (2017) - A father goes into the snowy woods with his young daughter and an hunting rifle. At first he takes aim at a young deer, but then considers shooting the daughter. He doesn't, and then we get the film's title. At first this seems to be a low-key variation on Stephen King's CARRIE without the humor and the verve which director Brian De Palma brought to the movie version. When the title character, now in college, goes in for medical tests, there seems to be a touch of THE EXORCIST or EXORCIST II: THE HERITIC. Then we are introduced to the concept of Psychogenic Seizures. Aside from some mysterious dreams, nothing spooky happens until 27 minutes in, but even that just seems to be the result of suppressed sexuality due to a conservative Christian upbringing. Nothing really alarming is shown until 59 minutes into the film during a flashback which gives the viewer an idea of why the father was thinking of shooting his daughter. It isn't until 69 minutes into the film that something really dramatic happens, but the pace never quickens and the tension isn't ratcheted. What keeps this viewer interested is waiting for an explanation for what is going on, which is still ambiguous even after it is given. And the pleasure of watching Eili Harboe in the title role. Grethe Eltervag as the young Thelma is also a pleasure. Still, one can't help but think that director Joachim Trier didn't have to take 116 minutes to tell this story, cowritten by Eskil Vogt. This was the official Norwegian submission for the 90th Academy Awards which seems naive - as if the Academy was going to nominate a supernatural film.
Unsung "Tony Terry" (2022)
Uncnsrd "Kadeem Hardison" (2022)
Did not enjoy:
GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT (1972) - Brian De Palma had achieved some notoriety with a couple of New York based underground absurdist comedies called GREETINGS and HI, MOM! In their early 1970s effort to find a "hip" audience, Warner Bros. decided to get De Palma to make an absurdist satire written by Jordan Crittenden. Reportedly, Warner Bros. didn't like what he delivered, and they got Executive Producer Peter Nelson to make changes. How much of the final mess can be blamed on De Palma and how much can be blamed on Nelson was unknown but I don't think Crittenden should go unblameless. John Astin is a corporate boss who gets Tom Smothers to do all of the work. On a day when a telephoned bomb threat gets put on hold. Smothers decides to walk off the job and start a new career as a tap dancing magician. The bomb goes off, but the film doesn't inform the audience of the consequences. While Smothers takes lessons from Orson Welles, Astin discovers that his company doesn't function without Smothers and tries everything he can think of to lure him back. Smothers refuses to change his mind, even when girlfriend Samantha Jones walks out. After booking his first out-of-town gig, Smothers finds Astin living as a bum in Union Station. Taking pity on Astin, Smothers takes his former boss to his hotel room and says that he can use it as an office. While Smothers enjoys his life on the road as a traveling tap dancing magician, Astin is inspired to create a business for burnt-out corporate types to drop-out and become tap dancing magicians. On the road, Smothers begins a relationship with groupie Katharine Ross, credited as "Terrific-Looking Girl". When he returns to Los Angeles, he finds that Astin has created a new corporation headquartered in Century City. Astin begs Smothers to take over running the company, which Smothers does for a bit. However, after getting a number of disappointed phone calls from Ross because he didn't show up for a number of scheduled gigs, Smothers pulls out the escape sack and vanishes from his corporate office. We see him happy again on the road, with his rabbit and Ross having had off-springs. I didn't mention a major sidetrack in which Allen Garfield pulls Smothers out of his hotel room in search of a great party. Slowly paced and uninvolving, GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT was a chore to get through. Fans of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour may get a kick out of seeing Bob Einstein playing a cop rather than "Super Dave Osborne". Reportedly, Timothy Carey also played a cop, but I didn't notice him.
Tales of the Walking Dead (2022) - An anthology series of six hour-long episodes that all feel too long - even the one with Parker Posey.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
BATTLE CREEK BRAWL (1980) Weintraub-Clouse film set in the 40's. Jerry Kwan (Jackie Chan) experiences a bit of Americana as he goes up against Michigan mobster (Jose Ferrer), who compels him to participate in a wild tournament against pro wrestler Kiss (H. B. Haggerty). He's cheered on by a throng of spectators and his caucasian girlfriend (Kristine DeBell) in a parade setting. Mako is his trainer. Annoying whistle leit motif by Lalo Shifrin.
THE WILD RIDE (1960) B&W. Wreckless Johnny Varron (Jack Nickolson) causes the death on the highway of a policeman with impunity. His nihilistic ways persist until another death at his hands brings on his arrest.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
HOUSE OF SECRETS (56) - Naval man Michael Craig is a dead ringer for a criminal mixed up in a counterfeiting ring. An Interpol-type of agency recruits him to impersonate the man in order to round the baddies up. Brit thriller moves fast, has plenty of suspense and action, and a good cast. Craig seems ideally suited for rough and tumble, and the supporters include Anton Diffring and Eric Pohlmann.
GRIM PRAIRIE TALES (90) - I saw this when it came out and it was good to revisit it after all these years; better than I remembered. It would be nice to see a high def presentation.
THE GREAT SWINDLE (71) - Artist Stephen Boyd becomes involved with Marisa Mell who has been involved with Fernando Rey who has been involved with Sylva Koscina who was involved with Marisa Mell before she got involved with Fernando Rey. This is a companion piece to director Jose Antonio Nieves Conde's Marta shot around the same time and starring Boyd and Mell. These are mood pieces featuring beautiful people in exotic places having first world problems (including challenging set decorations); the only thing missing is J&B. The version I watched was severely compromised but it fit the bill as a Euro ambience picture with a good soundtrack (Piero Piccioni) and enough censor-baiting scenes to keep things interesting.
GAMES (67)
DR. BLOOD'S COFFIN (62)
STARRING ADAM WEST (14) - Good documentary on the man in the cowl.
THE RAVEN (35)
THE STRANGER FROM VENUS (54)
NAKED LUNCH (91)
ANTONIO GAUDI (84)
Mildly enjoyed:
I LOVE A MYSTERY 45) - Two PI's fall into a twisty mystery involving the beheading of a socialite, an ancient secret society, drugs, hypnosis, and more. Based on the popular radio series, this convoluted but fun thriller did not spark the long-running series Columbia envisioned; only two more entries were made. George Macready shines.
THE KING'S THIEF (55)
INVASION OF THE ZOMBIES (61) - AKA Santo vs… Santo battles zombies created by science mixed with Haitian voodoo by mad doctor Carlos Agosti (Dr. Frankenhausen himself). This early Santo film has some of the atmosphere and wackiness that would make his next few flicks real treats.
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Highly enjoyed:
The Munsters (2021, Rob Zombie)
Enjoyed:
Gyeolhonbaekseo / Welcome to wedding hell – season 1 – episodes 3 to 6
20 000 millions miles to earth (1957, Nathan Juran)
The exorcism of god (2021, Alejandro Hidalgo)
The invisible woman (1940, A. Edward Sutherland)
Un asunto privado – season 1 – episode 1
Mildly enjoyed:
She-Hulk : attorney at law – season 1 – episodes 6 & 7
Flash Gordon (serials) (1936, Frederick Stephani) – episodes 5 to 13
C’est dur pour tout le monde (1975, Christian Gion)
Clara et les chics types (1981, Jacques Monnet)
Misfits of science – episode « deep freeze » (1985, James D. Parriott)
House of the dragon – season 1 – episodes 4 to 6
The invisible man’s revenge (1944, Ford L. Beebe)
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