To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
In which Italian/Spanish Western does a natural right handed actor have his gunhand mangled, so that he has to kill the bad guys in the end with his left hand?
No one correctly answered this one yet.
In which Italian/Spanish Western does a natural left handed actor have his gun hand disabled, so that he has to kill the bad guys in the end with this right hand?
No one correctly answered this one yet.
Which Spanish actress worked with directors Giorgio Capitani, Mario Caiano, Giorgio Simonelli, Maury Dexter, Fernando Cerchio and Burt Kennedy?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera knew that it was Elisa Montes.
Which Spanish actor worked with directedos Burt Kennedy, Gene Quintano, Richard Lester, Claudio Fragasso, Ferdinando Baldi and Sergio Leone?
Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Ricardo Palacios
Which Spanish actor worked with Abel Gance, Sam Wanamaker, Sergio Corbucci, Edward Dmytryk, Enzo G. Castellari and Burt Kennedy?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera knew that it was Julian Mateos.
And now for some new brain teasers:
By what name is Paco Brana better known?
Who is Candida Lopez?
Who wrote the autobiography Morir con dignidad en el cine?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's photo of Cameron Mitchell in MINNESOTA CLAY.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem, George Grimes and Charles Gilbert identified last week's photo of Beba Loncar and Cameron Mitchell in ALL'OMBRA DELLE AQUILE, and IN THE SHADOW OF THE EAGLE.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes identified last week's photo of Hiroyuke Sanada and Conan Lee in NINJA IN THE DRAGONS DEN.
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:
Charles Grodin "The Perils of Show Business - Proceed At You Own Risk" (2012) - More so than in his books, actor/director/writer Charles Grodin talks about what he dislikes about those who teach acting and various mean people he's met during his career in this DVD from Limelight Editions, an imprint of Hal-Leonard. The DVD is mostly Grodin in close up talking without prompting and runs a little under an hour. The disc is divided into sections such as "Acting", "Directing" and "Writing". At the beginning of each section is a brief list of Grodin's credits for each of these disciplines, complete with old reviews. The review that is quoted for MOVERS & SHAKERS is a little suspect I believe.
Roger Corman "le pape du pop cinema", aka "The Pope of Pop Cinema" (2021) - Made for French TV, this hour long documentary has a lot of entertaining material - including much nudity from the "women in prison" pictures, but is frustrating for what it does not include. There is no mention of the fact that New World Pictures also became a major U.S. distributor of foreign films, including the Oscar winning CRIES AND WHISPERS. There is no mention of one of my favorite Corman directed pictures - THE ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE. And there is no mention of Corman selling New World Pictures and starting New Horizons. Instead we get the story about how American International Pictures thwarted Corman's efforts to produce EASY RIDER. Well, writer/director Bertrand Tessier had what he felt was important and the program is fun.
Mildly enjoyed:
RETURN OF POM POM (1984) - A sequel to 1984's POM POM, this again stars Richard Ng and John Shum, aka John Sham Kin-Fun, as bubbling cops that are never-the-less called into action by Inspector Philip Chan when an unusual situation arises for which normal police efforts don't work. It is right in the middle of Ng's wedding to Deannie Yip that our heroes are called by Chan to stop a jumper from killing himself. The plot of the movie doesn't start until after about an half hour of goofiness when Chan is to deliver an envelope of money to his superiors as evidence. On the way, he sees a truck hit a young woman. He gets out of his car, leaving the envelope on the passenger seat. Not surprising, when he returns to his car, the envelope has been swapped to one filled with blank pieces of paper. Rival Inspector James Tien chortles at Chan's humiliation, but Chan is given 48 hours to retrieve the evidence. The limping driver of the truck suddenly jogs Chan's memory - which we see in flashback - of his capture of an athletic burglar called The Flying Spider, played by Lam Ching-ying. Chan was unable to hold on to Lam during the arrest so Lam fell off of a building injuring his leg. A tip sends Ng and Shum to a movie shoot, where upon Shum falls instantly in love with the beautiful Kara Ying Hung Wai, aka Ying Hung Hui, aka Ying Hung Wei, aka Kara Wai, who is a stuntwoman on the film. Of course, Wai turns out to be Lam's daughter and accomplice. Luckily, she falls in love with Shum before he reveals that he is a cop. After more goofiness, Chan retrieves the evidence money and regains his superiors' respect. Lam gets his revenge by pushing Chan off of a balcony onto to some stunt mattresses set up by Wai. The film ends with a freeze frame of Ng and Shum running away from an angry Chan. In addition to his acting role, Philip Chan is the credited director of this movie which was produced by Sammo Hung's D&B Films. There were two more POM POM movies after this. (POM POM is the HK version of Boom Boom.)
Stargate SG-1 (1997) - Pilot Children of the Gods, The Enemy Within, Emancipation (1997) - I didn't watch Stargate SG-1 when it began because I didn't have Showtime. I don't remember how I ended up with a copy of Vol. 1 of the DVD release, but when Michael Ferguson had a question about Vaitiare Bandera's nude scene in the pilot, I figured I'd check it out. Yes, it is there on the DVD. Children of the Gods is pretty good, but episode two and three are too reminiscent of the original Star Trek series to be much fun. However, I like looking at Amanda Tapping.
Did not enjoy:
THE DILEMMA (2011) - Vince Vaughn and Kevin James are business partners preparing for a major presentation. Vaughn and his girlfriend Jennifer Connelly think James and his wife Winona Ryder are a perfect couple. One afternoon, Vaughn sees Ryder having a dalliance with Channing Tatum and wonders if he should tell James. Connelly misunderstands Vaughn's upset thinking that his gambling addiction is resurging. After nearly two hours of screen time, everything comes out in the open, including that Vaughn and Ryder were lovers before she met James - which they kept secret so as to not upset James. The two guys ace their presentation and then celebrate James winning an ice hockey shooting contest. What in this script by Allan Loeb appealed to producer/director Ron Howard? While billed as a comedy, it isn't funny. And as much as I like looking at Jennfer Connelly and Winona Ryder, they are not given much of a chance to shine here. Neither is Queen Latifah. However, Tatum gets a few chuckles in his role. Howard provides small roles to both his brother Clint and his father Rance.
TEENAGE DOLL (1957) - The Woolner Brothers, who owned a theater chain, wanted Roger Corman to deliver a girl gang picture. Writer Charles Griffith had a script called THE RAT PACK, which he then rewrote changing the gender of the juvenile delinquents. The Production Code objected to a story about Mexican teens stealing weapons to resell, so Griffith had to rewrite his rewrite over the weekend before cameras rolled. As the production values of this project were bad, as were most of the actors, I don't think that if they made the original script that the finished project would be any better than with what they ended up. When a member of the Black Widows is found dead in an alley, the other members of the gang become convinced that the new girl in town, June Kenney, is responsible. The dead girl felt that Kenney was a rival for the affection of John Brinkley, so that was probaby why they fought. Figuring that Kenney would run to Brinkley for help, Fay Spain, the leader of the Black Widows, decides that Kenney would sell out Kenney to them, so she gets all of the other members to get their hands on money. Eventually, the Black Widows arrive at the club house of Brinkley's gang the Vandals. The Widows call in their male associates, the Tarantulas, and a rumble happens. Meanwhile, Detective Richard Devon and Officer Ed Nelson figure out what happened and seek to arrest Kenney - which is what the Black Widows had wanted all along. The highlight of TEENAGE DOLL for me is the brief appearance of Barboura Morris, of whom I became a fan when she appeared in Corman's ATLAS. After her marriage to Monte Hellman in the late 1950s, Morris is reported to have coupled with Corman while making A BUCKET OF BLOOD.
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:
The great train robbery (1978, Michael Crichton)
Seiren / Siren's kiss (2025, Kim Cheol-kyu) – episodes 8 to 10
Mildly enjoyed:
Joaquin Murrieta (1964, George Sherman)
La bête errante (1932, Marco de Gastyne)
Did not enjoy:
The millionairess (1960, Anthony Asquith)
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Angel Rivera Highly enjoyed:
"ASTRO BOY, HERO OF THE UNIVERSE" (aka "Astro Boy, the Brave in Space" (1964)
I love animated movies and this one was about one of my favorite animated characters of all times. Back when I was a kid in the sixties, I liked two animated series a lot. One was "The Flintstones". The other was "Astro Boy". Astro Boy was the first animated series to be imported to the USA from Japan. (even though at the time we viewers were not aware of this fact.) If you are not familiar with Its main character, the series was about the adventures of a boy robot and how he saved the world week after week. The series reached the US , first premiering in Sept. of 1963 in NYC,. (Just nine months after it debuted in Japan.); then it premiered in Los Angeles and the rest of the US in Sept. 1964) In Japan the series was a huge success and was widely popular in the USA back in the sixties. The film was a compilation of three episodes from the series and was a special treat for its fans as part of the movie was in color. (The series was made in B & W and two of the episodes were made in color for this theatrical release.) The film was not released, as far as I know, in the US. (Even though IMDb shows a release date of 11/20/1964 for the US.) An English dubbed version of the film has finally emerged on YouTube.
The three episodes which made up the main parts of the film were: "The Robot Spaceship" / US episode title, "The Phantom Spaceship" which dealt with a ship comprised of individual robot parts of a spaceship which came together at the command of Astro Boy to become a super spacecraft.
Episode two:: "Earth Defense Squadron"/ US episode title, "The Moon Monsters" which dealt with Astro Boy joining the Junior Squadron of Rangers to rescue a kidnapped Dr. Elefun, Astro Boy's mentor and fight off the Moon Monsters. Astro Boy befriends two feuding members of the Junior Squadron known as Numbers 5 & 7. Their real names were: Miyamoto Musashi for number 7 and Kojiro Sasaki for number 5. These characters were named after the rival Samurai of Japanese history. For the English dubbed version, No.7 became Philbert Capfield and No. 5 became Tex McCute; after the Hatfield and McCoy feuding clans. This episode was made in full color and was part of the testing and learning of making color episodes in Japan with money from US distributor, NBC Films as Japan did not have color film reproduction facilities at the time for TV animated series.
The last episode was: "The Last Day on Earth"/ US episode title, "Attack from Space" which dealt with another robot boy, named Beemo or Bemu in the Japanese original version, who turned out to have control of a super bomb where the detonator was inside of him. Beemo had run away from his home planet because he did not want to have his super bomb exploded and cause mass destruction. This episode was also partially tinted in color. The ending of this episode was slightly different in the original Japanese version than in the English dubbed version.
Well worth the viewing for "Anime" (name given Japanese made animation) fans.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
HOUSE OF FEAR (1945) B&W. Sherlock Holmes is summoned to a castle in Scotland after a murder occurs within a coterie of English gentlemen called the Good Comrades.
BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (1965) A European photograph entourage with several svelte models in tow gains shooting location access to a castle seemingly abandoned. The master of the house, an egotistical and reclusive former muscle actor named Travis Anderson (Mickey Hargitay) eventually reveals himself with much displeasure at their presence, but allows them to remain in order to carry out his maniacal plans of torture, role playing as the Crimson Executioner.
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