To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which American body builder who made a movie in Italy had a pilot's license?
It was Reg Lewis.
Which British film actress who made movies in Italy was arrested for prostitution?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which American actor who worked in Italy had an ex-wife who was a mistress to Federico Fellini?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which American actor who worked in Italy had a daughter who made a film banned in several countries as "child pornography"?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which American actor who worked in Italy died of complications from diabetes?
Bertrand Van Wonterghem suggested Rory Calhoun and Carroll O'Connor. George Grimes suggested Rory Calhoun. These were not the answers I was hoping for, so I'm rephrasing the question:
Which American actor who made Westerns in the USA, Germany, Yugoslavia, Sardinia, Italy and Spain died of complications from diabetes?
And now for some new brain teasers:
Charles Gilbert asks, "Which 'film di recupero' was launched in the wake of MARCO POLO (1962) to defray expenses of that box office failure?"
Which Italian Western was shot in Sardinia?
Which Italian Western was shot in Algeria?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand Van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's frame grab of Lawrence Dobkin and Mark Damon in JOHNNY YUMA.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand Van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's photo of Linda Cristal in LE LEGIONI DI CLEOPATRA, aka LEGIONS OF THE NILE.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand Van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's photo of Giuliano Gemma in LE CERCLE DES PASSIONS.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand Van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's frame grab of Bruce Lee in THE BIG BOSS, aka FISTS OF FURY.
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:
Justified season six rewatched (2015)
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953) - Whatever history will write about Darryl F. Zanuck, it is to his credit that when he was the head of 20th Century Fox he championed the career of writer/director Samuel Fuller.
Mildly enjoyed:
LA DAMA DE BEYRUT, aka LA DAMA DE BEIRUT, aka CADA NOCHE UN AMOR, aka THE WOMAN FROM BEIRUT, aka CARGO OF FLESH (1965) - In 1955, Hungarian born Spanish director Ladislao Vajda made his most celebrated film, MARCELINO PAN Y VINO. Ten years later he made his last film, a crime film with seven musical performances by star Sara Montiel. Actually, Vajda died a week into production and his assistant Luis Maria Delgado finished the film. (Rumor has it that Vajda's heart attack was partly caused by newly wed Montiel cheating on her husband with her co-star Giancarlo Del Duca leading to incredible tension on the set.) Magali Noël and Alain Saury procure women for a pleasure palace in Beirut, Lebanon. Ex-con Montiel is performing in a Barcelona dive and so is excited by an offer to perform in a night club in Beirut. Noël and Saury tell Montiel that she doesn't have to worry about not having a passport. On the ship crossing the Mediterranian, captained by José Calvo, Montiel meets Giancarlo Del Duca, which makes Saury jealous. In Beirut, the villains spirit Montiel away from Del Duca. At the "club", Montiel soon learns that she is expected to also sleep with patrons as well as sing and dance. The operation is run by Daniele Vargas, who convinces Montiel she is trapped because she doesn't have a passport. While Montiel performs on stage, another girl taken from Spain kills herself. Montiel grabs older audience member Fernand Gravey, telling the villains that she will spend the night with him. Upstairs, she informs the older man of her plight, and he agrees to stay with her without getting any sex. Later, when the villains prepare to torture Montiel into submitting to their orders, Gravey shows up to escort her to see Interpol Commissioner Carlos Casaravilla. Gravey then takes Montiel back to Paris with him and sets her up to perform a song on French TV. She becomes an hit, but Gravey is concerned when he finds that Montiel knows his son Del Duca. Montiel and Del Duca are reunited and a romance flourishes. Meanwhile, the sex traffickers decide that Montiel must die, and Saury is sent out to do the job. Del Duca attempts to chase away Saury, but gets beaten up. Later, when he learns where his father met Montiel, Del Duca accuses our heroine of being a bad woman. Before, Montiel can answer him, she gets a note from Saury threatening to kill Del Duca if Montiel doesn't agree to run away with him. Hearing about this, Gravey gets his gun to confront Saury and is stabbed to death. Noël and the other gangsters learn that Saury isn't going to kill Montiel, but intends to runaway with her, so they machine gun him to death in the streets. A glimmer of hope is given in the end as Montiel walks dejectedly under the Arch de Triomphe and is followed at a distance by a grief-stricken Del Duca. Reportedly Western makers Alfonso Balcazar, Duccio Tessari and Jose Antonio de la Loma collaborated on the story for this film which was scripted by Jesus Maria de Arozamena. The film was a Spanish-French-Italian co-production from Balcazar Studios.
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) - After the success of producer/director Roger Corman's initial attempt to follow in the gothic footsteps of England's Hammer Films - HOUSE OF USHER, another film using the title of an Edgar Allan Poe story part of many schools' required reading was deemed necessary. The story only gave writer Richard Matheson one scene, so he took elements from many other Poe works to fashion a feature screenplay. While Hammer's production designer Bernard Robinson and cameraman Jack Asher often had to use the confines of a real house in which to create their films, Corman's production designer Daniel Haller and cameraman Floyd Crosby did their work on sound stages in Hollywood. It is the decor and lighting effects which make these films a treat. Corman's American actors tend to be a little flat, and never convincingly suggest that they are in Spain, but they do acceptable work with Matheson's sometimes stilted dialogue. Les Baxter provided an effectively eerie music score. Considering that she has so few lines of dialogue, one can't help but wonder why Barbara Steele was revoiced. Was her British accent out of place amonst the American voices?
TRACKING DOWN MAGGIE (1994) - As usual, Nick Broomfield made a movie about a public figure, here Margaret Thatcher, with a sardonic attitude. Since he could not get authorization to film Thatcher, he stalked her during her American tour a la ROGER AND ME.
Did not enjoy:
BULLETPROOF MONK (2003) - Even with "Additional Fight Sequence Second Unit Directed by and Choreographed by Cory Yuen', there isn't a single good action scene in this dumb adaptation of the Flypaper Press Comic Book. Howcome the movie doesn't credit author Brett Lewis and artist Michael Avon Oeming? And howcome Wikipedia says "Image Comics" while the movie credits "Flypaper Press"? After this feature debut, director Paul Hunter went back to making music videos. None of the publicity for this flick warned me that it was basically a Batman wanna be. Or should it be a Captain America wanna be with its Nazi villain? Now I have more respect for the RUSH HOUR movies. I did like the gag of Seann William Scott learning martial arts at the Golden Palace, which turns out to be a movie theater that shows alot of kung fu flicks.
EL CAMINO, aka THE ROAD (1963) - Spanish writer/director Ana Mariscal began her movie career by accident when she went with her brother, Luis Arroyo, to an audition in 1940 for the film EL ULTIMO HUSAR. After appearing in over 20 films, in 1953 she began directing. Miguel Delibes published his third novel, EL CAMINO, in 1950, about a young man spending his last days in the small country town in which he was born before having to go school in the city. Mariscal's work is often compared to Italian neo-realist films, and at one point a the village priest is seen reading the book CINE FE Y MORAL which has a photo of Giulietta Masina in director Federico Fellini's LA STRADA (which also translates as THE ROAD, 1954) inside and a photo of Broderick Crawford in director Fellini's IL BIDONE (1955) on the cover. Her film is a slow paced portrait of a small Spanish town seen through the loving eyes of a young man about to leave it. Jose Antonio Mejias plays the young man, and while the camera seems to love him, Mejias seems to have decided to not continue an acting career. The same seems true of the two who play his buddies, Angel Diaz and Jesus Crespo. On the other hand, the little girl who is obviously smitten with Mejias, Maribel Martin was already a veteran of 3 movies and a TV series before EL CAMINO. She would go on to a fairly strong career appearing in Westerns like THE BIG GUNDOWN, and Horror movies like THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED, THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE and A BELL FROM HELL.Playing Mejias' father is Antonio Casas, who would appear in over 15 Westerns. Mary Paz Pondal plays the older woman with whom Mejias is fascinated. She would also go on to a fairly strong career appearing in Spy movies like YPOTRON and O.K. YEVTUSHENKO, Westerns like A BULLET FOR SANDOVAL and APOCALYPSE JOE and even director Luis Bunuel's TRISTANA. Xan das Bolas, who would go on to make over 15 Westerns, also appears in EL CAMINO.
FOR COLORED GIRLS (2010) - Ntozake Shange's choreopoem FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/ WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF was an acclaimed theater piece in 1976. Forty four years later, Tyler Perry took the seven dance monologues and turned it into a torturous melodrama fleshed out with some of the most impressive African American actors available.
THE EXTERMINATOR (1980) - 1980 was a different time. It was a time when a barely competent vigilante film with bits of extreme violence could become a box office hit and launch the career of a mediocre director like James Glickenhaus. In Vietnam, Steve James saves Robert Ginty. In New York City, James saves Ginty again when a street gang gets caught stealing beer. Later, James is jumped by the thugs who break his neck; leaving him alive but paralyzed in the hospital. Ginty pulls out his personal M16 and gets revenge on the thugs. Cop Christopher George is put on the case to catch the self-styled Exterminator. The CIA gets involved because an election is coming up and the Exterminator's actions is making the Government and Judicial System look incompetent. Eventually, Ginty requests a meeting with George and a CIA sniper kills the cop and wounds the vigilante. The film ends with the vigilante still alive. 1980 was also a time when an ad campaign can take one scene from a movie, Ginty threatening a thug with a flame thrower, and create the illusion that the movie was about a vigilante who kills bad guys with a flame thrower.
THE GIRL IN THE RED VELVET SWING (1955) - Reportedly this project was intended to star Marilyn Monroe, but she turned it down. I can't see that she would have been any better than Joan Collins in what was a rather dull melodrama involving the murder of Stanford White in 1906 New York City. Perhaps a better title would be THE CURSE OF BEING PRETTY. Here, she was too pretty to be ignored by a rich married man. with whom she fell in love, but he wouldn't divorce his wife. Then she was too pretty to be ignored by a rich unmarried young man who was hyper envious of the rich married man. If only she could have ignored the attention and gifts showered on her, then she wouldn't have found herself forced to make a career out of her infamous reputation. Director Richard Fleischer delivered a professional looking film co-starring Ray Milland and Farley Granger.
MIKEY AND NICKY (1976) - Since the airing on TCM had a Criterion Collection logo, I'm guessing that what I saw was writer/director Elaine May's definitive "director's cut" of this incredibly annoying flick. Actors in movies written and directed by John Cassavetes tend to yammer. I don't know if it was May or Cassavetes decision to do something similar here, but add Peter Falk to the mix and you get a yammer fest. The story is simple enough. Paranoid Cassavetes calls on his boyhood friend Falk to help him evade the murder contract put on him. It turns out that Falk is there to set up Cassavetes to be killed by triggerman Ned Beatty. Cassavetes' erratic behavior results in his never being where Falk has fingered him to be, but inspires alot of pointless gabbing. Eventually, Cassavetes and Falk realize they can't stand being around each other and split up. Cassavetes ends up going to Falk's home to apologize, but Falk won't let him in and Beatty finally gets his target. Why anyone thought that an audience would want to put up watching these two annoying characters interact for over 100 minutes is a mystery. Why director May went over schedule and over budget getting this film made is bewildering. After becoming a respected script doctor, particularly on films directed by Warren Beatty, May didn't get a chance to go over budget and over schedule again until 1987's ISHTAR, but at least that film was funny.
NA CIDADE VAZIA, aka IN THE EMPTY CITY, aka HOLLOW CITY (2004) - It is 1991, and a group of children has been taken from their war destroyed town in Angola to the capital city of Luanda by Sister Ana Bustorff. 12 year old João Roldan doesn't want to stay with the group, and so he sneaks away. The movie, by director Maria João Ganga cuts back and forth between Roldan meeting a variety of people in the city and the Nun trying to find him. Of course, he falls in with criminals and gets killed in a botched burglary. Reportedly this was only the second film made in Angola since the end of their civil war in 1991.
THE SHAOLIN KIDS, aka SHAOLIN DEATH SQUAD (1978) - Who can make a Shaolin movie without any mention of Shaolin? Director Joseph Kuo of course. There is not even an obligatory training scene at a Buddhist temple. Polly Shang's father is poisoned as part of a plot by the Premier to overthrow the Emperor. A scroll in which the Premier outlines his plot is captured by the good guys kicking off 80 or so minutes of mayhem. The big threat is the Premier's two bodyguards who can recover from fatal injuries by using "golden pills". Another difficulty is fighting through the Emperor's army to show him the scroll.
TRUE LEGEND (2010) - With this film, the director who helped to make Jackie Chan a star in 1978's DRUNKEN MASTER seems to have given into the current use of wires, CGI and shakeycam to deliver plot elements from ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS and DRUNKEN MASTER in a new highly melodramatic mix that boasts terrific production value but in an incredibly annoying way. With all of the tricks being used, it is hard to tell if any of the performers have any skills. Still it is nice to see old-timers like Gordon Liu and Chia-Jen Liang, aka Ka-Yan Leung, on the screen. Michelle Yeoh also pops in for a bit. This film has a dediction to David Carradine, who died before the film came out, but it is not his last film according to the IMDb. Mike Leeder gets a credit for helping to cast the film.
L'UOMO MASCHERATO CONTRO I PIRATI, aka THE MASKED MAN AGAINST THE PIRATES (1964) - I used to think that this was the same film as THE BLACK PIRATE starring George Hilton, but it isn't. The films have pretty much identical casts and crews, and even use alot of the same footage, but they tell different stories. In AGAINST THE PIRATES, Garcia the Pirate captures the Spanish galleon and takes the Spanish sailors prisoner. In BLACK PIRATE, the Spanish take the Pirates prisoner. In AGAINST THE PIRATES, everyone ends up on Garcia's island. In BLACK PIRATE, they end up on an uncharted island ruled by Jose Torres as The Crow (or The Raven). In AGAINST THE PIRATES, Torres plays a loyal member of Garcia's crew. In both movies, George Hilton runs around in a green outfit with yellow tights as The Masked Man. In AGAINST THE PIRATES, he gives a copy of the outfit to Tony Kendall to help out. In BLACK PIRATE, Princess Claude Dantes borrows our hero's outfit to rescue him. Both movies feature a dancing pirate woman trying to copy Chelo Alonso's memorable dance from MORGAN THE PIRATE, but each movie has a different dancer. Both movies have the same sub-TV production values with mediocre sets and poor lighting. Neither film features a decent action scene. AGAINST THE PIRATES has the director's credit for Vertunnio De Angelis. BLACK PIRATE has Dean Vert. Of the two, AGAINST THE PIRATES is the better film, but even it isn't very good. And dispite what Wikipedia says, Giovanni Cianfriglia, or Ciangriglia, isn't in the movie. The lousy production design is credited to Demofilo Fidani.
WHITE LIGHTNING (1973) - After having worked on TV's The Big Valley, THE SCALPHUNTERS, SAM WHISKEY, THE HUNTING PARTY, I DISMEMBER MAMA and THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING, writer William W. Norton - the father of writer Bill L. Norton of CISCO PIKE, CONVOY and OUTLAW BLUES, penned this movie which looked like a moonshine running car flick, but was actually a revenge tale against a bigoted Southern Sheriff who killed our hero's little brother because he was a long hair hippie-type protesting to get Blacks the vote. Burt Reynolds played our hero, Gator McKlusky, who was in prison for running moonshine when he heard about his brother's murder. Everyone figured that Sheriff Ned Beatty did it, but can't prove it. Reynolds convinced the ATF that if they let him out of prison, he could come up with the evidence to bust Beatty. Parolee Matt Clark was forced to help Reynolds, which worried his wife Diane Ladd (erroneously billed as Diane Lad). Clark introduced Reynolds to driver Bo Hopkins, who introduced our hero to moonshiner R.G. Armstrong. Reynolds was dutifully writing down names, when he came across a guy who remembered getting moonshine from Reynolds' father, so Reynolds gave up on evidence gathering. Unfortunately, a lawyer with an ear in D.C. learned that Clark was a snitch, so after Clark got murdered, Reynolds - after being brought back to health by a Nun running a home for unwed mothers, decided to go after Beatty directly. It was easy to see how this movie could lead to SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. All they had to do was drop the revenge plot and play up the humor. Writer Norton obviously had important things on his mind so it was not that surprising that in the 1980s he was arrested for smuggling weapons to the Irish National Liberation Army. After his prison time, he was granted asylum in Nicaragua and eventually moved to Cuba. Becoming disenchanted with life under Cuban Communism, Norton went to Mexico where his daughter and first wife smuggled him back into the U.S. It was years later that a lawyer informed him that the U.S. government didn't want to arrest him. He died in 2010. In 1970, Joseph Sargent directed one of my favorite movies, COLOSSUS THE FORBIN PROJECT. His work here was solid, though the film played like the filmmakers made a "R" rated film what got re-edited to become a "PG" rated flick. The editing got a bit jumbled, particularly in scenes involving sexual assault, but one always understood what was happening. This was the first film in which Laura Dern appeared. She's the seven-year-old daughter of her real life mother Diane Ladd.
GATOR (1976) - William W. Norton penned this sequel to WHITE LIGHTNING which makes no reference to the events of the first film. Burt Reynolds now has a nine-year-old daughter, Lori Futch, whose mother ran off while our hero was serving his second prison sentence. Gator's mother isn't to be seen and Dabbs Greer has been replaced by John Steadman as Reynolds' father. Instead of living in the hills, the McKluskys now live in the swamp, and when Jack Weston from the Justice Department arrives to talk with him, Reynolds initiates a speedboat chase instead of a car chase. After getting the okay from Governor Mike Douglas (!, Did Johnny Carson turn down the role?), Weston sets out to recruit Reynolds to take down Dunston County boss Jerry Reed (who also sings the theme song). Weston takes Reynolds' father and daughter into custody to force Reynolds to help, and the film fails to provide an ending where we see him reunited with his loved ones. Instead, the film throws in a romance after about 80 minutes between Reynolds and TV reporter Lauren Hutton for which we are supposed to get all misty eyed at the end when she decides that she really wants to pursue her career in NYC instead of staying with Reynolds. It turns out that Reed is an old buddy of Reynolds, so he's reluctant to work against him, until he sees Reed burn out businesses that don't pay him protection money and keeps a brothel of underage girls no older than 17. Hutton brings in cat lady Alice Ghostley, who knows where to find the account books that Weston needs to take down Reed. For a bit it looks like Norton and Reynolds won't kill off secondary characters before dropping the hammer on the bad guy, but they can't resist and both Ghostley and Weston are killed inorder to provoke Reynolds to violence. Now with a moustache and co-starring Jerry Reed, Reynolds is clearly preparing the way for SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT with 2nd Unit Director Hal Needham stepping up to the director's chair. In his directoral debut, Reynolds also ups the comedy in the film and frequently gives off the laugh that would become world famous. One of the visual gags in the film is that Reed's "enforcer", William Engesser, is so huge that when he drives a car he has to put his head through the sunroof. For fans of director Sam Peckinpah, Reynolds only cast one old-timer - Dub Taylor, while WHITE LIGHTNING had three.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
THE RETURN OF ELIOT NESS (1991) Robert Stack reprises his role as crime fighter Ness looking much older than the 15 years that has lapsed in the storyline. Original Nelson Riddle music is crudely interspersed into a new score to make viewing nostalgic. Newer cars and bazookas, but there's also a couple Thompson submachine guns.
IF YOU WANT TO LIVE...SHOOT (1968) Sergio Garrone directs younger brother Riccardo; and Giovanni Cianfriglia gets billed as Ken Wood playing a bounty killer chasing a gambler named Johnny (Ivan Rassimov) who has shot to death a crooked poker player. Both Franco Cobianchi and Adriano Micantoni who have used 'Peter White' as an alternative name are in the cast.
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1976) Macho trucker Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) makes a delivery in the oriental enclave of San Francisco and gets caught up in a sectarian conflict when his Freightliner "Pork Chop Express" is stolen. Facing Chinese mysticism, monsters, and martial arts in warehouses and tunnels of underground Chinatown the inept but undaunted 'cowboy' helps his friends rescue a green-eyed beauty kidnapped by an elder sorcerer who schemes to marry her to appease his deity.
Casey Jones tv show S01E01 (1957) Colorized. Can't say I've ever heard of this program. Alan Hale Jr. is the titular engineer piloting the Cannonball Express. First episode depicts a race against The Swamp Tiger to Fort Worth for a government contract. Mort Mills' failed attempt to bribe Casey to throw the race means sabotage awaits. Look for Universal alum Glenn Strange and Gilbert Perkins.
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David Deal enjoyed:
MY OCTOPUS TEACHER (20) - Amazing document of one man's year-long relationship with an octopus. Remarkable really.
THE SQUEAKER (63)
DEATH IN A RED JAGUAR (68) - See The Eurospy Guide book for a complete review of this Jerry Cotton adventure.
GREENLAND (20)
THE BLOODY VAMPIRE (61)
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Bertrand Van Wonterghem Highly enjoyed:
Smoking – season1 (12 episodes)
Enjoyed:
Monnaie de singe (1966, Yves Robert)
Black butler (anime) season 1 – episodes 5 & 6
Sweet home – season 1 – episodes 5 to 9
DC’s legends of tomorrow – season 5 – episodes « mortal khanbat » (2019, Caity Lotz) & « Mr Parker’s cul-de-sac » (2019, Ben Hernandez Bray)
Gansterdam (2017, Romain Levy)
Fallet – season 1 (8 episodes)
La famille Fenouillard (1961, Yves Robert)
WandaVision – season 1 – episodes 7 to 9
Mildly enjoyed:
Il leone di San Marco ( 1963, Luigi Capuano)
Ambulancen (2005, Laurits Münch-Petersen)
Scams – season 1(9 episodes)
La chance de ma vie (2010, Nicolas Cuche)
The new legends of monkey – season 1 – episodes 1 to 6
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