To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which Italian winner of an Olympic gold medal for boxing in 1960 appeared in an Italian Western?
Tom Betts, Rick Garibaldi, Angel Rivera, Charles Gilbert and George Grimes knew that it was Nino Benvenuti.
Which Italian boxer from 1925 to 1934 - with 47 wins, 17 losses and 2 draws, became an actor in both Italian Sword & Sandal films and Westerns?
Tom Betts, Charles Gilbert and George Grimes knew that it was Enzo Fiermonte.
Which future star of Italian Westerns helped to win the Italian Championship for water polo in 1954 with the S.S. Lazio team?
Tom Betts, Rick Garibaldi and George Grimes knew that it was Carlo Pedersoli, aka Bud Spencer.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which Italian actress worked with directors Peter R. Hunt, Giuliano Montaldo, Sergio Martino, Calvin Floyd, Allen Baron, Duccio Tessari and Alfonso Brescia?
Which Italian director did four movies set in Outer Space with Yanti Somer?
Which English actor worked with directors Michele Soavi, Neri Parenti, Riccardo Freda, Marius Mattei, Umberto Lenzi and Armando Crispino?
Name the movies from which these images came.
George Grimes and Rick Garibaldi identified last week's photo of Nino Benvenuti, Giuliano Gemma and Sydne Rome in VIVI O PREFERIBILMENTI MORTI, aka ALIVE OR PREFERABLY DEAD, aka SUNDANCE CASSIDY AND BUTCH THE KID.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes and Charles Gilbert identified last week's photo of Sylva Koscina in ERCOLE E LA REGINA DI LIDIA, aka HERCULES UNCHAINED.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one has identified the above photo yet.
Can you name from what movie it came?
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:
Mildly enjoyed:
CLEOPATRA (1934) - Having recently rewatched the 1963 version, it seemed time to rewatch the version directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Running only 100 minutes, it skimps on the history even more than the Joseph L. Mankiewicz film, but who knows what Mankiewicz intended with his film shortened by over an hour. DeMille's film is almost all studio bound, so it also pales in spectacle, though the armor sparkles mightily in black and white. DeMille seems more interested in female sensuality than Mankiewicz, and to that end Claudette Colbert delivers better than Elizabeth Taylor. DeMille's writers also shied away from the known Shakespearean quotes, though they threw in "You, too, Brutus." and a reference to "Friends, Romans, Countrymen". There's no mention of Caesarion in this version and no version that I've seen wants to talk about the three children Marc Antony had with Cleopatra. The battle scenes are fun, entirely done in montage. This film was the highest grossing film in North America of 1934.
DISOBEDIENCE (2017) - Featuring sensitive performances by the wonderful Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, but way too leisurely paced, this film, based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, is a bit of a chore to watch. Co-written and directed by Sebastian Lelio from Chile in his first English language effort, this is another story of women trying to survive in an oppressive religious community. Weisz is a photographer based in New York City who gets word that her father has died. So, she travels back to the Orthodox Jewish community in London from which she fled decades before. There she reunites with the man many expected her to marry - Alessandro Nivola, and her best friend, McAdams, who married him. It isn't until the film is half over, about an hour in, that we discover that Weisz disappeared from the community because her father, a rabbi, found her making love with McAdams. While Weisz has only had male lovers since, McAdams is a lesbian, who only has sex with her husband out of duty. What will happen to McAdams' job as a teacher when gossip begins? Will McAdams be able to continue her role as a wife after giving in to temptation? How will Nivola respond to his world being turned upside down? Will Weisz be able to attend her father's religious funeral? Unfortunately, I was wanting to yell "Get on with it!" before the film's moving conclusion.
THE GOOD OLD BOYS (1995) - It's not a surprise that Tommy Lee Jones got good performances from his cast in his TV directorial debut. Of course, having a cast of such strong actors as Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Terry Kinney, Sam Shepard, Wilford Brimley and Matt Damon helped. As Jones is a real life rancher, it's not a surprise that all of the country life stuff is convincingly portrayed. Like many old-time Westerns, the adversary is the bank that holds the note on the family land, and it is refreshing that the resolution comes without bloodshed. However, the story of an aging drifter who wonders if he should settle down and help his brother's family isn't a new one. Based on a novel by Elmer Kelton, the television film was scripted by Tommy Lee Jones and J.T. Allen and mostly gets by with a feeling of sincerity. Fans of Mauser automatic pistols may get a kick of seeing City Marshall Bruce McGill pulling one on Jones while telling him to get out of town. The threat of McGill putting out a Wanted order on Jones adds tension to the story, while the resolution seems a bit pat.
Did not enjoy:
THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS (1957) - Floating oversized brains with eye balls from outer space is the main attraction in producer/cinematographer Jacques Marquette's film, with a script blamed on Ray Buffum that director Nathan Juran hid behind the name Nathan Hertz to make. Investigating irregular radioactive readings from Mystery Mountain in the desert - played by Bronson Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, John Agar and Robert Fuller discover Gor, an alien criminal from a planet of brains with the power to incinerate by thought. Gor kills Fuller and possesses Agar's body. Agar's fiancee, Joyce Meadows - who is obsessed with making hamburgers for lunch and constantly serving food and drink to menfolk, soon discovers that Gor in Agar's body is horny. When prevented from expressing his carnal lust, Gor/Agar decides to impress Meadows by taking over the world. After first blowing up a passenger plane flying overhead, Gor/Agar gets himself invited to an A-bomb test during which he causes an explosion bigger than the planned explosion. He demands a meeting with representatives from around the world with the threat of blowing up their capitol cities if they don't agree. Luckily, sensing something is wrong with her fiancee, Meadows and her father Thomas Browne Henry head out to Mystery Mountain, where they meet Vol, another floating brain with eyeballs. He has come to Earth to capture Gor, but can only do it when the criminal entity has left Agar's body and has assumed its original form to absorb oxygen - which he has to do once every 24 hours. Vol possesses Meadows' dog George waiting for the time to strike. Gor/Agar demands that the world help him to create an invasion fleet with which he plans to conquer Arous, but Vol tells Meadows that the fissure of Rolando in Gor's brain is his "Achilles heel". Finding a map of the brain in a book, Meadows rips out the page, writes "Gor's Achilles Heel" on it with an arrow pointing to the fissure of Rolando, and leaves it for Agar to find when Gor finally leaves his body. I find it interesting that director Juran didn't take his name off THE DEADLY MANTIS, but used the name Hertz here and on ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN. He went back to using Juran on THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD.
DAWN RIDER (2012) - It's the Dakota Territory, October 13, 1883. Christian Slater is pissing near a tree. Soon after, he goes to a cabin in the woods to lay down. Soon after that, Donald Sutherland and two gunmen arrive and proceed to shoot up the cabin. However there is a trap door and Slater escapes. In Sasparilla, Wyoming, a bandit gang rob the stagecoach of its mail bag, only to find nothing but letters inside. In Grey Falls, Montana, Slater helps to prevent a card game turning into a shootout, and befriends Ben Cotton. Slater introduces himself as John Mason to which Cotton, and just about everybody else in the movie, replies "Cincinnatti John Mason?" To which Slater responds, "I ain't never been to Cincinnatti." It turns out that Cotton is on his way to Promise, Wyoming where he has a job with Slater's Dad, Ken Yanko. Yanko isn't happy to see Slater again, but spends the night getting drunk with him. The next day, Yanko and Cotton are dealing with the mail when, naturally, the bandit gang arrives to steal it. Yanko gets killed, but sees the "Dos Equis" brand on the shoulder of a bandit. Before he dies, he tries to tell Slater about it, but Slater has a problem when his father speaks Spanish, so it will be awhile before he realizes that it is a clue. It turns out that the brand belongs to Lochlyn Munro, who is the brother of Slater's old sweetheart Jill Hennessy. Munro has turned to banditry because he needs $5,000 to save his ranch. Sutherland and his gang show up to take Slater back East because a rich family think him responsible for their young man's death in Mexico. Since he knows that Slater is trying to find his father's murderers, Sutherland agrees to wait two days if Slater swears to surrender. On the road, Sutherland and his men are ambushed by the bandits, and Munro claims that the dead men were the bandits. However, Sutherland isn't among the dead. Time has arrived for the miners' payroll to be delivered, so Slater decides to use it as bait to ambush the bandits. Botching perhaps the worst ambush ever presented on film, Slater ends up being thrown in jail by Munro, who wants to know where the payroll is as it isn't in the strongbox. Eventually the subplot in which Cotton is jealous because Slater is having sex with Hennessy figures into the final showdown, but it all works out okay even though Munro threatens to kill his sister if Slater won't give him the money. It is a bit of a surprise that Sutherland ends up giving our hero an happy ending. Seemingly inspired by THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID (1972), the film has a damp and drab look with everyone heavily dressed in long coats and droopy hats. When the adversaries face off in the street for a showdown, no one looks prepared to make a fast draw considering how much clothing they wear. Most Westerns are accused of not having back stories. This flick fills its 94 minutes with just about everyone yammering about John Mason's past. Internet "experts" claim that this is a remake of 1935's THE DAWN RIDER starring John Wayne, though there is no mention of the earlier film in this film's credits and there was no writer's credit on the copy I watched. However, the characters names listed in the IMDb match up. Director Terry Miles proves to be poor at staging action and his pacing isn't helped by his desire to show stuff in slow motion. The time lapse speeding clouds at the beginning of the film is just confusing.
THE DAWN RIDER (1935) - As a fairly typical Lone Star Western starring John Wayne, this movie is much better than its remake - and the 2012 film is a remake. There's a lot less yammering and no complicated back stories for our hero, and there is a lot more galloping horses and acrobatics by our hero. Like the remake, the villain turns out to be the brother of our hero's lady love, and our hero's best friend unloads our hero's pistol before the final shootout because of jealousy. Thankfully the time wasting subplot about a lawman coming after our hero, the villain putting our hero in jail and the botched ambush are concoctions of the remake. Not surprisingly, John Wayne does not have a bed scene with Marion Burns, nor does Burns spend most of her on-screen time fiddling with a six shooter. The screenplay by director Robert N. Bradbury, from a story by Lloyd Nosier, starts off on a macabre note as the town doctor and undertaker complain about a lack of business because the people in the town are too healthy. A gunshot rings out, there's a brawl in the saloon which spills out on the street and when Reed Howes tries to get the shooter to put away his gun, there is a scuffle which leads to Howes making the former shooter dance as Howes shoots at his feet. John Wayne arrives in town and when he helps the former shooter/dancer out of a small mud puddle in the middle of a wide dusty street, he earns some derision from Howes. Naturally, after Wayne and Howes pummel each other with fists, they become fast friends and share a drink. It turns out that Howes works for Wayne's father, but when they cross the street to see Dad at the Express Office, they walk into a holdup in progress. As Dad, played by Joseph De Grasse, empties the safe, the loot is handed through a broken window to villain Dennis Moore outside. When Dad pulls a gun out of the safe, Moore shoots him through the window. As Dad expires, he tells Wayne that the shooter was wearing a polka dotted kerchief. Wayne gives chase and kills two bad guys before being wounded. Wayne recovers from his wound in Howes' home, nursed by friend Marion Burns. Howes tries to ask Burns to marry him, and we can tell she isn't interested. Three weeks later, Wayne is looking through a catalog. Burns sees a wedding ring circled in the catalog and mistakes it for what Wayne is planning to buy. She is disappointed when Wayne says that he's thinking of buying a pair of boots for Howes. After Burns walks away, Wayne see's the encircled ring listing and realizes that he's in a romantic triangle. Seeing Burns' brother Moore wearing a polka dotted kerchief, Wayne begins to realize who the murderer is. One element that the remake improves on, is that the hero realizes that his pistol has been emptied of shells. In the original, Wayne seems a bit stupid to not have re-checked his pistol before walking the street for a showdown. In the original, Howes has a change of heart and arrives in time to kill Moore, but ends up being killed by the evil bartender - a character not in the remake and here played by Yakima Canutt. The undertaker comes out of the saloon and starts measuring the dead bartender for a coffin. For the finale, Wayne and Moore ride off in a carriage with a "Just Hitched" sign on the back, with the doctor telling the undertaker that he's expecting to have new patient in the future. At 53 minutes, the 1935 film moves fairly well. Neither film has a "dawn rider" - or someone watching the herd at dawn. Neither film has an herd so no one is really a cowboy.
DEAD MAN'S BURDEN (2012) - Taking a tiny plot and stretching it to 93 minutes, writer/director Jared Moshe really needed to provide something interesting. He provided atmosphere and some musing about life after the U.S. Civil War. He provided some mystery: Why did Clare Bowen shoot dead her father? The mystery of why Barlow Jacobs was estranged from his family was answered pretty quickly: his family were supporters of the Confederate cause and he joined the Union Army. Working as a lawman, Jacobs got a letter from his father saying that he needed Jacobs to come home to Texas. Finding that his father was dead, Jacobs sought to reconnect with little sister Bowen, but her husband, David Call, worried that Jacobs would ruin their effort to sell the homestead to a mining company. Will Jacobs discover the truth about his father's death? Will Jacobs accuse the mining company representative Joseph Lyle Taylor in the death of his father? Will Call kill Jacobs? Will Jacobs kill Bowen? Will the dead father's friend, Richard Riehle, get revenge? Isn't it amazing how much Barlow Jacobs sounded just like Timothy Olyphant? Shot on location in New Mexico in 18 days, DEAD MAN'S BURDEN looked terrific, but was no fun.
FRONTIER MARSHAL (1939) - There are many bullshit movies about Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but this has to be one of the most eccentric. After an entertaining montage showing how prospector Ed Schieffelin finding silver in Arizona led to the creation of the town of Tombstone, the film focuses on a rivalry between John Carradine's Pleasure Palace - where stage coach robber Curley Bill, played by Joe Sawyer, hangs out, and The Bella Union across the street. (The Bella Union was actually in Deadwood, South Dakota. Tombstone had the Oriental Saloon.) Because The Bella Union is doing so well, Sawyer sends drunken Indian Charles Stevens over to cause trouble. Town marshal Ward Bond refuses to arrest Stevens, but awakened hotel guest Wyatt Earp, played by Randolph Scott, volunteers to step in. Because he locked up Stevens, Scott is taken by Sawyer and two thugs out into the desert and beaten up. Walking back to town, Scott wakes up Mayor Harry Hayden, accepts the job of marshal, goes over to the Pleasure Palace and arrests Sawyer and the two thugs, with the mayor providing shotgun backup. Scott doesn't put the three in jail. Instead, he takes them out into the same desert, and challenges Sawyer to a fair fight. After beating Sawyer up, Scott tells the three to get out of town. After she sings a song on the Bella Union stage, Binnie Barnes helps to decide a card game in which Scott is playing, so our hero takes her outside and dumps her into an horse trough. Feared gunman Doc Halliday (so named because the family of Doc Holliday threatened a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox), played by Cesar Romero, arrives at the saloon on behalf of Barnes, but when Scott steps up to prevent a fight between Romero and a gambler, Romero decides that he likes the new lawman. The rivalry between the two saloons is soon overshadowed by the arrival of Romero's ex-fiancee Nancy Kelly. A nurse, Kelly is better able to help ailing Romero, so Scott tells Barnes to back off. Pissed, Barnes sides with Carradine hoping to get Sawyer to kill Scott as he guards a stagecoach shipment. Barnes is horrified to learn that Romero is also going, and ain't too pleased either when Romero returns wounded and Kelly again proves to be a better nurse. Later on, during another shootout with Earp, the little son of bartender Chris-Pin Martin is wounded. Barnes races to get Kelly to help, and she calls for Romero - who is not a dentist in this film, but an M.D. After he successfully patches up the boy, played by Ventura Ybarra, Romero is gunned down by Sawyer, who challenges Scott to a gunfight at the O.K. Corral. I think this is the only movie to stage this famous battle at night, and the only one in which Earp goes alone, as he doesn't have any brothers in this movie. The movie also doesn't have any Clantons. In the end, the Pleasure Palace has been turned into a Savings Bank, and Barnes leaves on the stage, saying that when people start saving money it is time for her to move on. This movie is the second cinematic version of Stuart N. Lake's 1931 biography WYATT EARP: FRONTIER MARSHAL, which faced legal action from Earp's first wife, Josephine, which is why Earp's personal life is completely absent from the book, which is now considered mostly fictional. Nevertheless, it is also the basis for MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) and the 1955 TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. Only recently, in movies like WYATT EARP (1994) and TOMBSTONE (1993), has the real history been injected into the drama. I should also mention that Eddie Foy Jr. appears in this film playing his father. Foy is scheduled to perform at The Bella Union, but is kidnapped by Carradine's thugs to perform at The Pleasure Palace. Scott and Romero go to get him back, during which Romero makes Lon Chaney Jr. dance on stage by shooting bullets at his feet. Later, at the Bella Union, a drunk tries to get Foy to dance by shooting at Foy's feet. Foy flattens the drunk with an high kick into the drunk's face. Veteran Allan Dwan directed.
THE LUCKY TEXAN (1934) - The year before THE DAWN RIDER, writer/director Robert N. Bradbury made this film, originally titled GOLD STRIKE RIVER. Having finished college, John Wayne returns to the West to fulfill his dead father's desire that he live with George Hayes (Not "Gabby" in this movie with no beard and good manners.). As most of Hayes' cattle has been rustled away, Wayne suggests that they find a new line of work. While working as a blacksmith, Wayne dislodges a stone in a prospector's horse's hoof. The town dog picks up the stone and gives it to Wayne, who recognizes it as gold. The prospector said that the horse became lame after crossing a creek, so Wayne and Hayes check out the creek, and find more gold. They take the gold to Assayer Lloyd Whitlock, who says that they are the purist samples he's seen. Later, Whitlock confides to his associate Yakim Canutt that he wants not only our heroes' gold claim, but also Hayes' ranch - since he's already stolen all of the cattle. Later, asking Hayes to sign a receipt, Whitlock gets the old man to sign away the deed to his ranch. When Hayes goes to the bank to cover his debt for the blacksmith's property, the sheriff's son Eddie Parker, decides to sneak in the back door and rob Banker Gordon De Main in order to cover his gambling debts. Hearing a scuffle, Hayes goes back into the banker's office. Sheriff Earl Dwire arrives and accuses Hayes of trying to killing De Main. Wayne returns to Hayes ranch and finds Hayes' granddaughter Barbara Sheldon, whom Hayes just put through college. (Has there ever been another Western more interested in young people going to college?) As Wayne used part of a letter Sheldon sent to Hayes to patch up a torn money bill, and Parker used that bill to pay a debt, Wayne accuses Parker of robbing De Main. This leads to the standard fistfight in the street. Wayne gets Parker to confess, but then Parker tries to get away. Misjudging an attempt to leap from his horse onto Parker's horse, Wayne falls down an hill to a water chute. Wayne sails down the water chute to get ahead of Parker, climbs a tree and then leaps upon the villain and captures him. (Something very similar happens in THE LAWLESS FRONTIER, also made in 1934.) Hayes is released from jail and greets Sheldon back at the ranch in time for dinner. The next day, Hayes sets off to cover up the works at their gold strike. Hearing this, Whitlock and Canutt set off in the hope of finding the strike location. They meet Hayes on the road, but he refuses to divulge the location and tries to ride away. The bad guys shoot Hayes off his horse and figure that he's dead. Luckily, the town dog is there and a wounded Hayes tells him to go get Wayne. Back at the ranch, Wayne and Hayes decide to let people believe that Hayes is dead. Meanwhile, Hayes lets Wayne in on a little secret - years ago he played the title role in a production of CHARLEY'S AUNT. The bad guys convince the sheriff to hold Wayne in jail until Hayes turns up. In the morning, at the Preliminary Hearing, Hayes arrives in full CHARLEY'S AUNT costume with a clean shaven face. Eventually, Hayes is unmasked and accuses Whitlock and Canutt of attempted murder. Naturally, the bad guys make a break for it on horseback. Wayne pursues on horseback, while Hayes and Dwire jump into a jalopy. After the sheriff cranks the car into running, it takes off with Hayes at the wheel and Dwire left in the dust. At a railroad crossing, the bad guys jump off the horse and jump onto a small train engine. Wayne finally catches up to the engine, transferred on it, and then falls off struggling with Canutt. Hayes blocks the engine on the tracks with the jalopy and then slugs it out with Whitlock. The film ends with a frustrated photographer trying to get Hayes, Wayne, Sheldon and the dog posed for a wedding picture. When Wayne and Sheldon can't hold it any longer and kiss each other, the photographer takes his camera and walks away. Bradbury uses swish pans as a transition device, decades before The Man From U.N.C.L.E. would do something similar. Unlike THE DAWN RIDER, no one gets killed in THE LUCKY TEXAN, and no one mentions in which state the story occurs.
Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood (2019) - Julia Kuperberg & Clara Kuperberg have put together this rather uninformed diatribe attacking the American movie industry for its poor representation of Asians on the screen. Surprisingly, this film seems more interested in reporting on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the racist portrayal of the "Nips" in that period than in bigger issues of racism, such as the anti-Asian immigration laws in California. While there is "tsk-tsking" about white actors going "Yellowface" in movies like THE GOOD EARTH, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS and the Charlie Chan films, there's no attention paid to Chinese American actors suddenly getting parts in movies to play villainous Japanese during World War 2. And while Charlie Chan was played by a white actor, his "number one son" was played by Chinese-born American actor Keye Luke . Fans of director Samuel Fuller may applaud the praise given to THE CRIMSON KIMONO and HOUSE OF BAMBOO, but there's no mention of BRIDGE TO THE SUN or FLOWER DRUM SONG. There's also no mention of how Bruce Lee showed that American audiences didn't mind Asian heroes. Actually, there is very little mention of Chinese American actors, except for Anna May Wong. Of course Tamlyn Tomita praises COME SEE THE PARADISE, but I first learned about Japanese American internment camps in 1976's BABY BLUE MARINE. And what was the point of a montage of former movie palaces in downtown L.A. that don't show movies anymore?
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Charles Gilbert watched:
E! True Hollywood Story: H. R. Pufnstuf, The Strange Story of Sid and Marty Krofft. In the 70's the brothers offered an alternative to Saturday morning cartoons with zany characters in extreme costumes enacting surreal stories.
INVADERS FROM MARS (1986) Remake far inferior. Special effects resembles something from H. R. Pufnstuf. The tormented little boy from the 1953 W. C. Menzies original (Jimmy Hunt) appears this time as a policeman. The little boy in this is Karen Black's son.
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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:
First while searching YouTube I discovered colorized versions of the first episodes of "Supercar" (1962); "Fireball XL5" (1963) and a series known in the US as "Planet Patrol" (1964), but originated in the UK as "Space Patrol" (1963)
[I will claim to have some credit for discovering that the British puppet series, "Space Patrol" and "Planet Patrol" were the same series with a name change for sale in the US. Back in 1978, I had written to the magazine, "Starlog" for information re: a puppet series I remembered from the sixties titled "Planet Patrol". At the time there weren't many sources where you could find out about old children's TV shows. Any way at the time in 1978, Gerry Anderson of "Supermarionation" fame had a column in "Starlog" and my question was posed to him and he said he had no knowledge of the show except to say it might be another name for "Fireball XL5". Luckily for me the editors of "Starlog" provided some information about the show and its lead puppet character, Captain Larry Dart. Then while I was looking through a magazine from the UK re: sci-fi shows, an item mentioned a puppet series titled, "Space Patrol" which featured a puppet character named "Larry Dart". Fast forward to 1992 and while I am reading "FilmFax" magazine a reader sends a letter to the letters page requesting information about a puppet series he remembered from the sixties titled, "Planet Patrol". Other readers had chimed in with saying the series might have originated in Italy as the futuristic buildings in the sets appeared similar to other Italian sci-fi related shows or films. Knowing what I knew, I wrote in and provided the information that "Planet Patrol" was the US syndication title for the British puppet series, "Space Patrol" with a name change possibly to avoid confusion with an earlier US children's TV show from the fifties with the same name ("Space Patrol"). The editors of "FilmFax" then printed my letter with a still from "Space Patrol" featuring Captain Larry Dart and his crew.]
Any way it was interesting seeing these shows in color as they were filmed and broadcast in B & W. I was especially fascinated to see "Supercar" in color as the colors for the vehicle were very bright. (British comic books showed what the ship would look like in color as they were printed in color.)
Mildly enjoyed:
So I also finally got to see "Eternals"(2021).[ "The Eternals" had been a series created by the late, great Jack "King" Kirby. After Kirby had left DC (where he created "The New Gods" among others) back in 1975 and returned to Marvel in 1976 where his comic book, "The Eternals" was first published using similar ideas left over from his "Fourth World" stories that he had not used at DC.]
I became interested in the move as it featured both Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie. Unfortunately Hayek is gone from the movie very early in this overblown and very long and boring film. Angelina Jolie is used a little bit better , but her character seemed to me to be a variation on her Maleficent character as she was first shown to be evil; although that turned out to be because she was having some kind of psychotic episode.
While some of the concepts where interesting it took too long to get to where it wanted to go. The film also left some room for a sequel, but I don't know if the film did well enough for the sequel to be realized.
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