Friday, June 17, 2022

Week of June 18 - 24, 2022

 



To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.

Brain Teasers:

In which Western did our heroine shoot grenades from her handgun?
No one has answered this question yet.

Which American bodybuilder was being considered to play Remus opposite Steve Reeves before the producers got Gordon Scott?
Both George Grimes and and Angel Rivera repeated the story from the IMDb that the producers had wanted Steve Reeves to play both parts, but I don't believe it. That's like the story that Steve Reeves doubled Gordon Scott in MACISTE CONTRO IL VAMPIRO, and that Steve Reeves never used a stunt double. In any case, I'm looking for an American bodybuilder who was making strong man movies in Italy at the time.

Which American producer working in Spain claimed that he turned down Sergio Leone's request to help on PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI?
No one has answered this question yet.

Which American producer of low-budget films offered Gordon Scott a role in the 1980s, but Scott didn't show up on the set?
George Grimes and Angel Rivera knew that it was Fred Olen Ray.

And now for some new brain teasers:

Prior to PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI, Sergio Leone had a bad reputation because of his association with what very expensive flop?
Which Italian actress, known mostly for appearing in serious "artistic" movies, made one Epic film and one Western?
Which American actor stepped in to finish a Western being shot in Spain when the original star, Victor Mature,  proved incapable of doing the job because of alcohol?

Name the movies from which these images came.


Angel Rivera and George Grimes identified last week's frame grab of Tony Anthony in UN DOLLARO TRA I DENTI, aka A STRANGER IN TOWN.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?


Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Conrado San Martin and Lea Massari in IL COLOSSO DI RODI, aka THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?


Angel Rivera, Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's photo of Jennifer Connelly in C'ERA UNA VOLTA IN AMERICA, aka ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?


George Grimes and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last weeks' photo of Ti Chin and Nora Miao in THE WAY OF THE DRAGON, aka RETURN OF 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:

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (2021) - Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine drives Brian Wilson around Southern California getting his thoughts on his life and career while other famous musicians contribute "talking head" comments. There is plenty of music clips of the Beach Boys as well as Wilson's current solo tour.

POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHE (2021) - X-Ray Spex songwriter and singer Marianne Joan Elliot-Said died in 2011. Years later, her daughter, Celeste Bell teamed with Paul Sng to make a documentary in which Bell goes through her mother's stuff and relates her personal perspective on the life and career of the woman famously known as Poly Styrene. 

RFK MUST DIE (2007) - Irish investigative journalist Shane O'Sullivan was born after the killing of Robert F. Kennedy, but became fascinated by the MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE theory regarding the assassination of the U.S. Presidential candidate; that convicted murderer Sirhan Sirhan had been a patsy placed at the scene of the crime under the influence of hypnotic suggestion to draw attention away from the "second gun" which actually committed the murder. In his investigation, O'Sullivan accuses the C.I.A. of having carried out the act with his evidence that operatives David Morales, Gordon Campbell and George Joannides were on the scene. The rationale behind why the C.I.A. would do such a thing, goes back to the "Bay of Pigs" operation, and the suspicion that the C.I.A. was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the fear that if Robert Kennedy became President, he would re-open the investigation into his brother's death. Interestingly, when in 1975, the United States Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, aka "The Church Committee", began to uncover C.I.A. operations, David Morales died before he could give testimony. O'Sullivan also published WHO KILLED BOBBY? THE UNSOLVED MURDER OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY in 2008, which led to various sources questioning his "evidence". In any case, the film O'Sullivan made is a compelling document which questions the "lone gunman" theory that the LAPD strongly supported and submits answers to why Sirhan Sirhan still claims that he can't remember the events.

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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:

My only love song – season 1 – episodes 1 to 7

Faites sauter la banque (1963, Jean Girault)

Blake et Mortimer (anime) – episode « S.O.S. météores, partie 1 »

Mildly enjoyed:

Tomorrow – season 1 – episodes 11 to 16

Ricky Gervais : supernature (tv show) (2022)

The phantom from 10,000 leagues (1955, Dan Milner)

Russian doll – season 2 – episodes 2 to 5

Quintet ( 1979, Robert Altman)

Did not enjoy:

Madron (1970, Jerry Hopper)

No remission (1996, Serge Rodunsky)

Columbo – episode « agenda for murder » (1989, Patrick McGoohan)

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Charles Gilbert watched:

FRANKENSTEIN 1970 (1958) A television crew (Don 'Red' Barry et. al) sets up shop in a castle run by a scion (Boris Karloff) of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein This mad scientist operates a lab in the basement busy creating a modern version of the monster Mike Lane (Hercules in ULYSSES AGAINST HERCULES) plays both the wrapped monster and Hans.

CHALLENGE OF THE GLADIATOR aka SPARTACUS CONTRA NERO (1964) Rock Stevens in his third peplum for Domenico Paolella plays Spartacus of Thrace but performs more like Hercules.  Senator Massimo Serato schemes to replace the emperor with a look-a-like brute played by Walter Barnes. Piero Lulli gets a good-guy part. With Gloria Milland. Ends with the tune borrowed from the denouement in HERO OF BABYLON. Presented in three parts on YouTube courtesy Larry Anderson.

SPIES STRIKE SILENTLY (1966) Washington  D. C. operative Mike Drum (Lang Jeffries) among others is being subjected to a mind control drug by madman Rashid (Andre Bosic), who is smitten with a Prometheus complex, in order to make them automatons for assassination.

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David Deal Enjoyed:

THE OUTSIDE MAN (72) - Added this one to my favorite hitman movies list. It really clicked for me this time.

CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER (61)

SON OF CLEOPATRA (64) - From 2007: "Mark Damon chases Scilla Gabel's Roman tail across the sands of Egypt!  Typical sword-and-sandal stuff, heavy on the sand."

MILLER'S CROSSING (90)

YELLOW SKY (48) - From 2010: "Excellent, early adult-themed western from William Wellman (Ox-Bow Incident).  Great cast and beautiful B&W photography.  A gang of bad guys, led by Gregory Peck, crosses a desert hell after a bank robbery only to emerge in a ghost town that holds their destiny.  Recommended."

THE LIVING WAKE (11) - From 2010: "The skewed and hilarious adventures of our articulate but entirely delusional hero, K. Roth Binew (Mike O'Connell), and his loyal, Boswellian sidekick Mills Joaquin (Jesse Eisenberg) in search of the elusive, brief but powerful monologue ne'er delivered by Binew's absent father.  Director Sol Tryon comes across as a rather unbridled Wes Anderson delivering his oddball tour-de-force.  The supporting cast is surprisingly competent, and the ending, highly satisfactory.  One of the few DVDs whose deleted scenes are worth watching.  Recommended for the decidedly tilted.

Mildly enjoyed:

GENOCIDE (68) - From 2018: "Bizarre Japanese hokum about a mad scientist, a missing H-bomb, and insects who want to destroy mankind.  A good-looking curiosity that is wacky enough to recommend."

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Angel Rivera Mildly enjoyed:

"The Landlord" (1970)-- Beau Bridges plays a spoiled rich young Caucasian male who buys a tenement building in an African-American neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Originally purchasing the building with plans to evict the tenants and turn the building into a luxury home for himself, he becomes involved with his tenants. He has an affair with a married female tenant and gets her pregnant. Her husband almost kills him, but when she decides to give up the baby for adoption; Beau adopts the baby himself which he will raise with a mixed race girl he meets and falls in love with. The other stars of the film are: Pearl Bailey; Diane Sands (who plays the married tenant he has an affair with); Louis Gossett, Jr. (who plays the cuckold husband); and Lee Grant, as his mother. Marki Bey plays the girl he falls in love with.

"Father of the Bride" (2022)--A Hispanic version of the Spencer Tracy/Elizabeth Taylor minor comedy classic starring Andy Garcia. Garcia plays a self made successful businessman who came to this country from Cuba without a single cent and worked his way up from the ground to owning his own successful architectural/construction business.  (He came into the country legally as a Cuban exile when exiles were being let into the country. So there is no question about his status.) Any way his eldest daughter is getting married to a Mexican-American man to whom she proposed. There's a lot of old world versus new world arguments and the rest of the film, (an HBO MAX original movie) has parallels to the other versions of this story. Gloria Estefan plays Garcia's wife who we learn at the beginning of the film is planning on divorcing Garcia. The film manages to be entertaining, if not too predictable, thanks to Garcia and the rest of the cast. 

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