To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which Italian Western star was born in the Brazilian embassy in Rome?
Bertrand van Wonterghem, George Grimes and Angel Rivera knew that it was Anthony Steffen.
Which British director was the first to make a Western in Spain?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera knew that it was Michael Carreras with 1961's SAVAGE GUNS, aka TIERRA BRUTAL.
Which Italian Western climaxes with the hero facing his own son for the final showdown?
No on has answered this question yet.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Charles Gilbert asks, from which Italian Western comes the lyrics:
"You may think he's a sleepy type guy
Always takes his time.
Soon I know you'll be changing your mind,
when you see him use his gun, boy.
When you see him use his gun."
In what movie starring Charles Bronson can you see Robert Woods on a TV screen?
Which American actor who made an Italian Western appeared on screen with Cher?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Charles Gilbert identified last week's frame grab of Bud Spencer, Nazzareno Zamperla and Alberto dell'Acqua in LA COLLINA DEGLI STIVALI, aka BOOT HILL.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem, Angel Rivera and George Grimes identified last week's frame grab of Giuliano Gemma in ARRIVANO I TITANI, aka SONS OF THUNDER, aka MY SON THE HERO.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo.
It is from LA NOTTE CHE EVELYN USCI DALLA TOMBA, aka THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE.
No one identified that above 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:
Highly enjoyed:
Elmore Leonard "but don't try to write" (2022) - Writer/director John Mulholland created a moving portrait of the celebrated American novelist who took the influence of Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper to create his own kind of literature. Campbell Scott narrated.
Enjoyed:
Good Omens (2019) - A six part series on Amazon Prime, this adaptation by Neil Gaiman from his 1990 novel co-authored with Terry Pratchett is a delight. Director Douglas Mackinnon does a fine job putting this into pictures with a splendid cast including Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Miranda Richardson, Michael McKean, Adria Arjona, Jack Whitehall and Bill Paterson with the voices of Frances McDormand and Brian Cox.
L.A. A Queer History (2021) - Gregorio Davila's two-part PBS documentary sets the record straight that while New York City's "Stonewall Riots" captured the mainstream public's attention about the Gay Liberation movement, much of that effort began in Los Angeles in 1950 with Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society. Part two of this program talks about the Athletic Model Guild and Bob Mizer with a shot of Physique Pictorial with a photo of Steve Reeves in HERCULES UNCHAINED on the cover. However, this is only a brief mention and none of the other American bodybuilders who went into the movies are shown. Interestingly, while Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush are condemned for their ignoring the AIDS epidemic, President Bill Clinton is also condemned for "two of most anti-Gay initiatives in the history of our movement: Don't Ask Don't Tell and The Defense of Marriage Act" comments Robin Tyler. If you've been wanting to see a young Dr. Anthony Fauci, this is the program for you. This program is also remarkable for the opening narrative title: "This story takes place on what is and what forever will be, the sacred land of the indigenous tribes of the Tongva, Chumash and Tataviam people."
Rescue Me season five (2009)
Mildly enjoyed:
CHILD'S PLAY (2019) - Not being a fan of the Don Mancini franchise, I welcome all of the changes this film brought. I like that the doll isn't possessed by the soul of a serial killer, but is the result of a disgruntled employee sabotaging the artificial intelligence of a single doll. I'm not so happy about blaming it on a guy in a Vietnamese factory, and I wonder how that played in Asia. The idea that each doll connects to a corporate network with hundreds of "smart" gadgets works better for me than the splitting of the souls in CULT OF CHUCKY. I also like the idea, possibly inspired from Steven Spielberg's A.I., that the doll learns behavior from observing people - who unfortunately enjoy the mayhem found in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2; though I'm queasy about the suggestion that Horror movies inspire real violence. The film gets many points by casting Aubrey Plaza as our hero's mother, and I hope to see Gabriel Bateman again - though I hated ANNABELLE. I'll be interested in where Beatrice Kitsos' career goes from here. Possibly inspired by IT and Stranger Things, the film has our hero not alone in fighting the evil doll, but forms a team with other young people, which I like very much. Tyler Burton Smith gets screenwriting credit, though this project reportedly was in "development hell" for years. Lars Klevberg has director's credit and I wouldn't be sad if he gets his wish to do a sequel. I don't particularly like that each "kill" is so complicated, but having "Chucky" take control of all of the electronics in Zed Mart for the climax is much fun. And I like Mark Hamill's new take on the "voice of Chucky".
MASK (1985) - I've avoid seeing this movie because I generally find "inspirational true life stories" irritating. Not too surprising, this film succeeded in being a moving experience, with strong performances by Cher, Eric Stoltz and Sam Elliot under the direction of Peter Bogdanovich. Later on, Laura Dern comes on and is incredibly lovely. It's fun seeing Harry Carey Jr. as a member of the nicest motorcycle club ever depicted on the screen. Reportedly, Bogdanovich originally wanted Bruce Springsteen songs on the film, but Universal had trouble making a deal with Columbia Records, so Bob Seger songs were used. The 2004 "Director's Cut" of the film supposedly has the Springsteen songs reinstated, but that doesn't explain why the boy's room is covered with Beatles posters. And why "oldies" music always fills the air of the house. A very interesting end credit title admits that the movie is a work of fiction as the real life Roy Dennis was not raised by a single mother, and also had an older half-brother. The real mother which Cher plays said of the film "it's a fairy tale", but she approved of how Cher portrayed her. It is always nice to find Steve James in a movie.
Did not enjoy:
AMERICAN HONEY (2016) - Most movies now are primarily viewed on TV sets, so it would seem sensible that their credits should be designed to be read on TV screens. Having fireflies inspire the end credits for this film is kind-of neat, but adding scripted lettering to the small flickering names makes them unreadable - and it goes on for almost four minutes; which is actually not long compared to most big budget films nowadays. As I like reading credits, this is only one of the frustrating elements of this movie. In 2005, AFI trained English director Andrea Arnold won the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar for Wasp. She followed this with the feature films RED ROAD and FISH TANK, which both took home the Jury Prize from the Cannes Film Festival. Her third feature was WUTHERING HEIGHTS which was awarded Best Cinematography at the Venice Film Festival. AMERICAN HONEY was her fourth feature and her third awarded the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival. A road movie partly inspired by the director's own cross country trip across the United States in 2012, Arnold desired to capture the directionless lives of poor country people with a cast mostly made up of non-actors found along the way. Sasha Lane was found on a beach during Spring Break and was given the lead role in this movie which seemed to have been mostly improvised. Beginning in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the film finds 19 year old Lane taking care of two kids while trying to fend off the sexual advances of the kids' father. She happens to meet Shia LaBeouf in a Kmart, and he convinces her to join a band of young grifters, or "magazine crews", traveling on the road selling subscriptions. The gang is led by Riley Keough, who threatens that anyone who doesn't "earn" will be left on the side of the road. There is no narrative drive to the following two and a half hours, except the question of whether LaBeouf will return Lane's obvious affection or whether Lane will sexually prostitute herself. Not surprisingly, the films ends ambiguously, shortly after the young people in the van sing along to Lady Antebellum's song "American Honey". If you've been wanting to see Shia LaBeouf smear tanning lotion onto Riley Keough's legs while she wears a Confederate flag bikini, this is the movie for you.
COLD SWEAT (1970) - I loved his three James Bond movies and WAIT UNTIL DARK, so I was eager to see the new film directed by Terence Young when it came out. I became a fan of Charles Bronson with THE GREAT ESCAPE and had been very fond of his European films like ADIEU L'AMI and LE PASSAGER DE LA PLUIE, so I really looked forward to COLD SWEAT. I loved LE CERCLE ROUGE, so another film from producer Robert Dorfmann was exciting. Since this was based on a novel by Richard Matheson, whose novel I AM LEGEND was just one of my favorites of his books, I thought this new movie couldn't miss being terrific. Well, it did. Back in 1970, I found this movie very disappointing, and rewatching it now didn't make me feel any better about it. Aside from finding the characters' actions kind-of dumb, I didn't find the extensive speeding car scenes, executed by Remy Julienne, to be as exciting as the filmmakers seemed to feel they were. And James Mason's American "southern" accent didn't help.
EARTH VS. THE SPIDER (1958) - Cheekily, writer/director/special effects man Bert I. Gordon shows the poster for his previous flick, THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, outside the movie theater in this film's small town. As with that film, Gordon's production here is strictly low-budget and low class with a poor script making his actors look bad. When a teen couple finds a giant spider in a local cave, they alert their science teacher and the local sheriff. The authorities think they've killed the spider, and so put in on display in the high school auditorium. When some students decide to rehearse their rock 'n' roll band in the auditorium - "playing loud enough to wake the dead", the spider wakes up and proceeds to wreck the town. It is a pretty smart spider because it knows where the science teacher lives and proceeds to attack his wife and child. With a car, the science teacher leads the spider out of town. Because she lost her bracelet in the cave, the teen girl convinces her boyfriend to go back into the cave - which is so brightly lit by luminous algae that no one needs a flashlight. Naturally, the spider returns - and its the loudest spider you've ever heard. The science teacher and the sheriff dynamite the cave closed, but then the teen girl's mother shows up convinced that the young couple are now trapped inside the cave. The adults work to open a hole in the ceiling of the cave to save the teens, while the science teacher gets two large electrodes with which to fry the creature with electricity. Of course, the monster effects are poor and the director fails to generate any excitement with either his camerawork or his cast.
IMPACT (2009) - Like the Lexx series, Impact was a Canadian-German Co-production for TV, but was much more conventional. In many ways, this two part mini-series was a re-do of DEEP IMPACT, but it would be too simple to call it SHALLOW IMPACT, because I didn't find the 1998 feature film very deep either. Rather than the threat of another meteor or comet hitting the Earth, writer Michael Vickerman had a piece of a brown dwarf, hidden in a meteor shower, hit the moon, knocking it out of its orbit and eventually sending it into a collision course with our planet. Part one dealt with scientists David James Elliott and Natasha Henstridge trying to figure out what happened to the Moon and what was causing strange things to happen on Earth. Of course, part two sends a team to the Moon with a plan to eject the piece of the brown dwarf out of the Moon and into the Sun. Director Mike Rohl seemed determined to attack viewer's tear ducts with heroic deaths and self-sacrificing characters, but nothing rises above what was standard for this kind of thing. Young Natasha Calis showed much promise as Elliott's daughter, which seemed to have been fulfilled with the 13 year career she has had since. Da Vinci's Inquest alumni Colin Cunningham - playing another creep - and Gerard Plunkett also appeared.
THE MARRIAGE OF A YOUNG STOCKBROKER (1971) - Producer Lawrence Turman had a big hit with the 1967 film THE GRADUATE, so when he got his hands on another novel by Charles Webb, he probably thought that it would be easy to have another "home run". Unfortunately, while THE GRADUATE had a script by Buck Henry, Turman got a script from Lorenzo Semple Jr., the guy who wrote the BATMAN movie starring Adam West. Also, rather than hire Mike Nichols again, Turman decided to make this his feature film directing debut. I wonder if Turman thought that Richard Benjamin was kind-of like Dustin Hoffman? In any case, this movie wasn't funny, and whatever insights the makers thought they were making weren't communicated. I was a big fan of Joanna Shimkus because of her films for director Robert Enrico, so I had high hopes for this movie when it originally came out. She looked terrific, as did Elizabeth Ashley and Tiffany Bolling. Adam West also appeared as Ashley's husband. Linda Ronstadt performed the original song "Can It Be True" which was not memorable.
RAGTIME COWBOY JOE (1940) - In 1912, Grant Clarke, Lewis F. Muir and Maurice Abrahams wrote the song which became the second best selling record of the year for singer Bob Roberts. It's been recorded many times since and sort-of inspired this silly movie. Dick Curtis and his men are rustling some stock footage of a cattle herd, when Wilfred Lucas rides up and witnesses it. Curtis murders Lucas and finds a piece of paper on the body which he quickly takes to town to show to his boss, the crooked lawyer Walter Soderling. Meanwhile, back at Lucas' ranch, The Texas Rangers sing the title song for Fuzzy Knight, before the boss' daughter, Nell O'Day, calls for him to get to work. Curtis shows Soderling the paper found on Lucas' body which says that the Cattlemen's Association is sending an investigator to look into the rustling going on. Meanwhile, The Texas Rangers sing "Song of the Trail Drive" until Knight is asked by O'Day to help find her father. Curtis comes upon investigator Johnny Mack Brown arriving, and so takes him to Sheriff Ed Cassidy as a suspect in Lucas' murder. Brown asks for a lawyer, but, luckily, the lawyer's secretary Marilyn Merrick, knows what's what and warns our hero that the lawyer is crooked. When Curtis approaches with a lynch mob, Brown escapes and seeks shelter with O'Day and Knight. Meanwhile, in the saloon, Vyola Vonn sings "Do the Ooh La La". Which will Brown end up with for the final version of the title song - O'Day or Merrick? Is the lawyer ruining all of the local ranchers inorder to sell their land to the approaching rail road? Will Brown convince Sheriff Cassidy to lay in wait to catch Curtis with the stolen cattle? Just when did Fuzzy Knight sing "Cross-Eyed Kate"? Sherman L. Lowe is credited with the screenplay while Ray Taylor gets the director's credit. Was so much of this movie deliberately sped-up, or were they just re-using footage shot for a silent film?
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Charles Gilbert watched:
The Wild Wild West (1965) B&W. S01E23 'The Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo" Nick Adams (who introduced Conrad to acting) guests in an over-the-top role as an insouciant, overweening tropical island prince purportedly targeted for assassination. Dana Wynter does the scheming.
WAR PAINT (1955) Cavalry lieutenant Robert Stack leads a patrol in the desert to deliver a treaty for an Indian chief to sign. Joan Taylor plays the chief's daughter attempting by ambush to thwart their mission.
GREEN GRASS OF WYOMING (1948) Young love begins to bud between a couple (Peggy Cummins and Robert Arthur) representing feudin' ranch families who engage in a horse sulky competition. The tenor is reminiscent of television's My Friend Flick indeed is a sequel to the movie version.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
PANHANDLE (48)
THE GUILTY (47) - Don Castle tells a bartender of the grisly death of man-hungry Bonita Granville and the aftermath involving an army buddy of his. Castle is awaiting Bonita's twin (also played by Granville) to revisit the death scene. This fatalistic noir is based on a Cornell Woolrich story and packs a nice punch. Regis Toomey is the cop who never gives up, tho his mistakes are deadly.
TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE (59)
THE BURNING SEA (22) - Another excellent character-driven disaster movie from Norway (following on The Wave and The Quake). This one is about oil rigs collapsing in the North Sea due to a seismic shift created by the drilling. Fun stuff.
TOP GUN (55) - Troubleshooting gunman Sterling Hayden is up against it when he returns to his hometown. He's an unwanted murderer here, his mom was cheated out of her ranch and shot dead, his girl was stolen by the local rat, and his old gang (headed by a grubby John Dehner) is coming into town to take over. Ray Nazzaro's noir western is stripped to the bone, even with all the subplots. Plenty of good patter in this recommended oater.
THERE GOES BARDER (55) - Jack-of-all-trades Eddie Constantine is hired by a shipping magnate to find out who stole his illegal shipment of arms. French crime mystery has a lot going for it: exotic locales, great photography, twists and turns, and the undeniable charm of its star.
DAWN AT SOCORRO (54) - Rory Calhoun is a tubercular gambler/gunfighter a la Doc Holliday drawn into a legal showdown a la OK Corral. When it's all over, he tries to escape but his past follows him as he falls for saloon girl Piper Laurie. Told in flashback, this oater is solid entertainment, from the desert palette Technicolor to the dour mood and the deep cast. Good one.
THE MAN AND THE MONSTER (59)
TERROR OF THE TONGS (60)
PROJECT X (67)
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING (19)
PIT AND THE PENDULUM (61)
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:
Gintama (anime) – episode 29
Theatre of death (1967, Samuel Gallu)
Love, death + robots – season 1 – episodes 1 to 7
Mildly enjoyed
Umbrella academy – season 3 – episodes 6 to 10
Sette winchester per un massacro (1967, Enzo G. Castellari)
My only love song – season 1 – episode 10
Garth Marenghi’s dark place – season 1 – episodes 1 & 2
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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:
"The Last Movies Stars" a 2022 six-part documentary series. Actor Ethan Hawke looks at the lives and careers of Paul Newman and his wife, Joanne Woodward. Even if you just having a passing knowledge of the films of these two artists, as I did, the presentation Hawke makes is very interesting.
Mildly enjoyed:
"Dazed and Confused" a 1993 "coming of age" comedy that follows teens in Texas in the summer of 1976. It has in its cast a number of actors just coming into their own in the early nineties. Of course the movie is best known for introducing Matt McConaughey's signature phrase, "Alright, Alright, Alright!" The movie shows a lot of teenagers indulging in drinking beers and smoking pot While seeing the young actors in what is their first roles; the movie sort of left me "Dazed and Confused!"
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