To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which "black listed" American screenwriter is now considered a producer on two Westerns made in Spain?
Bernard Gordon is mostly known as the producer of HORROR EXPRESS, but he was also part of team to make BAD MAN'S RIVER and PANCHO VILLA.
By what name is Alberto Terracina better known?
Tom Betts and Bertrand van Wonterghem knows that it is Tom Scott.
Which Italian screenwriter, who worked on Westerns, was the subject of a movie based on his autobiography?
No one has answered this one yet.
Which two Italian screenwriters, who worked on Westerns, were credited for the story on a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger?
No one has answered this one yet.
And now for some new brain teasers:
What reason did James Mason give for making BAD MAN'S RIVER?
To what fear did Lee Van Cleef admit before performing his first bed scene with an actress?
Which Italian stunt man/actor was born on May 15, 1934 in Rome?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Tom Betts identified last week's frame grab of Giovanni (Nello) Pazzafini in A LONG RIDE FROM HELL.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Mario Girotti, later to become Terence Hill, in CARTAGINE IN FIAMME, aka CARTHAGE IN FLAMES.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera identified last week's frame grab of John Huston and Claude Akins in TENTACOLI, aka TENTACLES.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo yet.
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:
She-Hulk Attorney At Law episode three (2022)
Enjoyed:
THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)
Mildly enjoyed:
HULK (2003) - Director Ang Lee was more interested in doing a familial melodrama than in making a comic book movie, which resulted in something unique, but not quite satisfying. Jennifer Connelly was as effective and as beautiful as usual which helps to keep the movie watchable.
VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1971) - With disjointed editing and sloppy staging, VAMPIRE CIRCUS looks like a film that faced extensive problems in post production. Most of the dialogue sounds to have been re-recorded with a number of performances that are poor. However, the film successfully creates a weird atmosphere and there is a lot of attractive female flesh to savor. The lesson to be learned from this story - if your wife is caught consorting with a murderous vampire, then she should be destroyed along with the vampire. Don't allow her to go free to conspire with the vampire's cousin and his Circus of Nights in an effort to revive the vampire. Also, where can I get a cross that lights up like a neon sign? And should we pity the poor vampires who see crosses in knife blades and cross bows? If you've been wanting to see a vampire decapitated with the strings of a crossbow, then this is the movie for you.
Verdens verste menneske, aka THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (2021) - This film feels like a Woody Allen film without the jokes even before "The Way You Look Tonight" by Billie Holiday comes on the soundtrack. In two ways it is not like a Woody Allen film - 1) It is over 2 hours long and 2) it isn't at all like an Ingmar Bergman film. Renate Reinsve is captivating as a young woman uncertain of what she wants to do with her life. Her story is told in 12 chapters with a prologue and an epilogue. At first we see her relationship with an older underground comic book artist. A narrator helps us to see them interacting with his family and her family. She later drifts into a relationship with a fellow closer to her own age who works at a coffee shop. Without knowing why, she's not satisfied in the new relationship either. A crisis occurs when she thinks she's pregnant and she learns that the comic book artist that she left is dying of cancer. The most striking moment in the film comes when she visits the man in the hospital and he says, "I'd given up long before I got sick. I just watch my favorite old movies over and over... I grew up in an age without internet and mobile phones... The world that I knew has disappeared. For me it was all about going to stores. Record stores. I'd take the train to Voices in Grunerlokka. Leaf through used comics at Petty Price. I can close my eyes and see the aisles at Video Nova in Majorstua. I grew up in a time when culture was passed along through objects. They were interesting because we could live among them. We could pick them up. Hold them in our hands. Compare them.... That's all I have. I spent my life doing that. Collecting all that stuff, comics, books and I just continued even when it stopped giving me the powerful emotions I felt in my early 20s. I continued anyway. And now it's all I have left. Knowledge and memories of stupid, futile things nobody cares about... I reached a point in life where suddenly it just happened. When I began to worship what had been. And now I have nothing else. I have no future. I can only look back. And it's not even nostalgia. It's fear of death." The epilogue of the film mirrors ANNIE HALL as our heroine sees a break-up scene on a film set, though she's not a writer, but a stills photographer. It turns out that the actress she's been photographing is now in parenting with the second man with whom she broke up. The film ends with Reinsve alone in her apartment reviewing the stills she took of the actress.
Did not enjoy:
THE FIENDISH PLOT OF DR. FU MANCHU (1980) - Did anyone think this was funny? As star Peter Sellers put his wife, Lynne Frederick, on as a Production Executive, reportedly re-wrote the script, and eventually took over directing the film, it would seem that he must have. He died two weeks before the film was in theaters, so he possibly never knew how wrong he was. A spoof of Fu Manchu might have been fun, despite the objections of those who felt that the character was racist, but Sellers found little fun in what was supposed to be a "Pink Panther" like romp. However, at about 35 minutes into the film, Sellers, as Nayland Smith, hatches a plot to trap Sellers, as Fu Manchu, by auditioning police women to masquerade as the Queen of England. Helen Mirren, as Alice Rage, shows up playing a saxophone, singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and doing some tap dancing, so she got the job. That, and the idea of an emotional support lawn mower, was fun. At about an hour into the film, Mirren was kidnapped by Fu Manchu and reveals, under questioning, that what she really wanted was to be a music hall performer. Mirren and Sellers then sing "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow Wow" together, which was the highlight of the movie. In the end, the Oriental villain unleashes his most fiendish weapon - Rock 'n' Roll music - in "possibly around 1933". David Tomlinson retired after this unpleasant production, and the film did no good for the careers of Sid Caesar or Steve Franken. "Pink Panther" and "Fu Manchu" regular Burt Kwouk showed up in one scene to have Sellers remark "Your face is familiar." After getting the Academy Award for underplaying his role in BEING THERE, Sellers might have thought that playing both roles with almost no energy was a good idea, but it just looked like he was unwell.
THE STRANGER WORE A GUN (1953) - Another 3-D flick directed by the one-eyed Andre DeToth, THE STRANGER WORE A GUN featured Randolph Scott as a former Quantrill Raider who ended up in Prescott, Arizona where he fell in with crooked saloon owner George Macready in a plot to steal a gold shipment from the stage line run by Pierre Watkin and Joan Weldon. Old friend Claire Trevor came to town to work in the saloon and tried to convince our hero to go to California with her. After Macready's men, including Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, killed stagecoach driver Clem Bevans, Scott decided to go straight. He manipulated a rival gang, run by Alfonso Bedoya, into a fight with Macready's bunch over a gold shipment, and eventually burnt down the saloon to kill the villain. 3-D movies looked corny with the action unnaturally being thrust into the camera lens, and this one especially looked bad with rock formations appearing in the foreground in an effort to give depth to exterior scenes.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
PURSUED (1947) B&W. Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum) recalls a traumatic event he had as a lad that replays as nightmares in his sleep. He lost his family in a violent incident that left their home in flames. As sole survivor he has since been adopted by neighboring widow Caldwell (Judith Anderson) who already had a young son and daughter. The boys fought but Jeb grew to love Thor (Teresa Wright). Now as adults Jeb finds himself at odds with other Caldwells, even after returning from the war as a hero, and buying into the town's casino. Turns out his father had been seeing Mrs. Caldwell illicitly, leading to vengeful murders.
GODZILLA : FINAL WARS (2004). Corny dialogue punctuates a familuar doomsday script gratuitously hosting many of the previous Toho monsters. When an elite army fails to curb the threat from aliens controlling the kaiju, Godzilla is awakened by benevolent forces to rescue the world. Virtually every scene is enhanced with some degree of CGI. I'm wondering how MMA fighters Don Frye, Gary Goodrich, and Ray Sefo were included in the cast.
The Scandalous Rise and Fall of Jerry Falwell, Jr.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
MY NAME IS SALT (14) - Documentary on one of the 40,000 Indian families that spend eight months of the year harvesting salt from the salt flats. Cinema verite simply shows the activities involved with no narration or explanations. Fascinating and beautifully shot.
BLACK SPURS (65) - Gunman Rory Calhoun turns bounty hunter after being stood up by Terry Moore. He agrees to dirty up a town so the railroad will avoid it and instead head towards greedy Lon Chaney's town. Eventually, Rory wakes up and changes his mind. Another of AC Lyles' oaters that has a nice character arc for Rory and a fine cast that includes Scott Brady, Richard Arlen, Bruce Cabot, and James Best.
OSS 117 CAIRO NEST OF SPIES (06)
LA VIE EN ROSE (07)
POISON IVY (53)
Mildly enjoyed:
CRAZY LOVE (07) - Documentary on the bizarre relationship between Burt Pugach and his wife Linda. In the late 1950s, he famously had her blinded because she spurned him but that wasn't the end of this crazy love story.
NIGHT OF THE SERPENT (69) - Down and out gunman Luke Askew is given an assignment to kill which allows Luke to pull himself together and face his past. Interesting spaghetti from Giulio Petroni (Death Rides a Horse, Tepepa) but Askew doesn't have the gravitas to pull this off.
HERCULES AGAINST THE BARBARIANS (64)
THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS SWAIN (21) - Based on the true story of an eccentric artist known for his cat pictures. Interesting but less involving than I expected. Stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy.
MURDER BY THE CLOCK (31)
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Highly enjoyed:
Bob le flambeur (1956 , Jean-Pierre Melville)
Enjoyed:
Derry girls – season 3 – episode 4
The Ipcress file – season 1 – episode 1
Il boom (1963 , Vittorio de Sica)
The grey fox (1982, Philip Borsos)
The sandman – season 1 – episode 11
Mildly enjoyed:
She-Hulk : attorney at law – season 1 – episode 2
House of the dragon – season 1 – episode 1
Enter inspector Duval (1961, Max Varnel)
Numéro Un : Petula Clark (tv show) (1979, Dirk Sanders)
Les Chinois à Paris (1974, Jean Yanne)
Doctor Who – season 12 – epis « Spyfall, part one »
The unbearable weight of massive talent (2021, Tom Gormican)
Did not enjoy:
Le flambeau – season 1 – episodes 2 & 3
Geuddae geusaramdeul / The president’s last bang (2005, Im Sang-soo)
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Angel Rivera Watched and Enjoyed:
"The Princess"(2022) an HBO documentary about Princess Diana. Using only archival footage from when she first was introduced as Prince Charles' 19 year old fiancee to her death in an automobile accident in Paris. What was interesting is how the public, especially in England viewed Diana as a real life fairy tale princess. Then as this person who was vilified by some for not being the princess every one wanted her to be. To becoming "the people's princess" after her death. As Tracy Morgan, I believe said on his show "The Last O. G." "After death, every one becomes good." (or something like that).
"Sorceress" (1982) Yet another female warrior movie. This one is produced by Roger Corman's company and written by Jim Wynorski and directed by Jack Hill; (although Mr. Hill had his name removed from the credits over a dispute with Corman.)
The film stars the twin starlets, Leigh and Lynette Harris who were featured in Playboy magazine as Playmates. Here they play the daughters of a sorcerer, who in order to gain power from some other dimensional witch, must kill his first born child. The twin infants' escape the clutches of the evil sorcerer and grow up to be fierce warriors who have been raised believing they are males. Of course, as they have been in Playboy, there is a lot of nude scenes when they find out they are female. The twins are on a quest to avenge their mother who was tortured and killed by the evil sorcerer. They are aided in their quest for vengeance by a viking, a "barbarian" who sort of resembles a younger and prettier Marjoe Gortner and a "satyr". When it is determined which of "the two who are one" is the first born, she is made to mate with the barbarian, as he is of ancient royal blood and his seed in her will make the sacrifice even more powerful. As the twins can feel what the other feels; while the older twin is being deflowered, the younger one feels all the passion of the seduction of the older one to the bemusement of the viking. The twins are successful in their quest and both end up with the barbarian as they are "the two who are one." The film was shot on location in Mexico and was loosely based on the novel, "The Corsican Brothers".
A minor historical side note: The Harris twins were convicted of tax evasion for non payment of taxes for income received as payment for sexual favors to a rich octogenarian. The convictions were later overturned.
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