To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which American actor, who made Italian Westerns, could not accept a role in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO because he was under contract to Warner Bros.?
It was Robert Woods.
Which American actor, who made Italian Westerns, is credited as a screenwriter on a movie starring Kirk Douglas?
Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Thomas Hunter for THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.
Can you name two American actors who were needed to replace Klaus Kinski in two different Italian Westerns?
Tom Betts knew that Dan Vadis replaced Kinski on UN UOMO, UN CAVALLO, UNA PISTOLA, aka THE STRANGER RETURNS. Do you know who was the second actor to replace Kinski on a Western?
Lee Van Cleef met his last wife on the set of what movie?
Tom Betts, Angel Rivera, Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes knew that he met Barbara Havelone on the set of EL KARATE EL COLT Y EL IMPOSTOR, aka THE STRANGER AND THE GUNFIGHTER. aka BLOOD MONEY.
Which actor who made Westerns was born in Reinosa, Cantabria, Spain on March 2, 1940?
Tom Betts, Angel Rivera, Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes knew that it was Ricardo Palacios.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which actor had been a Nazi soldier but spent most of his career working in Spain so is often thought of as a Spaniard?
Which German actor who made Italian Westerns spent time in a British P.O.W. camp during World War II?
Which actor, born in Argentina, worked in France and Hollywood before settling in Spain and being thought of as a Spaniard?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Tom Betts, Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's photo of Nicoletta Machiavelli and Franco Balducci in ESCONDITO, aka A MINUTE TO PRAY A SECOND TO DIE.
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?
Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Gianfranco de Grassi and Macha Meril in L'ULTIMO TRENO DELLA NOTE, aka NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Toshiro Mifune, Chieko Naniwa and Minoru Chiaki in THRONE OF BLOOD.
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:
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (2022) - On a second view, the teenage angsty stuff is rather annoying.
FLOYD NORMAN AN ANIMTATED LIFE (2016)
SOMETHING'S GONNA LIVE (2010) - Here's a fascinating look at the career of Art Director/Production Designer Robert F. Boyle and his friends Henry Bumstead, Albert Nozaki, Conrad L. Hall, Harold Michelson and Haskell Wexler.
Veep seasons one, two and three (2012 - 2014)
Mildly enjoyed:
BERLINO APPUNTAMENTO PER LE SPIE (OPERAZIONE POLIFEMO, aka SPY IN YOUR EYE (1966) - Return with us to the glorious yesteryear of the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall was still up and American agents parachuted into East Germany. Everyone is after the formula for a death ray, whose creator was killed trying to escape from East Berlin. His daughter, Anna Maria Pierangeli, is being held captive by the KWD hoping that she will tell its secret. Col. Dana Andrews assigns secret agent Brett Halsey to rescue her right before he goes into surgery to have a new eye implanted in his head. Obviously, the Americans did a poor job of investigating the eye clinic, because it is being run by the villainous Gastone Moschin and the new eye is a tiny TV transmitter which allows the bad guys to see and hear everything Andrews does. Many Spy movies seem more like travelogues than thrillers, and this one hops from Paris, to Berlin, to Capri, to Syria and to Lebanon - often with an hand held camera giving the impression that the footage was "stolen" without permission. Instead of considering logic and plot construction, the filmmakers seem to have spent most of their time coming up with gadgets, which are among the highlights of this film which include:
1) A police car speeds through Paris just as the street lights are turned off in the morning. They are rushing to find a dead man with a missing eye. This scene never becomes part of the narrative.
2) The bad guys have a tanker truck from which sprouts an antenna to pick up the signals from the Colonel's eye.
3) An American agent sports a phony hunchback from which springs a knife, and also houses a radio transmitter.
4) The Americans have an operations base accessed by a trapdoor in the middle of an open field.
5) An American agent uses a directional microphone to spy on the bad guys from the scaffolding of a building under construction.
6) An American agent has an umbrella that also functions as a radio transmitter.
7) The Americans send a tractor through a mine field inorder to make an escape route into West Germany.
8) A guillotine falls when an door is opened.
9) Two bad guys are tortured by giving them "dehydrating pills".
10) Pierangeli is kidnapped while taking a bubble bath.
11) A gun is hidden inside a camera with a telephone lens.
12) Why does anyone want to hide Pierangeli inside a carnival float inorder to shoot her during a parade?
13) A statue of Napoleon is primed to stab with a knife anyone touching the pocket of his waist coat.
14) The bag guys' scientific lair is designed to be hidden behind movable walls and floors. Naturally, our hero accidentally short circuits the place so walls and floors begin moving about willy-nilly.
15) Our kidnapped hero and heroine are secreted inside two gigantic tubes of toothpaste on top of a truck advertising said product.
16) A wrist watch with a little knife useful for cutting bonds.
17) The film ends with a scene reminiscent of GOLDFINGER minus the sense of excitement.
18) A secret formula has been tatooed under a woman's hair.
Looking back over the highlights of the film, I wonder if director Vittorio Sala intended this to be funny. If he did, he failed to create a style which informed the audience of his intention. Anyway, fans of Italian action films will enjoy seeing familiar faces like George Wang (billed as Giorgio Wang), Marco Guglielmi, Renato Baldini, Luciano Pigozzi, Massimo Righi and Giulio Maculani. Riz Ortolani contributed an unremarkable music score fitting for this unsatisfying movie.
BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON, aka HAUNTED HONEYMOON (1940) - I became a fan of Lord Peter Wimsey due to the 1987 TV series A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery. As the BBC did not have the rights to BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON, it was not included in the series. The 1940's feature film reportedly had little to do with Sayers' writing, and Robert Montgomery's portrayal was nothing like that of Edward Petherbridge's on TV, which was a shame. If you can ignore how American Montgomery and Constance Cummings were, BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON was a pleasant murder mystery, but it didn't have the charm of the TV series. British director Arthur B. Woods finished the film which has started by American director Richard Thorpe. Leslie Banks, Robert Newton and Googie Withers were among the British supporting cast.
Did not enjoy:
NIGHTMARE (1964) - I found most of Hammer's psychological thrillers dull and irritating, and NIGHTMARE was no exception. Most of the plotting by writer/producer Jimmy Sangster was predictable, and director Freddie Francis wasn't able to build suspense with the material. However, as TORTURE GARDEN was one of my favorite movies, it was nice seeing Australian artist Clytie Jessop again. She only appeared in three feature films, all involving Freddie Francis, though she would go on to direct a feature film in 1986 back in Australia.
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Charles Gilbert Watched:
HELL BOUND (1957) B&W. A cruel con man (John Russell, Lawman on tv) engineers a dastardly heist to purloin drugs from a U. S. military ship and sell on the streets of L. A..
13 WEST STREET (1962) B&W. Alan Ladd plays a space engineer who is attacked near his home on the streets of L. A. by a gang of upper class teen boys. He's left on crutches and they persist on tormenting him.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
KISS KISS, KILL KILL (66)
BUCHANAN RIDES ALONE (58)
REVOLT OF THE PRAETORIANS (64)
THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (53)
TORMENTED (60)
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES (07)
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (32)
VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (67)
Mildly enjoyed:
STRANGLER OF THE TOWER (66)
ORDER OF DEATH (83) - AKA Corrupt/Copkiller. Harvey Keitel and Leonard Mann are corrupt NYC cops who have used their ill-gotten gains to buy a fancy apartment together in order to live double lives. With a cop killer on the loose, the pressures on the two are ramped up and Harvey feels as if he's being targeted for death. Enter John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon claiming to be the cop killer and threatening Harvey with exposure of his corruption. Strangely, the two build an unusual bond as Harvey attempts to maintain his fragile world. An odd giallo from Roberto Faenza that puts less emphasis on the killings by the black-gloved assassin and more on the unhealthy relationships in play. Echoes of The Servant are inescapable but the vague relationship between the two cops is left open to interpretation. Lydon handles his role quite well but Mann is not given enough to work with in this curio.
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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:
"Wild in the Streets" (1968) When I left the theatre after seeing this movie in its original release, I felt empowered even though I was only about 12. Christopher Jones gave a star making performance. Richard Pryor and Diane Varsi are in this too. Even though that is not Jones singing on the soundtrack, his lip synching was on spot. The song "Shape of Things to Come" still powerful.
"They Died with Their Boots On" (1941) I read that this year is the 147th anniversary of the Battle of Little Big Horn, so I took out my colorized copy of "They Died with Their boots On" to watch. I found it still an entertaining piece of fictional history with a great performance by Errol Flynn. The film follows Custer from his days at West Point to "that fateful day in history when the men of the 7th Cavalry went riding on." Although we now know better, and with an early performance by Anthony Quinn as Crazy Horse, the film is worth a perusal.
"Superman & Lois" (2023) Season 3 finale. Interesting events in Smallville. Spoiler alert the episode ends with a potential bang.
"Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed" (2023) interesting documentary about the life and death of one of Hollywood's biggest leading man and his secret life beyond the camera.
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:
After the thin man (1936, W.S. Van Dyke)
Se incontri Sartana prega per la tua morte (1968, Gianfranco Parolini)
Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino (1969, Giuliano Carnimeo)
Charley Varrick (1973, Don Siegel)
Les naufrageurs (1959, Charles Brabant)
The champions – episode “The invisible man” (1967, Cyril Frankel)
Perfect Friday (1970, Peter Hall)
Mildly enjoyed
La grande magie (2022, Noemie Lvovsky)
Silo – season 1 – episodes 7 to 9
How to be a detective (short) (1936, Felix E. Feist)
Die sieben Männer der Sumuru / The girl from Rio (1968, Jesus Franco)
L’animal (1977, Claude Zidi)
Forza Bastia (short) (1978, Jacques Tati & Sophie Tatischeff)
Did not enjoy:
Modesty Blaise (tv movie) (1982, Reza Badiyi)
Knights of the zodiac (2022, Tomasz Baginski)
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