To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which Italian director did John Steiner think really helped him to have a career in Italy?
It was Damiano Damiani, who cast him in L'ISTRUTTORIA E CHIUSA: DIMENTICHI, aka THE CAST IS CLOSED, FORGET IT, GOODBYE & AMEN and GIOCO AL MASSACRO, aka THE WOUNDED KING.
Can you name two stunt men who doubled Steve Reeves and then became stars in their own right?
Bertrand van Wonterghem, Angel Rivera, George Grimes and Charles Gilbert knew that they were Alan Steel and Giovanni Cianfriglia, aka Ken Wood.
Which Italian actor and stunt man doubled Tony Anthony in BLINDMAN?
No one has answered this one yet.
Which Italian actor and stunt man doubled Lee Van Cleef in DA UOMO A UOMO, aka DEATH RIDES A HORSE?
Bertrand van Wonterghem, George Grimes and Angel Rivera knew that it was Romano Puppo.
And now for some new brain teasers:
What was the movie that director Sergio Leone was preparing at the time he died?
Which Italian director did Dino De Laurentiis blame for his estrangement with his wife Silvana Mangano?
By what name is Giuseppe Segato better known?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Charles Gilbert identified last week's photo of Frank Brana, Gilberto Galimberti, Alan Steel and Fernando Bilbao in MANO RAPIDA, aka MI CHIAMAVANO 'REQUIESCAT'... MA AVEVANO SBAGLIATO, aka FASTHAND.
Above is a new photo.
Can you identify from what movie it came?
Charles Gilbert identified last week's photo of Dan Vadis and Jose Greci in URSUS GLADIATORE RIBELLE, aka THE REBEL GLADIATOR.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and Angel Rivera identified last week's photo of Alan Steel in ZORRO CONTRO MACISTE, aka SAMSON AND THE SLAVE QUEEN.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above frame grab.
It shows Wang Lung Wei pointing his finger in COWARD BASTARD.
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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:
LICENSED TO LOVE AND KILL, aka THE MAN FROM S.E.X., aka UNDERCOVER LOVER (1979) - I love 1965's LICENSED TO KILL, aka THE 2nd BEST SECRET AGENT IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, which was co-written and directed by Lindsay Shonteff. Shonteff did not direct the two sequels to LICENSED, which featured the heroic womanizer Charles Vine. In 1977, while James Bond rights holders battled in the news, Shonteff decided to return with a new James Bond spoof called NO. 1 OF THE SECRET SERVICE featuring Nicky Henson as Charles Bind. That did well enough for a sequel, LICENSED TO LOVE AND KILL, but Nicky Henson got a job offer from the Royal Shakespeare Company so Gareth Hunt of The New Avengers became the new Charles Bind. While LICENSED TO KILL had its silly moments, it still worked as a taunt thriller with a splendid action climax. Unfortunately, LICENSED TO LOVE AND KILL was more concerned with the silly moments and fumbled the thriller elements. There were a number of call-backs to the earlier Vine film, with our hero asking "Do you make it a habit of being the most attractive woman in the room?", the villains using plastic surgery to create a double of our hero - which was also used in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and our hero going into the bedroom of a Chinese woman only to discover that she was a man in drag. The scene in LICENSED TO KILL didn't cheat, while in the newer film Me Me Lai strips down to her underwear before taking off a face mask to become Eiji Kusuhara. 1965's THE LIQUIDATOR was also referenced with our hero racing in a car to climb aboard an airplane as it was about to take off. Most of the humor here was either too British or too crude to me to enjoy, such as having our hero referring to Fiona Curzon's character of Carlotta Muff-Dangerfield as "Lotta Muff". Australian actor Nick Tate from Space 1999 played the mercenary agent determined that he was better than "number one". Gary Hope graduated from being a bit player in LICENSED TO KILL to playing the main villain here, with a lighter which became a flame thrower. John Arnatt played our hero's boss in the Vine films, was now "Merlin", the fellow outfitting her hero with secret weapons. Geoffrey Keen was now our hero's boss before moving on to make six James Bond movies. This was the last film appearance of Imogen Hassall of WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH before her apparent suicide at the age of 38. Perhaps the biggest disappointment in this newer Shonteff film was that our hero doesn't use a Mauser "broomhandle"
semi-automatic pistol anymore. He now had two .357 Magnums, showing that he too updated after DIRTY HARRY.
SANDOKAN ALLA RISCOSSA, aka SANDOKAN TO THE RESCUE, aka SANDOKAN FIGHTS BACK, aka THE CONQUEROR AND THE EMPRESS (1964) - After Steve Reeves did two films playing novelist Emilio Salgari's Pacific Islander pirate, Ray Danton was tapped for the role in two films. Here, with the death of his former nanny, Danton is informed of that he is the rightful heir to the kingdom of Sarawak. In flashback, we see evil White man Mario Petri murder his parents to seize the throne. Luckily, when henchman Sal Borgese arrives to kill our hero, the young boy has already been spirited away by his nanny. Now a famous warrior, Danton is given the royal amulet and told that he has the right to save his people. Petri rules with fear, ordering those who do no pay their tribute on time to have their heads crushed by an elephant. (This is very reminiscent of LA VENDETTA DI ERCOLE, aka GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON.) Petri's niece, Franca Bettoia, is unhappy about all of these executions, but her maid refuses to answer her questions about what life was like before her uncle became the ruler. Not surprisingly, when she goes out on an hunt with her uncle, she is thrown from her horse and menaced by a tiger. Naturally, Danton shows up to save her. Giving a false name and reason to be in the area, Danton gets invited by Petri to the palace where Bettoia dances to show our hero her gratitude. In return, Danton puts a necklace on her, and everyone notices that the two seem to be closer than they should be, since she is betrothed to the Leopard of Sarawak. Meanwhile, Danton's White brother, Guy Madison, is leading the main army on the long route not knowing that his servant, Ferdinando Poggi, wants revenge on Madison and Danton for displacing the ruler of Assam. Poggi is in cahoots with the Greek Raf Baldassarre who goes to Petri's allies to ambush Madison on the road. The screenplay by Luigi Capuano and Arpad DeRiso is very similar to the earlier adventure films Capuano directed, and doesn't tie into the previous Sandokan films. All of the expected story points fall into place, but the film is slowed down by too many stock shots of beautiful locations and wild animals to convince the viewer that this wasn't all shot in Italy. Carlo Rustichelli provides a tuneful music score that sometimes sounds like a Les Baxter Exotica LP.
SANDOKAN CONTRO IL LEOPARDO DI SARAWAK, aka SANDOKAN AGAINST THE LEOPARD OF SARAWAK, aka THRONE OF VENGEANCE (1964) - This film shows that SANDOKAN ALLA RISCOSSA is just the first half of a two part story. It is now three or two years since Sandokan ascended to the throne of Sarawak, but once again he's wrestling with a tiger. Alberto Farnese returns as Tremal Naik and he wants to shoot the tiger, but Guy Madison, returning as Yanez, says that Ray Danton, returning as Sandokan, can take care of a tiger. And he's considered our hero's friend. Later on, Madison disarms an attacker and has a gun on him. Deciding that he wants the attacker alive, Madison throws away his gun and brawls with the fellow until others arrive to take the attacker into custody. Truely, Madison's decision making abilities seem questionable. He is also the fellow in charge of torturing prisoners and seems to be the only character in both movies to smoke cigarettes. During the final battle, the cigarettes play a vital part, but it seems that the filmmakers laid the ground work for that moment too extensively. The Leopard of Sarawak turns out to be the son of Mario Petri from RISCOSSA, and is played by Mario Petri. He arranges for Franco Bettoia to be kidnapped on the day before her wedding to Danton as part of his plan to retake the throne. While RISCOSSA pretty much reused every plot point used in other films about overthrowing a tryant, LEOPARDO tosses in some unique elements. Petri also wants Bettoia to marry him, so he brings in an Indian mesmerist to hypnotise her to hate our hero. Since the spell ends with the life of the mesmerist, it isn't hard to figure out how this will resolve, but director Luigi Capuano is able to create some suspense with this element. However, Capuano is unable to make a cave filled with snakes very scary. Fans of old movies like to remember when quicksand was scary, and this movie has some. It also has Franco Fantasia in a supporting role and a whole lot less stock scenery footage than RISCOSSA.
Did not enjoy:
THE BRAIN MACHINE (1972) - Sometime actor, producer and writer Joy N. Houck Jr. owned Howco International and ran about 200 movie theaters in the South. His father was the producer of Lash La Rue movies, so he grew up in "the business". He directed his first movie in 1969, NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR, which was also the first movie to feature actor Gerald McRaney. They followed up that initial project in 1970 with WOMEN AND BLOODY TERROR. For their third venture, they brought in Hollywood actor James Best. Professor Zephirin Hymel IV thought that his project enabling a computer to read people's brains was part of an effort to improve the World's ecology. When he discovered that it was being hijacked by a secret group operating in the U.S. government, he was killed. Dr. Doug Collins and Dr. Barbara Burgess were told that Hymel had been transferred and that they would have to run the experiment, but they didn't know that others were interfering. Paid volunteers James Best, Gerald McRaney, Marcus J. Grapes and Ann Latham were told to only tell the truth, so when the monitoring computers discovered discrepancies in their subconscious thoughts, the computers demand the truth. To stop the experiment, they were told that they could punch the "failsafe" device, not knowing that it would result in their deaths. In addition to a credited film editor, the film also had two supervising editors, which seemed to confirm that the filmmakers had a great deal of difficulty in making their material comprehensible. An over-abundance of establishing shots also suggested that they felt the need to pad out the running time to feature length. Operating with an obviously low budget, director Houck failed to make the screenplay, credited to Thomas Hal Phillips, Christian Garrison and Houck, compelling or interesting. McRaney soon found steady work on TV and never worked with Houck again.
LIKE SUNDAY, LIKE RAIN (2014) - Mostly known as an actor, Frank Whaley started writing and directing films in 1999 with JOE THE KING. LIKE SUNDAY, LIKE RAIN was his fourth feature and it was a slow moving and sensitive story of the relationship between a young woman adrift in life who took a job as a nanny for a very creative rich boy for whom his parents have no time. Leighton Meester was gorgeous while Julian Shatkin was impressive as the 12-year old Cello prodigy. Green Day's Billy Joe Armstrong played Meester's boyfriend who didn't come home at night precipitating the crisis that made the young woman homeless. Debra Messing played Shatkin's unsympathetic mother. There was a lot of good stuff here, but not it wasn't turned into a compelling film.
TRUE LOVE (1989) - Hailed as a classic of American Independent Cinema and the Grand Jury Prize winner at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival, TRUE LOVE is a naturalistic portrait of a young Italian American couple about to get married. It soon becomes apparent that Annabella Sciorra and Ron Eldard are not really ready to get married and nothing in the movie alters that perspective. So, even though they do get married, he opts to spend the wedding night out with his guy friends.so the film does not end happily. Directed by Nancy Savoca, and co-written with her husband Richard Guay, the film is praised for authentically capturing its milieu, but I didn't find it entertaining or compelling.
WHEN THE BOYS MEET THE GIRLS (1965) - In 1930, GIRL CRAZY opened on Broadway, made stars of Ethel Merman and Ginger Rogers, and introduced many tunes by George and Ira Gershwin which became standards in the "American songbook" - songs like "I Got Rhythm" and "Embraceable You". The first movie version came out in 1932. In 1943 came the version with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Changing the title to remind audiences of how popular WHERE THE BOYS ARE is, MGM made it again in 1965, starring the woman who sang the hit song for WHERE THE BOYS ARE - Connie Francis. Harve Presnell became a star on Broadway with THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN in 1960, and then in the movies with the 1962 film version. Producer Sam Katzman, having had great success with TWIST AROUND THE CLOCK and DON'T KNOCK THE TWIST for Columbia Pictures, was invited to MGM where he scored with HOOTENANNY HOOT and GET YOURSELF A COLLEGE GIRL. I don't know if Katzman thought that Francis and Presnell were the new Garland and Rooney, but he added a number of recent hit makers - Sam and Sham and The Pharoahs and Herman's Hermits - in an effort to attract a younger audience. Louis Armstrong and Liberace joined in for a broader mainstream appeal. Needless to say, the movie is a mess barely held together by silly plot which is obviously based on the plot for the original play - playboy meets female postal worker who decides to update her ranch to become a booming business. On Broadway, the story took place in Arizona. In this movie, it takes place in the Sierra Nevada outside Reno. In the play. they turn it into a dude ranch. Here they turn it into a haven for women seeking a divorce in Reno. One of the stranger elements of this movie is casting Peter Noone as a character named Herman. Reportedly, MGM and Katzman liked him enough to make HOLD ON! the following year. Robert E. Kent, who wrote TWIST AROUND THE CLOCK, DON'T KNOCK THE TWIST, GET YOURSELF A COLLEGE GIRL and HOLD ON!, did the screenplay for WHEN THE BOYS MEET THE GIRLS. Mostly known for his work on TV, Alvin Ganzer directed this movie.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
OPERATION TITIAN (63)
THE BRAVADOS (58) - Gregory Peck rides into a border town to witness the hanging of four men. When the men escape at the last minute, Peck leads a posse after them. Turns out Peck is hunting four men who raped and killed his wife, and he'll stop at nothing to kill them. Top notch western meditates on revenge and redemption, with Peck holding the screen easily as the tight-lipped sword of death. Deep cast includes Lee Van Cleef, Henry Silva, Albert Salmi, and Stephen Boyd as the doomed killers. Thumbs up.
THE FALCON IN DANGER (43)
THE SON OF MONTE CRISTO (41)
RITUAL OF EVIL (70) - See the Television Fright Films of the 1970s book for a complete review of this Satanic entry.
GUN FEVER (58) - John Lupton quits his crazy killer dad and joins up with Mark Stevens to do some prospecting. Six years later they come down from the mountain, and Lupton goes to bank the gold while Stevens heads for his family's way station. The happy reunion is soon spoiled by Lupton's dad and his Sioux friends who kill everyone but Stevens. Now both Lupton and Stevens have reason to take revenge. This low budget western is pretty grim. It's not especially well-written but it has attitude, I'll give it that. The wind rarely lets up in this film, with dust flying constantly. It's an irritant to all involved, but succeeds in raising the tension of the piece. Larry Storch plays a really bad apple, no funny business here. An odd oater but definitely watchable.
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (60)
TOKYO DRIFTER (66)
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:
Wonka (2023, Paul King)
Der rote Kreis (1960, Jurgen Roland)
The capture (1950, John Sturges)
Death and others details – season 1 (2023) – episodes 1 & 2
Aillaendeu / Island (2022) – season 1 – episodes 1 & 2
The invaders – epis “The trial” (1966, Robert Butler)
Time tunnel – epis “Pirates at deadman's island” (1966, Sobey Martin)
Gojira vs Mekagojira / Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 2 (1993, Takao Okawara)
Magical girl special ops Asuka (anime) (2019) episodes 1 & 2
Mildly enjoyed:
At war with the army (1950, Hal Walker)
Carry on Cleo (1964, Gerald Thomas)
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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:
"THE ALAMO" (1960)
My church back when I was a kid, ran this film during I think an Easter function for the community. I got to the church auditorium late and only saw when Frankie Avalon had arrived too late to the Alamo mission. I finally got to see it from beginning to end only recently. While it has a lot of right wing references, it is still an entertaining film, mainly due to its trio of stars: Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie, Laurence Harvey as Colonel Travers and John Wayne as Davy Crockett. May have some questionable history reenactments, but still makes you care for its characters. (who of course were based on real people.) The film has spectacular battle scenes and great character scenes. Well worth a viewing.
Mildly Enjoyed:
"CORVETTE SUMMER" (1978)
I heard about this move as the film Mark Hamill did right after he did the first "Star Wars" film. Co-stars Annie Potts in her first featured film role. She is cute as the girl who wants to become a sex worker for the money, but can't seem to get started in that profession. It's cute mindless fun. Mostly mindless. Hamill seems so out of place in this sex/rom/com from the seventies.
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