November 23 - 29, 2024

 

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

Brain Teasers:

Charles Gilbert asks by what name is Nick Anderson better known?

George Grimes and Tom Betts knew that it is Nazzareno Zamperla

Charles Gilbert asks which character from the Bible was played on screen by Andrea Aurelli, Harry Guardino and Anthony Quinn?

George Grimes, Angel Rivera and Tom Betts knew that it was BARRABAS.

What animated film, released by 20th Century Fox, used "The Ecstasy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone on the sountrack?

George Grimes, Angel Rivera and Tom Betts knew that it was THE BOOK OF LIFE.

And now for some new brain teasers:

Which Italian director worked as a writer on two films starring Steve Reeves, one starring Mark Forest, one starring Rod Taylor, one starring Lang Jeffries, two starring Reg Park and three starring Gordon Scott until he made his directorial debut with none of those stars?

Which Italian "Art Director" is credited with creating the look of the Italian Western?

By what name is Jack Dalmas better known?

Name the movies from which these images came.

George Grimes, Charles Gilbert and Tom Betts identified last week's photo of Alan Steel in SANSONE E IL TESORO DEGLI INCAS, aka LOST TREASURE OF THE INCAS, aka LOST TREASURE OF THE AZTECS.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

No one identified the above photo.

It shows Giuliano Gemma and Jacqueline Sassard in ARRIVANO I TITANI, aka SONS OF THUNDER, aka MY SON THE HERO.

Angel Rivera and Charles Gilbert identified last week's photo of Giovanni Pazzafini and Andrea Aureli in SANSONE CONTRO IL CORSARO NERO, aka HERCULES AND THE BLACK PIRATE.

Above is a new photo.

Can you name from what movie it came?

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:

Highly enjoyed:

Sci Fi Inside: "Serenity" (2005) - I was sobbing continually watching this old 30 minute promo show. Not only because I love SERENITY, but I also love Firefly and pretty much everything that Joss Whedon worked on. I also love the old Sci Fi channel. Again my hatred rose for everything about the "DC Universe" especially everything involving Zack Snyder. I so wish that Whedon didn't step in to finish JUSTICE LEAGUE. Then, maybe, The Nevers wouldn't have been cancelled - which was a show that I was loving as much as Firefly. Fuck Warner Bros.

Enjoyed: 

Black Comedy In America "Richard Pryor" (2024)

FILM IS DEAD LONG LIVE FILM (2024) - Peter Flynn's documentary on private film collectors is a lot of fun, though his editing choices often make viewing a chore. How many times do we need to see the SMPTE leader used as a transition device? Also. pretending that an editing viewer can also read the soundtrack is annoying. Still, the profile of collectors like Louis DiCrescenzo is fascinating, as well as the collaboration with preservationists like the Library of Congress. The condemnation of video tape, though, is snobby.

THE MOVIE MAN (2024) - 40 some years ago, Keith Stata, after 20 some years in construction, decided to combine his building knowledge with his love of movies and took an old house in the small town of Kinmont, Ontario, Canada, and made it into a movie theater. It is only open during the summer months, but did enough business that he enlarged his operation to included a total of five separate screens. Needless to say, being shut down during the Covid Pandemic just about put him out of business. But, at the end of the documentary by Matt Finlin, he's still operating, though now in his 70s he worries about who will carry on his business. Of particular interest, is his collection of theatrical projectors and 35mm film that he's collected from all of the neighboring movie theaters which have gone out of business over the decades. Plus, he's turned the hallways of his theater into a showcase for collectibles, including skin magazines. And, I should mention, that he provides an home for homeless cats, which number 48 at the documentary's end. And he also feeds the local wildlife with huge trash bags of popcorn. Partly, this is to keep bears from attacking his property looking for food. 

Unlocking Sherlock (2014) - Susannah Ward is credited with directing this documentary which not only goes behind the scenes of the 2010 series, but also examines the entire history of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character. It also works to bring audiences up-to-date on the series before the beginning of season three.

Mildly enjoy:

Dark Side of Reality TV season one episode ten "America's Next Top Model" (2024)

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (2023) - The character played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge is so annoying that getting through much of this film is a chore. But, you know she's going to be okay in the end, and it is rather dull when things work out as expected. The finale featuring Karen Allen turned out to be so effective that it made up for a lot of what before occurred. So, why did Steven Spielberg decide to have James Mangold, the director of LOGAN, make what is probably the last Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford? Has the family of Wernher von Braun reacted to the suggestion that if Archimedes had built the Antikythera Mechanism - which he didn't - and that it could find fissures in time, that von Braun would have gone back in time to kill Adolph Hitler before World War 2 in order to take over and stop him from making the mistakes which led to the Nazi defeat? If only director Pietro Francisci had the technology and budget seen here for his film L'ASSEDIO DI SIRACUSA, aka SEIGE OF SYRACUSE.

Did not enjoy:

AGAINST A CROOKED SKY (1975) - One of a series of "family adventure films" including WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS and SEVEN ALONE written by Douglas C. Stewart and seemingly made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Former collaborator with director Cecil B. DeMille, Henry Wilcoxon narrates parts of this film and plays the role of a Native American who has had his tongue cut off. Geoffrey Land is one of three Native Americans on horseback who see Jewel Blanch bathing in a river while her brother, Stewart Petersen, teases her about taking away her clothes. Shortly after, mother Shannon Farnon is called away to tend to a sick woman, leaving the siblings alone in their farm house. Land, and his associates, over power Petersen and kidnap Blanch. Later, father Clint Ritchie sets off with some men to find Blanch. Unable to sit still, Petersen also sets off on his own to search. While trying to cross a river, Petersen is saved from drowning by old prospector Richard Boone. Boone takes Petersen back to his home where he is told to wait for his father to return. When Ritchie returns, he is nearly dead and reports that the search is fruitless. Unable to accept this, Petersen seeks out Boone and convinces him to help look for his sister. They visit a camp of friendly Comanche, carrying a golden headband dropped by Land. An old Henry Wilcoxon, who is from an unknown tribe and who can only communicate with sign language because he has no tongue, recognizes the headband. He wants to die among his own people and will show Boone and Petersen how to get to "Crooked Sky" if they will take him with them. Along the way, the trio is set upon by renegade Apaches who kill Boone's dog. It turns out that "Crooked Sky" is in the Grand Canyon, where the unknown tribe lives. It turns out that Wilcoxon was exiled from this tribe because of a conflict over who would become chief. When the current chief murders Wilcoxon in the night, the blame is put on Blanch, who has become Land's wife. To save his sister from execution, Petersen has to run a course before the sun reaches a stream of gold in the morning. Veteran director Earl Bellamy, who also made SEVEN ALONE, is unable to inject this material with anything more than the professionalism he had been bringing to his TV work since 1955. Eleanor Lamb is Stewart's writing partner and died in 2003. Australian born Jewel Blanch moved to the U.S. in 1969 and built up 17 movie and TV credits. She sings the theme song for AGAINST A CROOKED SKY, and became a successful Country Music performer and manager.

BLUE STEEL (1934) - On a dark and stormy night, John Wayne sneaks into a small hotel while Innkeeper George Cleveland sleeps in the lobby. Wayne hides in the cloak room. When Sheriff George "Gabby" Hayes comes in, Cleveland wakes up. Hayes reasons that because of the weather, the midnight stage will be late, but he's wants to stick around fearing that the Polka Dot Bandit, played by Yakima Canutt, will be after the payroll on the stage. Cleveland offers to let Hayes stay in his bedroom upstairs, because a knot in the floor will allow him to surveil the lobby. Later the stage arrives and Cleveland puts the payroll in his safe. No one notices that Canutt is watching through the window and he writes down the combination to the safe. When Wayne wakes up, Canutt has already made his getaway. Naturally, when Hayes looks through the knot in the floor, he sees Wayne checking the safe and leaving. So Hayes trails Wayne to a shack figuring that he'll arrest him. However, they are startled to hear gunshots and race outside to find Eleanor Hunt being chased by the men who killed her father and stole the mule train. Soon, Wayne and Hayes team up to stop Edward Peil's evil plot to starve out the homesteaders so that he will have the gold under their property. In the end, as Wayne announces that he and Hunt are to be married, he also tells Hayes that he is a marshal sent from Sacramento to get the Polka Dot Bandit. Once again, the cliche that old time Westerners never get the girl proves untrue. Rather than a traditional shootout, Wayne and Hayes get rid of the bad guys by dynamiting a rocky side of a pass on top of them.

GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE (1972) - Taking a break from working on TV, writer David Chase is credited with penning this low budget vampire thriller, that seems to have been inspired by the success of COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE. Except where YORGA begins with a seance, GRAVE ends with one. HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS might have also been an inspiration, with the vampire longing to resurrect the spirit of his dead love. Plus composer Jaime Mendoza-Nava's use of a xylophone sounds very much like Robert Cobert's music. Watching this again proved to disappointing, as I remember liking it back when I saw this on TV in the 1980s. Now, I found it very irritating that since William Smith has tracked down Michael Pataki, knowing him to be the vampire who fathered him by raping his mother, he does nothing to prevent six or seven people from getting killed. But, of course, that would have shortened the movie and prevented the stupid "shock" ending. Director John Hayes followed up this film with GARDEN OF THE DEAD and a whole series of other low budget flicks. You get a better look at actress Kitty Vallacher here than you get in LEGEND OF FRANK WOODS.  I did not recognize Inga Neilsen from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM in a minor role.

THE LEGEND OF FRANK WOODS (1977) - How did 1972's TO HELL YOU PREACH, directed by Richard Robinson and written by and starring Hagen Smith as Frank Woods, morph into 1977's THE LEGEND OF FRANK WOODS, with direction credited to Deno Paoli and star Hagen Smith hiding behind the name of Brad Stewart? Just to complicate matters more, in the end credits of LEGEND, it is reported "Texas Sequence directed by Hagen Smith. Arizona sequences directed by Richard Robinson.... Screenplay by David Allen Russell." The suggestion seems to be that since TO HELL YOU PREACH didn't sell as well as desired, Hagen Smith decided to rework the film adding Troy Donahue as a "star" name. The new material was shot in Texas, while the original film was shot in Arizona. This seems to be another example of the "behind the scenes" story being more interesting than the resulting movie. The basic story for both films remains the same: outlaw on the run comes into a town called "Hope" where he is mistaken for the new preacher. The outlaw is okay with playing along, and even starts a sexual relationship with a young woman played by Kitty Vallacher - who had previously appeared in DEATHMASTER and GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE. She went on to appear in SAVAGE ABDUCTION and SOUL HUSTLER. After an uncredited appearance in EARTHQUAKE, she married actor Terry Wills and became the mother of two children. The outlaw pretending to be a preacher soon antagonizes the town bully, who, with his friends, decide to run our hero out of town. One night, to rile the preacher, the bad guys blaspheme in the middle of the street, until one of them keels over dead. Did God strike the man dead? The bully decides that the man died of an heart attack, but when another of his friends is found dead from a snake bite, he begins to wonder. Of course, in the end, our hero can't take anymore, kills the bully and his friends and rides out of town. In the new footage, Troy Donahue is a lawman who is a friend of the outlaw who wants the outlaw to turn himself in to face a fair trial. In the new ending, the outlaw does just that, handing his gun over to Donahue. To bolster the film's credentials as a Western, veteran actors like Emile Meyer, Rance Howard, Hank Worden, Tom Monroe, Howard Wright and even columnist James Bacon make minor appearances. Ultimately, the film seems to be a 88 minute promo for a soundtrack album from Movie Star Records with performances by Dorsey Burnett, Jerry Corbetta, Casey Anderson and Donnie Brooks, none of whom deliver material that I'd want to own. Is this the only film ever made by "Transworld Properties Inc." and why does the IMDb list Italy as a "Country of Origin"? Even Deno Paoli is an American, born in Sacramento in 1926.

TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS (1973) - Often mistaken for one of the Amicus anthology Horror films, TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS was actually made by World Film Services. It copied the Amicus formula, using many of the same actors, so such a mistake was reasonable. Like most of the Amicus films after TORTURE GARDEN, it too was a dull witted and irritatingly obvious exercise. Screenwriter Jay Fairbank turned out to be actress Jennifer Jayne who was fondly remembered from THE TROLLENBERG TERROR, aka THE CRAWLING EYE. As SON OF DRACULA with Harry Nilsson was her only other writing credit, it was a shame she stepped out of the acting lane. Amicus and Hammer veteran Freddie Francis was brought in to direct. Bizarrely, Francis was quoted as saying that the film wasn't intended to be an Horror film, so one wondered what the makers could possibly have had in mind. Reportedly, Frank Yablans, who financed the film with Paramount Pictures, put up the money to shoot more material to make it into an Horror film. Even though he could no longer speak, Jack Hawkins was hired to appear in the "frame story" with Charles Gray again dubbing his lines. Hawkins visited Dr. Donald Pleasence at  his mental clinic to be told the stories for four patients. In one, a child's imaginary Tiger killed the boy's parents. In two, Peter McEnery inherited an old penny farthing bicycle along with an old portrait of Uncle Frank Forsyth that forces him to travel back in time to when he was in love with Suzy Kendall. In three, Michael Jayston brought home part of a dead tree, which began to look more and more like a woman when he cleaned it up, much to the consternation of his wife Joan Collins. The fourth story inspired me to paraphrase a line from BLOOD FEAST: "Have you ever had a Polynesian Feast?" Every story was unthrillingly predictable making for a deathly viewing experience. I hate watching actors I like - Peter McEnery, Suzy Kendall and Donald Pleasence - in such a dud, and I feel bad for actors I don't care much for - Kim Novak, Joan Collins Michael Jayston and Donald Houston - being wasted.

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Angel Rivera Enjoyed:

"RETURN OF THE KING: THE FALL AND RISE OF ELVIS PRESLEY" (2024)
An interesting documentary about the importance of the so-called "comeback" special of 1968 to his career.

"GARBO" (2005)
Interesting documentary about the movie star known as "The Face!"

"SUPERMAN AND LOIS" Season 4 Episode 8 ("Sharp Dressed Man")
More filler till the end of the series. Luthor cuts off the beard he had worn all season up to this episode. Now he sort of looks like the Luthor of old; almost. Just waiting for the "Super" twins to take over. Superman has to come to terms that his heart transplant may reject. To be continued.

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Charles Gilbert watched:

CELL 2455 DEATH ROW (1955) B&W. William Campbell and brother Robert portray Whit Whittier, a character from recidivist Caryl Chessman's book about finding himself on death row after a life of crime.

CHROME AND HOT LEATHER (1971) A rogue hood from the Wizards gang intimidates a couple of young ladies driving their car near the biker cruise, forcing them off the road into a steep crash. The news of their death is received by a soldier boyfriend and three of his Army pals. A battle ensues into Army versus Bikers. William Smith and Peter Browne appear as biker leader and soldier respectively, but not the characters of interest. 

KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL (1955) An embittered ex police captain (Preston Foster) engineers a bank heist employing three losers (Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, and Neville Brand) that he "interviews" individually with bribe. The robbery comes off well until the ex con florist deliveryman at the bank scene (John Payne) is hauled in under suspicion. He's cleared, but jobless, so he follows the culprits to Tiajuana to get recompense for being framed.

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David Deal Enjoyed:

THE SCARLET CLAW (44) - Probably the best of the Rathbone/Sherlock series.

PLANET OF THE APES (68) - It's a madhouse!

THE FALCON IN HOLLYWOOD (44)

MARK OF THE TORTOISE (64) - German krimi just as entertaining as a legit Edgar Wallace entry. Based on a James Hadley Chase story.

ENTER THE DEVIL (72) - Fun little desert Satanist movie.

THE SAINT'S DOUBLE TROUBLE (40)

CLASSE TOUS RISQUES (60) - Second time thru this compelling French crime flick. Still a big thumbs up.

THE FALCON IN SAN FRANCISCO (45) 

Mildly enjoyed:

SPY TODAY, DIE TOMORROW (67) - Please refer to The Eurospy Guide.

JEFF GORDON, SECRET AGENT (63) - Undercover FBI agent Jeff Gordon (Eddie Constantine) is part of a jewel thief's gang. When he's ratted out, Jeff goes on the run trying to nail the gang's leader who is going to have his face changed by a plastic surgeon. Despite the star's charm, the comedic tone to this adventure wears thin quickly. Even the slate of attractive women - a given in Eddie's films - can't save this from mediocrity.

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