To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
In which Luis Davila Spanish Western can you hear music from GUNFIGHT AT RED SANDS?
It was VIVA CARRANCHO!, aka L'UOMO CHE VIENE DA CANYON CITY, aka MAN FROM CANYON CITY.
Claudia Cardinale said "hi" to Henry Fonda while Fonda was relaxing off set with Robert Woods on BATTLE OF THE BULGE. What was Fonda's comment about Claudia to Robert?
No one answered this question yet.
With which female co-star did Richard Harrison spend the night while she was having her "period" causing the maid in the morning to think there had been a murder with blood all over the room?
No one answered this question yet.
Which Italian actor, born in 1932, who made Sword & Sandal films and Westerns, is listed in the IMDb as "uncredited" for 17 movies?
George Grimes knew that it was Jeff Cameron, aka Giovanni Goffredo Scarciofolo.
Which Italian Western, starring Klaus Kinski, reused the music from UN UOMO, UN CAVALLO, UNA PISTOLA, aka THE STRANGER RETURNS?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which American actress made one Western in Italy as well as a comedy with James Coburn and a wacky movie directed by Jack Hill with Lon Chaney?
George Grimes and Bertrand van Wonterghem knew that it was Jill Banner of UN UOMO, UN CAVALLO, UNA PISTOLA, aka THE STRANGER RETURNS, THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST and SPIDER BABY OR THE MADDEST STORY EVER TOLD.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Veteran screenwriter Ennio De Concini credited which director whose personality infused the Sword and Sandal movies of the 1950s and '60s?
Apollonios of Rhodes wrote a poem about which Ancient Greek hero that inspired at least two movies and one TV mini-series?
Which actress, born in 1933 Croatia, made five movies for Hollywood producers, but is mostly thought of as an Italian performer?
Name the movies from which these images came.
George Grimes and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Kirk Morris as Ringo in LITTLE RITA NEL WEST.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes, Angel Rivera and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Kirk Morris as Hercules in ERCOLE SFIDA SANSONE, aka HERCULES, SAMSON AND ULYSSES.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
George Grimes, Angel Rivera and Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's photo of Kirk Morris, Leonora Ruffo and Alfio Caltabiano in 2+5 MISSIONE HYDRA, aka STAR PILOT.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one identified the above photo.
It is from BASTARD SWORDSMAN.
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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:
Hacks season four (2025
Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go (2024)
Mildly enjoyed:
WATARI THE CONQUEROR (1967) - Watari was a Japanese comic book created by Sanpei Shirato in 1965. Toei Company turned it into a live-action feature film which was so successful, they wanted to turn it into a TV series. Shirato, who didn't like the movie, rejected that idea. So Toei made a TV series from Kamen no Ninja Akakage, aka Masked Ninja Red Shadow, a comic book created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama in 1966. The young Yoshinobu Kaneko, who played Watari in the movie, transfered over to Akakage as Aokage, aka Blue Shadow. He was part of a trio of good-guy superhero ninjas led by Akakage, aka Red Shadow played by Yuzaburo Sakaguchi, and including Shirokage, aka White Shadow, portrayed by Fuyukichi Maki. The TV series lasted for 52 half-hour episodes and concluded with a feature film in 1969. Growing up on Okinawa, I loved the TV show and even saw the feature film when it hit the theaters. All of this was in Japanese and was not English friendly. I wondered about the bad guys who often wore backward swastikas. It would seem that Watari was popular enough outside of Japan for Toei to create an English language version of Akakage in which Aokage was re-named Watari and the bad guys were called the Swastika Clan. This feature film, WATARI THE CONQUEROR, was made up of episodes of Akakage using both the original theme songs for Akakage and Watari, in untranslated Japanese. Concerning an effort to recover three glass bells originally on a sunken Portugese trading ship - which were thought to lead to great power, by both the good guys and the bad guys. this splicing together random TV episodes didn't work very well. One episode would end with the bad guys getting one of the bells, and the next episode began with the narrator informing us that the bad guys now had two bells. Running around 117 minutes, the show featured a lot of low-budget TV special effects and wacky costumes, which really worked better in half-hour installments. Still, as a record of a beloved TV series, the film was enjoyable, though I kept hearing the Japanese voices in my memory and wanting to see the episodes' original structures. According to a contributor to the IMDb, this story line was orignally played out on episodes 14-26 called "Battle with Manji Tou".
WATARI AND THE FANTASTICKS (1967) - This is not a feature film combining episodes of Kamen no Ninja Akakage in the style of the Off-Broadway hit musical by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones. It is a mash up of episodes 27-39 called "Battle with Negoro Ninjas". Evil Lord Yuzato Danno Jo hires the 13 Negoro Ninjas to assassinate Lord Nobunaga Oda, who wants to unite all of Japan under a single ruler. Seeing that this will lead to peace, our three heroes protect him. This shortened version of the episodes doesn't include all 13 bad guys, but the six who are shown all control giant monsters. As usual in films and TV of this time, even though two of the evil ninjas are women, our heroes won't kill them, so the writers have to come up rather lame ways to dispatch them.
NINJASCOPE (THE MAGIC WORLD OF NINJAS) (1966) - Obviously I have watched these compilation features out of order, for this one is made up of episodes 1-13 called "Battle with Kinme Kyo". When the good government officials worry about the subversive influence of the God of the Golden Eye Cult, and whether the spies they sent to investigate have been killed, a signal is sent to summon Red Shadow and Blue Shadow. Unlike the two other English language compilation features, Aokage is called Blue Shadow, and there is no mention of Watari at all. Oddly, the IMDb page for this film does mention Watari. White Shadow doesn't pop up until around 43 minutes into this 105 minute flick. One villain uses a giant fire-breathing toad that resembles the creature in KAIRYU DAIKESSEN, aka MAGIC SERPENT, made by Toei this same year. The director of KAIRYU is the same fellow credited with directing NINJASCOPE - Tetsuya Yamauchi. The villain demands all must worship his giant stone statue, which, naturally, comes to life at the end to try and kill our heroes. The statue is evil, unlike DAIMAJIN which was made this same year by Daiei Studios. A fellow writing on the IMDb suggests that the statue is actually a giant robot and that there is a scene showing the piloting cockpit, but there is no such scene in the copy I viewed.
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Angel Rivera Highly enjoyed:
"MY MOM JAYNE: A Film by Mariska Hargitay" (2025)
Interesting documentary made by the star of "Law and Order: SVU", Mariska Hargitay about her mother, the late and famous "blonde bombshell", Jayne Mansfield. Also how she discovered Mickey Hargitay is not her biological father, even though she was raised by him and he always claimed he was her father and that she is his child. Well worth viewing, even if one only has a periphery interest in Mansfield and her daughter, Mariska.
Mildly enjoyed:
"CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER" (1959)
I decided I wanted to watch some movies I remembered from my childhood and luckily they were on YouTube. A colorized version albeit.(they had a B & W version, but I decided to watch the colorized version instead.) I had always thought the film was a Mexican production, only to find it was actually an Italian production with special effects by the renowned, Mario Bava. Of most interest to me were the voices of the English dubbing staff. I had heard the same voices dubbed over some sword and sandal films I remembered. And when I googled the film I discovered that the film was dubbed by Titra Studios, the same studio that had dubbed many imported European films, including sword and sandal ones. The story is about a creature that loosely resembled the "Blob". The film in this form is alright to watch although sometimes it is hard to make out the visuals.
"KRONOS" (1957)
Another film I remembered from my youth was this one. Also on YouTube and also with a colorized version. This one is mainly enjoyable to watch mostly because of the special effects. This one is about an Outer Space alien, giant robot shaped like two cubes attached to each other by a rod in the middle with piston-like "legs" to move causing havoc. Of interest, while the male lead is Jeff Morrow of "This Island Earth" fame, his male co-star is none other George O'Hanlon. Best known as "Joe McDoakes" and as the voice of George Jetson in the popular animated TV series. The colorization was a lot better than the colorization of "Caltiki,,..." The film is worth watching for the special effects.
"THE TWILIGHT ZONE" S5, E31 "The Encounter" (05/01/1964)
I had read or seen that some episodes of "The Twilight Zone" were only aired once and then taken out of the syndication package. This was one of them. The story is about the meeting of a white male WWII veteran and a young Japanese American whose father it turns out was a spy for the Japanese and was involved in providing info for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The WWII veteran had killed an unarmed Japanese soldier who had just surrendered and took his ceremonial samurai sword as a souvenir. I believe it was taken out of syndication due to protests from Japanese groups who thought the representation of the Japanese-American was offensive. The episode starred Neville Brand and George Takei. A real curiosity.
Interesting documentary made by the star of "Law and Order: SVU", Mariska Hargitay about her mother, the late and famous "blonde bombshell", Jayne Mansfield. Also how she discovered Mickey Hargitay is not her biological father, even though she was raised by him and he always claimed he was her father and that she is his child. Well worth viewing, even if one only has a periphery interest in Mansfield and her daughter, Mariska.
Mildly enjoyed:
"CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER" (1959)
I decided I wanted to watch some movies I remembered from my childhood and luckily they were on YouTube. A colorized version albeit.(they had a B & W version, but I decided to watch the colorized version instead.) I had always thought the film was a Mexican production, only to find it was actually an Italian production with special effects by the renowned, Mario Bava. Of most interest to me were the voices of the English dubbing staff. I had heard the same voices dubbed over some sword and sandal films I remembered. And when I googled the film I discovered that the film was dubbed by Titra Studios, the same studio that had dubbed many imported European films, including sword and sandal ones. The story is about a creature that loosely resembled the "Blob". The film in this form is alright to watch although sometimes it is hard to make out the visuals.
"KRONOS" (1957)
Another film I remembered from my youth was this one. Also on YouTube and also with a colorized version. This one is mainly enjoyable to watch mostly because of the special effects. This one is about an Outer Space alien, giant robot shaped like two cubes attached to each other by a rod in the middle with piston-like "legs" to move causing havoc. Of interest, while the male lead is Jeff Morrow of "This Island Earth" fame, his male co-star is none other George O'Hanlon. Best known as "Joe McDoakes" and as the voice of George Jetson in the popular animated TV series. The colorization was a lot better than the colorization of "Caltiki,,..." The film is worth watching for the special effects.
"THE TWILIGHT ZONE" S5, E31 "The Encounter" (05/01/1964)
I had read or seen that some episodes of "The Twilight Zone" were only aired once and then taken out of the syndication package. This was one of them. The story is about the meeting of a white male WWII veteran and a young Japanese American whose father it turns out was a spy for the Japanese and was involved in providing info for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The WWII veteran had killed an unarmed Japanese soldier who had just surrendered and took his ceremonial samurai sword as a souvenir. I believe it was taken out of syndication due to protests from Japanese groups who thought the representation of the Japanese-American was offensive. The episode starred Neville Brand and George Takei. A real curiosity.
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David Deal enjoyed:
OUT OF THE PAST (47) - One of the greatest films noir.
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DOCTOR WATSON (79) - This is the Russian version that I like very much.
ISTANBUL (56) - Pilot for hire Errol Flynn returns to Istanbul on a job and relives his romance with a girl he thought was dead. I had low expectations for this late entry Flynn vehicle but ended up enjoying a romantic mystery that held interest until the end. Not too shabby.
CULT OF THE COBRA (55)
TARANTULA (55)
THE MOLE PEOPLE (56)
SOYLENT GREEN (73)
THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED (58)
THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM (67) - From 2006: "AKA Pendulum, Blood Demon, The Snake Pit, The Snake Pit and the Pendulum, The Blood of the Virgins, Castle of Walking Dead, The Torture Room. A rose by any other name... This is Harald Reinl's Mario Bava movie. Steeped in gorgeous gothic atmosphere, this overlooked gem should be on every Atrocian's list. Tunes by Peter Thomas too." So when will get this get a decent release? The Blu-ray included with the Hemisphere Horrors set is adequate at best; a faded print that appears to be the correct aspect ratio.
MARTA (72) - From 2006: "Another Euro-ambience flick with the one and only Marisa Mell worth some restoration. Stephen Boyd goes over the top as a psycho mama's boy who killed Mell's sister. The cops are played by Jesus (YPOTRON) Puente and Howard (5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON) Ross."
RIFIFI (55)
Mildly Enjoyed
MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE (65)
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Enjoyed:
Stealer : the treasure keeper (tv serie) (2022, Choi Joon-bae & Min Jung-ah) (12 episodes)
Tower of London (1939, Rowland V. Lee)
Mildly enjoyed:
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978, Irvin Kershner)
Arsène Lupin – episode « La chimère du calife » (1970, Dieter Lemmel)
Serpico (1973, Sidney Lumet)
Retour de manivelle (1957, Denys de la Patellière)
Did not enjoy:
Shinkajiu Reigo / Deep sea monster Reigo (2005, Shinpei Hayashiya)
Britannic (1999, Brian Trenchard-Smith)
Operation Pacific (1951, George Waggner)
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