To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
Which Italian actor worked for directors Sergio Corbucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Bernardo Bertolucci and Andrea Barzini?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which Swiss born actor worked with directors Sergio Corbucci, Sam Peckinpah, Seth Holt, Harald Reinl and Mickail K. Kalatozov?
Angel Rivera knew that it was Mario Adorf.
Which Spanish actress worked with directors Ferdinando Baldi, Richard Lester, Tonino Ricci, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Pedro Almodovar?
Angel Rivera knew that it was Victoria Abril.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which Spanish actor, who appeared in an Italian Western, worked with director Pedro Almodovar, and in a later film, so did his grandson?
Which Italian actor, celebrated for his stage performance as Hamlet, did an Italian Western comedy with director Sergio Corbucci?
Which Italian actress was also apart of the Orfei Circorama?
Name the movies from which these images came.
No one has identified the above frame grab yet.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Angel Rivera identified last week's photo of Louis Jourdan and Sylvia Syms from LE VERGINI DI ROMA, aka AMAZONS OF ROME.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one has yet identified the above frame grab.
Can you name from what movie it came?
No one has yet identified the above frame grab. Here's a hint - the fellow covered in blood is actor Koji Tsuruta.
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:
EL MISTERIO GALINDEZ, aka THE GALINDEZ FILE (2003) - In 1990, Spanish writer Manuel Vazquez Montalban published the novel GALINDEZ; a fiction inspired by the 1956 disappearance of Jesus de Galindez, a Basque nationalist living in exile. At first Galindez moved to the Dominican Republic, but after witnessing the corruption of Dictator Rafael Trujillo, he moved to the United States. He became a lecturer at Columbia University and wrote about Trujillo's rule. On March, 12, 1956, he disappeared from New York City. His whereabouts were never discovered. Before Montalban's novel, this story inspired Polish novelist Andrzej Wydrzynski to write CIUDAD TRUJILLO in 1961. Galindez was mentioned in the 1994 novel IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES by American Julia Alvarez, which was made into a movie in 2001. In 2000, Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa wrote LA FIESTA DEL CHIVO, aka THE FEAST OF THE GOAT, which mentioned Galindez while mainly focusing on the assassination of Trujillo. Filmmaker Ana Diez made the documentary GALINDEZ in 2002. A movie version of THE FEAST OF THE GOAT came out about the same time as the movie of THE GALINDEZ FILE. In THE GALINDEZ FILE, Saffron Burrows played an American history student, in 1988, inspired to do her thesis on Galindez. Her previous boyfriend was "disappeared" in Chile, so trying to find the truth about an historic person who "disappeared" became a mission. Harvey Keitel played a shadowy operative determined to stop her investigation. Director Gerardo Herrero took the story from Spain, to the Dominican Republic (played by Cuba) and to the United States. Like the film Z, fact and fiction were mingled in a case that still remains unresolved.
Mildly enjoyed:
CRACKED NUTS (1931) - Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey met during the stage show RIO RITA in 1927, and came to Hollywood when RIO RITA became a movie in 1929. By 1931, they were a team. The script for this film seems to be a precurser to DUCK SOUP with Wheeler and Woolsey vying to be the ruler of a small kingdom. Still having a $100,000 of his inheritance remaining, Wheeler advertises in the paper for investment ideas. Boris Karloff and Frank Thornton show up to suggest that he invest in their revolution, which would make Wheeler king. Hoping that becoming a king would impress his girlfriend's aunt Edna May Oliver, Wheeler agrees, not knowing that becoming the new king means that he has to assassinate the present king. Knowing this, the present king uses loaded dice to lose his kingdom to gambler Woolsey. Wheeler and Woolsey are old buddies and don't want any part of an assassination plot. However, the revolutionaries insist. Luckily they hire cross-eyed Ben Turpin to fly the plane to drop the bombs. Wheeler's girlfriend is played by the lovely Dorothy Lee (also from RIO RITA), while Woolsey is being seduced by the gorgeous Leni Stengel. I don't think the Marx Brothers were ever surrounded by such beautiful women.
HONDO (1953) - This film has some of the most impressive horse stunts ever seen on film. Unfortunately, like many films intended for 3D presentation, HONDO features a lot of stuff being thrust into the camera lens, which looks silly in a flat screen presentation. It also has a lot of fade outs, which gets distracting - like too many periods in a single paragraph. With so much of the movie shot on spectacular locations, every cut away to something shot in the studio leaves the impression that trouble occurred during post production. In any case, the film is Geraldine Page's cinematic introduction, even though she had a bit part in TAXI (1953). She got an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her performance, even though she is the female lead. Shortly thereafter, her association with New York acting teacher Uta Hagen, got her blacklisted from Hollywood for almost ten years - but it didn't hurt her stage or TV career. The fourth release from John Wayne's Batjac Productions, HONDO was based on a short story Louis L'Amour wrote for Collier's magazine called "The Gift of Cochise". James Edward Grant wrote the screenplay, which L'Amour later adapted into a best-selling novel. John Wayne's character talks about how he lived with the Apache for many years and admired them. That fact that Michael Pate (of MAJOR DUNDEE) is on the war path is blamed solely on the White man. I wonder how Native Americans view this movie, in which Pate's Apache Chief is shown to be honorable. Luckily for the action fans, Pate gets killed off-screen and is replaced by Rodolfo Acosta (of FLAMING STAR), whom the audience doesn't like because he kills Wayne's dog. Naturally, good intentions come to nothing and the film ends with an extended battle - which director John Farrow reportedly was unable to film because he was contracted to start work on another project. Reportedly, Wayne asked John Ford to finish directing the movie, to which he agreed for no credit. Ultimately, the movie is a love story, and it moves along well but very predictably. Among the supporting players are Ward Bond, James Arness, Leo Gordon, Paul Fix, Chuck Roberson and Frank McGrath.
CARNE TREMULA, aka LIVE FLESH (1997) - Inspired by the novel LIVE FLESH by Ruth Rendell, director Pedro Almodovar decided that his twelfth film would be an outrageous melodrama and brought in Jorge Guerricaechevarria and Ray Loriga to help with the writing. For the most part, this film doesn't have many of the humorous bits that have enlivened Almodovar's earlier films, though there is a moment where Javier Bardem and Liberto Rabal are distracted from their fight because of a spectacular goal being scored on a televised soccer game. The film starts in January 1970 Madrid after the government of Francesco Franco has declared a state of emergency, suspending all civil liberties. A man taking down a holiday decoration is startled by a woman screaming. The woman is pregnant prostitute Penelope Cruz who is having contractions. The madam of the house, Pilar Bardem (mother of Javier), rushes Cruz down to the street but fails to get a taxi. Kneeling in front of a bus, Bardem commandeers a vehicle to get to the hospital, but the baby can't wait and is delivered on the bus. Because of this, the baby is awarded a layette by the Mayor and a lifetime bus pass by the director of the City Transport Company. Twenty years later, the boy, Liberto Rabal (grandson of Francisco Rabal of ATAME!), is a Pizza Hut delivery boy. He is excited because a woman took his virginity in the bathroom of a night club and gave him her phone number on a coaster for a second date. Unfortunately, the woman, Francesca Neri, tries to blow him off over the phone as she is only interested in scoring some heroin. Dejected, Rabal catches a bus which takes him around and around the city. From the bus, Rabal catches sight of Neri standing on the balcony of her apartment. He gets off the bus and rings to be let into the building. Thinking that it is her connection, Neri lets him in. Rabal demands an explanation, but Neri pulls a gun, tells him to get out, and says that it wasn't the "great fuck" he thought it was. While the TV set plays director Luis Bunuel's 1955 film ENSAYO DE UN CRIMEN, Rabal shoves Neri, who drops the gun which then goes off. Cops Jose Sancho and Javier Bardem (of HIGH HEELS) get a call to investigate a "shot fired" incident, after Sancho confesses to Bardem that he is certain that his wife, Angela Molina, is cheating on him and he is thinking of killing her. Seeing Rabal and Neri wrestling on her balcony, the cops race inside thinking they are preventing a rape and murder. Rabal and Neri stop fighting and Rabal is about to leave the apartment when the cops rush in with guns drawn. Panicking, Rabal grabs Neri as a shield and her gun. Bardem, knowing that Sancho is drunk and ready to fight, tries to defuse the situation, by disarming Sancho and getting Rabal to free Neri. Winning Neri's admiration, Bardem gets the woman out of the apartment, but Sancho jumps Rabal and the gun goes off. It is now 1992 and while Rabal is in prison, he sees on TV that Bardem has become a star player for the Paralympics wheelchair basketball team. He also sees that Bardem has married Neri. Rabal exchanges letters with his mother learning that she will probably die of cancer before he gets out, and he assures her that he taking classes and keeping well. Four years later, Rabal's sentence has ended and he visits his mother's grave. Coincidentally, while he's in the cemetery, he sees Bardem and Neri attending the funeral of Neri's father. Neri is shocked when Bardem joins the line of condolence givers and kisses her on the cheek. Later, as Bardem takes some of the flowers from Neri's father's grave to put on his mother's, Molina rushes up asking if the funeral is over. She has lousy direction and got lost in the cemetery. Eventually, Molina and Rabal become lovers, with him asking her to teach him to please a woman. Fearing that Rabal is stalking his wife, Bardem stalks Rabal and discovers the affair between the ex-con and his former police partner's wife. From the condolence card on the flowers from the cemetery, Rabal discovers that Neri is helping to run a children's charity. When Neri next stops by the charity, she is shocked to discover that they have hired Rabal as a volunteer and that he has already won over the affection of the children. Needless to day, when Bardem discovers this, he and Rabal have another scuffle resulting in a revelation about the shooting that put Bardem in a wheelchair. Things get more complicated when Rabal informs Neri of the revenge plan he developed in prison - a plan that sounds a bit like the plot of ATAME! Will Neri succumb to the attraction and guilt she feels towards Rabal? Will Bardem reveal the affair between Rabal and Molina to Sancho? What will Molina do when Rabal announces that their affair is over? What will Sancho do when Molina decides to finally leave him? In any case, the film ends six years later, after the end of the Franco government, with a new birth in a modern Spain. I mostly find melodramas to be a drag, but I kept going with this film, mostly to see where Almodovar was taking these characters.
Unsung "Das Efx" (2022)
Uncnsrd "Ceelo Green" (2022)
Did not enjoy:
DAI NIPPON TEIKOKU, aka THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE EMPIRE (1982) - The copy that I saw was a 108 minute English dub of what is reported to be an 180 minute Japanese movie from Toei Films. So, I can't really say that I've seen the movie as intended, but from what I saw it confirmed my worst prejudice about Toei Films about World War II. After a number of Japanese films about WW2, made by "leftist" directors - such as Kon Ichikawa's FIRES ON THE PLAINS and THE HARP OF BURMA, and Masaki Kobayashi's epic 9 hour trilogy of NINGEN NO JOKEN, aka THE HUMAN CONDITION, that were celebrated around the world, the relatively "right-wing" producers at Toei made more popular action films on the subject. THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE EMPIRE attempts to tell the story of the entire Pacific War, using a lot of lousy looking documentary footage with narration intercut with three melodramatic "personal" stories. No attempt is given in the movie to justify Japan's military action in China, but the American reaction of imposing "full-blooded financial warfare against Japan" and the resulting "Outline of Proposed Basis for Agreement Between the United States and Japan", aka "The Hull Note" from U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, is blamed for Japan deciding to go ahead with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The narrator also states that the U.S. intended "The Hull Note" to provoke Japan into war so that it would look to be Japan's fault. Interestingly, the film begins with Japanese Emperor Hirohito requesting Tetsuro Tanba as Hideki Tojo to form a government cabinet and to find a way to avoid war with America. After "The Hull Note", Tojo informs the Emperor that he has failed and that war is inevitable. At an "Imperial Consultation", the Emperor traditionally doesn't speak, which the cabinet takes a "go-ahead" for war. The film has some poorly shot scenes of pilots preparing to attack Pearl Harbor, and a laughably bad sequence of pilots during the attack - mostly shown with documentary footage but also using some miniature planes. One of the three personal stories involves a Christian college boy, studying French literature, and his art student girlfriend, who is bullied because he hasn't joined the military yet. After he learns that a friend who became a soldier was killed in combat, he volunteers to become a Naval officer. Later, during the defeat in the Philippines, he doesn't stop a sergeant from executing locals. His guilt over this inaction results in his pleading guilty to war crimes, and even though his girlfriend pleads with him, he accepts death by firing squad. The second story involves a graduate of the Military Academy. He runs afoul of other officers who feels that his efforts to keep his men alive shows fear of dying. Eventually, he freaks out while attempting to accept the American offer of a safe surrender in Saipan and is killed after murdering an American man and woman frolicking naked in the surf. The third story involves a barber who marries just before being drafted. When he is sent back to Japan to recover from a wound in the leg, he finds that he has a son. When he feels that he should rejoin his unit still in action, his wife exposes her breasts, and as he suckles, he decides to leave the service. Later, he has to close his barber shop when he is called back into service. At the end of the war, Tojo tries to kill himself, but is saved by American doctors so that he can be executed as a war criminal. Only the barber survives to return to his wife and child. For the most part, Japanese atrocities during the war aren't mentioned. A brave Japanese sergeant can pick up a machine gun and mow down attacking Americans allowing his men to retreat. Three British soldiers pretend to surrender in order to trick the Japanese into an ambush. A Japanese officer tries to convince civilians not to commit suicide. As usual for a Toei Film, the extras hired to play American soldiers are poorly directed and look buffoonish. (As an American who worked as an extra on a Toei Film, I can attest to this.) Curiously, the film only mentions one atomic bomb, and doesn't mention the young officers' attempt to stop Hirohito from announcing the surrender. This is the only film I've seen that could be called "Sympathy for Tojo" and the Battle of Okinawa is barely mentioned. What little action is staged is very unconvincing and the dramatic scenes aren't very convincing either. Toshio Masuda (who had collaborated on TORA, TORA, TORA) directed from a script credited to Kazuo Kasahara (who was also credited with writing FATHER OF THE KAMIKAZE in 1974).
KILLER PARTY (1986) - I guess director William Fruet and writer Barney Cohen thought this was funny, but I didn't. The films starts with a funeral scene. After the funeral, a woman walks back to the casket to curse the deceased to hell, but then the casket opens and the unseen corpse drags the woman inside. The casket lowers to the crematorium and just as it seems that the woman and the casket are burning, the film shows us that what we have been watching was a drive-in movie. The young woman in the car puts off the young man by saying she wants some popcorn. Soon, the drive-in is filled with zombies trying to get the young woman, but it's okay because it is just a music video by White Sister for "You're No Fool". So, having filled ten minutes with nonsense, the filmmakers proceed with more nonsense in the college hijinks style of ANIMAL HOUSE and REVENGE OF THE NERDS, except that the main characters are three young women worried about pledging to a sorority. The college hijinks get interrupted by a Darth Vader sounding POV killer, which later is seen wearing a deep sea diver outfit, explaining the heavy breathing. It all climaxes with a party in an haunted house, where it turns out that a demon was unleashed by the sorority hazing ritual. The demon takes possession of one of our heroines, but then, as in THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANEY, jumps to another young woman when the first host is killed. Martin Hewitt gets top billing, but doesn't get to do much. Joanna Johnson is the actual lead, but really only has her attractiveness to offer the viewer. She would soon move behind the camera to become a TV producer. Elaine Wilkes and Sherry Willis-Burch are the other two heroines. Burch seems to have decided to leave the acting professional after this movie. As a college professor, Paul Bartel does his usual schtick.
Killing Eve season four (2022)
THE LOST SQUADRON (1932) - Novelist Dick Grace was a pilot during World War 1 and became a stunt pilot for the movies specializing in crashing planes on camera. He wrote the novel upon which this movie was based. It told the story of three pilots, Richard Dix, Joel McCrea and Robert Armstrong, and a mechanic, Hugh Herbert, who survived the War only to find that their country did not fulfill the promise to take care of veterans. Armstong got a job as a stunt pilot for psychotic film director Erich von Stroheim, and he got jobs for his three buddies as well. It turned out that Dix's old girlfriend, Mary Astor, now regretted throwing Dix over for von Stroheim, and the jealous director plots to kill Dix by using acid on a plane's control wires. However, Armstrong decided to use that plane instead of Dix and is killed. McCrea confronted von Stroheim, found the acid bottle in the director's pocket, and tied him up. Dix, Armstong and Herbert argued about what to do with the villain, but when von Stroheim tried to run away, someone shot him in the back. The police arrived, but didn't find the covered-up body. Dix and Herbert sneak the dead man into the back seat of a plane, with Dix saying that he'll fly a loop - dropping von Stroheim to the ground after accidentally not putting on his seat belt. However, Dix decided to crash the plane killing himself as well. At the cemetery, McCrea set off to make a new life with Dorothy Jordan, while Herbert imagined seeing Dix and Armstrong as ghosts piloting their planes into the clouds. It was with this picture that David O. Selznick took over as production chief at RKO. As would become a pattern with Selznick, he fired the original director, Paul Sloane, replaced him with George Archainbaud, changed the budget and the script including a new ending. Dick Grace was one of the stunt pilots on the picture based on his novel and would go on to join the Army Air Force in World War II. He was acknowledged to be one of the few stunt pilots to die of natural causes at the old age of 66 in 1965. Additional dialogue writer Herman J. Mankiewicz would later co-write CITIZEN KANE.
Midsomer Murders "The Lions of Causton" (2018)
REDNECK (1973) - Canadian Silvio Narizzano became a film director in England, but based this British-Italian co-production in Italy. One can't help but wonder what it was about this project that appealed to him, and to the other participants. Was it the odd mixture of slapstick humor with unexpected brutal violence? Was it the idea of portraying a kidnapping victim exhibiting something like Stockholm syndrome? Or was the final film quite different from what they had intended it to be? The title seems intended to refer to the character of Memphis, played by Telly Savalas. This character seems to have been, at least partly, inspired by the character Savalas played in THE DIRTY DOZEN. In that film, he played a Bible quoting rapist and murderer. Here he gives a broad performance as a murderous psychopath with a bad Southern accent who blames everybody else for whatever cruel thing he does. The film begins when he and Franco Nero, as Mosquito, rob a jewelry store and everything that could go wrong, does go wrong. Nero's girlfriend, Ely Galleani, is the getaway driver, and she smashes up the car so badly that they quickly have to carjack another. While they throw driver Beatrice Clary onto the street, they fail to notice her son, Mark Lester, hiding in the backseat. Lester turns out to be the neglected son of an important member of the U.N., so while the police can follow their escape, they are reluctant to close-in for fear of harming the boy. Out of sight of the police for a little while, the escapees carjack another vehicle and end up in the countryside. Slowly, but surely, Lester comes to depend on Nero to protect him from Savalas, who has killed Galleani and a number of other people, plus a dog, who were unlucky to meet him. When pushing a caravan, filled with a family of German campers, into a river, Savalas is severly injured - and blames the deaths of the family on Lester. Savalas is determined to get across the border to France, and threatens to kill Lester if Nero doesn't help him. (The border crossing looks to the same border crossing used in 1962's PASSPORT FOR A CORPSE.) Not surprisingly, the Carabineri has caught up by this time and prevents Savalas from killing Lester. Nero takes off running for the border - looking very much like he does at the end of L'UOMO, L'ORGOLIO, LA VENDETTA - with Lester trailing behind. When police bullets drop Nero, Lester picks up Nero's pistol and shoots into the camera. No matter how Savalas tries to sound like he is from the Southern United States, he is completely unconvincing as a "redneck". If you were looking for a movie in which you get to see Nero's naked backside, you'll get that here - plus you get to see Lester's naked backside, too. American actor Walter Barnes' ex-wife Britta appears as the mother of the German family, with her two children Michel and Daniela playing her children. Daniela Barnes would change her name to Lara Wendel before making the scandalous MALADOLESCENZA in 1977. Spanish writer Rafael Sanchez Campoy is credited with the "original idea" while the director's "longtime companion" Win Wells is credited with the screenplay. An highlight of the film is when the escapees stop their car in a tunnel and a poster for the Orfei Circorama "Liana-Nando-Rinaldo" can be seen. On YouTube, an Italian language version of the film with the title SENZA RAGIONE (REDNECK) can be found that opens with a scene showing Franco Nero's character working as a male prostitute, seeing the time, and leaving the woman unsatisfied because he is late - for what we will know is the jewelry store robbery. The scene is splicy, but suggests even more Nero nudity was intended. Also, in the Italian version, Lester's father is said to be the British Consul in Rome.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
Spaghetti Westerns Podcast # 54 William Connolly interview. Immensely enjoyed the interview Tom Betts made with affable chap Mr. Connolly Sept 25, 2021.
Spine Chilling Theatre presents THE BRAINIAC (1963) B&W. Kitsch Mexican horror hosted by slow witted Oliver 'The Caretaker' Collins. An heretical baron from 1661 is tried and burned at the stake, but is spirited away by a comet. 300 years later a group of astronomers watch its' return, soon to discover the Luciferian baron is back for revenge on descendents of the Inquisition that condemned him.. His forked tongue when transformed into a hideous beast is handy for puncturing holes in the base of the brain for cerebral extraction.
FLESH AND BLOOD (1979) Three hour made for tv movie about a promising young boxer representing the next 'white hope'. Subplot involves his Oedipal complex. Promoted as a Denzel Washington film although he gets tertiary billing.
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Angel Rivera watched:
"The Farewell" (2019) starring Awkwafina which is about a Chinese family whose matriarch is diagnosed with a terminal illness, but no one wants to let her know. So in order to ease her feelings the family lets her think her condition is not so severe and they hold a fake wedding party so that the entire family can get together to be with her, but let her think that the wedding party is genuine.
Then Turner Classics is showing Science Fiction classics which they will be showing each Thursday evenings in April, so I watched the original "Planet of the Apes" (1968) and the 1965 version of "Doctor Who and the Daleks" starring the late, great Peter Cushing as the Doctor and its 1966 sequel, "Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D."
I also watched on YouTube, the French version of "Mighty Ursus" (1961) which was in wide screen. As I do not understand French I hit upon the idea of playing my DVD copy of the the English TV version of "Mighty Ursus" (which has the title credit as "Ursus, Son of Hercules") and syncing up the two, when I discovered that the English TV version is missing some scenes that are in the French version. So I ordered the DVD English version which was also in wide-screen. Unfortunately the DVD version was missing the opening prologue scene included in the French and TV version of the film.
I also watched on Turner Classics "Time After Time"(1979).
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