To answer these trivia questions, please email me at scinema@earthlink.net.
Brain Teasers:
In what movie starring Charles Bronson can you see Robert Woods on a TV screen?
No one has answered this question yet.
Which Italian Western features two male couples: one heterosexual and one homosexual, supposedly working together to get gold?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes knew it was OGNUNO PER SE, aka THE RUTHLESS FOUR.
Who did Woody Strode credit as being the first movie producer to offer him the same kind of money white actors were getting?
No one has answered this question yet.
Complete the English language line from and Italian Western: "Early to bed, early to rise ____ ____ _____ ______ ___ ____."
No one has answered this question yet.
And now for some new brain teasers:
Which "black listed" American actor appeared in Italian Westerns with Lee Van Cleef, Charles Bronson, Terence Hill and Jack Palance?
Which historical figure was played in movies by both Franco Nero and Warren Beatty?
Which "black listed" American screenwriter is now considered a producer on two Westerns made in Spain?
Name the movies from which these images came.
Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Bud Spencer, Nazzareno Zamperla and Alberto dell'Acqua in LA COLLINA DEGLI STIVALI, aka BOOT HILL.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem identified last week's frame grab of Fernando Sancho in ARRIVANO I TITANI, aka SONS OF THUNDER, aka MY SON THE HERO.
Above is a new photo.
Can you name from what movie it came?
Bertrand van Wonterghem and George Grimes identified last week's frame grab of Corinne Clery and Reb Brown in IL MONDO DI YOR, aka YOR HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE.
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:
Enjoyed:
Sparks (2009) - Joseph Gordon-Levitt began his directing career with this short film he adapted from a short story by Elmore Leonard. Eric Stoltz plays an insurance investigator interviewing Rock Star Carla Gugino on why she burned down the house in which she and her deceased husband, Xander Berkeley, lived. At 24 minutes, the film showcases Gordon-Levitt's visual imagination and sense of humor, with a cast that would make anything look great. Gordon-Levitt also co-wrote the music for the film and appears as the drummer being Gugino performing on the stage of the Troubadour. You don't see Kristen Johnson as "the Voice of Reason", but you do see Channing Tatum in a quick flash as "Deputy #1".
La corona, aka The Crown (2008) - In association with HBO Documentary Films, directors Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega made this film about a beauty pageant held in the National Women's Penitentiary in Bogota, Colombia. A chance for inmates to escape the prison routine, the contestants are chosen by each cell block for bragging rights. The film introduces us some of the candidates who include a former professional killer, a convicted guerrilla and an armed robber. All of the women come across as vulnerable people who yearn for validation and freedom.
Three films by Spike Jonez (2009) - As Spike Jonze was directing a film version of Maurice Sendak's 1963 book WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, the director made three short films involving Sendak.
In Maurice At the World's Fair, Sendak relates how when he was a kid in 1939, he desperately wanted to go to the World's Fair. He had to have a grown up take him, and his sister and her boyfriend agreed to do that. But while they visited a bakery on the way, the couple ditched him leading to his visit to the police station. As Sendak relates the story, we see a re-enactment with Jonze as the boy while Lance Bangs plays the boyfriend, a policeman and Sendak's father, and Catherine Keener plays the sister and a policeman. "For Maurice on his 80th birthday" reads the dedication.
In The Creature Within, Sendak is seen trying to draw while his inner voice, played by Sonny Gerasimowicz hiding in Sendak's shawl, keeps telling him how lousy he is. In trying to kill his inner voice, Sendak kills himself.
Melbourne Years is an animated short depicting the difficulty Jonez had working with the Wild Things on the set in Australia.
Interestingly, these three short films are not listed in Wikipedia's page on Spike Jonez.
Mompelaar, aka The Mumbler (2007) - Belgium filmmakers Wim Raygaert and Marc Roels collaborated on this 22 minute short film that gets a WTF award from me. It starts out as a portrait of a possibly developmentally disabled man, played by Serge Buyse, suffering under an overbearing mother, played by male actor in drag Piet De Praitere. As Buyse goes into the woods, the film suddenly becomes something of a religious Horror movie. After this, Raygaert and Roels went on to separate careers.
Rescue Me season seven (2011)
Mildly enjoyed:
Dick Tracy "Shakey's Secret Treasure" (1950) - I had never before seen an episode of this series. It was a fairly standard half hour TV cop show with two-way radio wrist watches and weird character names for the criminals. Ralph Byrd first played the title character in four Republic Serials: 1937's Dick Tracy, 1938's Dick Tracy Returns, 1939's Dick Tracy's G-Men and 1941's Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. In 1947, he made the feature films DICK TRACY'S DILEMMA and DICK TRACY MEETS GRUESOME. In 1950, it was time for a TV series, which ran for 48 episodes before Byrd's untimely death - either from a heart attack or from cancer. In the series, Tracy had a partner played by Joe Devlin. "Shakey's Secret Treasure" was episode 19 of the second season and featured veteran heavies Dabbs Greer and Richard Reeves. Also in the cast was the very attractive Lois Hall. Director Thomas Carr had a long career in television, while director of photography Harold Stine would eventually do some features like CHUKA, M*A*S*H and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.
Mystery Theatre "The Case of the Hair of the Dog" (1952) - The IMDb lists this show as Mark Saber, while the on-screen credits say "Mystery Theatre starring Tom Conway as Inspector Mark Saber of the Homicide Squad". I remember Conway for his one production for Hammer Films: BLOOD ORANGE, aka THREE STOPS FOR MURDER, directed by Terence Fisher. This TV episode was directed by Howard Bretherton, who was notable for having directed the first HOP-A-LONG CASSIDY feature in 1935. Together with Detective Sgt. James Burke, Inspector Conway had to figure out how gambler James Craven was stabbed in the back in a locked room with an open window. Where's the murder weapon? It wasn't too hard to figure out how it was done, but then the question became, "Whodunit"? Was it Larry J. Blake, Christine McIntyre or John Doucette? Again this was a show I never before saw, so it was mildly interesting.
Treasury Men In Action "The Case of the Shot In the Dark" (1955) - Okay, I found this confusing. I thought Treasury Men were primarily interested in stopping counterfeiters and tax evaders. But this episode added "U.S. Customs" to the title and was an effort to stop drug smuggling at the U.S./Mexican border. I'd never seen this show before, and it ran for 5 seasons for a total of 189 episodes. Of main interest in this episode was that it was Charles Bronson who hoped to win back his estranged wife by bringing $25,000 worth of heroin to Nogales, Arizona. This was Bronson's third, and final, effort on the series for which he played a different character in each episode. He easily out shown the rest of the cast as a desperate criminal, but Randy Stuart gave a good showing as his wife, and Jay Adler did well as the bar owner who was to receive the goods. Director of photography Joseph F. Biroc would shortly become director Robert Aldrich's favorite cameraman for feature films starting with 1956's ATTACK.
Midsomer Murders "With Baited Breath" (2019) - As usual, the mystery was pretty easy to solve, but the convoluted plot mechanics were kind-of fun and Fiona Dolman got more screen time than usual.
Did not enjoy:
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE ROAD CHIP (2015) - If this is the final installment in the live action movie series, then there is cause for celebration. I've hated the other three, though I found the third less annoying than the previous two. The fourth one I find even more annoying that the previous three mostly because Jason Lee has a girlfriend played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and the adults hope that her son, Josh Green, will bond with the chipmunks, and Green is a bully. So, we get the first half of the movie wherein the chipmunks are abused but don't want to upset the adults by telling on Green. The four finally bond over fear that Lee will ask Paisley to marry him and they set off on a road trip to Miami where Lee is producing a record by Bella Thorne. Naturally, just about everything goes wrong, with Air Marshal Tony Hale putting the chipmunks on the "No Fly" list. Of course, Green finally confesses to the chipmunks that he's a bully because his father abandoned him, so everyone becomes friends in time for them to convince the Chipettes to leave their gig as judges on American Idol to say "sorry" to Lee and Paisley. Walt Becker directs. Fans of David Cross criticized him for being in the Chipmunk movies, so they may be happy he's not in this one. Instead, we get Tony Hale to kick around. Among the mishmash of various pop songs, you can also hear some of Bernard Herrmann's music from PSYCHO and some of Ennio Morricone's theme to THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY.
MIRROR IMAGES (1992) - As one of the Dark Brothers, Gregory Hippolyte, aka Gregory Dark, may have been a "purveyor of fine filth", but he was a lousy director of erotic thrillers. Delia Sheppard plays the red-haired neglected wife of Jeff Conaway who decides to put on a blond wig and take over her twin sister's life when she's out of town. Unfortunately, a perverted gubernatorial candidate, wearing a mask, has an habit of drugging the sister and molesting her. Julie Strain pops up to inform Sheppard that she has a videotape in which she took off the candidate's mask so that he can be identified. Her efforts to blackmail result in Strain being murdered. Sheppard finds the tape and tries to help Detective John O'Hurley bring the killer to justice. Luckily, the blond twin sister shows up in time to prevent the villain from killing our heroine, while O'Hurley shows up to prevent the blond twin sister from killing the killer. The film ends with our heroine deciding that she likes the cop more than her husband.
MY BOYS ARE GOOD BOYS (1979) - You often never know what you'll see when you pick up something like "25 Action Classics". After another poor quality copy of SWORD OF LANCELOT on disc two, comes this tepid heist story. The highlight of this show is the climax who takes place at the old Greyhound Bus Station on Vine Street in Hollywood. In one shot, you can see the old Music Plus that was right across the street - a place I used to go to frequently and is now a Fed Ex/Kinkos. Actor Ralph Meeker married Colleen Meeker in 1970, and in 1978 she got her first producer's credit on MAG WHEELS with director Bethel Buckalew. Buckalew was mostly known as a production manager on mid-1960s soft core sex movies before becoming the director of such films as THE DIRTY MIND OF YOUNG SALLY. With MAG WHEELS he moved from sex to car chases. Ralph went in with his wife and Buckalew to not only "executive produce" but also to star in this movie. Was it Meeker who helped to convince Ida Lupino and Lloyd Nolan to come aboard? Meeker's son in the film, Sean T. Roche, is in a juvenile delinquent facility, when pretty Kerry Lynn comes to him with a plan to rob the armored car that Meeker drives. The plan is timed so that Roche and his two accomplices sneak out of the facility, do the job, and then sneak back in before anyone checks on them. To get the needed keys, they steal a bottle of chloroform from a doctor's bag (!) and knock out guard David Doyle. Lynn has borrowed Meeker's car while he's at work, and picks up the boys for the job. As Lynn is getting straight As in chemistry, I guess she devised the smoke bomb that is timed to go off just as the armored truck is on a side road. That's where the gang take over the vehicle. She must have also devised the knock-out gas in spray cans with which they over-power the guards. Being careful to only present a masked boy that Meeker doesn't know to give him orders, the gang picks up enough money to make the effort worthwhile. However, Security Officer Lloyd Nolan suspects something is wrong and tries to tail them. After a wild chase that disrupts a "Motorcycle Hill Climb", the boys get back to lock-up, free Doyle and act naturally. Eventually, Meeker realizes that his son was one of the voices he heard in the truck, and Nolan uncovers the plot. In the end, it turns out Meeker's bitchy wife, Lupino, is the brains behind the plan, but she and Lynn are arrested before they can getaway. At least THE DIRTY MIND OF YOUNG SALLY had a lot of simulated sex with the gorgeous Sharon Kelly, aka Colleen Brennan. After this, both Ida Lupino and Bethel Buckalew didn't make another film. Ralph and Colleen Meeker divorced in 1981. Just to irritate the viewer even more, Dorsey Burnette and Doug Goodwin slap a title song on the proceedings.
THE NO MERCY MAN, aka TRAINED TO KILL USA (1973) - Writers Mike Nolin and Daniel Vance concocted a perfectly acceptable story line, but director Vance and second unit director Buddy Joe Hooker have no idea how to stage the kind-of Sam Peckinpah violent action to which they obviously aspire. Vance is bad with actors, too. As all of the black actors in this flick are bad guys, the film also seems racist, with the first word we hear from Rockne Tarkington is "Honky!" A group of thugs work as carnies between committing petty crimes in the Arizona countryside. They mess around the ranch owned by World War 2 veteran Richard X. Slattery but fail to rape daughter Heidi Vaughn. The thugs run away before wife Peg Stewart arrives with returning Vietnam War veteran and son Steve Sandor. Slattery is confused that Sandor doesn't want to go after the thugs, but Sandor is suffering from PTSD, and is afraid of his own violence. Eventually, the thugs decide to team up with a biker gang led by Sid Haig to attack the town and rob the bank. The bad guys arm themselves with weapons they steal from Slattery's extensive home arsenal including machine guns and grenades. Sheriff Russell Morrell and two of Slattery's Vietnam War buddies know the bad guys are coming and a war breaks out in the town. Tarkington and Haig escape with the money and head back to Slattery's ranch to finally kill him off - and rape his women. It isn't until his father is knocked unconcious, his mother is tied to a fence, and his sister has had her shirt torn open, that Sandor stops having flashbacks and leaps into action to kill all of the bad guys. None of this is staged well, and many of the weapons are more fake than those seen in Italian Westerns. Former wrestler and one-time Hercules (in ULISSE CONTRO ERCOLE) Mike Lane shows up as a member of the biker gang that shoots a tripod mounted Browning machine guy that has a bullet belt that doesn't move no matter how many times it is fired. Don Vincent contributes some of the most annoying ballads ever heard in a 1970s action flick. Thankfully Vance never directed another film. On the other hand, Buddy Joe Hooker became one of the most respected stunt coordinators in the business. And director of photography Dean Cundey became very in demand after he shot HALLOWEEN in 1978.
POLAROID (2019) - In 2015, Norwegian director Lars Klevberg made a short film probably inspired by the Japanese film RING; instead of an evil videotape, here was an evil Polaroid camera. This came to the attention of Dimension Films who backed a feature length version scripted by Blair Butler. Klevberg employed every "scary movie" cliche in telling this story of a teenage girl, with a passion for old stuff, who was given a Polaroid camera and eventually discovered that everyone captured on the self-developing film died an horrible death. So we got creepy sound effects that people walked very slowly to investigate. We got interiors that were always dark and spooky. We got slowly visible spooks that suddenly raced at hyper speed towards the camera. Twin Peaks fans may enjoy seeing Grace Zabriskie being creepy again. X-Files fans may enjoy seeing Mitch Pileggi one more time. How to deal with the spook occurred to me fairly early on, but it took the characters in the story until the very end to figure it out. Klevberg did better with his second feature - the remake of CHILD'S PLAY.
NEWS FROM HOME (1977) - Filmmaker Chantal Akerman is quoted as saying "Often when people come out of a good film, they would say that time flew without them noticing. What I want is to make people feel the passing of time. So I don't take two hours from their lives, they experience them." By that definition, could we say that Akerman was deliberately making bad films? I guess her perspective was that she was making a film the way she wanted - long takes taken from something of an objective viewpoint, without any manipulation of what occurs in front of her camera - except for the automobiles trying to get around the stationary camera she seemed to have set up in the middle of a street. On top of these unrelated shots of New York City in the 1970s, we occasionally hear someone reading aloud letters Akerman got from her mother during her stay in New York. You wonder if these letters will actually build to some sort of dramatic climax, but they don't. In fact the last letter we hear fades off; drowned by the sounds of traffic. Aside from the narration, the film seemed to use naturalistic sound, though there something like the sound of water throughout the film, as if it was constantly raining, though we didn't see any rain. Ultimately, the film looked like an excellently photographed home movie, and I'm certain most amateur filmmakers will watch this thinking that they could have made such a film - without it being boring.
La chambre (1972) - What starts as a repeating 360 degree pan around a room without sound becomes distracted by director Chantal Akerman quietly lying in bed. The camera pans back to her as she sits up and eats an apple. Eventually, the camera resumes its 360 degree pan and it looks like Akerman has gone back to sleep. This all takes about eleven minutes of screen time.
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Charles Gilbert watched:
CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) Hammer Pictures with the first gory rendition in color was a reputed shocker But I didn't see it on the big screen. Not for many years later did I catch it on television. The franchise never impressed me like the vampire films put out at Bray and Shepperton.
THE BIG SLEEP The imperturbable Robert Mitchum playing PI Philip Marlowe, tongue-in-cheek, despite uttering gumshoe quips, is miscast especially when supported by all the British actors In this "neo-noir" he is hired by a wealthy dying general (James Stewart) with two spoiled daughters (the volatile Sarah Miles and Candy Clark) Richard Boone appears later in the film. Also with Oliver Reed and Joan Collins.
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David Deal Enjoyed:
THE DOMINO KID (57) - Rory Calhoun goes revengin' for the death of his father and loss of his ranch. He kills four of the men responsible but the fifth is unknown to him. Ray Nazzaro's noir western is dark in mood, shot in stark black & white. Calhoun is good as the taciturn man in black out for blood. Andrew Duggan plays an unlikable money man who wants the ranch for cheap and Rory's old flame (Kristine Miller) for free.
ILYA MUROMETS (56) - AKA The Sword and the Dragon. Aleksandr Ptushko's spectacular fantasy is something to behold if all you've seen is the American cut. Filled with clever special effects and shot in glorious color, it's quite the amazing epic.
APACHE TERRITORY (58) - Riding alone thru the desert, Rory Calhoun discovers two people who had been attacked by Apaches. They all hole up and soon a small group of soldiers and a Pima indian join them. Ray Nazzaro's siege western is a no-nonsense nail-biter with plenty of conflict and harsh realities. Calhoun shines as the man who takes charge.
DEEP SPACE (86) - A government-bred killer organism somehow manages to crash land on Earth after escaping its orbiting lab. Cops Charles Napier and Ron Glass (Barney Miller) end up fighting the bastard, and winning. Fred Olen Ray's ode to 50's sci-fi and atmospheric horror films is a bucket load of fun. Supporters include Bo Svenson as the cops' boss and Ann Turkel as the feisty love interest. If you had never seen Alien, the 1982 version of The Thing, or The Evil Dead, you would think this is amazing. As it stands, it's recommendable.
SOS PACIFIC (79)
SHORT GRASS (50) - Drifter Rod Cameron rides into a range war started by Morris Ankrum who wants his cattle to roam free - at the expense of the established farmers in the area. Expert Lesley Selander helms this top notch oater that features Cathy Downs in a strong female role and seasoned hero Johnny Mack Brown as the sheriff who stands with Cameron.
THE DEVIL'S HAND (62)
SOUTHWEST PASSAGE (54) - Rod Cameron leads a government survey team into the deserts of the southwest. His troupe includes a flank of soldiers and several camels with their Arab handlers. Bank robber John Ireland and his girlfriend (Joanne Dru) end up with the team just as the local Apaches take notice. Colorful, exciting western from director Ray Nazzaro features bad guy John Dehner and grizzled veteran Guinn "Big Boy" Williams,
THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN (35) - Lionel Atwill tries to warn Cesar Romero about the maneater Marlene Dietrich but it doesn't work, of course. Dietrich's final film with director Josef von Sternberg finds her in top form; incomparably beautiful and cruel beyond words.
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (14)
Mildly enjoyed:
NEUTRON VS THE AMAZING DR. CARONTE (60)
THE DEADLY CHASE (78) - Flawed but capable cop Luc Merenda is approached by femme fatale Janet Agren to investigate her brother's suicide. Many plot twists and turns are interspersed with lackadaisical action scenes to fill out this disappointing effort from director Franco Prosperi. A decade earlier, Prosperi killed it with the outstanding Robert Webber crime duo of Hired Killer and Every Man is My Enemy. Granted, I watched the terrible copy of this on Youtube but I doubt a better presentation would improve things much.
TRACKING EDITH (16) - Interesting documentary about photographer Edith Tudor-Hart who spied for the Soviets during WWII.
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Bertrand van Wonterghem Highly enjoyed:
Carter (2021, Byung-gil Jung)
Get Smart – episode « Mr. Big » (1965, Howard Morris)
Enjoyed:
The sandman – season 1 – episodes 1 to 4
Taggart (1964, R.G. Springsteen)
Get Smart – episode « Diplomat’s daughter » (1965, Paul Bogart)
Derry girls – season 3 – episode 1
Mildly enjoyed
My only love song – season 1 – episode 14 & 15
Urutora sebun / Ultraseven – episode 1
Trois fois rien (2021, Nadège Loiseau)
Did not enjoy:
Jurassic world : dominion (2021, Colin Trevorrow)
Morbius (2021, Daniel Espinosa)
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Angel Rivera Watched:
"Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas" (2021)
The finale to the two season musical TV series, which starred the very cute Jane Levy as Zoey, who due to receiving an MRI during an earthquake can read peoples' thoughts and visualizes them in the form of musical numbers. As I said Jane Levy is a very cute redhead, (I can't resist redheads) and the movie was a cute romp for me. Not for every ones' taste.
"Q & A" a 1990 crime drama directed and written by Sidney Lumet. It stars Nick Nolte as a crooked cop and Armand Assante as a Puerto Rican drug dealer. When I first saw this back in the nineties I was awed by Assante's performance as he reminded me of guys I knew from my Puerto Rican neighborhood where I grew up back n the sixties and seventies. The film is a very realistic portrayal of New York politics and some of its corruption. Great performances from all.
Did not enjoy but watched more out of curiosity, the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"(1974). Now I saw this when it first came out with a group of "friends" from my old neighborhood. While they all laughed and thought the film was a "comedy" I was disgusted. Watching it again I'm still disgusted, but not as much as I knew now what to expect. I was amazed at how influential the film is as now almost every horror film of this type begins like this film and then follows the same plot
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