November 2005

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The Monday Movie Quiz #83

Here's the clue:

If you know the name of the movie that well-known pose comes from (and numerals are important), send me an email by late Sunday night. If you're right, expect to see your name in next week's hopeful winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 28, 2005 12:44 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Last week's movie was the 1960 hokefest, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, starring Mickey Rooney and Mamie Van Doren, and produced and directed by one of the movies' greatest sleaze-merchants, Albert Zugsmith. (That's not Mickey in last week's picture clue-- it's Martin "Marty" Milner.) Between 1958 and 1961, Zuggy produced nine of the best drive-in titillations ever made, ten if you count Orson Welles' Touch of Evil**. Stuff like High School Confidential, with Uncle Fester as a dope dealer, and College Confidential, with Steve Allen as a professor charged with showing dirty movies to his students. Even in Zugsmith's ouevre, though, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve stands out as weirder than the rest.

Imagine Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus crossed smuttily with The Wizard of Oz, except the songs are beyond awful, like Paul Anka's version of the title tune (he plays Pinkie Parker, and steers his car with his feet so he can play guitar while he sings). After you meet all the characters in their modern incarnations (including Mel Torme and Tuesday Weld), they return in the unbelievably bad color dream sequence that the film is infamous for. Mamie and Milner become Adam and Eve, while Mickey becomes The Devil himself, giving him the chance to wear both red underwear and a shiny snake costume.

Watching Martin Milner pretend to frolic as he names God's critters reminded me again of what a complete non-actor he was. (He was so bad he managed to bring Mr. Roberts to a screeching halt when he appeared.) Mamie was almost as bad, but she was never in these movies for her acting. As for Rooney, the entire fifties was a period of high intensity and low career moments, and his dual performance here is reminiscent of Jerry Lewis' more crazed telethon years.

There isn't a copy to be had of this dirty little gem, or most of Zugsmith's other titles of this period. They never get played on any of the cable movie services, either. So heartiest of congratulations to those astute winners who still recognized it from last week's clue: Wayne Palmer, E. Yarber, Bill Hearne, Hank Parmer, and Joe Rosenberg.

**Welles claimed that Zugsmith wasn't interested in doing Touch of Evil until he heard about the part where Janet Leigh gets shot-up and gang-banged.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 27, 2005 10:37 PM

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 24, 2005 4:37 AM

 

Robert Blake in "Da Verdict"

In case you missed it, a civil jury decided that Robert Blake was "behind" the killing of his murdered wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley. Blake was ordered to pay $30 million to Bakley's children.


"I wish dat damned jury would hurry up-- I gotta take a piss."

"What? Dey decided I pay how much? $30 million!"

"Da name o' dat tune is, I'm fucked."

"I'll fix dem-- I'll take 'em all out to dinner, one by one."

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 22, 2005 12:03 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #82

We've been pretty mainstream-friendly over the past few weeks, so this time it's a quiz just for the movie fanatics. To see if you're one, put a title to this picture:

Hints: Believe it or not, the movie this pic comes from was directed by someone who also produced one of Orson Welles' best films (at least once it was restored). Also, only part of the movie is in color. And finally, it's a well-known fact that He and She are two of the worst actors who ever lived.

If you know (or can figure out) what the movie is, send me the title in an email by late Sunday night. If you've got it, expect to see your name in next week's winners circle. Good luck.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 21, 2005 3:21 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

In Gods and Monsters, retired director James Whale (played by Ian McKellen) is told by his young gardener that Whale's movie Bride of Frankenstein was on television the night before, and that everyone he was with watched and enjoyed it. Whale is delighted, and he asks, "Did the people laugh?" Embarassed, and not understanding that people were supposed to laugh at much in the film, the gardener lies and says no, to Whale's disappointment.

Of course, everybody laughs at the funny stuff in Bride, and Whale's other Universal monster classic, The Invisible Man. The playful, macabre humor in those two movies is perhaps why they hold up best of all the studio's horror films. But it's a third Whale film from the early '30s that today seems to strike the perfect balance of laughs and creepiness: The Old Dark House, starring Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas and Charles Laughton.

In a way, the title tells the tale: five travellers caught in a rainstorm find themselves the accidental and not-too-welcome overnight guests of an odd brother and sister, in their spooky, crumbling mansion. Their mute, scar-faced butler Morgan (played by Karloff, when he was billed by his last name alone) gets drunk and goes on a tear-- he likes the women, especially Gloria "Titanic" Stuart-- and before the night is over, the guests learn that there are other, even weirder family members hidden in the house.

Because The Old, Dark House isn't strictly a horror film, and because the film was considered lost for decades, people often expect too much from it and are disappointed when they see it for the first time. It's not the film's fault, however, and subsequent viewings bring out its many charms. The cast is splendid, especially the character actors like Karloff and Ernest Thesiger (above), who manages to use his elegantly long nose as an echo chamber. The writing is crisp and witty; it was based on a novel by J.B. Priestly, who also co-wrote the script. (Here's the opening scene, where Raymond Massey crashes his car into a tree-- not many other movies from 1932 begin with the lead actor saying, "Hell!") And Whale's light touch brings out the best of everything.

The Kino DVD release of this film is everything a fan could have asked for, especially considering that the movie was feared lost for good. Besides the best-looking version of the film there is, there are two commentary tracks, including one by Gloria Stuart that actually got her the role in Titanic (James Cameron heard it and wanted her voice to tell the story), as well as an interview with director Curtis Harrington, who basically saved the film from decomposition.

So congratulations and a potato to the astute readers who recognized Karloff's beautiful visage in last week's clue: Wayne Palmer, E. Yarber, Mark Gisleson, Denny Lynch, Kim Kaliszewski, Dan Andreasen, and Hank Parmer.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 21, 2005 2:00 AM

 

Comics for Thanksgiving

Cover by Walt "Pogo" Kelly, 1945

(The banner on this 1962 comic refers to the 12 cent prices all the other companies had started charging; however, the very next issue of Dennis cost 15 cents-- merry Xmas, kids!)

The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #24, Nov.-Dec., 1955-- cover by Gil Kane

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 17, 2005 1:06 AM

 

Nitwit pictures

Here are some things I found when I did a Google image search for "nitwit."

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 14, 2005 3:09 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #81

Hey, we haven't done an old horror movie since Halloween! What movie featured a guy who looked like . . .

THIS!

If you know, send me an email by late Sunday night, and if you're correct, expect to see your name in next week's ancient winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 14, 2005 2:30 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Richard Nixon, teenybopper's heartthrob? Only according to Dick, the 1999 multi-level political parody/teen flick gem. Two little babes in the Watergate stumble on some high espionage being conducted by G. Gordon Liddy, and somehow this opening turns into a tale of generation-gap love weirder than Harold and Maude.

The genuinely-adorable girls are played by Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, and they hold their own with the seasoned comic actors in the cast. (That's Williams in last week's picture clue, wearing flowers in her hair during her funny "Summer of Dick" dream sequence.) Harry Shearer plays G. Gordon Liddy like the twitchy sociopath he used to be in his younger days.** Dan Hedaya's Nixon isn't meant to be letter-perfect; instead, he focused on Dick's crazed inner rottenness, and he's hilarious.

(I can't say I remember being impressed by Dave Foley's Bob Haldeman, but maybe that's because 1) I can't stand Foley now that he's become a major perpetrator of celebrity poker, and 2) Haldeman's my favorite Nixon man, and my expectations were high. Someday, a movie will be made of The Haldeman Diaries, the funniest political memoir of them all. For example, when Duke Ellington was going to be a White House guest, Nixon told Haldeman to book a good jazz act-- "like Guy Lombardo.")

So congratulations to the following quiz winners-- they are not crooks! Wayne Palmer, Deborah Yang, Corey Anderson, Bill Hearne, E. Yarber, Mark Gisleson, and Hank Parmer.

**On Dick Cavett's PBS show, Liddy talked about killing, cooking, and eating a rat in order to prove to himself that he was tough, and Cavett asked, "Wouldn't a real tough guy have eaten it raw?"

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 14, 2005 12:35 AM

 

Tough-Guy-isms

Welcome to yet another new feature of this weblog, where I intermittently transcribe good tough-guy dialogue that I find in my travels through the alleys of pop-fiction. This time the quotations are from an old radio show that was way too hip for the room: Pat Novak for Hire, starring Jack Webb, a show where simile and metaphor were hard-boiled to intentionally absurd extremes. Like the following, from the show's "audition" episode (what would be, in TV, a pilot).

- Pat, about his place in this world: "Oh, it's a good life, if you work really hard and study a little on the side-- you've got a trade by the time you get to prison."

- Pat, on his nemesis, Police Lt. Hellman: "Hellman couldn't find a gold ring in a dead man's nose."

- HELLMAN: [The murder victim] couldn't be walkin' around with a hole in the middle of his back. PAT: Oh, I don't know, Hellman, you can do it with one in your head.

- Pat, still not done with Hellman: "They fished Hellman out of an oil-slick. It was the first time his hair ever looked good."

- A guy Pat just shot: "I got a big hurt-- does it show?"

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 10, 2005 4:21 AM

 

My favorite TV show (this week)

Since I'm now stuck with my computer monitor and a 17" Panasonic that gets darker every time I turn it on, I've been watching a lot of old TV. Most of it is stuff that never looked that good no matter what screen it was on, but once and awhile, I find a surprise. Like this one.

Johnny Staccato, starring John Cassavetes. I don't have cable, so I don't get Trio and its collection of pilots and failed series, "Brilliant but Cancelled" But thanks to the internet, I have seen this show, and I think whoever unearthed this gem should get a TV-Land award next year.

It's got everything that makes an old TV show look great today, including a ridiculous premise that's in on its own joke (in this case, a jazz pianist who solves crimes), and guest-starring future icons of the medium when they were young and unknown-- I like the women, especially Mary Tyler Moore (as a gorgeous beauty-pageant hopeful) and Elizabeth Montgomery (see pic below). The great theme is by Elmer Bernstein, when he must have been practicing for Walk On the Wild Side, for my money one of the best scores a bad movie ever had.

Best of all, Cassavetes even directed some episodes, and daddy-o, do they ever look it. My fave of the JC shows is a brilliantly bad psychodrama featuring the director intensifying noirly with co-stars Elisha Cook, Jr. and Des Moines' own Cloris Leachman. (By the way, Des Moines was delighted to get rid of her.)

There is a fair amount of groovy on-line Staccato pages, like this one that has a good overview plus a fine Gold Crest paperback cover. This page, besides knowing its stuff, has a great-looking pic of a Capitol soundtrack album. And here's a page about Cassavetes and the show from a fan magazine of the era.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 10, 2005 3:20 AM

 

The Monday Movie Quiz #80

Again, just one picture clue. What movie featured this charming scene?

If you know the title, send me an email by late Sunday night. If you're right, expect to delight in seeing your name in next week's tricky winners circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 7, 2005 3:05 AM

 

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

"It wasn't at all what I thought it would be," said one disgruntled Richard Pryor fan as he walked out of the theater the night in 1978 that I saw Blue Collar for the first time. Of course, I'd gone because it was the directorial debut of Paul "Taxi Driver" Schrader, so I knew-- hoped for-- what I was going to get. I got even more than that, and almost three decades later, it's still as grim a look at the American workplace as has ever been filmed.

Schrader's commentary track on the DVD (which is currently out-of-print) tells the surprising tale of how screwed up the entire shooting was, with a trio of stars that hated each other and a neophyte director who didn't know what to do to control them. Schrader reluctantly puts most of the blame on Pryor, who seemed to take an instant dislike to both Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. Apparently, he had it in for Keitel more than Kotto-- he actually punched the former during filming, while he only threw a chair at the latter. And none of them had much use for Schrader.

None of the animosity comes across on the screen, though, and Schrader himself seems astonished today that the movie works as well as it does. The three stars seem like the best of friends, which makes the ending of the film even more harrowing. (Not to give anything away, but the movie's best known line, from Kotto, says it all: "They pit the lifers against the new boy and the young against the old. The black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place.") The entire film has a polish and assurance that belies Schrader's stories of on-the-set chaos.

Some of this week's winners made special mention of a certain favorite scene, but no one chose the same one. For Mark Gisleson, it was the late George Memmoli's forklift assault on the Coke machine that had ripped him off for the last time. Hank Parmer mentioned the nightmarish scene in the paint shop with Yaphet Kotto. Mine is still Pryor's encounter with the guy from the IRS, where he finally explodes: "Fuck Uncle Sam, man! If I had the Navy and Marines behind me, I'd be a motherfucker, too!"

I think, though, that quiz champeen Wayne Palmer said it best: "With the exception of American Gigolo, Paul Schrader is one of those directors who I feel can not do a bad film. They may bomb at the box office, but he always delivers a great few hours that stay with you after you leave the theatre." With Blue Collar, he delivered a movie that's lasted in people's minds for almost 30 years.

So congratulations to the following sharp-eyed winners who recognized the three stars in last week's clue: Corey Anderson, E. Yarber, Wayne Palmer, Tim McDonough, Bill Hearne, Mark Gisleson, Kevin Musolino, and Hank Parmer.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 7, 2005 2:01 AM

 

Outrageous dialogue of the week-- Tarantino of the '30s?

Welcome to the resurrection of "Bad Dialogue of the Week," a much beloved (by me) feature of this blog's early days. I've altered the title because the dialogue is often not bad at all-- sometimes it's even brilliant-- but it's always outrageous. Like these clips (1, 2, 3) from Lights Out!, the old radio show that inspired Bill Cosby's "Chicken Heart" monologue. The main characters, Cokie and Mitch (the latter speaking in an accent all his own), maim and murder with the best of today's serial killers. They also bend today's language restrictions: note the salutation to the German storekeeper in clip 3.

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 2, 2005 3:18 AM

 

November Hell pictures

Here are some things I found when I did a Google image search for "November Hell."

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 1, 2005 4:34 AM

 

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