October 28, 2007 - November 3, 2007

Great moments in movie history

I know I'm always posting so-called historic moments of this and that, most of them with ironic intent, but the drum solo scene from Phantom Lady (1944), besides being perhaps the first modern music video, truly lives up to this entry's title. The movie's good (and stylish throughout, thanks to director Robert Siodmak), but this little two minute scene is truly great and lives up to every word of praise that's been written about it. Elisha Cook Jr. is hopped-up horniness itself, and that's '40s dish Ella Raines enjoying the music and egging him on. (Video quality is only so-so, unfortunately, but it still gets across-- in fact, it makes it look even more subterranean, man.)

Posted by Steve Monaco at November 2, 2007 1:19 AM

The Male Animal

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 30, 2007 2:08 AM

The Monday Movie Quiz #147

A bona fide American classic this week-- but what is it?

Movie buffs are groaning at how easy it is, while everyone else is completely stumped. So which group are you in? Let me know by sending me an email with the title-- if you're correct, expect to see your name in next week's pretentious-auteur winner's circle.

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 29, 2007 1:59 AM

Last week's Movie Quiz winners

Give a Halloween shout-out to William Castle, the scariest best friend a movie-oriented kid in the '50s and '60s ever had, especially when Castle was on the creative roll that included this week's much beloved movie in question, his 1959 classic The Tingler. It's a black-and-white horror film that you can show to kids today and not bore the shit out of them-- there are few of the slow, expository segments that make '50s B-stuff seem dull now, and the scary stuff is both hilariously hokey and genuinely inventive. The best part: it can still be enjoyed without Castle's (in)famous "Percepto" theater experience, where seats were wired to give random lucky patrons an electric jolt in the ass!

(Eternal quiz winner E. Yarber wrote, "At the Roxy in San Francisco, there was an early 90s showing where the theater actually tried to revive Percepto. The catch was that there were only a few seats hooked up, easily able to spot due to the wires leading to them, and the manager had to spend five minutes before the film coaching the lucky guinea pigs how to position themselves so that they might be able to feel a slight shock.")

Brimming with plot twists and weird touches, none of them remotely logical, The Tingler was perhaps the best of the three films Castle made with screenwriter (and boys adventure novelist) Robb White, and seems to be the one that holds up best today. It's certainly never boring-- besides the main story about the living thing that grows on people's spines when they're afraid, the story manages to also include silent movies (a well done segment with the Tingler crawling through a theater showing Griffith's Tolable David), a rough but inspired surprise color sequence (see last week's bloody bathtub clue), and-- best of all-- Vincent Price freaking out on acid! And most of the time, you can hardly see the Tingler's string!

So by all means, scream-- scream for your life! What better advice can be given on any Halloween?

Another sizable turnout this week, and it's a pleasure to offer congratulations and a free autopsy by Vincent to the following quiz winners: Wayne Palmer, Song-Un Lee, Dean E. Carlson, Bob Redwing, Jack Sparks, E. Yarber, Bill Hearne, Mark Gisleson, Justin Cullen-Benson, The Curmudgeon, Dennis Lynch, Stephen Jessup, Jeffrey Rapp, NeoLotus, Gene Miller, Peter Schilling, Ron Frigstad, Michael Mattson, Nancy Louise Rutherford, Stacy Sarette, and Michael Lewis.

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 29, 2007 12:24 AM

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