11 posts tagged “favorite movies”
Back in the days of High School, I met a classmate who shared the same great love of Classic Movies as I did, and we spent many a night enjoying the works of all those great actors and actresses of the “Golden” era of film! Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur, Bogie and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn, we watched ‘em all!
Now, this gal was a HUGE fan of Laurence Olivier, and had a whole cupboard full of various beta tapes (Beta! WOW, does THAT sound nostalgic!) of Sir Laurence’s vast career, and she took the time to re-introduce me to an actor that I’d only known from movies where he played a Nazi (Szell in Marathon Man) and Nazi-Hunter (in The Boys From Brazil), fine films to be sure, but hardly representative of his great body of work! Ahahahaha!
Well, over the weeks, we saw quite a few of Olivier’s films including Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, and (a fave of both of ours) Hitchcock's Rebecca, but the one film that stood out, just absolutely won me over and had me laughing and giddy throughout the whole film was the United Artists movie The Divorce of Lady X starring Sir Laurence and an UNBELIEVABLY ADORABLE Merle Oberon as fated lovers who are hindered by cases of mistaken identity!
Olivier is Everard Logan, a divorce lawyer who gets fogged in at a glitzy hotel. A fancy costume ball is winding down as he checks in, and several ball-attendants are needing lodgings to weather out the storm, and shrewd attendee Leslie Steele (Merle Oberon) targets Logan as a man she can playfully manipulate into sharing a room together- and that’s exactly what she does!
Though the night is a completely innocent affair, Leslie’s cheerful and candid manners have severely affected Logan, and he finds he’s falling in love with her! But before he can act upon his impulses, she leaves, without him even getting her name!
The next day he is visited in his office by an old friend who wants to divorce his wife on the grounds that she’s spent the night in a hotel with some mysterious gentleman. It’s the same hotel LOGAN was at the night before, and after a brief interview, becomes convinced that the lady he spent the night with was none other than this man’s WIFE!
Lots of laughs as the mischievous Leslie gets wind of his misdiagnosis and decides to continue the charade, pretending to be the soon-to-be-divorced mystery woman, as Logan falls deeper and deeper in love with her!!
Though I’ve managed to pick up quite a few of those classic movies we watched on DVD over the years, there are still a lot of them that haven’t been given the digital treatment yet, and it was with great excitement that I was able to obtain a copy of Divorce of Lady X from online store MOVIES UNLIMITED, a place that I remembered ordering VHS copies of some of my Garbo movies from oh so many years ago!
Well, I just finished watching it again, and I’m here to assure you people: The magic is STILL there! I fell in love with it all over again; the show is still so funny and fresh! I’ve always stated that Divorce of Lady X was a very favorite film of mine that everyone should see, and my opinion is forged anew! You MUST see this film!
PS: Though I’ve mentioned it three or four times already, I cannot overstate how adorable Oberon is in this film!!! Every scene she is in just makes you feel good! And Pretty? MAN! I read somewhere that Oberon is part Sri-Lankan, and that would certainly explain the almost exotic features she has. Man, is this woman gorgeous! And when she smiles, you just feel so…happy!
For those insomniacs out there like me, sometimes there’d be a temporary reprieve after all regular programming was done, in the form of “Nite-Owl Theater”…. this was basically the TV station broadcasting old Black and White films in the wee hours of the morning, usually between 12:30 to 2:00 in the morning, and I just loved it!
There is something sort of magical about watching old movies late at night , wrapped up in a blanket, where you feel you’re the only person awake in the world. The movies really come to life, and you almost feel transported to that earlier time. Those days of watching those late night movies still bring back fond memories!
By chance one night I happened to catch a random movie from 1933 starring the incredible Greta Garbo called Queen Christina. Talk about beginners luck, as I was to find later that many regard Queen Christina as one of Garbo’s finest and regularly recommend it to beginning Garbo enthusiasts!
I don’t know, my general image of Greta Garbo was of your usual pin-up platinum blonde…Garbo was just about anything BUT average! Exotic and Moody, from the very first time I laid eyes on her and heard that mesmerizing, husky voice, I knew she was truly something special!
Greta plays a Queen who escapes the crushing responsibilities of royalty to hide out dressed as a boy in a small town tavern. There she meets a man on his way to meet the Queen, who hasn’t the slightest inkling that she’s right there in front of him! One thing leads to another, and they fall in love…but when she assumes her responsibilities once more, they find it is harder that they think to continue the doomed romance.
Well, I just flat out loved this movie, (In fact, to this day, it is still one of my very VERY favorite movies of all time!) and I needed to see more, more, more! Fortunately, there was this wonderful Video Rental store in town that specialized in the classic films, and it was through here that I saw almost all of Greta’s major movies and a few lesser ones, too! From Grand Hotel through Susan Lenox, even my very first silent movies Flesh and the Devil and The Temptress, if Garbo was in it, I rented it! In time, I even managed to special order the Laserdisc of Queen Christina, which was, for years, the only copy I had of this beloved movie.
When MGM finally released a selection of Greta’s movies in a Deluxe DVD Box Set, I was thrilled to finally get Queen Christina on DVD , as well as other favorites Ninotchka, Mata Hari and Anna Christie, none of which had ever been given a DVD treatment before!
I’m hoping that they get around to releasing a second Box Set because I’m still waiting for a few of my other favorites to get a DVD release at all: As You Desire Me, The Painted Veil(was Love in the Time of Cholera a remake of this one?), and the controversial Two-Faced Woman! The latter movie was almost universally panned and ended up being Garbo’s last movie of her career, but, heck, I LOVED IT! She’s SOOOO much fun in this one, and YES, looking gorgeous as usual!
I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed for these treasures!!!
Just dug out my DVD copy of Walt Disney’s Seventies Teen Comedy THE COMPUTER WORE TENNIS SHOES the other day…MAN, how I love this movie!
You know, the first movie I ever saw at a Drive In Theater (the long-gone Waialae Drive In, for those keeping track) was THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD, a movie I was to later find out was the THIRD in a series starring a VERY young Kurt Russell, or the FIFTH in a series if you count Fred MacMurray’s two movies “Absent Minded Professor” and “Flubber”, as they all happened at the same college.
We kids of the Seventies were blessed with not only great live action Disney flicks like ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, FREAKY FRIDAY and all those HERBIE movies, but also a television program called “The Wonderful World Of Disney” on Sunday nights that would show older Disney flicks as well!
I religiously watched this show (and it still hold a dear place in my heart, as many of you may have guessed by the NAME of my blog!) and as it happened, a few months after I had seen “The Strongest Man In The World” at the Drive In, they aired “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” on television!
I was like ‘HEY! It’s that same kid from Strongest Man In The World…at the SAME College! And he’s involved in ANOTHER kooky experiment! COOL!”
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes(1968) was the adventures of a student named Dexter Riley (Russell) who attended Medfield College, a kid who always seemed to be in the middle of some zany scientific experiment that would give him and his school fame and fortune. It was followed by “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t”(1972), and then the aforementioned “Strongest Man In The World”(1975). In each movie, Dexter is involved in some experiment that gives him out of the ordinary abilities like super-strength or invisibility- well, in this one, he gets electrocuted by the school computer and absorbs all the knowledge, becoming a walking memory bank!
Yes, the movies all had a similar theme, but something about Computer Wore Tennis Shoes always seemed to ring a little bit truer...It seemed to have more heart. There was actual attempt to flesh out his friends and teachers, and you always felt like his friends really loved him, and his teachers (especially Mr. Quigley, played by super TV Dad William Shallert) really had his best interests in mind. Throw in Joe Flynn as the insufferable Dean Higgins and the extremely over-the-top Cesar Romero (he of Joker fame) as the dastardly A.J. Arnau, and you had a top notch comedic cast of well-thought out characters, each who made the show even better in their own way!
There were a couple of scenes that come immediately to mind which really show that “heart” I mentioned in them:
After Dexter becomes the walking computer, he becomes a media sensation, and the fame attached to it find him beginning to ignore his colleagues, but when he is involved in a casino bust, his friends raise the money to bale him out, and a humbled Dexter realizes what true friends his pals are.
The College has sent Dexter to compete in a College knowledge/trivia debate, and since they need 4 students to enter, Dexter brings along his not-too-bright buddies to round out the team. But towards the ending of the debate, Dexter’s powers are starting to wear off, and he is having a difficult time answering. Finally, it is down to the last question, but Dexter just cannot get the answer out. His knowledge is gone! But his pal Schuyler pressures Dexter- “But Dex, You KNOW this one! Remember?” then they all realize that it doesn’t matter if Dexter knows it- SCHUYLER knows it! Schuyler answers the question and wins the tournament, a sweet victory for the kid who never had confidence in himself!
And the stoic leader of Medfield’s challengers the Springfiled Rockets, Ms. “J” Reedy (what did the J stand for? I’m betting it was Jane) played by pretty actress Hillyard Anderson:
Nothing much has been reported on either of these fine actresses after The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes…whatever happened to them? I’d be really interested in knowing what they’re up to nowadays!
Over the years, although the allure of THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD and NOW YOU SEE HIM NOW YOU DON’T have diminished and they really seem like zany kiddie fare to the 40 year old me, THE COMPUTER WORE TENNIS SHOES just keeps getting better and better! The characters and the good-natured theme just shine brighter with each viewing, and that’s why I’m proud to say that even to this day this movie remains an all-time favorite!
The first time I saw American Graffiti must have been around 1978 on the telly, which would have made me about 12 years old, and I have to tell you, Debbie was everything a 12 year old kid could fantasize about: Super Cute, Loud, Naughty, Sassy, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, willing to give the unpopular loser (Terry the Toad, as played by Charlie Martin Smith) the time of day! Why, she was an…an…ANGEL! Ahahahaha!
So yeah, I was pretty infatuated with Candy Clark! I remember this one time, a kid brought to class the AMERICAN GRAFFITI novelized paperback that was the movie tie-in book, one of those books that had a bunch of pages with black and white pictures in the middle, you know the ones I mean. Anyway, I desperately wanted to see if there were any pictures of Debbie in that paperback, but that stupid kid refused to let me see it, because he was more interested in running around the class showing all the girls the picture from the movie of some guy mooning his butt out a moving car! Grrr…
I’ll tell you a funny coincidence… I was SO infatuated with Candy Clark: I remember a neighbor had a copy of HUSTLER laying around with a cute blonde on the cover, and the first thing my mind said was “WOW! that girl looks like…DEBBIE!” I remember wondering if it WAS Candy Clark! After all, this was the year when the scandal of Angie “Police Woman” Dickinson nude shots were all the buzz, so WHY NOT pics of Candy Clark?
Well, it wasn’t Candy Clark, and I would have forgotten all about it, but in an interesting turn of events,I was to come across the cover again when the model on the HUSTLER cover was revealed to be none other than Dale Bozzio, she of MISSING PERSONS fame! I remember when they showed the cover of the magazine, I immediately recognized it, exclaiming, “Hey! Dale was that model I thought looked like Candy Clark!” (It’s the December 1982 issue, if you care to look it up) Funny thing though, looking at the cover NOW, she doesn’t look much like Debbie, after all! HAHAHA!
I remember a year or so after I’d fallen in love with Candy Clark, they released a sequel to American Graffiti called MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI (how original!), and I really had to BEG my friends to come down with me to see the movie, because I desperately needed to see it!! One of the main reasons I wanted to see this, of course, was because Candy Clark was one of the cast members from the original movie that would be reprising her role.
Well, I’d like to say that It was great and I was blown away, but the fact of the matter was, I hadn’t realized that the Debbie character was wearing a fluffy blonde WIG in the first movie, and no such wig was found atop the head of Candy Clark in the second one! GASP! Why, I didn’t even RECOGNIZE Candy when she first appeared…it was only after watching the scene that I figured it out, and folks, I mean to tell you…I WAS CRUSHED! I mean, Candy was still PRETTY and all, but it just wasn't my 6th Grade dream girl on that screen!
Oh Well. And, to be honest, it wasn’t just her- the movie was supposed to reflect the late sixties hippie-culture, peace, Vietnam War, etc, and well, it just didn’t have that magic the first one had.
Oh well…I still had the original movie to keep me company!
Years later, the American Graffiti Movie came out on Laserdisc(!),and I was able to enjoy the movie without having to either rent it or wait for it to appear on TV, and once again, I was instantly taken back to my Debbie-obsessed days! THEN, even MORE years later, when the Collector’s Edition DVD came out, I watched it, and yep, fell in love AGAIN!
I may pass on ever needing to see “More” American Graffiti again, but the original will always remain one of my very favorite movies of all time, and you can be sure that each time I re-watch it, I will have Candy Clark on the brain, as well!
Visit Candy at her myspace page, a haven for Debbie-obsessed fans like me!
There isn’t a single thing I can add about having a crush on Liesl Von Trapp in The Sound Of Music that hasn’t already been uttered by countless generations of guys ever since the movie debuted in 1965!
But for the record: 1. I saw Sound Of Music. 2. I set eyes on the oldest daughter Liesl, played by Charmian Carr.
3. Developed Crush. 4. Wheee!
In fact, out of all the wonderful songs featured in the Rodgers & Hammerstein soundtrack, my favorite just has to be “Edelweiss”, simply because I always waited for that scene where she sang it along with her father, playing his guitar.
Funny thing, growing up I would hear “The Sound Of Music” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” regularly sung on TV variety shows , regarded as the broadway classics they are, and I remember a local pastor named Allan Fisher singing Climb Ev'ry Mountain on a just-before-sign-off show called Making Life Simple! In elementary school, we even sang songs like “Do Me Ri” and “My Favorite Things” during assemblies, but despite this total American immersion in the soundtrack, until I saw The Sound Of Music (and fell in love with Liesl) for myself, I never noticed Edelweiss!
Once I was watching Sound Of Music with a friend, and I offhandedly mentioned how much of a crush I had on Charmian Carr when I was younger. "I guess I was into that 60's teenager look", I theorized. She looked at Liesl on the screen and asked, "Yeah, but, how OLD do you think Liesl IS here? She ain't any "16 going on 17", THAT'S for sure! She looks more like 23!" Which was a pretty good point, but that didn't diminish my love of Liesl one bit!
Plus It didn't matter- we were both big Sound of Music fans, and I remember her even stopping by my workplace straight from her Ukelele Lesson once because she'd just learned to play "Edelwiess"! So we had a little singalong, and I have to say a hawaiian flavored Edelweiss is a strange thing to hear indeed! Ahahaha!
Years later, when me and my friend Car were talking about favorite songs from The Sound Of Music, I said “Well, the song that’s MY fave isn’t a common one!” She said, “Well, what IS it?” and when I told her “Edelweiss”, she dismissively cried “EDELWEISS?! That’s so OBVIOUS! EVERYBODY’S favorite song is that one!”
I said that I begged to differ, with songs like Sound of Music, Climb Ev’ry Mountain, Do-Re-Mi and My Favorite Things out there, I’d hardly say that Edelweiss was EVERYONE’S favorite song, but she stood her ground on that one!
Anyway…
When The Sound of Music got the “Special Edition” treatment on DVD back in 2000, there was a terrific addition for us Liesl fans! Included in the bonus section was a little-seen documentary short called Salzburg Sight and Sound, which was basically a 36 minute little featurette they shot during the taping of The Sound Of Music of Charmian Carr wandering around the beautiful city of Salzburg!
She narrates the short, and besides taking in the beautiful scenery, we get glimpses of the cast behind the scenes as they work on the movie, we even get to see Charmian getting lessons with her vocal coach! Ah, what a great bonus!
Life after Sound of Music, Charmian Carr became an interior designer for upper-class home-owners, ans she said that one of her clients was Michael Jackson! In fact, she said that he hired her to do his house, simply because he loved her so much as Liesl!
Well, If I had
1. MONEY for an Interior Designer and
2. A HOUSE in WHICH to redesign,
I’D hire her, too!
So I was working with this guy a few days ago and during a casual conversation about Jessica Alba, he mentioned that he hadn't seen SIN CITY. This was kind of a shock to me, as the conversation we were involved in was about how much he loved Jessica Alba and her movies.
"B-BUT YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SIN CITY YET!?!?!", was my slightly hysterical voice. "GASSPP!"
I made it a point to drop off the DVD with him the following day, but as soon as I brought out the movie, I needed to watch it myself! So there I was, three hours before I had to go to work, getting my fix on Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez's Masterpiece. And, needless to say, I was blown away all over again!
One thing that ALWAYS impressed me is how much the movie looked like the graphic novels! It's like watching the comic characters cut out and come to life for the shoot! These three side-by-side comparisons have been floating around on the internet for years, I guess, but I'm still impressed whenever I see them.
The most famous and over-exposed publicity shot, but how much better can you GET?!
2. Marv and his Parole Officer Lucille. Amazing how they got the bandages just right.
3. That Yellow Bastard torturing Nancy.
It's an inverted shot, but otherwise, it's ALL THERE!
Probably most of you are looking at this post and blinking your eyes, thinking "This guy is blogging about a movie that came out in 2005!" Well, my co-worker might want to peruse the pics once he's done watching the flick, and besides, with all the buzz about SIN CITY 2 going around, it can't hurt to refresh our memories about this one!
Still haven't heard word back from my friend if he liked the movie or not. Since he's a self-proclaimed Jessica Alba Fan, I just don't see how he could NOT like it. What I really want to know is the extent that he LOVES it!
Ahahahahhhha......
So July of 2007 rolls around, and I’m starting to feel the time is right ot bust out the movie, so I log on to Amazon to see how much the DVD for That Thing You Do is running these days. And the timing for my search couldn’t have been more appropriate, for lo and behold, a special deluxe Tom Hanks Double Disc Directors Cut had just come out that very month! This disc promised to be a real winner: The Director’s Cut with over a half an hour of scenes put back in that were originally cut out, a bonus reunion special with the cast, the original Theatrical release, and three different That Thing You Do! Specials (that had originally run on cable when the movie was first released.)
Amazon was offering it for a sweet $11.99, but I couldn’t wait, and so I picked up my copy for $14.99 at Best Buy later that day! Unfortunatley, by the time I got home, it was too late to blast the movie out loud, so I waited til the next afternoon to watch it!
OK, so after watching the Director’s Cut, I have to say that there are definitely some pros and cons about this version…(as do almost ALL Director’s Cuts, right?) Sad thing is, once you’ve seen the movie with the extra stuff put back in, you’ll always remember it was there, whether you liked it or not! At least the Director’s Cut only ADDED stuff in, and didn’t TAKE OUT anything. Or at least that I could see….
I’ve kind of jotted down a few notes of mine regarding the Pros and Cons, and you can feel free to read them, but if you haven’t seen the movie at all, there might be some slight spoilers within these paragraphs, so you might beware.
First, The Pros…
(1) Without a doubt, the best reason to own this Director’s Cut is because of the scenes put back in regarding Faye and Guy’s relationship. When watching the Theatrical release, the viewer kind of wants the two to get together because they are the two “nice’ people in the movie. However, when they get together at the end, although it’s a happy ending, it doesn’t quite ring true because you feel more like they CARE about each other more than LOVE each other. With the Director’s Cut, scenes have been put back in where you can really see that Guy and Faye were meant for each other, and a lot of time is spent showing how much they look after each other…In this (directors) version, it seems quite natural that they would gravitate towards each other eventually! Definitely makes the movie!
I really don’t want to complain too much about the negative aspects, because (1) Usually, No one takes things as seriously as me, and therefore most people will not be bothered by what I cite as “cons”, and (2) Negative stuff is such a bummer!
That said, I feel that two things that were altered are pretty important (to me), because they were in two of my FAVORITE scenes.
One scene is the one in the Dressing Room where Faye finally has had enough of Jimmy’s abuse, and delivers one of the most heartbreaking speeches as she tells Jimmy to stay out of her life from now on. In the director’s cut, her speech is interrupted by Steve Zahn’s girlfriend chiming in, “You TELL ‘IM, GIRL!!!” to which Faye turns and says, ”Uh…and who are you?” before resuming her admonishment of Jimmy. I was like “ARRGH! My favorite scene! The flow is…ruined!“
The other scene that I feel suffers from having stuff put back in is when Guy is alone in the studio towards the end of the movie. He’s sad because the Wonders have just broken up, and feels it was all for nothing. Then this Piano Player that Guy worships named Del Paxton comes into the studio, and they have a friendly little jam together. This scene is sweet because it’s like, OK, The group has broken up, and it was all for nothing, but look what a awesome reward you got!
In the Director’s Cut, in the middle of the jam, Guy excitedly calls his DJ friend and tells him that he’s with Del Paxton, and the DJ tells him if he can record an interview with Del, there will be a JOB for Guy at the Radio Station. So Guy interviews the group together, and gets the studio to record the interview, and he leaves with the tapes under his arms, ready to join the Radio Station! It’s a nice proposition, but I don’t like that it changed the session into a money-making career move rather than a sweet memory to treasure.
But that’s alright, because once all that business is over with, they get back on track with the true underlying story: The story of Guy and Faye! And that’s about the bottom line: If you care about Guy and Faye, then by all means, get the Director’s Cut, because it will really flesh out their relationship, but if it really doesn’t matter to you, then you can stick with the theatrical release (which is also included in the Director’s Cut, by the way), and enjoy it like you remember from “way back in the day”! Time to turn that volume way up!
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FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
This movie has it all for me…there are so many great scenes one after another…good story and pacing, good female lead in Melina, good partner in Columbo and a KILLER theme song by Sheena Easton!
From the very beginning, the movie seems different from the others. Bond is shown placing flowers at the grave of Teresa Di Vicenso Bond, his one time wife, slain at the hands of SPECTRE. He is then abducted by a sinister bald man with a white cat who of course is meant to be Bond’s old foe, the SPECTRE leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
This is pretty significant in that it clearly linked the Roger Moore James Bond with his predecessors, as if to show, “Yes, this is the same guy”. I remember as a kid having my older cousin explain to me about how his wife was killed by Blofeld in an earlier movie, and even then I could feel the “history” of the James Bond character.
In any case, although the opening degenerates into slapstick comedy, I think this was meant to mark a point as if to say the older movies were like TV shows, and the movies were going to be more “realistic” from that point on. Too bad they didn’t stick with it in the future endeavors!
Favorite scenes include the first meeting on Bond and Columbo. Villain Kristatos has tricked Bond into thinking that Columbo is the bad guy. Columbo confronts Bond and tries to assure him that they are on the same side. In an act of good faith, he returns Bond’s Walther PPK to him, proving that they should be acting together. Bond points the gun in Columbo’s face, then they both relax and laugh - partners against Kristatos!
There’s this car chase that ends with assassin Emile Locque‘s car crashed and hanging halfway on and halfway off a cliff. One wrong move might tip the car off the edge, and Locque is in a jam as to how he will get out of the car! He has always left a pin of a dove whenever he has killed someone. Bond tosses the pin in the car, and the viewer thinks the pin will cause the car to tip over… …but before it does, Bond simply kicks the car with all HIS MIGHT over the edge!!! Ruthless!
The movie builds up to the assault on the secret base of Kristatos, high up on the bluffs. There are some exciting moments as Bond and crew sneak up the face of the bluff to storm the headquarters!
And can we ever forget gushy Lynn-Holly Johnson’s Bibi Dahl? Bond shows his age as he fights her off, telling the sex kitten he’ll “buy her an ice-cream!”
LIVE AND LET DIE
The one that started it all for me and gave me a lasting obsession with Jane Seymour! I particularly love the soundtrack and George Martin’s score. I agree with the reviewer who said Martin’s Take on the James Bond Theme song is one of the best! Listen to the powerful intro as the scope opens up on the United Nations Building. Good build-up in the teaser working to a PERFECT segue into Paul McCartney’s song.
Interesting Henchmen in Tee-Hee and Baron Samedi, and one of the most off the wall and inspired endings of all! (Supernatural reincarnation, anyone?)
Besides being a thrilling song that PERFECTLY matched the feel of Baron Samedi’s Voodoo land, George Martin took the three parts of the song and turned them into these GREAT musical scores. The “When You Were Young” segment of the song turned into the lush romantic scene music, the Frantic Horns section turned into the actions scenes score, and the “What does it Matter to You” segment turned into the funky island music scenes. Maurice Binder did an excellent Montage with this song, using Fire and Skulls to add to the Voodoo Theme.
GOLDFINGER
It wasn’t until I saw this movie that I understood the whole “secret agent” concept that so many copied in the 60’s. Brilliant, witty dialog, interesting characters and a story that keeps you glued to your seat up until the Fort Knox showdown. I love the fight with Odd-Job and the fact that (as throughout MOST of the movie) Bonds uses his MIND to survive rather than use gadgets. Connery at his very best here, strong, suave and also realistically brutish (love the scene where he’s attempting to diffuse a bomb and ends up GUESSING which wire to pull!) The scenes shot in 60’s California streets (Felix Leighter at a KFC!) and the Shirley Bassey “Herb Alpert” style theme song give this movie a nostalgic feel about it, too!
OCTOPUSSY
This is a Bond movie that I’ve always felt possessive of, for some reason. During its stay at the local theater, I saw it a total of SEVEN times, dragging different people - and sometimes even making the SAME friends go with me multiple times! I was really trying to “spread the religion” and I STILL feel this movie isn’t as highly regarded as it should. I think the way they took the stories “Property of a Lady”, “The Living Daylights” and Octopussy” and melded it into one linear story is just fantastic! The movie features an awesome teaser opening (Fill ‘er Up!), good movie set-up (the opening with 009 delivering the Faberge Egg to the British Embassy) and man…once the train starts its course, the movie doesn’t let up until the end! And that Kristina Wayborne….Mmm!
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
I love this movie for its detailed and well paced scenes. Director Terence Young relied closely on the original Ian Fleming Novel, and it shows. Great characters (Klebb and Red Grant) and the first appearance of Q! Everyone was here for this one, but my biggest draw for this movie has to be the character of Tatiana “Tanya” Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) whose innocence and looks just sent me head over heels for her. The scene where she is wearing a black ribbon around her neck (and not much else)…HELL! This movie also featured a terrific instrumental opening song…too bad it is usually passed up in Bond Compilations for the Matt Munro ending song instead.
More Favorite Movies not available on DVD:
The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
Back in 1998 when I was still working at Tower Video, there in the Movie Promo box was a video thrown in that no one seemed to want. I picked it up because it had Esai Morales in it, an actor I loved for his portrayal of Bob, Ritchie Valens’ rebellious brother in LA BAMBA.
It was The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a movie based on a short story written by Sci-Fi master Ray Bradbury for his collection The WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT AND OTHER STORIES. This was a different kind of Bradbury story - more a story about social commentary than futuristic spaceships, though!
It’s a story about the way people perceive others by how they are dressed.
It is the story of a Mexican man named Gomez (Joe Mantegna), who wants desperately to purchase a beautifully tailored vanilla white suit, but doesn’t have the funds to acquire it- it costs $100.00 to buy, but poor Gomez has but $20.00 to his name!
He comes up with a brilliant brainstorm…If he can find FOUR more people with $20.00 to their names, they can pool their assets together and SHARE the suit amongst each other
He finds ,Villanazul (Gregory Sierra) who is a speaker. Right now he is being ignored, giving his oratory in the park, but he knows that if he had the suit to wear, people would start listening to his speeches, and he could influence people for miles around!
Dominguez(Esai Morales) is a street musician who believes if he had the suit, people would finally listen to his music, and he dreams of being able to serenade the entire block, bringing everyone out to join in his parade!
Then there’s, Martinez (Clifton Collins Jr), who would like nothing more than to be able to impress the gorgeous girl next door. But how can he impress her in his shabby clothes? Gomez convinces him the suit will help him fulfill his wishes!
He is in desperate need of a fifth and final contributor because time is of the essence…every minute they waste, someone else might buy “their” Ice Cream Suit!
Thus he breaks down and accepts the final $20 bill from Vamanos, the local street urchin (played with glee by Edward James Olmos), despite the fact that the man is covered head to toe in black sooty grime.
And so with the $100 in their possession, they march down to the Tailor and purchase the Wonderful Ice Cream suit. They make a deal that each person will get to wear the suit for ONE HOUR that first night to try it out. You get to see what each person is about as they utilize the suit to attain their dreams.
Then, and finally, Vamanos wants his turn at wearing the suit, and I cannot stress how much fun this is! I was cracking up throughout the entire scene! He does everything he has been warned against: No Sooty Cigars, No Juicy Tacos and No Ruby with her powder and rouge! They rescue the suit but JUST in Time!
Later, Vamanos regretfully apologizes, and this is what gives the movie its real heart. Instead of asking if he can ever wear the suit again, he sorrowfully asked, “Can I still be in the Gang?” It makes you smile when you realize he never really wanted the suit-he wanted friends! Everybody kind of steps back and realizes this, that the suit has done more than give them their dreams, it brought these five people who had nothing in common with each other together and become comrades!
A Movie that leaves you with a GREAT feeling!
One night back in 1978 or 1979, my TV sitcoms of the day had just ended, and the nightly movie began. The show opened with a rocking little tune and this kept me from switching the TV off, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to the show on the screen until the female lead in the movie appeared. She was just GORGEOUS! I was immediately captivated, and focused my whole attention onto what turned out to be a pretty darn entertaining movie!
The movie was an old Tony Curtis film that came out in 1967 called DON’T MAKE WAVES, and the beautiful actress that knocked me out was none other than Miss Claudia Cardinale! The movie also featured Sharon Tate, a funny cameo by Jim Backus as himself, and that real groovy theme song was sung by none other than Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of the Byrds!!
The story was about a young man named Carlo (Tony Curtis) who comes to town looking for work. He crosses paths with the klutzy Laura (Claudia Cardinale) who accidentally sets fire to his car, which has all his possessions in it! She tries to make it up to him by letting him stay with her until he can get back on his feet. Thus he is thrown into her world of Muscle Beach He-men, Sexy Beach Bunnies and a multitude of Wheeling and Dealing job opportunities!
As you can see, so far in the movie, Laura is just this gorgeous thing. She is shown in scene after scene in pretty outfits, and I was glued to the set! I thought she couldn't look better, but then in the final act, Claudia Cardinale really pulls out the stops,letting her hair down as it were, looking absolutely incredible even though she's soaked from the rain and her dress is splattered with mud! Oh My....
This was back in the days before convenient video rentals, so I had to wait until some TV station decided to air the movie again! Of course, whenever it DID get shown again, you can bet that it was a banner celebration for me, and every time I watched it, I loved it more and more!
To this day, DON’T MAKE WAVES is still not available in DVD… The only thing I’ve been able to get it is released in VHS tape, so I’m not even able to watch the movie in widescreen! Oh MAN, I’m crossing my fingers for the day this terrific movie gets a decent DVD release treatment!
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