Maniacal Movie Poster Monday #86!

Dixie Dynamite  (Dimension Pictures, 1976)

 

This is one I haven't seen - but I'm a huge fan of Warren Oates and Christopher George - so I definitely want to! This might reside in the video vault - I'll certainly be thrilled if it pops up at the top of the To Watch pile one of these days!







Hell's Angels Forever  (Wescom Productions, 1983)

This one has been on my To See list for about 20 years - as it was featured in one of the first two Joe Bob Briggs books - and I'm STILL trying to watch all of the movies in both! This is a documentary on the Hells' Angels - should appeal to fans of the TV show Sons of Anarchy...






Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere  (Columbia Pictures, 1951)

No one seems to like this Columbia serial - which played in 15 chapters on movie screens - all the reviews I was looking at say Columbia made bad serials, and this is one of their worst. I don't know - it seems like something I would like - and besides - I hold serials up to a much different quality yardstick than I do most other media - I mean, I like the stock footage and when they add the shot the next week of the heroes jumping out of the car!








Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Saturday Night at the Movies 9/15/12!

Who cares what picture we see?




I think that Topol - in addition to sharing his name with The Smoker's Tooth Polish - certainly would - so it's another jump onto the Bond Wagon for this one...

This was actually the 007 adventure that fully cemented me in as a Superfan forever. That same year, during study hall, we were for a time allowed to watch movies on Selectravision Videodisc - which was a laserdisc (sort of a really large record album sized DVD) that was forever stored inside a cartridge - so you never had to touch it and risk ruining it with fingerprints. You would shove the whole cartridge into the machine, and it would extract the disc and play it for you. Here is what we watched across three days one week:

Right around the same time - the Oscars aired - and on the show that year Roger Moore presented Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli with the Irving G. Thalberg award - which was a producer award meaning the budget was actually up there on the screen.



Before bringing Cubby out to accept the award there was a brief couple of minutes of clips from the series - and it was very well put together - and was the second piece of the puzzle.



Then I got to go see For Your Eyes Only at a mall theater while my mom and one of her pals shopped. And that was it - Goldfinger-Oscar clip-For Your Eyes Only in the space of a couple of months. Fan for life.

 

 

As for For Your  Eyes Only - it of course resides in the video vault on a fine Blu-Ray presentation - and we could be spinning that sucker as soon as tonight - if you want to come hang out with me!

 

 

 

 

Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

 



Lee Van Cleef and Arpels!

Beyond the Law  (Cinema Shares International Distribution, 1973)

Well, they called it Beyond the Law over here...

Before the Camera:


Lee Van Cleef  (Escape from New York)
Antonio Sabato  (War of the Robots)
Bud Spencer  (Trinity is My Name)
Lionel Stander  (TV's Hart to Hart)
Graziella Granata  (Curse of the Blood Ghouls)
Herbert Fux  (Woyzeck)
Carlo Gaddi  (Django the Bastard)
Al Hoosman  (Town Without Pity) - he's uncredited for some reason in this flick!
and
Gordon Mitchell  (Atlas Against the Cyclops)
as
Burton





Behind the Camera:


Directed by Giorgio Stegani


Produced by Enrico Chroscicki, Alfonso Sansone, and Luggi Waldleitner


Written by Mino Roli, Giorgio Stegani, Fernando Di Leo, Lorenzo Sabatini, and Inge Hilger

Story by Lorenzo Sabatini








Here we have the great Lee Van Cleef excellently cast as rough edged two-bit criminal Billy Joe Cudlip, who takes on the job of sheriff in a small town initially to be in a better position to steal the payroll and silver from the citizens of the mining community. But, wonder of wonders, after a short time battling some of the criminal element in the town - the newly minted lawman finds the job (and the respect he's given) pretty agreeable. He also starts to help the cheerfully naive young mining exec (Sabato) just arrived from Europe who has been sent to protect all of the money and precious metals. This does not sit well with Van Cleef's two cronies (Stander and Hoosman) who are ready to grab the dough and go go go. There's also the other mining official (Spencer) to deal with plus a gang of no-goodniks led by a nutjob in a cape (Mitchell) obsessed with absconding with the loot. Will Van Cleef stay on the side of the angels - or will he only be there long enough to steal the silver himself?

"Bowties are cool."

"For the last time, no, you cannot call me Mr. H!"

Gordon Mitchell - with a face carved from villainstone.

While no world beating classic, I had a good time with this light hearted Western that also has a little heist movie and buddy adventure flick mixed in. Director Stegani doesn't set out here to reinvent the wheel - and sometimes that is just fine. It's not a bright and colorful movie - we stick to the period's palette of dusty browns and muddy browns with some light and dark browns thrown in for variety, but it's a great cast with everyone seeming to have a good time in their roles, and you may find yourself wondering which side of the fence Van Cleef is going to land on before the end credits roll.

If you enjoy an old fashioned Spaghetti Western from the old school - before they started going all stylized - then this is a safe bet. Beware the dozens of cheapie DVDs out there - you might get a chopped up print. This is the one I recommend:

Check this one out!








Let's Get Out of Here ?

At around 42:49, one of the bandits has grown tired of Lee Van Cleef's shooting skills.








Eye Candy ?

Period Western dress is difficult to pull off in the area of eye candy - but I'm giving it to the curvy Graziella Granata!

Welcome to the list, Ms. Granata!

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "Beyond the Law shows why Lee
Van Cleef was The Master - of spaghetti westerns!"

Thank you Buddha! Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Maniacal Movie Poster Monday #85!

Strange Confession  (Universal Studios, 1945)

They used to show the Lon Chaney Jr. Inner Sanctum movies sometimes on Saturday night's Chiller Theater when I was a kid,. but apparently this one wasn't in the package due to a controversy over some rights issues - this movie's plot seems to have been lifted from an earlier 1930's flick - and Universal shelved it after its initial theatrical run. The other five Inner Sanctum movies played, but this one didn't see the light of day again until the VHS release of all six movies in the 90's! I of course picked those up (and the subsequent DVD release - thanks, Universal - can I do anything else to keep you solvent?) and thought it was another cool little thriller - it's fun to see Chaney's face with no monster makeup involved sometimes!






Angels Die Hard  (New World Pictures, 1970)

Another biker flick I haven't seen - but how could I not want to? I mean, it features "chopper outlaws!...riding their hot throbbing machines to a brutal climax of violence!" Heh-heh-heh...they said "throbbing..."

And FYI - that Tom Baker is not our erstwhile Fourth Doctor Who - he's an American actor who passed away in 1982.











The Pearl of Death  (Universal Studios, 1944)

I love the 1940's Sherlock Holmes movies - but I haven't seen all of them - and this is one of the unseen ones. My assistant random poster picker was directed to name a genre, decade, or actor, and she chose the late great Rondo Hatton - so while his name isn't up there - his disctinctive face is - as well as his usual character name - The Creeper! Rondo Hatton FTW!








My thanks to Melissa Bradley of the always delightful Melissa's Imaginarium for assisting my random poster generation for this post!


And until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Saturday Night at the Movies 9/8/12!

Who cares what picture we see?


Henry Brandon would - I'd bet money on it! So let's pick this one:

This lost world flick is not as well known as it should be. I never saw it as a kid - only catching up to it on VHS ten or twelve years ago. That wasn't actually the best way to see the movie, either, because while it runs only 78 minutes - that brief running time is in glorious 2.35:1 Cinemascope! The movie is as widescreen as that trailer up there!

Luckily, I do have the movie on DVD in perfect anamorphic widescreen - and we could be checking out the clever special effects that needed no computer processors as soon as - tonight - if you feel like coming over to see me!


Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The Video Vault of Mora Tau 9/5/12!

Let's go see what cool video clips lurk on the shelves?




I think we'll jump on the Bond Wagon and find some good stuff with our first three 007's...

Sean Connery

Appearing on What's My Line October 3rd, 1965.

Did you hear the slam on Bond from Sir Sean in passing - which makes sense when you hear how he showed up in Japan the next year not particularly thrilled with jumping through the hoops again for Broccoli and Saltzman...

George Lazenby

Back in 2002 - during a Bond celebration - British chat show legend Michael Parkinson interviewed George about his legacy as 007.

Roger Moore appears on TV-AM (aka Good Morning Britain) to promote A View to A Kill in late 1985.

I'll do a second part to this post if I can find interesting clips of the other three gentlemen - the first two should be easy, but it'll be a challenge to find something off the beaten path for our sitting Bond...




Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Maniacal Movie Poster Monday #84!

Galaxina  (Crown International, 1980)

As a very young teen - I was still struck by the sad story of this movie's star - Dorothy Stratten. A gorgeous young woman named Playboy's Playmate of the Year for 1980 - she was starting to make her move into film and television, with appearances on TV's Buck Rogers and movies like Americathon, Skatetown USA and this goofy sci fi spoof where she stars as a robot - when she was murdered by her estranged husband. She was just 20 years old.

I saw Galaxina when it premiered on Showtime. I didn't think the movie was all that much even then - some funny bits and a lot of running time with few laughs - but I'm still transfixed by the ethereal beauty who'd already left this world by the time I found her.












Secret Agent Super Dragon  (United Screen Arts, 1966)

Another Italian Bond knockoff I haven't seen - but by all reports I haven't missed much - and check out those Americanized credits! Calvin J. Padgett? C'mon, everybody knows this was directed by Giorgio Ferroni! Still, the movie does star "The Dragon Mates" so maybe it's worth a look...















The Rocket Man  (20th Century Fox, 1954)

I've never seen this gentle sci fi comedy - but I used to see it advertised in TV Guide, and I always thought they were referring to Billy "Froggy" Laughlin from the Our Gang shorts - but no, this is some other kid actor - so in the interests of research I went to check out the trailer to this one on YouTube, looking forward to hearing this kid's voice - which I was imagining as HUGE and LOUD, hence the "Foghorn" nickname. WTH? His voice sounds like an average kid's - so not at all sure what that was all about.






Until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!