Richard Kimble

Puh-leez! Hahvahd.

Exploitation legend and “godfather of gore” Herschell Gordon Lewis has died aged 87. His longtime distributors Something Weird Video (named after Lewis’ 1967 feature) broke the news in a Facebook post. With his 1963 film Blood Feast, Lewis is widely credited with pioneering the splatter genre, despite it being considered “an insult even to the most puerile and salacious of audiences” in a Variety review. A later critique described it as “one of the important releases in film history, ushering in a new acceptance of explicit violence that was obviously just waiting to be exploited”. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1929, Lewis studied journalism in college and became a professor of English literature at Mississippi State University. After a spell working at a radio station in Oklahoma, he joined an advertising agency in Chicago, where he made TV commercials in the 50s. With producer David Friedman, Lewis embarked on a string of then-shocking features, which were made for minimal costs and found a ready audience in what would become known as the grindhouse circuit. Initially concentrating on the “nudie-cutie” world of low-budget sex films (such as The Adventures of Lucky Pierre and Boin-n-g), Lewis made his mark with cinematic violence in the mid-60s with Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red. Though regularly accused of technical ineptitude and outrageous taste, the films made money, and Lewis continued to push the envelope through the late 60s and early 70s. Like his contemporary Roger Corman, Lewis’ work was seen as a subversive force as the counter-culture gathered steam. However, Lewis decided to retire from film-making in the early 70s, after realising his style of low-budget horror had run its course, and returned to advertising. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/26/splatter-king-herschell-gordon-lewis-dies-aged-87

There needs to be some differentiation here as far as actors turned singers go. Some teen idols, like James Darren, were strictly actors but recorded at the behest of their studio. Others got their start in musical theater. At least three notable British singers -- Davy Jones (Monkees), Steve Mariott (Small Faces), and Phil Collins (Genesis) got their start playing the Artful Dodger in Oliver! (Jones appeared with the Broadway cast on The Ed Sullivan Show of Feb 9, 1964 -- the same episode The Beatles made their US debut on). Then you have actors who played in bands. Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees was mostly an actor (he played the lead in the TV series Circus Boy), was also a guitarist in a garage band while trying to get work as an actor (he plays a juvenile delinquent in an episode of Peyton Place). Gary Busey, Cliff De Young, Amy Madigan, and Sissy Spacek were singers in bands. Michael McKean (Laverne and Shirley, Spinal Tap) was guitarist in several late '60s rock bands. One of the more curious examples is Mickey Jones. The drummer for acts like Trini Lopez and Johnny Rivers, he replaced Levon Helm as the drummer with the Hawks when they backed up Bob Dylan on his tour of England. He would later play with The First Edition, and then leave the music business to grow a long shabby beard and specialize in playing dirty hippie bikers in TV commercials And don't forget Levon Helm himself, who got a second career out of acting. If he'd come along when westerns were popular he'd probably have gotten even more work.

It's simply a lampoon of Harvard men and their rivalry with Yale (also seen on Gilligan's Island with Thurston Howell III). No need to make any more out of it than that.

A curious bit of music trivia: In 1970 Connie Stevens recorded a song called "Keep Growing Strong": Two years later, the same song would be recorded by the Philly Soul group The Stylistics under the title "Betcha By Golly Wow", and this version would be a #3 pop hit:

A personal favorite of mine: I find this fascinating: Not to mention: As well as: But above all:

This was the original version of the Bacharach-David song: The Carpenters would have a big hit with it seven years later

You can find most if not all of them on YT. Tab Hunter and Shelley Fabares had the biggest hits, both reaching #1 on the pop charts. You would shocked at some of the people who put out records. Such as: Or: Or even: Made #5 on the pop chart!

Hunter essentially launched the "Teen Idol" period of the rock and roll era. Many young actors would release records and some would have hits: Shelly Fabares ("Johnny Angel"), Patty Duke, Sal Mineo, Johnny Crawford, Paul Petersen.... Some of these records were written by talented Brill Building songwriters like Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Although Paul Petersen's biggest hit was the maudlin "My Dad", he later recorded "She Rides With Me", written and produced by Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, which is considered a cult classic:

"Rag" in that sense is not a recent usage. Paul Newman and others in the cast say it in the TV version of Bang The Drum Slowly (1956) One that surprised me was William Campbell in Cell 2455 Death Row (1955, but the scene is set in 1939) talking about getting his hands on some "dead presidents", specifically, "the little pieces of paper with the dead presidents on 'em". I'd had no idea that term went back so far. At that time I hadn't heard Little Walter's classic blues song "Dead Presidents" (1956).

Raymond Griffith (right, with Lew Ayres) in All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

Isn't it used in Anatomy Of A Murder (1959)?

Bobby Breen, the celebrated boy soprano and child actor who appeared in a quick succession of popular 1930s films before puberty set in, has died. He was 88. Breen died Monday of natural causes in a hospital in Pompano Beach, Fla., his daughter-in-law Jackie Howard told The Hollywood Reporter. His wife of 54 years, Audre, had died there three days earlier. Breen's likeness is among those in the crowd pictured on the cover of the 1967 Beatles record Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Film historian Rhett Bartlett notes that there are only five survivors left from that memorable album cover — Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter Dion and sculptor Larry Bell. Born in Canada on Nov. 4, 1927, Breen was pushed by his older sister to become a performer. He came to Hollywood when he was about 8 and sang on Eddie Cantor's weekly radio program. With a reputation as "a boy Shirley Temple," the curly haired, dimpled Breen made his movie debut as an opera singer in Let's Sing Again (1936) for RKO Radio Pictures. The youngster followed with a blitz of top-billed singing roles in such films as Rainbow on the River (1936), Make a Wish (1937) — where he is befriended by a composer played by Basil Rathbone — Hawaii Calls (1938), Way Down South (1939) and Fisherman's Wharf (1939). However, his voice naturally changed as he became a teenager, and following production of Escape to Paradise (1939), he was done with the movies after a small role in Johnny Doughboy (1942), starring Jane Withers. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bobby-breen-dead-soprano-singer-931949

Accordionist Danny Borzage provides music for a community sing on the set of The Searchers http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-obscure-accordionist-who-played-mood-music-on-silent-film-sets

Last non-ironic use of the Psycho house? The Bates place can be seen in episodes of several Universal series of the '60s such as Wagon Train and Shotgun Slade. A Laramie appearance is notable as it used the interior of the house. The last such use I'm aware of is in an episode of Alias Smith & Jones from 1971. When Psycho began paying a lot on TV the house became too iconic for non-referential use.

A thread for the last time something happened onscreen I'll start: The last time someone pronounced ""Los Angeles" with a hard "g"? Im a non-ironic way, that is.. For years I thought it was Ed Begley in his testimony scene in Warning Shot (1967). But a year or two ago I saw a first season (1968-9) episode of The Name Of The Game where guest star John Payne says it that way. Anything more recent?

"Cool" may have been used in the film of Dragnet (1954) in the scene where Friday and partner interview the jazz musician "Groovy" is used in Road To Rio (1947)

First "civilian" use of microfilm? In Pickup On South Street pickpocket R. Widmark robs a spy and inadvertently ends up with some top secret microfilm. To read what it says he goes to the NY Public Library and uses their microfilm machine. When I first saw POSS this was one of the things that stayed in my mind. I hadn't known the general public was using microfilm as early as 1953.

'Liesl' from the Sound of Music, Charmian Carr, has died of complications from a rare form of dementia at the age of 73. Carr was best known for her role as the eldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl, in the academy award winning movie, The Sound of Music. Carr was 21 at the time the movie was filmed, and is famous for singing the beloved song "I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen." After The Sound of Music, Carr also starred opposite Anthony Perkins in the Stephen Sondheim television musical "Evening Primrose." http://www.charmiancarr.com/

ALICE FAYE: I was born in the Virgin Islands SPENCER TRACY: I'm sure you left when you were very young -- Now I'll Tell (1934)

Mr. Mike's Mondo Video has a clip from a 1920s silent stag movie which shows a TV set.

I recall reading it was Marianne Faithfull in I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name, followed by Liz Taylor in Boom.