CelluloidKid
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Posts posted by CelluloidKid
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I read that the film's interiors were shot on a set, at the MGM lot. The original script was only 56-60 pages in length. Blake Edwards later said it was the shortest script he ever shot from, and the majority of the content in the film was improvised on set.
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I found this interesting article ...thought I would pass it along!
Doug Krentzlin
June 29, 2008
*Spellbound,? TCM, Monday, June 30, 2:45 p.m. (EST)*
Although it?s one of his lesser efforts, ?Spellbound? (1945) was director Alfred Hitchcock?s first collaboration with two of the movies? most talented artists: actress Ingrid Bergman and writer Ben Hecht. (The next year, all three reunited for ?Notorious? which is a much better film.)
?Spellbound? is also notable for being one of the first Hollywood movies to deal seriously with the subject of psychoanalysis. Bergman plays Dr. Constance Petersen, a psychiatrist who suspects that Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck), the new head of the sanitarium she works at, is an imposter.
It turns out that he is really John Ballantine, an amnesiac who may have killed the real Dr. Edwardes. Constance, who has fallen in love with Ballantine and believes that he is not capable of committing cold-blooded murder, joins him in his attempt to solve the crime and clear his name.
The surrealistic dream sequences were designed by artist Salvador Dali. The supporting cast includes Hitchcock favorite Leo G. Carroll, Michael Chekhov, Rhonda Fleming and Norman Lloyd (who later became the associate producer of Hitchcock?s long-running television series).
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*Others that I would like to see:*
*Linda Darnell*
*Ann Sothern*
*Thelma Ritter*
*Victor Mature*
*Alice Faye*
*Dana Andrews*
*Jeff Chandler*
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New Word.....Kitten
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requisit or is the word "requisite"..?? ...hmm "Sadie McKee"....
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I love TCM, but I wish TCM would more hard to find films! I'm tireed of seeing the same films over ...and over...and over!
I agree what was up W./"Rush Hour 2"!?
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I found this interesting article ...thought I would pass it along!
June 28, 2008
Doug Krentzlin
To this day, Danny Kaye remains one of the movies? most beloved comedians and the 1947 classic ?The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,? based (loosely) on the short story by James Thurber, is his funniest film ever.
Mitty is a milquetoast copy editor for a pulp magazine publisher who is bullied by every one around him: his domineering mother (Fay Bainter), his spoiled fianc?e (Ann Rutherford) and her mother (Florence Bates), his so-called ?friend? (Gordon Jones) and his pompous, credit-stealing boss (Thurston Hall).
To escape from his mundane existence, Mitty is constantly day-dreaming in the style of the pulp magazine stories he edits. One day, he has the opportunity to live out his dreams in real life when he comes to the rescue of damsel in distress Rosalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo) who is the target of international spies in pursuit of hidden Nazi art treasures.
One of the best things about ?The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? is that the head villain is played by Hollywood?s most talented boogeyman, Boris Karloff. As the sinister Dr. Hugo Hollingshead, Karloff does a hilarious self-parody (?I know of a way to kill a man and leave no trace?).
Directed by comedy veteran Norman Z. McLeod (whose other films include ?Road to Rio? with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope) and photographed in gorgeous Technicolor, ?The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? also features Kaye?s signature song from his early Broadway days, ?Anatole of Paris? written by Sylvia Fine (Mrs. Kaye).
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I rented "The Spiral Staircase" some years back! The main reason I 1st saw "The Spiral Staircase" was Elsa Lanchester. I'm a huge Elsa fan! But WOW! When I saw the film for the 1st time, it had me on the edge of my seat!
I would hate to be in some spooky England mansion during a thunderstorm while a killer was on the loose! Very effective black and white photography too.
The only problem it was a little to easy to pick out the killer, but still a very effective thriller!
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*George C. Scott*
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I found this interesting article ...thought I would pass it along!
Doug Krentzlin
June 27, 2008
*The Spiral Staircase,? TCM, Saturday, June 28, 8 p.m. (EST)*
Director Robert Siodmak was one of the many German filmmakers who emigrated to Hollywood when the Nazis took over. After making a few B-movies, most notably the underrated ?Son of Dracula? (1943), Siodmak graduated to a series of superb A-budget thrillers including ?Phantom Lady? (1944), ?The Killers? (1946) and ?Criss Cross? (1949).
?The Spiral Staircase? (1945) is easily Siodmak?s scariest picture. In a small New England town circa 1916, a homicidal maniac is murdering handicapped women and mute servant girl Helen (Dorothy McGuire) is a prime candidate to be the next victim.
To make matters worse, the family Helen works for live in an old mansion isolated miles from town. The bulk of the film takes place on a single evening during, of course, a raging thunderstorm, setting the stage for a good old-fashioned ?old dark house? horror story.
The first-rate supporting cast includes George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith, Rhonda Fleming, Elsa Lanchester, Sara Allgood and Rhys Williams.
Ethel Barrymore was nominated for an Academy Award, Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
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I always liked Errol Flynn as Robin Hood!
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Still sad the eatery is gone! I ate there once a couple of Summers Back! Nice place, the owners were really cool people! I grew up W./the film "Top Gun", it's a part of film history!
Sad that a another piece of Hollywood History is gone!
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The film accumulated over $350 million world-wide....Also
The AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list had the line "I feel the need ? the need for speed!" from Top Gun on the list.
'Top Gun' is a "Contemporary Classic"!
*The film was nominated for the following awards:*
*Academy Award (1987)*
Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing - Cecelia Hall and George Watters II
Best Film Editing - Billy Weber and Chris Lebenzon
Best Sound - Donald O. Mitchell, Kevin O'Connell, Rick Kline and William B. Kaplan
Best Music, Original Song Giorgio Moroder (music), Tom Whitlock (lyrics)
*Apex Scroll Awards (1986)*
Actress in a Supporting Role- Meg Ryan
Film Editing - Billy Weber and Chris Lebenzon
Best Original Song - Motion Picture - Giorgio Moroder (music) and Tom Whitlock (lyrics) for the song "Take My Breath Away".
Best Picture - Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer
Achievement in Compilation Soundtrack
Achievement in Sound
*Golden Globe (1988)*
Best Original Score - Motion Picture - Harold Faltermeyer
*Award of the Japanese Academy (1988)*
Best Foreign Language Film
*Fennecus Awards (1986)*
Achievement in Compilation Soundtrack
Best Original Song - Motion Picture - Giorgio Moroder (music) and Tom Whitlock (lyrics) for the song "Take My Breath Away".
Film Editing - Billy Weber and Chris Lebenzon
Achievement in Sound
Achievement in Sound Effects
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Found this sad :LO( article....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1NqVsmMq_U&feature=related
*On the heels of the terrible Universal Studios fire comes word of another landmark movie location gone up in flames. San Diego's Kansas City Barbeque, which can be seen in Top Gun (watch one of its memorable scenes, dubbed in Italian, above), was been gutted by a fire that started yesterday in an open cooking pit*.
According to the AP article reporting on the fire, the restaurant was used for the scene in which Maverick (Tom Cruise) first picks up Charlie (Kelly McGillis) by singing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," but this is incorrect (that scene was shot in Coronado, at the Officer's Club at Naval Air Station North Island). Kansas City Barbeque was used for the above scene in which Goose (Anthony Edwards) and Maverick are singing "Great Balls of Fire," as well as the final scene when "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" is playing on the jukebox.
The restaurant had capitalized on the fact that Top Gun was filmed there, and as you can see on its website, people referred to it as the "Top Gun Bar." You could even purchase Top Gun merchandise there and see props from the film, including the piano that Goose plays on and the jukebox from the end. Although the fire was reportedly extinguished in only 20 minutes, the restaurant has been destroyed and apparently those props are now lost forever.
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*Thunder Road tour stops in Cumberland Gap*
By Andrea Schneider/Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
CUMBERLAND GAP ? A caravan of classic cars made their way to Knoxville, Tenn., this past Saturday in honor of the debut of the 1958 classic ?Thunder Road? at the Tennessee Theatre?s Summer Movie Magic classic film series. While on the way to Knoxville the caravan made two stops in Claiborne County.
The town of Cumberland Gap was the first stop for the caravan, which later traveled to the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. Classic cars lined the streets of Cumberland Gap early Saturday morning giving residents the chance to walk up and down the street and get a close up look.
James Mitchum, son of Robert Mitchum, rode in the lead car of the caravan and while the cars were parked Mitchum walked around town chatting with people and posing for a picture or two.
Robert Mitchum, James? father, played Lucas Doolin the lead character in "Thunder Road" and wrote the original story. It is also believed that he directed a large portion of the film. James Mitchum also had a role in the film alongside his father. He played Robin Doolin, Lucas? younger brother.
Thunder Road tells the story of a veteran (Lucas Doolin) who comes home from the Korean War and takes over the family moonshining business. The film was a drive-in hit in 1958 and this year marks its 50th anniversary.
Photos: James Mitchum, far left, talks with people in the town of Cumberland Gap. Mitchum was part of the Thunder Road caravan that made a local visit. Older model cars lined the streets of Cumberland Gap during the caravan?s visit. (ANDREA SCHNEIDER/Claiborne Progress)
http://www.claiborneprogress.net/articles/2008/06/25/news/news997thunderroad.txt
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I found this interesting article ...thought I would pass it along!
June 26, 2:22 PM
Doug Krentzlin
The Band Wagon,? TCM, Friday, June 27, 10 p.m. (EST)
This Friday, in honor of late, great dancer Cyd Charisse, who passed away last week, TCM is showing three of the musicals she did for MGM in the 1950s, including her first starring role (and best movie ever) ?The Band Wagon? (1953).
?The Band Wagon? is one of those films, like ?The Maltese Falcon? and ?Some Like It Hot,? where just about everybody involved does the finest work of their career. It is certainly the best collaboration between two legends of the musical genre, hoofer Fred Astaire and director Vincente Minnelli.
Astaire plays has-been Hollywood star Tony Hunter who hopes to revive his popularity by returning to Broadway in a new musical written by his friends Lester and Lily Marton (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray in essence portraying the screenplay?s authors, Adolph Green and Betty Comden).
The Martons have entrusted the staging of their show to wunderkind actor/director/producer Jeffrey Cordova (a combination caricature of Orson Welles and Jose Ferrer played by British song-and-dance man Jack Buchanan). Two of Cordova?s inspirations include casting prima ballerina Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse) as the female lead (good idea) and turning the show into a pretentious Faust allegory (really bad idea).
As clever as the script is, the main attractions are the exquisitely performed musical numbers (written by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz) including ?That?s Entertainment,? ?A Shine on Your Shoes,? ?Dancing in the Dark? and the greatest grand finale in the history of movie musicals ?The Girl Hunt Ballet? (pictured below), a parody of film noirs with Astaire as private eye Rod Riley and Charisse in a dual role as good girl and femme fetale. Now, that?s entertainment!
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*"The King and I" Will be on Encore Love*
*on Friday, June 27th 2008 @ 05:30am!*
Stars: Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr with Rita Moreno, Terry Saunders, Martin Benson, Rex Thompson, Patrick Adiarte, Alan Mowbray and Geoffrey Toone.
*Academy Awards:*
The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five.
*Wins:*
Best Actor - Yul Brynner
Best Art Direction - John DeCuir and Lyle R. Wheeler
Best Costume Design, Color - Irene Sharaff
Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture - Alfred Newman and Ken Darby
Sound Recording - Carlton W. Faulkner
*Nominations:*
Best Actress - Deborah Kerr
Best Cinematography, Color - Leon Shamroy
Best Director - Walter Lang
Best Picture - Charles Brackett
*Brynner was one of seven actors to win the Tony and the Oscar for the same role.*
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*REMEMBER MY MOVIE FRIENDS.......*
"The Hollywood Revue" Will be Shown on:
August 4, 2008 @ 3:00am. Arizona (PT) Time!
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*_'The Party'_ to Remember: Blake Edwards' Cult Classic Turns 40!*
*Forty Years Ago, Peter Sellers and Our Honorary Mayor Starred in the Ultimate Hollywood Satire*
June 25, 2008
Forget 'The Love Guru.' And when the 'Borat' version surfaces, rent it when it comes to DVD.
There's no way either of these derivatives can rival the genuine article, arguably the best party movie and the funniest Hollywood send-up ever to come out of Hollywood.
'If I was going to do anything with any kind of commerciality, it would be that kind of comedy,' filmmaker Blake Edwards told the Palisadian-Post regarding his 1968 feature, _'The Party_,' starring Peter Sellers and Claudine Longet. 'The Party' screens July 16 at the Aero Theatre on Montana Avenue, as part of a month-long American Cinematheque retrospective of Edwards' films in July.
Now recall that playing opposite Sellers''the klutzy cultural outsider Hrundi V. Bakshi''was our current honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades. Yes, Gavin MacLeod portrayed Hrundi's foil, enervated movie producer Charlie S. Divot.
'He kept you on his toes,' MacLeod, 77, recalled of acting with the late, great British comic actor. 'You never knew what he was gonna do.'
Remember that confrontation in which Divot shouts at Sellers' party-crasher, 'You're meshuggah!' To which a defensive Hrundi responds in his innocent East Indian lilt: 'I'm not your sugar!'
'Improvised!' MacLeod revealed.
On the 40th anniversary of this Hollywood comedy, let's take a behind-the-scenes look at the movie that still has a small legion of devoted fans saying, 'Birdie num num!'
Gwen Deglise, Aero programmer for the Cinematheque, which screens _'The Party'_ often, believes that the film's 'strong slapstick comedy' keeps local film buffs coming back. 'It's a great draw. Being in Hollywood and being in Los Angeles, it's delicious. _'The Party'_ is something that needs to be seen on the big screen with an audience.'
'The Party' originally hit theaters in April 1968, sandwiched in-between installments of those more-famous Edwards/Sellers 'Pink Panther' collaborations. But this comedy almost did not reach movie screens.
*Both its star and its director were considered movie-industry liabilities. Sellers' health problems, coupled with his unpredictable personality, had contributed to Hollywood's wariness to bankrolling his films. Meanwhile, as 'Party''s producer, Walter Mirisch, writes in his recently published memoir, _'I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History_,' 'Blake had achieved a reputation as a very expensive director, particularly after 'The Great Race.''*
The 'Panther' pair was also feuding'with each other. But when Edwards gleaned his idea for 'Party' from one of several characters that Sellers portrayed in 'The Millionairess,' he could not deny that Sellers was the only man to play Hrundi. Likewise, when Sellers read Edwards' 63-page script, he loved it.
'These two men, who had vowed not to work together again, now couldn't wait to get started,' Mirisch wrote.
'To make the project more palatable to United Artists,' Mirisch continued, 'I succeeded in getting Peter and Blake to agree that if the cost exceeds $3 million, they would pledge their salaries toward the completion of the picture.'
Shot in June and July of 1967''on an old Samuel Goldwyn soundstage in West Hollywood'''The Party' was, by all accounts, a party-of-a-shoot, with Rita Hayworth's teenage daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Kahn, among the movie's partying extras, and three celebrity romances blossoming during the shoot.
What made 'The Party' such a magical movie was not its story but the details. Thin on plot, the Tinseltown satire follows Hrundi, a star-struck movie extra from India, as he unwittingly crashes a Hollywood party and inadvertently wreaks havoc on said shindig at a state-of-the-art mansion, equipped with electronically controlled gimmicks such as retracting bar counters, overhead speakers, and floors opening up to reveal a swimming pool. Against all odds, our accidental party-crasher finds love in na've French songbird Michele Monet (Claudine Longet). However, the hapless aspiring recording artist is dating Divot on the promise of career advancement. Hrundi wins over fellow cultural outsider Michele, even after inadvertently taking down the place by tinkering with the mansion's control box, and accidentally destroying the toilet, which floods the place.
Rivaling Sellers with one of 'The Party''s stand-out performances: Steve Franken as the increasingly inebriated butler, slathering on a layer of slapstick to the proceedings with his incontinent antics. Franken's interaction with his vexed supervisor, his drunken stroll through the shallow indoor pool, his struggle to rescue the roast chicken perched precariously atop a bewigged socialite's bouffant hairdo''all comedy gold.
Also memorable: Denny Miller as the culturally insensitive John Wayne-esque cowboy actor with the bone-crushing handshake, Wyoming Bill Kelso, and J. Edward McKinley as gruff studio head Fred Clutterbuck, whose home becomes chaos central. Oh, yeah''there's also a scene-stealing parrot ('Birdie num num!'), a painted elephant, and mad Russian dancers.
'We opened the door and we come in''the crazy Russians''and I'm the one in the red turtleneck,' said Yuri Smaltzoff, who portrayed Danilo. 'We had a dance scene that we filmed on the green. About 5 ' 7 minutes of dancing. I did all kinds of turns, closer to what's now breakdancing.'
An accomplished dancer who, from 1964-2004, ran the Ballet and Dance Art school in West Hollywood, Smaltzoff, 69, now resides in Studio City. But he was living in Beverly Hills when he got the call in 1967 from a friend performing in San Francisco that producers of a new movie were looking for some Russian dancers.
'We had just come to the United States at the end of 1963,' Smaltzoff recalls. 'I was working at the Metropolitan Opera here and doing the Pacific Dance Theatre and so on. 'There was a whole bunch of people, mostly American dancers' at the West Hollywood audition, recalled Smaltzoff, who landed a three-week dancing contract. 'We did not formally rehearse for the movie. Everyone was a pro.'
Smaltzoff (who, incidentally, appeared in a 1971 episode of 'Mission Impossible', starring the Palisadian Peter Graves, also titled 'The Party') remembered being on stand-by, watching them shoot 'the food scenes, with Stephen Franken and Peter Sellers doing his improvisations, and the chicken flying onto the woman's wig.
'When Claudine was singing, Peter would come out from behind the bushes, during that scene when he had to go to the bathroom ' it was all improvised.' Every time Sellers came up with new shtick, 'he had a [script] lady with a telephone book sized book and she would put it in the script.'
'The Party' was the first time people knew Blake was dating Julie [Andrews, who wed Edwards in 1969],' MacLeod recalled.
'I've been on many films since then and before,' Smaltzoff said. 'He kept a familial atmosphere. Every day, Julie Andrews was there just to watch Blake work.'
Another on-set presence was Sellers' third wife, Britt Ekland.
'She worried about him,' Smaltzoff said of the Swedish actress. The scene in which Sellers climbs out of a bathroom window and onto a roof, after busting the toilet and flooding the place, made Ekland nervous. 'They had big arguments. They were very temperamental, but she loved him and she was there every single day.'
Longet's great love, Andy Williams, was also present every day, 'dressed to the teeth, shaved, wearing very expensive stuff, shirts made out of snakeskin,' according to Smaltzoff. 'He was doting on her.'
'As soon as I got on the set,' Smaltzoff continued, 'we dancers wanted to be fit. I would do my warm-up. I had the girls join in. Claudine and the girls [were excercising] with it me.'
Evidently, more than a few crew members noticed.
'Blake called me in. I thought I was in trouble. He said to me, 'You know, you solved my problem. From the moment you came on the set, the crew didn't go out for lunch. They wanted to see the girls exercising. Now they're on time and I don't have to argue with them to come back from lunch.''
During lunch breaks, the famous actresses''Andrews, Longet and Ekland''formed a clique.
'They called it the Num Num Club,' Smaltzoff said. 'The girls would put food on this big table, where at the end was the parrot in the cage [from the 'Birdie num num' scene). They'd bring in homemade food in brown bags. They would switch the bags. They'd compete making the meals, desserts. This Num Num Club was a big deal on the set, which shows you the comaraderie. Truly a family affair.'
Edwards even stuck his fiddle-playing doctor into the film as a violinist.
Smaltzoff was originally contracted as a dancer for three weeks, but he also wound up collecting hazard pay and acting wages (as well as SAG membership) for playing opposite Sellers in a scene cut from the film. He made enough money to send his mother to Europe with $1,000, and he still receives 'Party' residuals''as recently as last month.
For this film, the party actually started a year before with the release of the 1967 film that Edwards (by his own admission) pays homage to: French actor/director Jacques Tati's 'Play Time.' Considered the iconic Tati's masterpiece, 'Play Time' is playful yet an ominous and prescient glimpse into society's increasingly technology-dependent future. 'Play Time' featured the return of Tati's signature character from 'Mr. Hulot's Holiday' and 'My Uncle' (years later, the Hulot character would inspire an English version in Mr. Bean). Tati painstakingly built the film's elaborate Modernist sets from scratch, including the climax's nightclub. In fact, the long 'Play Time' shoot (1964-67) bankrupted Tati for a decade afterwards.
Unfortunately for its director, 'Play Time' hit theaters during the student riots of 1967 and tanked at the French box office. But Edwards, who had seen an early cut, was quick to embrace the genius in Tati's epic and champion the 70 mm cosmopolitan comedy, which utilizes language only as atmospheric flourishes. Edwards was so taken by 'Play Time''s style that he originally intended to shoot his 'Party' sans dialogue''which explains why passages hang exclusively on Sellers' and Franken's physical comedy.
'I loved it,' Edwards, 85, told the Post, of Tati's film. 'How I transferred that adoration to 'The Party,' I'm not sure. When I was a kid, I had absorbed Laurel and Hardy, along with so many of those great silent films. It's just a whole body of things that informed it.'
Edwards paused, looked over at Andrews, and added, perhaps half-joking, 'The two people I found most inspirational on the movie were my therapist and my wife.'
Prior to the 1970s, when his star soared with a pair of memorable long-running TV roles, MacLeod had a long association with 'The Party''s legendary director, going back to movies 'High Time' and 'Operation Petticoat,' and the 'Peter Gunn' TV pilot. Naturally, MacLeod knew Edwards' career-long composer, Henry Mancini, who scored 'Party.' Mancini composed 'Tipsy' for Bugsy McKenna, MacLeod's inebriated bad guy on 'Mr. Lucky.'
'He was a director who trusted when you brought ideas,' MacLeod said of Edwards. 'Nothing was as loose as 'The Party.' You could rehearse it and then do it. He was innovative.'
MacLeod was 36, married with four kids, and living in Granada Hills when Edwards phoned in 1967.
'He said, 'I want you to do this character,'' MacLeod recalled. 'He sent me three pages. It was basically just an outline.
'Of course, that was what Sellers worked from. Blake had a monitor on top of the camera, we'd rehearse it, but redo the whole thing.'
Smaltzoff recalled that Edwards was the first filmmaker he had ever seen 'with a huge console' videotaping the dailies instead of waiting for filmed scenes to be developed, a process Jerry Lewis invented while directing 'The Ladies' Man.'
'Party''s opening, the doomed film shoot (one of the great comedy set-ups not to be ruined here), was filmed in Lancaster.
'Outside of the mansion, when I drove the Bentley in,' MacLeod recalled, 'that was way up in the Trousdale Estates, but the mansion set itself was all built on the [Goldwyn] soundstage.'
Despite Sellers' dark-skinned impersonation of an East Indian, 'The Party' is too sweet-natured to be racially insensitive.
Lest anyone be annoyed with Sellers' sympathetic portrayal of Hrundi (owner of a three-wheeler Morgan and a monkey named Apu), they will probably hit the roof over the Hindi caricatures in the just-released 'Love Guru.' Edwards appears to be editorializing via Miller's boorish movie star with the bone-crushing handshake, who seems to encapsulate a certain brand of culturally tone-deaf Americanism that wreaks of condescension and ignorance, as he refers to Hrundi as an 'Injun,' 'cute little fella,' and 'critter.' If anything, 'Party' sides with its dark horse protagonist, who ultimately triumphs over the patronizing partiers and wins Michele's comely hand.
Jason Simos, American representative for the Peter Sellers Appreciation Society (www.petersellersappreciationsociety.com), works in publicity for Focus Features in New York. As he views it, 'Bakshi may be marginalized and (hilariously) disaster-prone, but, as he says late in the film in response to Divot's question/attack, 'Who do you think you are!' ' 'I do not think; I know who I am.''
The anarchic party motif appears to run throughout Edwards' oeuvre, from 'Breakfast at Tiffany's,' to 'Pink Panther' to 'What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?' Yet none could top 'Party''s over-the-top finale.
By the film's third act, those crazed Russians arrived to throw the mansion party into overdrive, and Clutterbuck's daughter returns with her college friends and a hippie-fied baby elephant painted over with peace slogans. When Hrundi explains that, where he comes from, elephant desecration is verboten, the teens giddily embark on washing the elephant, kicking up a soap storm of suds that overtakes the entire mansion. As the movie''and the bubbles''reach a crescendo, so does the chaos. Yes, this is one of those films where every character''including the elephant''falls into the swimming pool.
'It would take half a day or more to get the water out, and clean the pool [of elephant ****],' Smaltzoff said.
Miraculously, 'Party' came in just under $3 million.
April 4, 1968. 'The Party''s Westwood premiere was a muted affair, dampened by Martin Luther King's assassination that day. Talk about a 'Party'-killer!
At the time of its release, 'Party' garnered mixed reviews. Roger Ebert loved the film, save his reservations with the overstuffed ending. A Time magazine critic cited 'Party''s 'occasional humor,' commenting, 'most of the evening is just about as trite and tedious as a real-life party would have been with such a stereotyped guest list'the ad-lib approach'is not a swinging riot of originals but a parade of old reliables'This party, in short, is strictly for those who don't get around much.' The Village Voice's Elliott Stein wrote, "This overextended farce is an ingratiating tribute to silent slapstick comedy."
'I thought 'The Party' was going to be very successful financially, as well as critically,' Mirisch wrote, 'but it proved to be disappointing. It has, however, developed a good deal of cult status over the years.'
According to Simos, Stella McCartney, whose father, the Beatle Paul, was a friend of Sellers, recently hosted a celebrity-packed screening of 'The Party' at her Beverly Hills boutique.
'They could've done three films with the material they shot,' Smaltzoff observes. 'That's why they made those 'Pink Panther' films with the outtakes after Peter died.'
Today, talk of a 'Party' remake persists, with Sasha Baron Cohen ('Borat') attached. However, MacLeod, like many film buffs, is not eager to see Hollywood throw another 'Party.'
'There was an innocence about the movie,' MacLeod said, 'even with that toilet scene,' alluding to Sellers' Keaton-esque attempt to contain toilet paper roll that won't stop rolling. MacLeod feels that Edwards' idiosyncratic touches will get lost in the generational translation.
'I enjoyed working with Peter so much,' MacLeod said. 'It was just an honor to play with him. He was so gifted.'
By many accounts, including a recent HBO biopic, Sellers was difficult, and his professional relationship with Edwards was only one of convenience, furthered by the success of each 'Panther' movie. Smaltzoff does not remember witnessing tension between them.
'Peter had already had a heart attack just three months before and he was already a changed man,' Smaltzoff said. 'He would get nervous and cut people off. He would go talk on the phone'But when he came to work, Blake let him do whatever he wanted. Blake was an actor's director.'
Edwards offered the Post his slightly less diplomatic perspective.
'If I had one person that I would've liked killed, it would start with Peter Sellers and it would end with Peter Sellers.'
*'The Party' screens on Wednesday, July 16, 9:30 p.m. at the Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. Call (310) 260-1528. Tickets: $10. The film follows a 7:30 p.m. screening of Edwards' S.O.B. (1981). For a complete listing of American Cinematheque's month-long July tribute to Edwards, visit www.AmericanCinematheque.com.*
Michael Aushenker, Staff Writer
http://www.palisadespost.com/content/index.cfm?Story_ID=4048
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Fritz Lang's classic 1927 epic _Metropolis_, for years available only on home video only as a scratchy, washed-out print, has been painstakingly restored frame by frame and is due to be released on high-definition Blu-ray disc in 2009, according to Kino International, the New York-based distributor of art-house-type home videos. The film was restored to mark the 75th anniversary in 2002 of the silent movie's original release and included a new soundtrack based on
the original score created for the movie.
*Did You Know?*
*There is a legend that Metropolis was one of Adolph Hitler's favorite films, and he approached Fritz Lang to produce Nazi propoganda films, for the promotion of his dark agenda. That Lang was in fact Jewish, seemed to evade Hitler's ego or wit, or both.*
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*"Judgment at Nuremberg"* Will Be Shown On Encore Drama
on Thursday, June 26, 2008 @ 7:50am (PT) Arizona Time!
Directed by Stanley Kramer.
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Werner Klemperer, and William Shatner.
Per Wikipedia (& Other Sources)..
Originally written for television, the film depicts the trial of certain judges who executed Nazi law. Such a trial did occur: the film was inspired by the Judges' Trial before the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in 1947. By the time the film was made, all of the convicts had already been released, including four of them who were sentenced to life in prison. A key thread in the film's plot involves a "race defilement" trial known as the "Feldenstein case". In this fictionalized case, based on the real life Katzenberger Trial, an elderly Jewish man was tried for an improper relationship with an "Aryan" woman, and put to death in 1942.
The movie won the Academy Award for Best Actor (Maximilian Schell) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Spencer Tracy), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Montgomery Clift), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Judy Garland), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture. This is one of the few times that a film had multiple entries in the same category (Tracy and Schell for Best Actor), and Schell was the first Best Actor winner to be billed fifth. Many of the big name actors who appeared in the film did so for a fraction of their usual salaries because they believed so deeply in the social importance of the project.
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Wednesday June 25, 2008
*July is just around the corner, and that means sweating with the classics on the nation's lawn, the National Mall, for the 'Screen on the Green' outdoor film festival in Washington, DC.*
July can be unbearably hot in Your Nation's Capital, but still, this is a classic movie experience not to be missed. There's nowhere else you can watch a great movie in the great outdoors with Washington's marble edifices glittering in the night around you. And as dusk descends and the opening credits roll, the heat will ease. Maybe.
This year's lineup is terrific, starting with the very first James Bond film, Dr. No, a fitting tribute in the centennial of Bond author Ian Fleming's birth. Washington has to have a political flick, so this year it's The Candidate with Robert Redford. And my favorite Billy Wilder movie, The Apartment, a cynical yet somehow uplifting love story.
The schedule runs Monday nights, July 7 to August 11, 2008.
http://dc.about.com/od/specialevents/a/Screengreen.htm
The U.S. Capitol at dusk - movie time! By Uyen Le, Getty Images
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Time After Time W./Malcolm McDowell
Scheduled for Release on 9-2-2008
Who Would You Like to See Featured as Star of the Month?
in General Discussions
Posted
*Peter Sellers*