Mr. Gorman

Movies I've seen the most times . . . hmm . . . EVILSPEAK (1981-Horror) GAS (1981-Comedy) A Canadian movie set in an "average" American town The Secret of NIMH (1982-Animated) SCAVENGER HUNT (1979-Comedy) BREAKHEART PASS (1976-Western) BULLITT (1968) IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)

MICKEY ROONEY and SAMMY DAVIS, Jr. remind me of one another because neither man could ever sit still for long. Always busy doing something . . . in Mickey's case by the 1970s it was appearing in a number of low-budget, low-grade movies just to keep moving and get a paycheck -- even if just a small ticket at the pay window.

Before he featured on the hit TV series NIGHT COURT he had all kinds of parts -- large and small -- in various movies and television productions. I remember Charles Robinson had a miniscule part in the 1982 TVM "Rehearsal For Murder" as a policeman. However, in the 1975 movie THE BLACK GESTAPO he had quite a big part. I just saw Mr. Robinson in an episode of CANNON last week from 1975. He played a drug dealer (with wild mutton-chop sideburns).

Speaking of DIVINE (Harris Glenn Milstead) . . . I've saved a newspaper article for over 33 years now. From the 'ACCENT' Section of The Palm Beach Post, Wednesday, March 9, 1988. The headline read: Divine's career was 'ready to take off'. And then underneath the headline in smaller print it read: 'Hairspray' actor's death comes at brink of success. There was also a black-and-white picture of Divine (as himself) with a caption underneath that read: "Divine was most disturbed by being labeled a transvestite. The word refers to someone who lives in drag. "I'm not a transvestite" he said. "It's part of the act . . . many of the different characters I do are women". I had seen LUST IN THE DUST on cable not long before Divine died and I'd never heard of him/her -- I didn't know who Divine was at the time. Shortly thereafter I read he died when I looked at the 'ACCENT' Section of the Post that day. The article mentioned "HAIRSPRAY is scheduled to open locally Friday" (which would have been March 11, 1988-- Divine died March 7 at 42). I noted the paper also said "the Baltimore-born actor, who died Monday of apparent asphyxiation, had spent nearly three decades on the fringes of the entertainment industry". There was also a telephone interview in the article Divine had done just before leaving for Los Angeles to appear in "Married . . . With Children". Divine had begun making inroads in "mainstream" entertainment . . . and then it was over. Just like that due to sleep apnea.

@Shank Asu: I have a 1982 '20th Century Fox Video' release of STAR WARS on VHS. That's the only version I'll watch. Obviously not in W/S, but that's the way it went back then. I don't know of any W/S VHS releases from back that far. @Sans Fin: I like your 'considered opinion'. Makes sense to me. 👍

I was thinking . . . if Anthony Perkins had played a manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken in the movie instead of a construction worker would the title have been "REMEMBER MY GIBLETS"? Just a thought.

I don't know that he was supposed to be a 'Sex Symbol'? He's the star of the movie and all, but I don't think Anthony was meant to be a 'sex symbol'. (Although some chicks dig skinny dudes . . . ).

You can see a bigger part by Mitchum in 1977's THE AMSTERDAM KILL. → He goes Guantanamo on the Bad Guys at the end with a forklift in a green house. It's quite something to see.

Why didn't the makers of BOOM! hire Margaret Hamilton to play 'The Witch'? Seems logical enough to me if Katharine Hepburn turned them down.

I rather like WARNING SHOT (1967). Think I've seen it 5 times at this point. The run time of 100 minutes was no accident since it was originally shot for television -- although I don't understand how it could have been filmed in W/S if it was intended for TV? That does not compute. MIRAGE (1965) gives off a kind of noir-ish feeling in B&W. I know TCM has aired "Mirage" before; licensed from Universal, I reckon. Noir-y movies are mostly a lot of fun to watch.

7 versions of BLADE RUNNER . . . I knew there were a lot of different versions of "Blade Runner" extant. Just like STAR WARS. I've lost count of how many different versions of Star Wars (1977) are floating around in the Cosmos. I noted director ALAN RUDOLPH was mentioned above; I liked Welcome to L.A. (1977), but Afterglow I found unsatisfying -- I didn't hate it or anything that bad, but I wasn't pleased and have not re-visited it since. Those are the only two Alan Rudolph-directed movies I've seen.

ROD TAYLOR and WILLIAM SMITH had quite the brawl in the 1970 movie "DARKER THAN AMBER". Lots of real punches and fighting was going on during that scene!

Was 'ALAN AUTRY' billed as 'CARLOS BROWN' in REMEMBER MY NAME (1978)? I recall the 1981 movie SOUTHERN COMFORT and he was billed as 'Carlos Brown' -- which may be his real name? I suspect he picked 'Alan Autry' as a stage name. ALSO: Didn't he become the mayor of Fresno, California at some time? Without cheating and going to Wikipedia and looking I think Alan Autry won the mayorship of Fresno some 20 years ago.

Susan Cabot didn't die from suicide, btw. I've never seen any reports that she died from suicide. Her son killed her when she apparently attacked him in an irrational rage.

@37Kitties: If you live in the USA you can find MY FIRST WIFE (1984-Aus) for sale on Amazon. AMAZON doesn't make it easy to find VHS listings anymore, but the movie was released by 'CONTINENTAL Home Video' circa 1986. It has been OOP for years as you probably have guessed -- but "My First Wife" can be found depending on the budget you have at your disposal. So should you journey to Amazon and narrow your search to 'Movies & Tv' and then type "vhs MY FIRST WIFE" in the subject line it will come up for sale. You might have to scroll down the listings a little bit -- but the listing is there and there's 2 of them for sale. One is $27.00 + $3.99 shipping and the other is $28.75 + $3.99 shipping. There are times when Amazon has VHS tapes for sale that are not currently found on eBay; however, nowadays Amazon makes it tricky to find certain VHS releases of movies that are for sale. Maybe the geniuses who run Amazon think every movie that's ever been issued on VHS has subsequently been released on DVD and/or Blu-Ray, which is definitely not the case. → Recently, I bought a Columbia VHS tape from Amazon of the 1978 television movie "A FAMILY UPSIDE DOWN" starring Fred Astaire and Helen Hayes. I did not find it on eBay for sale, but I checked Amazon and there was one for sale so I snagged it a few days ago and it will hopefully arrive next week. I'd almost forgotten that the tape I already had of this tele-film was a ropey copy and not a genuine 'Columbia' videocassette . . . so I figured I'd better try and find a *proper* tape before the VHS release just disappears into the mist. It looked to be a genuine tape I bought. I'm keeping my fingers xxx crossed xxx, anyway! There are lots of hard-to-find VHS goodies sitting for sale on Amazon because it is simply difficult to locate some of them; I have found that it helps if I type vhs A FAMILY UPSIDE DOWN on the subject line instead of merely "A FAMILY UPSIDE DOWN". --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALSO: Anyone else remember the 1978 movie SLOW DANCING IN THE BIG CITY? I taped it off Cinemax all the way back in 2004 because it had never been made available on ßETA, VHS, DVD and has not been made available on Blu-Ray or 4K in the years since as far as I know. I suspect the music rights have kept SLOW DANCING IN THE BIG CITY off of any homevideo mediums to date. I remember hearing the song "I Feel The Earth Move" by Carole King in the movie; Anne Ditchburn rehearses to it. Apparently, music rights issues have kept a small-ish number of movies off of DVD and/or Blu-Ray discs that had VHS releases such as LITTLE DARLINGS (Paramount), LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (Paramount), AMERICAN HOT WAX (Fotomat).

I've seen THE GLORY STOMPERS before. It's a barrel of (very) low-grade fun if you're in the right mood. 😀

The gas tank on a '67 Lincoln was on the side of the car; the suicide-door Lincoln pictured above was seeking passengers! The gas tank on my (much cheaper) '64 Falcon is ^above^ the license plate. EDIT: I forgot to mention → on a '67 Lincoln the hood did not open from the front of the car; it opened from the windshield wiper area. Very different. I'd pop the hood from inside the car and then get out and lift it up. The hood was heavy.

@HIBI. The 4-door Lincoln Continentals made from 1961-69 had center-opening rear doors. I don't actually know where the term "suicide doors" originated, but the term stuck for those Lincolns and various other vehicles over the years which had center-opening rear doors. Lincoln went back to the standard 4-door cars for model year 1970. The '67 Lincoln weighed over 5000 pounds, had a '462' engine and was a really big car. Felt like floating on a cloud at 75 mph with the thirsty '462' motoring down the highway. Gas mileage was not a concern for this car -- if a person could afford the Lincoln then they could afford the gas (which was much cheaper then); the Linc probably got 8 mpg around town and 11/12 mpg on the highway.

I can ID some of the cars in the pictures above. That cream-colored car is a Buick. The brown car is a 1970 Ford and the yellow-ish car to its right looks like a Plymouth. I've always liked "Land Yachts" . . . I used to own one: A 1967 Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors. I wished I didn't have to sell it, but I didn't drive it enough and it's hungry 'n' thirsty '462' needed to be driven. Contrast that with the '170' in my '64 Falcon. I'm a sucker for big ol' cars from the mid-60s through the late '70s.

That looks like a '78 or '79 T-Bird incarnation from FoMoCo. I remember when I was a mean widdle kid those opera windows were a 'thing' on various FORD products.

@slaytonf: Well, shucks, if you don't wanna go down the road of HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY may I recommend this ♦nugget♦ of sheer amateurish muck: THE NIGHT THEY ROBBED BIG BERTHA's (1975). It's even worse. You could call it "hicksploitation" . . . but it's not an 'exploitation movie'. It's just an awful, amateurish mess of various country bumpkins endeavoring to rob Big Bertha's house of ill-repute with very mild results. HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY looks decent in comparison. Now you might logically ask yourself: "Why would I want to watch this mess if it's even worse than "Hot Summer in Barefoot County"?" ANSWER: Because watching BIG BERTHA is better than watching NOVEMBER CHILDREN (1972) (aka: "Nightmare County") which is even *more* terrible. 😛 "November Children" is about oppressed fruit-pickers that was written and directed and starred in by one 'Sean McGregor'. This is so amateurish it's unwatchable. But I watched it once! Forced myself to get through it. It's not an exploitation movie, however, it's just completely uninvolving. "November Children" is a movie geared for folks who are 'Anti-Entertainment'. The plot line was ripe for the picking (pun intended) . . . but in Sean McGregor's hands this film views like a basket of the rotten-est fruit imaginable. But, hey, there's some old pick-up trucks in NIGHTMARE COUNTY, which is the title "November Children" was released on video under. Happy Viewing! 🤪

I've noted on occasion where you see a theatrical trailer for a movie and there's a scene depicted in said trailer that is not in the actual film. WOLFEN and THE SWEETEST THING come to mind. If you watch the 'WOLFEN' trailer the scene in the car on the expressway with Albert Finney and Diane Venora making small talk is not in the theatrical version. It appears at approx. the 1m. 5sec. mark in the trailer I watched on YouTube. → In the theater version you only see them arrive at their destination. I reckon because WOLFEN originally ran longer (think it was 145m.) and was cut down to 115m. prior to release lots of stuff 'went' -- including this conversation in the car.

@ElCid: GIRLS ON THE ROAD is not a good movie, but I mentioned it because of it's 'time-capsule-ness'. Taking a road trip on the California coast in 1972 and running into a hippie retreat run by Pa Walton with various 'head cases' afoot like "The Maker". How can one not dig such awful-ness? 😄 I admit I like '70s Drive-In movies -- even if some of them are really bad. → Check out the "Z"-grade HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY (1974) . . . if you dare!

I kinda liked LAURENCE HARVEY's oddball final film: WELCOME TO ARROW BEACH (1974). Harvey directed and starred with his friend Joanna Pettet and recruited a good cast (featuring Meg Foster, Stuart Whitman, David Macklin, Gloria LeRoy and John Ireland). I expect Harvey was already ill with stomach cancer when this was filmed; he died before it was released. (NOTE: Harvey died Nov. 25, 1973 at 45). I must mention the theme song to the movie sung on the opening and closing credits "Who Can Tell Us Why?" by Lou Rawls. I agreed with Leonard Maltin's review as "strange but watchable shocker". Watch out for edited versions, however. The movie should run 99 minutes at its full-length and not 85 minutes. (I do like A PASSAGE TO INDIA and FAMILY PLOT; seen those a few times each). One 'final film' I've not seen as of yet is HENRY HATHAWAY's swan song: The 1974 blaxploitation movie HANGUP. I never did find a video release of "Hangup" or I'd have bought or rented it to check it out. The name of 'Peter Sellers' was mentioned above . . . I very much liked his 1970 UK movie "Hoffman". Seen it four times.

@LORNA: I've seen X, Y and ZEE multiple times. Years ago I bought the Columbia VHS release of "X,Y and Zee" -- back in the mid-1990s, I should say -- and I rather enjoyed it or I'd only have watched it once. A British soap opera of sorts. Michael Caine plays an architect. Liz is his wife. Susannah becomes his mistress. And a crazy time is had by all. Also a groovy theme song by Three Dog Night called "Running In Circles" or some such. (This song may have been eliminated from the DVD release due to music rights issues, but it's on the Columbia tape).