scsu1975

Night of the Living Dead

William C. Haines was an Ohio farm boy who became a meteorologist, before enlisting in the Army in 1918, where he served in the meteorological department. Haines accompanied Byrd on three trips to the Antarctic. At “Little America,” a base established by Byrd at the South Pole, there is a mountain named after Haines. Haines was awarded two gold medals by Congress, one in 1931 and another in 1937. In appreciation, Byrd gave Haines a watch, bearing the inscription “To my close friend Bill Haines, whose brilliant forecasts enabled us to conquer by air the North and South Poles. Dick Byrd, Dec. 25, 1930.” Haines finished his career in the late 1940s as assistant meteorologist in St. Louis. Here is a photo of Haines from 1948:

Flight to Nowhere (1946) YouTube This should be subtitled “The Plot to Nowhere.” The film opens in Honolulu (I’m sure it was filmed on location) and some guy gets gunned down. Then we get stock footage of an atomic explosion. That’s pretty much all the excitement in the movie, and the opening credits haven’t even rolled yet. Everybody is trying to find a map to a uranium mine. No one is who they seem to be. In other words, you think you are watching actors, but you’re not. Alan Curtis walks around like Al Gore and reads his lines off a teleprompter. He gets cold-cocked twice and makes wisecracks about it. A way-over-the-hill Jack Holt is shoved into several scenes as a government man. Evelyn Ankers doesn’t even get a chance to scream. Silent film cowboy Hoot Gibson has a bit as a sheriff. Jerome Cowan is a bad guy. The climax lasts about 20 seconds. You can fall asleep several times during the film (as I did) and not miss anything.

Inger Stevens is really gorgeous in Madigan. It's been some time since I've seen it, but it's a pretty good cop movie, and the characters have plenty of flaws. Later, there was a short-lived TV series of the same name, also starring Widmark. It may have been part of that NBC Mystery Theater ("McCloud," etc), but I can't recall offhand. However, if you've seen the movie, you know a TV series would make no sense.

Welcome to the boards. You may have access to 1000s of movies, but not all at once. On Demand usually features films that have just shown on TCM in the past week, and they can be viewed on the site for about a week. The site is updated as new films are added and old ones are removed.

Like ... Hot Spell, for instance?

Only if you enjoy Liz Taylor burping.

For lack of a better phrase, this movie blows. I have no idea what the title means. Elizabeth Taylor is a hooker who looks like Mia Farrow's dead mother; Farrow is a nutjob who looks like Taylor's missing daughter. Robert Mitchum is Farrow's stepfather who is doing her. His accent changes back and forth from English to American. Farrow pretends she is pregnant by putting a stuffed animal under her clothes. Mitchum calls Taylor a cow, and describes his ex-wife's breasts as "fantastic opulent mother-of-pearly globes." He describes his escapades with Farrow: "She manipulated my toes so cleverly my hair stood on end." Taylor lies in bed and says "there were two mice fell in a pail of milk. One of them yelled for help and drowned. The other kept peddling around and around till in the morning he found himself on top of butter."

The last time I saw Nightmare Alley, I realized how incredibly hot Joan was. She was so versatile. I get a kick out of her performance in The Twilight Zone episode "What's In the Box" where she and William Demarest basically beat the crap out of each other.

Hmmm ... I wonder if the "D" stands for "derriere."

A bit of trivia - Miller played basketball on the same team as future Olympic Gold Medalist Rafer Johnson - who himself appeared in two Tarzan movies featuring former pro football player Mike Henry as the loinclothed swinger.

From The Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star:

Maybe it's time for see some disclaimers on TCM On Demand, such as "The following film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit this screen, to run in the time allotted and edited for content"

Probably living as Ms. Smith.

I will leave the thread open. (As a side note, having driven on Interstate 95 in CT for most of my adult life, I always wondered who John Davis Lodge was, since part of the highway is named after him. I finally found out several years ago when I got involved with classic films.)

#1 Richard Johnson #2 Ron Randell #6 John Lodge #9 Rod Laroque #10 Jack Buchanan

I don't have the dvd; in fact, I own very few. But I have seen that clip, probably in a blooper reel.

Let's not forget Bobby Barber, bit player extraordinaire, who always seem to turn up on their films, as well as the television episodes. During the first day of shooting Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Barber hid in the rafters and dropped an egg on the head of director Charles Barton. He was also prone to ruining a take by running through a scene, wearing shorts, and yelling “Fellows, be quiet. I can’t sleep!”

I believe to this day that Wendy Barrie was Wayne Morris in drag.

By the looks of him, no one ever did.

She was probably just as confused when she talked about being directed by Lainie Kazan in On The Waterfront.

Quo Vadis is really a strange film. I find some of the performances (like Ustinov's) very hammy, and Robert Taylor is stiff as usual. Deborah Kerr looks stunning, however. The real shame is that Miklos Rozsa's score was dubbed at such a low level that it is very difficult for viewers to appreciate what a fine piece of scoring this is. The Prelude is magnificent, and the love theme for Marcus and Lygia is one of Rozsa's loveliest compositions. As a bit of trivia, Miklos composed a march ("Hail Galba") which is heard when the troops are advancing toward Rome. Rozsa later used this same march in Ben-Hur, at the conclusion of the chariot race. Lovers of film scores should get their hands on the soundtrack.

You mean you didn't like it when Morgan sang in the Police Glee Club?