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Herman Bricks

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Posts posted by Herman Bricks

    What Are You Listening To?

    in Your Favorites

    Posted

    Any Helen Merrill fans out there? I've listened to her first album, Helen Merrill (1954) a lot recently, it's now one of my favorites. Great band (led by Clifford Brown), great production. Very pure singing. As prolific as she was, IMHO she never matched this. 

     

    • Like 1

    Horror movies that traumatize children

    in Horror

    Posted

    Perhaps the most traumatic movies I saw in my monster-loving childhood were

    NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) saw it about age 10, drive-in double or triple bill. It was the most realistic horror I had ever seen at that point. The plot aspect of the zombies possibly being our deceased friends or loved ones worked effectively on my little mind. I remember looking at my mom and 13 year old brother in the car and thinking, wow I won't turn my back on these guys again. I have only seen it a couple times since, it's still hard for me to watch because of these memories.

    At about the same age I saw THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) on TV a few times and it filled me with dread. "Morgan...we're coming to get you Morgan..." Like NOTLD, very realistic for me at the time. Vincent Price's wife becoming a victim of the vampiric plague, again the idea of a loved one becoming a monster was very unsettling and traumatic. The scenes with the dog...OMG so dreadful and depressing. I still don't ever want to see it again.

    • Like 1

    The first actor/actress that comes to mind..

    in Games and Trivia

    Posted

    Franchot Tone, who in 1951 was beaten comatose by Tom Neal in a fight over the affections of Barbara Payton.

    "Franchot, in grave condition, was rushed to the nearby California Lutheran Hospital. Reporters who caught wind of the beating and hurried to the hospital waiting room were told that there was concern about blood clots and strokes and that this was essentially a “death watch.”

    The beating left Franchot with a shattered cheekbone, fractured upper jaw, broken nose, and concussion. His face was so damaged that the doctors performed emergency plastic surgery and warned that his face might never look exactly the same as the public remembered. Immediately following the fight, Barbara stated to the press that she planned to marry Franchot and called Tom a “vicious man.” 

    https://franchottone.blogspot.com/2017/02/payton-tone-altercation.html

    next: someone who could chew up scenery

     

    Meeting Classic Stars In Person

    in General Discussions

    Posted

    More celebrities (almost classic era) that I recall serving at The Russian Tea Room...

    A few that I annoyed:

    Jennifer Grey came in on a date with Johnny Depp about 1990. Every food course or beverage she ordered was very minimal. A waiter's job is to upsell, which I tried to do but she rebuffed me every time, gradually becoming increasingly curt with me as the meal progressed. Johnny Depp seemed to be amused by this, but did not comment. When I tried to hand them the dessert menus, Ms. Grey told me (paraphrasing) "no, no we don't want dessert, like I didn't want soup, like I didn't want another glass of Champagne..."

    In a slow flat monotone, I said something like, "Strawberries Romanoff are refreshing and light..."

    Jennifer Grey: "Just two double espressos!" As I walked away from their table I heard her imitating me, speaking to Johnny Depp (she affected a deep monotonous voice): "Strawberries Romanoff yecch yecch blah blah blah". From that point on, I pretty much shut up. Johnny Depp continued to look amused, he was pretty cool.

    Don Johnson came in for lunch in the late 80's or early 90's. He arrived first, and I recall I had to remove place settings from the table, or add place settings. Or some task that caused us to be close up for a minute or so. At first he was smiling, eye contact, cordial, how are you, etc etc. I asked him how he was doing, etc. etc. He had a movie out at that time (I wish I could remember which one but I can't, I did not know if it was flopping) and I asked , "How's the new movie, Mr. Johnson?"

    His smile turned to an severely annoyed look... 'Just get me a Diet Coke."

    Arnold Shwarzenngger (spelled incorrectly, who cares) came to the restaurant a number of times and each time left his mark, with some bad interaction with staff or with another customer. In my case, I was serving his group dinner and there was heavy business discussion going on. At one point  I was refilling wine glasses at his table. So I hold the bottle over each guest's wine glass and each guest nods or shakes their head or in some way tells you non-verbally what to do. Schwarzenwhatever actually shoved my arm away to prevent me from pouring wine. 

    Some that I did not annoy:

    Sigourney Weaver had lunch one day with mega-agent Sam Cohn. Ms. Weaver wore an awesome-looking white dress. When she sat at the table the front part of the dress bunched forward and exposed a lot of her...... self (I could look right down to her belly button).

    During the lunch I had to prepare a dish at the table for Ms. Weaver... Rather than cover herself up, she looked me in the eye and chatted while I was rolling her blini, or whatever I was doing. Very a propos by her, I thought at the time. Smart lady.

    E.G. Marshall, I recall serving lunch one day. I happen to speak with a slight Brooklyn/NY accent. Mr. Marshall, as lunch is concluding asks me if I was from Minnesota (he liked my accent). It was a good joke, my accent is a anything but Minnesotan.

     

     

    • Like 8
    • Haha 1

    I Just Watched...

    in General Discussions

    Posted

    20 hours ago, TomJH said:

    I watched Dr. Renault's Secret tonight, never having seen it before. The makeup was fairly subdued yet obvious enough that, from J. Carrol Naish's first appearance in the film, the secret of the doctor was pretty obvious, I thought. Not a bad little film, with good performances from Naish and George Zucco (familiar as this kind of mad scientist role was for the Englishman), the film having a further slickness, despite its "B" programmer budget, from the handsome Fox "A" production sets upon which it was filmed, as well as first rate photography.

    Fair take Tom. Naish's makeup was subtle I guess. Not as extreme as Acquanetta's in CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN. Too bad these films were from different studios. Acquanetta and Naish would have been very cute as a couple. 

    See the source image

    See the source image

    • Haha 1

    I Just Watched...

    in General Discussions

    Posted

    5 hours ago, TomJH said:

    But one of my favourite J. Carrol Naish performances (for which I think he got an Oscar nomination) was in SAHARA (1943), in which he played an Italian soldier captured in the North African desert during WW2 by an American tank crew (headed by Bogie). Bogie makes the decision to leave the "plate of spaghetti" in the desert and not take him with them because of water shortage issues. His decision, as everyone on the tank knows, is a death sentence for Naish.

    Tom, I love SAHARA. For me the most enduring take-aways are the sympathetic portrayals of Naish as the Italian prisoner, Rex Ingram as the Sudanese soldier, and Louis Mercier as the Free French fighter. The scene between Bruce Bennett and Rex Ingram, where they clearly accept each other as equals, was quite progressive in its time. I wonder how it was received by the critics and public.

     

    • Like 1
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