Ask 411 Movies for 07.12.10: The Road to This Column is Paved with Bad Intentions!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 07.12.2010

Best road movies, MASH cast, overlooked best picture winners, Butch Patrick, John Barrowman, Grand Hotel, Bryan Cranston, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Matt LeBlanc’s gay past (but not that gay, I don’t want sued)

From You Tube this week, a combination parody of Star Wars and Star Trek called "Side Tracked," featuring Conrad Brooks schlepping around a hotel bar. Can we say ‘illegal use of footage?'



Q: Leonard, Special Thanks for mentioning the book I wrote "Eddie Munster AKA Butch Patrick" in your article above. Hope you enjoyed the many laughs in the book & it's groovy 3-D, lenticular cover! Kindest Regards, Helen Darras

A: Thank you for writing with the kind words Helen and I'm happy to give you another plug. You probably don't remember, but I met you and Butch last year at the Monster Bash as one of the staff members. I thank you both again for the autograph and picture. I certainly encourage my readers to pick up the book as it is very interesting and a fun read. I like how the book is divided up into specific sections, so if you want to read about Butch's memories of Al Lewis or his time on "Lidsville" specifically you can easily find those sections.




Q: Relevant to the topic of "Friends" and gay, there was a gay travel book in the early 1990s that had a stock image of Matt LaBlanc on the cover. No idea why his image was used on the cover or if the publisher of said book had permission to use the image.
-NoirFan01

A: According to IMDB, that's not a stock shot, but an early modeling job LeBlanc took. The book is Damron Travel Guide for Men. I tried to find a copy of the cover and now my internet browser thinks I'm gay. Well…it had its suspicions last week, but now it's pretty sure.



Q: John Barrowman is also a pretty notable homosexual actor, he was amazing in Torchwood: Children of Earth. He also looks like a long lost son of Mark Harmon.

Just one two-part question: with so many ensemble films coming out lately, do you think it is only a matter of time before they re-remake Grand Hotel? Also, who would you cast in it?
-Cactus

A: John Barrowman, 43, is Scottish. He relocated to the U.S. as a child and adapted an American accent so children would not make fun of him. His civil partner is Scott Gill. They met after Gill saw Barrowman in a play. He supports gay rights and prefers the term ‘civil union' to ‘marriage,' because as he said in an interview "why would I want a ‘marriage' from a belief system that hates me?" He's also a singer and has been featured in musicals such as The Producers and De-Lovely. Barrowman is currently best known for playing the character of Captain Jack Harkness on "Doctor Who" and spin-off "Torchwood."



Grand Hotel is a 1932 film based on a play based on a book by Vicki Baum. It was remade in 1945 as Weekend at the Waldorf and turned into a stage musical in 1989. The famous Greta Garbo quote "I want to be alone," comes from this film. Many films have followed with the same basic idea where you have a bunch of famous people thrown together in a public place and watch their storylines intertwine. Here several people have their lives change in drastic ways while staying at a German hotel. The big name stars include Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Wallace Berry and Lionel Barrymore. The parts don't really matter, but the star power and vibe. So, if I were going to make a modern update of some swank people in a swank hotel I would probably cast George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Helen Mirren and Michael Caine. Got to be heavy on the Brits.



Q: I would add Brian Cranston on being a dramatic shift actor. To go from being the goofy dad on "Malcolm in the Middle" to being a teacher who cooks meth on "Breaking Bad" is about a big a shift you can get.
-JLAJRC

A: He's another good pick too. Cranston, 57, was born in San Fernando, Calif. to actor Jason Cranston and his wife Peggy Sue. Cranston studied police science in college, but he got hooked on acting and started in regional theater. Among early successes he was part of the original cast of the soap opera "Loving" and played James Naughton's brother-in-law on the short-lived "Raising Miranda." He also did cartoon voice over work under the name of Lee Stone, dubbing Japanese anime into English. He then gained notice for recurring roles on "Seinfeld" as Jerry's dentist and "King of Queens" as Doug's annoying neighbor. Then, of course, came his biggest TV successes with "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Breaking Bad." He can also be seen in the current Love Ranch with Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren.



Q: That's pretty interesting about David Ogden Stiers and Anthony Perkins (although it seems like I had heard that about Tony Perkins).

Speaking of David Stiers, for future column filler, feel like doing a rundown of the former stars of M*A*S*H* and what they're doing now?

Also, just because I've been wondering about these two questions for ages. What is the longest running TV show? What was the first TV program aired?

Thank you sir!
-Zero

A: The popular story about Tony Perkins is that he was gay until he made The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean with Victoria Principal. Principal was attracted to him and Perkins thought he would give sex with a woman a try and discovered he liked it. He later married photographer Berry Berenson and they had two sons. Berenson died on American Airlines Flight 11 on 9/11.


Yeah, that could totally turn a gay guy.

"Meet the Press" is the longest running television series ever, having started in 1947 and still airing today. The longest running episodic TV show is "The Guiding Light," which started on television in 1952 and went off the air last September for 57 years on the air.

Although tests and specials were aired beforehand, the first real television program was NBC's "The World in Your Home" which ran from Dec. 22, 1944, to 1948. It was comprised of educational short films and ran 15 minutes per episode.



Alan Alda, 74: He's kept real busy since "MASH" and last appeared as Milton Greene on "30 Rock." He's published two memoirs in recent times, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed" in 2006 and "Things I Overhead While Talking to Myself" in 2007.

Mike Farrell, 71: He's done a bunch of recent TV guest spots with the most recent being on "Miami Medical." He also got into writing and put out "Of Mule and Man" last year.

Wayne Rogers, 77: Rogers got into the stock market and real estate while still an actor and now devotes his efforts to those ventures. He appears on Fox Business Network's "Cashin' In" and runs his own investment firm.

Gary Burghoff, 67: He's playing a pastor in the currently out Christian based independent film Daniel's Lot. He's also a wildlife painter and an avid fisherman with patents on several reels.

Loretta Swit, 72: She's been pretty much missing in action since the nineties, but she did pop up on "GSN Live" on the Game Show Network in 2008. She practices needlepoint and watercolor painting and sells her own line of jewelry.

McLean Stevenson: He died Feb. 15, 1996, at the age of 68 when he suffered a heart attack after surgery for bladder cancer.

Larry Linville, 60: He died April 10, 2000, at the age of 60 from pneumonia brought on by complications from cancer surgery.

Harry Morgan, 95: He doesn't seem to be doing much these days as the last public thing I can find is that in 2006 he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers. His grandson, Spencer Morgan, is a columnist for the New York Observer and Harry attended his wedding in 2008.

Jamie Farr, 76: He still does some acting on stage and was last seen by TV audiences in the Hallmark movie A Grandpa For Christmas with Ernest Borgnine. Farr sits on the board of St. Jude Children's Hospital and also has a syndicated radio travel show entitled "Travelin' Farr."

David Ogden Stiers, 67: As mentioned last week, he came out of the closet as gay last year. He still acts here and there and does a lot of voice over work, including Dr. Jumba on "Lilo and Stitch" and Nicky Flippers in Hoodwinked! and its upcoming sequel.

Q: Last week you talked about classic tv shows that haven't got their due. What are some classic movies that recieved the same treatment? I would say Marty would definitely be on the list, it won 4 oscars including best picture and best actor for Ernest Borgnine, however no one ever talks about it. It is also one of the few films of that era that is just as relevant today. Can you think of any others?
-Guest 1234

A: Marty is a good pick. I think it was way ahead of its time in theme and feel. It comes off like a more modern independent movie. Borgnine stars as a dumpy Italian-American butcher who lives with his mother and has pretty much settled on the fact he will never get married. However, one night after being prodded by his mother into going to a dance club he meets a nice, plain girl. He likes her, but her mother feels she will be squeezed out and Marty's friend think she's a dog. He doesn't call her, but realizes that if he likes her and they have fun together that's the only thing that matters.

Sticking with your theme, I'll give up some other best picture Oscar winners that have been swept under the rug. Seriously, there are tons of great movies out there that don't get a proper due today.

Rebecca (1940): The only Alfred Hitchcock movie to win the best picture Oscar, but not one of his most popular for whatever reason. It was also his first Hollywood film. Joan Fontaine stars as a young woman who marries a rich widower (Laurence Olivier) and takes up residence in his massive mansion. However, the memory of his first wife haunts him, the house and the staff like an actual spirit while how she actually died is a secret eventually revealed.

Producer David O. Selznick wanted Carole Lombard to star and because of her wanted Ronald Coleman to co-star. However, Coleman didn't like the character or playing second fiddle to Lombard. So, Selznick went to Olivier and William Powell. Olivier was willing to work for less than Powell and won the part. He then campaigned for his then girlfriend, Vivien Leigh. However, Selznick didn't think she was right for the part and considered Olivia de Havilland, who Warner Brothers was willing to lend out, but she frittered around so her sister, the unknown Fontaine, could make a case for the role. Olivier treated Fontaine poorly on set because she was chosen over Leigh and Hitchcock told Fontaine that nobody on set liked her so he could get the timid, meek performance he wanted out of her.



The Lost Weekend (1945): Don Birnham (Ray Milland) is an unsuccessful writer due to being a raging alcoholic. He's been on the wagon for ten days, but he's craving a drink and skips out on a country weekend with his brother (Phillip Terry) and his girlfriend (Jane Wyman) for a four-day bender to end all benders. Through flashbacks over ‘the lost weekend' we see other events of Birnham's life that led him to his current place in life.

The subject matter was dealt with in a very frank way for the time period, but might be a bit tame today. In fact, the liquor industry offered Paramount $5 million not to release the film. Director Billy Wilder said he would have taken the money if they offered it to him. Temperance groups also protested the film, thinking it would encourage drinking. Wilder wanted Jose Ferrer for the role, but Paramount thought audiences would only tolerate the movie if a matinee idol was in the lead and pushed for Milland or Cary Grant.



Gentleman's Agreement (1947): Phillip Green (Gregory Peck) is a well-respected writer just hired by a high brow New York magazine. The publisher's niece (Dorothy McGuire) suggests doing a story on Anti-Semitism in America. Green isn't sure how to approach the topic and then decides to pretend to be Jewish. In no time at all he's discriminated against by various hotels, clubs, people and even the company he works for.

Again, it was cutting edge at the time, but not so much today. Many top Hollywood executives were Jewish and asked Fox not to make the movie, because they thought it would just stir up more trouble. Oddly, studio Darryl F. Zanuck was not Jewish, but championed the production of the film and challenged bigots to come after him. One known racist, Gerald L.K. Smith, tried to sue the studio for being named in the movie, but the case was tossed out. Director Elia Kazan won an Oscar for directing the picture, but never liked it among his work saying he didn't put the right passion into it and the romantic scenes didn't work.



Tom Jones (1963): Maybe this gets overlooked because people think it's about the singer. Albert Finney plays the title character, the adopted son of an English country squire who is a womanizer and mischief maker steps away from the gallows. Finney thought the film was too much a goof and agreed to star if he got a producing credit, which he later traded for a piece of the profits. This was the film debut of the recently deceased Lynn Redgrave. It's also the only movie to have three women up for the best supporting actress Oscar at the same time in Diane Cilento, Edith Evans and Joyce Redman. All lost to Margaret Rutherford for The V.I.P's.



Ordinary People (1980): Buck Jarrett (Scott Doebler) is killed in a boating accident and his brother Conrad (Timothy Hutton) is so torn up over it he tries suicide. A few months after psychiatric treatment, he returns to high school, but is still morose and seeks help from therapist Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). Conrad's mother (Mary Tyler Moore) basically refuses to believe there is anything wrong with Conrad and preferred Buck anyway. Her husband (Donald Sutherland) is caught in the middle wanting to support both and keep what is left of his family together.

Gene Hackman was originally cast as Berger and Hirsch stepped in with the agreement that he could shoot all his scenes in eight days as to not interfere with the new season of "Taxi" starting shooting. Director Robert Redford wanted Lee Remick for the mother and his old friend Natalie Wood wanted the part, but Redford thought she was wrong for it. Bruce Dern and Ken Howard were up for the father. Michael J. Fox was up for Conrad. The movie represents the debuts of Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern. McGovern was a student at Julliard at the time and she's the only student the school has ever let shoot a movie during an active term.



Q: I just saw Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for the first time yesterday and I was wondering what your favorite "road trip" movies are?
-The Great Capt. Smooth

A: Road to Morocco (1942): If you're talking road pictures, you have to have a Hope/Crosby picture in there. This was one of their most popular ones and served as the direct inspiration for my favorite "Family Guy" episode "The Road to Rhode Island." Hope and Crosby find themselves washed ashore in Morocco and Hope is sold as a slave to Dorothy Lamour. Crosby tries to free him while both try to avoid Anthony Quinn as a desert sheik with designs on Lamour. An alternate ending to the movie had the pair enlisting into the Marines and going to Tokyo.



It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963): An old bank robber (Jimmy Durante) dies in a car wreck and tells those who came to his side about a fortune buried hundreds of miles away under a big W. The groups sets out to claim the money, every man for himself, while they pick up a few others along the way and a grizzled cop (Spencer Tracy) tracks them. The all-star comedy also features Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Dorothy Provine, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hacket, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Terry-Thomas, Dick Shawn Phil Silvers, Edie Adams, Jim Backus, Joe E. Brown, Eddie Anderson, Peter Falk, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Carl Reiner and cameos from the Three Stooges, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis and Doodles Weaver.

Ernie Kovacs was going to play Caesar's part, but died before filming and Casar took the role as a tribute to his friend, opposite Kovac's real life wife Adams. Originally the parts were going to be given to Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, but Garland's TV show ran late into the summer on shooting and Rooney was given another part as Hackett's cousin. Stan Laurel was also offered a bit part, but declined because he swore to never work again after partner Oliver Hardy died in 1957. George Burns, Bob Hope, Jackie Mason and Red Skelton all turned down cameos and Judy Holiday couldn't do the film because she was sick. Don Rickles wanted to do the film, but was never asked. Additionally, Merman's role was written as a father-in-law to start with and Groucho Marx was considered for it.



Smokey and the Bandit (1977): Like I wouldn't take advantage of an opportunity to talk about the greatest movie ever in human history. The Bandit (Burt Reynolds) is dared by Big and Little Enos (Pat McCormick and Paul Williams) to bootleg Coors Beer from Texas to Georgia in a limited amount of time. The Snowman (Jerry Reed) is the truck driver with the Bandit running blocker. Things get complicated when Bandit picks up a runaway bride (Sally Field) with her ditched beau (Mike Henry) and prospective father-in-law sheriff (Jackie Gleason).

Director Hal Needham said when he first showed a rough print of the film to studio executives without sound effects or music they hated it, but when he showed them the same cut a few weeks later with the sound effects and music they loved it. The character of Buford T. Justice was based on a real Florida sheriff known to Reynold's father, who was the police chief of Jupiter, Fla. However, Gleason based his performance on stories Reynolds told him about his father, including using ‘sum bit' instead of ‘son of a bitch.' Gleason took pride in the fact that people started using the term after the movie came out. As mentioned a few weeks ago, this movie and Benji were guilty pleasures of Alfred Hitchcock.



Vacation (1983): Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) takes his wife (Beverly D'Angelo) and children (Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall) on a cross country trip to the Wally World amusement park. Along the way they have various misadventures and run-ins with family (including Imogene Coca as an aunt who dies along the way and Randy Quaid as D'Angelo's goofy brother-in-law).

Wally World was actually Six Flags Magic Mountain and the Family Truckster was a modified Ford LTD Country Squire. A Wally World water park opened in Canada a few years after the movie and Canadian John Candy, who plays a security guard in the movie, was asked to open the park, but they couldn't afford him. Actually, the original ending had the Griswold's going to the home of Roy Wally and making him and his family sing and dance for them. This ending bombed with audiences and was re-shot with the Candy scenes. You can notice that Hall is much taller here than elsewhere in the film, because he grew during the hiatus of shooting. Originally, the family was going to go to Disney World, but Disney refused to let the park and name be used because they never close for any reason.



Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985): Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) has his precious bicycle stolen and goes on a cross-country adventure to find it that has him running afoul of ghost truckers, escaped convicts, French waitresses, biker gangs, Jason Hervey and learning that the Alamo has no basement.

This was Tim Burton's directing debut and Danny Elfman's score debut. Burton was so grateful to Reubens that he cast him in bit parts in later films. Burton also has a cameo as a thug who goes after Pee-Wee before he visits the fortune teller. Several other friends of Reubens also have cameos, including Phil Hartman and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira). Pedal Pushers Bike Shop of Newport Beach, Calif., made about 10 to 12 bicycles for the film. They were offered $10,000 and no screen credit or screen credit and no cash. They took the bread.



Q: Just watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High, after only seeing bits of it over the years. And I must say, I was quite disappointed, the movie wasn't funny at all. It felt like it tried to be a cross between something like animal house and breakfast club, but without doing either genre very well.

My question is that I have seen this movie get a lot of love in various comedy-rankings . Is it because of an iconic Phoebe Cates-scene that people remember the movie more fondly than it deserves, or is it just me that doesn't get it ?
-Kjeldbjerg

A: Phoebe Cates coming out of the pool is indeed the most remembered scene and the movie helped to launch the career of Sean Penn. I think it might come across as dated and nothing you haven't seen before, but just about every eighties teen comedy, of which there were many, that came after basically used this movie as its template. The idea wasn't to go for laugh out loud funny, but more situational funny. The idea that teens and young adults could relate to the situations and laugh from that relation. The idea was to be realistic to California teens of the era. Some critics of the era applauded it for being fresh and different, but others panned it like Roger Ebert, although he did praise the performances of the young leads. So, I think you're catching this just too far after the fact.



Don't die.

"It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring."
"You mean like Democrats?"

"The dead have a way of coming back you know."
"Get out, when they're dead they're dead."
"Not Aunt Lucy, she was a Republican."