Ask 411 Movies for 7.17.06: Even in the Quietest Moments
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 07.17.2006
The Exorcist, Sam Raimi, Cary Grant’s never made comeback film, more on Fox Saturday morning videos and then there’s Maude...
Check out my review of John Wayne's American Icon box set from Universal. See John Wayne as Genghis Kahn! Witness Janet Leigh as a Russian without an accent! Marvel at Shemp Howard sewing pants!
New idea maybe you guys can help me with. I'm going to start collecting novelty beer. I already have cans of MASH beer, Billy beer, JR Ewing beer and Three Stooges beer. All unopened. If you have something I'd be interested in drop me a line.
Character actor Barnard Hughes died of a brief illness last Wednesday. He was 90. He won a Tony award in 1978 for "Da" and an Emmy in 1977 for a guest spot on "Lou Grant." His film appearances include Hamlet, Midnight Cowboy, Cold Turkey, The Hospital, Tron, Oh God!, The Lost Boys, Doc Hollywood, Sister Act 2 and The Cradle Will Rock. He also had many TV guest spots over the years including a recurring role on "Blossom" as the spunky teen's grandfather.
Actress June Allyson passed away on Saturday July 8th of respiratory failure after a long illness. She was 88. Allyson was a frequent costar of Jimmy Stewart and was married to Dick Powell. Among her films were Little Women, The Stratten Story, The Glenn Miller Story, Strategic Air Command, Executive Suite, My Man Godfrey and They Only Kill Their Masters. In later years she did mostly television films and guest spots. Sadly modern audiences probably know her best as the spokeswoman for Depends undergarments.
Comedic actor Red Buttons passed away of vascular diseas last Thursday. He was 87. Buttons won the best supporting acting Oscar in 1957 for the film Sayonara. Buttons also received Golden Globe nominations for Harlow and They Shoot Horses Don't They? and an Emmy nomination last year for a guest spot on "ER." Buttons did standup and performed in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and the Catskills up until recently. Among his other movies were Hatari, The Poseiden Adventure, It Could Happen to You, The Story of Us, 18 Again, When Time Ran Out..., Pete's Dragon, Your Cheatin' Heart, The Longest Day and Winged Victory. Buttons also did a lot of television guest spots and was known to be a favorite of Roseanne and Bill Cosby, whose shows he appeared on.
NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: WALK THE LINE
I was a fan of Johnny Cash before it was shiek to be so. Even at two hours and fifteen minutes and ending in 1968 I found the film to be severly truncated. They should have done a television miniseries. Joaquin Phoenix didn't blow me away, but I thought he was very good. He captured more the raw essence of Cash than did a straight impression and that's fine. But even in that I found he had a hard time connecting all the dots as an actor for the audience in his performance. Cash was a devoutly spiritual individual, but was seduced by booze and pills. He had respect for the family unit, but committed adultery and had a tense relationship with his own father. He just didn't peel back the layers of that proverbial onion for me. Resse Witherspoon on the other hand did an excellent job of portraying the many sides of June Carter and her struggle for this attraction to a man she knew was bad news. Waylon Malloy Payne was fantastic in his small part as Jerry Lee Lewis and I'm a big fan of Great Balls of Fire, but let's do a new movie with him. And the music was great I loved all the performances. Phoenix has a really distinct, vibrant bass. I have the soundtrack to the film and if Phoenix cut an album of country standards I would probably buy it.
THE GREATEST MOVIES NEVER MADE: VICKY
James Toback penned a script in the seventies that would trace the life of Victoria Woodhull. She was a liberal woman who promoted free love and women's rights. She even ran for President. And the story was set in the 1800's. Owner of Faberge, George Barrie was going to produce the film. His trump card was pulling Cary Grant out of retirement to appear, who was on the Faberge board. Due to Grant, George Cukor was tapped to direct even though Toback wanted the honors. Faye Dunaway was set to star. After Cukor's film The Blue Bird tanked, Grant lost interest and financial backing fell away. Toback went on to direct and write other films. He dusted Vicky off in the mid-nineties and showed Warren Beatty. He was enthused, but they couldn't get money up for what promised to still be a quirky and controversial film.
My friend Brian mentioned that I should have thrown in Rock 'n Roll High School with the Ramones last week when we were talking about bands that starred in films as themselves. I probably should have added Paul McCartney's Give My Regards to Broadstreet from 1984 too.
Q: Dear Lenoard,
Not so much a question, but a statement, yeah I guess Raimi is some hack b-movie director, who along with Bryan Singer helped reinvigorate the comic book movie genre and I guarantee had he been given the reigns of Batman and Robin, could've come up with a much better script, then the piece of garbage that was released.
Keep up the good work Mr. Hayhurst
-Coby
A: First let's make it clear it was not me saying Sam Raimi was a hack B-movie director, it was the suits as Warner Brothers. And last week we were talking about Batman Forever, not the sequel Batman and Robin. To be fair, at the time Raimi was coming off of his two biggest movies in Army of Darkness and Darkman both of which under performed and probably hinted that Raimi would go too far into the camp of the "Batman" television series and not the more serious tone of the Burton films. Of course, what they got was a shlocky, neon colored mess. Raimi proved his worth with the first Spiderman film, which in many ways is very similar to Burton's first Batman. The dual identity getting in the way of love. The use of disorienting gas. A big battle in the middle of a parade. A lot of stylistic and character elements.
Q: Mr. Hayhurst,
In response to the Fox Saturday Morning guy's question, I can remember two of them.
1 - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince did a song, where essentially all they did was change the lyrics from one of their existing songs to stuff about the environment. If I still had a tape player, I could find the original song, but I do know it's off of either "Rock the House" or "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper".
2 - The Barenaked Ladies with "The Ballad of Gordon", about a green alien coming to earth and getting made fun of by the people he meets. The song is about tolerance and diversity, and is an original song not created specifically for the PSA. One interesting sidenote about this song is that the Fox executives wanted a line changed. They couldn't say "They said my head looks like a fruit"; they had to change it to "They said my head looks like fruit". This necessitated the change of the response line, from "What's a fruit?" to "What is fruit?". Lyrics are available online for this one.
While we're on the subject of TV, do you know the show that spawned the most spin-offs? Spin-offs of spin-offs count, too. I'm thinking either All in the Family (with Archie Bunker's Place and the Jeffersons and I think there were others, too), or Happy Days, or Law & Order. They don't have to be long lasting, as long as they had an episode debut on TV.
Thanks,
-Vince
A: Thanks for the additional information. I hope it is helpful.
As for spin-offs. The origin series with the most shows springing from its central core is "All in the Family" with seven. They include:
"Maude" (1972-1978): Maude (Bea Arthur) was Edith's cousin. She was stubborn and set in her ways as Archie, but on the liberal side of the aisle. Maude's husband Walter (Bill Macy) owned an appliance store. Living with them was Maude's divorced adult daughter (hottie Adrienne Barbeau) and her nine year old son (Brian Morrison and later Kraig Metzinger). Their next door neighbor Dr. Arthur Harmon (Conrad Bain) eventually married Maude's best friend Vivian (Rue McClanahan). A controversial storyline saw Maude have an abortion to avoid a late in life child and then shortly after she went through menopause. When ratings began to drop in 1977 a redirection was cooked up that would se Maude entering into politics and gaining a new supporting cast outside of Walter. However, star Arthur announced that she was tired of the series and quit after two episodes in the new setting. Norman Lear and his production company still thought the basic concept for the new direction was viable and reworked it about a black congressman starring John Amos. He left after the pilot due to conflicts on the direction of his character. Cleavon Little was then brought in. Several black politicians were asked to watch the second pilot and they felt it portrayed black politicians in a poor light. So Bill Macy who was still under contract was slotted into the starring part and it was reworked as being about college society and politics. Called Hanging In it lasted about a month.
"Good Times" (1974-1979): Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) was Maude's first maid. She lived in a small apartment with her husband James (John Amos) and her three children; J.J. (Jimmie Walker), Thelma (BernNadette Stanis) and Michael (Ralph Carter). JJ became the break out character of the show thanks to his jive talking ways and favorite expression "Dyn-o-mite!" Amos didn't like the shift in focus to JJ and fluff scripts, so he was killed off at the end of the second season. Rolle also didn't like the JJ character, so she was married off to Carl (Moses Gunn) and moved to Florida. The children were left in the care of neighbor Willona (Ja'net DuBois). Janet Jackson as neighbor girl Penny and building super Bookman (Johnny Brown) were added to the cast. Rolle returned for the final season as Thelma was preparing to marry football star Keith Anderson (Ben Powers).
"The Jeffersons" (1975-1985): The Jeffersons were the original neighbors of the Bunkers before moving off to a deluxe apartment in the sky. George Jefferson (Sherman Helmsley) was a black version of Archie, with the difference being he was rich thanks to owning a series of dry cleaning joints and his wife Weezie (Isabel Sanford) was a more sturdy sparring partner than Edith. The Jeffersons son Lionel (originally Mike Evans, then Damon Evan, then Mike came back. The two were not related) married daughter Jenny (Belinda Tolbert) of the interracial couple that lived in the building, Tom (Franklin Cover) and Helen (Roxie Roker, mother of Lenny Kravitz) Willis. This naturally annoyed George. Lionel and Jenny had two kids, but were eventually divorced. Among George's other antagonists were English neighbor Benltey (Paul Benedict) and maid Florence (Marla Gibbs).
"Checking In" (1981): Florence briefly left the Jeffersons' employ to become executive housemaid for the St. Frederick hotel. Her boss was the stuffy Mr. Block (Larry Linville). Under Florence was assistant Elena (Liz Torres), incompetent hotel detective Earl (Patrick Collins), fat chief engineer Hank (Robert Constanzo), floor supervisor Betty (Ruth Brown) and bellhop Dennis (Jordan Gibbs).
"Gloria" (1982-1983): After Meathead dumped Gloria (Sally Struthers) in California she returned to New York to become a vet with her eight year old son Joey (Christian Jacobs). She apprenticed under crusty old Dr. Adams (Burgess Meredith) and rented a house from him. Dr. Lawrence (Jo de Winter) was an associate doctor in the practice and Clark (Lou Richards) her assistant.
"Archie Bunker's Place" (1979-1983): This was a continuation of "All in the Family," but a decidedly different show. In the latter seasons of "Family" Archie bought a bar he named Archie's Place and the Bunkers took custody of their niece Stephanie (Danielle Briesbois). Edith died of a stroke in 1980 and Archie hired a black maid (Barbara Meek) to help care for Stephanie. Billie (Denise Miller) was another niece of Archie's who showed up and dated Archie's financial partner in the bar Gary (Barry Gordon).
"704 Hauser Street" (1994): The address in the title was the Bunkers' house. A decade after "All in the Family" finally left the air a black family moved into the house. John Amos starred as a black, liberal version of Archie Bunker who couldn't understand how his son (TE Russell) could be a conservative and want to date an idealistic and outspoken Jew (Maura Tierney).
"Happy Days" had five spin-offs with "Laverne and Shirley," "Mork and Mindy," "Joanie Loves Chachi," "Out of the Blue," and "Blanksy's Beauties." This is not counting the cartoons "Fonzie and the Happy Days Gang" and "Laverne and Shirley in the Army." "Law& Order" has had three spin-offs with "Special Victims Unit," "Criminal Intent" and "Trial by Jury." The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Television shows seventh edition helped with above information.
Q: Hi Leonard,
The specials features in the Exorcist DVD had said that Linda Blair had suffered psychological trauma as a result of the movie. I couldn't find any information regarding this. Is there any truth to this?
-Kim
A: They may have been a little general with ‘psychological trauma.' Linda Blair has said in interviews that The Exorcist was a very tough shoot for her. In fact, director William Friedkin made it a tough shoot on everyone. He was known to fire guns before rolling film, slapping actors and having Blair and Ellen Burstyn jerked violently in their stunt harnesses to get real scared reactions out of them. During one rocking bed scene the rig holding the harness broke and Blair severely injured her back. Additionally, the bedroom set was kept cold as a meat locker in order to producer the breaths of the actors as seen on film. Blair wore only a nightgown and has said that to this day she can't stand to be in cold weather or even a cold room. She also hates pea soup, which was used for vomit and actually caused Blair to puke. After the movie was released Blair received death threats from an unknown assailant. They were so serious that Warner Brothers hired her around the clock bodyguards. Due to these events and the sudden rush of fame Blair suffered from depression, drug abuse, an eating disorder and several bad relationships. Among her famous boyfriends were Rick Springfield, Rick James and Leif Garrett.
Q: Hey Lenny,
Another obscure (or maybe not so obscure) movie question.
There was a movie from some time back, maybe 10 years or so and I remember seeing the begining. A non liscensed doctor was preforming an unanesthesiaed facial reconstruction on some guy. He had him tied down to the bed or whatever. After the surgery scene it showed the guy in bandages reading some kind of magazine and sipping a soda. This is all I saw.
Any idea what movie this was?
~Az
A: That could be just about any movie involving a criminal getting facial surgery and there are more of those than you would think. From Face/Off to Batman to Stepfather III. My best guess here is going to be Johnny Handsome from 1989. Mickey Rourke plays a career criminal disfigured since birth. A prison doctor played by Forest Whitaker uses him as a guinea pig for a radical surgery. He gets out with a new face and goes after Lance Henriksen who killed his father figure mentor.
Don't die.
"Do you know that sixty percent of all deaths in America are caused by guns?"
"Would it make you feel any better, little girl, if they was pushed out of windows?"
