Ask 411 Movies for 10.9.06: Strong to the Finish Because Me Eats Me Spinach
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 10.09.2006
Popeye, Dune, horror directors, The Parallax View, Back to the Future IV and why you should never vacation on a deserted island
The Wal-Mart $5.50 bin loves the Warren Beatty as I picked up two of his biggest hits in Heaven Can Wait and Bonnie and Clyde. Oddly I did not find Town and Country.
Q: Hey there!
I noticed that you have the Goddards discovering Karyn Kupcinet dead on Nov. 27, 1963. They discovered her on November 30, 1963. She was killed on Nov. 28, 1963, early Thanksgiving morning. She had a part in Ladies Man (1961). She comes into the room from the back, just as Jerry gets his burnt hand unstuck from the toaster, about 30 minutes into the picture. Kathleen Freeman was in the scene. They shared a dressing room.
Karyn had no pre-knowledge of the Kennedy Assassination, in my opinion. What could link her death was that her father, Chicago Columnist Irv Kupcinet, immediately began an investigation into Jack Ruby (whom he knew), and the Chicago connection to Kennedy's murder. (Seth Kantor)
In my estimation, her death was meant to hurt Irv Kupcinet. She was killed by a karate chop to the neck, which broke her hyoid bone and she choked. A reporter, who was investigating Ruby's motives in killing Lee Harvey Oswald, Mr. Koethe, was killed in a similar way months later.
Sincerely,
Kathleen
A: Thank you for the correction and the additional information. This is from a list of mysterious Hollywood deaths we over in the column several weeks ago.
Q: Hey 'Hurst --
Not sure how you feel about answering animation questions, but I'm asking anyway -- While in high school, I discovered the humor in the Popeye cartoons I watched before I headed off each morning -- Great stuff but I noticed the writing in the episodes where he wears red and blue are far more cerebral and superior to the ones where he wears white; while looking newer and more polished, they're also really dumbed down, why? And can you give me some interesting tidbits about my favorite Sailor Man?
And Altman directed Popeye? I'd leave that off of my resume -- It seems like he was going for the feel of the old cartoons, but the images in his head just don't translate onscreen or am I way off here.
Thanks.
"You're ugly and you're skinny and you're thin, you look like something the cat drugged in!" – Bluto
-Nathaniel
A: Altman takes a lot projects just because it's something different from what he's done before and he finds it a challenge.
Popeye was created in 1929 by Elzie Crisler Segar as part of his Thimble Theatre comic strip, which had been running since 1919. The main characters were Olive Oyl, her brother Castor Oyl and her boyfriend Ham Gravy. Popeye proved so popular that he muscled Ham out and started dating Olive. Popeye was said to be based on Frank "Rocky" Fiegle from Segar's youth and it was rumored that Segar personally sent the man royalty checks through the thirties. The strip still runs today with reprints through out the week and new material on Sunday.
Fleischer Studios, famous for their Superman shorts, adapted Popeye to animation in 1933. He first guest starred in a Betty Boop cartoon and was spun off from there. He was originally voiced by Billy Costello who was fired for ‘bad behavior' and replaced by animator Jack Mercer. Several women voiced Olive Oyl, including Mae Questal who also did Betty Boop. Many minor characters in the Thimble Theatre strip were given bigger parts in the cartoons such as Bluto and Wimpy. Wimpy became so popular that one of the first fast food chains in the country was named after him. Popeye's spinach use also increased and led to a boom in the crop's sales. A statue of Popeye was built in Crystal City, Texas by the local spinach farmers. Another one was erected in Segar's hometown of Chester, Illinois and yet another statue is in Alma, Arkansas that produces Popeye brand canned spinach. In 1938 Fleischer moved their studios to Florida and the series became more basic in animation and plot in order to obtain a more Disney like feel and be cheaper to produce. It must have worked because Popeye frequently beat Mickey Mouse as the number one animated box office draw in polls of filmgoers and theater owners. In 1941 with World War II underway Popeye reenlisted in the Navy and began wearing a traditional white naval uniform as opposed to the generic red and blue suit he wore previously. Fleischer Studios were disbanded in early 1942 and bought out by Paramount, who renamed it Famous Studios. Production was moved to New York and put in Technicolor. Mercer cosmically enough joined the Navy and when he could not record his dialogue Questal doubled up and did Popeye's voice too. So the answer to your main question is the selling off of Fleischer Studios to Paramount.
Paramount stopped their theatrical shorts in 1957 and sold their back catalogue to AAP. They were bought out by United Artists, who merged with MGM and then in turn was bought by Ted Turner. Turner sold off the production end in 1988, but retained all the back catalogue rights for properties such as Popeye. Then Turner was bought out by Time Warner in 1997 and they currently own the Popeye character and all old shorts. Cartoon Network frequently ran the cartoons under The Popeye Show banner until March of 2004. In 1988 Turner sent all of the black and white shorts to South Korea to be retraced in color, but they have been since restored. Some public domain material has found its way to DVD, but official releases by Time Warner is on the docket for next year.
In 1961 220 new Popeye cartoons were produced in just two years for new television syndication. Hanna Barbera then made the 1978 "The All New Popeye Hour" series for Saturday mornings. Popeye returned to his old blue and red suit, but his classic theme song was replaced by Paul McCartney's "Hot as Sunglasses." The original "Popeye the Sailor Man" song was basically a take off of the Pirate King song from The Pirates of Penzance. The show was cut to a half hour in 1981 and finally canceled in 1983. Hanna Barbera then issued "Popeye and Son" in 1987 where Popeye and Olive were the parents to Popeye, Jr. It lasted one year.
As far as other media goes Popeye appeared in comic books by Dell Publishing that saw him acting as a police assistant and Bluto tied up with the mafia. Thrice weekly radio shorts ran for 78 episodes from 1936 to 1937. It was sponsored by Wheetena cereal, which replaced spinach as Popeye's power food. The film we've mentioned. In 1982 Nintendo created a popular video game that saw Popeye capturing hearts dropped by Olive Oyl and eating spinach to punch out Bluto. A Japanese video game with accompanying board game was made in 1994 but never made it to the states.
As a special aside, spinach was a slang term for marijuana in the thirties and it's thought by some that Popeye was really getting stoned to get strong. Popeye's Chicken and Biscuit restaurants are not named for the sailor, but rather Popeye Doyle from The French Connection, which makes just about as much sense. Popeye has been used as a spokesman for the chain, because apparently Gene Hackman isn't that desperate for cash. In 1991 mini-comic books were included in Quaker Oatmeal boxes where Popeye ate the oatmeal for strength. In 2001 Popeye and Bluto appeared in a commercial for Minute Maid where it was intended that the drink could make friends out of enemies. However, Robert Knight of the Culture and Family Institute charged that the commercial made Popeye and Bluto look homosexual. I do not want to know who is the bottom in that pair. The story was covered by "The Daily Show." Thanks again to Wikipedia for the trivia help.
Q: re: Carpenter.
His latest offering, the episode "Cigarette Burns" from the Masters of Horror series, is the best damn work he's done in many, many years. Highly recommended -- its his bloodiest work to date, and really shows a return to form in terms of style and balls.
re: Kiss Kiss. you called that. It was a great film. a real throwback to classic noir, while being very post modern at the same time. On that same topic... what did you think of "Brick" another throwback noir picture?
So you've touched on Carpenter, can you perhaps give a brief break down of who you consider to be the best horror film directors in your opinion?
Nate
A: Brick is on my Netflix list and I'll bump it to the top, but United 93 is next up. I'll do the same for "Cigarette Burns" too.
I'll give you five directors other than Carpenter who I think are tops in the genre. I'm sure I'll leave someone off to make Johnny Sorrow very angry.
James Whale: Whale and Tod Browning were a prime reason for Universal's horror success in the thirties. Whale helmed such classics as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Man in the Iron Mask and The Old Dark House. Whale had a distinct visual style that was heavily influenced by German silent works in his shot composition and camera movement. Whale also frequently battled censors in putting salacious material and religious subtext into his films. Even today there is a modern sensibility and intelligence to his works.
Roger Corman: First all you have to note that Corman is one of the best low budget producers in Hollywood and has given breaks to such notables as Ron Howard, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme and John Sayles as directors and Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Talia Shire, Bruce Dern and Rober DeNiro as actors. As a director, Corman ushered in the new era of bloodier, color drenched films in the early sixties while maintaining a sort of retro gothic look in his films with Boris Karloff and Vincent Price. At the same time he was also making real under the radar cult classics like Little Shop of Horrors, Bucket of Blood and one of my favorites in The Man with X-Ray Eyes. While Corman worked cheap and fast, he was a master craftsman with a great directorial eye and love for films that has influenced countless productions and film people.
Mario Bava: Bava started out as a cinematographer and it shows in his films. While his movies could be horrific and gory, they were also moody and stylish thanks to shot compositions, use of light and zooming to heighten suspense. He pioneered both the Italian gothic horror genre with Black Sunday and Black Sabbath and the Italian slasher genre with The Girl Who Knew Too Much. This film greatly influenced Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, pretty good Italian horror directors in their own right, and his film Planet of the Vampires is marked as an inspiration for Alien.
David Cronenberg: He creeps me out like no other, because he hit on a prime, dormant fear of many. The transformation and failing of our bodies beyond our control, which in real life became a very prominent fear in the eighties with the rise of AIDS. This theme can be seen in Dead Ringers, The Fly, Rabid, Shivers, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome and Naked Lunch. In recent years Cronenberg's works have become more psychological thrillers exploring the decay of the mind such as Crash, Spider and eXistenZ. Of course, he helmed one of his best pictures ever last year in A History of Violence and we have to throw The Dead Zone in there too. Cronenberg in recent years has gotten accolades and support from his peers such as Carpenter and Scorsese.
Wes Craven: What makes Craven so great is his background. He has degrees in psychology and writing and has taught classes on the humanities and English. He also broke into the industry as a sound editor and his films always have good use of sound effect and soundtrack to heighten tension while not distracting. Craven started out with good low budget horror in The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left before exploring themes of the blending of reality and a self examination of the horror film genre. He dissected it, rebuilt it and progressed it in movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The People Under the Stairs, Shocker and the Scream trilogy.
Q: Hey how's it going? I've been reading your column since it started and always look forward to the next one. Any way I have a book that I just finished with that I figured I might send your way. I don't know if you are familiar with "Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader" but they have one that deals with Hollywood (don't worry it's more of a bedside reader for me). There probably isn't much in it you don't already know but if you are interested let me know and I'll mail it to you. Also I have a question for you. I have been trying to figure out what this movie was for years I saw it in a theater with my father in 1983 or so. All I remember was that there was a group of people released on an island or something, and then a group of hunters would hunt for them. I was 5 when I saw this so it is a little fuzzy but reminds me of an update of "The Most Dangerous Game".
Thank You
-Tom
A: I will always take free stuff. Pay it forward my good man.
A remake of The Most Dangerous Game under the title of Turkey Shoot was made in 1982. Steve Railsback plays a prisoner in a post apocalyptic prison camp where the prisoners are hunted for sport, until he fights back against the sadistic warden Michael Craig and falls for Olivia Hussey.
Also from 1982 is Island of Blood about a film crew shooting on a remote island where everyone is picked off one by one. No one you've really heard of is in it. Other than that I'm going to need a little more to go on.
Q: Bored the other day, I started looking through the free movies available through the comcast on demand service. There I found Dune, which I had never seen, but had heard was awesome. Usually, I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but there are several films/tv shows in that genre I like, so I figured I would give it a shot. I had to stop it after 25 minutes.
This is not usually something I do. When I sit down to watch a movie, I watch the whole thing, even if I am bored to tears. When I see a movie in the theater, I stay for the whole movie even if it sucks. The only exception to that rule was Any Given Sunday, which was so awful that I had to leave for fear of having an aneurysm.
So my question is this. A) Does Dune get any better? B) Should I have give it more than 25 minutes? C) Are there any movies that you have walked out on in the theater because of how awful they were?
-Drew
A: In short form Dune does not get any better. I'm surprised you made 25 minutes. The only film I've ever walked out of was Parenthood, because I was ten and Steve Martin wasn't being a wild and crazy guy.
If you are interested in Dune you should search out the Sci-Fi miniseries from 2000, which is considered more faithful to the original novel and overall better. The original film was first put into process in 1971 when rights were bought by Arthur Jacobs. He tapped David Lean to direct, but the project fell through when Jacobs died in 1972. A French consortium bought the rights in 1974 and Alejandro Jodorowsky was set to direct. He wanted to make a ten hour epic and pegged Orson Welles, Salavador Dali and Gloria Swanson for main parts with Pink Floyd to do the soundtrack. Author of the original novel Frank Herbert disowned the project, money dried up and the rights were sold again, this time to Dino De Laurentiis. Dino had Herbert write the script, but it was deemed too long. Rudolph Wurlitzer was then hired and Ridley Scott was brought in to direct. Scott's brother died shortly thereafter of cancer and he didn't have it in him to do such a major project. So he left for Blade Runner. David Lynch then came on after turning down The Empire Strikes Back. Lynch worked with several people on a script and finally got one in order. The budget was set at $40 million with 80 sets built on 16 stages with 1700 crewman working on the film. The rough cut was five hours, Lynch wanted to get it down to three, but Dino forced him to go to 137 minutes. It bombed big time on release grossing about $27 million. It was thought to be unwieldy, confusing, convoluted and what other negative adjective you want to put on it. It's thought that the massive editing just made it impossible to follow. Herbert has apparently seen the rough cut and liked that a lot. There have been talks of having David Lynch do a director's cut, but he's disowned the film pretty much.
Q: Leonard,
Recently with the hurrah surrounding the Saints/Falcons Monday Night Football game, my friends and I were wondering if that would be ESPN's highest-rated broadcast ever. Today I saw that last week's game scored something ridiculously high, like 10.2, maybe. For the record, what is ESPN's highest rating ever? Would that make it the highest cable rating ever? And, how does WWE compare to that? (I couldn't resist thorwing that in there.)
Thanks a million. Hope "United 93" was good. I haven't seen it.
-Randy
A: I haven't seen United 93 yet myself. It's coming next week, I promise. I break my promises though.
ESPN scored a 9.9 rating for the Vikings vs. Redskins game a few weeks ago. Before that they got an 8.9 for a 1994 Christmas Day NFL special that had Detroit battling Miami. The highest cable sports program before that was a 9.8 TNT scored for Michael Jordan's last all-star game in 2003. RAW usually does around a 4.5. The highest rating I could find it ever did was a 5.7 the night after the 2001 Wrestlemania. The main event was The Rock versus Steve Austin in a steel cage. I couldn't find a list of cable ratings, but I would say that 9.9 would be close to the highest ever.
Q: Good day Mr. DEACON,
In the original Battlestar Galactica series the was an actress by the name of Maren Jensen she played the role of Athena. There were some bit parts after the series and then in 1981 she disappears from movies and t.v. There is no further information on her after 1981 that I am able to find. Can you Help?
Regards,
-Jim
A: Maren Jensen was born in Arcadia, California on September 23rd, 1957 to a Danish doctor father and a Hawaiian opera singer mother. She studied acting at UCLA for two years before dropping out and pursuing a modeling career. She did a couple TV guest spots and came to the notice of the "Battlestar Galactica" producers who cast her as Athena, daughter of star Loren Green and brother of Richard Hatch. She lasted 12 episodes as it's been said that she left the series to pursue modeling opportunities in Europe. Her last film was Deadly Blessing in 1981. After this she dated Eagles member Don Henley. She appeared in his 1985 video "Not Enough Love in the World" and sang back up on "Johnny Can't Read." During this period Henley was helping her get a possible music career off the ground as she wrote and played piano, but nothing came of it. She broke up with Henley in the late eighties and left Hollywood due to Epstein-Barr Syndrome, which is more commonly diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome today. One wild rumor has her serving a jail sentence for attempted murder, but most believe she simply retired to the Mid-West to raise a family. I even did a general people search and came up with five Maren Jensen's in the United States. I won't go further, because I don't need a stalking charge against me…again.
Q: Okay Movie Man,
Just for the heck of it, I was googling 'Back to the Future' tonight (I caught Part III on Encore and was feeling nostalgic), and came across an IMDB news item where in Dec. '05, Michael J. Fox said he was in negotiations to star in a Part IV. Do you know what the status of this is?
I know Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis were trying to put together a Part IV in the late 90s, but Fox's "retirement" due to Parkinson's ended all plans because they said there was no reason for another sequel if Michael wasn't the star.
After reading that IMDB item, it refreshed my memory of reading it the first time around. Did plans for a fourth installment die a quiet death yet again?
-Justin
A: Early this decade Bob Gale announced that he was working on a script for Back to the Future IV. It would focus on the further adventures of Doc Brown, his wife Clara and their two sons on their time train. The Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios features the Institute of Time Travel that was established by Brown and would have played into the plot. Fox was slated for a cameo. However, after conferring with director Zemeckis and producers Amblin entertainment the project was scrapped due to Fox not being able to star and the notion that a fourth part was pointless, not that has ever stopped anyone in Hollywood. Prior to that the project was talked about frequently in the nineties, but nothing really got moving with it. In an interview last year, that you must have found a bit on, Fox said he would like to do another sequel, but only if he was the new doc character. This was simply a musing from Fox and nothing concrete has been confirmed by the other personnel involved in the series.
Q: I just watched "The Parallax View" on one of the HBO's recently and it left me with quite a few questions.
1.) Who killed Warren Beatty at the end of the movie?
2.) What did the reporters supposedly see during the first assassination that they were being killed?
3.) Why were those politicians assassinated in the first place?
4.) Was that supposed to be some sort of congressional committee at the beginning and ending of the movie? Were they possibly in on it?
5.) What exactly does the Parallax Corporation do beside train assassins? I'm assuming that it's not a secret shadowy company but a public company that has a dark side to it.
6.) What's your opinion on this movie? For me, while the performances were great, the fact that I could come up with so many questions that need to be answered without thinking very hard tells me that this movie was very rushed with huge plot holes.
Keep up the great work.
James
A: From 1974, Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) is a reporter who is visited by an old girlfriend (Paula Prentiss). She saw the assassination of a senator three years earlier and now she's convinced that there is a conspiracy to take out the witnesses, but make it look like accidents. When she seemingly dies of an overdose, Frady investigates despite the objections of his boss (Hume Cronyn). He discovers the existence of a company whose stock and trade appears to be the training and hiring of assassins. Frady sets up an alias through a retired CIA contact (Kenneth Mars) and fakes the entrance exam to the company with the help of a psychology professor (Anthony Zerbe). While questioning one of the other witnesses (William Daniels), Frady is caught in a boat explosion and presumed dead. He uses this to immerse himself into his new identity and join the Parallax Corporation. However, why he thinks he's on to them, they are on to him. Frady is framed for the murder of a senator (Jim Davis) during a rehearsal for a rally and is then bumped off. As for your questions:
1) Much like in the first assassination it is reasonable to assume that Frady as the patsy was killed off by security, Parllax goons, or Parallax goons posing as security.
2) Witnesses being killed off in ways that looked like accidents or natural causes was one conspiracy theory surrounding the John F. Kennedy assassination. It was first put forth by Sylvia Meagher in her book Accessories After the Fact. The idea is that the witnesses don't know what they saw was important, but someone asking the right questions could put all the pieces together. In the film, William Daniels character on the boat has a picture of the real killer and the other people who were murdered together. This would suggest that they were killed for their ability to identify the real killer as at least being present at the murder.
3) There is no reason given to the deaths of the two senators shown in the film, but it is suggested through dialogue that both men were considered to be progressive, independent potential presidential candidates that would cause trouble for the status quo.
4) The committee shown was to be a take off on the Warren Commission that investigated the JFK assassination. Their presence is to merely confirm that the Parallax Corporation have done their job in not only killing off a top political figure, but covering it up so there won't be any further major investigations or questions. The way the scenes are shot and presented suggest to me that the committee is just seen as another enigmatic and mysterious cog in the political machine, but not necessarily on the take.
5) The Parallax Corporation was a take off of the Permindex Corporation, which was also part of some Kennedy conspiracy theories as being involved in the assassination. They are covered in Jim Garrison's book On Trail of the Assassins as a Canadian company used as a front for Clay Shaw. From the film I would say they are a clandestine organization that are only known to those in the know.
6) The Parallax View is part of a trilogy of political conspiracy thrillers by director Alan J. Pakula in the seventies along with Klute and All the President's Men. The main theme of the film is the possibility that a company like the Parallax Corporation could exist and orchestrate the killing of high level figures and then easily cover it up. You must remember the United States was coming from an era where many top men were assassinated including JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Outside of the prologue and epilogue, we see the film solely from the point of view of Frady. We know what he knows and unravel the mystery as he does, while still getting caught up in other elements. Any film like this trades on a certain degree of ambiguity for mystery and tension. From a thematic standpoint the questions you have and plotlines left dangling are common in any conspiracy theory. We'll never know the answers an in some senses we don't need to know or want to know. While the film could be ultimately vexing and confusing, Pakula presents the film in a very matter of fact, deliberately paced way that grounds the subject. Plus Beatty gives a calm, average Joe performance in the lead. He's a dogged reporter, but an accessible guy and one that at no point we the viewer would brand as a nut or firebrand. He's just pursuing the truth in whatever manner it might come in. While I like the film, it comes off as very dated today in overall presentation and execution. A remake would not be out of the question. When you boil it down it comes off as a movie where Pakula and Beatty are forwarding their own views in an overbearing manner.
Q: Two recent commercials use footage from old films and I'd like to know which ones. One is Audrey Hepburn dancing and the other is of two gunfighters in a bar with the one man slapping the other while doing tricks with his gun.
-Craig
A: The Audrey Hepburn footage is from 1957's Funny Face. Hepburn plays a bookstore clerk discovered as a model by Fred Astaire's photographer. Hepburn agrees to go to France for a photo shoot, only so she can immerse herself in Paris' beatnik culture. The scene in the commercial is when Hepburn runs off to an underground club and Astaire trails her to tell her she's deluded on her romantic view of the Paris culture. Eventually Hepburn finds out he is right and they hook up.
The western footage for Sprint is from 1973's My Name is Nobody. Terrence Hill plays the title character who is shown doing the trick work and slapping the other man. Henry Fonda stars as an aging gunfighter who wants to retire, but Hill as an eager fan wants to see him go out in a blaze of glory. Hill finally helps Fonda to fake his death and live the rest of his days in animosity. This was Fonda's last western and sited by Hill as one of his favorite films that he did. Hill was a popular spaghetti western actor who spoofed the Man with No Name trilogy with the Trinity trilogy and in many of his westerns including this one he basically plays the Trinity character. Hill tried to segue into stardom in the states with Mr. Billion and March of Die in 1977, but they both bombed. Hill also starred in a film famous in this column from way back, Super Fuzz.
United 93 should finally be coming next week, so don't die.
"Moods are for cattle and loveplay, not for fighting!"
