Category: Celebs

12 Timely Facts About “High Noon”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present  12 Timely Facts About High Noon.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. IT’S (BASICALLY) IN REAL TIME, BUT THE TERM “REAL TIME” DIDN’T EXIST YET.
Foreman wrote that he was interested “in telling a motion picture story in the exact time required for the events of the story itself.” Today we call that “real time,” but according to Webster’s, the term wasn’t coined till 1953. (By the way, the movie is 84 minutes long but covers about 100 minutes of time. The many clocks we see on the walls must move a little bit faster than real ones do.)

7. RIO BRAVO  WAS MADE IN RESPONSE TO IT. 
Among the Hollywood types who hated High Noon were John Wayne (he called it “the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life”) and Howard Hawks, director of classics like His Girl Friday and The Big Sleep. Hawks and Wayne teamed up for Rio Bravo, a similar story to High Noon, but one where the sheriff never shows fear or self-doubt. Hawks said, “I made Rio Bravo because I didn’t like High Noon … I didn’t think a good town marshal was going to run around town like a chicken with his head cut off asking everyone to help. And who saves him? His Quaker wife. That isn’t my idea of a good Western.” Sick burn, Hawks.

9. THE PAINED LOOK ON GARY COOPER’S FACE DIDN’T REQUIRE MUCH ACTING.
The veteran actor was 51 when the film was shot, and he looked every bit of it (and then some). Stomach ulcers and back problems plagued him, and he was in particular distress the day they shot the wedding scene, where he has to pick up Grace Kelly. His personal life was a mess, too, as he was separated from his wife and his very public affair with Patricia Neal was coming to an end. No wonder he looks so haggard and weary.

Z-View: “House of Frankenstein”

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House of Frankenstein (1944)

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Writers: Edward T. Lowe Jr. from a story by Curt Siodmak

Starring: Boris Karloff;  Lon Chaney, Jr.; J. Carroll Naish; and John Carradine.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie with all three of our biggest stars: Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man!”

The Tagline: “All the Screen’s Titans of Terror – Together in the Greatest of All SCREEN SENSATIONS!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Although House of Frankenstein promises Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man together; the promise is kept but not to the fullest extent.  While Frankenstein and Karloff are in the film, Karloff doesn’t play the monster.  Dracula also stars, but isn’t played by Bela Lugosi [who isn’t even in the film], but instead by John Carradine.  Happily, Lon Chaney, Jr. does return as the Wolf Man, but sadly never shares any scenes with Dracula.  Neither does Frankenstein for that matter.

Still, we do get one movie with the three biggest classic Universal monsters and that goes a long way in satisfying monster fans of all ages.

Karloff plays the mad scientist Dr. Niemann who with the help of his hunchbacked assistant [Naish] escapes prison and heads toward Frankenstein’s old stomping grounds to continue his work.  Along the way they encounter a traveling horror show that claims to have the skeletal remains of Dracula.  Seizing the opportunity [and the road show owner’s neck], Karloff has his assistant kill the road show’s owner so that Karloff can assume his identity and they can travel freely through the countryside.

Before too long they’ve revived Dracula and after a near capture by angry villagers, Karloff and Naish make their escape into the rising sun.  I’ll leave it to you to figure out Dracula’s fate.

Soon enough they find the frozen remains of Frankenstein and the Wolf Man.  Once the two monsters are thawed out we’re left with a battle royal of sorts.  The hunchback wants his brain put in Chaney’s body (so he can woo a gypsy girl).  Karloff isn’t too keen on that idea, not because he doesn’t want a little hunchbacked werewolf running around, but because he has other plans for both the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolf Man.  Of course the village townsfolk come up with their own ideas on what to do with the whole monstrous crew and things really, uh, heat up.

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43 Things We Learned from the “Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Hollywood.com present 43 Things We Learned from the Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

4.    Hanging Ethan Hunt (Cruise) off the side of the A-400 plane was originally McQuarrie’s idea. “I was joking when I said it,” he explains. “I did not think you’d take me seriously.”

18.    It was Cruise’s idea to have Hunt be shot — an idea McQuarrie didn’t think would work because Hunt would be walking around for the rest of the film with a bullet in his gut — but Cruise added “six months later” and boom.

26.    The opera sequence was originally written to end with Hunt and Faust simply leaving out the back exit, but Cruise was having none of it. “This is Mission: Impossible! You can’t just walk out a back door!”

35 Fabulous Facts About Frank Sinatra

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Mental_Floss presents 35 Fabulous Facts About Frank Sinatra. Here are three of my favorites…

27. SINATRA DIDN’T LIKE MARLON BRANDO, AND BRANDO DIDN’T LIKE SINATRA.
Sinatra was always known as one of Hollywood’s most likeable stars, but Marlon Brando apparently didn’t agree. The two didn’t hit it off when they starred in 1955’s Guys and Dolls. Sinatra, who allegedly wanted Brando’s role in the film, referred to his co-star as “Mr. Mumbles,” while Brando nicknamed Sinatra “Mr. Baldy.”

32.  THE BEATLES’ “SOMETHING” WAS ONE OF SINATRA’S FAVORITE SONGS.
Frank may not have loved (okay, he hated) rock and roll, but he was a big fan of the George Harrison-penned “Something.” The song became a sample in Sinatra’s live set toward the end of his career.

34. HE WAS A TOOTSIE ROLL FAN.
According to dead-celebrity expert Alan Petrucelli, Ol’ Blue Eyes was buried with some Tootsie Rolls, along with a few other choice effects, including cigarettes, a lighter, and a bottle of Jack Daniels.

20 of the Most Surprising Numbers About “Seinfeld”

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Worthy presents 20 of the Most Surprising Numbers About Seinfeld.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. $40,000,

2. $1 million

3. $110 million

During the 1991 to 1992 season, Jerry Seinfeld was paid $40,000 per episode. During the show’s final season, 1997 to 1998, he was paid $1 million per episode. He was offered $110 million to do a tenth season, but he turned down NBC’s offer to continue. He decided that nine seasons completed the show, and that is another story about numbers that was revealed when Vanity Fair did a cover story of him in 1998 when the series finally ended. He was quoted as saying “Nine is cool.” He had discovered that the number nine means completion in numerology. Learning that the Beatles stayed together nine years and then broke up was also an inspiration to Seinfeld. It turns out that nine is also a highly significant number in his life:

• He was born in 1954 (5 plus 4 = 9).

• He graduated high school in 1972 (7 plus 2 = 9).

• His first Tonight Show appearance was in 1981 (8 plus 1 =9).

• His sitcom Seinfeld first aired in 1989 (1 plus 9 plus 8 plus 9 = 27; 2 plus 7 = 9).

• The show was shown at 9 P.M.

• The show ended in 1998, which also equals 27 and, of course 2 plus 7 =9.

Seinfeld also said that when he thought about the end of the show, he felt that nine was his number.

Z-View: “In a Lonely Place”

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In a Lonely Place [1950]

Director: Nicholas Ray

Screenplay:  Andrew Solt and Edmund H. North

Starring: Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame

The Pitch: “Let’s get Bogie and Gloria Grahame and make a really noir film.”

The Tagline: “The Bogart Suspense Picture with the Surprise Finish!”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Dixon Steele (Bogart) is an ex-military screenwriter who hasn’t had a hit since before the war.  Since his return home, Steele’s quick temper and willingness to fight at even the smallest slight has left him with a bad reputation with the studios and run-ins with the law.  So when Steele gets the chance to write the screenplay adaptation for a popular novel he knows he’s going to have to even if he can’t bring himself to read it.

As fortune would have it, the hatcheck girl at one of Steele’s favorite restaurants has read and loves the book.  Steele invites her to his apartment late one evening after she gets off work with the idea that she can tell him the story.  Steele’s neighbor (Grahame) sees him taking the young lady into his apartment.  Later, as the girl tells Steele the story, he sees Grahame on her balcony.  It’s late and Steele gives the girl money for her time and cab fare home.

The next morning a Detective informs Steele that the girl was murdered and her dead body was found at the side of a deserted road.  Steele’s only alibi is Grahame who is called to the police station.  Although they had never met before, there is an immediate spark between Bogart and Graham.  Although she saw the girl enter with Bogart, Grahame didn’t see the girl leave, but that’s not what she tells the cops.  Instead Grahame offers that she did see the girl leave on her own… which is just the alibi that Bogart needs.

Over the next few weeks, Bogart and Graham fall in love and she begins to question if she alibied a killer.

Final Thoughts: The tagline touts a surprise finish and that is what you get.  This is a dark film and one of Bogart’s best roles.  I’m a fan of Gloria Grahame and this is one of her most famous movies.  Robert Warwick is also excellent in a small supporting role.

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Z-View: “Cat Ballou”

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Cat Ballou  [1965]
Director: Elliott Silversteen
Screenplay:  Walter Newman  and Frank Pierson from a novel by Roy Chanslor
Starring: Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a funny western!”

The Tagline: “It’s That Way-Out Whopper Of A Funny Western…A She-Bang To End All She-Bangs!!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

If you’re going to make a funny western it needs to be two things: 1] A western and 2] funny.  Cat Ballou manages to get one out of two right.  It’s a western, but it’s not funny.  Of course humor is all relative.  If you’re a fan of the tv series F-Troup  which premiered the same year and was set in the old west, you’ll definitely enjoy Cat Ballou more than I did.

Jane Fonda plays the daughter of a rancher who was killed by a hired gunfighter [played by Lee Marvin] for his land.  Fonda sends for a gunfighter of her own and ends up with a drunk [also played by Lee Marvin] who shoots best when half lit.

The story is pretty much by-the-numbers except for the fact that every ten minutes or so there is the appearance of two minstrels [played by Nat “King” Cole and Stubby Kaye] who show up to sing us the next chorus of “The Ballad of Cat Ballou.”

Most folks enjoy this film more than me so remember your mileage could vary.

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18 Fun Facts About “The Naked Gun”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 18 Fun Facts About The Naked Gun.  Here are three of my favorites…

6. THEY DREW FROM SEVERAL OLDER MOVIES.
The Charlotte Rampling and Robert Mitchum movie Farewell, My Lovely (1975) was where the scene of Priscilla Presley gliding down the stairs came from (the falling part was the comedic twist). The assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle in The Day of the Jackal (1973) gave ZAZ the idea for the assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II. Mad magazine, the Dirty Harry movies, and the cop series M Squad were other cited sources of satirization.

8. IT WAS JOHN HOUSEMAN’S FINAL FILM ROLE.
Houseman played the middle finger-raising driving instructor. Houseman collaborated with Orson Welles on the infamous The War of the Worlds radio broadcast and on Citizen Kane. In 1974, he won a Best Supporting Acting Oscar for the his role in The Paper Chase. A week before The Naked Gun was released, Houseman also made a cameo in Scrooged.

17. THE NAKED GUN THEME SONG PLAYED AT NIELSEN’S FUNERAL.
Nielsen passed away on November 28, 2010 at the age of 84 and was laid to rest in Fort Lauderdale. Dominik Hauser’s theme played as the Canadian Mounted Police carried his coffin.

21 Thrilling Facts About Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 21 Thrilling Facts About Michael Jackson’s Thriller.   Here are three of my favorites…

3. THE ALBUM’S TITLE WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT MAN.
Quincy Jones asked arranger/songwriter Rod Temperton to come up with an album title. He wrote down 200 to 300 possible titles in his hotel room before deciding on Midnight Man. The next morning he woke up and the word “Thriller” popped into his head. “Something in my head just said, this is the title,” recalled Temperton. “You could visualize it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as ‘Thriller.'”

5. VINCENT PRICE MADE LESS THAN $1000 FOR HIS WORK ON THE TITLE TRACK.
Jones’ then-wife Peggy Lipton knew Price. The horror movie legend managed to record his part in two takes. Once the album got big, Price expressed frustration over his meager paycheck and said that Jackson had stopped taking his calls.

19. THE “THRILLER” MUSIC VIDEO COST $500,000.
The Showtime cable network footed $300,000 of the budget for the rights to first air the music video and the “making of” feature, with MTV paying the rest to broadcast it after Showtime. Jackson asked John Landis to direct the video after seeing his work on the movie An American Werewolf in London. “I want to turn into a monster,” Jackson told Landis. “Can I do that?” Landis wrote the disclaimer that appears in the beginning of the video because Jehovah’s Witnesses (a group which Jackson belonged to at the time) told the artist that “Thriller” endorsed Satanism.

14 Fascinating Facts About “Slingblade”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 14 Fascinating Facts About Slingblade.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. BEFORE THE FEATURE, THERE WAS A SHORT FILM TITLED SOME FOLKS CALL IT A SLING BLADE FEATURING MOLLY RINGWALD.
The 29-minute movie was released in 1994, written by Thornton and directed by George Hickenlooper. Molly Ringwald portrayed the newspaper reporter in Hickenlooper’s version; she was replaced by Sarah Boss in the feature. Thornton did not mention the short during theSling Blade Oscar press tour because he had a falling out with Hickenlooper, who was claiming the movie was based on the short, while Thornton said it was based on his one-man show. At the time, Thornton said he “would have been glad to have talked about the short if George hadn’t bad-mouthed me all over town. This whole thing is based on the character, and I created that before I ever knew George Hickenlooper existed.”

5. RITTER GAVE VAUGHAN THE LAST NAME “CUNNINGHAM” AS A REFERENCE TO HAPPY DAYS.
The former Three’s Company star revealed as much on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1997. As an in-joke to some of his friends who were on the cast of Happy Days, Ritter made his character a Cunningham to open up the possibility that Vaughan was actually Chuck, Richie and Joanie’s older brother from season one of Happy Days, who was written out of the show and never spoken of by any of the characters again after he disappeared. In Ritter’s mind, Chuck had a “different alternative lifestyle” that he was too ashamed to reveal to his parents. Thornton had no idea this was the reasoning behind the surname choice.

13. HARVEY WEINSTEIN PAID $10 MILLION FOR THE DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS AFTER WATCHING THE FIRST 30 MINUTES.
The head of Miramax initially agreed to give Thornton the final say on editing. Weinstein then saw the rest of the movie and wanted Thornton to cut 20 minutes. Martin Scorsese told Thornton not to change his edit, before Weinstein went ahead and edited it without Thornton’s knowledge. For what it’s worth, Sling Blade producer Larry Meistrich later admitted that Weinstein’s edit was better than Thornton’s.

Z-View: “The Cat and the Canary”

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The Cat and the Canary  [1939]
Director: Elliott Nugent
Screenplay: Walter DeLeon and Lynn Starling based on the stage play by John Willard
Starring: Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

The Pitch: ”Hey, let’s team Bob Hope in a film with Paulette Goddard.  We could do a remake of the 1927 silent film The Cat and the Canary which is based on the 1922 stage play of the same name.”

The Tagline: “A Chill-and-Chuckle Chase!… A Fortune at Stake and a Monster at Large!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Ten years after the death of an eccentric millionaire, Cyrus Norman, his remaining family members are brought to his spooky-looking mansion deep in the bayou.  Before the will is read, his former caretaker informs the group that the spirits have said one of them will die that night. Sadly there is no way to leave the mansion until the next day.

Norman left two wills: The first leaves everything to Paulette Goddard [much to the disappointment of all except Bob Hope]; the second will is to be opened only if Goddard dies or goes insane before the month is out.  The second will leaves everything to one of the others [although who is unknown until Goddard dies] which of course puts Goddard’s life in danger.  To make matters worse, the group learns that a homicidal maniac known as the Cat has escaped from a nearby insane asylum and is in the area.

As the night wears on things get progressively worse – lights go on and off, people disappear, real eyes in paintings are watching, secret passages are found and what? Someone has been murdered!

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17 Facts About “Misery”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 17 Facts About Misery.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. BETTE MIDLER TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF ANNIE WILKES.
Midler thought it was too violent. She later called herself “stupid” for her decision. The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and All the President’s Menscreenwriter William Goldman wrote Misery with then unknown but respected theater actress Kathy Bates in mind.

4. JAMES CAAN WAS FAR FROM THE FIRST CHOICE TO PLAY PAUL SHELDON.
Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman, and Robert Redford all said no to the role of Paul Sheldon. William Hurt said no twice. Warren Beatty showed a lot of interest and gave Reiner and Goldman ideas for the character before having to turn them down, too, because he had to keep working on Dick Tracy.

14. CAAN AND BATES CLASHED OVER THEIR ACTING METHODS.
Caan believed in as little rehearsal as possible. Bates, with her theater background, was used to practicing a lot. When Bates commented to Reiner that Caan wasn’t attempting to relate or listen to her, Reiner told her to use that frustration toward her character.

9 Little Known Facts About Mark Twain

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Hayley Igarashi and Good Reads present 9 Little Known Facts About Mark Twain.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. At the peak of his fame, a letter addressed to “Mark Twain, God Knows Where” was actually delivered.
This was not an isolated occurrence. Other successfully delivered letters were addressed to “Mark Twain, Somewhere,” “Mark Twain, c/o President Roosevelt. The White House,” and “Mark Twain, Somewhere, (Try Satan).”

3. In another world, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer might’ve been written by Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.
Most people know Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Clemens, but did you know about the author’s other pseudonyms? He also tried out the pen names W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins, Sergeant Fathom, John Snooks, and Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass.

6. Nikola Tesla and Twain became friends because of a very effective electrical charge.
Few friendships have been forged under more unusual circumstances. Desperate to find a cure for his constipation, Twain visited one of Nikola Tesla’s salons, where the scientist conducted some of his more outlandish experiments. One electrical charge and a few x-rays later, Twain was cured. The two men remained friends for the rest of their lives.