Category: Movies

The Leopard Man (1943) / Z-View

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The Leopard Man (1943)

Director: Jacques Tourneur

Screenplay: Ardel Wray and additional dialogue by Edward Dein based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich

Stars: Dennis O’Keefe, Margo and  Jean Brooks

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s get Jacques Tourneur to direct The Leopard Man!”

Tagline: A shriek in the night–another victim torn to pieces by claw and fang! Is it man-like beast or beast-like man that picks only beauty as prey–and why?.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

When a sideshow leopard escapes women begin turning up bitten and clawed to death… but evidence starts to suggest it might not be the leopard.

 

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Black Sabbath (1963) / Z-View

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Black Sabbath (1963)

Director: Mario Bava

Screenplay: Mario Bava and Alberto Bevilacqua

Stars: Michèle Mercier, Lidia Alfonsi and Boris Karloff

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s have Mario Bava direct Boris Karloff!”

Tagline: This is the night of the nightmare…

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Boris Karloff introduces a trio of horror tales and stars in one.  In the first, a woman preparing a corpse for burial steals the dead woman’s ring… and comes to regret it.  In the second a young woman receives terrorizing phone calls from a man watching her.  In the third Boris Karloff plays an old man returning home from battle with vampire… but did he win?

 

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15 Intense Facts About “Cape Fear”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Intense Facts About Cape Fear.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. STEVEN SPIELBERG TRADED THE MOVIE TO MARTIN SCORSESE FOR THE RIGHTS TO SCHINDLER’S LIST.

Martin Scorsese was apprehensive about making Schindler’s List after the controversy surrounding his previous two films, Goodfellas and The Last Temptation of Christ. Steven Spielberg, on the other hand, said he “wasn’t in the mood” to make a movie about a “maniac.” So, once Scorsese promised Spielberg that the Bowdens would survive in the end, they traded. Spielberg had Bill Murray in mind to play Max Cady. Scorsese had other ideas.

4. IT COULD HAVE STARRED HARRISON FORD AND ROBERT DE NIRO.

Scorsese asked De Niro to ask Harrison Ford to play Sam. Ford told De Niro he would only be interested in working on the film if he played Cady and De Niro played Sam. De Niro said no to that.

6. REESE WITHERSPOON BLEW HER AUDITION TO PLAY DANIELLE. SO DID DREW BARRYMORE.

“It was my second audition ever,” Witherspoon said in 1999. “My agent told me I’d be meeting Martin Scorsese. I said, ‘Who is he?’ Then he mentioned the name Robert De Niro. I said, ‘Never heard of him.’ When I walked in I did recognize De Niro, and I just lost it. My hand was shaking and I was a blubbering idiot.”

Drew Barrymore auditioned for the role, too, but believed she overacted for one of Scorsese’s assistants. In 2000, she called the audition “the biggest disaster” of her life and said that Scorsese thinks she’s “dog doo-doo” because of it.

Mark of the Vampire (1935) / Z-View

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Mark of the Vampire (1935)

Director: Tod Browning

Screenplay:  Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert

Stars: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan and Bela Lugosi

The Pitch: “Hey, Tod Browning wants to make Mark of the Vampire!”

Tagline: Undead…yet living on the Kisses of Youth!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Mark of the Vampire had the potential to be a great vampire movie.  Tod Browning directing, Bela Lugosi as the vampire with Lionel Barrymore!  Mark of the Vampire has mood, setting and starts off with great promise.

Sir Karell Borotin is found dead drained of his blood.  All evidence points to a vampire or vampires that must be found and destroyed.  The film is off and running and it’s a great experience.  There’s a scene with Lugosi changing from a bat to human form and then running down a hall to catch and kill a victim and it’s terrifying!

Then in the last act the film changes gears and becomes a murder mystery with no real vampires!  Check out this trivia from IMDB:

The actors all played their roles as though they were in a conventional horror movie, unaware of the twist-ending until the last few days of shooting.Director Tod Browning deliberately kept them in the dark because he wanted authenticity.

When director Tod Browning revealed late in the filming process that the plot dictated that the vampires were really just actors pretending to be vampires, he met with much resistance from the cast and crew. Nobody was more incensed than Bela Lugosi, who pleaded with Browning to let him play a real vampire.

Mark of the Vampire is still worth watching but sadly isn’t near the movie it could have been.

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Congo (1995) / Z-View

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Congo (1995)

Director: Frank Marshall

Screenplay: John Patrick Shanley based on the novel by Michael Crichton

Stars: Laura Linney, Tim Curry, Dylan Walsh, Ernie Hudson, Joe Don Baker and Stuart Pankin.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s turn Michael Crichton’s Congo into a movie!”

Tagline: Where you are the endangered species.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

A ragtag group joins forces in an effort to get into the Congo.  Two members are young guys who want to take a gorilla from the US back to her birthplace.  The other members are on a search and rescue mission to find what happened to an earlier team that discovered a rare diamond and was wiped out.  Neither group was expecting to find killer gorillas.

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Executive Action (1973) / Z-View

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Executive Action (1973)

Director: David Miller

Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo from a story by Donald Freed and Mark Lane

Stars: Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer, Ed Lautner and Dick Miller.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a movie on the Kennedy assassination.”

Tagline: Their Goal…Assassination. November 22, 1963…Accomplished!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Think Oliver Stone’s JFK only not as stylish.

 

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Borderland (2007) / Z-View

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Borderland (2007) / Z-View

Director: Zev Berman

Screenplay: Eric Poppen and Zev Berman

Stars: Brian Presley, Jake Muxworthy and Rider Strong

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a scary movie”

Tagline: Inspired by a true story.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Three college students head south of the border for a weekend of fun and end up on the wrong side of a Satanic drug-dealing cult.

 

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House on Haunted Hill (1959) / Z-View

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House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Director:  William Castle

Screenplay:  Robb White

Stars:  Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long and Elisha Cook, Jr.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a scary movie”

Tagline: First Film With the Amazing New Wonder EMERGO: The Thrills Fly Right Into The Audience!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Fredrick Loren [Price] offers five people $10,000 to stay the night in a mansion that legend has is haunted.  Despite their fears and needing the money, they group is locked in with no way out except death…

 

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The Haunting (1963) / Z-View

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The Haunting (1963)

Director: Robert Wise

Screenplay:  Nelson Gidding based on Shirley Jackson‘s novel The Haunting of Hill House

Stars:  Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s The Haunting of Hill House!”

Tagline: You may not believe in ghosts but you cannot deny terror!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Dr. Markway [Johnson] and three companions in an effort to prove the existence of ghosts go to Hill House – a remote mansion with a long history of violent deaths.

The Haunting has beautiful cinematography and director Robert Wise builds the tension and terror.  While there are a couple of great scares the movie relies on pace and an increasing sense of doom to ramp up the fear factor.  They don’t make them like this any more.

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He Ran All the Way (1951) / Z-View

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He Ran All the Way (1951)

Director: John Berry

Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler based on the novel by Sam Ross

Stars: John Garfield, Shelley Winters and Wallace Ford.

The Pitch: “Hey, let’s make a crime romance movie!”

Tagline: DYNAMITE hits the screen with their kind of love!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Nick Robey [Garfield] is a dumb, weak-willed middle-aged man living with his abusive, alcoholic mother.  Nick reluctantly joins in on a payroll heist that goes bad.  Nick’s partner and a cop are killed but Nick gets away with the cash.

Nick hides out at a swimming pool and meets Peg Dobbs [Winters].  She’s as stupid as Nick so you know she’s going to fall for him.  Nick walks her home and before long he’s hiding out in the family apartment.  The police are closing in and Nick’s not sure Peg really loves him.  What’s a fella to do?

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Spy Chasers (1955) / Z-View

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Spy Chasers (1955)

Director: Edward Bernds

Screenplay: Jerome S. Gottler and Bert Lawrence 

Stars: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey and Leon Askin.

The Pitch: “Hey, what if the Bowery Boys found a magic lamp?”

Tagline: They’re in the Underground with a Beautiful Spy!… in a laffdaffy riot of cloak-and-dagger adventure!

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

The Bowery Boys are recruited to help an European King regain his throne.

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