Category: Movies

RIP – Meadow George Lemon III aka “Meadowlark” Lemon

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Meadow George Lemon III better known as “Meadowlark” Lemon of Harlem Globetrotters fame passed away today at the age of 83.

Meadowlark played “before Kings, Queens, Presidents, Popes,” and millions of fans in over 100 countries of the world during his career with the Globetrotters which ran from 1954 – 1979 and over 16,000 games.  Dubbed the “Clown Prince of Basketball” Lemon became the face of the Globetrotters and one of the most recognized athletes in the world.

Lemon’s popularity led to commercials, tv and movie roles and two Harlem Globetrotter animated series.  In 1993, fourteen years after retiring, Lemon returned to the Globetrotters for a 50 game come-back tour.  In 2003, Lemon was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame which was just one of the many honor and awards Lemon earned throughout his life.

Lemon was a born-again Christian and in 1986 became an ordained minister.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Meadow George Lemon III’s family, friends and fans.

14 Fun Facts About “‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 14 Fun Facts About ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY INSPIRED BY THE WIZARD OF OZ.

Joel Coen revealed as much at the 15th anniversary reunion. “It started as a ‘three saps on the run’ kind of movie, and then at a certain point we looked at each other and said, ‘You know, they’re trying to get home—let’s just say this is The Odyssey. We were thinking of it more asThe Wizard of Oz. We wanted the tag on the movie to be: ‘There’s No Place Like Home.’”

3. THE TITLE IS FROM A PRESTON STURGES CLASSIC.

Sullivan’s Travels (1941) was a Hollywood satire about a comedy director who wanted to make a serious, epic drama, travels the country to research it, and discovers the world is better off laughing. The movie the character wanted to make was titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

8. THE MUSIC BECAME AN UNEXPECTEDLY HUGE HIT.

For the movie’s music—and even before they’d finished the script—the Coens turned to musician/producer T Bone Burnett, whom they had worked with on The Big Lebowski  in 1998. Along with singer-songwriter Gillian Welch, Burnett found the songs for the movie. Its soundtrack—which combined original and traditional bluegrass, country, gospel, blues, and folk music—was the first movie soundtrack to win the Grammy for Album of the Year since 1994. More than eight million copies of the album were sold.

14 Empowering Facts About “9 to 5”

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Jennifer M. Wood and Mental_Floss present 14 Empowering Facts About 9 to 5.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. IT WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED TO BE A DRAMA.

Though it’s ranked number 74 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time, 9 to 5 didn’t start out as a comedy. “At first we were going to make a drama,” Fonda explained. “But any way we did it, it seemed too preachy, too much of a feminist line. I’d wanted to work with Lily [Tomlin] for some time, and it suddenly occurred to [producer] Bruce [Gilbert] and me that we should make it a comedy. It remains a ‘labor film,’ but I hope of a new kind, different from The Grapes of Wrath or Salt of the Earth. We took out a lot of stuff that was filmed, even stuff the director, Colin Higgins, thought worked but which I asked to have taken out. I’m just super-sensitive to anything that smacks of the soapbox or lecturing the audience.”

3. IT WAS A BLACK COMEDY BEFORE IT WAS A BROAD COMEDY.

“I had written a very dark comedy in which the secretaries actually tried to kill the boss, although they tried to kill him in sort of funny ways,” screenwriter Patricia Resnick told Rolling Stone. “Originally, Jane had been concerned that would be too dark. I screened an old Charlie Chaplin film called Monsieur Verdoux for her. In it, Chaplin’s wife is blind and he has a child. He’s kind of a Blackbeard, he romances a series of woman through the course of the movie and murders them in order to get money and support his family. It is a comedy, but at the end they hang him. I turned to Jane at the end of the movie and tears were rolling down her cheeks—but she was concerned the women wouldn’t be sympathetic enough. I said, ‘He really killed all these women and you’re crying. I just want them to try! They won’t be successful.’ And she said OK. But then when Colin came in, he was very influenced by Warner Bros. cartoons and things like that, and so their attempts to kill him became the fantasy scenes, and he made it a much broader comedy.”

8. PARTON WOULD ONLY STAR IN THE FILM IF SHE COULD WRITE THE THEME SONG.

Parton may have been a Hollywood newcomer, but she was savvy. She agreed to take the part in 9 to 5, but only if she could write the theme song as well. Fonda agreed, and Parton wrote the song while the movie was filming. In 1981, she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for “9 to 5.”

Star Trek: The 366 Project!

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2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, a tv series that lasted just three seasons and yet would not die.  Star Trek went on to spawn a cartoon series, comic books, novelizations, several more tv series and many Star Trek movies [with more on the way].

In honor of Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary…

Roddenberry Entertainment, the original creators of Star Trek, is celebrating the anniversary of its brainchild by unearthing rare photos, memos, script pages, documents, and the like from the archives. The initiative, called “The 366 Project,” will see one piece of Trek history posted to Roddenberry Entertainment’s social media channel each day beginning in 2016. Like the title suggests, there are 366 pieces to be released.

If you can’t wait, Entertainment Weekly has three bonus pieces available now!

12 Seductive Facts About “The Graduate”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 12 Seductive Facts About The Graduate. Here are three of my favorites…

7. NOBODY, INCLUDING DUSTIN HOFFMAN, THOUGHT DUSTIN HOFFMAN SHOULD STAR IN IT.

The obvious choice for the role of Benjamin Braddock—a privileged Beverly Hills kid with wealthy parents—was someone tan, handsome, white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. Robert Redford was everyone’s first choice, but Nichols vetoed him on the grounds that the audience wouldn’t believe him as a character who has been rejected by women. Nichols auditioned hundreds of actors for the part. After seeing Hoffman’s audition, Nichols realized the key to the character should be that he’s out of place. He’s surrounded by tall, beautiful blond people, but he’s none of those things. Hoffman thought his audition had been terrible, but Nichols hired him, against the advice of the producers and financiers.

11. IT COULD HAVE STARRED THE BOY WONDER!

Burt Ward, then becoming very famous as the Caped Crusader’s sidekick in TV’s Batman, was offered the lead role by producer Turman. But Ward’s bosses nixed it. Ward said, “Because Batman was so enormous and successful … they didn’t want to dilute anything to do with the character by having me play a different role. The studio wouldn’t let me do it.”

12. IT COULD HAVE STARRED ABOUT A MILLION OTHER PEOPLE, TOO.

Besides Redford and Ward, many other actors were considered for Benjamin, including Charles Grodin, who came very close to being cast before dropping out over money and scheduling. Elaine, eventually played by Katharine Ross, was supposed to be Candice Bergen, with Natalie Wood, Ann-Margret, and Jane Fonda on the wish list, too. Nichols’ top choice for Benjamin’s father (William Daniels) was Ronald Reagan, who was just then going into politics. Doris Day turned down Mrs. Robinson because the book was too dirty (according to one telling, her husband-slash-manager didn’t even show it to her). And when Nicholsvisited Ava Gardner, who’d expressed interest in playing Mrs. Robinson, she acted like a nutty movie star. She declared, unasked, that she wouldn’t take off her clothes, and said she’d been trying all day to place a phone call to Ernest Hemingway, who really was a friend of hers but who’d been dead for five years.

16 Fun Facts About “Tootsie”

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Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 16 Fun Facts About Tootsie. Here are three of my favorites…

13. IT WAS GEENA DAVIS’ FIRST MOVIE.
Davis landed the role of soap actress April Page despite never having auditioned for any other movie before. “But I didn’t know you’re only supposed to come on the days that you’re working,” Davis told The Frame. “And so I came every day for six weeks, because I thought that was just part of it. I’d get a chair and put it right next to Sydney Pollack and sit there all day.”

14. BILL MURRAY INSISTED ON NOT BEING CREDITED.
Murray’s contract stipulated that he not be given any billing for the role, and Columbia agreed not to publicize his part in the film, because Murray thought it would be a “fun practical joke”to play. Hoffman insisted on casting Murray as his playwright roommate, even though Pollackwas unfamiliar with his work. Murray improvised most of his lines.

10. POLLACK AND HOFFMAN HAD LOUD DISAGREEMENTS THROUGHOUT PRODUCTION.
The two would go to each other’s trailers, scream at one another, and then do it Pollack’s way (according to the late director). They had their biggest arguments on Mondays, because they had each separately been working on the script over the weekend.

15 Epic Facts About “Heat”

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Garin Pernia and Mental_Floss present 15 Epic Facts About Heat.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. DESPITE BEING IN THE SAME FILM, PACINO AND JON VOIGHT HAVE NEVER WORKED TOGETHER.
The actors didn’t share any scenes together in Heat, and somehow throughout their veteran careers they haven’t gotten around to appearing on-screen together. When Maxim asked Voight which actor he most wanted to work with, living or dead, he said Pacino. “I really love Al’s work, and himself, and we’re friends … so that would be something that would be fun for me to do. I like the audacity of his work, and the greatness of his work. I’m very aware of it.”

14. VAL KILMER’S IDEA FOR HEAT 2 ENTAILS ROMANCING NATALIE PORTMAN.
During a 2013 appearance on Larry King’s Hulu show, Kilmer—who played Chris Shiherlis in Heat—shared his idea for a potential Heat sequel. “You remember Natalie Portman in it? She’s Pacino’s adopted daughter, so she comes home and says, ‘Daddy, daddy, I want you to meet my fiancé.’ And it’s me. He’s retired and I come to Chicago where he’s retired back to and I’m going to torture him, and then I’m going to kill him.” It’s worth noting that Portman was only 14 years old when Heat came out, and Kilmer was 35.

15. HEAT IS ONE OF BEN AFFLECK’S FAVORITE HEIST FILMS.
For The Town, the 2010 bank robbery heist movie that he co-wrote, directed, and starred in, Ben Affleck found inspiration in Heat. “A movie hasn’t been made since that has a deeper feel of authenticity,” Affleck told The Daily Beast of Heat. “It feels so real that bank robbers then copied Heat. And when I was interviewing people in prison they referenced Heat. And when I was interviewing the FBI, they referenced Heat. So, aside from feeling bummed out that I’d always be in the shadow of Heat, I can certainly tell you, for sure, with great authority, that Heat is the one movie that’s cited as the real thing by people who really do that stuff.”

Z-View: “The First Deadly Sin”

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The First Deadly Sin (1980)

Director: Brian G. Hutton

Screenplay: Mann Rubin from the Lawrence Sanders’ novel

Stars: Frank Sinatra; Faye Dunaway; and David Dukes.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Sanders and get Frank Sinatra to star in it!”

The Tagline: “He’s searching for a killer. She’s searching for a miracle …. And time is running out.”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Sinatra plays Edward X. Delaney a NY City Detective who is weeks from retirement with two big problems – 1.  His wife has a mysterious disease that is killing her.  2.  The city has a mysterious serial killer that has taken the lyrics to the Beatles’ Maxwell’s Silver Hammer to heart.  Sinatra has to deal with both.

Since the killer is using what turns out to be a mountain climbing hammer claw, Sinatra gets an old museum curator to follow leads.  This frees up Sinatra so he can yell at and rough up his wife’s doctor when he isn’t sitting at her bedside looking somber or reading to her.  Dunaway plays his wife who spends the entire film in a hospital bed.  Had she been in a better movie, I think her will to live could have carried the day.

As Sinatra’s wife gets progressively worse, he discovers who the killer is.  Hoping to catch the killer before he kills again, Sinatra instead spooks the maniac who returns to his high-rise apartment.  Sinatra meets him there and finds the maniac hiding and crying.  They have a conversation and the killer tells Sinatra he’ll escape justice.  The killer turns the tables and goes to the phone to call the police.  Sinatra pulls a Dirty Harry and then goes to the hospital to read to his wife.

At that point I was looking for the claw hammer.

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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.

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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