Category: Trivia

“Point Blank” Gets the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment

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Point Blank gets the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment.  It’s a thing of beauty.  Click over and you’ll get…

  • Rarely seen production and behind-the-scenes photos
  • Point Blank script
  • Alexander Jacobs discusses the process of adapting Westlake’s novel, the conflicts involved in getting the script to screen, and his approach to screenwriting
  • How the Point Blank script influenced Walter Hill
  • John Boorman on shooting Point Blank his 1st feature film in color
  • John Boorman and Steven Soderbergh Point Blank commentary track
  •  Point Blank. Lee Marvin: A Personal Portrait by John Boorman
  • and much more!

The 21 Best Movies of the 1970s

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Eric D. Snider posted his choices at Mental Floss for The 21 Best Movies of the 1970s.  Snider’s list contains great choices. He listed his picks (except for Godfather 2) by their year of release.  I rated Snider’s choices by how they resonated with me.  Here’s how things came out…

Eric’s List

Craig’s List

01. A Clockwork Orange (71)

01. Rocky (76)

02. The Last Picture Show (71)

02. The Godfather (72)

03. The French Connection (71)

03. Godfather 2 (74)

04. The Godfather (72)

04. Jaws (75)

05. The Godfather II (74)

05. Alien (79)

06. Serpico (73)

06. Blazing Saddles (74)

07. The Exorcist (73)

07. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (75)

08. Chinatown (74)

08. The Exorcist (73)

09. Blazing Saddles (74)

09. Apocalypse Now (79)

10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (74)

10. Chinatown (74)

11. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (75)

11. Being There (79)

12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (75)

12. A Clockwork Orange (71)

13. Jaws (75)

13. All the President’s Men (76)

14. Taxi Driver (76)

14. Star Wars (77)

15. Rocky (76)

15. Serpico (73)

16. All the President’s Men (76)

16. The French Connection (71)

17. Network (76)

17. Taxi Driver (76)

18. Star Wars (77)

18. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (74)

19. Apocalypse Now (79)

19. Network (76)

20. Alien (79)

20. The Last Picture Show (71)

21. Being There (79)

21. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (75)

If I created the list I would have found spots for Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Superman and F.I.S.T.  just to name a few.  

Things You Might Not Know About Lon Chaney Sr.!

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Lon Chaney is my favorite silent movie star.  (Take that, Chaplin fans!)  Hopefully you will enjoy that Jane Rose and Mental Floss present 9 Transformative Facts About Lon Chaney Sr. as much as me.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. LON CHANEY SR. WAS KNOWN AS “THE MAN OF 1,000 FACES.”
Unlike many of Hollywood’s leading men, who trade on their good looks and recognizable faces, Lon Chaney Sr. made his name by donning a series of disguises and elaborate makeups, completely changing his appearance from film to film. Chaney, an early character actor, gravitated toward bizarre and distinct roles—playing a series of criminals, toughs, circus performers, clowns, pirates, ghouls, and vampires. His ability to disappear into his roles soon earned him the moniker “The Man of 1,000 Faces.” It also made him the subject of a popular joke at the time: “Don’t step on that spider! It might be Lon Chaney!”

3. SOME OF LON CHANEY SR.’S MOST MEMORABLE FILMS WERE MADE WITH DIRECTOR TOD BROWNING AT THE HELM.

Chaney had been working in movies for more than a decade before he began his frequent collaborations with director Tod Browning, who is best known for putting Bela Lugosi on the map with the 1931 film Dracula (and most infamously known for directing the 1932 movie Freaks). But when they did finally come together, it was a meeting of macabre minds. To begin with, Chaney and Browning had several things in common: Both had experienced past brushes with personal tragedy (Browning had been the driver in a car accident that killed actor Elmer Booth; Chaney’s first wife had tried to kill herself); both came from a Vaudevillian background; and both had a penchant for spectacle and the grotesque.

Among Chaney and Browning’s collaborations were the 1925 silent version of The Unholy Three, in which Chaney plays a sideshow ventriloquist masquerading as a kindly grandmother; the 1927 film The Unknown, in which Chaney plays a fugitive masquerading as an armless knife thrower, who later blackmails a surgeon to amputate his arms in order to win the woman he loves (the film is one of several in which Chaney and Browning concocted a bizarre character and built an entire film around it); and the 1927 film London After Midnight, in which Chaney plays a vampire-like figure. Tragically, this film is also famous forbeing lost; the last known copy was destroyed in a 1965 MGM vault fire.

7. LON CHANEY SR. HATED PUBLICITY.
Chaney was a mysterious presence both onscreen and off. He disliked hobnobbing with the Hollywood set, going to premieres, giving interviews, and/or signing autographs (except for fans behind bars—Chaney was a self-taught penologist, or student of prisons and convict rehabilitation). He once boasted that he would “fix it so no one will write my autobiography after I’m gone.”

In fact, details of Chaney’s life were so scarce that actor James Cagney had a difficult time researching the part of Chaney for 1957 biopic Man of a Thousand Faces. While he was no doubt genuinely reclusive to an extent, Chaney’s reticence may have in fact been the smartest publicity move of all, as his mystery only added to his allure.

Things Learned from Martin Scorsese’s “The Set-Up” Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 21 Things We Learned from Martin Scorsese’s The Set-Up Commentary.

The Set-Up is one of my favorite films (not favorite boxing films, favorite films period).  If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and search it out.

And now, for three of my favorite commentary items (beware of spoilers)…

15. One of the elements that appealed to Wise with the story is that the fight at the heart of the film isn’t some championship bout… it’s just a regional, late on the card fight.

20. He says traditionally this kind of film sees the protagonist not surrender, they get their self-respect, and morally everyone feels uplifted, but it happens here in a different way. The ending in the alley sees his true redemption as he pays the price but is now allowed out of the hellscape his life had become. “It’s really a happy ending,” says Scorsese about Stoker having his hand crushed with a brick by crooks holding him incorrectly accountable “in a truthful way. And maybe there’s a hope to that, a hope for the weaker ones in the world.”

2. The film opens with a clock face showing 9:05 and Wise closes the film with the same clock roughly the length of the film later.

George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” Trivia

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Matthew Jackson and Mental Floss present 10 Gruesome Facts About Dawn of the Dead.  Here are three of my favorites and my thoughts on each… click over to get the full story.

1. WE CAN THANK THE MALL (AND DARIO ARGENTO) FOR DAWN OF THE DEAD. (Romero had avoided returning to the genre for years and had it not been for Argento helping with creative control and financing, Dawn of the Dead may have never happened! – Craig)

3. MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF DAWN OF THE DEAD EXIST. (This is news to me!  I’d love to see Argento’s version that cut down on the humor.  I have a feeling I’d prefer it. – Craig)

4. DAWN OF THE DEAD WAS RELEASED UNRATED IN AMERICA. (I took my future wife to see the unrated version on Dawn’s initial release.  It’s the only movie we’ve ever walked out on.  The gore was too much for her.  Later in the week I returned with my buddy, John Beatty and we made it to the end. – Craig)

8 Out-of-this-World Facts about “The Invaders”

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Me-TV presents 8 Out-of-this-World Facts about The Invaders.  They’re so good I had a tough time picking my top three, but here they are! Then click over for all of ’em!

5.  The show is Jerry Lewis-level huge in France.
The French have a knack for developing cults around unexpected, overlooked pieces of American pop culture. Their Invaders fandom is a prime example, and it’s not just the how of it but the when of it. Thinnes himself explained the genesis of the French Invaders phenomenon in a 2008 interview with Premium Hollywood. “Back in the early ’80s, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, who is a star anchorman with Télévision Française 1, he had a four-hour show on Sundays and he did a survey with the audience and asked… because they love American television, what would they like to see again,” Thinnes said. “And they got a lot of calls about The Invaders, so TF1 bought a few episodes and tested it and got a huge response. So they began running the series.” The reruns later jumped to cable and an “MTV equivalent,” airing in reruns for two decades.

6. Suzanne Plechette twice sacrificed herself as a friendly alien on the show.
Not all of the aliens on The Invaders had wicked motives. Some helped David Vincent along the way. In particular, Suzanne Pleshette of The Bob Newhart Show stands out, as she turns up twice, as two different such aliens. In the second episode, she plays a stripper who also happens to be an Invaders, albeit a “mutation” who can feel empathy. So she helps David, dying in the end. This is the first time we see the glowing red death of the aliens on the series. In the second season, Pleshette appears again as Anne, a more hot-headed alien who also gives her life in helping David. Those E.T. must have loved shifting into the shape of Pleshette.

7. The Invaders dabbled in zombies, too.
While it was never a huge ratings hit, The Invaders nevertheless spawned an expanded universe of tie-in books and comics. Perhaps the must interesting pulp Invaders novel was Army of the Undead, which centers around the alien Invaders turning humans into mindless “zombies.” What is perhaps most fascinating about its use of zombies is that the paperback hit stands in 1967 — a year before Night of the Living Dead. It was ahead of the curve.

10 Reasons We Know Aaron Kosminski Was Jack the Ripper!

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Shannon Quinn says, Meet Aaron Kosminski—AKA Jack The Ripper; 10 Reasons We Know It Was Him, in her post at Listverse.  Here are my choices for her three strongests arguments that Kosminski was the Ripper…

The DNA Evidence
A shawl that belonged to Jack the Ripper’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, was purchased by a man named Russell Edwards in 2007. He was so determined to figure out the identity of the killer, that he had the shawl tested for DNA in 2014. This genetic material was traced back to one of Aaron Kosminski’s living relatives. Edwards was also the author of a book called Naming Jack the Ripper, where he lays out his analysis of the case over decades of research.

However, there were claims that the scientist who analyzed the DNA, Jari Louhelainen, made a mistake in his analysis. Critics refused to recognize the DNA evidence until it was scrutinized in a peer-reviewed journal by other scientists who had nothing to gain from the results. In 2019, the data had, in fact, been published in The Journal of Forensic Sciences. It was confirmed that the DNA did, in fact, belong to Kosminski. However, critics still refuse to believe that accurate DNA evidence could exist on the shawl without contamination for over 100 years.[1]

He Had a Deep Hatred Towards Women
In modern studies of serial killers, one of the common threads is a deep-seated hatred towards women. This comes from a percieved notion that women are withholding sex from them after a string of female rejections throughout their life. They also may have had a terrible relationship with their mother. Jack the Ripper chose sex workers as his victims, and he removed the organs of these women. One of his victim’s faces was brutally savaged, showing that he was full of an irrational rage against this woman who he did not know.

Aaron Kosminski was 23 years old at the time of the first murder. He never married, and had very bad luck socializing with ladies. According to Meville Macnaghten, the chief constable of Scotland Yard, Kosminski was known for having a deep hatred towards women. Macnaghten wrote, “This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, especially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies.”[4]

Kosminski Was Put Into An Insane Asylum
In 1891, Aaron Kosminski was confined to the Colney Hatch Asylum. The 5 “canonical murders” which have been officially credited to Jack the Ripper stopped soon after. Cambridge University has copies of Aaron Kosminski’s psychiatric records from the time he spent in the facility. According to the records, he heard auditory hallucinations that told him to do things. “He declares that he is guided and his movements altogether controlled by an instinct that informs his mind.” The documents also state that Kosminski grabbed a knife and threatened to slit his sister’s throat. It was clear to everyone, even his doctors, that he hated all women.

Modern doctors have diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. Some people have tried to claim that Aaron Kosminski was not a violent person, and that he was more inclined to act out in self-harm. He also refused to eat, for fear of being poisoned. So he would pick scraps of food out of the gutter, instead. However, according to Cambridge University, the references to “self-harm” were actually talking about frequent masterbation. And while he may not have been violent towards the other men in the asylum, he still has a record of violence towards women.[8]

Kosminski is just one of several suspected of being Jack the Ripper.  It’s hard to argue with DNA evidence… but then again, Patricia Cornwell’s theory that Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper also had DNA evidence!

Click over to Quinn’s post, read the rest of the evidence and let me know in the comments your thoughts!

“Rambo” Trivia

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Thanks to Military.com today we have 8 Even More Incredible Facts About ‘Rambo’.  Check out three of my favorites before clicking over to all eight.

4. Stallone hated the first cut of First Blood.
The first time Stallone saw the edit for “First Blood,” he hated it. It was three and a half hours long, and Rambo’s dialogue was terrible. At first, Stallone wanted to buy the film so he could burn it. Instead of that, he re-cut the film to 93 minutes with most of his dialogue removed, which is what you see when you watch it today.

5. Without ‘Rambo’ there would be no ‘Predator’
When Rocky Balboa took on Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV,” no one in Hollywood was quite sure who Rocky’s next opponent could possibly be. The joke was made that Rocky would have to fight some kind of Alien in “Rocky V.” After a while, Screenwriters Jim and John Thomas began to take the idea seriously and wrote a Rocky-Rambo Hybrid movie that we call “Predator.”

3. Rambo wasn’t a killer – originally.
John Rambo never actually kills anyone in “First Blood.” There is only one death in the entire movie, and that happened as an accident when an overzealous cop falls from a helicopter while shooting at Rambo. (This refers to the movie “First Blood” not the novel on which the film was based. – Craig)

In subsequent movies, that all changes of course. Rambo’s body count is 76 in “First Blood: Part II,” and 132 in “Rambo III.” In “Rambo,” he appears to kill the entire Burmese Army with one .50-cal.

10 Terrifying Facts About “Creepshow”

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Matthew Jackson and Mental Floss present 10 Terrifying Facts About Creepshow.  Here are three of my favorites (with my comments) before you click over and check out them all!

1. IT BEGAN WITH SALEM’S LOT.
(Can you imagine if Stephen King and George Romero had made a theatrical version of Salem’s Lot?  I loved the tv version of Salem’s Lot, but the thought of a King/Romero movie makes me smile and wonder. – Craig)

9. CREEPSHOW INTRODUCED GREG NICOTERO TO FILMMAKING.
(If getting Nicotero into movies was the only thing that Creepshow was known for it would be enough. – Craig)

10. CREEPSHOW IS PART OF THE STEPHEN KING UNIVERSE.
(I love that Stephen King stories, for the most part, take place in the Stephen King universe. – Craig)

John Carpenter’s Most Groundbreaking Characters

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Rodolfo at CBR.com did a piece called Top 10 Groundbreaking John Carpenter Characters.  You just know I’m going to play along by posting my thoughts on three of my favorite John Carpenter characters and one who didn’t make Rodolfo’s list but should have.

  1. Snake Plissken.  I’d be surprised if Snake Plissken wasn’t at the top of anyone’s John Carpenter characters list.  Heck, Plissken should be near the top of any cool characters list.  He’s the classic anti-hero: ex-military, individualist with an attitude, more than capable in any situation and played perfectly by Kurt Russell channeling Clint Eastwood.  I’m surprised that there weren’t more Snake Plissken movies made (besides EFNY and ESFLA) and that Snake has become more popular in other media.

  2. Napoleon Wilson.  Perhaps Carpenter’s least known character with the most potential.  Wilson appeared in Assault on Precinct 13 and like Snake Plissken was an anti-hero.  On his way to prison, Wilson find himself and a small group trapped in an abandoned building under siege by a street gang.  Napoleon Wilson was perfectly played by Darwin Joston in his most famous role.

  3. John Nada.  Roddy Piper was the perfect choice to play John Nada, an average guy just looking to survive in a world unknowingly under the control of aliens.  Nada isn’t a specially trained soldier or cop — he’s just a drifter who discovers a secret that no one would believe and then he takes action to save the world!

  4. Romero.  While Romero didn’t make Rodolfo’s list, there was no way I’d leave him out of mine.  Romero appeared in a relatively small role in Escape from New York.  In a movie full of larger-than-life characters, Romero (as played by Frank Doubleday) was as memorable as any and more frightening than all.

The All Time Best Movie Cameos

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Coming Soon posted their choices for The 10 Best Movie Cameos.  Using just their choices, here are my top three plus four movie cameos that would have made my list!

A Whole Slew of Alfred Hitchcock Films
Before Stan Lee was appearing in every Marvel movie, Alfred Hitchcock was inserting himself into the background of almost all his films. An older man with an instantly recognizable look, it’s clear to see why Marvel hopped on the opportunity to steal one of Hitchcock’s signature moves.

Pulp Fiction
Christopher Walken is one of the most beloved and praised actors of the back half of the 20th century, so his appearance in Pulp Fiction deserves some recognition for combining one of the most-respected actors and one of the most-revered films. He’s only on-screen for one scene, but it’s a scene that continues to be pored over.

Tropic Thunder
Tom Cruise wearing extensive prosthetics and wearing an unrecognizable getup makes for (easily) one of the best cameos ever. It’s unclear why or how this role came to be, but we welcome it wholeheartedly (and long for the once-rumored spinoff film about his character).

Now for my favorite cameos that didn’t make their list…

Staying Alive: Director Sly Stallone appears just for seconds as he and Tony Manero (John Travolta) bump into each other while walking down a busy sidewalk.

Young Frankenstein: Gene Hackman goes uncredited in one of the funniest scenes in one of the funniest movies of all time.

Glengarry Glen Ross: Alec Baldwin shows up for a memorable scene that sets up everything to follow.  ABC – Always Be Closing.

Zombieland: Bill Murray.  Need I say more?

John Carpenter’s “They Live” Trivia

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Matthew Jackson and Mental Floss present 10 Killer Facts About They Live.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THEY LIVE WAS INSPIRED BY A COMIC BOOK ADAPTATION OF A SHORT STORY.
They Live is an adaptation of Ray Nelson’s science fiction short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning,” which was originally published in the 1960s. But John Carpenter’s more direct inspiration was an Eclipse Comics adaptation of Nelson’s story, which he stumbled across in the mid-1980s. Intrigued by the idea of aliens enslaving humanity, Carpenter then sought out the original prose work.

“‘Eight O’Clock in the Morning is’ a D.O.A.-type of story, in which a man is put in a trance by a stage hypnotist,” Carpenter told Starlog in 1988. “When he awakens, he realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized, and that alien creatures are controlling humanity. He has only until eight o’clock in the morning to solve the problem.”

Though Carpenter liked the idea of the entire populace being controlled subliminally by an alien menace, he wasn’t too keen on the hypnotism idea. He bought the rights to the story and began adapting it, changing hypnotism to the very 1980s notion of Americans being controlled via subliminal messaging.

3. JOHN CARPENTER WROTE THEY LIVE UNDER AN ALIAS.
Carpenter has always been a multi-hyphenate kind of filmmaker, directing, writing, producing and scoring his movies. But by the time They Live came around, he’d grown a little disillusioned with the idea of continuing to have his name plastered absolutely everywhere. With that in mind, he decided that he’d use a pseudonym for They Live’s screenplay credit.

“It was a reaction to seeing my name all over these movies,” Carpenter explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2012. “I think the height of it was Christine. It was like, John Carpenter’s Christine, directed by John Carpenter, music by John Carpenter … what an egotist!”

Carpenter chose the pseudonym Frank Armitage, which is a character from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Dunwich Horror,” which he picked “just because I love Lovecraft.”

5. THEY LIVE’S MOST FAMOUS LINE CAME FROM RODDY PIPER.

Even if you’ve never seen They Live, you’ve probably heard someone at some point in your life say: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubble gum.” Ever since Nada delivered that line in the film, it’s maintained a life even beyond They Live, becoming one of the most popular and frequently quoted lines in all of pop culture. According to Carpenter, the line came straight from Piper, who kept a notebook full of quips like that to use in his wrestling promos.

“Traveling all around the country wrestling different people, those guys come up with a lot of stuff to hype matches in interviews. They have to come up with one-liners. Roddy had a book full of them that he carried with him,” Carpenter explained. “He’d sit on a plane and come up with these things. He gave me the book when I was writing the script and that was the best one in there. I think he was wrestling Playboy Buddy Rose and he may have said the line then.”

According to Piper, the line actually didn’t enter the picture until the day they shot the scene, but either way both men agree that he wrote it.

“Them!” Trivia

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Mark Mancini and Mental Floss present 11 Fun Facts About Them!.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched Them! over the years.  I’m happy to report it still holds up.  When I was a kid, I loved that Matt Dillon, Spock and Daniel Boone all had roles, heck it still brings a smile to my face.  And now without further adieu, here are three of my favorite facts…

4. LEONARD NIMOY MAKES AN APPEARANCE.
In one brief scene, future Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy plays an Army man who receives a message about an alleged “ant-shaped UFO” sighting over Texas. He then proceeds to poke fun at the Lone Star State, because, as everybody knows, insectile space vessels are highly illogical.

10. THE MOVIE WAS A SURPRISE HIT.
Studio head Jack L. Warner predicted that Them!, with its far-fetched plot, wouldn’t fare well at the box office. So imagine his surprise when it raked in more than $2.2 million—enough to make the picture one of the studio’s highest-grossing films of 1954.

11. THEM! LANDED FESS PARKER THE ROLE OF TV’S DAVY CROCKETT.
When Walt Disney went to see Them!, he had a specific objective in mind: Scout a potential Davy Crockett. At the time, Disney was developing a new television series that would chronicle the life and times of the iconic frontiersman, and James Arness, who plays an FBI agent in Them!, was on the short list of candidates for the role. Yet as the sci-fi thriller unfolded, it was actor Fess Parker who grabbed Disney’s attention. Director Gordon Douglas had hired Parker to portray the pilot who ends up in a psych ward after an aerial encounter with a gargantuan flying ant. And while his character only appears in one scene, the performance impressed Disney so much that the struggling actor was soon cast as Crockett.

Area 51 Trivia

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Claudia Dimuro and Mental Floss present 10 Out of This World Facts About Area 51.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO SNEAK INTO AREA 51 WITHOUT BEING SPOTTED—AND USE OF DEADLY FORCE IS AUTHORIZED IF ANYONE TRIES TO EVADE SECURITY.
Given the intense nature of its secrecy, it comes as no surprise that Area 51 is heavily guarded. Pilots who purposefully fly into the restricted air zone can face court-martial, dishonorable discharge, and a stint in the can. The land is patrolled by “cammo dudes,” men wearing camouflage that have been seen driving around the area keeping an eye out for pesky civilians looking to break into the area. But truth-seekers, beware: Signs placed outside the area warn that Area 51 security is authorized to use deadly force on anyone looking to sneak onto the property.

7. FORMER AREA 51 EMPLOYEES WHO WERE SWORN TO SECRECY ARE OPENING UP ABOUT THEIR WORK THERE.
Some former employees who were once sworn to secrecy about what happened at Area 51 are now free to share their stories. One Area 51 veteran, James Noce, recalled handling various mishaps that were accidentally exposed to the public eye—for example, the crash of a secret aircraft that was witnessed by a police officer and a vacationing family. The family had taken photos; Noce confiscated the film from their camera and told the family and the deputy not to mention the crash to anyone.

Noce recounted how there was no official documentation stating he worked at Area 51, and that his salary was paid in cash. He also confirmed that he never saw any alien activity at the site.

1. AREA 51’S EXISTENCE WASN’T OFFICIALLY ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT UNTIL 2013.
Although it was chosen as a site to test aircraft in 1955, the government did not acknowledge that Area 51 even existed until 2013. According to CNN, maps and other documents created by the CIA were released thanks to Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow at the National Security Archives, who was granted access to the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Unfortunately, the papers made no mention of little green men running around the facility.