Twilight Zone: “The Long Morrow” [Season 5, Episode 14] / Z-View

Posted on by

Twilight Zone: “The Long Morrow” [Season 5, Episode 15]
Original Air Date: January 10, 1964

Director: Robert Florey
Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Robert Lansing, Mariette Hartley and Edward Binns.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

An astronaut [Lansing] chosen for a mission to deep space because he had no family falls in love with a woman shortly before leaving on his 40 year mission into space.  Since he will be in suspended animation, he will not have aged when he returns but everyone else (including his lover) will be 40 years older.

This episode could have been written by O. Henry.

Rating:

Twilight Zone: “Ring-A-Ding Girl” [Season 5, Episode 13] / Z-View

Posted on by

Twilight Zone: “Ring-A-Ding Girl” [Season 5, Episode 13]
Original Air Date: December 27, 1963

Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.
Writer: Earl Hamner, Jr.

Starring: Maggie McNamara, Mary Munday and David Macklin.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

Big time movie star, Barbara Blake returns to her small home town the same day as the town’s annual picnic.  The people of her small town paid her way to Hollywood before she made it big and are excited that Barbara will be at the town picnic… but Barbara has plans of her own.

Rating:

Darwyn Cooke – R.I.P.

Posted on by

When I read yesterday that Darwyn Cooke was battling an aggressive cancer, it was like an unexpected gut shot.  Truth be told, I only knew Darwyn through his art, stories and the several times I met him at comic shows… but I was such a fan and Darwyn always treated me (and other fans) with such respect and kindness, it sure seemed I knew him better than I did.

I’ve always loved Darwyn’s art and when he began adapting Richard Stark’s Parker novels, I thought it could never get better than that.  Each time I caught up with Darwyn at a show I’d have his latest hardcover for him to sign and he always included a quick headsketch with the signature.  I loved talking to Darwyn about his latest project and what was coming.

Sadly it was announced today that Darwyn passed at 1:30 this morning surrounded by friends, family and aware of all of the well-wishes that had been pouring in since the news about his illness had been announced.

My thoughts, prayers and best wishes go out to Darwyn’s family, friends and fans.  Rest in Peace, Darwyn.

Twilight Zone: “Ninety Years Without Slumbering” [Season 5, Episode 12] / Z-View

Posted on by

Twilight Zone: “Ninety Years Without Slumbering” [Season 5, Episode 12]
Original Air Date: December 20, 1963

Director: Roger Kay
Writer: Richard De Roy from a story by George Clayton Johnson writing as Johnson Smith

Starring: Ed Wynn, Carolyn Kearney and James T. Callahan.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

Sam Forstman [Wynn] is a 90 year old man who believes that if his 90 year old grandfather clock ever stops running, he will die.

Rating:

15 Facts About “Twister”

Posted on by

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

5. BOTH HELEN HUNT AND JAN DE BONT WALKED AWAY FROM OTHER MOVIES TO WORK ON THIS ONE.
Helen Hunt (Dr. Jo Harding) passed up working with John Travolta in John Woo’s Broken Arrow (1996). After more than six months of pre-production, de Bont left his Godzilla (1998 version) directing gig because of studio feuds over the budget and immediately agreed to direct Twister instead.

9. THE TORNADO SOUNDS ARE MADE UP OF VARIOUS ANIMAL NOISES.
According to Variety, an altered recording of a camel’s moan helped create the storm sounds. It was reported elsewhere that a lion’s growl and a tiger’s snarl were remixed as tornado audio.

14. BILL PAXTON THINKS THEY MADE THE “PEPSI LITE” VERSION OF THE MOVIE.
“I’d love to direct a sequel to that movie,” Paxton said. “I’ve always felt like there was a Jaws version of that movie. I always felt like we did the Pepsi Lite version of that movie.”

Twilight Zone: “A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain” [Season 5, Episode 11] / Z-View

Posted on by

Twilight Zone: “A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain” [Season 5, Episode 11]
Original Air Date: December 13, 1963

Director: Brian Girard
Writer: Rod Serling from a story by Lou Holz

Starring: Patrick O’Neal, Ruta Lee and Walter Brooke.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

Harmon Gordon [O’Neal] is an elderly man married to a gold-digger half his age.  In an effort to not lose her Gordon forces his brother to give him an experimental youth serum.  The serum works but things don’t turn out as planned.

Rating:

Twilight Zone: “The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms” [Season 5, Episode 10] / Z-View

Posted on by

Twilight Zone: “The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms” [Season 5, Episode 10]
Original Air Date: December 6, 1963

Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.
Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Ron Foster, Warren Oates, Randy Boone, and Greg Morris.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

Three modern-day soldiers on National Guard training near the location of the Battle of the Little Big Horn see increasing signs of hostile Indians.

Rating:

10 Slapstick Facts About the First Three Stooges Short

Posted on by

Stacy Conradt and Mental_Floss present 10 Slapstick Facts About the First Three Stooges Short.  Here are three of my favorites…

2.THEIR SALARY FOR STARRING WAS $1000 PER WEEK—SPLIT THREE WAYS.
After their third short, Men in Black, was nominated for an Oscar, the comedians’ pay was increased to $7500 weekly. But they still had to split it amongst themselves.

3. THEY DON’T PLAY LARRY, CURLY, AND MOE.
Woman Haters marks one of the few times the Stooges play characters other than themselves. Larry plays “Jim,” Moe is “Tom,” and Curly is “Jack.”

8. IT FEATURED A COUPLE OF FAMOUS CURLY FIRSTS.
Curly’s first “nyuk-nyuk-nyuk” was in this film, as well as his first “woo-woo-woo-woo,” but they’re not quite the refined versions we’re used to now. Curly borrowed the latter catchphrase from comedian Hugh Herbert, though Herbert’s version was a little softer and more subdued.

Twilight Zone: “Probe 7: Over and Out” [Season 5, Episode 9] / Z-View

Posted on by

Twilight Zone: “Probe 7: Over and Out” [Season 5, Episode 9]
Original Air Date: November 29, 1963

Director: Ted Post
Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Richard Basehart, Antoinette Bower and Harold Gould.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

Things are dire for Astronaut Adam Cook.  He has crash-landed on a remote planet and there is no chance for a rescue craft since back home there has been a nuclear armageddon.  Cook is prepared for life alone on this remote planet when he meets the sole-surviving female another world.

Rating:

11 Terrifying Facts About “The Hills Have Eyes”

Posted on by

Matthew Jackson and Mental_Floss present 11 Terrifying Facts About The Hills Have Eyes.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT WAS BASED ON A TRUE STORY.
According to writer/director Wes Craven, The Hills Have Eyes was inspired by the story of Sawney Bean, the head of wild Scottish clan who murdered and cannibalized numerous people during the Middle Ages. Craven heard the story of the Bean clan, and noted that the road near where they lived was believed to be haunted because people kept disappearing while traveling on it. He adapted the story to instead be about a group of wild people in the American West, and The Hills Have Eyes was born.

8. MICHAEL BERRYMAN CONSTANTLY FACED HEATSTROKE.1-
Berryman, who became a horror icon thanks to this film, was apparently game for just about anything Craven and company wanted him to do, though he personally told the producers he was born with “26 birth defects.” Among those birth defects was a lack of sweat glands, which meant that the intense desert heat was particularly hazardous to his health. He soldiered on, though, even in intense action sequences.

“We always had to cover him up as soon as we finished these scenes,” Craven recalled.

11. IT STARTED AN INTERESTING CHAIN OF HORROR HOMAGES.
The Hills Have Eyes is admired by fellow horror filmmakers, so much so that one of them—Evil Dead director Sam Raimi—chose to pay homage to it in a strange way. In the scene in which Brenda is quivering in bed after having been brutalized by Pluto and Mars, a ripped poster for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is visible above her head. Raimi saw it as a message.

“I took it to mean that Wes Craven … was saying ‘Jaws was just pop horror. What I have here isreal horror.’”

As a joking response to the scene, Raimi put a ripped poster for The Hills Have Eyes in his now-classic film The Evil Dead (1981). Not to be outdone, Craven responded by including a clip from The Evil Dead in his classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).