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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11 Deluxe Facts About “The Jeffersons”

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Kara Kovalchik and Mental_Floss present 11 Deluxe Facts About The Jeffersons.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. THE FIRST GEORGE JEFFERSON WE MET TURNED OUT TO BE A FAKE.
Producer Norman Lear had pegged Sherman Hemsley from the very beginning to play George Jefferson. However, at the time All in the Family hit the airwaves, Hemsley was co-starring in Purlie on Broadway and was reluctant to break his contract. So Lear improvised and hired Mel Stewart as a sort of placeholder.

Stewart posed as George when he joined Louise for dinner at the Bunker home; it was later revealed that he was actually Henry Jefferson, George’s brother. Henry Jefferson appeared in a few more All in the Family episodes before Hemsley was able to assume his role as the Jefferson family patriarch.

4. SANFORD WAS NONPLUSSED WHEN SHE FIRST MET THE ACTOR HIRED TO PLAY HER HUSBAND.
Isabel Sanford recalled during an interview with the Archive of American Television that she first met Sherman Hemsley when she reported to the studio for work one day. An assistant caught her attention and told her that this “young man” (Sanford is 21 years older than Hemsley) had an appointment to see director John Rich, and could she please take him upstairs with her and point him in the direction of Rich’s office? Sanford agreed and when she located Rich she was taken aback when he announced, “Isabel! This is your husband!”

Sanford eyed the “little man that she could squash like a bug” and wondered why the director thought anyone in the world would ever believe that the two characters would be a married couple. Of course, she was cheerfully proven wrong, because years after the show ended, she and Hemsley were often hired as a couple to appear in commercials and other TV shows.

8. MARLA GIBBS DIDN’T QUIT HER DAY JOB … FOR TWO YEARS.
Marla Gibbs had been working as a reservation agent at United Airlines for 11 years (and acting in plays during her spare time) when she landed the role of Florence on The Jeffersons. The character wasn’t intended to be a recurring one, but Gibbs got such a positive audience response that she was called back again a few episodes later. She was eventually offered a contract, but it was for just seven episodes (at the time the Florence character had to alternate stage time with Zara “Mother Jefferson” Cully). Two years later Gibbs was still making the daily commute from the Sunset Boulevard studio after filming had wrapped on The Jeffersons to the Sixth Street United Airlines reservation office in downtown L.A. The producers were surprised when they found out; worried that she was stretching herself too thin, they suggested that she take a leave of absence from the airline. “Not unless you plan to pay me for it,” was her response. She was offered a full contract shortly afterward and said farewell to United.

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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14 Blockheaded Facts About “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

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Jake Rosen and Mental_Floss present 14 Blockheaded Facts About A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. SNOOPY’S VOICE IS JUST SPED-UP NONSENSE.
The early Peanuts specials made use of both untrained kids and professional actors: Peter Robbins (Charlie Brown) and Christopher Shea (Linus) were working child performers, while the rest of the cast consisted of “regular” kids coached by Melendez in the studio. When Schulz told Melendez that Snoopy couldn’t have any lines in the show—he’s a dog, and Schulz’s dogs didn’t talk—the animator decided to bark and chuff into a microphone himself, then speed up the recording to give it a more emotive quality.

7. CHARLIE BROWN’S HEAD WAS A NIGHTMARE TO ANIMATE.
Because Melendez was unwilling to stray from Schulz’s distinctive character designs—which were never intended to be animated—he found himself in a contentious battle with Charlie Brown’s noggin. Its round shape made it difficult to depict Charlie turning around; as with most of the characters, his arms were too tiny to scratch his head. Snoopy, in contrast, was free of a ball-shaped cranium and became the show’s easiest figure to animate.

10. CBS HATED IT, TOO.
After toiling on the special for six months, Melendez and Mendelson screened it for CBS executives just three weeks before it was set to air. The mood in the room was less than enthusiastic: the network found it slow and lacking in energy, telling Melendez they weren’t interested in any more specials. To add insult, someone had misspelled Schulz in the credits, adding a “T” to his last name. (Schulz himself thought the whole project was a “disaster” due to the crude animation.)

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.

19 Things You Never Knew About “Breaking Bad”

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Hollywood.com presents 19 Things You Never Knew About Breaking Bad.  Here are three of my favorites…

5.      The GPS coordinates that repeatedly appear throughout the show, N34 59 20 W106 36 52, actually corresponds to the location of the studio where the show filmed.

6.      Showtime, HBO, and TNT all initially passed on Breaking Bad.  FX began production on it, but eventually passed in favor of Courteney Cox’s Dirt in an attempt to increase female viewership. HBO wasn’t interested and TNT liked it but couldn’t have a meth kingpin as a main character.

14.   The title of the final episode, “Felina,” is an anagram for “finale.”   The letters can also spell out the atomic numbers for various elements: Fe Li Na, or blood, meth, and tears.

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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