Z-View Twilight Zone: “A Most Unusual Camera” [Season 2, Episode 10]

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Twilight Zone: “A Most Unusual Camera” [Season 2, Episode 10]
Original Air Date: December 16, 1960

Director: John Rich

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Fred Clark, Jean Carson and Adam Williams.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

When a husband and wife team who are small time hustlers get their hands on a camera that takes photos that are five minutes in the future, they head to the race track to get rich. All is good until the brother-in-law shows up.

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10 Facts About “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”

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Mark Mancini and Mental_Floss present 10 Facts About Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT’S BASED ON A MAGAZINE SERIAL.
In November and December of 1954, Collier’s magazine ran a three-part series that would come to be called “the year’s most original story of suspense.” Written by Jack Finney, The Body Snatchers wowed producer Walter Wanger, who began negotiating the story’s movie rights before he’d even read part two.

5. ORIGINALLY, THE MOVIE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A LOT FUNNIER.
“I felt that pods growing into a likeness of a person would strike the characters as preposterous,” Siegel recalled. “I wanted to play it that way, with the characters not taking the threat seriously.” Hoping to offset the scares, he filmed a number of comedic scenes, which were later cut out by Allied Artists, the film’s distributor. “In their hallowed words, ‘horror films are horror films and there’s no room for humor,’” Siegel explained. “I translated [this] to mean that in their pod brains there was no room for humor.”

8. THE PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE WERE LAST-MINUTE ADDITIONS.
Allied Artists didn’t just cut a few jokes here and there; the studio also insisted on a completely different ending. Originally, the movie was going to close with a shot of Dr. Bennell watching hopelessly as truckloads of pods drive out into the distance. Wanting to end the film on a more hopeful note, Allied Artists came up with a slightly happier conclusion. Over his strong objections, Siegel was told to film a new intro and a new final scene (“I reluctantly consented,” he said.) The revamped opening puts Bennell in a police station, where he tells the story as anextended flashback. After the famous “You’re next!” sequence, his tale ends and, after a while, the authorities begin to believe him.

Z-View Twilight Zone: “The Trouble with Templeton” [Season 2, Episode 9]

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Twilight Zone: “The Trouble with Templeton” [Season 2, Episode 9]
Original Air Date: December 9, 1960

Director: Buzz Kulik

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Brian Aherne, Pippa Scott and Sydney Pollack.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Booth Templeton [Aherne] is an aging actor nostalgic for the good old days when he was the toast of the town and his wife was still alive.  Sadly, when Templeton gets a chance to visit the past he finds things are not as he remembered them.

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Z-View Twilight Zone: “The Lateness of the Hour” [Season 2, Episode 8]

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Twilight Zone: “The Lateness of the Hour” [Season 2, Episode 8]
Original Air Date: December 2, 1960

Director: Jack Smight

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Inger Stevens and John Hoyt.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Jana Loren [Stevens] has grown up surrounded by servants.  Her father is an inventor and the servants are robots designed to meet all of the family’s needs.  Jana desires more freedom and wants her parents to get rid of the robots… which of course is a path she shouldn’t go down since she is in The Twilight Zone.
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Z-View Twilight Zone: “Nick of Time” [Season 2, Episode 7]

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Twilight Zone: “Nick of Time” [Season 2, Episode 7]
Original Air Date: November 18, 1960

Director: Richard L. Bare

Writer: Richard Matheson

Starring: William Shatner and Patricia Breslin.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

While driving through a small town heading for their honeymoon, Don [Shatner] and Pat [Breslin] Carter’s car breaks down.  The mechanic says it will take a few hours to repair, so the newlyweds head into a small cafe for lunch and to pass the time.

Don is nervous to hear about a possible promotion but is afraid to call his boss.  There’s a little penny fortune-telling machine at their table, so Don jokingly puts in a penny to get the answer.  When it appear that the machine got the answer correctly, Don asks more and more questions and the machine answers with startling accuracy… or does it?

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12 Futuristic Facts About “Escape from New York”

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Matthew Jackson and Mental_Floss present 12 Futuristic Facts About Escape from New York.  Here are three of my favorites…

3. THE NAME “SNAKE PLISSKEN” CAME FROM A REAL PERSON.
When writing the original script for the film, Carpenter was in search of a name for his main character, and it just so happened that a friend of a friend actually knew a person named “Snake Plissken,” who Carpenter described as “a kinda high school tough guy,” complete with a snake tattoo. It was too perfect to pass up.

“Anybody with a snake tattooed on them some place … that’s my kinda hero,” Carpenter said.

 

4. CARPENTER HAD TO FIGHT FOR KURT RUSSELL AS SNAKE.
At the time of the film’s production, Kurt Russell was an actor best known for his work in Disney projects like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. He wasn’t an action star, but Carpenter thought he was the right choice to play Snake. The studio, on the other hand,wanted a star like Tommy Lee Jones or Chuck Norris for the part. Carpenter dismissed Norris as too old, and preferred Russell over Jones, so he fought for his young star, and eventually won.

9. JAMIE LEE CURTIS HAS A CAMEO.
Three years prior to Escape From New York, Carpenter directed his breakout hit: the slasher film Halloween, which also proved to be the breakout film for star Jamie Lee Curtis. If Halloween hadn’t worked out, it’s doubtful Carpenter ever would have made Escape From New York, so he called upon his Halloween star to participate when it finally happened. You won’t see Curtis in the film, but you will hear her: She voices both the narrator and the computer.

Z-View Twilight Zone: “Eye of the Beholder” [Season 2, Episode 6]

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Twilight Zone: “Eye of the Beholder” [Season 2, Episode 6]
Original Air Date: November 11, 1960

Director: Douglas Hayes

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Maxine Stuart, William D. Gordon, George Keymas, Edson Stroll and Donna Douglas.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Janet Tyler [Stuart] is lying in her hospital bed, her head and face totally covered by bandages.  Tyler nervously waits for her doctor to remove the bandages hoping that her latest (and last) surgery will make her look normal.

Sadly Tyler is hideously ugly and lives in a society where the less desirables are sent away.  As the bandages are removed her worst fears are revealed.

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18 Fascinating Facts About “The Crow”

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Erin McCarthy and Mental_Floss present 18 Fascinating Facts About The Crow.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT’S BASED ON A COMIC BOOK, WHICH WAS INSPIRED BY TWO TRAGEDIES.
In 1981, 21-year-old James O’Barr was drawing combat manuals in the Marines when he decided to start The Crow. He hoped it would be a healthy way of dealing with the death of his fiancée, who had been killed by a drunk driver. “I tried all the typical angst-ridden outlets, like substance abuse and going to clubs or parties every night and just basically trying to keep yourself numb for as long a period of time as possible,” O’Barr told The Baltimore Sun in 1994. “Eventually I was smart enough to realize that that was a dead end, and so I thought perhaps putting something down on paper I could exorcise some of that anger.”

Pivotal to his comic book’s plotline was another tragedy O’Barr heard about: A couple killed over an engagement ring. “I thought it was outlandish, a $30 ring, two lives wasted,” he said in a book about the production called The Crow: The Movie. “That became the beginning of the focal point, and the idea that there could be a love so strong that it could transcend death, that it could refuse death, and this soul would not rest until it could set things right.”

 

4. THE PRODUCERS KNEW WHO THEY WANTED TO DIRECT AND STAR.
Pressman had Alex Proyas, an Australian director who at that point had helmed music videos and commercials, but no features, in mind to direct The Crow. Though Proyas was very much in demand in Hollywood, he was waiting for the right project—and The Crow was it. He signed on in 1991.

The producers first looked at musicians to fill the role of Eric Draven, among them Charlie Sexton, a rocker from Texas. But ultimately, their first choice was Brandon Lee. At that point, Lee—son of famed actor/martial artist Bruce Lee—had appeared in a few films, but hadn’t had a breakout role yet. “We had considered some more established actors and we were concerned that certain of these actors did not have the athletic ability,” Pressman said in The Crow: The Movie. “Other people had the athletic ability but not the acting talents. Brandon combined it all. When Brandon walked into this office, it was an immediate flash. We knew we had our Eric Draven that instant.”

17. O’BARR DONATED MOST OF HIS PROFITS FROM THE FILM TO CHARITY.
O’Barr bought his mom a car, and a surround system for himself, then donated the rest. “I was really good friends with Brandon, so it just felt like blood money to me,” he said at a comics convention in 2009. “I didn’t want to profit at his expense. And I kept that secret for as long as I could. It’s not charity if you get credit for it.”

Z-View Twilight Zone: “The Howling Man” [Season 2, Episode 5]

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Twilight Zone: “The Howling Man” [Season 2, Episode 5]
Original Air Date: November 4, 1960

Director: Douglas Hayes

Writer: Charles Beaumont

Starring: John Carradine, H.M. Wynant and Robin Hughes.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

David Ellington [Wynant] while on a long hike alone in the woods in Europe becomes ill.  Ellington stumbles across a monastery.  Initially told he cannot stay, Brother Jerome [Carradine] allows him to stay until he is well enough to travel.

While recuperating, Ellington hears a man howling in pain.  The screams lead to a cell where a man is being held prisoner.  Before Ellington can release him, Brother Jerome arrives and explains that the thing in the cell is not a man, but the devil!

How could the devil be held in a cell?  Are the monks insane?  If so, Ellington is in danger as well.  Isn’t his duty to help the man escape?  These are the thoughts that race through Ellington’s mind before he makes a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

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Z-View Twilight Zone: “A Thing About Machines” [Season 2, Episode 4]

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Twilight Zone: “A Thing About Machines” [Season 2, Episode 4]
Original Air Date: October 28, 1960

Director: David Orrick McDearmon

Writer: Rod Serling

Starring: Richard Hayden and Barney Phillips.

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Bartlett Finchley is a bit of an eccentric.  He’s a writer who lives alone in a large house and always seems in a battle of will with all of the machines in his house… the tv, his electric razor, his typwriter, well, you get the idea.  Finally things reach the point of no return and the war is on.

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10 Things You May Not Know About Harry Houdini

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Evan Andrews and History.com present 10 Things You May Not Know About Harry Houdini.  Here are three of my favorites…
Houdini once staged an escape from inside a sea monster.
In September 1911, a group of Boston businessmen challenged Houdini to attempt the most bizarre stunt of his career—an escape from the belly of a 1,500-pound “sea monster” that had washed up in the city’s harbor. Historians still aren’t sure what the creature actually was—it’s been described as everything from a whale to a leatherback turtle—but Houdini was up to the task. As thousands of spectators looked on, he allowed himself to be handcuffed, shackled in leg irons and wedged inside the stinking carcass, which was then covered in chains and placed behind a curtain. Houdini emerged in triumph after just 15 minutes, but later admitted that he was nearly suffocated by the fumes from the chemicals used to embalm the beast.He was an aviation pioneer.
After developing a passion for aviation while in Europe in 1909, Houdini bought a French-made Voisin biplane and became one of the world’s first private pilots. The magician crashed during his maiden flight in Germany, but he continued practicing and eventually set his sights on becoming the first man to pilot an airplane in Australia. During a tour Down Under in March 1910, Houdini hopped behind the controls of his Voisin and made three successful flights near Melbourne, each only a couple of minutes long. The Aerial League of Australia certified Houdini’s display as the country’s first powered and controlled flight, but some historians have since argued that the record actually belongs to Colin Defries, an Englishman who had made a brief flight a few months earlier. In 2010, Houdini and Defries were both honored in a series of stamps commemorating the centennial of powered flight in Australia.

Houdini assisted with the American war effort during WWI.
Although he was born in Hungary, Houdini was an American patriot and staunch supporter of U.S. involvement in World War I. He persuaded the Society of American Magicians to sign loyalty oaths to President Woodrow Wilson, and later canceled his touring season to devote himself to entertaining soldiers and raising money for the war effort. Houdini also drew on his arsenal of magician’s tricks to provide special instruction to American troops. In a series of classes held at New York’s Hippodrome, he counseled doughboys on how to escape sinking ships and extricate themselves from ropes, handcuffs and other restraints in the event of capture by the Germans.