Live Tweet Alert: Watch The Last Man On Earth With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting 1964’s The Last Man On Earth!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime and Tubi!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

 

Scenes That We Love: Ursula Andress Makes The Bikini Famous In Dr. No

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is the official birthday of the bikini and today’s scene that I love features a moment that played a huge role in the bikini’s growing popularity.

Ursula Andress was one of the very first Bond girls, appearing opposite Sean Connery in Dr. No.  Andress played the role of Honeychile Ryder, who was good with a knife and totally willing to trespass on Dr. No.’s beach.  Andress set the standard by which almost all future Bond girls would be judged and the scene where Bond and Ryder first meet remains one of the most famous in the Bond franchise.  It was such a culturally-defining moment in 1962 that it apparently led to rocketing sales of bikinis.  Up until this film came out, bikinis were apparently considered to be too risqué to be worn anywhere other than France.

(Personally, I’m thankful that Andress and Dr. No made bikinis popular.  I look good in a bikini and, even if I don’t swim, I do like lying out by the pool and pretending like I’m capable of tanning as opposed to just burning.)

Of course, in the original novel, Honey Ryder is naked (except for a belt and a knife) when Bond first sees her.  Personally, I think that’s a bit much.  I prefer the scene as it plays out in the movie, where everyone is flirtatious and fashionable.

Though Dr. No is best known for turning Sean Connery into a star, it also did wonders for Ursula Andress’s career.  Whereas she had previously been best-known for briefly dating Jams Dean and being married to John Derek, Andress was now an actress who was able to pick her roles and to become financially independent, a development she would later tell the Daily Independent that she owed to “that white bikini.”  Andress also appeared in Playboy several times, even after becoming a star.  When she was asked why, she replied, “Because I’m beautiful,” and I have to say that I absolutely love that answer.

Anyway, from 1962, here’s a scene that we love:

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Jean Cocteau Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today, the Shattered Lens celebrates the 136th anniversary of the birth of the great French surrealist Jean Cocteau!  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Jean Cocteau Films

The Blood Of A Poet (1930, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Georges Perinal)

Beauty and the Beast (1946, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Henri Alekan)

Orpheus (1950, dir by Jean Cocteau, DP: Nicolas Hayer)

Testament of Orpheus (1960, dir by Jean Cocteau)

Late Night Retro Television Review: Friday the 13th: The Series 3.18 “Spirit of Television”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The entire series can be found on YouTube!

This week, people are dying and somehow television is to blame.

Episode 3.18 “Spirit of Television”

(Dir by Jorge Montesi, originally aired on April 30, 1990)

Ilsa (Marj Dusay) claims to be a medium.  She uses a television set to summon the spirits of the dead for her rich clients and then, later on, the spirits kill her customers and Ilsa, who has a degenerative disease, gets another ten days added to her life.  If she doesn’t continually kill, her skin starts to look like rubber and her fingernails fall off.  Agck!

This was largely a Jack episode.  Jack is the one who, with his years of experience as a magician, assumes that Ilsa is a fake.  He’s also the one who recruits an old friend named Robert Jandini (Paul Bettis) to go undercover and check Ilsa out.  And when Robert is inevitably killed as a result, Jack is the one who has to live with the guilt.  One thing that I’ve always appreciated about Friday the 13th is that it doesn’t shy away from showing what a lifetime of battling the supernatural would do to someone’s psyche.  At the end of this episode, Jack is about as depressed as I’ve ever seen him.  The great Chris Wiggins was always Friday the 13th’s not-so secret weapon and he gives another stand-out performance here.

In fact, this episode is so focused on Jack, Jandini, and Ilsa that Micki and Johnny largely feel like bystanders.  There’s nothing wrong with that, to be honest.  Micki and Johnny just don’t have the same sort of enjoyable chemistry that Micki and Ryan had.  Still, watching Johnny in the background, it’s hard not to consider that the third season’s writers never really figured out who the character was meant to be or what they really wanted to do with him.  I have sympathy for Steve Monarque because he doesn’t come across as being a bad actor.  Instead, he comes across as being an actor who was saddled with an extremely inconsistent character.

As for this episode, it was nice to finally get an episode that was just about a cursed antique and that didn’t feel the need to try to reinvent the show’s format.  That said, the television seems likes a really bulky object to curse.  How did Ilsa even figure the curse out?  What if the television had been purchased by someone who wasn’t terminally ill?  Can Ilsa watch regular programming on the television or is it always a portal to Hell?  These questions go unanswered.

Still, it’s an atmospheric episode and Chris Wiggins gives a strong performance.  For a season 3 episode, this wasn’t bad.  It’s also the the third-to-late episode of Friday the 13th.  Only two more left to go.

I’m going to miss this show.

Video Game Missions I Love: “Fireworks” From The Godfather

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I wish I had a 4th of July movie to review today but I don’t.  Instead, I’ll just share my favorite “mission” from the much maligned 2006 Godfather video game.

In this mission, Aldo (who is controlled by the player) takes care of a corrupt cop on the 4th of July.  The Godfather game is hardly perfect but I have always loved that cut-scene of the fireworks going off while Aldo and Rosa look down at the alley.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Flame of the West (1945, directed by Lambert Hillyer)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Marshal Tom Nightlander (Douglass Dumbrille) shows up in a lawless frontier town, tasked with bringing peace.  He could sure use the help of Dr. John Poole (Johnny Mack Brown), a former gunslinger who has set his weapons aside and now works as the town doctor.  Dr. Poole has sworn off guns but with corrupt businessman Wilson (Harry Woods) and his gang determined to keep their town lawless, Poole is soon forced to reconsider.

This B-western from Monogram is better than many of the other low-budget, poverty row westerns of the era.  While the plot is another example of a corrupt businessman and his gang making life difficult for peaceful settlers, the characters in Flame of the West are a little more complex than usual.  Brown stands out playing a character who, for once, doesn’t want to fight and believes that it’s better to talk than to shoot.  Of course, this being a B-western, he soon sees the error of his ways.  Dumbrille was usually cast as a villain so this film is a chance to see him in a likable and heroic role and he’s very convincing as a Wyatt Earp-style marshal.

Of course, even a serious B-western is still a B-western so songs and entertainment are provided by the gorgeous Joan Woodbury and Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys.  (Don’t worry, I had never heard of them before, either.)  Joan Woodbury plays a saloon owner who wants to bring a higher class of entertainment to the frontier and she provides the film with enough sex appeal that 1945 audiences probably didn’t mind having to sit through the musical numbers before getting to the inevitable showdown between Johnny Mack Brown and Harry Woods.

Flame of the West is a good B-western that shows what dependable actors like Johnny Mack Brown and Douglass Dumbrille were capable of when given the opportunity.