4 Shots From 4 Films: Happy Birthday Raymond Chandler

Posted on July 23, 2016 by gary loggins

4 Shots From 4 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 is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

Raymond Chandler was born on this date in 1888. He began publishing his short crime fiction in the pages of the pulp magazine Black Mask, and soon became one of the greatest “Hard-Boiled” writers of the 20th Century. Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe is the most iconic PI in fiction, and his novels and stories have been adapted to the screen numerous times. Here are 4 Shots from the movie works of Raymond Chandler:

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Murder, My Sweet (1944, D: Edward Dmytryk)

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Double Indemnity (1944, D: Billy Wilder)

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The Blue Dahlia (1946, D: George Marshall)

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Marlowe (1969, D: Paul Bogart)

That’s Blaxploitation! 7: TROUBLE MAN (20th Century-Fox 1972)

Posted on July 21, 2016 by gary loggins

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One of the earliest Blaxploitaion films is TROUBLE MAN, a 1972 entry about Mr T…

…no, not THAT Mr. T! THIS Mr. T…

Thank you! This Mr. T is played by Robert Hooks, a tough talking private eye who drives a big-ass Lincoln Continental and “fixes troubles” on the mean streets of L.A. T gets hired by gangsters Chalky Price and Pete Cockrell to protect their crap games, which are getting ripped off by masked gunmen. Things go awry when Chalky shoots one of the heisters, a dude named Abby who works for rival gangster “Big”. Abby’s body is dumped and word is on the streets T did the killing. Police Capt. Joe Marx puts the heat on T, as does “Big”, so T arranges a late night summit between “Big”, Chalky, and Pete at Jimmy’s Pool Hall . “Big” arrives, but before Chalky and Pete do, some cops raid the joint. These…

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Book Review: JOHN WAYNE: THE LIFE AND LEGEND by Scott Eyman (Simon & Schuster)

Posted on July 19, 2016 by gary loggins

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“He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth, partly fiction” –

Kris Kristofferson, The Pilgrim

He was a football star at USC who also starred on the debate team. A primitive that could quote Shakespeare, Keats, and Churchill with ease. A two-fisted, hard drinker who was adept at chess and bridge. A man some called racist whose three wives were all Hispanic. To his friends, he was Duke Morrison, but to the world he was known as John Wayne. This definitive, well researched biography by Scott Eyman was released in hardcover in 2014, and is now available in trade paperback form. Eyman, who also wrote the definitive book on John Ford (1999’s PRINT THE LEGEND: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN FORD), spent years to make this the last word on John Wayne, separating the man from the myth, in this in-depth study of how the boy from Winterset, Iowa became…

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Rockin’ in the Film World #6: IT’S A BIKINI WORLD (Trans-American 1967)

Posted on July 16, 2016 by gary loggins

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IT’S A BIKINI WORLD is one of the lowest of the low-budget “Beach Party” ripoffs you’ll ever see. Yet it has a certain charm to it, a likeable little “battle of the sexes” soufflé featuring some great 60’s rock acts and the undeniable appeal of beach bunny Deborah Walley.

Beach stud Mike Samson goes gaga for knockout new redhead Delilah Dawes (Samson and Delilah, get it?). She thinks he’s an egotistical jerk and gives him the big freeze-out, telling him she prefers the “serious type”, so Mike dons a pair of thick glasses and some nerdy duds, passing himself off as intellectual brother “Herbert”. Herbert takes her to museums and zoos, while Mike competes with her in skateboarding and boat races run by local customizer Daddy, owner of hangout The Dungeon. Delilah discovers Mike’s scam, and they compete in a final Cross Country Race that consists of car racing, motorcycles…

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This Eagle Doesn’t Fly: FLAP (Warner Brothers 1970)

Posted on July 14, 2016 by gary loggins

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FLAP is an attempt by director Sir Carol Reed to jump on the late 60’s/early70’s “relevance” bandwagon by depicting the modern-day mistreatment of the American Indian. It’s a seriocomic character study that struggles to find it’s identity, and as a result fails at both comedy and drama.

FLAP is Flapping Eagle, an ex-soldier living back on the reservation who’s “pissed off at everybody”. He’s a hard drinking man, as is just about all the Indians here, feeding into the stereotypical “drunken Indian” image. Flap’s had enough of the noise coming from construction workers building a highway project right next to the rez, and causes a fracas between the hardhats and the Indians, damaging a bulldozer in the process. Native Wounded Bear (who has a correspondence school law degree) points out the highway is gong through sacred burial ground, which turns out not to be the case. Everyone’s up in arms, especially local…

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Cleaning Out the DVR Pt 8: All-Star Comedy Break

Posted on July 12, 2016 by gary loggins

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Tonight I’ll be watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, but for those of you non-baseball fans, here’s a look at five funny films from the 1930’s & 40’s:

IT’S A GIFT (Paramount 1934, D: Norman Z. McLeod) The Great Man himself, W.C. Fields , works his magic in this delightfully demented domestic comedy about hen pecked grocer Harold Bissonette, who dreams of owning an orange grove in California. His wife (Kathleen Howard) is a domineering battle-axe, his kid (Tommy Bupp) an obnoxious, roller skating brat, and daughter Mildred (Jean Rouveral) doesn’t want to leave her “true love”. This sets the stage for some of Fields’ funniest surrealistic scenes, including his grocery store being demolished by blind Mr. Mickle and perennial nemesis Baby Leroy; poor W.C. trying to get some sleep on the porch while being constantly disturbed by noisy neighbors, a wayward coconut, a man looking for “Carl LeFong”, and…

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Youth Run Wild!: HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS (AIP 1958)

Posted on July 9, 2016 by gary loggins

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One of the most popular 50’s exploitation subgenres was the “Teenage Girl Gang” movie, with titles like THE VIOLENT YEARS (script by Ed Wood ) and Roger Corman’s TEENAGE DOLL. The plots are pretty much interchangeable: rebellious high school chick, misunderstood by her parents, falls in with the wrong crowd. Soon she’s smoking butts, drinking booze, stealing, staying out late. There’s usually a wild party where something bad happens, and our heroine is placed in peril. If you’re into exploitation flicks, you’ll immediately recognize the storyline, and it’s reused again here to good advantage in HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS.

Our heroine here is Joyce, the new kid at High School USA. Joyce’s parents just don’t understand her: mom’s always out playing bridge, and dad is just a prick. Joyce longs to be accepted, and is invited to join the Hellcats by anti-social Connie, a rebellious vixen whose attitude seems to be fuck the adult…

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First Shot Fired: THE DEADLY COMPANIONS (Pathe’-America 1961)

Posted on July 7, 2016 by gary loggins

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Maverick filmmaker Sam Peckinpah got his start in television, writing and directing for Westerns such as GUNSMOKE, THE RIFLEMAN, and HAVE GUN- WILL TRAVEL. In 1959, he created the series THE WESTERNER, starring Brian Keith as a drifter named Dave Blassingame, noted for its extreme (for the time) violence. When Keith was cast as the lead in THE DEADLY COMPANIONS, he suggested his friend Peckinpah as director. This was Peckinpah’s first feature film, and the result is a flawed but interesting film which has brief flourishes of the style he later perfected in THE WILD BUNCH and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID.

Keith is again a drifter, this time an ex-Union soldier known only as Yellowleg. He hooks up with a pair of Southern outlaws and they ride to Hila City to rob the bank. They get sidetracked at the saloon when it converts into a church service. Next thing you know…

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Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane: RIP NOEL NEILL

Posted on July 5, 2016 by gary loggins

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She was never a major Hollywood star, but for millions of kids who grew up watching reruns of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, Noel Neill was a true icon. She was the first TV crush for many of us… after all, what kid could resist an attractive, plucky girl reporter who just happened to be a close, personal friend of the mighty Man of Steel?

Noel Neill was born in Minneapolis in 1920, daughter of a journalist, foreshadowing her future screen occupation. Her mother was a dancer, and young Noel had a knack for performing. She got a gig singing with Bob Crosby’s orchestra, and did some modeling. Noel was ranked the #2 pin-up girl by GI’s during World War II, second in popularity to only Betty Grable. Hollywood came calling, and she was signed by Paramount Pictures. But her screen career went nowhere, and eventually Miss Neill moved to Poverty Row Monogram Studios.

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Creature Double Feature: THE BLACK SCORPION (1957) and THE KILLER SHREWS (1959)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by gary loggins

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Back in the glory days of local television, Boston’s WLVI-TV (Channel 56) ran a Saturday afternoon movie series titled “Creature Double Feature”. It was a huge ratings hit during the 1970’s, introducing young viewers to the BEM (bug-eyed monsters) movies of the past. Let’s return now to those halcyon days of yesterday with a look at two sci-fi flicks from the fabulous 50’s.

First up is THE BLACK SCORPION, a 1957 giant monster movie from Warner Brothers. This low-budget saga starts off with stock footage of volcanos erupting and earthquakes a-quaking, and a hyperbolic narrator expounding on natural disasters threatening Mexico. Two brawny geologists, Hank and Artur, investigate the devastation. While out scouting they run into beautiful rancher Teresa Alvarez, whose vaqueros have fled the hacienda in fear. After getting them back on the ranch, our scientists attend an autopsy of a dead Mexican cop (the doctor performing the autopsy looks like he…

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