News has reached us that character actor Sid Haig has passed away at age 80. I’ll have a full tribute/career retrospective on Sid later tonight or tomorrow evening. Meanwhile, enjoy this pictorial tribute to the late, great Sid Haig…
Spider Baby (1964; D: Jack Hill)
CC & Company (1970; D: Seymour Robbie)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971; D: Guy Hamilton)
Foxy Brown (1974; D: Jack Hill)
Jackie Brown (1997; D: Quentin Tarantino)
Richard Pryor (1940-2005) has been hailed as a comedy genius, and rightly so. But Pryor could also more than hold his own in a dramatic role. Films like WILD IN THE STREETS, LADY SINGS THE BLUES, and BLUE COLLAR gave him the opportunity to strut his thespic stuff, and GREASED LIGHTNING gave him top billing as Wendell Scott, the first African-American NASCAR driver. Pryor plays it straight in this highly fictionalized biopic about a man determined to break the color barrier in the predominantly white sport of stock car racing.
We see Scott returning to his rural Danville, VA hometown after serving in WWII. He tells everyone he wants to drive a cab and someday open a garage, but his secret wish is to become “a champion race car driver”. He meets and falls in love with Mary (Pam Grier, who’s never looked more beautiful), and they eventually marry…
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We’re way overdue for a Cleaning Out the DVR post – haven’t done one since back in April! – so let’s jump right in with 4 capsule reviews of 4 classic crime films:
SINNERS’ HOLIDAY (Warner Brothers 1930; D: John Adolfi) – Early talkie interesting as the screen debut of James Cagney , mixed up in “the booze racket”, who shoots bootlegger Warren Hymer, and who’s penny arcade owner maw Lucille LaVerne covers up by pinning the murder on daughter Evalyn Knapp’s ex-con boyfriend Grant Withers. Some pretty racy Pre-Code elements include Joan Blondell as Cagney’s “gutter floozie” main squeeze. Film’s 60 minute running time makes it speed by, aided by some fluid for the era camerawork. Fun Fact: Cagney and Blondell appeared in the original Broadway play “Penny Arcade”; when superstar entertainer Al Jolson bought the rights, he insisted Jimmy and Joan be cast in the film version, and…
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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 lets the visuals do the talking. Today is the birthday of 1930s Scream Queen Fay Wray (1907-2004), and since it’s so close to Halloween season (can’t wait!!), here are 4 Shots From The Horror Films of the fabulous Fay Wray!!
The Most Dangerous Game (1932; D: Irving Pichel & Ernest B. Shoedsack)
The Vampire Bat (1933; D: Frank R. Strayer)
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933; D: Michael Curtiz)
King Kong (1933; D: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Shoedsack)
‘Well the blues had a baby/and they named it rock and roll” –
Muddy Waters
Hi, my name’s Gary, and I’m a bluesoholic! Whether it’s Deep South Delta or Electric Chicago, distilled in Great Britain or Sunny California, the blues has always been the foundation upon which rock’n’roll was built. Yet there aren’t a lot of films out there depicting this totally original American art form. One I viewed recently was 1986’s CROSSROADS, directed by another American original whose work I enjoy, Walter Hill.
Hill was responsible for cult classics filled with violence and laced with humor, like HARD TIMES (with Charles Bronson as a 1930’s bare knuckles brawler), the highly stylized THE WARRIORS , the gritty Western THE LONG RIDERS, and SOUTHERN COMFORT (a kind of MOST DANGEROUS GAME On The Bayou). He scored box office gold with the 1982 action-comedy 48 HRS, making a movie star out of…
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From 1969 to 1974, Three Dog Night was one of the biggest rock bands in the world, known for smash hits like “One”, “Eli’s Coming”, “Mama Told Me Not to Come”, “Shambala”, “Black & White”, and of course “Joy to the World”. Their squeaky-clean, family friendly image made them popular with both teens and adults, but behind that image lurked a deep, dark secret – co-lead singer Chuck Negron, the long-haired, mustachioed one, was an unrepentant heroin addict.
THREE DOG NIGHTMARE, first published in 1999 and revised in 2017, tells the harrowing tale of the horrors of drug addiction by the man who lived that nightmare for over twenty years. And ‘nightmare’ it truly was, as Chuck tells his tale of going from the pinnacle of the rock’n’roll universe to a Skid Row junkie, lying, cheating, and stealing his way through life leaving nothing but sorrow and devastation in his…
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There are many contenders for the crown Queen of Pre-Code – Jean Harlow, Miriam Hopkins, Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West, and a slew of other dames – but there’s only one Joan Blondell! Rose Joan Blondell was “born in a trunk” (as they say) to vaudevillian parents on August 30, 1906, and made her stage debut at the tender age of four months. Little Joanie took to show biz like a duck to water, and worked her way up to Broadway, costarring with a young actor named James Cagney in 1930’s PENNY ARCADE; the pair went to Hollywood for the film version, retitled SINNERS’ HOLIDAY, their first of seven screen teamings.
Our Girl Joanie struck a chord with Depression Era audiences: she was a tough, wisecracking, fast-talking, been-around-the-block tomato whose tough-as-leather veneer cloaked a heart of gold. Joan and Glenda Farrell had ’em rolling in the aisles as a pair…
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1939 has been proclaimed by many to be Hollywood’s Greatest Year. I could make a case for 1947, but I won’t go there… for the moment. Be that as it may, 1939 saw the release of some true classics that have stood the test of time, including in the Western genre: DESTRY RIDES AGAIN, JESSE JAMES, STAGECOACH , and UNION PACIFIC. One that doesn’t get a lot of attention anymore is DODGE CITY, the 5th screen pairing in four years of one of Hollywood’s greatest romantic duos, heroic Errol Flynn and beautiful Olivia de Havilland.
DODGE CITY was Warner Brothers’ biggest hit of 1939, and the 6th highest grossing picture that year, beating out classics like GOODBYE MR. CHIPS, GUNGA DIN, NINOTCHKA, and THE WIZARD OF OZ. It’s a rousing actioner with plenty of romance and humor thrown in, shot in Glorious Technicolor by Warners’ ace director Michael Curtiz …
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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 lets the visuals do the talking. Hollywood Pre-Code Queen Joan Blondell was born on this date in 1906. After starring in vaudeville and on Broadway, Joan made her film debut in 1930, beginning a screen career that lasted 50 years, until her death in 1979 (her final film was released posthumously in 1981). In honor of one of my favorite stars of the Golden Age, here are 4 Shots from the Films of Joan Blondell (and be on the lookout for more on Joanie, coming next week!):
Blonde Crazy (1931; D: Roy Del Ruth)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933; D: Mervyn LeRoy)
Nightmare Alley (1947; D: Edmund Goulding)
Grease (1978; D: Randal Kleiser)
Happy Birthday, Joanie!
Thirty years ago, Canadian songstress Alannah Myles glided to #1 on the charts with her sultry hit single”Black Velvet”:
Alannah Myles was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and before breaking through with “Black Velvet” she was fairly well known in her home country, even getting a guest shot as a single young mom on a 1984 episode of the popular Canadian TV show THE KIDS OF DEGRASSI STREET. When her hit tune stormed the charts, that smoky voice and those sexy good looks catapulted her to stardom, thanks in large part to constant airplay on MTV.
She won a Grammy for Best Female Rock Performance and three Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent to the Grammies), but her subsequent LP’s and singles went nowhere in America, and just as meteorically as she rose, Alannah Myles tumbled off the radar here. She has retained a fan base in Europe and her…
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Through the Shattered Lens 