One Hit Wonders #18: “Lies” by The Knickerbockers (Challenge Records 1965)

Posted on July 20, 2018 by gary loggins

“Hey, did you hear the new Beatles song?”, screamed virtually every teenybopper in 1965, only it wasn’t The Beatles , but New Jersey’s own The Knickerbockers singing the Top Twenty smash “Lies”:

The Knickerbockers consisted of brothers Beau (vocals, guitars) and John Charles (vocals, bass), Jimmy Walker (vocals, drums), and ex-Royal Teen Bobby Randell (vocals, sax), who scored a hit in 1958 with “Short Shorts” (also featuring future Four Season Bob Gaudio and future Blues Project/Blood, Sweat, & Tears/solo artist Al Kooper):

The tight-knit harmonies and John Lennon-sounding lead vocals had many people fooled into thinking The Beatles had recorded “Lies” under an alias, but the world soon found out it was just a bunch of Jersey kids doing an incredible facsimile. The Knickerbockers became featured regulars on Dick Clark’s five-days-a-week ABC-TV teen dance show WHERE THE ACTION IS (1965-67), along with Paul Revere & The Raiders, Keith Allison, and…

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The Last Gangster: James Cagney in WHITE HEAT (Warner Brothers 1949)

Posted on July 19, 2018 by gary loggins

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When James Cagney burst onto the screen in THE PUBLIC ENEMY, a star was born. Cagney’s machine gun delivery of dialog, commanding screen presence, and take-no-shit attitude made him wildly popular among the Depression Era masses, if not with studio boss Jack Warner, with whom Cagney frequently battled over salary and scripts that weren’t up to par. Films like LADY KILLER , THE MAYOR OF HELL , and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES made Cagney the quintessential movie gangster, but after 1939’s THE ROARING TWENTIES he hung up his spats and concentrated on changing his image. Ten years later, Cagney returned to the gangster film in WHITE HEAT, turning in one of his most memorable performances as the psychotic Cody Jarrett.

Cagney is older and meaner than ever as Jarrett, a remorseless mad-dog killer with a severe mother complex and more than a touch of insanity. Jarrett has frequent debilitating headaches…

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Cleaning Out the DVR #20: ALL-STAR PRE-CODE LADIES EDITION!

Posted on July 17, 2018 by gary loggins

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I know all of you, like me, will be watching tonight’s 89th annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and… wait, what’s that? You say you WON’T be watching the All-Star Game? You have no interest in baseball? Heretics!! But I understand, I really do, and for you non-baseball enthusiasts I’ve assembled a quartet of Pre-Code films to view as an alternative, starring some of the era’s most fabulous females. While I watch the game, you can hunt down and enjoy the following four films celebrating the ladies of Pre-Code:

DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON (Paramount 1931; D: Lloyd Corrigan) – Exotic Anna May Wong stars as Princess Ling Moy, an “Oriental dancer” and daughter of the infamous Dr. Fu Manchu (Warner Oland)! When Fu dies, Ling Moy takes up the mantle of vengeance against the Petrie family, tasked with killing surviving son Ronald. Sessue Hayakawa (BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI)…

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Drive-In Saturday Night 2: BIKINI BEACH (AIP 1964) & PAJAMA PARTY (AIP 1964)

Posted on July 14, 2018 by gary loggins

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Welcome back to Drive-In Saturday Night! Summer’s here, and the time is right for a double dose of American-International teen flicks, so pull in, pull up a speaker to hang on your car window, and enjoy our first feature, 1964’s BIKINI BEACH, starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello:

BIKINI BEACH is the third of AIP’s ‘Beach Party’ movies, and this one’s a typical hodgepodge of music, comedy, and the usual teenage shenanigans. The gang’s all here, heading to the beach on spring break for surfing and swinging. This time around, there’s a newcomer on the sand, British rock star The Potato Bug, with Frankie playing a dual role. Potato Bug is an obvious spoof of the big Beatlemania fever sweeping the country, with all the beach chicks (or “birds”, as he calls ’em) screaming whenever PB starts singing one of his songs, complete with Lennon/McCartney-esque “Wooos” and “Yeah, yeah, yeahs”…

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There’s A New Kid in Town: RETRO FAN Magazine

Posted on July 13, 2018 by gary loggins

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I frequent a place called Newsbreak, which has virtually every type of magazine you could ever ask for, from your tried-and-true legacy mags (TIME, PEOPLE, READER’S DIGEST) to the more esoteric (dedicated to things like raising chickens, bluegrass music, and mysticism). There are a few I pick up on a regular basis, mainly dealing with old movies: FILMS OF THE GOLDEN AGE, SHOCK CINEMA, and PHANTOM OF THE MOVIES’ VIDEOSCOPE, (along with my monthly fix of REASON, the magazine of libertarian thought). While browsing last week, I came across something new – the 1st issue of RETRO FAN, published by TwoMorrows, who are also responsible for publications like ALTER EGO (covering the Golden Age of Comics and edited by Roy Thomas), BACK ISSUE ( Bronze Age Comics), and JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR (’nuff said!).

The animated crew of The Enterprise

RETRO FAN is for people interested in pop culture past, and…

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The Big Let-Down: THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS (Warner Brothers 1947)

Posted on July 12, 2018 by gary loggins

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You would think THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS is just the type of movie I’d love. It’s a Warner Brothers pic from the 1940’s, it’s got Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck , there’s mystery and murder, a Gothic atmosphere… and yet, I didn’t love it, or particularly like it, either. For the first three-quarters, it’s too mannered, slow-moving, and (the cardinal sin) boring for my tastes. Things do pick up a bit towards the end, with Bogie menacing Babs alone in that gloomy mansion, but the denouement failed to satisfy me.

There are a number of reasons why the movie just doesn’t work. It was filmed in 1945, but held back two years by the studio for some reason or another (reports vary). Director Peter Godfrey, a Stanwyck favorite, just wasn’t up to the task of creating much suspense. Then again, the screenplay by Thomas Job practically gives everything away early…

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That’s Blaxploitation! 12: COTTON COMES TO HARLEM (United Artists 1970)

Posted on July 10, 2018 by gary loggins

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I’m not really sure if COTTON COMES TO HARLEM qualifies as a Blaxploitation film. Most genre experts point to Melvin Van Peebles’ SWEET SWEETBACK’S BADASSSSS SONG and/or Gordon Parks’s SHAFT , both released in 1971, as the films that kicked off the Blaxploitation Era. Yet this movie contains many of the Blaxploitation tropes to follow, and is based on the works of African-American writer Chester Himes.

Hardboiled author Chester Himes

Himes (1909-1984) began his writing career while doing a prison stretch for armed robbery. After his short stories started being published in Esquire, he was paroled in 1936, and soon met poet Langston Hughes, who helped him get established in the literary world. Reportedly, Himes worked for a time as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers in the 40’s, but was let go when a racist Jack Warner declared he “don’t want no n*ggers on this lot” (1). His first …

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Games People Play: Alfred Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER (Warner Brothers 1954)

Posted on July 7, 2018 by gary loggins

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Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t afraid to take chances. When the 3-D craze hit in the 1950’s, the innovative director jumped on the new technology to make DIAL M FOR MURDER, based on Frederick Knott’s hit play. The film is full of suspense, and contains many of The Master’s signature touches, but on the whole I consider it to be lesser Hitchcock… which is certainly better than most working in the genre, but still not up to par for Hitch.

Knott adapted his play for the screen, and keeps the tension mounting throughout. The story is set in London, and revolves around ex-tennis pro Tony Wendice, whose wife Margot is having an affair with American mystery writer Mark Halliday. Tony comes up with an elaborate plot to have her murdered by stealing a love letter Mark has written and blackmailing her, then setting up his old school acquaintance C.A. Swann, a man…

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Rest in Peace, Steve Ditko (1927-2018)

Posted on July 6, 2018 by gary loggins

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The world lost a true artistic visionary when Steve Ditko passed away at age 90. He had supposedly been dead two days before his body was found in his New York City apartment, an ignoble ending to one of comic book’s most unique artists, the man who co-created Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, two characters currently riding high in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That their spiritual father should leave this mortal coil so anonymously is a tragedy, and a crying shame.

Ditko’s work will never be mistaken for a Jack Kirby or Neal Adams, or any of their myriad imitators. His art was deceptively simple, yet so complicated in its execution. He’s all angles and motion, with lots of empty spaces. His was a style all his own, a style that fans loved for its singularness. Ditko, after a post-war stint in the Army, entered the comics field in 1953, working…

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One Hit Wonders #17: “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats (Backstreet Records 1982)

Posted on July 6, 2018 by gary loggins

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When this song came on my car radio last week, I immediately knew I had to do a “One Hit Wonders” post on it, so without any further ado, here’s Canadian New Wave pop rockers Men Without Hats doing their #3 smash dance hit “The Safety Dance”:

The band was led by singer/songwriter Ivan Doroschuck, who claimed he penned the bouncy tune in response to nightclubs banning pogo dancing, then a hot thing. At the time of recording the song and others for the album “Rhythm of Youth”, the group consisted of Ivan’s brothers Colin (guitars) and Stefan (bass), Allen McCarthy (keyboards/electronics), and Martin Cartier (percussion). The silly, Renaissance Fair-looking video got in heavy rotation on MTV (remember when they actually played music all day?), which aided it’s rise to the top of the pop charts.