Bond Goes Deep!: THUNDERBALL (United Artists 1965)

Posted on May 19, 2018 by gary loggins

THUNDERBALL, the fourth 007 adventure, will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s the first James Bond movie I saw at the theater, released at the height of the Secret Agent/Spy craze, and I was totally hooked! I even had all the toys that went with the movie, including Emilio Largo’s two-part boat the Disco Volante, with which I engaged in mighty battles in the bathtub against VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA’s Seaview (hey, I was only seven!).

SPECTRE is at it again, this time hijacking a NATO jet loaded with two nuclear bombs, and holding the world hostage. Bond, sent to recuperate at a health spa, stumbles on to trouble related to the crisis, and is sent by MI6 to investigate Domino Derval, sister of the NATO pilot. This leads 007 to Domino’s “guardian” Emilio Largo, a rich and powerful man who’s Number Two…

View original post 421 more words

The Secret Batman-James Bond Connection – Revealed!

Posted on May 18, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

FLASH! This breaking news story is brought to you by Cracked Rear Viewer, serving the film community since 2015!

It’s the story America (and the world) has been waiting for – the hitherto secret link between The Caped Crusader and Secret Agent 007. Proving once again this blog will go to any lengths to ~~create some content~~ bring you the truth behind the Hollywood scenes! Our trail begins in the year 1943. WWII was raging across both oceans, and America needed heroes to defend the homefront. Columbia Pictures secured the rights to the popular comic book BATMAN, and presented a 15-chapter serial starring one Lewis Wilson (1920-2000) as Bruce Wayne/Batman, battling the evil Japanese saboteur Dr. Daka, played by the villainous J. Carrol Naish:

Wilson was married to the former Dana Natol (1922-2004), and in 1942 they had a son named Michael. Though the Wilson’s film career went nowhere, they…

View original post 164 more words

Bond Is Back!: FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (United Artists 1963)

Posted on May 17, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

The Cold War got really hot when James Bond returned to the screen in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, second in the film series starring Sean Connery as Ian Fleming’s Secret Agent 007. Picking up where DR. NO left off, the film is popular with Bond fans for its more realistic depiction of the spy game, though there’s still plenty of action, romance, and quick quips, along with the introduction of several elements soon to be integral to the series.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE has Bond falling for Soviet defector Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), who’s willing to help steal a Russian Lektor decoding machine for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But both she and Bond are just pawns in a larger game, with the international crime cartel SPECTRE making all the moves. Their goal is to not only posses the decoder and ransom it back to the Russians, but to eliminate 007…

View original post 340 more words

James Bond Begins!: Sean Connery as 007 in DR. NO (United Artists 1962)

Posted on May 15, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Ian Fleming’s secret agent 007, James Bond, was introduced in the 1953 novel Casino Royale, and was a smashing success, leading to a long-running series of books starring MI-6’s “licensed to kill” super spy. No less than President John F. Kennedy was a huge fan of Fleming’s books, and since the early 60’s were all about “Camelot”, producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided to cash in and bring James Bond to the big screen (the character had appeared in the person of Barry Nelson in an adaptation of CASINO ROYALE for a 1954 episode of TV’s CLIMAX!, with Peter Lorre as the villain Le Chiffre).

DR. NO was the first Bond movie, and the producers wanted Patrick McGoohan, star of the British TV series SECRET AGENT, to play the suave, ruthless Bond. McGoohan declined, and Richard Johnson was considered. He also turned them down, leading Broccoli and Saltzman…

View original post 534 more words

Cleaning Out the DVR #19: Things To Watch When You Have Flumonia!

Posted on May 12, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

So I’ve been laid up with the flu/early stage pneumonia/whateverthehellitis for the past few days, which seemed like a good excuse to clean out the DVR by watching a bunch of random movies:

Bette Davis & Jimmy Cagney in “Jimmy the Gent”

JIMMY THE GENT (Warner Brothers 1934; D: Michael Curtiz ) – Fast paced James Cagney vehicle has Jimmy as the head of a shady “missing heir” racket, with Bette Davis as his ex-girl, now working for his classy (but grabby!) rival Alan Dinehart. Allen Jenkins returns once again as Cagney’s sidekick, and Alice White is a riot as Jenkins’s ditzy dame. Some funny dialog by Bertram Milhauser in this one, coming in at the tail-end of the Pre-Code era. Cagney’s always worth watching, even in minor fare like this one. Fun Fact: Cagney’s battles with boss Jack Warner over better roles were legendary, and the actor went out…

View original post 786 more words

Pre Code Confidential #19: Marlene Dietrich in SHANGHAI EXPRESS (Paramount 1932)

Posted on May 10, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Marlene Dietrich is TCM’S Star of the Month for May, and “Shanghai Express” airs tonight at 12:00 midnight EST.

A train ride from Peking to Shanghai is fraught with danger and romance in Josef von Sternberg’s SHANGHAI EXPRESS, a whirlwind of a movie starring that Teutonic whirlwind herself, Marlene Dietrich. This was the fourth of their seven collaborations together, and their biggest hit, nominated for three Oscars and winning for Lee Garmes’s striking black and white cinematography.

The Director and his Muse

Dietrich became a huge sensation as the sultry seductress Lola Lola in Sternberg’s 1930 German film THE BLUE ANGEL, and the pair headed to America to work for Paramount. Marlene became the autocratic director’s muse, as he molded her screen image into a glamorous object of lust and desire. Sternberg’s Expressionistic painting of light and shadows, aided by Dietrich’s innate sexuality, turned the former chorus girl and cabaret…

View original post 551 more words

Far Out, Man!: CHEECH & CHONG’S UP IN SMOKE (Paramount 1978)

Posted on May 8, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Hey Man, if you dig crude, vulgar stoner comedy… wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah, Cheech and Chong, man. These two dudes were, like, really cool dudes, and made a lot of records and stuff, and… wait, what was I saying, man? OK, so Cheech and Chong were hippie culture’s answer to Abbott & Costello , and so popular they starred in a series of doper-themed movies, the first being UP IN SMOKE, a film basically about nothing except two burnouts trying to score some weed. C&C play their familiar personas of Pedro and Man, a pair of L.A. hippies floating their way through the world in a perpetual marijuana haze. . Sure, it’s uncouth, sophomoric, and defiantly non-PC, but had me laughing out loud forty years later!

The supporting cast features Stacy Keach as Sgt. Stedenko, a super-narc trying to stamp out drug use, and he’s a straight-edge riot…

View original post 341 more words

4 Shots From 4 Films: Happy Birthday Orson Welles

Posted on May 6, 2018 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 lets the visuals do the talking. The cinematic genius Orson Welles was born on this date in 1915. Welles was also a noted magician, and used mirrors as a motif in many of his movies. Here are four reflective shots from The Films of Orson Welles:

Citizen Kane (RKO 194)

The Lady from Shanghai (Columbia 1947)

Touch of Evil (Universal 1958)

F For Fake (Janus Films 1975)

Drive-In Saturday Night: DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (AIP 1965) & DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE GIRL BOMBS (AIP 1966)

Posted on May 5, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

American-International Pictures, never ones to shy away from jumping on a trend, released a pair of secret agent spoofs starring the one and only Vincent Price as the evil supervillain Dr. Goldfoot. AIP president James H. Nicholson himself allegedly came up with the story, wanting to use the film as a showcase for wife Susan Hart, a beautiful woman of limited talent. The first was DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE, an endearingly goofy little movie co-starring SKI PARTY’s Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman. The two even use the same character names from that previous film, Tod Armstrong and Craig Gamble – only reversed, with Frankie as Craig and Dwayne as Tod!

Mad scientist Goldfoot, an obvious cross between James Bond nemeses Dr. No and Goldfinger, is Price at his campy best, carving up large slices of ham as the malevolent meanie. His fiendish plot is creating an army of…

View original post 595 more words

Familiar Faces #7: Gordon Jones, Working Class Hero

Posted on May 4, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Brawny actor Gordon Jones (1911-1963) was never a big star, but an actor the big stars could depend on to give a good performance. Stars like John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Abbott & Costello knew Gordon could deliver the goods in support, and he spent over thirty years as a working class actor. Not bad for a small town kid from Alden, Iowa!

Gordon as The Green Hornet with Keye Luke as Kato

Jones originally came to California on a football scholarship, playing guard for UCLA. Like his fellow Iowan John Wayne , Gordon began his film career in uncredited parts, and soon moved up in casts lists with films like RED SALUTE (1935), STRIKE ME PINK (1936), and THERE GOES MY GIRL (1937). Gordon’s big lug persona made him ideal for second leads as the hero’s pal, though he did get some leading roles in Poverty Row vehicles like…

View original post 669 more words