Yesterday, our first nine awards were given out, with Best Pic nominees Gun Crazy and The Rules of the Game each receiving two. But what will actually take the title of the Best Picture of 1950? Reacquaint yourself with the nominees and Top Ten, and then read on:
Showing posts with label Vincent Price. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vincent Price. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Cinema '65: Here We Go
And so it's happening: our look back at 1965.
Over the past few months, I've caught up with 67 films released in 1965 -- the only nominated film I missed among the regular Oscar categories (non-doc, non-short, non-foreign) was Von Ryan's Express. I've watched several Beach Party movies, four Vincent Price flicks, three Japanese films, two documentaries, two Jean Harlow biopics (both titled Harlow), and four Russ Meyer experiences. Some of the films were reviewed; most will be looked at over the next month, as we go through Oscar's nominees in fifteen categories.
Yes, fifteen. For it's 1965, and categories like Art Direction-Set Decoration and Cinematography have separate awards for Color and Black-and-White -- a practice that will be discontinued for the 1967 Oscars.
After that, of course, I will name my own picks in eighteen categories for the Retro Hollmann Awards.
Tomorrow: a look at POW dark comedy King Rat, blind-white-girl-meets-black-man romance A Patch of Blue, suicide prevention drama The Slender Thread, and more! Until then...the total list of films screened follows:
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Over the past few months, I've caught up with 67 films released in 1965 -- the only nominated film I missed among the regular Oscar categories (non-doc, non-short, non-foreign) was Von Ryan's Express. I've watched several Beach Party movies, four Vincent Price flicks, three Japanese films, two documentaries, two Jean Harlow biopics (both titled Harlow), and four Russ Meyer experiences. Some of the films were reviewed; most will be looked at over the next month, as we go through Oscar's nominees in fifteen categories.
Yes, fifteen. For it's 1965, and categories like Art Direction-Set Decoration and Cinematography have separate awards for Color and Black-and-White -- a practice that will be discontinued for the 1967 Oscars.
After that, of course, I will name my own picks in eighteen categories for the Retro Hollmann Awards.
Tomorrow: a look at POW dark comedy King Rat, blind-white-girl-meets-black-man romance A Patch of Blue, suicide prevention drama The Slender Thread, and more! Until then...the total list of films screened follows:
The Agony and the Ecstasy
The Awful Dr. Orloff
Beach Blanket Bingo
The Beach Girls and the Monster
Bunny Lake is Missing
Casanova ‘70
Cat Ballou
The Collector
Darling
The Defilers
Devil Doll
Die! Die! My Darling!
Die, Monster, Die
Doctor Zhivago
Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors
The Eleanor Roosevelt Story
Fanny Hill
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
The Flight of the Phoenix
Genghis Khan
Girl Happy
The Great Race
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Harlow (Carol Lynley version)
Harlow (Carroll Baker version)
Help!
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
In Harm’s Way
Inside Daisy Clover
The IPCRESS File
King Rat
Kwaidan
Lord Jim
The Loved One
Mondo Pazzo
Morituri
Motorpsycho
Mudhoney
Murder Most Foul
The Nanny
None But the Brave
Onibaba
Othello
A Patch of Blue
The Pawnbroker
The Pleasure Seekers
A Rage to Live
The Sandpiper
Shenandoah
Ship of Fools
Ski Party
The Slender Thread
The Sons of Katie Elder
The Sound of Music
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
A Thousand Clowns
Thunderball
Tomb of Ligeia
The Train
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
War-Gods of the Deep
What’s New Pussycat?
Who Killed Teddy Bear?
Woman in the Dunes
Young Cassidy
Friday, July 10, 2015
Cinema '65: Beach Party and Its Kind
Guess who watched a bunch of beach movies? Me! I did!
In retrospect, it's nuts that my introduction to the world of Beach Party was the film Ski Party -- the main setting is different, the characters are different, and except for a quick gag where she plays a college professor who goes "parking" with students, no Annette Funicello. But boy oh boy what a flick! Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman disguise themselves as ladies on a college co-ed trip to a ski lodge, with Hickman almost finding love with the big man on campus! A creaky idea? Maybe, but executed with fun, real wit -- and a Lesley Gore number! There's even a scene where our heroes choose not to stay the night with some girls they've duped because "the average age of this movie's audience is 14." Fun!
Not fun? The Beach Girls and the Monster, a cheapo horror-mystery about beach bums and their disappointed parents. There aren't enough beach girls to justify that title, really, while the conversations the movie attempts to have about the Generation Gap and Changing Times are embarrassing. I don't think the mystery holds up, either. Sue Casey plays an enjoyably boozey, acid-tongued wife, though. And Frank Sinatra, Jr., contributed to the soundtrack, so that's...something. This is not a Beach Party film, but it's clearly influenced by the success of that series.
I did wind up returning to the world of Beach Party with How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, though again, it's an atypical entry; while it's the traditional Beach Party ensemble (including big dummy Jody McCrea and leather-clad dummy Harvey Lembeck), Frankie is off the beach, serving his country, canoodling with island girls on base, but convincing witch doctor Buster Keaton to send a magical pelican to keep an eye on Annette's fidelity. Such a conceit is risible, and my jaw dropped when the opening musical number revealed exactly how one stuffs a wild bikini -- 36-22-36. Blech, though catchy. Not surprisingly, this was one of the final films in the official series.
Now Beach Blanket Bingo, I can deal with. Frankie spends the entire runtime explaining why girls can't do what boys do, while Annette does exactly what she wants and teaches him a lesson in how awesome she is. Don Rickles does a whole set mocking the fact that this franchise is still going. Paul Lynde does his mincing-sneering-hating youth routine, which is always welcome. There's a sweet subplot about big dummy Jody McCrea falling in love with a mermaid. I think someone almost gets murdered? Plus there's this one extra who's clearly a genuine 60s party girl (far right in the gif), marching to the beat of her own spectacular drum. I love her. I love this movie. Except for the scene where a jealous girl tries to accuse Frankie of rape.
Girl Happy is not a Beach Party movie -- not only is it a different studio entirely, but it stars Elvis Presley! Still, it's about some young 'uns who head to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break. Elvis falls for his boss's daughter, and once you've seen Shelley Fabares in action, you will too. While she doesn't possess Ann-Margret's volcanic sexual energy, she's a natural comedienne who plays the hell out a drunken striptease scene. Girl Happy is more frank about sex than the Frankie & Annette flicks -- indeed, it's also more open to letting its women have a good time, without judgment. I like that! Yay for proud strippers!
Disappointingly enough, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was dull. From the team that brought you the Beach Party films comes another Frankie Avalon-Dwayne Hickman adventure, this time going up against mad scientist Vincent Price and his army of robot beauties. Price is game, but it's oddly listless.
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In retrospect, it's nuts that my introduction to the world of Beach Party was the film Ski Party -- the main setting is different, the characters are different, and except for a quick gag where she plays a college professor who goes "parking" with students, no Annette Funicello. But boy oh boy what a flick! Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman disguise themselves as ladies on a college co-ed trip to a ski lodge, with Hickman almost finding love with the big man on campus! A creaky idea? Maybe, but executed with fun, real wit -- and a Lesley Gore number! There's even a scene where our heroes choose not to stay the night with some girls they've duped because "the average age of this movie's audience is 14." Fun!
Not fun? The Beach Girls and the Monster, a cheapo horror-mystery about beach bums and their disappointed parents. There aren't enough beach girls to justify that title, really, while the conversations the movie attempts to have about the Generation Gap and Changing Times are embarrassing. I don't think the mystery holds up, either. Sue Casey plays an enjoyably boozey, acid-tongued wife, though. And Frank Sinatra, Jr., contributed to the soundtrack, so that's...something. This is not a Beach Party film, but it's clearly influenced by the success of that series.
I did wind up returning to the world of Beach Party with How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, though again, it's an atypical entry; while it's the traditional Beach Party ensemble (including big dummy Jody McCrea and leather-clad dummy Harvey Lembeck), Frankie is off the beach, serving his country, canoodling with island girls on base, but convincing witch doctor Buster Keaton to send a magical pelican to keep an eye on Annette's fidelity. Such a conceit is risible, and my jaw dropped when the opening musical number revealed exactly how one stuffs a wild bikini -- 36-22-36. Blech, though catchy. Not surprisingly, this was one of the final films in the official series.
Girl Happy is not a Beach Party movie -- not only is it a different studio entirely, but it stars Elvis Presley! Still, it's about some young 'uns who head to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break. Elvis falls for his boss's daughter, and once you've seen Shelley Fabares in action, you will too. While she doesn't possess Ann-Margret's volcanic sexual energy, she's a natural comedienne who plays the hell out a drunken striptease scene. Girl Happy is more frank about sex than the Frankie & Annette flicks -- indeed, it's also more open to letting its women have a good time, without judgment. I like that! Yay for proud strippers!
Disappointingly enough, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was dull. From the team that brought you the Beach Party films comes another Frankie Avalon-Dwayne Hickman adventure, this time going up against mad scientist Vincent Price and his army of robot beauties. Price is game, but it's oddly listless.
Friday, October 31, 2014
13 Flicks for Halloween
Happy Halloween!
I haven't ranked my favorite fright flicks in years -- and I won't be tonight, either! Instead, here are thirteen movies on my mind this Halloween, all after the jump. Feel free to take these as recommendations, and enjoy...
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The 1973 Longlists!
All right, you late-night fans of cinema and the Silver Screening Room. Here it is: the long-awaited (?) longlists for the 1973 Retro Hollmann Awards!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Casting Coup Tuesdays: Theatre of Blood
Vincent Price is my favorite actor.
I don't remember when I realized this, exactly, but I know it must have been around middle school. While my fourth grade teacher playing a Vincent Price-hosted clip show of classic horror on Halloween excited me, I was a Chaney, Sr. man then, and a Lugosi faithful by the end of elementary school. Somehow, though, as my adolescence began and my knowledge of film grew past 1941, Price took over.
Do you think it might have been the films? Not to sound unsophisticated or anything, but much as I admire Chaney's silent-era physicality and Lugosi's early-sound histrionics, Price got to ham it up in the colorful 60s and 70s, when bare breasts began bouncing on-screen alongside close-up gore effects and bizarre Hollywood concepts of the drug scene. His movies were campy and dark, funny and violent, sexy and...sexy?
We could talk for ages about his Wm Castle flicks (The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill), his Poe vehicles for Roger Corman (House of Usher, The Tomb of Ligeia), his work in more prestigious fare (The Song of Bernadette, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex), or his contributions to early Tim Burton ("Vincent", Edward Scissorhands). But I think any Price fan worth his or her salt knows that nothing beats his one-two punch of Dr. Anton Phibes and Edward Lionheart, the anti-heroes of 1971's The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 1972's Dr. Phibes Rises Again and 1973's Theatre of Blood. Both men seek to avenge perceived wrongs by murdering those he begrudges in the most creative ways possible. In the first Phibes, it's according to the Plagues of Egypt. In Theatre of Blood, it's the works of William Shakespeare.
It's really quite a phenomenal idea for a film: Vincent Price as a hammy Shakespearean actor who attempts suicide when the Critics' Circle Awards snub him in favor of a young Method actor. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he survives, and he plans his revenge on the nine members of the jury according to the plays he performed in his final theatrical season. And in between killings, he performs scenes from those very plays to a rapt audience of homeless drug addicts who "rescued" him from his botched drowning.
This is my favorite Vincent Price film, and I've always loved that it was his, too. Of course, it was here that he met his third wife Coral Browne, and realized his dream of performing Shakespeare on film. I am not lying or exaggerating when I say that I always just heard Hamlet's soliliquoy in legitimate film versions of the Bard's work; only with Price's recitation after losing the coveted prize did I fully "get" the import of the words, and the beauty of the writing.
Lionheart goes from a darkly comic villain to a tragic hero, a man who only wants to be recognized for his hard work and dedication, to be celebrated for pursuing his dream with such single-mindedness...and they laugh at him. These people who dare not try their hand at performing, who make their living scoffing at struggling performers and eviscerating the efforts of hard-working craftsmen, these butchers (as Edwina puts it) laugh at him. Perhaps Lionheart puts it best:
And if those two scenes aren't enough to convince you of this movie's greatness:
So awesome.
But Price isn't the only one with a great part. The critics are a colorful ensemble of pompous prigs, the policemen are the right balance of competent and befuddled, and Lionheart has a beautiful daughter (played by Diana Rigg) who may or may not be working with him. It's a film ripe with character parts, which is why I'm a little surprised no one's tried to remake it. There was a stage version a few years back, with Jim Broadbent and Rigg's daughter Rachael Stirling as the Lionhearts, but otherwise, no one else dares to touch the film. Is it the daunting task of even equaling Price's performance? The difficult tone? The logistics of rounding up an ensemble not only willing to do a slasher flick but giving said flick an air of legitimacy and class?
Perhaps. But this is Casting Coup Tuesday. We gotta try. But let's at least do it after the jump:
I don't remember when I realized this, exactly, but I know it must have been around middle school. While my fourth grade teacher playing a Vincent Price-hosted clip show of classic horror on Halloween excited me, I was a Chaney, Sr. man then, and a Lugosi faithful by the end of elementary school. Somehow, though, as my adolescence began and my knowledge of film grew past 1941, Price took over.
Do you think it might have been the films? Not to sound unsophisticated or anything, but much as I admire Chaney's silent-era physicality and Lugosi's early-sound histrionics, Price got to ham it up in the colorful 60s and 70s, when bare breasts began bouncing on-screen alongside close-up gore effects and bizarre Hollywood concepts of the drug scene. His movies were campy and dark, funny and violent, sexy and...sexy?
We could talk for ages about his Wm Castle flicks (The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill), his Poe vehicles for Roger Corman (House of Usher, The Tomb of Ligeia), his work in more prestigious fare (The Song of Bernadette, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex), or his contributions to early Tim Burton ("Vincent", Edward Scissorhands). But I think any Price fan worth his or her salt knows that nothing beats his one-two punch of Dr. Anton Phibes and Edward Lionheart, the anti-heroes of 1971's The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 1972's Dr. Phibes Rises Again and 1973's Theatre of Blood. Both men seek to avenge perceived wrongs by murdering those he begrudges in the most creative ways possible. In the first Phibes, it's according to the Plagues of Egypt. In Theatre of Blood, it's the works of William Shakespeare.
It's really quite a phenomenal idea for a film: Vincent Price as a hammy Shakespearean actor who attempts suicide when the Critics' Circle Awards snub him in favor of a young Method actor. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he survives, and he plans his revenge on the nine members of the jury according to the plays he performed in his final theatrical season. And in between killings, he performs scenes from those very plays to a rapt audience of homeless drug addicts who "rescued" him from his botched drowning.
This is my favorite Vincent Price film, and I've always loved that it was his, too. Of course, it was here that he met his third wife Coral Browne, and realized his dream of performing Shakespeare on film. I am not lying or exaggerating when I say that I always just heard Hamlet's soliliquoy in legitimate film versions of the Bard's work; only with Price's recitation after losing the coveted prize did I fully "get" the import of the words, and the beauty of the writing.
Lionheart goes from a darkly comic villain to a tragic hero, a man who only wants to be recognized for his hard work and dedication, to be celebrated for pursuing his dream with such single-mindedness...and they laugh at him. These people who dare not try their hand at performing, who make their living scoffing at struggling performers and eviscerating the efforts of hard-working craftsmen, these butchers (as Edwina puts it) laugh at him. Perhaps Lionheart puts it best:
And if those two scenes aren't enough to convince you of this movie's greatness:
So awesome.
But Price isn't the only one with a great part. The critics are a colorful ensemble of pompous prigs, the policemen are the right balance of competent and befuddled, and Lionheart has a beautiful daughter (played by Diana Rigg) who may or may not be working with him. It's a film ripe with character parts, which is why I'm a little surprised no one's tried to remake it. There was a stage version a few years back, with Jim Broadbent and Rigg's daughter Rachael Stirling as the Lionhearts, but otherwise, no one else dares to touch the film. Is it the daunting task of even equaling Price's performance? The difficult tone? The logistics of rounding up an ensemble not only willing to do a slasher flick but giving said flick an air of legitimacy and class?
Perhaps. But this is Casting Coup Tuesday. We gotta try. But let's at least do it after the jump:
Friday, September 11, 2009
Justice is Served
Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. It has come to my attention (and thank you, Salon.com), that the first three Oscar winners of the season have been announced. My friends, read this:
Actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis are the first Oscar winners of the season.
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday that the three will receive honorary Oscar statuettes.
You see the most important name there, right?
Roger Effing Corman.
Producer-writer-director Corman has been in the business for, like, a hundred years and has made over 200 million films. Or something like that. He started the careers of Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson. He nurtured Vincent Price's reputation as a horror star. He was an extra in Rachel Getting Married. And now, he's getting his due.
So, to the man who made House of Usher, Death Race 2000, The Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood, Caged Heat, Creature from the Haunted Sea, and many many more, I send out a congratulatory toast. Here's to you, Mr. Corman!
Actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis are the first Oscar winners of the season.
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday that the three will receive honorary Oscar statuettes.
You see the most important name there, right?
Roger Effing Corman.
Producer-writer-director Corman has been in the business for, like, a hundred years and has made over 200 million films. Or something like that. He started the careers of Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson. He nurtured Vincent Price's reputation as a horror star. He was an extra in Rachel Getting Married. And now, he's getting his due.
So, to the man who made House of Usher, Death Race 2000, The Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood, Caged Heat, Creature from the Haunted Sea, and many many more, I send out a congratulatory toast. Here's to you, Mr. Corman!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Birthdays!
Christopher Lee is 86 today! Hooray, Dracula!
Today would also be Vincent Price's birthday, but he's dead.
Richard Schiff is also celebrating, at the age of 53.
Today would also be Vincent Price's birthday, but he's dead.
Richard Schiff is also celebrating, at the age of 53.
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