And he's announced his presence with authority, let me tell you, in the form of a new quiz, "Mr. Jim McAllister's Politically Significant, Ethically Questionable, Anti-History- Repeating-Itself Spring Term Movie Quiz." It's a long one. Settle in.
1) Movie that best reflects, describes or embodies the tenor of our times
I grew up in the South and majored in American history at Vanderbilt, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that Americans have only ever liked democracy when the people who get elected look like the face they see in the mirror every morning. Otherwise, they'll move heaven and earth to make damn sure that democracy doesn't work at all (see, e.g., Jim Crow).
But rather than dwelling on our national and individual shortcomings, how about a movie reminding us how democracy is supposed to work and occasionally does work when we put in the effort. How about we all sit down and re-watch Steven Spielberg's Lincoln — and this time, let's take notes!
Running it a close second is Charlie Varrick, starring Walter Matthau in one of his very best performances as a small-time crook who knocks over a bank only to discover it's the mob's money he's stolen — and boy, are they pissed!
Third is Dirty Harry which does star Clint Eastwood. Great cop movie even if it is so hellbent to turn the United States Constitution into a whipping boy, it never bothers to find out how it actually works.
But my favorite Don Siegel movie is The Big Steal from 1949 starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. It's a lightning fast romantic comedy disguised as a film noir. The story? Odd couple Mitchum and Greer, thrown together from necessity, chase a thief (Patric Knowles) through the mountains of Mexico while they themselves are being chased by the long arm of the law (William Bendix). Nice supporting work from Ramon Novarro who played the title character in the 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur).
That would be the AFI-Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland, a restored art deco film palace that is home to the East Coast branch of the American Film Institute.
I've said it before but what the hell, I'll say it again — double features are an L.A. thing. They haven't shown double features east of the Mississippi River in at least fifty years ...
But I'll play your game.
First up is Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) paired with John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). You ever wonder why your Uncle Fud has turned into a raging lunatic? It's not Facebook or Fox News or none of that there — he's been replaced by an evil alien from outer space.
Wendy Hiller was great in Pygmalion, I Know Where I'm Going!, and she won an Oscar for Separate Tables, but I'm a Deborah Kerr man through and through. She was great at playing hot nuns (Black Narcissus, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison) and singing teachers (The King and I) but was perhaps at her best rolling around in the surf with Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity.
The last new movie we saw in a theater was Dune: Part 2. Highly recommended if you've seen Dune: Part 1 and you're into big screen sci-fi that almost makes sense.
On physical media? Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson's whimsical paean to the Boy Scouts. Picked it up on DVD at the local library (which reminds me — it's due back today). Recommended if you're a fan of Wes Anderson or the Boy Scouts.
Streaming? The Battle of Algiers on the Criterion Channel — a war picture told in a documentary style about France's doomed effort to hang onto their colony in northern Africa. I'd say Algeria was France's Vietnam except Vietnam was France's Vietnam. A mess, though, that's for sure. It's hard holding onto real estate that never belonged to you in the first place.
7) Name a young actor in modern films who, either physically or by personality, reminds you of an actor from the age of classic movies
Honestly, who knows what the kids are up to these days ...
Also a fan of (in alphabetical order) Birdman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, John Wick and The Lego Movie.
9) Second-favorite Louis Malle film
10) The Ladykillers (2004 Coen Bros. version)—yes or no?
11) Andy Robinson (Scorpio) or Richard Widmark (Tommy Udo)?
Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele.
Deadpool & Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. Guaranteed hoot!
I want to know who thinks I haven't cracked up ...
I had to look up AIP — refers to American International Pictures which churned out a boatload of cheap sci-fi and exploitation schlock for the drive-ins between 1955 and 1979 — Girls in Prison, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, that sort of thing. In the late '70s, AIP tried its hand at bigger budget movies, for example, Force 10 From Navarone, but that didn't work out and AIP wound up merging with Filmways that then turned into Orion Pictures. AIP recently relaunched under its original name, but I don't think we're talking about any of that. I think we mean the schlock.
Favorite one-sheet (i.e., movie poster)? Couldn't tell you. But I will say the best AIP movies are the Roger Corman adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe, all but one of which star Vincent Prince. And the best of these are The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven.
This is a repeat of a question from April 2015. A couple of models, French and Italian respectively, who played supporting roles in European horror movies in the '60s and '70s. Or some such. Didn't know them then, don't know them now. Am I supposed to?
18) Second-favorite Wim Wenders film
19) Best performance by an athlete in a non-sports-oriented movie
Let's not over-think this: Jim Brown in The Dirty Dozen.
Again, don't over-think it. The 1931 classic gangster movie, The Public Enemy, where James Cagney smashes Mae Clarke in the kisser with a grapefruit.
Chinatown, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three in any order. Love them all.
Let's face it, once Roger Ebert died, nobody.
I only ever eat popcorn at the movies, and that was true even before they gutted me like a fish.
I really have no opinion.
25) Recent release you wish you’d seen on a big screen
We kept meaning to see Guy Ritchie's World War II action flick The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, but never got around to it. Would also like to see Hit Man, but I don't feel like driving down to Silver Spring for that.
All of them in The Wild Bunch — Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Bo Hopkins, Dub Taylor. Great cast led by William Holden in one of his best roles which I wrote about here.
Strother Martin was also in Cool Hand Luke and an episode of Lost in Space so he gets the easy nod from me.
28) Current actor whose star status you find partially or completely mystifying
Meryl Streep.
Never heard of Freeway. On the other hand, I gave her an alternate Oscar for Election, so that.
The Bad News Bears is the best, so I'm going with The Candidate.
31) Favorite theatrical moviegoing experience of the last three years (2021-2024)
Eddie Mueller presenting Out of the Past at the AFI-Silver as part of his Noir City film festival. He also showed another movie that was a total gas but he specifically said we're not allowed to talk about it, so I won't.
I would assume it's Joe Don Baker as Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall. He's actually the good guy even if he does tend to dispense justice with an axe handle.
Sabrina, Rear Window, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Caine Mutiny, Seven Samurai, the first half of Them!, William Holden's final speech in Executive Suite, the opening of Susan Slept Here and White Christmas, in that order, I think.
But let's be honest, neither is as good as the first season of Allen's Lost in Space — the black-and-white episodes. Wrote way too much about it here.
French director. She made one fantastic movie, Cléo from 5 to 7 in 1962. Highly recommended. Never seen anything else by her.
That leaves out two of my all-times faves, Battleground and Twelve O'Clock High, both from 1949. So let's see. In chronological order, From Here to Eternity, Stalag 17, the last ten minutes of The Caine Mutiny where José Ferrer tears everybody a new one, The Guns of Navarone, The Longest Day, The Great Escape, The Train, The Dirty Dozen, Patton and Kelly's Heroes.
Take your pick.
38) Ned Sparks or Guy Kibbee?
39) Favorite opening line in a movie
I answered this very question a year ago for a different Sergio Leone quiz. This is what I wrote:
Is a guitar chord an opening line? Because the opening chord of A Hard Day's Night sucks me into the movie every time.
Many others.
40) Best movie involving radio or a radio broadcast
Katherine and I just happened to rewatch Laura the other day. That film noir classic is narrated by a radio personality played by Clifton Webb in full blown deadpan snarker mode. Other great performances involving radio personalities: Monty Woolley in The Man Who Came to Dinner and Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam. Probably others ...
42) Favorite film of 1934
The Thin Man, by a wide margin. In my personal top ten all-time movies. Nick and Nora Charles (the incomparable William Powell and Myrna Loy) are the greatest husband and wife team in the history of movies. They make marriage and murder a stone groove.
I dig em both and if you track down the Ernst Lubitsch comedy classic Trouble in Paradise, you can have them both. I wrote about it here.
Miriam Hopkins was also terrific in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and Design for Living, another pre-Code Lubitsch comedy based on a Noel Coward play about a threesome between Hopkins, Gary Cooper and Fredric March. Racy. I wrote about her here and here.
As for Kay Francis, she made a pair of movies in 1932 with William Powell that I'm very fond of, One-Way Passage and Jewel Robbery. The first is a sudsy romance between two doomed passengers on an ocean liner, one (Powell) a convicted murder on the way to his execution, the other (Francis), a dying cancer patient. The second is a romantic crime picture, with Powell playing a sophisticated jewel thief who compels his victims (including Francis) to smoke a funny cigarette (I think they call it mary-ju-wanna) that turns them all into giggling nitwits and, more importantly, unreliable witnesses. Fun stuff.
I wrote about Kay Francis here.
44) What’s the oddest thing a movie theater employee has ever said to you?
I've tried very hard to never interact with a movie theater employee (or anybody else for that matter) beyond "two, please." So far, so good.
Shorter, on the other hand, is always good.
46) Favorite Roger Corman movie(s)
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2 comments:
I think that theater goers didn’t go out to see what they *thought* was a generic action movie based on a TV show, only to later find (most on a streaming platform) that it’s a thoughtful, clever movie about self-doubt, self-image, male refusal to accept that women might well accept their flaws, and the atavistic tendencies of the film industry. Which has a deep affection for movie-making, action, and particularly stuntmen — but knows where to skillfully deflate. In other words, not at all like Hooper. Which was also good.
This ties back into question 22, what movie critic do you turn to in an age without an authoritative voice pointing you toward movies you might otherwise miss. Me, I haven't found one, and so end up leaning heavily on trailers, word of mouth from my big brother and my pal Mister Muleboy, and occasionally a blogger who might penetrate the fog (although rarely in time to catch said movie in the theater).
I don't remember much about the trailer for The Fall Guy, but if the movie turned out to be as interesting and inventive as you describe, I'm pretty sure the trailer failed to convey that.
It wouldn't be the first good movie to fail at the box office. You couldn't give away tickets to The Shawshank Redemption (Katherine and I saw it in a nearly empty theater) but it eventually found an audience and is now a beloved classic.
Maybe The Fall Guy is destined for the same reevaluation.
Or maybe it'll wind up like The Matador (the Pierce Brosnan black comedy about a hit man with the yips) -- a really good movie nobody has ever seen and likely never will.
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