I used to love that movie when I was a kid. Haven't seen it in years, tho.Originally Posted by Staun
One of the guys who starred in it, James Donald, was also in a couple of classics: Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape.
I used to love that movie when I was a kid. Haven't seen it in years, tho.
One of the guys who starred in it, James Donald, was also in a couple of classics: Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
I knew there were others in the Quatermass series but I don't think I've seen them. Are there any as good as this one? It's British which gives it even more flavor for me. Don't know how I missed the others.
Well, subjective, but I always like Quatermass 2, as it involved giant blob masses, and those always frightened me a wee lad.
The first one is worthwhile as well.
No. As far as I remember, the posters showed an Xenomorph egg, with a crack in it, as if to suggest it was about to hatch. Of course, in the movies themselves, the eggs don't hatch the way chicken eggs do, but at the time, I suppose that was besides the point.
Coming up with effective ways to promote sci-fi/horror/exploitation films has to be one of the more interesting jobs one can have. Or at least it was, back in the day, it might be more boring now.
I remember there was a movie back in the early 80's called Screamers, which had ads that referred to "Men, turned inside out, and worse, THEY'RE STILL ALIVE". I remember seeing that ad in the newspaper and I thought, "That sounds interesting". Well it turns that had nothing to do with what actually happens in the movie. The film was actually an Italian production, the original title translating as Island Of The Fishmen. The Screamers title and ad campaign was thrown together for the picture's Stateside release. Apparently, a scene depicting a man being turned inside out was shot for the trailer, but I don't believe it actually appears in the movie.
Another one I remember was I used to see the movie called The Delos Adventure in video stores back in the 80's. The cover shows a hot blonde, wearing a wetsuit jacket (unzipped just so, so that you can see a little cleavage) and scuba gear, and with a machine gun in one hand and standing in thigh deep water, looking as if she just surfaced. She looks like some bad ass commando chick. Turns out, she's nothing of the sort. While there is a very brief scene where we see said actress climb out of the water in a wetsuit jacket (probably the very same she wore in the photo shoot for the cover), her character is actually a scientist, and I don't think she's ever actually shown in the movie doing anything even remotely bad ass. Ellen Ripley, she isn't.
I remember back in the 90's, seeing Roger Corman on Later With Bob Costas, and there's a point where they're talking about trailers. And I think it's Bob who says the trailer has to be "as good, if not better, than the actual movie", which Corman seemed to agree with. I think the same is true with the posters. You're not attempting to represent what the movie is, but rather enticing the consumer to gamble a few bucks on your picture.
It's the same thing with restaurant menus. The pictures don't represent what the food looks like, so much as it's supposed to make you want to have whatever is in the picture.
Yeah, sounds like Quatermass is calling him, Roney but I liked Donald in all three films as well. Can't think of any other things I've seen him in that I can remember. I think he would have been a good fit someplace in Village of the Damned. BTW, who is the girl in that particular Quatermass movie. I thought she was rather pleasing.
The older I get, the better I was.
Well GG, I guess it's like a lite version of bait and switch. As you said, something to entice and draw you in. Your food and restaurant example is spot on. How many times have I bought something because it looked really good and when I got it, meh.
The older I get, the better I was.
Correct, with the infamous line underneath: In Space No One Can Hear You ScreamAs far as I remember, the posters showed an Xenomorph egg, with a crack in it, as if to suggest it was about to hatch.
There wasn't a lot of information about the plot when it came out, but there was a lot of positive buzz about a terrifying mix of science fiction and horror. Hype was different pre-Internet. I saw it with my girlfriend (now wife) and no one in the theater had any idea what we were in for. Jebus, people were climbing out of their seats, screaming, etc. And at the end all exited in silence, just awestruck (or scared shitless).
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Yeah, she was. I'd almost forgotten about her until you mentioned her. She's Barbara Shelley. According to her filmography, she was in Village of the Damned! She was also in a bunch of horror movies, some of which were produced by Hammer, and a few with Christopher Lee.
One of the greatest taglines in movie history. Too bad the alien screamed - in space.
I saw the first showing the day it was released so there was hardly anyone in the theater. My reaction to it was completely visceral; my heart was pounding during the last 10 minutes. The only other movie where I had a reaction like that, only not as strong, was to Jaws. Which I also saw the day it was released.There wasn't a lot of information about the plot when it came out, but there was a lot of positive buzz about a terrifying mix of science fiction and horror. Hype was different pre-Internet. I saw it with my girlfriend (now wife) and no one in the theater had any idea what we were in for. Jebus, people were climbing out of their seats, screaming, etc. And at the end all exited in silence, just awestruck (or scared shitless).
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Wow, I was close suggesting Donald would have fit nicely in VOTD. Barbara Shelley played the wife. She had her baby first, remember? Yes, that is her.
The older I get, the better I was.
I remember they played that commercial A LOT before the debut of the movie... had everyone really stoked in anticipation!
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
A couple years ago, one of the servers at the place I work came back to the kitchen one afternoon, saying someone complained that the sandwich he ordered didn't look like the picture on the menu. I told her go bakc and ask, "When has the food ever looked like the picture?!".
The reason the food never looks quite like the pictures, is because what's int he picture isn't actually edible. They either spray the food with shellac to make it shiny, or sometimes, it's not even food! It's modeling clay, made to look like food. I remember we used to have this plastic display thing that looked exactly like a strawberry pie, with whipped cream, etc. It'd look at it and think, "That looks tasty!", but then you'd touch it and it wasn't at all what you thought it was.
I remember a parody shown in Starlog, with the egg replaced by an onion (also the title) and the tagline was "In Space No Can Hear You Cry".Correct, with the infamous line underneath: In Space No One Can Hear You Scream
When I saw Screamers my first thoughtvwas the Peter Weller sci fi move from 20 or so years back. Never heard of this one, but I know there was a glut of cheaply produced, dubbed Italian rip offs around at that time.
But I fully agree about trailers...their job is to get you to part with your money by any means necessary. And you are often led to believe you are going to get something which inevitably you will not.
I think a good example is Be Kind Rewind, the Jack Black movie from a few years back.
The trailer gave the impression it was a typical Jack Black wacky comedy about him and Mos Def, having accidentally wiped all the videotapes at the store they work in, making their own cheap versions of the movies...hoping no one will notice.
But that's only about 25% of the movie. The rest of the story is not related to that at all. But the trailer only focused on the video stuff.
I can understand from a marketing perspective why they would do that. Black was hot at the time, had recently done School Of Rock which was big. So the temptation is always there to ascribe the same sensibility to their subsequent movies...ie if you liked X movie with Jack Black, you will surely like this one.
You could go further with this sort of association, when they use tag lines like 'from the producers of', or ' from the people who brought you'. When you analyze those lines, logic would surely tell you that not only are they no guarantee of quality, but why would people assume that they are going to get the same or similar?
Though I guess when it comes to the tacky low budget stuff like the Sharknado movies and their ilk, that's exactly what they are doing.
Virtually all of which had at least one somewhat, or sometimes very, well known American actor. In the case of Island Of The Fish Men/Screamers, it was Barbara Bach, who you'll remember from The Spy Who Loved Me (also, she's Mrs. Ringo Starr, which means Ringo lives the dream of many heterosexual men: he actually got to marry a Bond girl!).
Another one that used to get shown on TV a lot back in the 80's and 90's, was a picture called Tentacles, which basically starred Bo Hopkins, who was in American Graffiti, but the support cast included John Huston (!), Shelly Winters (!!), and Henry Fonda (!!!). Fond actually gets, I believe, top billing but he's only in two scenes. How the frell do you get Henry FRELLING Fonda to be in a low rent Jaws knock off?! One can only imagine what Ovidio Assontis, the producer of the picture, did to make that happen!
John Huston seems to have been in a lot of cheap foreign produced knock offs. He was in another picture around that time called Bermuda Triangle, where he plays an archeologist who leads his entire family (including a couple young kids) on an exhibition to find Atlantis. The title of the movie pretty much tells you what to expect. As I recall, that one was made in Mexico.
One of the other leads in Bermuda Triangle was Dominican actor Andres Garcia, who was apparently a matinee idol in Latin America at the time. He was in a couple other movies that seemed to play off similar themes, Cave Of The Sharks (which also had Arthur Kennedy, who had a big Hollywood career in the 50's, before letting himself be cast in Fantastic Voyage) and Encounters In The Deep, i.e. the whole Bermuda Triangle business. Actually, Encounters In The Deep feels more like they were trying to figure out a way to rip off Close Encounters Of The Third Kind without being too obvious about it.
But if you want cheaply produced foreign knock offs, I think L'Ultimo Squalo, released Stateside as Great White, pretty much takes the cake. This film was so much of Jaws pastiche, Universal literally got an injunction against the picture being shown in this country, and until a few years ago, it had never been released on home video (alas, it's belated DVD release was a limited edition, and I found out about it too late to get in on it). And there is a lot that is obviously lifted from not just the Spielberg picture, but it's first sequel: you've got a regatta (well, in this case it's windsurfing competition, but close enough for rock n roll), you've got a Scottish sea captain (played here by Vic Morrow) hunting the shark, you've got a helicopter being pulled u/w by the shark, and I forget what else is in there that was obviously lifted from the first two Jaws movies.
The really weird thing is, the way the shark is killed at the end, I think was lifted from another Jaws knock off, a picture called Up From The Depths, which was made in the Philippines (with a mostly American cast). Then after L'Ultimo Squalo, said ending was used in Jaws III. So Jaws III basically stole something from a movie that stole a bunch of stuff from Jaws and Jaws II. In all three cases, the shark is killed using explosives being carried by a dead scuba diver.
OT, but Barbara Bach's sister is Marjorie, who is married to Joe Walsh, making Ringo & Joe brothers-in-law.
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Is that right? That would explain why they've worked together so much. So which of them is the freeloading brother-in-law?
And since we're talking about Ringo and Barbara, I'll just say Caveman was no great work of art, but it is a highly entertaining movie. I love the T-Rex rubbing his belly and licking his lips as he's chasing after the cavemen. Then, later, after they shove a bush of some kind into his mouth, he keels back and he's rubbing his stomach like he's got a stomach ache or something. Probably the one and only thing Shelly Long has ever done, that's actually palatable (no, I'm not a Cheers fan).
I don't know how old you were when you first saw it but I was a senior in high school and my friends & I knew what his problem was: he's baked!
“From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe
Wow, I never sussed that out! But now that you say, I guess it makes sense.I don't know how old you were when you first saw it but I was a senior in high school and my friends & I knew what his problem was: he's baked!
Bonnie and Clyde
Hadn't seen this in over 30 years. It did not age well. I remember Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty being the stars, but forgot about Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder being in it.
A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence
Lou, I'm wondering if the term, "aged well", really applies. This is a period film and for me, I take them as they are. I think this version of B&C is rather good.
The older I get, the better I was.
I agree...the film cannot change by definition. But we change over the years and our attitudes, viewpoints and experience shape how we view things as the years go by.
I also hate when people watch older movies and describe them as dated and old fashioned...well duh...
Watched Jordan Peele's latest horror film Us (2019) last night.
A beautiful looking and well acted film that suffered from being too long and too kooky to buy into.
It did have its moments though, especially nods to horror classics like Night of the Living Dead, Jaws (for the beach scene), Westworld and every slasher movie ever made.
It also didn't know if it was a black comedy ( like Get Out) or straight up horror.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
I get that it is a period piece. There are quite a lot of those that I rather enjoy. I just felt this was not up to par with a lot of the others.
A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence
Or maybe it knew it was both.
A classic is timeless. Some films actually gain stature with time. Shawshank Redemption would fall into the "timeless " category , while the movie that beat it out for best picture that year , Forrest Gump is not. Gump was a gimmick movie that predictably faded , Shawshank is art. So in some cases not aging well is a warrented label.
Anybody catch the Apollo 11 premiere on CNN last night? The footage was indeed stunning, and I really enjoyed the fact that everything you saw and heard (soundtrack music excepted) was archival: no interviews, commentary, or added footage of any kind. Made for fascinating watching on historical and sociological levels as well as scientific. It still boggles my mind that the moon project enjoyed the success it did given the technology of the time and the time frame which they had to work with. Truly one of the most awe-inspiring achievements of mankind.
David
Happy with what I have to be happy with.
I didn't remember it was on CNN last night until it was too late. Fortunately it airs next Sunday as well and I set my DVR.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
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