Movies That Fell Through the Cracks # 54

Okay, so it's 1973 and Bruce lee has died just as the Kung-Fu movie craze was building nicely. You're an enterprising film distributor, though, and realize that Bruce was not the only actor in Hong Kong making martial arts films. You write a check for a handful of Chinese action films that includes TIE ZHANG XUAN FENG TUI which stars a bunch of actors no one in the USA has ever heard of including Angela Mao-Ying and Sammo Hung. How to market it...Hmmmm...THAT'S IT! Everybody in America has been hearing about the controversial DEEP THROAT for more than a year now. Let's call this one--for no apparent reason--DEEP THRUST! It sounds vaguely dirty and people who aren't paying that much attention will probably think that THIS is the picture everyone is talking about and flock to see it! Make sure there's lots of thigh in the poster artwork and don't forget to throw in the words "bare"and "naked" a few times in the ad text!

While that's probably close to what actually happened, few moviegoers outside of those of us who were seeing every single martial arts film that came down the pike in '73 actually went to see this one. Plotwise, it was a very typical revenge oriented "chop-socky" flick, interchangeable with about a dozen others on release at the same time. It was later re-released under the title LADY WHIRLWIND in an effort to get those who DID see it to see it again. We probably did. It's so much like so many others who could tell?

Rare Stan Laurel Footage Discovered

Thanks to Facebook friend Mary Lou Wallace for pointing in the direction of this interesting news for Laurel and Hardy fans. Below is the text of the newspiece on the subject:


Last Film Footage of Stan Laurel Discovered

Rare Home Movie Holds Final Images of Laurel & Hardy Comic

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- An amateur home movie has been discovered recently which apparently contains the last known film images of comedy legend Stan Laurel, once celebrated as half of the most famous comedy duo in the world: Laurel & Hardy.

The rare and historic eight millimeter film, which captures a playful Laurel displaying his trademark impish smile while scratching his head, is just two minutes in length and was taken at his Santa Monica apartment by James and Irene Heffernan, a Los Angeles couple who were acquainted with the film comedian in his final years.

According to Laurel's daughter, Lois Laurel Hawes, the film was made in late December of 1964, just two months before his death. A letter from Laurel to the Heffernans, dated January 15, 1965, mentions their yuletide visit when, apparently, the footage was shot.

Also featured in the brief home movie segment is Laurel's honorary "Oscar" award for Lifetime Achievement which was presented to him by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) in 1961.

Apparently lost and forgotten for decades among the numerous entertainment and travel home movies made by the active couple during the 1960s, this final footage of Laurel was not known to exist until several months ago and has never been viewed publicly.

However, the film's present owner plans to arrange for the landmark footage to be seen by Laurel & Hardy fans worldwide on June 16, 2010, which happens to be the comic's date of birth. According to actor/producer Tyler St. Mark, who purchased the remarkable footage from the Heffernan estate, "Stan Laurel performs a special gesture at the end of the film clip which was clearly intended for his millions of fans worldwide and so we will help him deliver his message 46 years later - on the 120th anniversary of his birthday."

Buck Rogers Foresees # 2

Here's part of a newspaper comic strip, still from 1929 I believe, in which we have a smallish high tech metal device orbiting high above the Earth and sending televised images back to specific monitors. Once again, the daily BUCK ROGERS strip is precognitive in that it predicts with quite a bit of accuracy the concepts of broadcasting satellites and satellite television!

Random Panels of Kirby Koolness # 1

Art and PC issues

The good news is that the PC issues of the past week seem fixed. The bad news is that there are new ones including the fact that I can post illustrations from Firefox but NOT from Explorer. Still, if you've missed my daily updates, both HOORAY FOR WALLY WOOD and BRITTANY ROSE AND ME have also been finally updated in the past day or so. I swear YOU'RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST PICTURE will be updated soon!

While I couldn't get online, I spent some time making more computer art. Here we see ENVELOPE, PICTURE WALL and (my favorite) MACHINE GUN. Comments?

Stages # 4

Somehow in the wake of the explicitness of HAIR and Oh, CALCUTTA! in the Broadway of the late sixties and early seventies, someone somewhere actually thought that a musical version of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial, satirical novel LOLITA was a good idea. Although it became a notorious flop, one can almost see the promise it must have had early on. Nabokov himself, long opposed to live versions due to the fear of how the title role might affect a real young girl, was all behind it and the music was to be handled by film composer John Barry (BORN FREE, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and many James Bond films) along with book and lyrics by Broadway's reigning king, Alan Jay Lerner (MY FAIR LADY, CAMELOT). Seriously, how could it miss?

As the production, entitled LOLITA, MY LOVE, headed to Philadelphia for tryouts, a slightly overaged Annette Ferra, already an 8 year film and TV veteran, was the title teaser. She was quickly replaced by Denise Nickerson. Ferra, later known as Christina Ferra-Gilmore, is credited most recently as a writer and acting coach on 2008's THE BIG TALENT BEE. The more appropriately aged Ms. Nickerson had just come off of several years as "Amy Jennings" on TV's mega-hit scare-soap, DARK SHADOWS and had also just appeared in the role for which she's most remembered, that of Violet Beauregarde in the now-classic WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. After a stint on TV's ELECTRIC COMPANY, she was reportedly up for the role of "Regan" in THE EXORCIST and later that of "Princess Leia" in the original STAR WARS.

The role of Humbert Humbert, the man with the unnatural love for his very young neighbor, was given to John Neville, a distinguished British film and stage actor. Neville's most recognizable role to US audiences at that point had probably been that of Sherlock Holmes in the 1965 thriller A STUDY IN TERROR that pitted the great consulting detective against Jack the Ripper. John Neville alone got good good notices for his performance in LOLITA, MY LOVE. Many years later, Neville's career was revived when he took on the title role in Terry Gilliam's THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN. After that, he appeared in many other films and television series including THE X FILES and the animated SILVER SURFER cartoon.

Broadway veterans Dorothy Loudon and the late, great Leonard Frey co-starred, the latter in the role of Humbert's antagonist Clare Quilty with which Peter Sellers stole most of his scenes in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 non-musical film version. Frank Langella took over the role for the later big screen remake. The same year that LOLITA, MY LOVE flopped, Frey would be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in the film version of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.

After extensive reworking post-Philly, LOLITA, MY LOVE reappeared in Boston where it closed without ever making it to the Great White Way. A bootleg of the never officially recorded or released soundtrack is reportedly easy to find and some of the songs were later recorded by a number of artists from Robert Goulet to Shirley Bassey. According to Wikipedia, the production ultimately lost nearly a million dollars in 1971 money!

Rocket Simulator Contest--1959

Now here is a real prize! No cardboard here! Well, I think not. Of course, if this was everything the ad makes it out to be, where would you put the thing??