Stephen Reginald: Screening of Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (November 10, 2015)

Source: Classic Movie Man- Doris Day & Jimmy Stewart, in a Alfred Hitchcock classic.

Source:The Daily Review

Alfred Hitchcock, is probably my favorite director. He is certainly my favorite suspense/thriller director and action/comedy director, dramatic/comedy director and even suspense/comedy director. He combined comedy with all of the different genres that his movies covered. And if I had to put a list of my top ten Hitchcock movies, I don't believe The Man Who Knew Too Much would be on it.

It would be behind North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Charade, several of his short films from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour like Run For Doom, with the great Diana Dors. But that is the thing about Hitchcock, he made so many great movies that even if one of them isn't in your Hitchcock top ten that doesn't mean that movie isn't also a great movie. It just means it isn't as good as the others that are on the list.

When you're talking about great leads which are the lead actor and lead actress in a movie, I think you would have a hard time finding a better combination than Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day and then add that Alfred Hitchcock as their director. Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, are perfect for Hitch, because they are both great actors, entertainers, both very funny and very versatile. And of course in Doris Day's case she is a hot baby-faced adorable sexy blonde, but who was also a hell of an actress that Hitch loved. So they were both perfect for Hitchcock and this movie. Doris Day, in real-life is seventeen years younger than Jimmy Stewart. She still looks great today and was thirty when she did this movie. Jimmy Stewart was in his late forties at this point, but they were still great together.

The Man Who Knew Too Much, is about a vacationing American family in Morocco. Dr. Ben McKenna (played by Jimmy Stewart) and his wife Jo McKenna, (played by Doris Day) who is a singer. Their son Hank, (played by Christopher Olsen) is kidnapped by terrorists in Morocco. They meet a Frenchman in Morocco Louis Bernard, (played by Daniel Gelin) and have dinner with him. Bernard, is actually an intelligence agent for the French Republic. He is killed by these terrorists after having dinner with the McKenna's. And the terrorists tell Dr. McKenna over the phone that if he and his wife don't talk to the police, they won't kill their son Hank. And that is how this movie gets going with Dr. McKenna trying to get his son back, while at the same time preventing his wife from knowing what is really going on. She thinks their son has just been kidnapped by local thugs.

This is not a great movie, at least from my perspective. I don't think it is very believable that terrorists would target the son of an American doctor simply because the kid's parents talked to a French intelligence agent. That tells me they had no idea who this American couple was. It would be one thing if they kidnapped the kid, because their parents are a wealthy American couple and they want ransom. But there doesn't seem to be any financial motivation at all in this movie. But it is a very entertaining movie. Doris Day, is her usable hot sexy adorable self, especially as she finds out that her son has just been kidnapped. Jimmy Stewart, is his usual charming Mr. Joe Average self, who does a great job of playing an average guy in a very complicated situation. And this is a very entertaining movie.
Source:Universal Pictures UK

Valhalla Cinema: Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Source: Valhalla Cinema-

Source:The New Democrat

I saw Anatomy of a Murder last week on TCM and Robert Osborne described the movie as a very serious, or deeply serious, or something to that effect. But if you are familiar with Jimmy Stewart and a lot of his movies, his movies tend not to be that serious. Similar to Cary Grant because of how spontaneously funny they both were especially with improvisation. Sure Anatomy is about a very serious topic which of course is about a man accused of murdering a man who just raped his wife. An Army Lieutenant at that and very important person in his community. But there’s a lot of humor with funny people all throughout the movie.

And I think that is what I love most about this movie. They deal with very serious subjects which are murder and rape of course. But sex in the late 1950s when the country was about to change dramatically culturally and you could already see signs of that change by 1959 with the Rock and Roll Generation. And that is what this movie deals with which are very serious subjects, but they take a very humorous look at them with a lot of sarcasm and wisecracks. Including with the judge played by Joe Welch and the two lead attorney’s played by George Scott the lead prosecutor and Jimmy Stewart the lead defense lawyer.

Anatomy of a Murder at least a first is about a rape. But they don’t show that part. A women played by Lee Remick having a good time at a bar and ends up walking home and offered a ride by the owner of the bar and he ends up raping her. Her husband finds out about it later that night and goes to the bar to confront the man about it. And ends up shooting and killing him for it. Under most circumstances that would be a clear case of first degree murder, or at least second degree murder. But Paul Biegler played by Stewart goes with a temporary insanity plea and that becomes his main defense.

I first saw this movie about a year ago and it is already one of my favorite movies of all-time. Seen it three or four times since because of the versatility of the movie. Dealing with very serious subjects in the movie and yet everyone plays a comedian at least at some point in the movie. Which is typical for a Jimmy Stewart movie and this movie has a great cast as well. With George Scott, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick, Arthur O’Connell and many others. And this movie gives its viewers a very good lock at the court system and what it is like to be on trial. And try such a big legal case.
Source:Valhalla Cinema

Stereo Oldie: Experiment in Terror (1962)

Source:Stereo Oldie- from Experiment in Terror.

Source:The New Democrat 

"The original theatrical trailer for the 1962 Blake Edwards suspense thriller "Experiment In Terror." This is the trailer presented and commented on by Dan Ireland of Trailers From Hell.com video titled "Dan Ireland on EXPERIMENT IN TERROR"

From Stereo Oldie

Experiment in Terror is one of the best action/thriller mystery/suspense movies that I’ve ever seen and perhaps is ahead of its time, at least as far as how the bad guy, the terrorist in the movie was able to get so much intelligence on his potential victims. How he intimidated them and how he also used them. 

Ross Martin plays the terrorist in the movie and he’s not someone who blows up banks, airports, houses, what have you. But is someone who has a very simple and basic goal: rob a bank to collect somewhere around hundred-thousand dollars, but only uses one employee to get him the money.

The terrorist uses Kelly Sherwood (played by Lee Remick) who is a bank teller at this San Francisco bank. And tells her: “You rob the bank for me and get me the money, or I’ll kill you and your sister”. He has so much information already on Kelly Sherwood and her sister Toby (played by Stefanie Powers) before he puts this terrorist act into action. Kelly is a young woman working at the bank. Toby is still in high school and the terrorist knows all of this and even what high school Toby goes to.

The terrorist Red (played by Ross Martin) tells Kelly that if she goes to the police or FBI, that he’ll kill her and her sister. He underestimates her and the amount of intelligence and courage that she has and she calls Red’s bluff (pun intended) goes to the FBI anyway behind his back so he doesn’t know about it, but he figures it out anyway, but doesn’t come through on his threat at least right away. So Kelly is playing along with Red and not really giving him anything, while the SF FBI led by John Ripley (played by Glenn Ford) tracks down the terrorist. This is a great movie and I’ve seen it several times.

Retro Whiz TV: The Naked Gun (1988) Starring Leslie Nielsen

Source:Retro Wiz TV- Action/Comedian,  Leslie Nielsen.

Source:The New Democrat 

To get The Naked Gun and the two or three sequels that came after, you have to first get the humor of the Zucker brothers.  They produced these movies, the Police Squad series and the Airplane movies from the early 1980s.  I don't have a single word for their humor.  Perhaps, "Accidental humor," would do.  These movies tend to feature klutzes, who are accident prone, in major roles.  They save the day, often, by making an unintended mistake.

I was looking for this word yesterday when I wrote a blog about Airplane and the best I came up with was "literal." Practically everything that is said in these movies is taken literally by all of the characters. They are very funny people and yet they take everything that is said completely literally.  There's a scene in Ricardo Montalban's office with Lieutenant Drebin (Leslie Nielson).  Montalbano holds a box of cigars up in front of the lieutenant and says, "Cuban", offering a Cuban cigar.  Drebin replies, "No, Scotch-Irish my father was from Wales," apparently thinking that Montalban was asking him about his ancestry and not noticing the Cuban cigars that are right in front of his nose.

The Zucker brothers humor is also accidentally sarcastic, which is tough to explain.  Sargent Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) gets shot early in the movie during an undercover operation and the Captain (George Kennedy) tells Drebin that Nordberg has a ninety percent chance of recovering from the gun shot wounds. Then he says there's only a fifty percent shot at that.  They are talking about boxers and one of the guys says "I know Kid Cleveland, he fights out of Minneapolis, and the Texas Tornado fights out of Chicago."

The Naked Gun is about a corrupt Los Angeles businessman (Ricardo Montalban) who uses his legitimate business as a  cover for his criminal organization.  He has a big drug shipment coming into Los Angeles.  Police Squad, a big shot division of LAPD is all over it.  Sargent Nordberg is shot during their investigation.  Drebin and his team  are investigating the drug shipment while the Queen of England is visiting Los Angeles.

Montalban and his crew want the drug shipments to go through and to assassinate the Queen of England.  Police Squad has inside information that someone is trying to kill her.  Drebin and company have to investigate and stop that from happening.  All of these accident prone people taking everything that is said literally make for an hysterical action comedy.
Source:Retro Whiz TV

Movie Clips: Airplane! (1980)

Source:Movie Clips- Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! 

Source:The New Democrat

When I think of the 1970s,  I think of a depressing decade that got better as the culture, entertainment and fashion improved. We went from hippy culture and bellbottoms to flares in the early and mid 1970s  to tight, designer, dark wash denim jeans and disco by the late 1970s, with all sorts of horrible things in between.

Airplane 1980 shows you a lot of this in a ninety minute film.  It is a satire about a very strange decade and captures many of the cultural details.  The movie itself has to do with food poisoning on an airliner that affects all three of the flight crew leaving no one to fly the plane except for a passenger who was a combat pilot in some made up war.  It suggests never eating airplane food and thanking God (unless you're and atheist) for food courts at airports.

The movie has references to  Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, early on.  There's a disco scene involving Robert Hayes and Julie Hagerty.  Leisure suits, flare pants and bellbottoms are in evidence.  A women suffering from food poisoning says that she's hasn't felt this bad since she saw that Ronald Reagan movie. A women in her seventies serves as a translator for two African-American men who apparently only speak jive (which would be called Ebonics today).

Of course there is the great Cohen brothers humor of people doing really dumb things because someone gets the wrong idea about something.  Someone asks a ground crew member signaling the pilot of a plane to to its gate with his light wands where the fork lift is.  Without thinking, the crew says, "Over there," and points to the side with his wands.  The pilot of the taxiing plane follows the direction of the wands and crashes the plane into the gate.

The humor of the Cohen brothers, expressed in Airplane is spontaneous which is my style of humor.  Part of it is based on taking everything that people say absolutely literally.   Dr. Womack (Leslie Nielson) says to Ted Striker (Robert Hayes) that if they don't land this plane soon several passengers will die from food poisoning.  Striker says, "Surely, you can't be serious."  Womack replies, "I am serious and don't call me Shirley."

Airplane 1980 is a, sort of, spinoff of more serious airplane disaster movies of the 1970s, starting in 1970 with Airport.  Parts of each of these movies appear in Airplane 1980.  The end result is hysterical.
Source:Movie Clips

Fishy Paw: Airplane 1980- Julie Hagerty: 'Everything is Fine Up Here. Oh by the Way, Can Anyone Fly a Plane?'

Source:Fishy Paw- Julie Hagerty, playing the head stewardess in Airplane 1980.

Source:Real Life Journal

"Is there anyone onboard who knows how to fly a plane?"

From Fishy Paw

Everything is fine up here in the cockpit. Oh by the way can anyone fly this plane so we do not crash? That’s right, the only problem that we have in the cockpit of this commercial passenger plane, is that we don’t have anyone who can fly the plane.

Which is no worst than doctors who are about to perform brain surgery on someone so they can save that person’s life, but do not have anyone who knows how to perform brain surgery. Or an English teacher who doesn’t speak any English. Other than these issues, there’s nothing to be worried about. No reason to panic, I mean seriously what is the worst thing that could possibly happen with one being able to fly a plane that is already in the air, the plane crashing? I mean come on! The plane is already insured, so the money there will to replace the plane.

And most of the passengers are wealthy anyway, so they probably have life insurance. I mean seriously, these passengers didn’t have to get on this plane to begin with. LOL

Movie Clips: Airplane! (1980) Crash Positions

Source:Movie Clips- Crash positions!

Source:Real Life Journal 

"CLIP DESCRIPTION: Striker (Robert Hays) tries his best to land the plane despite little help from everyone around him." 

From Movie Clips

Damn! I would hate to land an airplane with a crew like that to work with. Especially with a bomber on the plane with his bomb going off. Not sure what to take away from Airplane! Was this a movie of passengers busy people who need to get from Los Angeles to Chicago? Was this a movie of mental patients including the crew that are being transported from Los Angeles to Chicago where they can get the care that they need, or be treated at a cheaper facility, or a movie that just happened to have every screwball in Los Angeles and decided to try to deport them to Chicago.

Maybe I have it now: Airplane was a movie where the City of Los Angeles decided that they simply had too many screwballs in their fair city (and of course it only took them fifty-years to figure that out) but we’re talking about Los Angeles here where cults are fairly common, at least back in the 1970s and 60s. This movie was made in 1979-80 and screwballs are fairly common there and L.A. figured that out and decided to try to send as many screwballs as they possibly could and try to send them to Chicago.

Howard Beale: Network (1976) 'We're In a Lot of Trouble'

Source:Sunny Chew- The Great Peter Finch as Howard Beale.

Source:Real Life Journal 

"This clip from Network reminded us of why we become a bunch of couch potatoes!

Howard Beale : We are in a lot of trouble!... because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel- the ultimate revelation."  

From Sunny Chew

"Network (1976) we're in a lot of trouble" 

Source:The Ghost- The Great Peter Finch as Howard Beale.

From The Ghost

This is one of the best scenes from one of my favorite movies Network from 1976. Because it perfectly explained the economic and cultural situation’s of America in the mid-1970s that was going though a bad recession with high unemployment. People’s pay going down with only the wealthy doing well and seeing their income climbing. With corporations getting bigger and fewer as well ,with Howard Beale played by Peter Finch essentially saying, "enough!"

But at the same time what Howard Beale is doing in this scene, is giving Americans a constructive lecture about American society. Saying that too much of their realty comes from the tube. Meaning the TV obviously (not YouTube) and that not enough Americans were getting real information about life and not doing a good enough job of educating themselves. Not reading enough and doing enough constructive activities. That Americans reality was too much based on what they saw on TV.

Howard Beale telling the country that too much of our realty came from TV, especially Hollywood. That the top cop or hero (name the show) always gets the bad guy even if things look horrible when, because they still have the rest of the hour to save the day. That no one dies or loses their job, even in a bad recession that the country was going through in 1974-75 and this movie came out just after that, but no one loses their job or dies in the hit TV show family.

Howard Beale was telling Americans to get up and wake up and take responsibility over their lot in life, because no one was going to do that for them. That TV is exactly that and real life is what they live everyday and if they want to succeed in life, they need to make that happen for themselves. That Americans even Americans who are successful do loose their job. That people even in successful families get and die from cancer and that the hero in life is not always able to save the day. That life is much more real and complicated than that.

BTRO: Airplane! (1980) Food Poisoning Scene: Good Reason Not to Eat Airline Food

Source:BTRO- Leslie Nielsen, Julie Haggerty, and Pater Graves, in Airplane! (1980)

Source:Real Life Journal 

"Here's my Second Favorite Scene from Airplane! Airplane! (titled Flying High! in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and the Philippines) is a 1980 American satirical comedy film directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Lorna Patterson. The film is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, from which it borrows the plot and the central characters The film is known for its use of absurd and fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns and gags."

From BTRO

One of the funniest scenes in the movie which is really saying something because the humor in this movie was so ironic and not very obvious or cookie-cutter that most of the humor in this movie came from this movie. Rather than using lines and humor that we're used a lot in other movies and the movie was done so well, that they could make what seem like little jokes or comments seem hysterical. Because a lot of silly things were taken literally in the movie. 

Like the Robert Hays line: "This is a totally different way of flying all together." With the Leslie Nielson and the stewardess repeating:“This is a totally different way of flying." Because Hays said that and also said all together.

But if this scene doesn’t get you to pass up airline food on the plane, perhaps you have suicidal tendencies that need to be addressed and looking for options in how to kill yourself. Food poisoning, or dying in a horrible plane crash. 

When your food is so bad that it makes the food that prison inmates look like first class meals at expensive fancy restaurants and it poisons your pilots, you know you have a food quality problem. It’s hard to do worst than prison food. If you are familiar with any of those documentaries and hearing about prison inmates getting sick because of what they are forced to eat. But it looks like Airplane found a way to do worst than the food people get in prison.

Movie Clips: Airplane! (1980) Barbara Billingsley: 'Oh Stewardess, I Speak Jive'

Source:Movie Clips- Barbara Billingley, telling the stewardess she speaks jive. 

Source:Real Life Journal 

“CLIP DESCRIPTION: When a flight attendant struggles to understand her jive-talking passengers, a friendly old lady (Barbara Billingsley) steps in.” 

From Movie Clips

Just to sort of be serious for a minute and then I’ll go back to being an asshole: I’m just glad this movie and scene was made in 1979-80 instead of lets say thirty-years later. Why? Because it wouldn’t of gotten made in today’s political correctness universe and Hollywood.

Could you imagine how MSNBC, Salon, The Nation, AlterNet and others would react to a Hollywood movie making fun of Jive and what is today called Ebonics. All of the charges of racism that would come as a result with perhaps hundred of thousand or so far-left wing protesters protesting against Hollywood studios.

But of course it is perfectly okay with the so-called leftist political correctness community to make fun of rednecks and rural Americans in general, just as long as they are Anglo or Caucasian or both and not female. Because according to the Far-Left in America that is where all the ignorant people in America live and that is what all of them look like.

Just tells you how ignorant the Far-Left is in America. I think only Bill Maher and his supporters on the Left, let’s say the true Liberals would for one find this scene funny today on the Left. And defend the people who created it.

Now far as the scene goes, it is classic Airplane and how this movie represented the times, the late 1970s and that decade in general and what America was like as far as the whole movie in general and what the country was going through.

They just did in better satiric form than perhaps anyone else when a couple of African-American men flying on the same plane together and apparently they only speak what was called then Jive. Perhaps they’ve only spent five-minutes outside of the ghetto their whole lives and this is the only way they know how to talk.

So what does Airplane do, but have an older wealthy Anglo-Saxon woman played by Barbara Billingsley, who was in her mid-60s at this point as the only person on the plane besides these two men who can speak and understand Jive. This is classic Airplane and why they were so ahead of their times as far as talking about the times and putting it an entertaining way that everyone can understand and not take offense at.

COZI-TV: September of Alfred Hitchcock

Source:William Jones- the master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock.

Source:Real Life Journal 

"Here's a list in my humble opinion of the best Alfred Hitchcock Movies. This is my first vid so Excuse the Beginner Look." 

From William Jones 

"He was the Master of Suspense. Join:Watch Mojo as we count down our picks for the top 10 Alfred Hitchcock movies.  Special thanks to our users jwiking62, Shakib Ahmed, Norris Vaughn, mezipe64, Tyler Burstein, Deathmatch1959, 007hunter13, Blaine Harris, Abe 777, Galazi20, Andrew A. Dennison, Sjdillon10, Charles Parisé, Maurice Rodriguez, Focquer and Joe Hall for submitting the idea on our Suggestions Page at WatchMojo.com/suggest!" 

Source:Watch Mojo- The master of suspense. 

From Watch Mojo

No complaints here, I’m a big Alfred Hitchcock fan. Hitchcock movies is one of the few marathons that I could spend a day watching. (Well, at least several hours before I decided to get a life or something.) Because he covers everything that I like about movies. You get the whole package from Hitch: mystery, suspense, thriller, action, adventure, drama, and comedy. Well, those are all the movie genres that I tend to watch. But one thing that makes Hitch special, is that you get all of those genres all in the same movie. North by Northwest, by personal favorite movie of all-time, is a perfect example of that. To Catch a Thief, would be another great example, as well as Rear Window.

Similar to Clint Eastwood, Hitch can make you laugh and be amazed not just in the same movie, but in the same scenes. Like with a guy kicking someone’s ass, or winning a great car chase and then making a great wisecrack about it. Which is why I believe Alfred Hitchcock is the greatest all around director of all-time. 

Alfred Hitchcock, was someone who combined a great knack for wit and drama, similar to Martin Scorsese and was so good at both, that instead of making a lot of dramatic movies and a lot of comedies, I guess decided to save himself some time and just combine both drama and comedy into his films. Martin Scorsese, did the same thing with movies like Goodfellas and Casino. So if you’re someone who likes variety in your movies and not just looking for one type of genre, Alfred Hitchcock would be the perfect director for you.

So, yeah I could spend a Saturday or Sunday, after running my errands and at least making sure I enough to eat and drink in the house, so I don’t starve to death or die of thirst, watching an Alfred Hitchcock marathon. 

I would start this marathon with let's say Rear Window or Vertigo and check out Kim Novak and Grace Kelly for about five hours and then watch To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest after that. Again with Grace as well as Eva Marie Saint. And feel like this was time well spent, because it was fun. 

But a better way to do something like this is to do it in a group. With friends who also love Hitch, or do it with your family who also love Hitch, or do it with your girlfriend. (Just don’t check out Grace, Kim and Eva too closely) Because one thing about Hitch was that he was never boring. And always keeps you watching.