Edward Scissorhands released December 14, 1990

Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 comedy-drama fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film tells the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter Kim. Supporting roles are portrayed by Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Alan Arkin and Vincent Price.

Burton conceived the idea for Edward Scissorhands from his childhood upbringing in suburban Burbank, California. During pre-production of Beetlejuice, Caroline Thompson was hired to adapt Burton’s story into a screenplay, and the film began development at 20th Century Fox, after Warner Bros. passed on the project. Edward Scissorhands was then fast tracked after Burton’s success with Batman. Before Depp’s casting, the leading role of Edward had been connected to Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Robert Downey, Jr. and William Hurt, while the role of The Inventor was written specifically for Vincent Price.

The majority of filming took place in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, which generated over $6 million for the local economy. Edward’s scissor hands were created and designed by Stan Winston. The film is also the fourth feature collaboration between Burton and film score composer Danny Elfman. Edward Scissorhands was released with positive feedback from critics, and was a financial success. The film received numerous nominations at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, Saturn Awards, as well as winning the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Both Burton and Elfman consider Edward Scissorhands their most personal and favorite work.

 Trivia:

• The houses used in the film were a real community in Florida, completely unchanged except for their garish exterior paint.
• This was Vincent Price’s last screen appearance and his last moment ever on screen is a death scene. He actually fainted on the set as it was filmed. Tim Burton decided the take was fine and kept it for the morbidity of it.
• The first draft of the film was written as a musical.
• Johnny Depp had to lose a reported 25 pounds for the role of Edward Scissorhands.
• Johnny Depp said only 169 words in this film.
• Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [music] music by Danny Elfman
• The idea for the movie was inspired by a drawing Tim Burton had done when he was a teenager.
• For her role as the religious zealot Esmeralda, O-Lan Jones also arranged and actually played the organ music her character performs on-screen.
• Some of the topiary that Edward makes in the movie can be seen permanently at the New York City restaurant Tavern On the Green.
• When Edward goes to have his hands sharpened, the storefront was that of an actual hardware store called Crowder Brothers in Southgate Shopping Center. At the time of the filming, they did offer a sharpening service, and they did have a giant motorized Victorinox in the window.
• The Southgate Shopping Center is located in Lakeland, FL while the neighborhood was filmed at the Carpenter’s Run subdivision in Lutz, FL.
• The neighborhood is based on Burton’s hometown, Burbank.
• Tom Cruise, Jim Carrey and Robert Downey Jr. were all considered for the role of Edward Scissorhands.
• Composer Danny Elfman said of all the films he’s composed music for, Edward Scissorhands is his favourite.
• Edward Scissorhands is Tim Burton’s favourite of all his films.
• Director Trademark: [Tim Burton] [Black and white stripes] Jim’s shirt collar at dinner.
• The restaurant that the family eats at was, at one time, a real restaurant; a national chain diner called “Sambo’s”. It was located directly across the street from Southgate Shopping Center, as appears in the movie. Due to the controversial nature of the name and interior design, the diner (and entire chain) closed sometime in the late 70′s/early 80′s. It remained an abandoned building for many years, until Tim Burton came to town to film “Edward Scissorhands”. Burton’s crew unboarded the doors and windows and redressed the interior to look like a working restaurant again.

 

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home released Nov. 26, 1986

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 motion picture released by Paramount Studios. It is the fourth feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series. It completes the story begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their crimes, the former crew of the USS Enterprise travels to Earth’s past in order to save their present from a probe attempting to communicate with long-dead humpback whales.

After directing The Search for Spock, cast member Leonard Nimoy was asked to direct the next feature, and given greater freedom to the film’s content. Nimoy and producer Harve Bennett conceived a story with an environmental message. After dissatisfaction with the first script produced by Steeve Meerson and Peter Krikes, Paramount hired The Wrath of Khan writer and director Nicholas Meyer, who collaborated with Bennett to rewrite the script.

James Horner, the composer for the previous two films, declined to return; Nimoy’s friend Leonard Rosenman was given the job instead.

The film earned four Academy Award nominations, for Best Cinematography, Best Effects, Best Music and Best Sound.

Trivia:

• The device Dr. McCoy uses to heal Chekov’s head injury is part of a model kit of an AMT movie version Klingon Battlecruiser.
• The punk on the bus is played by associate producer Kirk R. Thatcher. He also wrote the song that is playing on the boom box during his scene.
• Some shots of the whales were in fact four foot long animatronics models. Four models were created, and were so realistic that after release of the film, US fishing authorities publicly criticized the film makers for getting too close to whales in the wild. The scenes involving these whales were shot in a pool underneath a Paramount parking lot. The shot of the whales swimming past the Golden Gate Bridge were filmed on location, and nearly ended in disaster when a cable got snagged on a nuclear submarine and the whales were towed out to sea.
• The film was originally supposed to have Eddie Murphy instead of Catherine Hicks. Murphy was supposed to have played a professor concerned with UFO’s who spots the de-cloaking Klingon ship at the Super Bowl. Apparently, all others are convinced the ship is a half-time special effect while Murphy believes it is real. Paramount declined this script for two reasons: Paramount didn’t want to combine their two most profitable franchises (“Star Trek” (1966) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984)), and Murphy had signed on to do The Golden Child (1986) instead.
• According to George Takei, when McCoy, Scotty and Sulu are standing in front of the building with Yellow Pages advertisement, a door opens and an Asian woman appears. The scene in the movie ends at this point but originally this woman was to begin shouting for a young boy named Hikaru, who would run into Sulu. Sulu would realize that this boy was his great-great-(etc.) grandfather. The young boy hired for this scene began to cry on the set before the shot and they were unable to get him to do the scene. With no one to replace him, the scene was never shot.
• Sulu (George Takei) was supposed to leap into the Huey helicopter when the pilot was outside, looking the other way, and make off with it. Takei had just run the San Francisco marathon when they were supposed to shoot this scene, and was too sore to leap into the helicopter. They tried having a grip throw him in, but couldn’t get it to look realistic, so the scene was cut. In the final edit, Sulu is shown talking to the pilot, then shows up flying the helicopter a few minutes later.
• Cameo: [Bob Sarlatte] The waiter in the restaurant.
• The Cetacean Institute is actually the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California. The Institute’s logo also belongs to the Aquarium.
• When Kirk, McCoy, and Gillian first enter the hospital and are walking around trying to locate Chekov, a voice on a loudspeaker in the background says “Paging Dr. Zober… Dr. Sandy Zober.” Sandra Zober was director/star Leonard Nimoy’s wife at the time.
• The officer on the Saratoga who announces that the thruster controls are offline is of the same alien race as the Federation President in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). This race has never been officially named, but some promotional materials identify the race as the Efrosians (named after Mel Efros, unit production manager for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)).
• During Spock’s memory tests, the computer speaks very rapidly, almost too rapidly to discern. The first question it asks Spock is, “Who said ‘Logic is the cement of our civilization, with which we ascend from chaos, using reason as our guide’?”
• The time-travel method used in the film comes from the “Star Trek” (1966) episode ‘Tomorrow is Yesterday’.
• A scene written for but cut from the film explained why Saavik stays on Vulcan: she is pregnant with Spock’s child, stemming from an event in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). This was the character’s final appearance in a Star Trek film.
• Jane Wyatt’s final cinematic appearance.
• The computer graphic consoles that became standard on the 24th century Star Trek bridges and also called “Okudagrams” (named for designer Michael Okuda), make their first appearance on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A. It is also the final appearance of the entire original Star Trek movie bridge set as only small parts were reused for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).
• Scenes of the Enterprise’s final moments and its self-destruct were reused from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984).
• During the film’s 1 hour 59 minute runtime, there’s only a total of about 1 minute 13 seconds worth of shots of the Enterprise – the shortest amount of time the Enterprise is seen on screen in any Star Trek movie. The first 33 seconds of it during the beginning courtroom scene was stock footage of the Enterprise’s destruction from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). The other 40 seconds of it were shots of the Enterprise-A towards the end.
• One early draft script was subtitled ‘The Trial of James T. Kirk’. This script involved Kirk being ‘court-martial’ed at the request of the Klingons, who were indignant about the events in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). One particularly interesting facet of this script is that it included the character of Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel)as a character witness. When the time-travel script was approved instead, the trial was included as a minor sequence. The trial-by-Klingons idea (and portions of the dialogue) was later re-used in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
• Cameo: [Jane Wiedlin] The Go-Go’s rhythm guitarist appears as the captain of a ship rendered powerless by the Probe. She is seen on the right of three huge video screens amid a chaotic control room on Earth. Her line: ‘The condition remains the same. The Probe has neutralized all power supplies. We are functioning on reserves only’.
• The captain of the USS Saratoga, seen at the start of the film, was the first female captain ever seen in a Star Trek story. The success of this film led to offers by several US TV networks to produce a new Trek TV series with the original cast. Instead, Paramount gave the green light to produce the syndicated “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987) starring an all new cast. A woman (Kate Mulgrew) was cast as ship’s captain in the Star Trek series Star Trek series ‘Star Trek: Voyager (1995)’.
• The miniature of the Spacedock interior (some fifteen feet across) had been destroyed at the end of production on the previous film and had to be rebuilt from scratch.
• As part of a deal with reincarnating Spock in the previous film, Leonard Nimoy took the director’s chair.
• When Chekov is running through the Enterprise (the aircraft carrier), trying to get away from the Marines, the words “Escape Route” and an arrow can be seen on the bulkhead walls.
• The ‘USS Enterprise CVN-65′ was actually The USS Ranger CV-61. The Enterprise was out to sea during filming.
• According to Spock’s computer on Vulcan, Kiri-Kin-Tha’s First Law of Metaphysics states that “Nothing unreal exists”.
• Kirk R. Thatcher did such extensive work on the film that he was promoted from “Production Assistant/Visual Effects” to “Associate Producer” by the end of the film.
• Scenes filmed on location in San Francisco marked the first time any Star Trek installment had been filmed outside the Los Angeles region.
• When Nicholas Meyer was asked to help with the script, the first thing he wanted to do was change the location from San Francisco to Paris because he had previously written and directed a movie about time travel involving San Francisco called Time After Time (1979). But since Starfleet is supposed to be located in San Francisco, he was overruled. Oddly enough, scenes in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), as well as scenes from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (1993) depict the Office of the Federation President to be in Paris.
• The scene with the punk music on the bus was written by Nicholas Meyer to revive a scene that was cut from his movie Time After Time (1979), that had H.G. Wells encountering a teenager with music blaring from a boom box.
• The scene with Chekov and Uhura kneeling on rocks looking at the Aircraft Carriers was shot in San Diego at North Island Naval Air Station.
• It is often claimed that this is the only Star Trek film where no weapons are fired. This is incorrect, as Kirk uses his phaser to weld a door shut, and the whaler fires its harpoon. Chekov also tries to use his phaser, though it doesn’t work. It is also one which no cast member from this film is killed, as the only deaths were from the reused footage from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984).
• The whale hunters speak Finnish. The older Finnish hunter says “What the hell was it, that hit the harpoon?”
• The film bore the dedication, “The cast and crew of Star Trek wish to dedicate this film to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond…”
• The computer that Scotty uses to show transparent aluminum was originally going to be an Amiga, but Commodore would only provide a computer if they bought it. Apple was willing to loan them the Mac.
• When the alien ship is approaching Earth at the beginning to look for the humpback whales, there were originally subtitles saying things like “Where are you? Can you hear us?”. The studio wanted to keep them despite Leonard Nimoy’s objections. In the first test screening, however, test audiences indicated the subtitles were unnecessary so they were cut.
• For the shot of Sulu flying the helicopter over San Francisco bay, the filmmakers tried to get a pilot to fly a Huey, but they were unable to. The long shot was accomplished using a radio controlled model from Japan.
• The Probe is modelled after Rama from Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama”.
• While attempting to escape from the security agents aboard the USS Enterprise, Chekov tosses his phaser to one of the agents; although it is representative of twenty-third century technology, it is never retrieved.
• After Leonard Nimoy allowed Kirk R. Thatcher to play the punk on the bus, Thatcher expressed displeasure at the music chosen for his boom box on the bus scene. He then asked to write and perform a song that he felt would be more representative of his character than the pre-selected music that was to appear. The result was the song “I Hate You”.
• The original script called for the whales to be intercepted during aerial transport over the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein objected, saying that the city already had enough trouble with jumpers on the bridge, and that the scene would only encourage more. This led to the scene showing capture of the whales in Alaska.
• One of the questions Spock is asked by the Computer on Vulcan asks about the major historical events of 1987. We never see or hear the answer to that question as the film was made in 1986.
• The sounds of static from the computers heard in the background when the Bird of Prey comes out of timewarp are the loading sounds of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer.
• The location where Dr. Gillian Taylor picks up Kirk and Spock is not an actual street. It’s a parking lot that runs alongside the main road.
• In order to find the best actress to play Dr. Gillian Taylor, two prospective actresses were brought out to William Shatner’s ranch by Leonard Nimoy to meet with the man himself. It was Shatner who personally chose Catherine Hicks saying that she was “spunky” (According to Shatner and Nimoy in the DVD Commentary).
• The idea of having Spock give the Vulcan nerve pinch to the punk rocker was inspired by Leonard Nimoy who was walking down the street in New York when a punk came out of a store with his boombox blaring, disturbing everyone around him. Annoyed, Nimoy thought “If I was REALLY Spock, I’d pinch his head off!” (According to Nimoy in the DVD Commentary).
• This film features the only instance in which Kirk says “Scotty, Beam me up”
• During the final scene of the movie, where the Enterprise crew is in the shuttle Sulu says “with all due respect I hope we get Excelsior”. In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Sulu is the Captain of the Excelsior.
• The scene where Chekov and Uhura are asking a woman about “nuclear wessels” was almost completely improvised. Her line about them being in Alameda was ad-libbed by her, and although she wasn’t supposed to say very much, Leonard Nimoy enjoyed the spontaneity of the scene so much he left it the way it was.
• The sound the probe makes is taken from the sound of baby’s heartbeat during a sonogram, slowed down and digitalized.
• Final cinema film of Robert Ellenstein.
• The antique glasses that Kirk sells to make some cash are the pair that was given to him by McCoy for his birthday in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982). It’s suggested that once sold in the antiques store, those glasses hang around until they’re bought by McCoy, in the future, and then Kirk takes them back in time, and so on, in which case one has to wonder where the glasses “originally” came from. This constitutes an “ontological paradox”, an old favorite of science fiction writers, and raises too many questions to discuss here. (It is possible that these glasses existed in two places simultaneously, like characters in the “Back to the Future” films, rather than being caught in a causal loop.) The same paradox arises when Scotty explains how to make transparent aluminum. If the formula is “found” for the first time in the 20th century, but only because Scotty took the information back, then it was never invented in the first place! (This may not be a paradox if Scotty only gave Doctor Nichols the chemical formula but not the manufacturing process.)
• Scotty provided the formula for transparent aluminum in this movie. Interestingly, this state of matter was discovered in 2009.
• According to Leonard Nimoy, about 95% of the Humpback Whale footage in the final cut of the film was man-made.
• Susan Sarandon was among performers that were considered for the main guest lead of Dr.Gillian Taylor.

 

Scrooged released November 23, 1988

Scrooged is a 1988 comedy film, a modernization of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol. The film was produced and directed by Richard Donner, and the cinematography was by Michael Chapman. The screenplay was written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O’Donoghue. The original music score was composed by Danny Elfman.

The cast includes: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, Bob “Bobcat” Goldthwait, John Forsythe, Carol Kane, David Johansen, John Houseman, John Glover, and Robert Mitchum. It also features cameo appearances by Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton, musicians Larry Carlton, Miles Davis, David Sanborn, and Paul Shaffer, actor/singer Robert Goulet, and actors Jamie Farr, Buddy Hackett, Lee Majors, and Pat McCormick as well as the Solid Gold Dancers. Bill Murray’s real-life brothers, Brian, John, and Joel also appear in the film.

The film was marketed with references to the film Ghostbusters which had been a great success four years earlier in 1984. In the USA, the tagline for Scrooged was, “Bill Murray is back among the ghosts, only this time, it’s three against one.” In Brazil, it’s named “Os Fantasmas Contra-Atacam” (The Ghosts Strike Back). In Spain, the film was titled “Los fantasmas atacan al jefe” (The Ghosts Attack the Boss). In Italy, the movie was released as “S.O.S. fantasmi” (“S.O.S. ghosts”).

Amazon Specials!

 

Lady in Cement released Nov. 20, 1968

Lady In Cement is a 1968 detective film, directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker, Martin Gabel and Richard Conte. A sequel to the 1967 film Tony Rome, and based on the novel by Marvin H. Albert, Lady In Cement was released on November 20th 1968.

Trivia:

When Tony Rome walks into the room in the massage parlor where Bronski is, Bronski (Dan Blocker) is watching the TV show “Bonanza” (1959) where he starred as Hoss Cartwright.

The scene when Tony Rome gets in the taxi by the air-port, there is an advertisement for fellow “Rat Pack” member, Dean Martin’s restaurant on the side of the cab.

Sinatra says that he knew a girl that used to date bullfighters, a reference to Ava Gardner’s affair with a matador when filming The Barefoot Contessa (1954) in Spain.

As Tony Rome is running from the police on the beach, you hear a band playing the Sinatra song “You Make Me Feel So Young”.

Amazon Specials!

Once Bitten released November 15, 1985

Jim Carrey in Once Bitten (1985)

 

Once Bitten is a 1985 American comedy film starring Lauren Hutton and Jim Carrey. It is a vampire-themed comedy about Mark Kendall (Carrey), an innocent and naive high school student who is seduced in a Los Angeles club by a sultry blonde countess (Hutton) who, unknown to him, is really a centuries old vampire. The film was Carrey’s seventh film and his first main role.

Trivia:

The movie was filmed on location at the Mark Twain Middle School in Los Angeles.

In 1984, one year before the film was released, the Los Angeles-based hard rock group Great White (featuring guitarist Mark Kendall) released their major label debut. The lead character of the film is an L.A. resident named Mark Kendall. Two years after the film’s release, Great White released their breakthrough album, coincidentally called Once Bitten.

Seed of Chucky released Nov. 12, 2004

 

http://goremaster.com/blog/2009/11/12/seed-of-chucky-released-nov-12-2004/

Movie Poster 27x40

Seed of Chucky (also known as Child’s Play 5: Seed Of Chucky, Child’s Play 5 or SOC) is a 2004 American horror film, which is the fifth entry in the popular Child’s Play series. Seed of Chucky follows the events of Bride of Chucky and stars Jennifer Tilly (who plays herself and also voices Tiffany), Billy Boyd (as the voice of Glen/Glenda), and Brad Dourif (as Chucky). The film features rapper Redman, director John Waters and S Club star Hannah Spearritt. It was written and directed by Don Mancini, who created Child’s Play and has written all sequels to date. With this entry, Mancini marked his directorial debut.

The film, shot in Romania, continues the series’ evolution from the pure-horror genre of the first movie to a hybrid horror-comedy. Besides spoofing other horror movies, the film references domestic dramas and tabloid television. This film also counts as the first film in the series to contain nudity.

Buy this title only $9.99

Jennifer Tilly

Trivia:

• The script was originally offered to Universal in 1998, who turned it down. Focus Features (a division of Universal Studios) finally picked up the movie in 2003.
• Filmed on the largest soundstage in Romania and the second-largest soundstange in Europe where Cold Mountain (2003) was also shot.
• Because Focus Features has a reputation for yielding eloquent, “artsy” independent films, Rogue Pictures was created as an off-shoot to release this movie.
• Jennifer Tilly wanted to lose weight to play herself in the movie, but she and Don Mancini inserted “fat jokes” into the script in case she didn’t make it.
• The TV spots for this movie displays an unusual disclaimer: Britney Spears Does Not Appear In This Movie. This disclaimer was inserted into TV spots because Britney’s management was concerned that people might be lead to believe that Britney actually appears in the movie. It is not her in the movie; but a look-alike.
• The wife of the man Tiffany calls to apologize to is the widow of the cop she killed at the beginning of Bride of Chucky (1998).
• The gender confused child of Chucky and Tiffany is named either Glen or Glenda by his parents. Glen or Glenda (1953) was Edward D. Wood Jr.’s film in which Wood himself portrayed the transvestite known as Glen or Glenda.
• When the floor manager at the beginning of the film shouts “Hey, Tiffany’s left arm is loose again” and then the arm grabs his crotch, this is an in-joke as revealed on the DVD commentary for Bride of Chucky (1998). Jennifer Tilly explains that Chucky’s left arm kept grabbing her breasts during shoots.
• The First film to be made by Rogue Pictures.
• As revealed on the DVD’s commentary the directors and producer had difficulty agreeing on the look of Glen. The director wanted to give him his own look and style but the producer felt that he should have features similar to Chucky because after all Glen is his son. As a result Glen was given blue eyes, red hair, and freckles like Chucky. Glen’s blue eyes and red hair however are a different shade than Chucky’s.
• As revealed on the DVD commentary because of the low budget the crew were unable to shoot the much bigger Chucky vs Glen fight that was in the shooting script.
• Chris Sarandon was approached to reprise his role as Det. Mike Norris from the first film, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.

 

Creepshow released November 12, 1982

Movie Poster 27x40

 

Creepshow is an American horror-comedy anthology film directed by George A. Romero (of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead fame), and written by Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining, Misery, The Stand).

It was considered a sleeper hit at the box office when released in November 1982, earning over $21 million domestically, and remains a popular film to this day among horror genre fans. The film was shot on location in Pittsburgh and the suburb areas. It consists of five short stories referred to as “Jolting Tales of Horror”: “Father’s Day”, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, “Something to Tide You Over”, “The Crate” and “They’re Creeping Up on You!”. Two of these stories, “The Crate” and “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” (originally titled “Weeds”), were adapted from previously published Stephen King’s short horror tales. The segments are tied together with brief animated sequences. The film is bookended by scenes, featuring a young boy named Billy (played by Stephen King’s own son, Joe King), who is punished by his father for reading horror comics. The film is an homage to the E.C. horror comic books of the 1950s such as Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear.

Buy this Title on Blu-ray

In later years, the international rights of the film would be acquired by Republic Pictures, which today is a subsidiary of the Paramount Motion Pictures Group, itself owned by Viacom. The film’s UK rights are owned by Universal Pictures.

Trivia:

• Stephen King carried a toy figure of the character “Greedo” from Star Wars (1977) on the “Creepshow” set for good luck.
• Cameo: [Joe Hill] (son of Stephen King) The young boy featured in the beginning of the film (avid reader and collector of “Creepshow” comic books).
• Rice Krispies were used as maggots on the corpse’s eyes in the first story, “Father’s Day”. In addition, real maggots were also utilized.
• The marble ashtray (which plays a major role in Creepshow’s first story, “Father’s Day”) is featured in all five of the film’s stories if you look closely.
• The wrestling match Jordy Verrill is watching on TV in the second segment, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, was being called by Vince McMahon (Chairman of the WWF – now WWE). The wrestlers in the ring were then-current WWF Champion Bob Backlund and The Samoan No. 1.
• A sign leading to “Castle Rock” (Stephen King’s trademark fictitious town) appears at the very end of the segment “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, among other signs.
• Ted Danson, who played Harry Wentworth in “Something to Tide You Over”, said in a T.V. interview that his daughter was on the set during the scene where his character returns from the dead encased in rotting flesh and seaweed. He purposely tried avoiding his young daughter out of fear of scaring her. Finally, despite his best efforts, she went up to him, looked at him and simply said, “Oh, hi Dad.”
• It is rumored that Max von Sydow was originally slated to play Upson Pratt in Creepshow’s final story, “They’re Creeping Up On You!”.
• In a “Creepshow” special feature from the pages of “Cinefantastique” magazine around the time of “Creepshow”’s release, Stephen King (screenwriter) and George A. Romero (director), revealed that if the film’s final story (“They’re Creeping Up On You!”) had proven to be too difficult and ambitious to film, it would have been substituted with the King short story “The Hitch-Hiker”, which ended up being the final story of the film’s sequel, Creepshow 2 (1987), directed by George A. Romero’s cinematographer on the original Creepshow, Michael Gornick.
• Originally, in Stephen King’s first draft 142-page screenplay for the film, the stories “The Crate” and “Something to Tide You Over” switched places. Making “The Crate” story number 3 and “Tide” story number 4. This is also how the Berni Wrightson Creepshow graphic novel adaptation turned out.
• In Stephen King’s original script for the film, the final story, “They’re Creeping Up On You!”, originally took place in a lush, carpeted penthouse apartment. However, because with roaches this would have been unworkable, Romero opted for a more empty almost hospital room-like set for the story.
• Two of the characters featured in the film, Tabitha and Richard (The new professors at the faculty reception at the beginning of the fourth segment, “The Crate”), were named after Tabitha King (Stephen King’s wife) and Richard Bachman (his ghostwriting name), according to the author.
• In the film’s second segment, “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, the film playing on Jordy’s television in the background is A Star Is Born (1937), according to director George Romero’s commentary on the UK special edition DVD.
• The prop 10-cent “CREEPSHOW” comic book featured in the film was drawn and inked by veteran artist ‘Jack Kamen’, one of the artists for the original E.C. crime and horror comics of the 1950′s. Creepshow was a tribute to these comic books. Jack Kamen also created the comic book-style poster for the film, which was also featured on the front of the Plume “Creepshow” comic book adaptation (which Bernie Wrightson, another prolific horror comic artist, drew and inked the interiors for). Originally, (‘Stephen King (I)’ wanted Graham Ingels, another EC artist (famous for his work on the title “The Haunt of Fear”) to do the artwork for the film’s poster, but he refused. It was head of EC comics ‘William M. Gaines’ who then suggested Jack Kamen do the assignment. Kamen accepted.
• A screen capture of the “Creepshow” comic book featured in the film reveals that the letters page has letters from “Brian Hall of Ann Arbor, Mich.” and “David Graves of Spruce, Maryland”, among others. Spruce is the maiden name of King’s wife Tabitha. David Graves is the name of King’s late brother-in-law (married to wife Tabitha’s sister, Catherine). David Graves lived in Maryland (although not “Spruce”, Md), until his death in 2000.
• The on-set nickname for the monster in the crate in Creepshow’s fourth story was “Fluffy”, as named by director George A. Romero. The creature’s creator (and makeup artist on the entire film), Tom Savini, was the shorter garbageman featured near the end of the film.
• Why does Aunt Bedelia’s father come to life after 7 years in the first story “Father’s Day”? Not because of the lucky number it turns out. If you watch closely you will see Bedelia spills whiskey on the grave. In Gaelic, the word for whiskey is translated as Water of Life, and is likely a nod to James Joyce and his book “Finnegan’s Wake”. In the story a builder’s laborer falls from a ladder and breaks his skull, but is revived when someone spills whiskey on his corpse at the wake. The story of Finnegan’s Wake is in turn written based off an old Dublin street ballad.
• At the end of “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”, on the signpost is the town of Portland, Maine. This was Stephen King’s home town, and King is the star of this segment of the film.
• Adrienne Barbeau was still married to John Carpenter when Creepshow was released. Carpenter would make the film version of Stephen King’s Christine (1983) the following year. King wrote and makes an appearance in Creepshow.
• The housekeeper in the “Father’s Day” sequence is Mrs.Danvers. The malevolent housekeeper in Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense film Rebecca (1940) is also named Mrs. Danvers.

 

The People Under the Stairs released Nov. 1, 1991

The People Under the Stairs is a 1991 horror film directed by Wes Craven and starring Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A. J. Langer, Ving Rhames and Sean Whalen.

Trivia:

• Wes Craven was inspired to write this film after seeing a real-life news story about parents who locked their children up inside their house, never allowing them outside.
• Wes Craven chose Wendy Robie and Everett McGill to play the parts of Mommy and Daddy after seeing them play husband and wife on the TV series, “Twin Peaks” (1990).
• Through out the entire movie you hear the Man and Woman call each other “Mommy” and “Daddy”. You never hear their real names. But when Alice attacks the woman, you hear her yell for the Man and she calls him Eldon.
• Although Alice was a 12 year old girl, actress A.J. Langer was almost 17 when she played the character in this movie.

A. J. Langer

Amazon Specials!

 

The Phantom of the Paradise released October 31, 1974

Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 musical film written and directed by Brian De Palma. The story is a loosely adapted mixture of The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Faust and also briefly references Frankenstein and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Initially, it had box office failure and was panned by some critics, but it was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe and has since acquired a cult following.

Tagline:  The music made him do it!

Trivia:

• The character Philbin, who is the chief henchman of the villain Swan, borrows his last name from Mary Philbin, star of The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
• The “Death Records” secretary’s card index includes files on Alice Cooper, David Geffen, Bette Midler, Peter Fonda, Dick Clark and Kris Kristofferson.
• On Phoenix’s mirror after the concert in which she becomes a star is a magazine ad with the headline “I’m a Harper’s Freak”. Phoenix was played by ‘Jessica Harper (I)’.
• At the airport when Beef is introduced, the “Death Records” logo on the lectern was superimposed over the original logo for “Swan Song” records to avoid conflict with Led Zeppelin’s record label, which had sued. Although the film’s producers were certain they would win due to the fact that the phrase was common long before, they decided to make the change in order to get the film finished quickly rather than go through a prolonged court fight.
• The Death Records logo is optically printed over the originally planned “Swan Song” label at several points in the film
• Cameo: [Rod Serling] introductory voiceover.
• Phantom was a box office flop the year it came out. The only place in North America where the film had lasting power was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where it stayed on the screens for months.
• Sissy Spacek is credited as “set dresser” for this film. As she was already an established actor when this film was made, one can assume that she took the job to assist her boyfriend, Jack Fisk, who was the film’s production designer.
• William Finley came up with the bird motif of the Phantom costume, a collaboration with costume designer Rosanna Norton.
• According to William Finley, the record press in which his Winslow character was disfigured was a real pressing plant (it was an injection-molding press at an Ideal Toy Co. plant). He was worried about whether the machine would be safe, and the crew assured that it was. The press was fitted with foam pads (which resemble the casting molds in the press), and there were chocks put in the center to stop it from closing completely. Unfortunately, the machine was powerful enough to crush the chocks that it gradually kept closing. It was Finley’s speed and timing that saved him from truly being hurt, as he got his head out just in time. Incidentally, his scream in the scene was real.
• Gerrit Graham has talked about the infamous “musical chairs” casting, where William Finley almost wound up with no part to play. The studio considered casting Paul Williams as Winslow, Graham as Swan and Peter Boyle as Beef. Williams turned down the role of Winslow not only because he didn’t feel physically fit or menacing for the role, but he didn’t want to use the role of Winslow as a message against the recording industry. Somehow, Boyle was unavailable, Graham took the Beef role, and Finley ultimately took the Winslow role. In fact, director Brian De Palma actually wrote the part with his colleague Finley in mind. William Finley said in a recent interview that Jon Voight was at one time considered for the role of Swan.
• The character of Winslow Leach (the Phantom) was named after director Brian De Palma’s mentor, Wilford Leach.
• The single-edit, “time bomb in the car trunk” sequence is an homage to Orson Welles’ famous opening for Touch of Evil (1958).
• Gerrit Graham’s singing voice was dubbed by Ray Kennedy.
• When Swan (Paul Williams) is adjusting Winslow’s voice, the singer is not William Finley but Paul Williams. This makes it a little in-joke when Swan announces that the voice is “perfect”.
• The “electronic room” in which Winslow composes his cantata (and where Swan restores his voice) is in fact the real-life recording studio, The Record Plant. Also, the walls covered with knobs are in reality a huge, custom-built Moog electronic synthesizer. Dubbed TONTO, this instrument was featured on several albums by the pioneering electronica duo T.O.N.T.O.’s Expanding Head Band, and it still exists to this day.
• During Beef’s introductory scene at the airport, on of the gathered reporters is named “Mr Pizer”. This is probably a reference to the film’s director of photography, Larry Pizer.
• In addition to Leroux’s “Phantom of the Opera” and Goethe’s (et al) “Faust”, the film also references Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” for a total of at least five citations of classical horror stories.
• Gerrit Graham was so sick the day that the “Life at Last” scene was filmed that he could hardly walk.
• Director Brian De Palma originally considered the popular group Sha-Na-Na for the roles of the Juicy Fruits, but the group was not only very big at the time, but he found them too difficult to work with.
• Jessica Harper beat out Linda Ronstadt for the part of Phoenix.
• Much of the movie deals with birds: The names Phoenix and Swan, the Phantom’s bird-like costume, Phoenix’s dress after her first appearance, her feather jacket, Swan’s bird vest, Beef’s bird tail during his number. Even the logo for Death Records is a bird.
• According to Danny Peary in the book Cult Movies 2, originally this film would have had the title “The Phantom” but King Features Syndicate, producers of the Phantom comic strip, demanded that this film have a longer title.
• This film homages the 1943 remake of the Phantom of the Opera, not the original novel; the 1943 film had the Phantom as a man disfigured by acid (similar to the 1939 origin of the Tonny Quinn, the Black Bat and the 1942 origin of Two-Face). In Leroux’s novel, the Phantom lived with his deformity from birth.

Amazon Specials!

My Name Is Bruce premiered October 26, 2008

My Name Is Bruce is a 2007 American comedy film, directed, co-produced by and starring B movie cult actor Bruce Campbell. The film was written by Mark Verheiden. It had a theatrical release in October 2008, followed by DVD and Blu-ray releases on February 10, 2009.

Although Sam Raimi, with whom Bruce frequently collaborates, is not involved with this production, much of the film is in the vein of the Evil Dead series; however, Ted Raimi (Sam’s brother), also a frequent collaborator, appears in this film.

Campbell has shown several minutes of the movie during some of his campus lectures, as well as a few public screenings including showings at the sixth annual Ashland Independent Film Festival, CineVegas and the eleventh annual East Lansing Film Festival. A trailer was released for the film as well and is available on various websites. A screening was held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Tickets for the show sold out in less than two minutes, breaking the previous Alamo ticket sellout record, which was also set by a Bruce Campbell appearance at the theater in 1998.

Trivia:

• According to the DVD commentary, most of the Bruce Campbell memorabilia in Jeff’s room was real, including a spare Brisco County Jr. costume that Campbell owned. A few fake items, such as a poster for “The Stoogitive,” were made to fill up space.
• There are many mentions and references to Bruce Campbell’s other films. Examples are phrases ‘sugar baby’, ‘groovy’ and ‘boomstick’ along with name checking of people like Sam Raimi (director of the ‘Evil Dead’ trilogy).
• One of the townspeople named Frank makes a reference to kidnapping the blacksmith from Army of Darkness. Timothy Patrick Quill, the actor who plays Frank, also played the blacksmith in Army of Darkness (1992).
• The movie references Bruce Campbell’s fake-memoir novel ‘Make Love (The Bruce Campbell Way)’ published in 2005 several times. On the set of Cavealien 2, the actor Bruce sits down next to after the shoot is reading “The Complete Dummie’s Guide to Acting”, mentioned and pictured in ‘Make love’ on several occasions. In Jeff’s room, there is a poster for the fictitious Bruce Campbell movie ‘Death of the Dead’. This movie plays a prominent role in the plot of ‘Make love’. The poster as shown in the movie was originally featured as an image in the book.
• The exteriors for the town of “Goldlick” were actually shot on Bruce Campbell’s property where a back lot was built with the exteriors of all of the buildings. The interior shots were all done on a sound stage.
• Ellen Sandweiss, Dan Hicks and Timothy Patrick Quill all worked with Bruce Campbell in the Evil Dead Trilogy: Sandweiss played Cheryl in The Evil Dead (1981), Hicks played Jake in Evil Dead II (1987) and Quill played the Blacksmith in Army of Darkness (1992).
• During the town meeting, where the Dirt Farmer and Frank are revealed to be lovers, Frank says “I wish I could quit you”, which is a reference to the line “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Brokeback Mountain (2005).
• The (fake) brand of liquor that Bruce gives his dog is Shemp’s. In some Raimi/Campbell projects, body-doubles and stand-ins are called Fake Shemps, after Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges.

Amazon Specials!