Ghost Story is a 1981 American horror film based on the book of the same name by Peter Straub. It is directed by John Irvin and it stars Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman and Craig Wasson (in a dual role). It was the last film to feature Astaire, Fairbanks, and Douglas, and the first film to feature Michael O’Neill.
Directed by
John Irvin
Writers
Lawrence D. Cohen Writer
Peter Straub Novel
Producers
Douglas Green … co-producer
Ronald G. Smith … associate producer
Burt Weissbourd … producer
Cast
Fred Astaire … Ricky Hawthorne
Melvyn Douglas … Dr. John Jaffrey
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. … Edward Charles Wanderley
John Houseman … Sears James
Craig Wasson … Don Wanderley/David Wanderley
Patricia Neal … Stella Hawthorne
Alice Krige … Eva Galli/Alma Mobley
Jacqueline Brookes … Milly
Miguel Fernandes … Gregory Bate
Lance Holcomb … Fenny Bate
Mark Chamberlin … Young Jaffrey
Tim Choate … Young Hawthorne
Kurt Johnson … Young Wanderley
Ken Olin … Young James
Make Up Department
Irving Buchman … makeup artist
Albert Jeyte … makeup artist
Robert Jiras … makeup artist
Philip Leto … hair stylist
Rick Sharp … makeup artist
Dick Smith … special makeup
Special Effects Department
Henry Millar Jr. … special effects
Visual Effects Department
Syd Dutton … matte artist
Dennis Glouner … matte photography
Bill Taylor … matte photography
Albert Whitlock … special visual effects
Henry Schoessler … matte crew
Trivia:
The last feature film for veteran actors Melvyn Douglas, Fred Astaire, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr..
Melvyn Douglas (Dr. John Jaffery) is actually mentioned in the novel on which the movie is based.
Fred Astaire (Ricky Hawthorne) is actually mentioned in the novel on which the movie is based.
Young Ricky Hawthorne says, “I can’t dance.” Old Ricky Hawthorne is played by Fred Astaire. This line wasn’t in the novel.
Searching for someone qualified to score a story dealing with elderly people, the production team was reminded of Le chat (1971), a French film about a bitter old couple spending time arguing. That’s how Philippe Sarde was hired and why some of the main theme of that precise film is repeatedly used in the score of “Ghost Story.”
Robin Curtis’ film debut.
The pipe organ used is the same organ that was used by Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925).
Interiors were constructed inside the abandoned Union Station, the former New York Central Railroad’s passenger train station on Broadway in Albany, NY and included a two story set. The murder or death scene was filmed on the second floor of that set. Scenes were filmed in sequence and the two story set was significantly aged after the death scene so that it later appeared as the derelict house. After the movie, the old station was refurbished and restored to its former grandeur and served as office space for Fleet Bank and now Bank of America.
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.
John Carpenter’s Starman is a 1984 science fiction-fantasy film directed by John Carpenter which tells the story of an alien (Jeff Bridges) who has come to Earth in response to the invitation found on the gold phonograph record installed on one of the Voyager space probes.
The screenplay was written by Bruce A. Evans, Raynold Gideon and Dean Riesner (uncredited). Bridges was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film inspired a short-lived, 1986 television series of the same name which starred Robert Hays and Christopher Daniel Barnes.
Trivia:
Producer Michael Douglas considered several directors, including Mark Rydell, Adrian Lyne, John Badham and Tony Scott, before settling on John Carpenter.
Jeff Bridges’ character (Starman) walks in and buys a Cadillac “cash”. In the film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), Bridges character (Lightfoot) exclaims that one day he would like to walk up and buy a Cadillac with cash.
This script was being developed at Columbia at the same time as another script about an alien visitation. The studio did not want to make both, so the head of the studio had to choose which film to make; he decided to make this one and let the other script go to a rival studio. The other script was for _E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)_.
The only John Carpenter film to have an Academy Award nomination (Jeff Bridges, Best Actor).
The role of Starman originally went to Kevin Bacon.
When Jeff Bridges walks outside the house naked and uses a ‘marble’ his hair seems to stand on end. This effect was actually created by shooting Bridges hanging upside-down and then matting the shot onto the background the right way up to give him a surreal look.
The Towering Inferno is a 1974 disaster film produced by Irwin Allen featuring an all-star cast led by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. The film was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, and was directed by John Guillermin, with Allen himself directing the action sequences.
Trivia:
Many bit players from The Poseidon Adventure (1972) also appear in this film
Based on two novels: “The Tower” by Richard Martin Stern, and “The Glass Inferno” by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. After the success of The Poseidon Adventure (1972), disaster was hot property and Warner Brothers bought the rights to film “The Tower” for $390,000. Eight weeks later Irwin Allen (of 20th Century Fox) discovered “The Glass Inferno” and bought the rights for $400,000. To avoid two similar films competing at the box office the two studios joined forces and pooled their resources, each paying half the production costs. In return, 20th Century Fox got the US box office receipts and Warners the receipts from the rest of the world.
Scriptwriter Stirling Silliphant combined the two novels to create one screenplay. The combined three words that make up the titles of the two novels were combined to give the name of the film, and the name of the building that is on fire (The Glass Tower).
Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant took seven main figures from each novel and incorporated them into the screenplay, as well as the major climax of each novel: the lifeline rescue to an adjacent rooftop from “The Tower”, and the exploding water tanks from “The Glass Inferno”.
At Steve McQueen’s insistence, he and co-star Paul Newman had to have exactly the same number of lines of dialogue in the script
Irwin Allen originally wanted Steve McQueen to play the part of building architect Doug Roberts. McQueen however, fought for and got the role of fire chief O’Halloran. The role of Doug Roberts went to Paul Newman.
Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were both paid the same: $1 million and 7.5% of box office each.
Paul Newman’s and Steve McQueen’s names are staggered in the opening credits, closing credits, and on the posters so that, depending on which way you read it (top to bottom or left to right), both appear to get top billing. This is known as “diagonal billing”, This strategy was being worked on when Newman and McQueen almost co-starred together in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), but McQueen eventually dropped out of the project and was replaced by the lesser known Robert Redford.
Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway left strict instructions that they should not be approached by visitors to the set. McQueen also refused to give any interviews. Paul Newman asked only that he not be “surprised”.
This film marked the first ever joint production by two big-name movie companies; Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox.
Principal photography was completed on Sept. 11th 1974.
An instrumental version of the song “The Morning After” from The Poseidon Adventure (1972) can be heard in the background in certain scenes.
Desperate to capture a truly surprised reaction from the cast, Irwin Allen actually fired a handgun into the ceiling without warning the actors, who were understandably “surprised”. The trick worked and he got his shot.
In an interview given years after the film was released, writer Stirling Silliphant said that he always sat under a sprinkler system head when visiting a building. He said he did that because he learned it from a fireman he interviewed while researching this project.
Both novels were inspired by the construction of the World Trade Center in the early-1970s, and what could happen in fire in a skyscraper. In Richard Martin Stern’s novel, “The Tower”, the fictional 140-floor building was set next to the north tower of the World Trade Center. The climax of the novel was centered around a rescue mounted from the north tower of the World Trade Center.
The role of Lisolette Mueller (as played by Jennifer Jones) was originally offered to Olivia de Havilland.
Jennifer Jones’s final film to date (2008).
Steve McQueen did most of his stunts for the film, including having 7,000 gallons of water dumped on him in the climactic final attempt to put out the fire.
During filming an actual fire broke out on one of the sets and Steve McQueen found himself briefly helping real firemen put it out. One of the firemen, not recognizing McQueen, said to the actor, “My wife is not going to believe this.” To this McQueen replied, “Neither is mine.”
The fancy “blinkenlights” computer which runs the Glass Tower is, in fact, composed of parts leftover from an obsolete Air Force system which, in the 1960s and ’70s, protected the US from Soviet bomber attack. The computer was named AN/FSQ-7, and about a dozen of them were installed around the US. Based on vacuum tube technology, the ‘Q-7 in action took up the whole first floor of a “bomb-proof” concrete blockhouse, and generated as much raw heat as five single-family houses. The whole system became obsolete when missiles replaced manned bombers as the main threat. In the film, only the main control and maintenance consoles are used. As an ironic afterthought, the only reliable source today of vacuum tubes is the former Soviet Union.
Paul Newman did most of his own stunts, including climbing up and down the bent stairwell railing.
Of the 57 sets built for the production, only eight remained standing when filming ended.
The building used in the film was a series of miniatures and matte paintings. Only sections of the building were actually constructed for the actors and stunt people to perform their scenes. Exterior shots of the building were of San Francisco’s Hyatt Rejency with an additional 50 stories of matte paintings added.
In the original script the role of the fire chief (known at the time as Mario Infantino) was considerably smaller. According to director John Guillermin, the role was offered to Ernest Borgnine with Steve McQueen playing the architect. McQueen later said, “If somebody of my caliber can play the architect, I’ll play the fire chief,” and Paul Newman was brought onto the project as the architect.
According to Esther Williams in her memoirs, she was personally contacted by Irwin Allen and offered roles in both this film and The Poseidon Adventure (1972), but declined both.
Irwin Allen directed all the action sequences in the film, including the climactic final explosions to put the fire out.
The HH-1N helicopters are in the original paint scheme used by NAS Lemoore’s Search and Rescue Flight. Later on, they were painted Red and White. Up until the unit’s disbandment in 2004, the Flight was still pointing out it was their helicopters used in the movie.
For years, during the 80′s and 90′s, this is the movie Swedish TV used to show on New Years Eve, just after midnight.
The scenic elevator is actually one of two in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco. This elevator was used in numerous movies including Time After Time (1979).
At first Irwin Allen did not want to use music at the first 5 minutes of the Helicopter Sequence. John Williams told Allen that he could come up with 5 minutes of music for the beginning. When Allen heard it, he agreed with Williams.
The large sculpture that is part of the bar design in the Promenade Room was originally used in the Harmonia Gardens set in Hello, Dolly! (1969).
The First Interstate Tower in downtown Los Angeles was completed the same year this film was released (1974). 14 years later, in May of 1988, the FI Tower experienced a real-life fire which burned out 4 1/2 floors , ruined many floors above with smoke and floors below with water, and closed the building for almost five months. The fire happened late at night, when only a few dozen people were in the building, and no crowds, traffic or other demands on water hampered firefighters. Only one death occurred, when someone used an over-ride key to force an elevator to the floor where the fire had started, and perished much as was shown happening to elevator riders in the film. The Los Angeles Herald ran side-by-side photos of the actual fire and the fire from The Towering Inferno on its front page the following day. The story of the real fire was told in the TV film Fire: Trapped on the 37th Floor (1991) (TV).
The upper 15 floors of The Glass Tower was built as a facade in the dirt parking lot of the 20th Century Fox Ranch in Malibu, California, including drapes for all the windows and an explosion hole at the outside elevator track. It remained standing in the same location for many years, even after the state of California bought the land and opened the ranch to the public.
Natalie Wood turned down a leading role, citing the script as “mediocre”
The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 American action-adventure disaster film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a tsunami caused by an under sea earthquake and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to journey up to the bottom of the hull of the liner before it sinks.
It won the Academy Award for Best Song for “The Song from ‘The Poseidon Adventure’” (also known as “The Morning After”), which became a hit single for Maureen McGovern, as well as winning an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual Effects. Shelley Winters was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a film for the role. The cast of the film includes five past Academy Award winners – Winters, Gene Hackman, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons and Ernest Borgnine. Parts of the movie were filmed aboard the RMS Queen Mary.
The plot centers upon the fictional ocean liner SS Poseidon, an aged luxury ship from the golden age of travel, on its final voyage from New York City to Athens before being sent to the scrapyard. On New Year’s Day, it is overturned by a tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake. Passengers and crew are trapped inside and a rebellious preacher attempts to lead a small group of survivors to safety.
A huge box office success, it was the second highest grossing film of 1972, behind The Godfather. The success of this film is in the vein of other all-star disaster films in the 1970s such as Airport (1970) and later films like The Towering Inferno (1974), and Earthquake (1974). A sequel, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), had an equally star-studded cast, but was a box-office and critical failure. The film was remade twice, first as a television special in 2005 with the same name, and a theatrical release with the name Poseidon in 2006.
Cast
Gene Hackman … Reverend Scott
Ernest Borgnine … Det. Lt. Mike Rogo
Red Buttons … Martin
Carol Lynley … Nonnie
Roddy McDowall … Acres
Stella Stevens … Linda Rogo
Shelley Winters … Belle Rosen
Jack Albertson … Manny Rosen
Pamela Sue Martin … Susan
Trivia:
Most of the external shots of the Poseidon were shot using a model built from the original blueprints of the Queen Mary. The model is on display at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum at the Los Angeles harbor. The real Queen Mary is located just a few miles away in Long Beach.
Shot in sequence, taking advantage of the fact that the principals became dirtier and more tattered and
Pamela Sue Martin
suffered injuries – some real and some artificial – as they progressed.
Some of the pre-capsize sequences were shot aboard the Queen Mary, including the opening storm sequence, the pre-disaster scenes in the staterooms and hallways, the scenes above decks, and an early scene in the engine room.
In the scene in which Rev. Scott rescues Robin, the set was built on tracks which would slowly lower the inclined set into a large water tank. The set was supposed to stop moving once the set was half-submerged, but for some reason it continued until the camera crew was underwater. The film magazine was rushed to the lab, where immediate processing showed the film was undamaged.
The original script called for Rev. Scott to send Mrs. Rosen on her underwater mission, and for her to be trapped and need rescuing by him. Gene Hackman decided that his character would never ask her to do this, and suggested their characters’ situations be reversed. Director Ronald Neame agreed, and they persuaded Shelley Winters that this was indeed better for her character.
The set for the banquet hall was designed so that very few objects needed to be moved from the floor to the ceiling (and vice versa); the columns along the walls were identical at the top and bottom, and the wall decorations were all removable.
Part of the set was built on a hydraulic system which would raise it to a 45° angle, and camera tricks were used to suggest more severe angles.
An ending scene showing rescue boats surrounding the sinking ship was planned, but the budget ran out. The shot of the helicopter lifting off the hull was done on the studio lot, looking upward to avoid seeing the surrounding buildings.
Except for the most dangerous sequences, all of the stunts were done by the actors themselves. All the actors at one point complained to the production staff about how difficult the shoot was physically.
Shelley Winters gained 35 pounds for the part of Belle Rosen.
Filming was delayed twice because of the cost, and finally began only when Irwin Allen and outside backers matched the investment of Twentieth Century Fox. Reportedly, Allen found those backers by walking across the street from the Fox lot to a country club, where he found some friends playing cards. During the card game, they agreed to back the film. Because the studio never spent any of the backer’s money, the backers made a profit from the success of the film without actually spending a dime.
Shelley Winters trained with an Olympic swim coach so that her character, who is a former award-winning swimmer, would come across more realistically in the underwater scenes.
Paul Gallico was inspired to write his novel by a voyage he made on the Queen Mary. When he was having breakfast in the dining room, the liner was hit by a large wave, sending people and furniture crashing to the other side of the vessel. He was further inspired by a true incident which occurred aboard the Queen Mary during World War II. Packed with American troops bound for Europe, the ship was struck by a gargantuan freak wave in the North Atlantic. It was calculated that if the ship had rolled another five inches, she would have capsized like the Poseidon.
Sally Kellerman was originally offered the role of Linda Rogo.
Stella Stevens
Petula Clark was originally offered the role of Nonnie Parry.
After the cable telegram is delivered to the Shelby stateroom, Robin jumps off the bed, inadvertently capsizing his plastic model of the S.S. Poseidon.
Such mid-ocean “rogue waves” were previously thought to occur only once every ten thousand years. A 2004 study of satellite radar images showed they can happen as often as hundreds of times every decade.
The role of James Martin was originally to go to Gene Wilder. Scheduling forced him to turn the role down.
Milton Berle’s brother was an extra in the dining room.
Red Buttons and Carol Lynley, whose characters fall in love in the movie, actually disliked each other intensely. They refused to have anything to do with each other except when the cameras were rolling.
The boots and pendant that Carol Lynley wears in the film actually came from her own private collection.
The sequence where Nonnie (Carol Lynley) rehearses “The Morning After” with her band mates was the first scene to be filmed. Originally Waddy Wachtel (the guitarist) was to be cast as her brother Teddy, but as Wachtel had brown eyes and Lynley was blue-eyed, drummer Stuart Perry was cast as Nonnie’s brother.
In her autobiography Esther Williams claims she was offered the role of Belle Rosen by producer Irwin Allen because of her former swimming roles (though this remains open to debate, as the character of Belle Rosen called for a large woman).
In the scene where Rev. Frank Scott is giving his sermon on the deck, actress Pamela Sue Martin is wearing a white and yellow poncho that was actually made for actress Rosemary Forsyth who wore it in City Beneath the Sea (1971) (TV), the TV-film that Irwin Allen produced the year before.
125 stunt people were used during the filming. No one was killed or injured.
Contains five Academy Award winning actors – Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson and Red Buttons.
The song “The Morning After” is credited on screen as “The Song From The Poseidon Adventure”.
The film received 8 competitive nominations and was awarded a non-competitive Special Achievement Oscar (Visual Effects).
The Wolf Man is a 1941 monster horror film written by Curt Siodmak and produced and directed by George Waggner, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Béla Lugosi, and Maria Ouspenskaya. The title character has had a great deal of influence on Hollywood’s depictions of the legend of the werewolf. The film is the second Universal Pictures werewolf movie, preceded six years earlier by the less commercially successful Werewolf of London.
Trivia:
Larry Talbot’s brother’s name was John.
In the first version of the script, Larry was not the prodigal son of Sir John Talbot, nor related to him in any way. He was an American engineer who comes to fix Sir John’s telescope, and ends up getting trapped in the werewolf curse.
Lon Chaney Jr.’s make-up took six hours to apply, and three hours to get off.
Larry had been away 18 years working on Mt. Wilson Observatory in California.
The first transformation takes place with Talbot in an undershirt (although he is fully dressed in a dark shirt
Lon Chaney, Jr and Evelyn Ankers
once on the prowl). Only the feet transform on screen in six lapse dissolves. In the second transformation there are eleven shots – again of feet only. The third transformation features 17 face shots in a continuous dissolve.
The Wolfman battled a bear in one scene but unfortunately the bear ran away during filming. What few scenes were filmed were put into the theatrical trailer.
“Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” This quote has been listed in some sources as an authentic Gypsy or Eastern European folk saying. Writer Curt Siodmak admits that he simply made it up. Nonetheless, the rhyme would be recited in every future Universal film appearance of the Wolf Man, and would also be quoted in Van Helsing (2004). (Albeit, slightly modified, “The moon is shining bright.” rather than “The autumn moon is bright.”)
Larry’s silver wolf-headed cane, the only known surviving prop from the movie, currently resides in the personal collection of genre film archivist Bob Burns. Burns, who was a schoolboy at the time, was given the cane head by the man who made it for the film, prop-maker Ellis Burman.
Maria Ouspenskaya, who played the old Gypsy woman, was only six years older than Bela Lugosi, who played her son.
According to the documentary on the Recent Wolf Man DVD collection, the script for The Wolf Man was influenced by writer Curt Siodmak’s experiences in Nazi Germany. Siodmak had been living a normal life in Germany only to have it thrown into chaos and himself on the run when the Nazis took control, just as Larry Talbot finds his normal life thrown into chaos and himself on the run once he is turned into a werewolf. Also, the wolfman himself can be seen as a metaphor for the Nazis: an otherwise good man who is transformed into a vicious killing animal who knows who his next victim will be when he sees the symbol of a pentagram (i.e., a star) on them.
Curt Siodmak’s first draft lacked all werewolf scenes and the hallucinatory sequence.
Dick Foran was originally cast in the role of Larry Talbot. He was replaced just one week before filming began.
It was originally given the working title, “Destiny,” which had been the preliminary title of a number of Universal films that decade (including Son of Dracula (1943)).
Universal, lacking a theater chain, had planned to market the film as part of a double bill (with The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942)) but feared that the public would avoid an all-horror bill after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Evelyn Ankers had a rough time on the set. Lon Chaney Jr. delighted in sneaking up on her in full makeup and scaring her senseless. In other deleted scene, a bear was to wrestle with the werewolf but broke loose, chasing the actress up into the soundstage’s rafters.
Despite Universal’s apprehensions over the public’s appetite for horror movies following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the film became one of the studio’s top grossers in 1942.
The silver top of Larry’s wolf-head cane was made of vulcanized rubber so none of the actors or stunt doubles would get injured if they were accidentally hit by it.
Universal had another unproduced werewolf script originally planned as a vehicle for Boris Karloff on file but writer Curt Siodmak did not utilize any of it for his script.
Silent film actor Gibson Gowland appears in this film as a villager present at the death of Larry Talbot. He also had been present during the Phantom’s death scene in the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera (1925), becoming the only actor to appear in death scenes performed by both Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr.
In this movie, we’re told that a werewolf is “a human being who becomes a wolf at certain times of the year … ‘when the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright,’” and the moon is never depicted in the film. This is the only one of the Universal series of Wolf Man films in which the full moon is never shown. In the sequel, the folklore is changed to “when the moon is full and bright.”
Larry Talbot and his father Sir John attend church on Sunday in the village, but the doorway and steps of the village church looks more like that of a cathedral. In fact, it was a cathedral – part of the original set built for the legendary silent version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923/I), which had starred Lon Chaney Jr.’s famous father, Lon Chaney and which stood on the Universal back lot for over 20 years.
The “wolf” that Larry Talbot fights with was Lon Chaney Jr.’s own German Shepherd.
The first Universal picture since The Black Cat (1934) to introduce the major characters during the opening credits – and the actors playing them – with brief clips from the movie.
London After Midnight (1927) is a silent mystery film with horror overtones. The film stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall, and Polly Moran and was directed by Tod Browning. It is also a lost film, quite possibly the most famous and eagerly-sought of all lost films. The last known copy was destroyed in a fire in an MGM film vault in 1967.
Lon Chaney wore a set of false animal teeth that hurt him so much that he could only wear them for a few minutes at a time. The teeth Chaney wore were not animal teeth, but were made of gutta-percha, a hard rubber-like material. What gave him the most discomfort were the wire loops around his eyes.
It is believed that this film existed until 1967. Inventory records indicated that the only remaining print was being stored in MGM’s vault #7 which was destroyed by fire in 1967. By that time, all other elements had been destroyed or were missing.
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”).
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”.
Tower of London (1939) black-and-white historical film released by Universal Pictures and directed by Rowland V. Lee. It stars Basil Rathbone as the future Richard III of England, and Boris Karloff as his fictitious club-footed executioner Mord. Vincent Price appears as George, Duke of Clarence. Actor John Rodion, who appears in a small role, is actually Rodion Rathbone, Basil’s son.
The film is based on the traditional depiction of Richard rising to become King of England by eliminating everyone ahead of him. Each time Richard accomplishes a murder, he removes one figurine from a dollhouse resembling a throneroom. Once he has completed his task, he now needs to defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain the throne.
The plot was not derived from Shakespeare’s Richard III, but rather was written by Robert N. Lee (director Rowland V. Lee’s brother) after reading a great deal of British history. George, Duke of Clarence (one of Richard’s brothers) is depicted as something less than the tragically noble figure found in Shakespeare. Ian Hunter portrays Edward IV, who is not depicted here as the feeble, dying King found in Laurence Olivier’s 1955 film version of Shakespeare’s play. The exterior castle sets constructed for this film became a staple of the Universal backlot and could be seen time and time again in subsequent films (most prominently in the 1952′s The Black Castle).
The film inspired a 1962 remake with Vincent Price now in the lead role. The remake was made on an extremely low budget, was shot in black-and-white with a small cast (and used stock footage from the 1939 version for the battle sequences), and placed far more of an emphasis on genuine horror. Price later told Rathbone’s biographer Michael Druxman that he felt Rathbone’s performance as Richard was probably more historically genuine than either Laurence Olivier’s or his own.
Cast
Basil Rathbone … Richard – Duke of Gloucester
Boris Karloff … Mord
Barbara O’Neil … Queen Elyzabeth
Ian Hunter … King Edward IV
Vincent Price … Duke of Clarence
Nan Grey … Lady Alice Barton
Ernest Cossart … Tom Clink
John Sutton … John Wyatt
Leo G. Carroll … Lord Hastings
Miles Mander … King Henry VI
Make Up Department
Sam Kaufman … makeup artist
Otto Lederer … makeup artist Jack P. Pierce … makeup artist
