Hearts and Flowers

Looks like everyone's getting into the Valentine's Day spirit!



Robots...




Buggy, monstery-type things...




Groucho...




Why, even TOR JOHNSON is getting in on the fun! Oh, Tor... won't you EVER LEARN?!?

Skidoo-doo

So they just showed this Otto Preminger flick, Skidoo, on TCM. It's never been released on home video, and it's no wonder. Jackie Gleason accidentally does acid, an elderly Groucho meanders through his scenes as mob boss "God", Carol Channing grins and whines nasally while joining the counter-culture... it's pretty much a train wreck. But the bloggers have been asking, is it a good bad? You know, in that kitchy sort of way. Well I'm here to say that in my humble opinion, it's not good bad. It's bad bad. And everyone involved should have been embarrassed that Preminger talked them into it. He evidently was intrigued by the acid movement and tried to explore it in a humorous, perhaps tongue-in-cheek fashion, much like a lot of the other junk culture of the late sixties. I just hate seeing Gleason and Groucho involved. An interesting note that Mark Evanier brought up - we've got Burgess Meredith, Ceasar Romero, and Frank Gorshin in the film. That's 1966's Penguin, Joker, and Riddler don't you know.

1000s of Hitch

I love Hitch pics with the boids.

This here blows my ever-lovin' mind. A wiki site with 1000 captured stills for each of Hitchcock's 52 major films. I'm glad there's someone out there doing this sort of ridiculously time-consuming stuff.

Of Course You Realize...

Hmm. I've had nothing to blog about since Sunday, and yet I am compelled to post something. Well, this is or at least would have been Armageddon Wednesday (I'll admit I got bored with that). And I have been back into the Marx Brothers again. I guess that can only mean one thing -




It's time for DUCK SOUP! You know, 'cause it's about war and stuff. Hail, hail Freedonia.... Well, just go watch it again if you haven't for a while. Watch it again... for the very first time!!!

If you think this post is nonsense, just wait until my comic tomorrow.

In Memoriam Groucho

Mark Evanier reminds us that Groucho died 30 years ago today. I'll do a caricature later this week just for the occasion. I watched shorts by nearly every classic comedian today before I found this out, so now I feel like I have to watch him and his bros. I guess I'll just watch this interview, and you should too. I've seen it somewhere before, maybe on the Silver Screen Collection.

Fighting in the War Room

... or why I stopped caring about the bomb and simply obsess about film. This Armageddon Wednesday features Peter Sellers as the President...




... Captain Mandrake (who would be my favorite character in the film, if not for practically every other character in the film)...




... and Dr. Strangelove. If the world is going to blow up, I'd rather have Sellers lead the way. He may have been crazy in real life, but you gotta be a little crazy to work in this place.




And from the "Well-Known Factoid to Many People, Obscure Factoid to Most" department, Sellers was originally cast in the Slim Pickens role, but evidently four roles in one film was too much of a strain. Oh, come on Peter, suck it up. Actually, it's hard to picture the role without Pickens.

There, it was inevitable that we get to Dr. Strangelove some Wednesday. Maybe next week we'll have more Cold War shenanigans.

The Way It Ends According To Me

This blog has been too wordy lately. It must be time for Armageddon Wednesday...



See, here's how it'll all pan out. First, Ray Harryhausen will send his flying saucers...




Civilians will look on in boredom and indifference. They'll develop a casual acceptance of their fate...




Then the aliens show up. They sound amazingly like Paul Frees, which does not in any way detract from their overall phallus-ness...




But Salvador Dali is not amused...




So then more Saucers show up...!




And GROUCHO...!




And THESE GUYS...!




And everyone yells, "BLOW, GERRY, BLOW!" BUT...




IT'S TOO LATE!!!!! The world explodes in a beautiful technicolor dream! "We'll... meet again... Don't know where... Don't know wheennnnnn...."

Well, that's the way I would want it to end. Wouldn't you?

Locusts Be Big

Today on Armageddon Wednesday... GIANT LOCUSTS!...




... as seen in the Bert I. Gordon film, The Beginning of the End, starring a typically wooden Peter Graves...




...as seen, by my generation anyway, on MST3K. And speaking of that, the first DVD release by The Film Crew is now available on Amazon. But for now, let us not forget the...




...GIANT LOCUSTS! Oops. It's just Bert I. Gordon. Hey Bert.

Zombie Monday

Hooray! It's Zombie Monday! In honor of Zombie Monday, I thought I would post the film poster for Ed Wood's Plan 9, which I happen to love. Plan 9, of course, "deals with the resurrection of the dead. Long distance electrodes shot into the pineal and pituitary gland of the recently dead." Ah, bliss.

Will next week begin with another Zombie Monday? We shall see...