[narfstar]

My wife and I watched War Horse she loved it I hated it. I consider it a chick flick. I found the movie to be strong together contrived tidbits to pull at your heart strings. It ended up having the opposite affect on me. Almost from the beginning things were designed to go wrong so they could be made right. Not itself a bad thing but when the whole movie is made up of contrived events it soon gets old. I usually love overcoming all odds/obstacles movies but this one goes to far.

[profh0011]

This seemed the best place to post this, without starting a new thread.
Just posted at the IMDB, in the thread titled,

Re: who did people think the man in black was before H6 came out??

I missed both H4 & H5 when they came out. The week before H6 came out, I rented both H4 & H5, and watched both back-to-back, a day apart.

H4 was a wonderful surprise. I enjoyed everything about it, especially the main characters. The shock surprise ending, while horrifying, was very clever.

By comparison, H5 was a piece of S*** on almost every level. From the opening credits and the opening scene (which totally undercut the previous film's ending), to the way they completely ignored the possibilities of the previous film's cliffhanger, to how they stetched scenes out interminably and filled the running time with endless, pointless violence and brutality, to the way they slaughtered anyone you cared about. This was a BAD film made by BAD people. And from what I've read, the 3 stars (Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell & Danielle Harris) who all held H4's writer & director in high esteem, felt the writer & director of H5 had both done a terrible job.

So, when you throw in the entire "Man In Black" mystery-- which NOBODY involved even bothered to figure out in advance-- it's just the film-makers showing their complete lack of care and utter CONTEMPT for the paying audience.

When it got to the end of the film, all I could think of was... "Oh my God. They did this entire STUPID film, JUST to set up the NEXT one." And they hadn't even bothered to figure out what the next one would be.

NO WONDER H5 bombed at the box office. NO WONDER it took 6 years to raise money to make H6. NO WONDER H6, despite whatever clever ideas might have slipped into its make-up (by accident, probably), was an EVEN BIGGER piece of S*** than H5.

And NO WONDER H7 went out of its way to pretend H4, 5 & 6 "never happened".

Some people should just be barred from ever working in the movie industry...

[narfstar]

Believe it or not the Halloween series is one that I never watched. I had burned out after the first few Friday 13th movies so never bothered to get into Halloween series

[profh0011]

There's really only a small part of the series that's worth watching...

HALLOWEEN  (it never "needed" a sequel, even though the final scene screamed for one)

HALLOWEEN 2  (but ONLY the last 10 minutes!!  Before that, the rest of the film is "obligatory" CRAP!)

HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS  (believe it or not, this is my favorite of the series, and I think it's an even better film than the 1st one)


When they did the 4th film (really, the 3rd "Michael Myers" film), the intention was to start a yearly "franchise".  They did such a surprisingly, amazingly GOOD job on the first new one, it makes what happened the following year all the more DISGRACEFUL. There's only 2 scenes in H5 I like at all... one with the dog, and other with the shower. After that, it goes to HELL and never recovers. And neither does the entire series. What a waste...!

[profh0011]

The last few days:

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN
TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS
FORCE: FIVE
THE BLUES BROTHERS
THE BIG BRAWL

[josemas]

I watched The New Adventures of Tarzan serial a couple of years back and was pretty impressed with several aspects. 

1. Herman Brix was very well cast as Tarzan.  I understand that he was personally chosen by Burroughs for the role. 
2. The character of Tarzan was the most faithful to the Tarzan of the novels that we were to see in sound films for many years.
3. The excellent location shooting added greatly to the film's atmosphere.

On the downside the film seemed a bit cruder technically then those being produced concurrently by MGM showing it to be the small independent production that it was.
Also all the prints that currently seem to circulate of this are just not that good looking.  If some nice original 35mm prints would turn up it would give one a better chance to appreciate the film.

My two cents

Joe

[profh0011]

The NEW ADVENTURES behind-the-scenes was a real-life soap-opera.   The producer, Ashton Dearholt, first met ERB in 1929, at which point ERB fell in love with Dearholt's wife (but presumably didn't act on it). MGM wanted Herman Brix, but due to an injury, they went with Weismuller instead. Though he publicly supported MGM's films, ERB, as usual, was very unhappy with the way Hoollywood contionued to portray his character. After MGM's 2-picture deal, he formed a company with Dearholt to do Tarzan properly. While scounting locations in Guatemala, Dearhold fell in love with his leading lady, Ula Holt. On return to Hollywood, he brought her back and installed her in his home-- which did NOT thrill his wife! She left, taking the kids... and soon after, MARRIED ERB!! (Is this nuts?)

Dearholt played the main villain in the picture, Raglan.

Just before their "expedition" began, Dearholt ran out of money, so ERB wound up putting up the rest to make the picture. Now low on cash, he went back to MGM and extended their deal, which is how we got 4 more MGM pictures. Lousy sound equipment saw to it NEW ADVENTURES had terrible sound, and low budget and lack of an actual studio is probably why it wasn't tweaked on return to Hollywood.  When the serial was ready to go, MGM, not wanting competition, threatened all their theatres that if they ran Dearholt's picture, they would not get MGM's next Tarzan film. (Those greedy bastards!) Most complied. The film did very well overseas, but almost no one in the US got to see it. So ERB wound up shooting himself in the foot with that 2nd MGM deal.

After a careful reading over at the ERBzine site, I've discovered that the 1st feature version contains material from only Chapters 1-2 (Ch. 1 must have been a REALLY long chapter!!) as the big scene with the machine-gun mowing down countless savages only takes place in Ch.2.  The 2nd feature, TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS, comprised highlights from Chapters 2-12!! Totally nuts.

Inexplicably, 20 years after it was made, the NEW ADVENTURES feature was re-dubbed in England. But along the way, Tarzan's voice was replaced by an annoying nasal voice. On my bad prints taken from a local station in the early 80's, I noticed Tarzan's voice is completely different between the 2 features.  Apparently, the UK redub is the only version of the 1st feature curtrently known to exist. (Is this insane??)

Despite ALL that, I got a kick out of watching them again. Brix looks and feels like the real guy, and his tree-swinging is at least as impressive (if not more so) than Weismuller.  If it hadn't been for MGM's deliberate sabotage, there might have been more of these.  By the late 30's, Brix took acting lessons, changed his name to Bruce Bennett, and spent the rest of his career trying to distance himself from the character of Tarzan.

[josemas]

Henry, 

Thanks for all the info.  I'm sure I read some of this ages ago but a good bit of it was new to me also.

I've always liked Brix/Bennett.  He appeared in some of the best serials of the 1930s including Daredevils of the Red Circle, The Fighting Devil Dogs and The Lone Ranger. 

I suspect that the acting lessons did help some and got him supporting roles in such high prestige films as Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Mildred Pierce.

Even then though he was doing a lot of bit parts and such.  I've seen him in uncredited parts in several Three Stooges films. 

Never-the-less he had a pretty long career in films (check out his IMDB entry) and lived to a very ripe old age- passing away at age 100 in 2007!

Best

Joe 

[profh0011]

When I watched my entire TARZAN collection (whnich still has a lot of holes in it) some years back, I had the impression that Brix got better as the serial went on.  I didn't realize until this week, reading up on it online, that the 1st feature had been re-dubbed, and that the redubbbed UK version was the only one known to be available.  His own voice can be heard in ...GREEN GODDESS.

I also figured (incorrectly), based on the FLASH GORDON feature versions, that they split the serial in 2 halves to make the features.  But it seems some early serials had VERY long 1st chapters (this includes TARZAN THE FEARLESS, where the 1st chapter was apparently an hour in length, compared to 15-20 minutes for later installments).  That horrifically violent scene (which I suspect might never have made it past the Production Code a year later) only happened in chapter 2.  Mind-boggling!  When I watched the 2 features some years ago, I figured that scene was probably in chapter 6 or 7.  The story never quite reached those heights again (at least, not based on what was included in the 2nd feature).

Brix most reminds me of Jock Mahoney (who was up for the part after Lex Barker, but was passed over in favor of body-builder Gordon Scott). Someone at the ERBzine site said Brix "didn't have the physique" for it-- which I disagree with. I'm sure they probably feel the same way about Mahoney. Personality-wise, both also remind me of Ron Ely, who came across a bit too "nice" in his initial 13 episodes, but "toughened up" for the remainder of the series (even as Gordon Scott got much tougher in attitude in his last 2 TARZAN films).

There's a wealth of info about this stuff online, but the ERBzine site is positively mind-blowing, how much they have in one spot. That site goes on forever!!  A couple years ago, I contributed some rare Russ Manning material, and have been meaning ever since to scan in some Manning Sunday pages they're missing (and some they have, but which I have better versions of). Only so much time...  

[Captain Audio]

Ron Ely was lucky he got out of the Tarzan TV series when he did.
From Wikipedia

Like Jock Mahoney, Ely insisted on performing his own stunts when playing Tarzan. Unlike Mahoney, Ely was not a professional stuntman and sustained seventeen different injuries during the first season. These included singeing his arms and legs running through a burning village (Village of Fire); being bitten in the forehead by a "tame" lion (in a later fight with the same lion, Ely was bitten on the lower left thigh); falling down a hill and ripping the skin off the tops of his feet; falling twenty-five feet off a vine and separating his shoulder; and falling off another vine and breaking his other shoulder, fracturing three ribs and spraining both wrists.

[josemas]

Injuries were all too common among actors playing Tarzan. 

I remember seeing a picture of Mike Henry years ago where he had a huge bite on his chin given to him by a chimp in one of his Tarzan films.

We recently finished watching The Son of Tarzan serial where the actor (Kamuela Searle) playing Korak (the son of Tarzan) was nearly killed in the final chapter when his co-star elephant rescued him from being burned at the stake by pulling the stake (with the actor on it) out of the ground and carrying him off through the jungle and depositing him safely on the ground. 
Well that's how it was written to happen anyway. 
In the serial after the elephant pulls the stake free and dashes through the jungle you can see Searle (who was tied to the pole through his midriff but was only pretending to have his hands also tied above his head) frantically trying to push branches out of the way as he is pummeled by them in the dash.  Then the elephant "dumps" the stake with Searle still attached to it onto the ground.  Ouch!  Hardly what I'd call being safely deposited on the ground.
Searle was so badly injured that the final scenes of the film had to be completed with a double and a bit of rewriting.  The studio played up the accident to imply that Searle had actually died from his injuries in order to drum up ticket sales.  Searle did eventually recover and made at least one more film before he actually died, from cancer, when in his early thirties.

Ely had the misfortune of actually playing this sort of role while committing to the grueling schedule of a TV series.  I remember reading years back that one of the "falling from a vine" accidents, which was captured on film, had the story worked around it so that Tarzan was shot while swinging through the jungle, thus explaining both the fall and why Tarzan had his arm in a sling after that.

Best

Joe

[profh0011]

"Unlike Mahoney, Ely was not a professional stuntman"

And to think, with Mahoney, it was a tropical disease that did him in during the making of his 2nd film (it was said he noticably lost weight over the course of the story).

Sy Weintraub must have liked Mahoney, though.  First he cast him as a villain against Gordon Scott (who years earlier had won the role instead of Mahoney), they he had Mahoney star in 2 films, then cast him in 3 different roles opposite Ron Ely (twice as villains).  I don't think I realized this the first time I watched TARZAN GOES TO INDIA (that I had previously seen him in "The Deadly Silence" 2-parter, where he was possibly the nastiest of all of Ely's villains). 

Mahoney remains one of my favorite Tarzans.  While each re-casting gives me the impression of watching a different version of the characters-- as if you've slipped into a different "universe"-- I can actually believe Mahoney and Ely are the SAME version of the guy, except with Mahoney being an older, tougher version. (And I might put Brix in between them.)

[alfje]

All this talking about Tarzan......
Do you know this site/page?
(Didn't want to make a hotlink, so you'll have to change hxxp into http.)

hxxp://www.briansdriveintheater.com/tarzan.html

In case this site is new to you, just go to the index page and have a look around.
hxxp://www.briansdriveintheater.com/index.html
Have fun, you'll notice several movies/actors, that have been talked about here, can be found there.

[paw broon]

I mentioned that Sherlock is back on our screens and I have to report that last night's episode was an absolute belter.  The Hounds of Baskerville has the lot  including making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  Seriously spooky at times and the observations/deductions are marvellous.
I haven't said anything re. the 1st. story, A Scandal in Belgravia, as I don't know what to make of it and I,m not that wild about the original.
My only concern about Sherlock is that the makers, having found a great villain, use him to excess.  I was thinking that The Mentalist gets it about right with the use of Red John.
Really hard keeping up with everything on t.v. with all the American football on right now.  We can't stay up so we record and have a number of discs still to watch.  Good excuse for a wee party, though.

[bowers]

Still waiting for the new "Sherlock" episodes. PBS won't be showing any mysteries until this summer and, hopefully, we may get "Sherlock" then. Instead, we get over two months of "Downton Abbey", both repeats of last year and the new episodes. (Omigod!) Great cast, but I just can't stand this series- probably because I dislike all the characters! "Leverage" season finale coming up this week. I nearly gave up on this series early in the season but the episodes got much, much better as the season progressed."The Mentalist" has also improved after a really terrible season debut. Cheers, Bowers

[narfstar]

Still liking Leverage although more for the characters now than the stories. The stories are OK but getting formulaic. The Parker/Hardison romance is pretty cool. I am glad they have downplayed Nate's drinking. I have a feeling next year will be its last. Mentalist is still fun. I still watch Burn Notice although the long breaks diminish interest. I watch a lot of comedies also. Tim Allen's Last Man Standing is predictable but still funny and I can not help liking Two Broke Girls. Hot in Cleveland and Big Bang continue to bring the biggest laughs.

[josemas]

From what I read at the BBC America website we won't be seeing episodes of Sherlock until May here in the States.

I enjoyed last week's episode of Leverage (with Tom Skerritt back as Nate's father) which continues into this weekend's season finale.

Another one I've been liking - AMC's western Hell on Wheels is also winding up this weekend too.

BBC America has a new one- The Fades, which I'm going to be checking out, starting this weekend.

Also coming up soon in my current watching schedule is Alcatraz (new crime/syfy show) and Being Human (US version) starting next week, and in February The Walking Dead returns and Being Human (UK version) starts a new season.

And...I'm still sticking with these current shows Hawaii Five-O, Unforgettable, Grimm, CSI, Criminal Minds, Bones, Fringe, Once Upon a Time, CSI: NY, and Pan Am.

I think that's about it for what I'm watching among current shows.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Yeah Leverage was good. I have not tried Hell on Wheels might give it a shot. I am looking forward to Alcatraz it looks promising. I was talking with some others teachers this morning who did not enjoy Grimm and I did not either, but we like Once Upon a Time and so does my wife.

[profh0011]

CHARLIE CHAN IN PANAMA
TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY
CHARLIE CHAN AT THE WAX MUSEUM
TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN

[paw broon]

Sorry to bore you re. Sherlock again but I'm going to.  Last night was the last of the 3 new adventures.  I can't spoil it for you.  Wouldn't be fair.  Suffice to say the title is, "The Reichenbachs Fall"  and viewers are singing its praises with the most common comment being, "simply stunning".  Says it all, really.
P.S.  Want to know how weird, mad, utterly chilling a villain can look?  Look no further than this.

[josemas]

Can't wait for them to show up over here in the States, Paw.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Digging through my dvd shelves, I found a serial I hadn't watched and sat down for the first few episodes.  Government Agents v. Phantom Legion is good fun. What a good title and there is a great fight in a garage just prior to the cliffhanger.  Once again all those hats stay on heads. A few more episodes tonight.

[narfstar]

Don't know that one

[josemas]

Government Agents Vs Phantom Legion is a pretty good (if somewhat generic) later (1951) Republic serial.  While budget constraints are already becoming evident it still has some well staged fight sequences and has that Republic slickness to it. 
There's a couple of "no names" playing the "star" parts but the bad guys are a bunch of the typical guys that you'll recognize (even if you don't know their names) from many serials and B westerns of the era.

Best

Joe (who's weekly serials are currently Sky Raiders (1941), Gordon of Ghost City (1933) and Secret Agent X-9 (1945)  )

[profh0011]

Holy cow! What a show... ("There oughta be a law against them." --they're
talking about COMICS!!!)


http://blastr.com/2012/01/fox-news-station-slams-se.php