Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Macca]

'Crown Court'

Can't believe they are showing these on 'Talking Pictures' channel. Not seen one since I was in primary school and off sick.

Don't think they have ever repeated them before now. Proper telly.

[Barry]

Was it a TV series?

[struth]

The Man Who Knew Too Little, 1997...



the lovely joanne walley and bill murray in a great spoof..

[struth]

Was it a TV series?

it was yes... early 70's onwards.. sometimes it was quite funny ... not that i saw it a lot but ive seen a good few.. actors played the parts except the jury who were real people off street i think.

[Macca]

it was yes... early 70's onwards.. sometimes it was quite funny ... not that i saw it a lot but ive seen a good few.. actors played the parts except the jury who were real people off street i think.

everyone except the foreman - since he had to speak he had to be an Equity member.

Apparently they did show some of them years ago on Granada Plus but I don't remember that. Must have been on in the daytime during the week - which is why I missed most of them first time around too. Birth, school, work, death.

[struth]

Young Frankenstein, 1974.... bluray reg A..

Classics went mad for this Mel Brooks masterpiece.




When Mel Brooks was preparing for this film, he discovered that Ken Strickfaden, who'd made the elaborate electrical machinery for the lab sequences in the Universal Frankenstein films, was still alive and living in the Los Angeles area. Brooks visited Strickfaden, and found that he had stored all the equipment in his garage. Brooks made a deal to rent the equipment, and gave Strickfaden the screen credit he didn't receive for the original films.

Mel Brooks considers this the best film he ever directed, but rates it number three amongst his funniest, after Blazing Saddles (1974) and The Producers (1967). Brooks confirmed these views in interviews celebrating his ninetieth birthday in 2016.

Teri Garr originally auditioned for the role of Elizabeth, the fiancée, while Madeline Kahn was the front-runner for Inga, the assistant. But Kahn ultimately decided she'd rather play Elizabeth, leaving Mel Brooks with the task of recasting the Inga role. Undaunted, he called Garr in and told her that if she could come back the next day with a German accent, he'd like her for the part. She looked at Mel and said, "Vell, yes, I could do zee German ackzent tomorrow, I could come back zis afternoon", and the part was hers. Garr has said that she based her accent on Cher's wig maker, with whom she worked on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971).

[struth]

Hitchcock's Notorious, 1946... Criterion bluray.







After filming had ended, Cary Grant kept the famous UNICA key. A few years later he gave the key to his great friend and co-star Ingrid Bergman, saying that the key had given him luck and hoped it would do the same for her. Many years later, at a tribute to director Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Bergman went off-script and presented the key to him, to his surprise and delight.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock got the shot where Ingrid Bergman is in the background and the coffee cup is in the foreground, with both in focus, by using a giant coffee cup placed farther away than it appears.

Director Sir Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter Ben Hecht consulted Nobel Prize winner Dr. Robert Millikan on how to make an atomic bomb. He refused to answer, but confirmed that the principal ingredient, uranium, could fit in a wine bottle. Sir Alfred Hitchcock claimed that the F.B.I. had him under surveillance for three months because this movie dealt with uranium.

"The girl's look is wrong", Ingrid said to Hitchcock when, after several takes of her close-up during the dinner sequence, everyone knew something was awry. "You have her registering [surprise] too soon, Hitch. I think she would do it this way." And with that, Ingrid did the scene her way. There was not a sound on the set, for Hitchcock did not suffer actors' ideas gladly: he knew what he wanted from the start. Well before filming began, every eventuality of every scene had been planned—every camera angle, every set, costume, prop, even the sound cues had been foreseen and were in the shooting script. But in this case, an actress had a good idea, and to everyone's astonishment, he said, "I think you're right, Ingrid."

[struth]

Mario Puzo's The Godfather, 1972... Coppola Restoration..

Note the attention to detail: most of the cars have wooden bumpers. Bumpers were removed by car owners during World War II, and replaced with wooden ones. The chrome ones were turned in to help with the war effort. After the war, it took several years for them to be replaced.

Don Vito Corleone's distinctive voice was based on real-life mobster Frank Costello. Marlon Brando had seen him on television during the Estes Kefauver hearings in 1951, and imitated his husky whisper in the film.

Al Pacino's maternal grandparents immigrated to America from Corleone, Sicily, just as Vito Corleone had.

This latest edition was created with higher-quality sources of the film, improved digital technology and some 4,000 hours spent repairing stains, tears and other flaws.

[struth]

[struth]

The Outfit, 1973.

Robert Duvall again but in different type of role...




Cast includes Karen Black, Joe Don Baker and Robert Ryan. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and praised it as "a classy action picture, very well directed and acted." Others were less impressed but i agree, its a good film.

This was only the second picture in which Robert Duvall was top-billed.

The picture was cast with such film noir veterans as Timothy Carey, Elisha Cook, Jr., Jane Greer, Robert Ryan, Sheree North, and Marie Windsor, as it was originally to be as in the novel to be a period noir.