Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

I can't remember if Auntie Mame was also a musical???

I was never a big Rosalind Russel fan (probably haven't watched enough of her movies). I could never get past her sour & haggard expression and 6-packs-a-day sounding voice!

Auntie Mame was not a musical, but it was far better than Mame.

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If I remember correctly, Auntie Mame was not a musical.

I've only seen Rosalind Russell in a few movies, most notably His Girl Friday (1940) with Cary Grant.

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Thanks Mark. As said, I only saw bits of it, but of what I did see, I didn't recall any singing.

Your review of this movie is pretty much on the money, Citizen, my review of the film is almost word for word, it's a little spooky, LOL! It's a terrible movie, one of the five worst musicals ever made. BTW, the actor who played grown up Patrick was Bruce Davison, who played the title role in Willard and received an Oscar nomination for Longtime Companion.

Robert Preston has little on screen time. And isn't memorable. Watch The Music Man, again Oh, I agree with you on Lucille Ball, she's great in I Love Lucy and decent in some 40s film noirs, but boring otherwise.

OMG, you should hear Lucy in Mame, it sounds like she's smoked for the last 1000 years...And then they have her sing...I read that she got so winded that she only sing a few notes before needing a break.

He played the lead in Willard? Now that's a cool movie! Glad you liked my review.

You need to get the bad taste of Mame out of your system, Citizen by watching Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame...that movie is freaking brilliant and so is Russell, directed by the same guy who directed the film version of The Music Man.

I've seen Auntie Mame, it's first rate, I loved Rosalind Russell in the role and even the kid actor was good. I should watch it again, but I just got The Big Bus and The Last Time I Saw Paris...so I will be watching those in the near future.

OT: I have a lot of fond memories of Bruce Davison...

Willard (1971)
Dead Man's Curve (1978 TV Movie - Bruce played Dean Torrence of "Jan & Dean" alongside Richard Hatch who I got to meet & talk to at a comic convention in '98)!
Lathe of Heaven (1980 TV Movie)
Seinfeld (1996 - 1997: as "Wyck" in 3 episodes)
and, of course, as Senator Kelly in X-Men I & II

The guy's had a pretty prolific Movie & TV career.

Oh noooooo!
(Since you didn't like Airplane!, you may hate the Big Bus - it's that kind of movie, people either love it or hate it - guess that's what makes a poorly received movie from the 70's a "cult film" today. And the humor, which is similar to that of Airplane, is older and even more dated. Then again, you may enjoy seeing the cast and the childhood memories they bring about. Who knows?)

My recent re-watch of The Big Bus convinced me that the film is what actually inspired Airplane!

Absolutely. The style of comedy is almost exactly the same - that couldn't just be a coincidence. (I also seem to remember some of the same creative people being involved in both, but not sure.)

I will say that whether people like the movie or hate it, I haven't met anyone yet who can't appreciate the bus driver's bar scene!

Very cool that you got to meet Richard Hatch!...Lathe of Heaven, that's a movie you don't hear talked much about it. I liked it, and I think about that film sometime too. I've seen Willard but none of the others you mentioned.

Is the humor the same in both movies? Gideon in his review called it episodically (I think I know what that means?) and said the movie spent too much time with the characters (that's not verbatim, but from memory). So I think I might like it as what I didn't like about Airplane was the 5 second sight gags.

A challenge I'll let you know what I thought of that scene.

Director: Cy Endfield
Writers: Cy Endfield(screenplay), William Mulvihill(novel)
Cast: Stanley Baker, Stuart Whitman, Susannah York
Genre: Survival Thriller Action

Synopsis: A small plane overloaded with passengers, makes a crash landing in the middle of the scorching Kalahari desert. Where the survivors find out, it's survival of the fittest.

Review: An interesting film with the premise that humans when removed from civilization along with creature comforts will behave barbarically. As an allegory there is a troupe of baboons who live amongst the rock cliffs, under the sweltering sun. They survive by fighting for dominance with each other. Then we have the beleaguered humans, who need food,water and shelter, and like the baboons become wild.

I might have really liked this film if there wasn't scenes of apparent animal cruelty. The leader of the humans is a big game hunter who cradles his rifle like it was sacred. In one scene he shoots at the baboons and they scatter. Latter we see what looks like a real, freshly killed bamboo laying there. I couldn't find out if they killed the bamboo to make the scene or if it was stuck footage. Either way I could have done without seeing real animals, dead.



The humans as they pit themselves against each other makes for a good survival-thriller movie. And this was shot out in the desert in Spain and Namibia. The film looks great and so does Susannah York.

If it wasn't for the other crashed plane-desert survival movie that came out in the same year: Flight of the Phoenix...The Sands of Kalahari might be better known today.

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Director: Henry King
Writers: Philip Yordan(screenplay), Frank O'Rourke(novel)
Cast: Gregory Peck, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd
Genre: Western Drama

Synopsis: Rancher Jim Douglas (Gregory Peck) is hot on the trial of the outlaws who murdered his wife. When he finally catches up to them he finds they are in jail and about to be hanged for another crime. While he waits in town to witness their hanging, the outlaws escape and he takes on the chase.

About: I had only seen this once before and I have to say I was even more impressed on my second viewing. At first I though, 'oh this movie is starting off slow'...but then when the bad guys go on the lamb I started really liking it. The pace picks up and the story deepens.

Props: to an intelligent script that wasn't full of holes. By that I mean the actions that the people take, made sense. Sometimes movies make characters do gawd awful dumb things to make tension happen. Not here. Equally impressive is the script dared to break the western myth of good guy vs bad guy. It's the very last act in this movie that makes it stand out.

Gregory Peck, is one of my favorite actors from the 1950s. I though he did an exceptional job here. I especially liked the acting at the climax of the film when he crosses over into Mexico and realizes something very sobering. The way he plays that scene is heart felt.


And Props to the beautiful scenery shot in glorious Cinemascope and to the lovely Joan Collins too.

One of my favorite stories (me and my stories!)...
Went to a comic convention in Oakland, 1998. I was on the "celebrity" side of the table because I was there hanging out with a cousin who is a comic book inker. It was a pretty slow show and we ended up chatting with the late Bob May (the guy who was inside the Robot in Lost in Space) since he was at a table across from us.

At one point I wondered over to the table where Richard Hatch was sitting (he was there for Battlestar Galactica, of course) and all the fan boys in line had questions about the show. When I got up to him he had a somewhat worn out look that he was trying to remove from his face... he seemed to be thinking, "What's this nerd going to ask... how many people can the Galactica hold?... will they ever reach Earth?... why don't they shoot the Cylons with photon torpedoes?"

I asked him, "Did you get to meet Jan Berry when you played him in Dead Man's Curve?"

A huge smile came over his face and he said, "You know that movie? I didn't think anyone remembered it!"

He seemed so relieved to finally talk to someone about something other than Battlestar Galactica. We had a nice conversation about Dead Man's Curve (1978) and Jan & Dean. Richard had indeed met & worked with Jan Berry to try to get his mannerisms down. (Jan, for those who don't know, was critically injured in a car crash in 1966 and remained a cripple for the rest of his life.)

That's a pretty cool story Capt! It's neat you had seen Dead Man's Curve before meeting him. I've heard of that movie, never seen it. Which character was he in Battlestar Galactica? It's been a looooong time since I seen that show. Did you get his autograph BTW?

You meet the Robot guy? Bob May, wow I bet he had a bunch of stories. Did you say to him Danger Will Robinson Danger as you waved your arms wildly about? Probably not Did Bob May talk about his thoughts on the cast? I like to hear about that.

I wouldn't have even approached Richard Hatch if I hadn't seen Dead Man's Curve (he looked miserable answering questions about Galactica). I don't really have any extra regard for celebrities, but for him I had a specific question and he just seemed so grateful to talk about something that didn't have to do with what he was there for. He played "Apollo" in the original B.G.
I've never asked anyone for an autograph... I wouldn't know what to do with it. Although, these days there's eBay you can sell it on!

Bob May did indeed have a bunch of stories. He was a very lively guy (and based on my calculations, he was 59 in 1998). He was very short - which is why he could fit inside the robot. He reminded me of Mickey Rooney. He told how the crew would leave him in the robot as they all went to lunch - he needed assistance to get in & out. By the time they got back he'd be fuming, then someone would give him a sandwich that he'd eat inside the robot. He talked about how Jonathan Harris was nothing like Dr. Smith - he had none of Smith's qualities, but he was the biggest prankster on set.

I do remember that there was an elderly lady at the Lost in Space table with Bob May, and she played one of the aliens on the show, but for the life of me I don't know which one (but it wasn't the recurring "Green Lady" who was always trying to seduce Dr. Smith).

This last part is really sad, but Richard Anderson (the actor who played Oscar on the Six Million Dollar Man) was there... and I watched him for quite a while, no one was coming up to him. Later I saw him sitting alone at a snack bar table scraping the inside of a styrofoam ice cream cup and staring into it blankly.
I just now looked him up on IMDB... he's still alive... and he's even older than my dad!

Thanks for posting that Captain, I enjoyed reading it. Richard Hatch was Apollo? I didn't even recognize his name until you mentioned his character. Now, I can see him looking weary from all the questions. Sometimes as Apollo he seemed down trodden in the show. I use to love that show too, not like Star Trek but it was still a cool watch.

I can almost picture him in the robot suit eating a sandwich as Johnathan Harris good naturally does a harmless prank. To me hearing Bob May's stories makes Lost in Space seem cooler.

That's odd, even I remember his face from his name. He was Jamie's (Bionic Woman's) boss. I always that character of his.