lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (01/13/84)
Here are a few of my most memorable scenes and movies. BEDAZZLED - starring Peter Cook (as the devil) and Dudley Moore. This is one of my most favoritist movies of all time. Really hilarious, and thought-provoking as well. Not for fundamentalists. GREEN PASTURES - This used to appear on late night TV but now I think it is regarded as racist. It is the story of the Bible with an all black cast, and done from a "naive" point of view. I thought it was moving as well as humorous, and I didn't find it lacking at all in theological sophistication. It was certainly a lot more advanced in than "The Ten Commandments" and its ilk. I especially liked Eddie Anderson as Noah. I also liked the way God was portrayed as a man. (He had a simple wooden office in heaven.) I hope I get to see it again some day. EL CID - I don't remember the plot at all, but there are some dynamite scenes - El Cid's mounted corpse scattering the Moslem hordes, the bombardment of a besieged city with loaves of bread, the false oath, and the torture scene which ends with, "then this will be more than a battle, this will be your god against mine!" (plunges two knives into victim - screen goes blank) GET CARTER - Michael Caine is a hit man avenging the murder of his brother. This was a "B" movie but I think it was a great morality play. Michael Caine was at his best portraying Carter's laconic but relentless campaign. Best scene - Carter, after interrogating a two-bit hood behind a pub, declares "well, that's it then" as he pulls out his blade. His panicking victim pleads, "But I didn't kill him!" Carter replies "I KNOW you didn't Albert! I KNOW you didn't!" as he stabs him. (Right in time with each "KNOW", of course.) NORTHWEST PASSAGE - Memorable for a really YOUNG Robert Young, Spencer Tracy, and Walter Brennan. I've always remembered Walter Brennan's line as he tries to get comfortable on a log as they "camp" in the middle of a knee-deep swamp, "I've slep' in wus places before - but right now I can't remember jes where they was." It's also hard to forget the incident of the soldier who keeps the head of an Indian in a sack as a secret food supply. SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE - This was a case where I liked the movie better than the book. I especially liked Billy Pilgrim's premonition of the plane crash: He sees men with ski masks on in the farewell crowd at the airport. After he crashes in the mountains, the first thing he sees as he comes to lying in the snow is (guess what). PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE - A tongue-in-cheek remake of "Phantom of the Opera" but I thought it held up on its own. It featured Bernie Koppel, later of Love Boat fame, as the phantom, and Paul Williams as the wicked entrepeneur who always answered the phone with a slow, evil sounding, "Swan here". FIRST MAN INTO SPACE - I saw this for 35 cents when I was in the seventh? grade. I thought it would be a paeon to space, but it was a grade C horror flick. Actually, it was closely modelled after the Yaeger-Crossfield rivalry, as I've come to learn. Young hot-shot punches out the X-15 to achieve the title honor, but encounters a "cosmic cloud" which turns him into a sort of demented Ben Grimm who must drink blood to survive. They finally get him into a low pressure chamber along with his brother (the low pressure helps him somehow) As he goes after his brother (suffering from the high altitude effects), his brother coaxes him "It's me, Chuck". Finally, dim recogniton dawns in his remaining disfigured eye ... "thuuuuck???" The wrong stuff, I guess. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew