*contains spoilers What must be horror actor Robert Englund’s (1947-) best performance outside of the Freddy Krueger franchise has to be the Phantom of the Opera (1989). What appears to be originally a The Cannon Group film, it was inherited by Menahem Golan (1929-2014) under his new aegis as CEO of 21st Century Film Corporation,…
*contains spoilers It was Darren McGavin’s (1922-2006 heart disease) tv portrayal of Hammer in Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1958-59) that followed this film and McGavin is a decided improvement over Bray even though it’s a half hour tv format. The violence is there if not the sex of the Spillane novels. But McGavin’s Hammer again…
Read more The Cult of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Author Mickey Spillane (1918-2006 pancreatic cancer) called his writing “the chewing gum of American literature”. I guess he meant once you’ve chewed over it, you could throw it away. It’s disposable literature. Others perhaps wouldn’t be so kind, while others would rate Spillane’s work as better than that. I read Spillane’s first detective…
Read more The Cult of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (Part One)
*contains spoilers Director Frank Perry’s (1930-95 prostate cancer) drama Play it as it Lays (1972) opens in a sanatorium where Tuesday Weld’s character Maria Wyeth is staying. She begins: “If Carter and Helene were to think it happened because I was insane… I say let them…” We don’t know why but the way Maria talks,…
Read more The Cult of Director Frank Perry’s Play it as it Lays (1972)
*contains spoilers Producer and director Michael Laughlin (1943-) has been around since the late 1960s. He produced the highly praised Bryan Forbes (1926-2013 multiple sclerosis) directed film The Whisperers (1967) which earned Dame Edith Evans (1888-1976) an Oscar nomination. He also produced one of director Monte Hellman’s (1932-) finished products Two Lane Blacktop (1971). Raised…
Read more Director Michael Laughlin’s Strange Unfinished Trilogy
*contains spoilers Peter Collinson (1936-80 lung cancer) was a British director who died at the relatively young age of 44. He directed the much lauded and popular The Italian Job (1969) which over the years, when I asked young British fellows what their favourite film was – it always seemed to be The Italian Job.…
