Mystery Science Theater 3000 Movie References

Update 7/28/08

2008-07-28T14:05:00.005-04:00

I have, at this point, gone through my old Word document and transferred all the MST3K references I'd written all those long, lonely winters ago (in Siberia...part of the labors of gulag). But don't become disheartened! For since then I've seen multitudes of episodes and can now start transcribing those as well! Isn't that great?! Won't this be an enjoyable experience for all of us?! Aren't you just shivering in anticipation?!

"Once Upon a Honeymoon"

2008-07-28T14:02:00.003-04:00

(the wife is singing in the living room)
Mike (singing): I think owning a newspaper would be fun…

This rather odd remark is actually a line from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, which is considered by most film geeks to be the Best Movie Ever. But whatever you do, don’t ever, ever ask why, lest you incur hours of technical jargon/crap from pale guys who wear rectangle-framed glasses and Star Wars vintage T-shirts. Yeah, perhaps I’m being a little harsh, but I think Citizen Kane is slightly overrated. That isn’t to say that I don’t like the movie, because I do. But it isn’t God’s Gift to Movie Audiences. I don’t think any movie is. In any case, the title character (played by Orson Welles, natch) writes this to his benefactor, which really pisses him off, because young Charles Foster Kane doesn’t take anything seriously (as witnessed by the line itself). It’s kind of similar to Peter O’Toole’s line in Lawrence of Arabia (in reference to his trek across the desert), “It will be fun.” I think Lawrence of Arabia is a better film than Citizen Kane, and if I were a film student, I might explain why, and I might just point out the similarities between the two movies, but I’m not a film student, and it’s my day off, god damn it [pissed off at her computer, which is continually breaking down today…]

"Cheating"

2008-07-28T14:00:00.002-04:00

(The Cheater’s teacher reads the note he’d passed during the test)
Crow: I smell a big fat commie rat.

May or may not be a film reference per sé, but George C. Scott said the exact same line in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. He was arguably the best part of the movie, although Peter Sellers usually gets all the glory, for playing three different roles. But Scott is so good (and underplays his part so well, depending mostly on facial expressions) that I usually can’t watch any of his films without being reminded of Dr. Strangelove, thereby laughing for no apparent reason.

"Body Care and Grooming"

2008-07-28T13:57:00.003-04:00

(the li’l girl is zipping around in front of her mirror)
Tom: Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

This is one of Rex Harrison’s starting lines of "Hymn to Him”, from My Fair Lady. A starting line is one of those spoken lines that introduces a song—like in “Leader of the Pack”, you hear a girl ask “Gee, Suzy, what’s wrong?” and Suzy says something like, “Well, let me tell ya’ all about it” and then proceeds to sing about how her boyfriend died (“Look out look out look out—Vrooom—Leader of the pack!”—watch The Brain That Wouldn’t Die to understand). Um, anyway—you may or may not notice that Rex Harrison never really sings his lines; he more or less talks them, or growls them. This was the preferred method of singing by non-musical actors who found themselves in Broadway shows. Richard Burton did the same thing when he starred in Camelot as King Arthur. Now, in most movie musicals, the singing is done fairly well on the set, but the actor will go back to the studio, sing the song again to provide a better sound recording, and the studio version will be dubbed into the film. But, because Rex Harrison talked his lines very quickly, it was impossible to get the sound in sync with his lips. So the studio designed one of the first mikes used in musicals—it was nearly invisible, and clipped onto his suit, I believe. So there you have it.

(As the li’l boy is taking a shower, Mike and the ‘bots make violin noises.)

The famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Yep.

"Robot Rumpus"

2008-07-28T13:55:00.002-04:00

Tom: Oh God, they hung his head! This is worse than Seven!

Seven was indeed disgusting, as it had a series of grotesque (human) deaths corresponding with the seven deadly sins—a man is forced to eat until his stomach explodes (gluttony), a lawyer is forced to cut off a pound of his own flesh (greed), a man is tied to his bed and slowly wastes away (sloth)…and it just goes on from there. As gory as it may sound, this is not your usual Vincent Price movie (not that Price’s movies are bad—I can’t go into a hair salon without thinking of Theatre of Blood); it stars Brad Pitt and the always-good Morgan Freeman as detectives who hunt down the man who orchestrates all these murders. Although he wasn’t credited as the killer when the movie was released, it’s common knowledge that the killer was played by Kevin Spacey (he won an MTV movie award for it). There is a disembodied head involved in the film, but I won’t spoil it for you.

Update 6/28/08

2008-06-28T22:17:00.003-04:00

No, I have not forgotten about this blog. I've actually moved (to New York) and am battling a slew of obstacles--really bad Internet connection, little to no access to "MST3K" tapes, and all the other crap that you encounter when you move.

I can promise you some updates in the not-too-distant future, however, including but not limited to:

- photos to accompany each episode entry

- more references

- more episodes

Are you salivating yet? Well? Are ya'?

"Here Comes the Circus"

2008-05-30T01:05:00.002-04:00

(the lion tamer is whipping a bunch of poor lions)
Joel: John Turturro?

Well, the guy looks like John Turturro. He’s got the hair, the long face—I’m pretty sure he is John Turturro based on the evidence provided. John Turturro is one of the best character actors in the Biz today (along with—in my opinion—William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, and Joe Vitterelli). He’s usually in a lot of the Coen Brothers’ movies like Raising Arizona and Barton Fink. My favorite would have to be O Brother, Where Art Thou? which is about a trio of fugitives from a chain gang (Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and George Clooney) who travel the Southern countryside looking for secreted money. It’s worth seeing for the soundtrack alone (the soundtrack topped the charts for a very long time), and to hear George Clooney cry, “Damn! We’re in a tight spot!” several times.

(clowns are boxing)
Joel: It’s a full contact version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?!
Crow (in a Richard Burton voice): Don’t talk about our clown, Martha.

Wow, another reference to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And a Richard Burton impression thrown in for good measure. Burton’s actual line is something like, “Don’t talk about the kid, that’s all.” The kid being their son, who just turned sixteen and is returning home from…running away? Gee does what I just wrote seem pointless. You’ll see why. Although George (Burton) and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) seem to like abusing each other verbally, I don’t believe there was actual hitting involved. Actually, Burton might’ve thrown Taylor against a car. Pretty sure that wasn’t in the script though. If you want to hear a really good Richard Burton impression, watch Scrooged; Bill Murray does a great impression in a scene at the homeless shelter.

(lions are growling and standing on their haunches and sticking their paws in the air)
Servo (growling): Stella!

Man, how he did that was funny. He’s imitating the famous scene from…no, not Gone with the Wind but close…Streetcar Named Desire! Yes, that’s it! Ah ha ha ha! Marlon Brando stands at the foot of the steps of his and Kim Hunter’s rather nice New Orleans (or “N’Awlins”) home and yells “Stella!” to make her come down. She does. He does it again at the end of the movie, but this time she doesn’t come down. He keeps yelling. Boy is it funny. Vivien Leigh is in this. As if you didn’t know.

(a woman is being tossed around by elephants)
Joel: Three elephants and a little lady!

Three Men and a Little Lady was the sequel to the somehow-popular Three Men and a Baby, which starred Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, and Steve Guttenberg. I didn’t much care for Three Men and a Baby when it came out, so I definitely didn’t care for its sequel. It bombed, if I remember correctly. The first was about three men who, well, take care of a baby, and one can only assume that the sequel was about three men who took care of the baby-turned-little-girl. Babies have a way of doing that. Not all the time (sometimes they turn into little boys) but sometimes, if biology class taught me anything.

"A Date with Your Family"

2008-05-30T01:04:00.001-04:00

Narrator: Now Brother plays the butler…
Servo: From Remains of the Day!

Actually, Anthony Hopkins played the butler from Remains of the Day. Not that this boy wasn’t good—I’m sure he could have played an emotionally repressed, socially awkward man (especially with the material presented here)—but I think Hopkins was a lot better. Remains of the Day stars Hopkins and Emma Thompson as a butler and a maid who come thisclose to starting some kind of relationship (dare I say romance?), but Hopkins’ character is so shy and so devoted to their boss that the opportunity passes by. Christopher Reeves is also in this. This is not everyone’s cup of tea—in this fast-paced world, where everyone drinks gallons of mocha-cappucino-grande-I-don’t-know-what and thus are about as high-strung as hummingbirds on crystal meth, some people find this movie slow and depressing. They’re wrong. This is a great movie.

"Speech: Platform Posture and Appearance"

2008-05-30T01:03:00.001-04:00

(a woman with a big hat)
Mike: Wouldn’t it be loverly?

One of the famous songs from My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. It’s about a snippy linguist (Harrison, natch) who takes a Cockney flower girl (Hepburn, not so natch) under his wing so as to bring her up all high society-like. This is a really great musical (they don’t make ‘em like they used to, folks—in fact, they don’t make ‘em at all anymore). It won Best Picture, Best Actor (Harrison), and a whole lot of technical awards. Hepburn was glaringly missing from the nominations. Grrr. I had the biggest crush on Rex Harrison when I was a kid, which is kind of strange, if you think about it. While all the other little girls were fawning over their New Kids on the Block t-shirts, key chains, tapes (we didn’t have CDs back in the day, kids, just bulky tapes), dolls, etc., I was in love with Rex Harrison. And I’m none the worse off for it, I assure you. This is considered a romantic movie, but you’ll notice that, not once in the whole bloody thing do Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins ever kiss. They don’t even hug. The closest they come is dancing. Not even at the end, when they make up and realize they love each other. And yet I still think this is a romantic movie, perfect for a six- (seven? Perhaps eight?) year old girl who wasn’t going to be taken in by the stark commercialism of early ‘90’s pop music. So there.

"What About Juvenile Delinquency?"

2008-05-30T01:01:00.001-04:00

(a boy walks slowly through the empty halls of his high school until he sees the ‘gang’ he’s trying to get out of. He grudgingly walks toward them. Tom whistles a little tune and Crow and Joel accompany it.)

The tune they’re singing/whistling is from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, an old spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is in a showdown with the guy who killed his brother/father/girlfriend/something and this song is playing as they’re about to draw. Off topic though, man was that gang intimidating. What with their high-water trousers and addiction to really cool pens and all. Sheesh. I wholly believe that my posse could take their posse at any time. Especially now, seeing as most of them have to be at least fifty by now.

"The Selling Wizard"

2008-05-30T01:00:00.002-04:00

(a shot of a silhouetted freezer against a red backdrop. Tom makes low, eerie wails.)

This is an allusion to the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where a giant black monolith looms before the camera, as do several planets in space. The wailing Tom makes is what Stanley Kubrick believed was suitable music for the scene. Just a chorus wailing, that’s it. But, if he was going for an overall eeriness, he got it. 2001 is probably one of the most fascinating movies out there, if you have a really long attention span. Go see it just for the final scene with the time tunnel. “My God, it’s full of stars!”

Red Zone Cuba

2008-05-30T00:57:00.003-04:00

(the fugitives hop a train)
Mike (imitating Griffin): This train is bound for glory…this train…

This is a line from Arlo Guthrie’s classic country song, “Bound for Glory”. It also happens to be the title of the 1972 movie Bound for Glory, a biopic about Woody Guthrie, starring who else but David Carradine, John Carradine’s son! A little information on John first—he’s said to have the most extensive filmography ever (about 200 films). Unfortunately, this means that he had to do a lot of bad movies, like The Undead, and this film. But he also did amazing films like The Grapes of Wrath. David Carradine might have had a more fortunate career—sure, he’s been in a lot of crap, but he was in Mean Streets, Bound for Glory, Boxcar Bertha, and the Kill Bill movies. Then again, now he's doing commercials for phone books. Maybe it's a toss-up.

The Pumaman

2008-05-30T00:56:00.002-04:00

(a car is following another car to a British manor)
Servo: Goldfinger is following Octopussy and Oddjob!
(a shot of that gold mask thing)
Servo: Goldfinger got Mike Tyson!

Ha. These are both references to two James Bond films—the first being Goldfinger (with Sir Sean Connery as Bond) and the other being Octopussy (with Sir Roger Moore as Bond). Goldfinger is, in most people’s opinions, the better of the two, as Bond matches wits against the gold-obsessed Auric Goldfinger (played by Gert Frobe) and his big, deadly, hat-throwing henchman Oddjob while trying to get the cool pilot Pussy Galore—which, if you want to be like Sean Connery, you should pronounce “Pushay”—to play for the other team (in more ways than one wink wink). The best part about Goldfinger—besides Shirley Bassey’s theme song, and the sight of Sean Connery in a teeny terry-cloth jumper—is arguably the fight between Bond and Oddjob. Very cool. Unfortunately I haven’t seen Octopussy…yet…but I do know that Octopussy runs a circus, and Bond and her get together, and Louis Jourdan is in the movie, and he was also in The VIPs with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. And there’s a fight between Bond and a bad guy on the wing of a plane. So, had you been looking out a window on the plane and had seen them fighting, you could have yelled, “There’s a man on the wing of the plane!” and not get into too much trouble. Just saying. It should be noted that not only do Pushay Galore and Octopussy have the same…um…word in their names, but they both run circuses: Octopussy and her Amazonian woman circus, and Miss Galore and her “Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus” (begin the Monty Python theeeme…now.)

Master Ninja II

2008-05-30T00:54:00.001-04:00

(Joel and the Bots are thinking up good animal sidekicks for TV characters)
Joel: How about “The Avengers”?
Servo: For Emma Peel, a newt. For John Steed, let’s see…a spitting cobra or a duck.

If you’ve ever seen my other pages, you’ll notice that “The Avengers” is my favorite TV show. It ran from 1962 to 1969, with John Steed (Patrick Macnee) as the one constant character in the series, while his partners came and went—in the very beginning there was Dr. Keel, Dr. King, and Venus Smith. Then there was Cathy Gale (played by Honor Blackman, better known as Pussy Galore from Goldfinger). After her was Emma Peel, and after her, Linda Thorson. As you might surmise from Servo’s conversation, the episodes with Steed and Emma Peel (played by Dame Diana Rigg) are the most well known (and, in my opinion, the best). But I don’t know—I don’t see Mrs. Peel having a newt for a sidekick. I see something a little more chic—you know, perhaps a cat or a somewhat violent swan. And while I don’t think a spitting cobra would be a good sidekick in general, I do see a duck working out for Steed. And if not that, a bush baby, perhaps? Coincidentally, George Lazenby (who starred in Master Ninja II) was James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which also starred Diana Rigg. While the movie was initially considered one of the worst of the James Bond movies, it’s gradually attained the respect it deserves. It’s actually incredibly good, with lots of action and multi-dimensional characters (rare for a Bond movie). Dame Diana, by the way, played Bond’s love interest—and the only woman to ever actually become Mrs. Bond (no, Kissy Suzuki does not count).

Phantom Planet

2008-05-30T00:49:00.003-04:00

Old Man: We must talk about your future.
Mike: Plastics, Benjamin.

One of the famous lines from Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (wow, is The Graduate becoming the new Gone with the Wind? It’s not? Okay…) See what I had to say about The Graduate in the Prince of Space section.

Old Man: Show him the prisoner…
Mike: Yeah, we’ve got every episode on tape! Great show.

Not a movie reference, but I like the television show so much that I’ll explain it. “The Prisoner” was a British spy show, and the brainchild of Patrick McGoohan, whom you might remember as the creator and star of “Secret Agent” or “Danger Man” (or, you might remember the theme song better—“Secret Agent Man”). “The Prisoner” was about a secret agent (McGoohan, natch) who quits his job and is subsequently imprisoned by the government in a very cool village on an isolated island. We never learn the name of this agent—he’s called Number Six—but in my opinion (and it’s a popular opinion) he’s John Drake, McGoohan’s character from “Danger Man” (reportedly, when asked by the producers if Number Six is Drake, McGoohan replied, “Yes, but we’re going to say it’s not.” McGoohan vehemently denies that Number Six was Drake). This was a really cool show mainly because it was so out there—the Village is a masterpiece in itself; it’s populated by others who had to be sent away because of what they knew. Secondly, we’re never told the whole story of what is going on; even after the last show, you’re left with lots of questions: “Who is Number Six?” “Why did Number Six quit his job so suddenly?” “What’s up with that big bouncing ball?” Unfortunately, the show only lasted for eighteen episodes. Heigh ho. But “The Prisoner” has gone on to become quite a cult classic; it was even spoofed in an episode of “The Simpsons”. I find it to be in the same vein as “The Avengers”: wildly creative and offbeat, but also very chic. Catch it if you can; I don’t think it’s shown on television anymore, but A&E does have every episode on DVD.

Astronaut: Maybe she’s protecting me…
Tom: Henry Fonda.

He does sound like Henry Fonda! He does! Doesn’t look like him, of course. Henry Fonda is considered one of the best American actors ever—he starred in The Grapes of Wrath, The Oxbow Incident, 12 Angry Men, and On Golden Pond, among a lot of other great films. He won several Oscars, and is also the patriarch of one of America’s acting dynasties—he’s the father of Peter and Jane Fonda, and grandfather of Bridget Fonda.

Old Man: You saw what happened to the rock.
Mike: I shtarred in it with Nicholash Cage.

He’s doing an impersonation of Sir Sean Connery, star of The Rock. He’s also James Bond—sure, there have been other James Bonds (namely George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig; not to mention David Niven, but that’s a whole other story), but he was the first, and in my opinion the best. Sean Connery, as everybody knows, is Scottish, as was the James Bond in Ian Fleming’s novels (Moore and Craig, on the other hand, are English; Brosnan is Irish; Dalton is, I think, Welsh; and Lazenby is Australian). Yes, that’s right: James Bond films are based on novels. James Bond was a literary character before he was a film character. Remember that. And pick up On Her Majesty’s Secret Service from the library while you’re at it.

(people are moving those little weapons for that challenge…thing…hell, who knows…)
Crow: Hey, those field goals belong to Al Pacino!

Al Pacino is—according to IMDb—5 foot 6, which is tall compared to, oh say, me—but according to my mother (who is two inches taller than me, and has a better knowledge of the world), is very short compared to most other men. Before you go making fun of him when you see him on the street, just remember that Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra were about 5 foot 8, Peter Lorre was 5 foot 5, and Dustin Hoffman is 5 foot 5 ½. Don’t let them make fun of you, Al—it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

The Unearthly

2008-05-30T00:44:00.003-04:00

(After Crow and Servo invent a very elaborate board game based on the movie, Joel gets wrapped up in reading the directions until Movie Sign, causing Servo to go stalking off)
Crow: Mister, can we have our ball back?

Arguably the best line in A Hard Day’s Night, starring—of course—the Beatles. It’s from the scene where the Mean Old Man in their train car turns off their radio, and bums the Beatles out (never a smart thing to do), and they do a number of funny things to piss him off, including somehow running alongside the outside of the train and yelling, “Can we have our ball back?” Very funny. A Hard Day’s Night, like Yellow Submarine, is full of hilarious one-liners. There are also funny little off-the-mark things like when, in the makeup room, Paul turns to the camera with a blow-dryer in his hand and yells, “Zap!”, or when John cuts the measuring tape and says, “I now declare this bridge open!” or when George says, “Well I was quite prepared for that eventuality,” or when Ringo goes to the London pub and pretty much bothers every other customer, or when John says, “Oh, he’s reading the Queen! That’s an in-joke you know,” and directly after that Paul yells, “Shazaam!” and promptly falls down, or when…

(At the end of the movie, Joel, the ‘bots, and the Mads talk like the Dead End Kids, see?)

Read my bit about the Dead End Kids in the Overdrawn at the Memory Bank section. Everybody actually did a really good job of sounding like them, despite the fact that they’re about twenty-years older than the kids were when they made the films (well, maybe not—you know how child stars are).

(Two people are walking into a house…somewhere)
Servo: What is this, Dog on a Hot Tin Roof?

Elizabeth Taylor. Paul Newman. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. What’s the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof, you ask? Well, just stayin’ on it, ah guess. Long as she can.

(The Nurse checks the dead man’s pulse)
Joel: Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.
(The Doctor is playing the organ)
Crow: I’m sorry, I can’t think of the ending.
Servo: And I can’t think of anything else!

My, there are a lot of Groucho Marx references in this episode. But, yes, they’re all Groucho Marx references. He, of course, is part of the Marx Brothers, and made a whole lot of classic comedies, including but not limited to: Monkey Business, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, and (my personal favorite) Horse Feathers. Groucho was the leader of the pack, known for his greasepaint mustache and glasses—very irreverent and sarcastic. Harpo had a blonde fright wig, was called so because he played the harp, and never spoke. Chico spoke in a fake Italian accent, was called so because he “went after the chicks”, and usually played criminals. Zeppo was the straight man; the normal one. There was also another, Gummo, who never starred in their films, but was in their vaudeville act. Zeppo ultimately left the act and became an agent for many Hollywood stars, including Barbara Stanwyck.

(The Nurse is pressing switches.)
Servo: Up Up Up!

This is actually yelled by the Beatles on several occasions in Help!, particularly in the scene where mad scientists try to get the sacrificial ring off of Ringo, and use big machines to do so, but it only results in Ringo’s pants falling down. Help! was the Beatles’ second movie, and isn’t considered up to par with the masterpiece that is A Hard Day’s Night. John Lennon himself called the movie “crap” but of course at the time that he said it he was rather pissed off at everything. While it might not be considered as good as AHDN or Yellow Submarine, it is better than Magical Mystery Tour, you have to admit. I actually like Help! a lot—it’s funny, mindless fluff, which can be a good thing sometimes.

(The Weird Guy is complaining about the breakfast)
Crow: Don’t start with me, George.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Again. Starring Richard Burton as George, and Elizabeth Taylor as Martha. It was actually the first film for director Mike Nichols, who went on to make The Graduate. The cinematography was done by the great Maxwell Wexler, who’s actually referenced several times on “MST3K”.

Touch of Satan

2008-05-30T00:42:00.002-04:00

(Jody and her Dad [well, not her dad, it turns out. Some guy, probably a minion of Satan] have a heartfelt talk.)
Crow (singing): Is this the little demon I carried?

A take on the song “Sunrise Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof, which is actually referenced a lot on “MST3K” for some reason (a lot of musicals are referenced on this show, I’m guessing because the Mike, Joel, and the ‘bots just have such fine singing voices). Fiddler on the Roof is based on the Broadway play about a Russian Jewish milkman who watches his three daughters fall in love in untraditional ways—one marries a (rather dorky, in my opinion) tailor instead of the old wealthy family friend picked out for her, another marries a Communist and runs off to Siberia, and the youngest marries a Catholic (!). And then all the Jews are run out of town. It’s a strange movie, but has a lot of great, memorable songs including “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Masel Tov,” “Miracle of Miracles,” “Tradition,” and “Sunrise Sunset”, which the father sings at his eldest daughter’s wedding (this would also explain Tom’s reference to it in Manos: the Hands of Fate).

(various scenes of a shed)
Crow: Do you know what everybody calls her? Jody “Two Shed” Strickland.
(when the shed burns down)
Crow: Now they’ll have to call her Jody “No Shed” Strickland.

This actually refers to a bit from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, in which Eric Idle interviews Terry Jones, who plays a musician whose nickname is “Two Shed,” despite the fact that he only owns one shed (although he was thinking of building another). It also contains a line that always makes me laugh: “Get your own musical program, you fairy!” Now if you can’t laugh at that, then what can you laugh at, I ask you?

Catalina Caper

2008-05-30T00:28:00.006-04:00

Crow: You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and cut to the boat!

Said by Lauren Bacall in the classic Howard Hawks movie To Have and Have Not, except she said, “You just put your lips together and blow.” And boy you should see Humphrey Bogart’s face afterwards. This movie is so steeped in folklore, focusing mainly on the Bogart and Bacall romance on set. This is one of the few movies where you can actually see the chemistry between the two on screen. And apparently they saw it too, because they got married three years or so later. They also made three more classic movies (well, four, if you count Two Guys from Milwaukee)—The Big Sleep, Key Largo, and Dark Passage. I have a hard time choosing between To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep as a better film—the former has a lot more chemistry between the two, but I think that the latter is, on the whole, the better film. Key Largo is a classic mostly because of Edward G. Robinson (although Claire Trevor is equally famous for it [and won the Oscar]), and Dark Passage is a “lost gem”. Any of these movies are good. Check ‘em out.

(the Guy with the Blonde Helmet is picking up chicks)
Servo: I’m casting Caligula this summer…

Okay, Caligula. Oh, Caligula. More or less a porno film starring, of all people, John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, and Malcolm McDowell. Before you go screaming away in disgust, Gielgud and McDowell don’t actually take part in the festivities, and Gielgud and McDowell would later deny that they even knew that the director would splice in pornographic scenes (Mirren, on the other hand, once referred to it as "an irresistible mix of art and genitals"). I for one believe Gielgud and McDowell—I can’t imagine Gielgud sitting at his desk and saying, “Hmm, I’ve done Hamlet, Julius Caesar—I know! I’ll do a porno!” Caligula is about the crazy Roman emperor, and had scenes with sodomy, bestiality, orgies (which is referenced here), and other great things. Poor John Gielgud. Poor, poor John Gielgud.

The Orange-Haired Kid’s Father: What’s it all about?
Joel: Alfie?

That’s from the Michael Caine comedy Alfie—about a swingin’ bachelor who thinks he knows “what it’s all about”. In the end he tries to settle down, because it’s a sixties flick and that what it was all about in the end—swinging, good-natured, groovy love. “What’s It All About?” was the theme song for Alfie, and actually popped up in Austin Powers in Goldmember, in a deleted scene, wherein all the characters sang the song. I think it was one of the funnier scenes, and don’t know why they left it out (or maybe I just like the song). Of course, when I think of the phrase, “What’s it all about?” I think of the line from Paul McCartney’s “C-Moon”, where Paul kinda squeaks it. Funny stuff. But that’s just me.

(Tommy Kirk beats someone down)
Servo: When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way.

One of the many great songs from West Side Story. I m’self love West Side Story, perhaps because I was raised on musicals and you learn to separate the Good (like West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, A Hard Day’s Night, Fiddler on the Roof, and Oliver!) from the Bad (Newsies). And then there’s the Ugly, like Catalina Caper (man, if only I could swing my troubles away, everything happening in Iraq would be All Right). West Side Story was a Romeo-and-Juliet story about a White Kid (Richard Beymer, whom you might recognize from The Longest Day) in a White Gang (the Jets) who falls in love with a Puerto Rican girl (Natalie Wood, whom you might realize from her name is not Puerto Rican [her real name is actually Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko]) who has a brother (George Chakiris) who is in a Puerto Rican Gang (the Sharks), which is the Jets’ mortal enemy. One wonders why the producers couldn’t find a real Puerto Rican to play Maria—one that could actually sing (Wood’s singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon)—but in the end it doesn’t matter, because mah girl Rita Moreno (playing Maria’s best friend) ended up with the Oscar. The best dance number is, arguably, “America”—wherein Puerto Rican boys fight with the Puerto Rican girls about which is better, the US or Puerto Rico. It is a very cool song. Also cool is “Officer Krupke” (which is just about every past, present, and future juvenile delinquent’s anthem) and, well, “Cool”, sung by Russ Tamblyn. This is a very good movie—so good that I fashioned my own little gang on the ones in the film. Forget the Crips and the Bloods, the Bluebirds are the new gang in town! We don’t do drive-by’s, but we do snap our fingers in unison, and dance. A lot.

(during the credits)
Joel: Hey, Who’s Afraid of Venita Woolf?
(the Weird Effeminate Father says something about his son)
Crow: Your son? What is this, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Servo: He’s not your son, George.

And therein lies your answer to the first reference! They’re referencing, of course, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor (who, I read, hates to be called Liz) and Richard Burton (who I learned, didn’t like to be called Dick because, he joked, “Dick…made me feel like a symbol of some kind.” Oh that Dick…). The question of who is afraid of Virginia Woolf is never actually answered. But let me inform the reader that it comes from a little song that Martha (Taylor’s character) sings while drunk. Although it should have been sung to the tune of “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?”, she sings it to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” (which people tell me is the same tune, but I swear to God it’s not. It’s not. Just listen to it). Whether that was intentional or not is beyond me. It doesn’t say anything about it in the play, and I’ve yet to go trolling around the Internet, searching for essays on symbolism and themes within the damned thing. Virginia Woolf is actually an author who killed herself. Nicole Kidman played her in the movie The Hours. It may or may not explain some things about the title of this movie, but I haven’t seen it. Perhaps I will go troll around…
Update: Ah, Sparknotes is a wonderful, wonderful thing—apparently, to be afraid of Virginia Woolf would be afraid of “the intricacies of the human heart”, which George and Martha would be afraid of because “they hide their feelings behind insults.” Ah. Thank you, Sparknotes.

(during the opening credits)
Joel: Sal Mungo, rebel without a gauze.

I think I wrote about Sal Mineo in The Crawling Hand section—he was in Rebel Without a Cause and The Longest Day, where he was the best friend of Richard Beymer, whom I previously mentioned. Rebel Without a Cause is arguably James Dean’s most famous movie; arguable, because he only starred in three (Giant, Rebel Without a Cause, and East of Eden) and all of them are classics. My personal favorite is Rebel Without a Cause, if only because of the way he yells, “You’re tearing me apart!” Very Method. Method acting, when done right, is incredible; see Marlon Brando and Dustin Hoffman. But method acting can’t help a crappy actor (get me, Edward Norton?)

TV’s Frank: Thank you, Tommy Kirk, for making us laugh about love—again.
(Joel and the ‘bots repeat this line throughout the movie.)

That incredibly bizarre statement was actually from a promo for Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl, starring Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason (who was, for a time, married to Neil Simon). The movie was about a young man (Dreyfuss) and a divorced woman (Mason) who share an apartment and fall in love. Dreyfuss won an Oscar for his role. The promo, if I’m not mistaken (which I may well be, hell) says, in as earnest a voice as Frank’s, “Thank you, Neil Simon, for making us laugh about love. Again.” So there you go.

(a pack of girls are taking a long walk off a short pier)
Crow: I hope I get it. I really hope I get it.

The first song from A Chorus Line, the famous Broadway musical. It was made into a film in 1985, starring Michael Douglas as the director of a musical who auditions hundreds of dancers for his new show. That’s the whole plot. Just auditions, and people singing about their auditions, and why they’re auditioning, etc. The most famous song is “One”—“One singular sensation/ every little step she takes [doodly doodly]”, although the song “I Can Do That” is pretty good also, as is "What I Did For Love" (which was also referenced in an MST3K episode, but I'm having trouble remembering which one. This is my father’s favorite musical. And no, he is in fact straight.

Sidehackers

2008-05-30T00:21:00.004-04:00

(Rommel is running down the road [tryin’ to loosen his load/ he’s got his dead girlfriend on his mi-ind])
Tom: Is it safe? It’s not safe. Is it safe? It’s not safe.

That’s one of the famous lines (if not the only famous line) from Marathon Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Hoffman is a runner who learns that old dentist Olivier was once a Nazi. The “Is it safe?” line comes from the part where Olivier tortures Hoffman by drilling into his teeth. After he and his Nazi thugs let Hoffman go, Hoffman spends a long time running away from them (and he’s got a nice six-pack thing going too). I’d be careful if I were Hoffman. I once heard about a guy who had major dental surgery and then played football shortly thereafter, and he died of blood clot to his brain or some such thing. Just warning ya, Hoffman. It’s not safe.

(during the mind-numbingly boring race scene)
Crow: Throw me the whip!
Tom: Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip!
Crow: Throw me the whip!

God only knows why exactly they chose to reference Raiders of the Lost Ark during the racing scene, but they did, and it’s done, but the confusion still remains. I’m going to say that one second of Raiders of the Lost Ark is more exciting than all of Sidehackers, and furthermore that the end credits of Raiders of the Lost Ark is more exciting than that damned race scene. I mean it. I’ll give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt and say that the movie accidentally slipped into some black hole-ish dimension where things happen, but nothing really happens at all. The scene Crow and Tom reference, by the way, is at the very beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones has stolen a South American fertility idol, and his guide is about to double-cross him. You may or may not recognize his guide—it’s Alfred Molina, who later came to fame in character roles, most notably and recently playing Diego Rivera in Frida and Doc Oc in the second Spider Man.

(throughout the movie, whenever Rommel’s name is mentioned, Joel and the ‘bots yell “You magnificent bastard!”)
(After his girlfriend is killed, Rommel bursts into his friend’s home)
Crow: It was Patton! He read my book!

Okay. General Erwin Rommel was one of Nazi Germany’s greatest military leaders. He fought mostly in North Africa, which is why he’s known as the “Desert Fox”. Rommel is considered by some as the Good Nazi, because he didn’t buy into the whole Nazi ideology (i.e. master race, etc.)—and some say he even rebelled against it openly (which would get most people killed, but he was so beneficial to the Nazi army that he was kept in high position). If I remember correctly, he was so jaded with Nazism that he either supported or assisted an attempt on Hitler’s life. The assassination attempt failed, and rather than suffer the indignity of being labeled a traitor by the Nazi party and executed, he was allowed to kill himself. He did indeed write a book about his life and experiences (before he died, of course), and Patton did indeed read it. George S. Patton was his “worthy adversary” in the North African campaign (he ultimately won the battle, obviously). So what does any of this have to do with movies? I’m glad you asked. All the lines mentioned above come from the top-notch biopic on Patton called, simply, Patton. It starred George C. Scott in the title role, and Joel and the ‘bots are obviously imitating him when they yell, “You magnificent bastard!” George C. Scott is an incredible actor (in my opinion much better than Brando ever was)—if you want to check out some of his best films, go rent The Hospital, Patton (he won an Oscar for it, by the way, which is amazing, considering how he was so against the Oscars in the first place, calling it a “meat parade”), and Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (just ask the video store clerk for Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. You’ll run out of breath saying the full title, and its more than likely that the li’l film student will know what you’re talking about anyway).

(the whole movie’s about side-hacking.)

It might interest you to know that there’s another movie out there that involves side-hacking, called Little Fauss and Big Halsey, starring Robert Redford, Lauren Hutton, and Michael J. Pollard. Although the movie didn’t center the whole story on the “sport” (I’m apprehensive to call side-hacking a sport, just as I’m apprehensive to call hunting, race car driving, or golf a sport), it did mention it a couple of times, as Redford buys a motorcycle built for side-hacking and wants Pollard to be his side-hacking partner. Pollard declines, fearing that the sheer magnetism of Robert Redford might cause him to melt in his presence. Or maybe it’s because Redford’s character is an ass (hot though he may be) who stole Pollard’s girlfriend. Would I recommend this film? Probably, if you like to watch motorcycle racing and/or hot blonde guys with no shirts, or if you want to hear a soundtrack sung entirely by Johnny Cash, with songs written by Bob Dylan and Carl Perkins. And a bit of trivia for you all: Robert Redford and Michael J. Pollard hated each other. Which is entirely understandable, really.

Riding with Death

2008-05-30T00:19:00.002-04:00

(Before the movie starts, Mike blows up another planet. Crows goes on a tear, ultimately taking Mike’s collar in his hands (which I thought weren’t supposed to work, but never mind) and shaking him, yelling, “What did you do with that planet you silly, stupid old man? One of us is going to jail and it’s not going to be me!”)

This is taken from the scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where Uncle Billy has misplaced the money from the bank (actually, his nemesis Mr. Potter stole it) and he and George Bailey retrace his every step searching for it. Poor guys never do find it (because Mr. Potter stole it) and George—who’s always been kind of high-strung since his hopes and dreams to “get out of this crummy little town and see the world!” were smashed as soon as he said “I do” to Mary “Down-the-Street” Hatchet and even more so when they started having about a dozen kids (well, maybe just four)—starts ripping the poor little old man apart. He pretty much says exactly what Crow says here, although instead of “planet”, insert “money”. I realize that I haven’t actually said anything about It’s a Wonderful Life; I usually just note how many times they reference it in their shows. Well, it’s definitive Capra-corn—movies by Frank Capra that were usually light-hearted and ended with everyone being relatively happy. This was James Stewart’s first movie since World War II. Despite the fact that, as an Air Force pilot, he became the most highly decorated actor to serve in WWII, his contract forbade any films he made to reference or laud the fact. Which is rather noble if you think about it, but Stewart was a class act anyway and so it isn’t surprising. It’s a Wonderful Life was one of those rare movies that don’t do so well upon initial release, but gradually gain popularity. It’s now considered one of the greatest American films made, and is required viewing in the holiday season.

Squirm

2008-05-30T00:13:00.003-04:00

(the Mother is looking out the window)
Crow: I wonder when Ashley Wilkes will arrive.

Damn it if, from the whole show, that’s the only line I remember. Okey-dokey, Ashley Wilkes was, of course, a character in Gone with the Wind. He was a genteel Southern soldier whom Scarlett was in love with, and he was played by Leslie Howard, who was in one of my other favorite movies, The Petrified Forest. If you have a chance to see The Petrified Forest, then do—it’s a little stagy, but it’s got Howard, Bette Davis, and the not-quite-famous-yet Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee. There are a lot of great lines, including my favorite (if only because of the way Howard says it): “I’ve got a dollar.” Anyway, back to Howard—it seems like every legendary actress had a crush on him when they were girls. Or at least two: Vivien Leigh and Lauren Bacall. Leigh got to act with him, of course, in Gone with the Wind, but unfortunately Bacall never had the chance. He died while on a war bonds tour—his plane was shot down by the Germans during World War II; the Germans mistakenly thought that Winston Churchill was aboard (no joke). Leslie Howard is sometimes overlooked today, but he really was a talented actor (who only got into acting as therapy after being injured in WWI) and was in a multitude of great films, including Of Human Bondage, Pygmalion, and Intermezzo, along with those previously mentioned. Here’s an interesting piece o’ trivia regarding Gone with the Wind: the boy who played Ashley’s son Beau would actually work with Vivien Leigh again, in Streetcar Named Desire: he’d play the young sailor helping Leigh off of the streetcar at the very beginning.

The Killer Shrews

2008-05-30T00:10:00.002-04:00

(everyone’s standing in front of a wet bar)
Servo: “What a dump.” Who said that, George?

Yes! A Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? reference! Elizabeth Taylor says this to Richard Burton at the very beginning of the movie, when they’ve just gotten back from the staff party, are drunk, and are waiting for Nick and Honey to come over. Taylor’s eating chicken and asking Burton what Bette Davis movie it’s from, and Richard Burton says one of my favorite lines from the movie (if only because of the way he says it, and because I can mimic him perfectly): “Chicago! It’s called Chicago.” Of course it wasn’t Chicago, and thus he must bare the wrath of Liz (“Don’t you know anything?”). It’s all hilarious in a thank-God-this-isn’t-me kind of way. The name of the Bette Davis movie was, by the way, Beyond the Forest, and the actor they couldn’t remember was Joseph Cotton. Here’s a bit of trivia for you all: Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is the first movie to use the word “bugger” in it.

(the Hero is wiping his bloody mouth)
Joel: My mouth’s bleedin’, Bert!

Another It’s a Wonderful Life reference!! AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Final Sacrifice

2008-05-30T00:05:00.004-04:00

(Troy is looking up at the temple)
Mike: Audrey Hepburn? No, it’s just Troy.

Troy, unfortunately for whoever played him, looks like Audrey Hepburn. Not because Audrey Hepburn is ugly (not at all), but because, well, Troy is a boy and boys generally shouldn’t look like waif-ish women. Audrey Hepburn is considered one of the greatest actresses of all time—up there with Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, and Bette Davis. And nowadays I’m inclined to agree with them; she certainly had a kind of charm about her. She was the star of every genre of film: Sabrina, Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Green Mansions, Robin and Marion, Charade, and (probably my favorite of hers) My Fair Lady being the best among her films. She won an Oscar—for Roman Holiday—and she’s always at the top of Best Actresses lists. Little bit of irony: Audrey Hepburn beat Julie Andrews out for the role of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, which created a kind of controversy, since Andrews popularized the role on Broadway. Warner Bros. needed a big name for their film. Andrews took up Mary Poppins instead, and won an Oscar for it, while Hepburn was snubbed by the Academy. Garn.

(Troy is curled up in the back of the truck)
Servo: He’s the Tin Drum kid.

The Tin Drum is a German film (based on a German book) about a little German boy who refuses to grow up, so he beats nonstop on his little German drum and somehow manages to not grow up. He stays a little boy forever, at least until he decides to grow up. All this takes place during World War II, by the way. This may sound like a delightful children’s film but it actually is not. Far from it—it was briefly banned in the US in 1997 after it was considered “child pornography”. The little German boy has German sex with a German girl. I myself can’t opine on whether or not it’s child pornography because I never saw it, although I did read the book. This film naturally became rather controversial, since the movie won an Academy award for Best Foreign Film. Wonder how Servo knew about it. The perv. (Kidding! Kidding! No angry letters!)

Quest of the Delta Knights

2008-05-29T23:53:00.005-04:00

(some strange anachronistic Southern belles are roaming around a slave market)
Crow: Ashley Wilkes is coming a-callin’!

Oh my God. A Gone with the Wind reference. And I didn’t even have to stretch for it. Wow. It’s—it’s just been so…so long, you know? A torrent of memories flooded into my mind when dear, dear Crow said the above line. I…I think I’m going to…cry. Excuse me…

(Olivia Hussey is pacing)
Tom (singing): A time for us/ to be in a crappy film.

The more I hear that line, the more I’m sure it’s a reference to Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet (which Olivia Hussey starred in)—specifically, Nino Rota’s famous theme for it. I’m apprehensive to call it as such because I don’t remember it having any words, but hell, it could have—after all, the Gone with the Wind theme was reissued as a pop song by the Duprees. In any case, Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet (not to be confused with the lesser Romeo + Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann) is a very good adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, using actual teenagers in the leads. Look for a really young Michael York as Tybalt. Or, if you want to see an even younger Michael York, watch Zefferelli’s Taming of the Shrew (starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor), his screen debut.

(the Girl is sulking. Bah.)
Crow: It’s a Nicole Kidman in the wild.

Okey dokey. Nicole Kidman is an Aussie actress who first made her name as “Tom Cruise’s Wife”, and then, fortunately, showed herself to be a damn good actress. Her big season was summer 2001, wherein she starred in Moulin Rouge! (for which she garnered an Oscar nod) and The Others, both commercial and critical successes. She subsequently made Cold Mountain, based on the bestseller by Charles Frazier. And, what’s more, it was filmed right where I live! It was filmed on my college campus (we get a surprising amount of movies filmed in South Carolina), and I got to watch them film a few scenes, as a matter of fact. I personally like Nicole Kidman a lot (I’m a big Moulin Rouge! fan)—I pretty much like the whole Aussie Posse (them that I know of), and I hear they all hang out together (Kidman’s apparently been friends with Russell Crowe since they were sixteen), which I think is rather neat. They all usually all sit together at the Golden Globes. What I’m wondering is, did they let Mel Gibson sit with them? Would they have allowed it? Or did he perhaps sit on the floor beside them, or in between their table and the uh “20 Mil Club” that he belongs to? Could you see a 20 Mil Table? Gibson, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Will Smith, and…uh…hell, who else gets 20 million a movie?

Scary Peasant Lady: (Cockney dialect) It’ll bay a noice die if it dahsn’t rine…
Crow: Garn.

No, they’re not saying “gone” or “yarn” or even “gong”—they’re saying “garn”, or “go on”, in Audrey Hepburn-Cockney speak. Sort of like, “Get out of town” or “Stop pulling my leg” or “You bloody lying sod get out of here before I get out my rifle and don’t you ever come back you bloody guttersnipe or I’ll tell your mother on ya!!!” Well, maybe not like the last one but close. Audrey Hepburn plays Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, and keeps telling Rex Harrison’s Professor Higgins to “garn” or howls maniacally whenever he talks about throwing her out onto the street. This is a romantic comedy, by the by. I really like it myself—my favorite song is “I Could Have Danced All Night”, although “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” and “Get Me to the Church on Time” are usually the perennial favorites. I always wondered if Eliza Doolittle was related to Dr. Doolittle (also played by Rex Harrison, coincidentally) but then my teachers would rap their rulers on my desk and yell, “Stop daydreaming you little wretch or you’ll never amount to anything!” And by God they were right.

(T is yelling in slo-mo as his mother gets beat down)
Crow (flatly): My boat.

I myself have never seen Waterworld. As it’s become one of the most infamous movies of the 90’s, I’m not quite sure I want to. Actually, I did see the scene where Kevin Costner makes distilled water out of his own urine. Whoopee!! Isn’t that just screaming cinematic greatness? Waterworld (which is what Crow is referencing) was kind of a prelude to Kevin Costner’s even worse movie, Postman. Christ that was a ship wreck if there ever was one. Costner used to be a big name in Hollywood, and I suppose he still is a bit of a legend, since back in the day he actually did make good movies (JFK, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, etc.) but then…something just went wrong. Along came the aforementioned movies, followed by Dragonfly, Message in a Bottle, and some baseball movie whose name escapes me. It’s a bit like John Travolta. Having done classics like Grease and Saturday Night Fever, he went into a slump with the Look Who’s Talking movies and other trash. Then he came back full force (Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty) only to make over-the-top potboilers (Swordfish) and scientology sci-fi crap (Battlefield Earth). Strange, the parallels. Anyway, I haven’t seen Waterworld so I don’t know if Kevin Costner says “My boat” as flatly as Crow does. I can only assume so, since they also made of it as such in Attack of the She Creature.

(T and Leonardo are walking around the super-secret cave)
Servo (singing): Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?

Actually a reference to a Bee Gees song, “New York Mining Disaster 1941”. Not a reference to any sort of Sylvester Stallone, big-budget disaster movie. Sorry, folks.

(The Tree People are running around and screaming like banshees)
Mike: So Ewoks grew up to be these guys?

You know, if you think about it, this movie is a lot like Star Wars. You’ve got one whiny boy with magical powers on a quest to defeat evil (T in this film, Luke Skywalker in Star Wars), a snippy princess whom the whiny magic boy has a bit of a crush on (Athena in this film, and Leia in the other), and a smarmy braggart who’s also got a bit of a crush on the princess (Leonardo “from Vinci” in this film, Han Solo in the other). All of whom join together to save the world (or, in Star Wars’ case, the galaxy), from dark powers. Also, in Star Wars, Luke’s father turns out to be the bad buy, Darth Vader. While in Quest of the Delta Knights, T’s father turns out to be played by the same guy who plays the bad guy. Huh, huh? And, there are incredibly annoying forest creatures (Ewoks in Star Wars, which Mike is referencing). And, in the scene in Delta Knights, when The Bad David Warner and his henchmen walk into Archimedes’ Cave, one henchman hits his head on the entrance (a similar thing happened to a Stormtrooper in Star Wars). That there is conclusive proof that Quest of the Delta Knights is a rip-off of Star Wars, and not a very good one at that. Bah.

(Same as above)
Crow: I’m starting to like Willow.

Whoo boy. Willow was one of many fantasy films that came out in the 1980’s. It starred Val Kilmer as a thief, and Warwick Davis as the title character. It was also directed by Ron Howard, who fortunately went on to make good movies like Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. It also features a particularly annoying Kevin Pollack as a little sprite of some sort who lives in the rafters of a bar. Ugh. There was an outcrop of mystical movies in the ‘80’s, for some reason, which included Excalibur (about the Arthurian legends, it starred Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne, and a young Liam Neeson), The Dark Crystal (a very good Jim Henson movie), Legend (starring Tom Cruise, with Tim Curry as the Devil!), Labyrinth (another Jim Henson movie, starring a very young Jennifer Connolly and David Bowie [!]), The Never-Ending Story (the first movie I ever cried at [specifically, when the horse died in that swamp]), and—probably the best of the lot—Ladyhawke, starring Rutger Hauer as a knight who turns into a wolf at night, Michelle Pfeiffer as his One True Love, who turns into a hawk in the daytime, and Matthew Broderick as a kid named Mouse. Ladyhawke is far from a perfect film (Matthew Broderick’s British accent is grating, and the 80’s synthesizer music nearly wrecks everything), but the fight scene wherein Hauer, clad in black, rides into a cathedral on his Friesian and battles an evil bishop is bloody great. See it just for that scene. Oh yeah, and Michelle Pfeiffer sports some super-short, 1980’s Meg Ryan hair. That alone is reason to see it.

T: Who’s Kato?
Crow: Clouseau’s houseboy.

Ha. Okay, Kato was indeed Clouseau’s houseboy in the Pink Panther movies. He was played by Burt Kwouk, and if I remember correctly, he never (or at least rarely) spoke, although he did scream a lot when attacking Clouseau (played by the one and only Peter Sellers, except in the films made after he died…uh…of course). There were eight Pink Panther movies, beginning with A Shot in the Dark (the only Pink Panther movie not to have “Pink Panther” within the title, or the pink cartoon panther in the opening credits) in 1964, and ending with Son of the Pink Panther in 1993 (that starred Roberto Benigni, and was awful). Just because I know you care, the others are Inspector Clouseau, Return of the Pink Panther, Pink Panther Strikes Again, Revenge of the Pink Panther (which was Peter Sellers’ last Pink Panther film), Trail of the Pink Panther, and Curse of the Pink Panther.

Devil Doll

2008-05-29T23:37:00.004-04:00

(people are talking at the party. That’s about it.)
Crow: This thing is miked like an Altman film!

You can’t bloody well hear what they’re saying. I tried listening in about five times; couldn’t do it. The only way I realized that that German lady was a prostitute was when Mike and the ‘Bots said something about it. The fact that you can’t hear what the hell the principal players at the party are saying, while you can hear every surrounding extra, is why Crow alluded to Robert Altman. Altman did his sound skillfully, and had a reason to include surrounding dialogue; I can only guess Devil Doll does it because they have cheap sound equipment. Altman has made several classic films, including but not limited to, M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Nashville. I think the first film I ever saw of his was Gosford Park, which I loved, not only because of its cast, but also because of the dialogue. I came out of this movie not fully knowing who everyone was or their relationship with one another, but I kept thinking that I would have loved to follow these characters around and listen to their conversations. Despite his smashing credits, Altman’s never won a Best Directing Oscar. He was last up for in 2001, but lost to Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind. I’m a bit at a loss for debating whether this was deserved or not, because I really, really liked A Beautiful Mind. While Howard probably should have won an Oscar for Apollo 13, why didn’t Altman win for any of the above classics? Argh. In any case, he did get an honorary Oscar in 2006 (in his speech he famously admitted to having open heart surgery only a year or two before). His last film was A Prairie Home Companion, based on the NPR radio show; it's an amazing movie in itself, but bittersweet in that Altman died a few months after his release. He's one of my favorite directors; I've never seen an Altman film that didn't entertain me (and I've seen Ready to Wear).

(while the German lady is talking, Mike and the ‘bots hum a tune)

The song they’re humming is actually “Lili Marlene”, a German song popular during World War I, and made famous by Marlene Dietrich. The first line is, “Underneath the lantern, by the barrack gates,” which I know because I saw Cher sing it during “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” before Harvey Korman (dressed as a Nazi soldier) interrupts her. The song, as sung by Marlene Dietrich, is actually very nice. However, I don’t believe that it was sung in one of her movies, although it was played in the background during a scene between her and Spencer Tracy in Judgment in Nuremberg. But she did make a lot of films to be sure, the most famous one without a doubt being Blue Angel, in which she sings “Falling in Love Again” (which is the song that blonde lady is moaning in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank). She famously disliked Loretta Young, once remarking "Every time she sins, she builds a church. That's why there are so many Catholic churches in Hollywood." Despite being from Germany, she played a big part in the World War II USO tour (the soldiers liked to see her trademark legs). She was very patriotic in another way too—she’s said to have slept with three Kennedy’s in her lifetime—Joseph Kennedy, and his sons John F. Kennedy and Joe Jr. Good for her.

(shot of Hugo in the back of the car)
Mike: Al Pacino!

Once again, Al Pacino’s stature is being made fun of. Well, Pacino is a highly respected actor, having been in such classics as the Godfather trilogy, Dog Day Afternoon, and Serpico. An interesting question that continuously comes up between film and/or Godfather buffs is the question, “Who do you like more, Al Pacino or Robert De Niro?” or “Who’s the better actor, Al Pacino or Robert De Niro?” While I don’t really like questions like the latter, I would say that I like Robert De Niro—he doesn’t overact as much as Pacino; there’s a quiet dignity to him (when he’s at his best) whereas Pacino acts like a demonic hummingbird most the time. To each his own, really.

Girl in the Gold Boots

2008-05-29T23:28:00.004-04:00

Servo: Kevin Spacey and William Holden enjoy the show.

If there was ever a stranger pair…well, maybe it wouldn’t be these two actors. Maybe RuPaul and the Queen Mother. But I’m getting off track. Kevin Spacey is a two-time Oscar winner—he won for the (in my opinion) over-rated The Usual Suspects and American Beauty. American Beauty was the first of the “disenchanted suburbia” movies, and probably the best, what with its use of “Baba O’Reilly” in the trailer and all. William Holden is a legendary leading man; he was in Stalag 17 and Sabrina. He had a really strange rivalry with Bogart—I can’t remember exactly how it started (I’ll have to check Bogart’s biography again) but the result was a car accident during the filming of Sabrina. Bogie was showing off, if I remember correctly. So was Holden. Well you know you got two masculine big shots showing off; that never ends well. Nobody was seriously hurt, but for some reason I just think it’s the funniest thing. Holden was an interesting guy though; he was in love with Audrey Hepburn, and they probably would have married except that Holden couldn't have children. So Hepburn bowed out.

(a shot of a Doctor Dolittle billboard)
Mike: That doesn’t look like Eddie Murphy.

The remake of Doctor Dolittle, starring Eddie Murphy, is one of those rare happenings where the remake does better than the original. In this case, the original (starring Rex Harrison) was one of the biggest flops in Hollywood. Nevertheless, it won an Oscar for best song, and was nominated for Best Picture (for more on this, read Mark Harris' Pictures at a Revolution). Rex Harrison played Dr. Doolittle in the big budget musical about a man who can “talk to the animals” (can you imagine it? talking to a chimp or chimpanzee?). Actually, I remember seeing the original when I was only yea-high and loving it. Which only goes to show you that kids don’t have any idea of good film, or that adults don’t have any idea on what a good film really is. This movie was, I believe, a children’s movie (like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins) and I remember liking it; so it did its job. At least for me. The remake, on the other hand, was one of the summer blockbusters (1998 maybe?). It wasn’t a musical and didn’t follow the story, but it had new technology (that let the animals talk convincingly) and it had Eddie Murphy, fresh from the title role of the popular The Nutty Professor. So which Doctor Dolittle is better? I’d say the remake, but they really are so different in plot and execution that it’d be unfair to compare them. And Eddie Murphy doesn’t hold a candle to Rex Harrison (who’s on the billboard in Girl in Gold Boots). Ah, Rex Harrison. His voice scared the crap out of me in Midnight Lace (or did I just spoil the ending for you?) Did you know he was blind in one eye? No? You don’t care? You want to get on to the next reference? Okay, okay. Sheesh.

Leo: Mr. McCabe!
Servo: Sure thing, Mrs. Miller.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller was a western drama directed by Robert Altman and starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. It was named by Roger Ebert as one of the 100 Great Movies (buy his book, it’s really neat), and I personally liked it a lot, although (with its slow pacing and overlapped soundtrack), it may not be for some people. Beatty and Christie actually had a rather long relationship that produced a lot of good movies—this movie, Heaven Can Wait, and Shampoo. Julie Christie is one of my favorite actresses—she starred in Far from the Madding Crowd, Doctor Zhivago, Darling (which I first saw at five in the morning on TCM), The Go-Between, and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. Not only is she beautiful but, more importantly, she's intelligent and can act (these three usually don’t go together nowadays). After a short break from acting, she returned to film for a cameo in a Harry Potter movie, and an Oscar-nominated performance in Away From Her. For more on Robert Altman, look in the Devil Doll section.

Sky Divers

2008-05-29T23:19:00.004-04:00

(a guy is running. Can’t get anymore specific than that. Hell, the movie didn’t, why should I?)
Mike: Loneliness of a long-distance greaser.

Man oh man. I’ve been waiting to talk about The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner for a long time (don’t know why they didn’t mention it in the “Clonus” episode, seeing as how the guy…well, you’ll see…). Okay. The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner is one of the most famous “Angry Young Man” movies—it stars a young Tom Courtenay and Michael Redgrave. Courtenay plays a British juvenile delinquent who Redgrave realizes is a natural long distance runner. Redgrave tries to turn Courtenay around by recruiting him onto the Juvie detention center’s track team, but will Courtenay go along with the system? I wouldn’t dare give away the climax, which I consider to be the one of the best in movie history. I’ve already written about the Angry Young Man movies—this is a perfect example of one, wherein a lower-class dreamer stands up against the System. This was a very good movie. So was Look Back in Anger, widely regarded as the first Angry Young Man movie; if you really want to go on an Angry Young Man-athon, rent this and Look Back in Anger. And Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. And perhaps A Kind of Loving also—it stars Alan Bates. Oh, and good luck with finding them. I find it pretty hard, myself.

(the stupid Bad Guy is riding his motorcycle. Everyone hums the theme from The Great Escape.)

The Great Escape is one of my favorite war movies, right up there with Saving Private Ryan, Zulu, Is Paris Burning?, and The Longest Day. World War II films, for some reason, are usually “Hey there” movies (as someone ingeniously labeled it), and the aforementioned films are no exception. A “hey there” movie is where you shout things like “hey, there’s Richard Burton!” (as in The Longest Day) or “hey, there’s Ted Danson!” (Saving Private Ryan) or “hey, there’s Sean Connery!” (The Longest Day again). With The Great Escape you’ll say, “Hey, there’s Richard Attenborough!” and “Hey, there’s James Garner!” and “Hey, there’s James Coburn…playing an Aussie! What the hell?” But you won’t be surprised to find Steve McQueen in it because everyone knows McQueen stars in The Great Escape. He plays the Cooler King, and he rides a motorcycle. Not only does he play the Cooler King riding a motorcycle, but he also plays a couple of Nazis riding motorcycles (the man liked motorcycles, what can I say?) There’s a famous scene where he actually jumps his bike over a fence. I’m not surprised—Steve McQueen was the essence of cool. I like him a lot. He may even be one of mah boys. Oh, what hell, sure he is. Okay.

(The “Hero” is drinking in a bar)
Servo: Gee, Dylan Thomas was in here and he didn’t drink this much.

I wouldn’t be too sure of that, because Dylan Thomas drank a lot. How much did he drink, you ask? Well, let’s just say he was good friends with Richard Burton. Yeah. Thomas was a Welsh poet and author, but he also was a bit of an actor—I don’t know if he was actually in a movie but he was in the theater. But he did write plays which were turned into movies—and actually Burton starred in a couple of them—namely Under Milk Wood. Richard Burton (being a proud Welshman himself) really respected Thomas, and was even buried with a copy of Thomas’ works when he died.

(the Bad Girl is seducing the pharmacy)
Crow: Oh Mr. Gower!

Love how Crow says that line. Once again, a reference to It’s a Wonderful Life. Mr. Gower is the druggist who Young George Bailey works for, and who beats said Young George Bailey down in a drunken rage. Okay, okay, he only hit his bad ear, but it was sad, I tell ya, sad!

(some “sky divers” are, uh, diving. For about the millionth time)
Servo: Hey, do you have Death coming out to play chess with you too?

This is from a famous Ingmar Bergman film called The Seventh Seal, wherein Death (a pale bald guy in a robe) plays chess against a knight (Max von Sydow) just back from the Crusades. The prize? The knight’s soul, or his body—you know what Death does, hell. Ingmar Bergman is an incredibly famous director (he was named an icon of the 20th century) and The Seventh Seal is an equally famous film (it was listed by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 greatest movies). I think Bergman’s Death is the most well-known—everyone knows about Death playing chess for your soul; it’s been seen everywhere from “The Animaniacs” to Last Action Hero. It’s a rather strange movie, as is customary for Bergman films.

(the Wife with the Helmet looks sadly at her husband)
Mike: Our current Garbo.

Greta Garbo is a legendary actresses. She’s just incredibly famous, no other way to explain it. She was a star of the silent movies (Camille, Anna Karenina) who was one of the few silent actors able to successfully transition into sound (Grand Hotel and Ninotchka). I’ve seen Ninotchka and Grand Hotel—must say that I like the former better, although her famous line “I want to be alone!” comes from the latter. She utters the phrase when her manager is trying to coax her into going onto the stage, but she doesn’t want to because she, well, wants to be alone. I saw this movie at about four a.m. on Turner Classic Movies (I also saw Darling at five in the morning on TCM, but that’s another story). Maybe because it was so early that, when she repeated “I want to be alone” for the third time, I suddenly imagined Clark Gable (in It Happened One Night) yelling, “Stop bawling!” followed by “Get in the car!” (Crow’s line in The Leech Woman episode). Don’t ask why. Anyway, Garbo is known for her incredible looks, her solitary, enigmatic life, and her romance with John Gilbert, who starred in several silent films with her.

Ibid
(the Wife with the Helmet is running with the blonde guy)
Servo: She’s hooking up with Donald O’Connor.

Donald O’Connor is best known for his role as Cosmo in Singin’ in the Rain. I love this movie; it’s the great musical, in my opinion (actually, perhaps on the same level as Swing Time). And, aside from Gene Kelly’s title dance number, I think O’Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” bit is the greatest dance number in the movie. You’ve got to see it to believe it. For years—years—I tried to emulate him by doing back flips off walls. I even tried at school, in the hallway, and would annoy the hell out of teachers. Never could do it. He’s referenced here because he sort of looks like the guy in Sky Divers in that he has blonde hair. He also has really blue eyes. Just thought you’d like to know.

Horror at Party Beach (or is it Party at Horror Beach?)

2008-05-29T23:12:00.004-04:00

(the Monster picks himself up off the deck of the ship, dusts himself off, and starts all over again. Servo says something about the Monster doing a one-man version of The Pirates of Penzance. Mike sings “I Am the Very Model of Modern Major General”)

The Pirates of Penzance was a musical by Gilbert and Sullivan, and was made into a movie with Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, and Angela Lansbury. Despite its staginess (I do believe a fence or gravestone shakes when someone bumps into it) it’s actually rather good. If you like people singing very, very fast, then this is the movie for you. It’s got two fast-talking songs—one being “I Am the Very Model of Modern Major General” and “A Paradox”, in which Rex Smith, Lansbury, and Kline have a bit of a contest to see who can sing the fastest (Kevin Kline wins, but promptly faints thereafter). This was one of those movies my parents raised me on (some others being Tommy, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Oliver!, which may explain why I’m such a weird kid) so I’ve fond memories of it.

(a skull mutates [at a ridiculously fast pace, might I add])
Crow: It’s turning into Oliver Reed’s liver.

I wonder why they like making fun of Oliver Reed’s liver. Poor little guy, it didn’t ask to be an organ of Oliver Reed, and damn if that thing didn’t take a beating. I’ve already written about Oliver Reed in Prince of Space. But here's some more useless trivia for ya'. Oliver Reed died during the filming of Gladiator (the rest of his scenes had to be done by a stand-in, with his face inserted by CGI), not of liver failure but of a heart attack—after having several rounds of drinks in a Maltese bar and arm-wrestling a bunch of sailors. This (and I don’t intend to sound disrespectful to the man) seems fitting, and I can’t help but think that this was as good a way as any for the guy to go.

(A sweet little sports car speeds down a road. Crow and Servo sing “Mrs. Robinson”)

I’m pretty sure that Simon and Garfunkel did the entire soundtrack to The Graduate, and if they didn’t then at least a lot of their songs were used. There’s the classic “Mrs. Robinson” (which began life as "Mrs. Roosevelt", after Eleanor Roosevelt, but was changed to Anne Bancroft's character in the film), which the ‘Bots are singing here because Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) drives a little red sports car through most of the film, and there’s also “The Sound of Silence” which is played at the beginning and end of the film. I personally like “The Sound of Silence” better, especially when it was used at the very beginning. Benjamin is getting off of a plane and going through the airport and damn it all if his face doesn’t set the tone of the entire movie. Go see it. It’s good.

(the First Victim swims over to a rock)
Mike: Hey, look guys, it’s…the rock.

Okay…The Rock is an action movie starring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage, and Ed Harris. In the movie, a terrorist (Harris, being awfully sympathetic for a terrorist) takes over Alcatraz (i.e. “The Rock”), so a cop (Cage) hires the only man who has ever escaped Alcatraz (Connery) to break back into it. I saw this in the theaters when it came out, and I must’ve been in the eighth grade when I saw it, but I specifically remember a scene where Connery (who’s chained to a chair) uses a quarter to unlock himself, and cut open a window. Which is a pretty good trick to know, really. I also remember Cage’s character really liking The Beatles, and owning one of their guitars. I thought that was pretty cool. The movie was alright for what it was—a fluffy action film in the same vein as, say, Broken Arrow and any Stallone movie made in the eighties and nineties. By the by, Mike is impersonating Connery when he says “the rock”.

Bloodlust

2008-05-29T17:37:00.006-04:00

(the kids get into a boat)
Crow: Wait for Tallulah Bankhead!

Reference to…Lifeboat, an Alfred Hitchcock movie made in the late 40’s. It’s about a group of people who are crowded onto a lifeboat after their ship sinks. Tallulah Bankhead played a snobby reporter. She reportedly would not wear underwear during filming, and the camera crew complained to the wardrobe, and then to Hitchcock, about this. Hitchcock allegedly told them, “Don’t talk to wardrobe, talk to hairdressing”. Catch my drift? Uh huh. Tallulah Bankhead auditioned for the role of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind but obviously didn’t get it.

(Dorky Kid walks with his Dorky Girlfriend down a hallway)
Crow: Indiana Nerd and the Temple of Dork.
(Tom hums the Raiders March)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. See Angel’s Revenge for more info on the movie itself.

(Sidekick Heroine is about to jump out of the window)
Crow: Now fly monkeys fly!

References to The Wizard of Oz, which is about a girl who gets caught up in a tornado and lands in a—hell, you all know the damn story. The Wizard of Oz is an incredibly famous movie—everyone knows the songs from it: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “We’re Off to See the Wizard”, etc. Judy Garland became the role model of girls (and drag queens) everywhere. The flying monkeys scared the hell out of every child out there, and yet parents still for some reason show it to their young ‘uns as early as possible. Crow is referencing the monkeys. They fly. Sidekick Heroine looks like one of them. Oh how she annoyed me. So did her boyfriend. Which brings me to…

(shot of Sidekick)
Crow: Before Peter Billingsley there was this guy.

Peter Billingsley was the cute little kid in A Christmas Story. Nowadays he’s a director.

(a pirate/guard walks in on Sidekick Heroine and begins laughing hysterically)
Crow: Damn you all to hell!!!

Man, there’s just something about Charlton Heston. As soon as the pirate/guard walked in, I said to myself, “Oh, it’s Charlton Heston! And he’s in a madhouse! A madhouse!!!” And, sure enough, Crow mentioned it also. Maybe it’s just something about a buff guy brandishing a rifle. The movie he’s referencing is Planet of the Apes, where Charlton Heston battles damn dirty apes. He was also in The Omega Man (a ‘70’s sci-fi flick that was noted, at the time, for actually having a biracial couple) and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet as the Player King, which was a bit of a departure from his usual roles but he was surprisingly good. He was also the president of the National Rifle Association. Actually, god damn it, he was the NRA.

(the Heroine and her Sidekick are running through the jungle. Sidekick naturally falls down, goes boom.)
Mike: The defiant Debs.

The Defiant Ones was an incredibly good movie starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis (who are both, coincidentally, mah boys; Curtis, if only because he had the guts to wear a skirt in Some Like It Hot, and anyway, he does a mean Cary Grant impersonation). The Defiant Ones is about two fugitives (one white, one black) from a chain gang who travel through the South. They’re both handcuffed to one another and Curtis is rather racist. It’s a really good movie; it’s been parodied a million times, including in a couple of Looney Tunes cartoons (except it’s a dog and a cat escaping from the pound). I do believe that Sidney Poitier garnered his first Oscar nomination for this movie. But he wouldn’t win—he’d win later for Lilies in the Field, thus becoming the first black man to win an Oscar. And actually, a few years ago he won the Oscar’s Lifetime Achievement award; and Denzel Washington won (that same night) for Best Actor, and Halle Berry won Best Actress, making her the first black woman to win Best Actress. Anyway, look for Whit Bissell (of I Was a Teenage Werewolf fame) in The Defiant Ones as the prison bus driver, and for a 30-year-old Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer as the guy in the hunting party who won’t stop playing the radio.

(the two girls look up at the window)
Servo: Whe-er-er-er-ere is love?

Once again, from Oliver! (I wonder why “Where is Love?” is the only song they ever make a point of referencing). Okey dokey, Oliver! was a 1968 musical that, as I already mentioned, won Best Picture at the Oscars. It has the distinction of being the only G-rated movie to do so (while, the next year, Midnight Cowboy had the distinction of being the only X-rated movie to win). Mark Lester plays the impossibly cute (without being cloying) Oliver Twist, who sings the above song. Jack Wild is his foil, the Artful Dodger. Interesting to note that the 14-year old Wild had to wear lifts to seem taller than his 8-year old costar. Don’t fret, Wild, the bestest people in the world are short. This movie also stars Oliver Reed—cousin of the director, Carol Reed—as probably the best (and most threatening) Bill Sikes I’ve ever seen. This is a great movie—“As Long as He Needs Me”, sung by Shani Wallis (who plays Nancy), is worth the price of admission alone—a lot better than Eegah!, or even this movie, but that’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges, isn’t it?

(The Dorky Couple are asked about their search of the house)
Mike (quickly): What happened was just this, the house began to twitch…

Wizard of Oz. Again. Judy Garland. Again. This has all the earmarks of becoming the next obsessive Gone with the Wind reference but, no, no, I will not give in, I cannot give in to my passions. Incidentally, The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind vied for the Best Picture Oscar of 1939, along with Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, Mister Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, and Of Mice and Men. This alone leaves many to believe that 1939 was the greatest year for movies (and don’t forget about the classics not nominated, like Gunga Din, Intermezzo, Rules of the Game, Only Angels Have Wings, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton). I tend to agree with them, but I do believe that the real gem of 1939 was, of course, Blondie Meets the Boss. I mean, watch that, and then watch Gone with the Wind. No contest, right? Right?

Diabolik

2008-05-29T17:31:00.004-04:00

(a shot of a boat)
Mike: Abandon ship, men, Sebastian Junger just wrote a book about us!

Mike and the ‘bots say this a lot in the later episodes, whenever they see a boat and all, because Sebastian Junger wrote an incredibly well-received book titled The Perfect Storm. It’s a nonfiction novel about the Andrea Gail, a sword-fishing boat that was lost in a hurricane. So why bring it up here? Because it was made into a movie starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. It was well received and #1 at the box-office in the summer of 2000, making more money than The Patriot, Mel Gibson’s action film set during the Revolutionary War. Just wanted to bring The Perfect Storm up. I liked the book a lot.

(in the opening credits, there’s a swirly spin-art sort of hippie thing going on)
Crow: …shagadelic man!

Austin Powers. Mike Myers’ hit comedy about a British swinger from the 1960’s who is transported to the 1990’s. It parodies the James Bond movies mainly. It was pretty funny, but was subsequently run into the ground. It was followed by Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and then Austin Powers 3: Goldmember. Sean Connery and Honor Blackman were initially rumored to play Austin Powers’ parents in the third installment (which admittedly would have been pretty awesome) but that idea fell through. Instead, the equally cool Michael Caine (Said in the style of Eddie Izzard: “You are a stupid bastard, all right? You’re a big lug and you have no brains, so shut your fucking face!”) played Papa Powers.

(A man has his foot up on a car.)
Mike: Are you trying to seduce me?

See what I had to say about The Graduate in the Prince of Space section. And a bit off-topic, but I recognized two songs from Diabolik that I’m pretty sure I’ve heard in other 60’s films or TV shows. There’s the guitar theme—which I’ll call the One Lick Theme (taking from Crow’s crack at it), which sounded a hell of a lot like one of the inane songs played during The Wild World of Batwoman. Then there’s the other theme, a rather peppy 60’s tune, which I’m 99 percent sure was used in an episode of “The Avengers” (specifically, Dead Man’s Treasure). If it isn’t the same, then the creators of “The Avengers” should definitely have looked into suing the makers of Diabolik. Just saying.

The Creeping Terror

2008-05-29T17:30:00.001-04:00

(a shot of some bushes rustling)
Crow: I’m stuck in the hydrangea bushes!
Servo: What we have here is a very interesting situation!

It’s a Wonderful Life. Again. George Bailey has stolen Mary Hatch’s bathrobe—and she has nothing on under it! Risqué, for the 40’s. It’s actually a funny scene—George ends the scene by saying, “I’ll make a deal with you, Mary. Now, in order to get this robe—” but is interrupted when his uncle and brother pull up in a car to tell him his father just had a stroke. Now, my question is this: what exactly did she have to do in order to get back her robe? Hmm? Should I use my imagination? Huh huh huh.
Off topic though: Christ was this a black hole of a movie. I’m sure there are more movie references in it, but really, I’m not going back in there any time soon. It literally depresses me.

Eegah!

2008-05-29T17:11:00.006-04:00

(Arch Hall Junior plays a song on his guitar)
Servo: Should write for Sergio Leone.

Sergio Leone is known mostly for his spaghetti westerns—cheap westerns made in Italy, usually starring Clint Eastwood. Now, cheap doesn’t actually mean bad, like in this movie—some good spaghetti westerns are The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, A Fistful of Dollars, and Once Upon a Time in the West. He also made a great non-western titled Once Upon a Time in America. He almost always (if not always) hired Ennio Morricone to write the music for his films. But Eegah!—damn. It should have been called Egads! What a Crappy Movie! You might have noticed, though, that the soundtrack to this movie is the same as the soundtrack of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. And, hey, wasn’t that Ray Dennis Steckler—the director/star of The Incredibly Strange Creatures…—who was thrown by Eegah into the pool? Why yes, yes it was. And not only that, but he was kissing the alcoholic dancer from the same film! I smell a conspiracy. Why do bad filmmakers travel in packs? Steckler and Arch Hall Sr., Tony Cardoza and Coleman Francis…hmm…if only Gone with the Wind figured into the equation…

(Arch Hall Junior is running around the desert with a gun)
Joel: Stay alive, whatever may occur! I will find you!

I love how Joel says that line. It’s a reference to the drama The Last of the Mohicans, starring Daniel Day Lewis. Daniel Day Lewis is British. He plays a Mohican. He actually does a pretty good job with the accent—he doesn’t sound at all like Joel or, later on in Eegah!, Tom Servo. Actually, up in North Carolina, not too far from here ("here" being where I live), there’s a walk in a state park taking you to the exact waterfall where Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe hide. Pretty cool stuff. My mom showed me a picture of it. Didn’t recognize an inch of it from the movie. But, you know, the brochure says that that’s where they filmed it and those things never lie.

(a guy in a pith helmet walks around in the desert)
Joel: “The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles”

Okay, while this is actually a TV show ("The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"), the show is based on a movie. So, uh…actually there have been some guest stars who eventually became big movie stars. Catherine Zeta- Jones was a guest star who went on to star in movies like Traffic, Chicago, and the new Zorro movies. She married Michael Douglas and was named one of the most beautiful people in 2001. Timothy Spall, a great British character actor (late of Enchanted and the Harry Potter movies) had a small recurring role, and Daniel Craig (now James Bond) had a bit part on an episode as well. The star of “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” (by the way, that’s the name of the show), Sean Patrick Flannery, was in the movie Powder and some others. Oh, and Harrison Ford guest-starred once. Yep.

(Arch Hall Jr. and Roxy go dune buggy driving)
Servo: On the road to Thunderdome.

Reference to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the sequel to Mad Max and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior; all of which starred Mel Gibson in the title role. Both movies took place in the Australian outback, after a nuclear holocaust. In Beyond Thunderdome, Mel Gibson fights in this kind of gladiatorial game—he and his opponent are strapped up to bungee chords that are attached to the top of a dome that they’re in. They go running around, flying, and trying to kill each other. Tina Turner watches over them all. I remember my parents playing this movie’s soundtrack for me (back in the days of cassette tapes). Although I haven’t seen the movie or heard the song in about twelve years, I still know most of the words to Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero”. Sad really.

(Roxy and Arch Hall Jr. are arguing)
Crow: When Edward Albee dabbles in beach movies.

Edward Albee is an accomplished playwright; his most famous play is probably Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—which was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton—which is what Crow’s referencing. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is every newlywed’s nightmare; it’s about a married couple (Burton and Taylor, ‘natch) who argue every moment of every day of every year etcetera etcetera. Taylor won an Oscar for her performance, but Burton didn’t, which is a shame, because it’s arguably his best performance. His not winning is at the top of Academy Award snafus (with Saving Private Ryan losing Best Picture to Shakespeare in Love at the top of the list—right up there with Raging Bull losing to Ordinary People in 1980). Feh.

(Eegah [!] runs through some weird mall/tunnel)
Crow: Where is he now, The Third Man?

The Third Man was a v. v. good suspense movie starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. If you’ve ever heard of Harry Lime, this is where the name is from. It’s about an American (Cotton) who goes to Vienna to search for the man who killed his friend (Welles). What follows are many many twists and turns, and some famous scenes—like when Cotton finally finds the “third man” (insert zither music here) and the climax in the sewer, which is what Crow is referencing. Which reminds me—where is Eegah running? It seems like the underground main hall of a school: there’s the school carpeting and trophy cases lining the walls. Hmm.

(Eegah walks to his cave with some daisies in his hand [for cute!])
Tom (singing in a gruff voice): I have often walked down this street before.

Before I start explaining the reference, may I ask just one question? Where the hell do you get daisies in the desert? Huh? Does Eegah have a little greenhouse out back? He might seem primitive, folks, but he actually has a wonderful assortment of tea roses. Uh huh. Anyway, the song is “On the Street Where You Live,” from the movie My Fair Lady, which happens to be one of my favorite musicals. “On the Street Where You Live,” is the only song sung by Freddy Eynsford-Hill, who is played by Jeremy Brett (he doesn’t do his own singing though), better known as TV’s Sherlock Holmes. On first viewing, I actually thought this was the weakest song of the lot, but have since warmed up to it—who knows why, really. While not my favorite song, I do know the words, and don’t feel badly about singing it as loudly as possible in public. The funniest thing to do is to stand outside a stranger’s house and sing it. It really weirds them out. Fun stuff. Until they call the cops.

(Eegah walks back into the cave after his Night of Passion [ewww…])
Joel (singing): Good morning, good morning, we’ve talked the whole night through.

Wow, another musical reference, sung in more or less the same gruff voice. That voice being Eegah’s. He’s a very musical person; you can tell by his sing-song voice. Anyway, the song is “Good Morning” from Singin’ in the Rain, starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor. I’ve already written about this movie, so I’ll say just one thing about Gene Kelly (which I find amusing): my favorite quote of his is: “If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando”. Funny stuff, I think, for some reason.

They Live by Night

2008-05-29T17:10:00.001-04:00

(a nurse walks into a room and is grabbed by the Bat Guy)
Mike: I was supposed to meet George Clooney here!

See what I had to say about him in the Soul Taker section.

Final Justice

2008-05-29T17:06:00.004-04:00

(two Mafia guys are walking out of the woods)
Tom Servo: It’s It Happened One Night, only gay!

It Happened One Night was a comedy-romance made in 1934. It starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert and is considered the first road movie. But don’t hold that against it; it’s actually a really good film. The scene Servo is referring to is when Gable and Colbert are running away from a bus that holds a guy who knows she’s a runaway, and was going to blackmail Gable for her. It Happened One Night is a great classic, the first movie to win the four major categories in the Oscars (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Director), and was the only one to do so until One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (to date, The Silence of the Lambs is the only subsequent movie to share that distinction). Gable has a scene where he takes off his shirt to reveal that he’s not wearing an undershirt! Women swooned. The sales of undershirts hit an all-time low (I’m not making this up). They only came back into style when Marlon Brando wore one in Streetcar Named Desire. Clark Gable went on to play Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, by the by…

(credits show Rosanno Brazzi)
Crow: (singing) Some enchanted evening!

The song, “Some Enchanted Evening”, was sung by Rosanno Brazzi in the movie South Pacific. I like that song a lot but rather dislike the film (I'm just not a fan of Mitzi Gaynor, who plays Brazzi's love interest); whenever I hear the song, I can’t help but think of Harrison Ford singing it in American Graffiti. (He played Bob Falfa, who always wore a cowboy hat, and he got Beat Down by Shirley, from “Laverne and Shirley”, who was going out with Opie…just see the damn movie. It’ll make sense then.)

The Brain that Wouldn’t Die

2008-05-29T17:02:00.003-04:00

(a crowd of creepy guys is taking photos of a model in a bikini)
Mike: What is this, Pottersville all of a sudden?

Another reference to It’s a Wonderful Life (I’ve got to start counting these things). Pottersville is the name of Bedford Falls in George Bailey’s little alternate reality. Because George was never born, the Bailey Building & Loan went under, and Potter took over everything. Because Mr. Potter is a greedy old fart, Bedford Falls (changed to Pottersville) turns totally commercial, with more strip clubs than Las Vegas can ever dream of building; and everything goes to, well excuse the pun, pot. George’s mom is a mean old broad who owns a boarding house, Uncle Billy lives in a mental institution, Bert’s wife and kid left him, Mary becomes a librarian spinster, Mary’s mom seems to have become some kind of gangster’s moll (!), Harry died from falling in the ice when he was eight, all the soldiers that Harry would have saved on that ship during WWII died because “Harry wasn’t there to save them because you weren’t there to save Harry”, Nick became a mean bartender (as opposed to being the nice bartender he is in reality), and we don’t even know what happened to Martini. Phew. He really did have a wonderful life (or, that is to say, everyone else did because of him; his life was really going down the crapper for a moment there. Oh well, I love it anyway.)

(the Assistant won’t stop dying)
Mike: Jeez, Edmund Kean had shorter death scenes!

While Edmund Kean never made a film, he was a big enough Shakespearean actor for me to give him his props. He supposedly read Shakespeare like “flashes of lightning”, and was generally known for his eccentricities on and off the stage. He performed Shakespeare throughout his life, before collapsing during a showing of Othello—his last words were, appropriately enough, “Oh God! I think I am dying!” Another great Shakespearean actor from the 19th century was Edwin Booth, brother of actor John Wilkes Booth, who’s known more for killing Abraham Lincoln than for his Shakespeare (yeah, it’s kind of hard getting around that.) If you want to see a good movie about Edwin Booth and his return to the stage shortly after his brother shot Lincoln, rent Prince of Players, starring Richard Burton as Edwin. Because you know you want to.

(the Model Woman shows the Creepy Villain her scar)
Mike: That’s the last time I ride in a car with Monty Clift, I’ll tell you that…

Montgomery Clift was a popular actor in the 50’s who reached cult status because of the more unfortunate events in his life. He was the very definition of a heart throb before he crashed his car after a leaving one of Elizabeth Taylor’s parties, and seriously destroyed his face. One of Elizabeth Taylor’s favorite stories is how she found him on the side of the road and dug his teeth out of his throat. After many facial reconstruction surgeries, Clift returned to film, although he could only be filmed from certain angles. His face did look different, but it didn’t look horrific—it actually gave him an edginess that helped him rise above the Hollywood Pretty Boy curse. This, combined with his bisexuality, drug use, and death from AIDS fairly early on in his life, has helped him gain a certain River Phoenix, James Dean-ish celebrity status. I actually like the guy, more or less—I recommend you watch The Search, where he plays an American GI who finds and takes in an orphan in post-World War II Germany. It’s a “heart warmer”, but not overtly so. The Czech kid who plays the orphan is actually very good (he even got a special Oscar for it); it’s too bad that he was ultimately sent to a Communist labor camp, and died in his thirties. I’m sure that made you feel really swell.

The Hellcats

2008-05-29T16:59:00.002-04:00

(Ross Hagen’s Girl [rather sloppily] knocks down a baddie who’s chasing her)
Tom: Ah, Diana Rigg taught her that! Thank you, Emma Peel.

Ah! Ah ha! Ah hahahaha! I knew it, I knew there had to be an “Avengers” reference somewhere within this blasted series! And not only that, but they mention Diana Rigg too! Yay! Um…anyway… since I’ve already explained the show in the Master Ninja II section, I’ll take this time to write about Diana Rigg. Diana Rigg is an incredibly accomplished stage and film actress—she was educated at RADA, and then went on to tour with the RSC (which only pays $185 dollars a week, I learned yesterday; so if you have dreams of becoming a Shakespearean actor, perhaps you should also have dreams of getting a second job). She auditioned for the hit series “The Avengers” on a whim, incidentally; she landed the role and spent two seasons playing Emma Peel to Patrick Macnee’s John Steed. Within her two years on “The Avengers”, the show was picked up for American television and quickly became an international hit. She gradually got tired of the show’s long hours (paired with the fact that she was paid close to nothing compared to everyone else, including the cameraman) and left the series. She starred in several great films (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Hospital being just two of them), but is known today as being one of Britain’s greatest stage actresses. She’s well known for her roles in Abelard and Heloise, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, King Lear (with Laurence Olivier, who was married to…yeah…), and most notably (in my opinion) Medea, which I consider to be one of those ridiculously challenging roles for anyone, like Lady Macbeth, and for which she won a Tony. Nowadays she’s known as Dame Diana Rigg (having been knighted in 1994).

(the dealer in the undershirt sneers at Ross Hagen’s Girl)
Tom: Stella!

Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire. With—that’s right—Vivien Leigh. This film garnered several Academy Awards, including one for Vivien Leigh in the Best Actress category, and Kim Hunter in the Best Supporting Actress category. Marlon Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. A lot of people bemoan that fact, tearing at their clothes, gnashing their teeth, and slashing their cheeks with their long, overgrown fingernail, and yelling, “But how?! How could the Greatest Actor that Ever Was lose for such a pivotal role?” Well, you know, it happens. As great as Brando was in Streetcar, Bogart was just as good in The African Queen (although it was, admittedly, an easier role [one supposes]), and damn it if the guy wasn’t due for an Oscar. So stop yer moanin’—Brando would win twice afterwards, for On the Waterfront (in my opinion, his best film) and for The Godfather.

Space Mutiny

2008-05-29T16:54:00.004-04:00

(Leia and that Beefy Guy are walking away from the burning golf cart)
Crow: Leia, this could be the start of a beautiful 30-day bulk-up routine.

This is a little spin-off of Humphrey Bogart’s famous last line in Casablanca, in which he says to Claude Rains, “Louis, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Bogart’s Rick had just put his one true love Ilsa on a plane with her husband Lazlo and killed Major Strasser (all in five minutes), and Louis covered up for him. And so they run away together, in a non-romantic way of course, to fight the good fight, one supposes. The movie’s writers thought up that line after they had filmed the scene—Humphrey Bogart had to come back and do a voice-over in the studio.

(Leia and Beefy Guy are at the bar)
Tom: God, they’re like Nick and Nora Charles.

I think I’ve written about Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man already—well, they always had a glass of liquor in their hands, like those two were in that dance club scene, and always had a witty repartee going, which Leia and the Beefy Guy were trying to do, but couldn’t really manage it, poor dopes (probably had something to do with the fact that the writers of Space Mutiny couldn’t write the nutrition contents for a cereal box). Off the subject though, what were they thinking casting that woman as Leia? Jesus she was like fifty-years old! And she was playing a character who was supposed to be, what, twenty? Disgusting, I tell you.

(Handy-capable Guy is running away)
Crow: A horse, my kingdom for a horse!

I like how Crow says that line; reminds me of Eddie Izzard’s bit about upper-class British men playing Cockney soldiers. The line isn’t so much from a movie as it is from a play—William Shakespeare’s Richard III, to be exact. But, Richard III has been adapted for the screen, although I can only name two instances as such. There was Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard, which wasn’t so much an adaptation of the play as it was a documentary about the filming of the play (I always wondered, though, why his version of the play never came out). Then there’s Laurence Olivier’s 1954 version, and although it was unseen by me, the fact that Olivier made it instantly means it’s good. Actually, Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s plays that I haven’t read, but I can tell you that there’s a line when he’s just lost a battle, and the enemy troop is about to Beat Him Down, that goes, “My horse, my kingdom for a horse!” See. I know something. By the by, Olivier was married to…yeah…you know who…

(After Mike and the ‘bots notice that one of the female characters has what looks to be…uh…male, Crow remarks, “She’s got an armadillo down her trousers!”)

That’s more or less a line from This is Spinal Tap!, the classic mockumentary about the fictional rock group Spinal Tap. It was created by Rob Reiner and the king of mockumentaries Christopher Guest (who also starred), and featured not only the usual Guest Mockumentary cast (Michael McKean and Harry Shears), but also a slew of famous actors, including Anjelica Huston, Patrick Macnee, Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey, Ed Begley Jr., and Fran Drescher. The reference here is from a bit where the three main members of Spinal Tap (Guest, McKean, and Shears) go on and on about how big their packages are, and Guest remarks that they have armadillos down their trousers. Unfortunately for Shears, it’s later discovered that he stuffs his pants with a cucumber wrapped in tin foil. Don’t ask.

Hamlet

2008-05-29T16:22:00.006-04:00

(Hamlet is yelling at Ophelia)
Mike: Give me back my son!
(Mike may have also said this when Claudius is yelling at Hamlet)

It was kind of hard to hear him say this, but it was a reference to Mel Gibson’s movie Ransom. It’s one of the catchphrases of the movie, heard a lot in the trailer, where he’s talking to his son’s kidnappers and he yells into the phone, “Give me back my son!” It was a really good movie, a remake of the 1950’s version of the same name. The original was also really good, but very different than the 90’s version. If you liked the original Ransom (and you don’t mind subtitles), you might enjoy Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, about a businessman (Toshiro Mifune) who has to deal with kidnappers who have mistakenly kidnapped his chauffer’s son (they meant to kidnap his son, but you know, oops). Similar story, similar feel.

(Hamlet is holding Ophelia)
Crow: Ophelia, Sam Wainwright’s on the phone!

A line from It’s a Wonderful Life. In what may be the longest flashback in movie history, George and Mary are fighting in her home and the phone rings and Mary’s mom calls to her, “Mary, Sam Wainwright is on the phone!” Mary picks it up and she and George have to share the receiver. They end up kissing. It’s a really sweet scene. Makes you go “Awww”. Sam Wainwright, on the other hand, becomes a big time businessman in the city and always seems to have a blonde hovering over him. So don't feel too bad for Sam.

(Mike “wins” a card game against Pearl and gets to pick the movie they have to watch. He picks Hamlet, and adds, “Branagh, Zeffireli, Olivier, doesn’t matter which”.)

Mike probably should have known better than to be so vague, because there are some crappy Hamlet films out there, including but not limited to, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and the version with Ethan Hawke. There are also adaptations by Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Kenneth Branagh, and Mel Gibson (actually the Zeffireli version that Mike mentioned), a Russian adaptation titled Gamlet and an East German adaptation titled Hamletmachine, parodies (like the Finnish Hamlet Goes Business), and veiled treatments like Akira Kurosawa's The Dead Sleep Well and Disney's The Lion King, along with countless other TV specials and silent films and so on. I personally liked Kenneth Branagh’s version the most, maybe because it's the only unabridged version out there, and is just beautifully shot and acted. Olivier and Branagh also did versions of Shakespeare’s Henry V, both of which I liked. Go see Zeffirelli’s 1990 version if only for Alan Bates, who plays an incredibly good Claudius (he’s actually good in any movie, but gee I’m a wee bit biased). Zeffirelli is as famous for his Shakespeare adaptations as Olivier and Branagh: he’s directed the classic Romeo and Juliet and the very good Taming of the Shrew (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton). In any case, I highly recommend Branagh’s version of Hamlet, which is way better than this German version Mike and the ‘bots had to watch. (Oh, and by the way, Laurence Olivier was married to Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind…)

(Hamlet is about to kill Claudius)
Mike (as Claudius): Wait a minute, let me write out a will: “I, Claudius…” ha ha ha ha ha.

“I, Claudius” was a British miniseries (if you can call it “mini”—it’s divided into thirteen parts) that “cover[s] the transition of Rome from Republic to Empire” (from historyinfilm.com). The title character (Claudius) is played by the esteemed actor Sir Derek Jacobi. Derek Jacobi also was the title character of “Brother Cadfael”, about a medieval monk who solved mysteries (yeah, I know, stick with me here. It actually was pretty good. My dad is nuts about it). Derek Jacobi coincidentally played Claudius in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet in 1996. He’s done several movies with Branagh, including Henry V and Dead Again (playing a stutterer, an homage to the stuttering Claudius). Some other famous Claudiuses (Claudii?) are Alan Bates (in Zefferelli’s 1991 version), Anthony Hopkins (in 1969 version with Marianne Faithful!), and Kyle MacLachlan (in the 2001 version). I think that, aside from Alan Bates (who I’m partial to), Jacobi was probably the best Claudius of the lot. There’s an “I, Claudius” drinking game out there on the web—it’s very funny, read it even if you aren’t a boozer. You can find it here.

(Claudius walks over to Gertrude)
Crow: Hi, I’m an Oliver Reed stand-in!

It is!!! It is Oliver Reed!!! Oh my god!!! AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!!! It’s the end time!!! If you thought a British Oliver Reed was scary enough; here’s a GERMAN one!!!! AAAUUGGHHH!!

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

2008-05-28T00:09:00.005-04:00

(Oily “Hero” opens a curtain to find Oily Stripper spinning a spiral and thus hypnotizing him)
Tom loudly sings “Duh duh duh duuhhh duh duh duh!”

Whoo, my translation doesn’t do Tom justice. He was singing the theme from the James Bond movies, and actually did quite well. Dr. No started out with a hypnotizing black-and-white spiral on the screen, and James Bond would walk across it whip a gun out and shoot it at the camera, and everything would turn red. It was one of few aspects of Dr. No that was repeated through-out the franchise.

(Oily “Hero” stumbles around the ocean shore)
Crow: I’m going to Las Vegas to drink myself to death.
(at another point with the hero)
Crow: Where’s Elizabeth Shue?

There was also a mention earlier in the movie of the hero looking a lot like Nicholas Cage (Tom: “You will be Nicholas Cage”) and he does indeed look like the famous movie star. Crow’s line is a reference to Cage’s Oscar-winning performance as a suicidal drunk in Leaving Las Vegas. Cage’s character falls in love with a prostitute but for some reason (I never saw the movie) still ends up killing himself. Elizabeth Shue plays the prostitute, and I believe she won an Oscar for it also. You may not know this, but Nicholas Cage is closely related to director Francis Ford Coppola, and (naturally) his daughter, director Sophia Coppola. And the Coppola’s (including Cage, whose last name is actually Coppola, but he changed it so as not to be connected with the Hollywood dynasty) are related to Jason Schwartzman, whom you might remember as the kid in Rushmore (he also used to be the drummer for Phantom Planet). It’s a small world after all.

(Gypsy Woman splashes “skull juice” on the salesman’s face)
Crow: Elizabeth Taylor’s “Poison”.

The Gypsy Woman (isn’t that a seventies song?) does indeed look a bit like Elizabeth Taylor. Which is unfortunate for Taylor, I guess. Elizabeth Taylor is one of the few true screen legends still alive today—she’s been acting since she was a kid, in movies like National Velvet and Lassie Come Home. She’s also one of the few child stars able to shift into adult roles; she’s most famous for movies like Butterfield 8, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I’m only naming a few here). She was married—twice—to one of my favorite actors, Richard Burton. Not too long ago I watched a movie with the two of them, one of the lesser-known Taylor-Burton movies, The V.I.P.s. It’s actually a true soaper, incredibly soapy, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. And wouldn’t you know it, it was based on a true story—apparently at some point Peter Finch and Vivien Leigh tried to run off together but got stuck at the airport due to fog. Her husband Laurence Olivier got there before they could leave and took her home. Years later, Vivien Leigh was slated to star in the movie Elephant Walk but had to drop out halfway through filming. She was replaced with—Elizabeth Taylor. Spooookkyy…in a non-spooky way.

(High-pitched voice is on the radio)
Servo: This is Herby the Misfit Elf.

Herby is mentioned a lot in “MST3K”, almost as much as It’s a Wonderful Life. Herby is in fact a misfit elf, in the famous clay-mation movie Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This movie, along with Santa Claus is Coming to Town, has become a staple of holiday cinema. Sure, there have been others like it, but they don’t come close to achieving the brilliance that is Rudolph (sarcasm, perhaps?) Actually, it’s a fun kiddy movie, and I have a doll of Herby in my room at home, because he personally is a role model to me, having overcome prejudice and scary monsters to realize his dream of becoming a Dentist.

(girl in big hat and big glasses cases the palm reader’s joint)
Servo: Holly Golightly goes to the fair.

Holly Golightly is the character played by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She wears a big black hat and big sunglasses. And she sports a really long cigarette holder. If you want a good lesson in the liberties one can make in adapting literature, read Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, then go see this movie. For those of you too lazy to do so: in Capote’s story, the narrator is gay and Holly seems to be bisexual, and they thus do not end up together at the end. Capote didn’t like this movie. I did however, despite Mickey Rooney’s stereotypical turn as Holly’s Japanese landlord. Even Mickey Rooney thought it was offensive.

Beginning of the End

2008-05-27T23:56:00.006-04:00

(a shot of a plane in the air)
Mike and the Bots hum a song.

The little song that Mike and the ‘Bots sing is the “Raiders March” from the Indiana Jones movies. I’ve already written about Indiana Jones and his movies in the Parts: the Clonus Horror section, but I’ll say a little bit more just to waste space. Every Indiana Jones movie has a scene where Indy gets on a plane, and his route is then shown on a map. This actually came from the old adventure serials that Indiana Jones is based on, but the Indy movies made it famous. The shot of a camera zooming out of the center of the swastika in a Nazi flag in Raiders of the Lost Ark (and jeez, is this a prepositional phrase-filled sentence) is lifted directly from a serial that Steven Spielberg enjoyed as a kid.

(the Heroine is on the phone ordering a colleague around)
Mike: Man, Her Guy Friday.

It’s a take on His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Grant and Russell play two newspaper reporters, newly divorced, but this is a 30’s screwball comedy so you know they’re going to get back together. Ralph Bellamy is in this also, as Russell’s bland-as-anything fiancé (huh). In the final scene she has to literally choose Grant or Bellamy; guess who she chooses? Hmm? This movie was directed by Howard Hawks, who also directed Grant in Bringing Up Baby and Only Angels Have Wings. Hawks often had everyone speak their lines at the same time so the dialogue would sound quick. It does. It's actually a remake of a 1931 movie titled The Front Page, which was remade again in 1974 with the same title, and starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Susan Sarandon.

(superimposed image of the Heroine over the rubble of the town)
Tom: What, is this Topper all of a sudden?

Wow! Two Two Two Cary Grant movies in one! One MST3K show, that is, as Mike and the ‘Bots reference another famous Grant comedy. Topper is considered the movie that put Cary Grant on the map—it was his first hit, if I remember correctly. It’s about a married couple who die in a car accident and come back in ghost form (explaining the superimposed image thing in Beginning of the End) to teach a loser how to have fun. Grant plays the dead husband (what, you thought he’d actually play a loser?). Coincidentally, the sequel to Topper starred Asta, the wire-haired terrier (made famous in The Thin Man) who had co-starred with Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby and The Awful Truth.

(Peter Graves walks down the alley with a soldier)
Mike: This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

One of the famous lines from Casablanca. Actually, it was the last line from the movie. There isn’t much more that I can tell you about this movie that I haven’t already written for the other episodes (look in the Space Mutiny and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank sections)—Humphrey Bogart. Claude Rains. Ingrid Bergman. Paul Henreid. Peter Lorre (the greatest character actor ever). Henreid actually didn’t like Bogart’s style of acting; he called him “wooden” or some such thing. And Bergman didn’t really like Henreid; she called him “dull”. Humphrey Bogart’s wife-at-the-time Mayo Methot believed that he and Bergman were having an affair while they were making this movie (and continually barged onto the set drunken and screaming), but there’s no evidence that she was correct in her assumption. When Bogart actually did have an affair with a co-star (Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not)—well, Methot could have torched the studios and she still wouldn’t have had a chance of stopping it. That’s not to say that she would have had a chance if Ingrid Bergman and Bogart were having an affair. I mean, look at Bergman, for God’s sake. In any case, Cary Grant doesn’t figure into this equation at all, so I’ll end it here (although he did star with Bergman in Notorious, and damn it if I’d be surprised if I found out that they had a thing going. The chemistry in that film was off the wall…)

The Screaming Skull

2008-05-27T23:48:00.005-04:00

(someone’s knocking at the door)
Tom: Do him a favor, open the door! [then he sings a little tune]

“Let ‘Em In” by Paul McCartney and his Wings. Just thought I’d mention it.

(a shot of a portrait of a pleasant-looking woman in a big sun-hat)
Tom: I’m Hedda Hopper.

Hedda Hopper was a notorious Hollywood publicist back in 1940’s through 50’s. She was hated and feared by nearly every person in Hollywood, and called a bitch on numerous occasions. It must be really hard to have been Hedda Hopper, to be so loathed and feared. But I suppose the money makes up for it. In any case, she looks like the woman in the portrait (she always wore big hats). So there you go. She also acted, mostly in bit parts--she was in Topper, Alice Adams, and even played a thinly veiled caricature of herself in The Women. Her son, by the way, is William Hopper, who starred in "Perry Mason" and The Bad Seed...and The Deadly Mantis, a "MST3K" experiment.

(the Husband is walking back to the house)
Mike: If Ed Wood had directed Rules of the Game.

Rules of the Game is actually a French film directed by Jean Renoir in 1938. It’s a social commentary, about taboos and class struggles, etc. etc. It's generally considered Renoir's greatest film, and always ends up on critics' Best Films EVAR lists. Ed Wood, on the other hand, is considered the worst director of all time, and made what many consider to be the worst film of all time, Plan 9 from Outer Space. He dealt primarily with science fiction B-films, although he did occasionally touch on taboo subjects like cross-dressing, in the film Glen or Glenda? (which pretty much tells you the depth of the film right in the title). I don’t suggest seeing any of his movies—unless you want to laugh at them, which is actually quite fun—but I do suggest you see a biopic about him titled Ed Wood, in which Johnny Depp plays Ed Wood, and Martin Landau plays Wood’s constant star (like Scorsese and De Niro) Bela Lugosi. It has to be one of the few films that have made me laugh out loud. It is very good.

(the Wife, in her penoir, falls on the floor and sobs)
Mike: I was going to do the dance of the seven veils but I only have four!

Alas, she cannot count. Perhaps she was poorly educated…

Gunslinger

2008-05-27T23:37:00.005-04:00

(wormy guy plods solemnly down a street in the Old West)
Crow (singing): Why am I such a misfit?

That song belongs to one of my favorite holiday clay-mation movies (and there are a lot, I tell you), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It’s sung by Herby, the cute little blond elf who doesn’t want to make toys; he wants to be a dentist, and is ostracized by the other elves for doing so. He gets kicked out of his elf home and meets up with Rudolph (who also has been cast off) and they go to the Land of Broken Toys. One must wonder why dentistry is so despised up at the North Pole, because God knows elves and the Claus’ must need a filling or two, what with all the candy canes they eat…

(Assassin is riding a horse)
Tom (singing): Duh-duh-duh O-Oklahoma where the wind goes—oh forget it.

The song Tom mangled was “Oklahoma” from…yes, that’s right, Oklahoma! As Gunslinger takes place in the Old West, it seems only fitting that, while striding atop of a horse, the Good/Bad Assassin erupt into song! Of course, this is a Roger Corman film, so it’s also only fitting that he screw said song up real good.

(Beverly Garland is riding a horse when Assassin rides up to her)
Tom: Don’t sleep in the subway…oh hi!

Nothing to do with movies. Just like the song.

(Music plays as Beverly Garland rides along on her horse)
Servo: (singing) Gold finggguuuhhh, Gold finggguuuhh, gold…finger…

I like how he just kind of peters out at the end. He’s singing (or mocking; who knows which) the theme from the James Bond flick Goldfinger (Makes sense. Tell me more.) It's sung by Shirley Bassey, who also sang the theme song to a subsequent Bond flick, Diamonds Are Forever (she also sang a great cover of "As Long As He Needs Me" from Oliver! But that's neither here nor there).

Joel: Day two, the rabbi gets robbed!

A reference to The Frisco Kid starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford, in which Wilder goes to the Old West to find a wife and supply a little Jewish community with a rabbi (himself). The plot itself doesn’t really matter. What matters is you get to see Harrison Ford in long underwear. Which is almost as priceless as seeing him covered only by a teddy bear in Frantic. “That’s right, man, I am crazy and I am an American!”

(Beverly Garland chucks a drunk into the slammer)
Crow: Attica! Attica!

Dog Day Afternoon. It’s about a group of guys (led by Al Pacino) who get stuck in a bank after a derailed robbery; pretty soon the media picks it up and there’s a big standoff (much bigger than it really should have been). At one point Al Pacino walks out and he yells, “Attica! Attica!” on the sidewalk (Attica being the infamous prison in which prisoners rioted and, again, there was a bloody standoff). It's a key scene in the film, and probably one of the most famous in the history of cinema. And it still holds up today. So go rent it.

The Wild World of Batwoman

2008-05-25T19:26:00.004-04:00

(Batwoman switches the poisoned drinks)
Crow: Now you may think that the iocane powder is in this one!

It’s a reference to The Princess Bride starring Robin Wright (at the time not yet Robin Wright-Penn) and Cary Elwes…and Peter Falk and Wallace Shawn and Andre the Giant and Mandy Patankin and Billy Crystal and a slew of other stars, including but not limited to: Fred Savage (the kid from “The Wonder Years”) and Carol Kane (the Ghost of Christmas Present in Scrooged). Everyone loves The Princess Bride. Every girl had a crush on Cary Elwes (from what I can remember) and why shouldn’t they? The blond hair, the black leather pants, rolling down the hill yelling “As you wish!” The scene Crow brings up is one of the funniest of the movie: Wallace Shawn, the smartest man in the world, has challenged Elwes to a duel of wits (since Elwe's already won the Duel of Strength and the Duel of Swords). Elwes puts poison in one of the goblets and Shawn has to choose between one. He goes on for about five minutes about why it’s one goblet and not the other. He ends up being poisoned. I won’t tell you how Elwes did it. Off topic, though—Christ, wasn’t The Wild World of Batwoman one of the worst movies ever? Jeez, I’m watching it right now…man.

(two girls hiding behind some trash [don’t ask—it won’t make any sense in the movie either])
Crow: Calling Michelle Pfeiffer.

Michelle Pfeiffer is a leading actress—she was named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 greatest movie stars of all time. Pretty good, considering her first movie was the incredibly bad sequel Grease 2 (but don’t judge an actor by his first movie—Steve McQueen started in The Blob and Renee Zelweger’s first movie was the god-awful Empire Records). Pfeiffer went on to make better movies like The Fabulous Baker Boys (there’s the famous scene with her singing on top of a piano [I can’t help but think of Lauren Bacall singing on top of the piano while Harry Truman played]), Married to the Mob, and What Lies Beneath (with mah boy Harrison Ford). Other works include Batman Returns (not a great movie but she’s probably the coolest part of the film), Stardust, and Hairspray. She’s a pretty cool chick, if I do say so m’self, and also a pretty good actress.

(at the very beginning, a shot of empty buildings)
Tom: I’m as mad as hell!

Part of the most famous line in Network, starring William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and Peter Finch. It’s more than likely that you’ve heard it before—the insane anchorman Finch tells viewers during a telecast to “…go to the window now. I want you to open the window and yell, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’” People do. He’s labeled as “the mad prophet of the airwaves”. Network is a classic satire that pretty much reams the television world; it portrays every TV executive as greedy little bastards who will do anything—anything—for a jump in the ratings. It’s as relevant today as it was when made (1976). It was written by Paddy Chayefsky, arguably the best satirist in film history. Go watch his film The Hospital, in which he sticks it to the American health care system. You’ll never check into a hospital again.

(there’s an explosion)
Tom (singing): I’ll shoot myself if we ever meet again, doesn’t matter where, doesn’t matter when…

Ha. The song itself is “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn, and was one of the signature WWII songs for the British army—kind of a British equivalent to the Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Seeing You”. The song actually goes “We’ll meet again/ don’t know where/ don’t know when/ but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day”. It’s actually a very sweet song. But how does it pertain to film, you ask? Well, it was the song played during the A-bomb montage at the end of Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Strange way to end a film, I know—originally the film was to end in a huge pie fight between all the occupants of the War Room. It was scrapped for two reasons: firstly, the director, Stanley Kubrick, didn’t like it. Secondly, the fight was to contain a line wherein George C. Scott (as Frank Turgidson) would cry as the President, played by Peter Sellers, is hit by a pie, “Men! Our young president has been struck down in his prime!”, which would hit too close to home as the real American president John F. Kennedy would be assassinated in Dallas a month or so before the film was to open. Incidentally, you can still see the table with all the pies in the finished film. There’s also a scene in which Slim Pickens rummages through a survival kit (containing, among other things, a gun, bullets, a grenade, cigarettes, stockings, and bubble gum) and says, “A guy could have a lot of fun in Dallas with this stuff.” For the same reason as above, the line was edited, changing “Dallas” to “Las Vegas”. You can see Slim Pickens’ lips say “Dallas”, if you look closely.

The Mole People

2008-05-25T19:23:00.004-04:00

(an army of white guys run away from John Agar [which is understandable])
Tom (singing to the music): Who will buy this wonderful feeling?

Tom has a knack for music, because he can always accompany a crappy music score with a famous song, while a normal human being couldn’t possibly. The song he sings in this one is “Who Will Buy?” from Oliver! It was sung by Mark Lester (or at least, Mark Lester's character, Oliver; there's some debate over whether or not it was sung by Lester)—it’s set in a street in the rich part of London (as opposed to “Consider Yourself at Home”, sung by Jack Wild’s The Artful Dodger, in the poor part of the city) in the morning. It starts with one girl singing the song as she sells flowers, and street vendors gradually appear and sing along, until it’s about half of the city’s businesses dancing around. Oliver! is a pretty fun movie to watch (I personally love it), as is just about any musical, because you have to wonder why the hell people suddenly just break into song.

(the first sacrifice enters the uh sacrifice room, I guess)
Mike: Helen Mirren enters first.

Helen Mirren is a renowned British actress who first made her name in the “Prime Suspect” mini-series. She’s been nominated for several Academy Awards, and most recently won for her role as Queen Elizabeth in The Queen. Helen Mirren is an incredibly good actress; please excuse her for the god-awful Teaching Mrs. Tingle.

The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

2008-05-25T19:18:00.003-04:00

(There’s a creepy farmhand in this movie who always dons a cowboy hat. Virtually every time we see him, Mike and the ‘Bots sing something, like “There’s a bright yellow stain on my back brace!” or “There’s a thick greasy smudge on my pillow!” At one point, the farmhand is peeping on the Virginal Heroine, who’s taking off twelve layers of clothing, it seems like…)
Mike (singing loudly): There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow!
(the farmhand is walking slowly down a road…)
Tom (singing): Poor Jud is dead.

All of the songs Mike and the ‘Bots sing are from Oklahoma! Mike’s loud line during the peeping is, in fact, directly from the movie. It’s a line from the first song sung, “There’s a Bright Golden Haze”. Tom’s line about Jud is from the end of the movie, when the bad guy gets into a knife fight with the Good Guy and is killed. This is one of the earliest movies I remember seeing but I haven’t seen it in years, so I can’t give you detailed information on it.

(Smarmy, Possessed Woman is showing Virginal Heroine into her room)
Tom: I better go ask Mitch how the little Brenner girl is doing…

There’s also a little reference earlier in the film about the woman being Suzanne Pleshette. She really does look like Suzanne Pleshette, even more so than the Japanese lady in Prince of Space. Tom’s line about the Brenner girl is alluding to The Birds, although I don’t think she ever actually went to go see how the Brenner girl was doing. Mitch Brenner was her former boyfriend, and Tippi Hedrin’s love interest. I always thought that Mitch and the schoolteacher should have gotten back together, but that might have been because I wasn’t fond of Tippi Hedrin very much.

(The box is opened to reveal… a head!)
Mike: Mrs. Muir!

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir starred Gene Tierney (whom I consider one of the prettiest ladies in Hollywood) as a widow who buys a house haunted by none other than Rex Harrison. Gene Tierney starred in Laura and was made famous by it, in the same way that Rita Hayworth (also one of the prettiest actresses) was made famous by Gilda. After becoming unimaginably famous for these movies, they unfortunately never got out from the shadow of their roles. The head in this movie looks a little like Daniel the Ghost in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir in that he is dead and has a beard. Rex Harrison was one of those lucky dogs who had success on both stage and screen—he won several Tony’s and at least one Oscar that I know of. He was also notoriously amorous—he was married five or six times and had numerous affairs; one wife and a girlfriend committed suicide. Nevertheless I consider him a rather cool and talented man—just go see The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Midnight Lace (which is one of the few movies that manages to creep me out), and My Fair Lady, where he pretty much verbally abuses Audrey Hepburn for most of the film until she gives him an ultimatum, he realizes he loves her (“I’ve grown accustomed to her face/ Like breathing out and breathing in”), and she comes back. That’s all well and good, I say, but she of course didn’t know of his realization. So why does she come back? Because he’s Sexy Rexy, that’s why.

Prince of Space

2008-05-24T01:35:00.004-04:00

(Hero looks longingly up at a clock…or the sky…or something)
Tom (singing): Whe-er-er-er-ere is [insert Japanese word here]

The song Tom is singing is “Where is Love?” from Oliver!, a 1968 musical version of Oliver Twist. It was sung by Mark Lester, who played Oliver, and who ultimately fell into obscurity after making movies like Fahrenheit 451. In the “Where is Love” sequence, Oliver had just been thrown into the cellar and was looking longingly out of the window, which might explain Tom’s reference. The word Tom says in Japanese is, coincidentally, “love” but I don’t know how to spell it so I used the brackets. Oliver! starred Ron Moody and Oliver Reed. Oliver! went on to win Best Picture of 1968.

(a nice-looking Japanese woman runs out of the house after her little boy.)
Mike: It’s the Japanese Suzanne Pleshette.

Suzanne Pleshette was a ‘50’s and ‘60’s movie star who did look a little like the woman in this movie, except she was Caucasian. Although she’s equally famous for her part in “The Bob Newhart Show”, the movie I remember her most for is The Birds, where she played a schoolteacher who used to have a thing for Mitch and ultimately gets her eyes pecked out by homicidal birds. I liked Suzanne Pleshette’s character better than Tippi Hedrin’s, because Hedrin was too uppity and high-toned, while Pleshette was cool and easy-going…until she got her eyes pecked out. I never really understood that movie…

(Prince of Space flies between the giant alien’s legs [it’s not as perverted as it sounds)
Mike: Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?

The most famous line from The Graduate (and there are several: “One word: plastics” and “Elaine!” just to name two). Dustin Hoffman has just taken Anne Bancroft home from a party and finds her with her leg arched over a chair. Then he says the line in a very nerdy way (as only Dustin Hoffman knows how). This is a really good movie, very classic, and it has the famous ending with Benjamin (Hoffman) and Elaine (Katharine Ross) sitting doubtfully at the back of a bus (they do a whole bunch of stuff before then, so there’s a reason they’re uncertain). This shot kind of reminds me of the end of Georgy Girl, where Lynn Redgrave (also in a wedding dress) and James Mason sit uncertainly in the back of a car. She probably wished she’d stayed with Alan Bates. Anyway, Anne Bancroft (the “older woman”) was actually only six years older than Hoffman. Don’t be so surprised; this happens a lot in the movies. In North by Northwest, Cary Grant was actually only seven years younger than Jessica Royce Landis, who played his mother.

(shot of the leader of the Chicken Men of Krankor)
Mike: Ah, Mr. Bond. Bock.

Heh. Obviously a reference to the James Bond movies, specifically the one where the villain sits in a big chair with a white Persian cat in his lap (so, in this example, Blofeld, I guess), while James Bond is tied up or in some kind of death trap that never works, and says something like, “Ah, Mr. Bond. So you thought you could invade my secret lair in the Invisible Island of Paprika—45 degrees latitude, 23 longitude—and stop me from blowing up the United Nations with my death ray that I bought from the Russian black market? Well, we’ll see about that…wait…damn it…the death button doesn’t work.” You’d think it’d be easier to just shoot the guy. The first Bond movie (not the television movie, mind you), Dr. No, was released in 1962 and starred Sean Connery as Agent 007 and Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder, who’s some kind of shell diver. Besides having one of the coolest (if not the coolest) theme songs ever, the James Bond series also has some of the coolest titles out there, including You Only Live Twice, Tomorrow Never Dies, Diamonds are Forever, For Your Eyes Only, Live and Let Die, and The World is Not Enough. Oh, and it’s also got the coolest gadgets.

Leech Woman

2008-05-24T01:23:00.005-04:00

English Man: Stay away from the river’s edge…
Tom: That Crispin Glover is creepy.

Crispin Glover (who is better known as the nerdy dad in the Back to the Future trilogy) played a punk kid in The River’s Edge, which was about a group of kids who find a dead body near, uh, a river. Glover is, indeed, creepy.

(Leech Woman, having not had pineal juice for a long time, turns into a white-haired, wrinkly old lady…)
Mike: It’s Barbara Stanwyck!

She really does look like Barbara Stanwyck! It’s a bit eerie and, as a result, I actually feel really bad for Barbara Stanwyck because of it. Anyway, she was a famous movie star in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s and '50's, acting in films like Double Indemnity and Balls of Fire and (with Humphrey Bogart) The Two Mrs. Carrolls. The Two Mrs. Carrolls is about a woman (Barbara) who marries a painter (Bogie) who she realizes killed his two previous wives. Before they die under mysterious circumstances, he would paint their portraits as angels of death. Hmm…one would think…

(English Man is getting flirty with Leech Woman)
Crow: Uh oh, he’s Niven-ing!

David Niven was a British actor who was in nearly all of the Pink Panther movies. He was also in a lot of other Hollywood movies, including The Prisoner of Zenda, Wuthering Heights, and Murder by Death, which I think is hilarious. I don’t know why “Niven-ing”—as Crow put it—would be such a bad thing but, hey, the guy knows what he’s talking about, I guess.

(a shot of a drunk stumbling out of a bar)
Crow: Oh, Uncle Billy!

Uncle Billy was the cute, absent-minded uncle in It’s A Wonderful Life, who at one point in the movie gets really drunk. He has a bit of rapport with George Bailey, then walks off the screen, and next thing you hear what sounds like a dozen garbage cans getting knocked over. George (Jimmy Stewart) looks surprised and then smiles. What really happened was, Thomas Mitchell (who plays Uncle Billy) walked out of the shot, and a crewmember accidentally dropped a whole lot of props, which caused the noise. The crewmember thought he’d be fired, but he ended up getting a 50-dollar bonus from the film’s director, Frank Capra! Thomas Mitchell, by the way, played Gerald O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.

(Leech Woman and her husband are bickering)
Crow: And don’t forget, Nick and Honey are coming over…

Ref to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which was the best Taylor-Burton film (better than Cleopatra, which actually isn’t that good to begin with). Although I’m not a huge fan of Elizabeth Taylor (I don’t mind her, I mean), I am a huge fan of Richard Burton, who never got the respect he deserved. He was in great movies like The Longest Day, Look Back in Anger, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Look Back in Anger is considered the first of the British Angry Young Man movies (which is self-explanatory). The Angry Young Man movies include The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and A Kind of Loving, and made stars of Burton, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and (mah boy) Alan Bates (there’s actually some debate over whether Bates should be considered an Angry Young Man actor, because although he did make his name in this era, and he was in the stage version of Look Back in Anger, most of his movies were not actually AYM movies. I’m inclined to agree with this. But I do consider A Kind of Loving an AYM movie—also known as a “kitchen sink drama”—so I’ve included him). Richard Burton married Elizabeth Taylor (twice) and made some movies opposite her, but this one is the best, as I already stated. They play a married couple who more or less hate each other, and they have an all-night party with Nick and Honey, played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis. Which is what Crow is referencing.

(Cigarette-smoking smarmy man walks to the Heroine [would you really call her a “heroine”, seeing as how she kills about ten people in the movie?])
Mike: The desperately poor man’s Humphrey Bogart.

The guy in this movie looks a little like Humphrey Bogart, at least in that shot, and he’s about to make out with an extremely old woman for money, which is why Mike calls him desperate. Humphrey Bogart (ooh, I’ve been waiting a long time to talk about him) is considered by most everyone (including leading sources in the matter, like the American Film Institute, Entertainment Weekly, and Empire) to be the greatest actor of all time. He was the star of such classics as Casablanca (arguably the best movie of all time), The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Big Sleep, High Sierra, The Caine Mutiny, The African Queen (for which he won his only Oscar), Key Largo, To Have and Have Not, and Sabrina. He is one of my favorite actors (along with Cary Grant) and personally I recommend Casablanca, The Big Sleep, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre if you want to see some great movies (all the ones I listed above are really good too).

(same guy as above)
Crow: Hi, Peter Lorre’s M!

I like how Crow says that line, but he said it, “Lorryesem” (once again, the mispronunciation, I swear to God), which is why it took me a while to figure out what he was saying. M was a famous pre-Nazi German movie starring Peter Lorre as a child murderer. It’s titled M because a blind man writes the letter on Lorre’s shoulder, which ultimately gets him caught. It’s in this movie that Lorre says a very famous line—and it’s also actually quite chilling, for all its simplicity—“I can’t help myself!” When the Nazis took over, they used that scene in their famous propaganda film The Eternal Jew, and dubbed over Lorre’s lines to make it sound like he was talking about being a Jew. Hitler named Peter Lorre one of the best actors in Germany—not knowing that Lorre was Jewish. Lorre subsequently fled to Hollywood. Hitler cemented his role in history as most dangerous idiot.

(Leech Lady is looking wistfully at…someone)
Servo: You know it, Sam (and he sings a little ditty)

Good thing Servo didn’t say, “Play it again, Sam” or he would’ve gotten beat down by film enthusiasts. In Casablanca, no one ever said, “Play it again, Sam.” Bergman says, “Play it, Sam, for old time’s sake”. Bogart says, “Now play it!” But never “Play it again.” The song Servo hums is “As Time Goes By”, sung (but not played) by Dooley Wilson. Wilson was a drummer when he auditioned for the role—couldn’t play a lick on the piano. So he pretended to play on the piano as a record played offstage.

(The title pops up)
Mike: The Sean Young story!

Sean Young is an actress whose fame peaked in the 1980’s—she was in Blade Runner, most notably. She’s a rather good actress, but unfortunately she’s most known for her relationship with James Woods. After this rather intense relationship, she allegedly began to stalk him, doing Fatal Attraction-ish things. It ultimately ended with Woods getting a restraining order on her. In the 90’s she was in Ace Ventura and some other movies. Oh well.

(walking through the jungle…)
Servo: Out of Africa.
Mike: Don’t worry, there’s more in the trunk.

I like the groan uttered by Crow, because I thought the joke was corny too. Anywho, Out of Africa was one of those epic films that garnered millions upon millions of Oscars. It stars Meryl Streep as the Dutch writer Karen Blixen, who travels to East Africa (although Leech Woman also takes place in Africa, there are no jungle scenes in Out of Africa) to be with her philandering husband. Luckily for her (and unluckily for her husband, I suppose), there’s a hunter living nearby, and he’s played by Robert Redford! Smart girl that she is, she falls for him, he falls for her, and they both fall for each other. This is actually a very nice, very romantic, and rather sad movie (and has a lot in common with The English Patient, now that I think about it). If you’ve got two and a half hours to spare, and feel like a good cry, then rent this movie. Oh yeah, and it has Robert Redford. I think he’s dreamy (and…uh…a good actor too…yeah…uh...)

(more stock footage)
Tom (in what I’m supposing is a bird’s voice): Alfred Hitchcock’s The Us!

The Birds. They’re birds, Tom’s speaking for them. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Hell of a lot of birds—including crows—in that film.

Horror of Spider Island

2008-05-24T01:22:00.001-04:00

(Mrs. Forrester, Bobo, and Observer audition for Mike’s dance revue [which is going to Singapore!]. Observer does a pretty impressive dance routine involving a chair and a non-working shower.)

Observer’s bit is from Flashdance, with Jennifer Beal. She’s a welder by day and a dancer by night, but in her case, the shower works.

(a shot of a guy in dark glasses)
Crow: It’s Dr. Strangelove!

This is a reference to Peter Seller’s role in one of the funniest movies ever, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I think I’ve already explained Dr. Strangelove, but it’s also important to note that Peter Seller’s played about twenty million other characters in the movie also, including the President of the United States. He also played Mandrake; he at first played him as another manic character—the character originally had a cold—and he was so funny that the movie crew would crack up. But they ultimately decided to play him straight. I love when he (as Mandrake) is talking rather excitedly to Ripper, and Ripper walks out the door and you hear him shoot himself. Cracks me up every time. Of course, I am kind of weird.

The Crawling Hand

2008-05-24T01:20:00.001-04:00

Alan Hale: I’ve seen hundreds of kids just like him! The prisons are full of them!
Servo: Sal Mineo impersonators?

The kid in this movie—Paul, I think his name is—looks just like Sal Mineo, and has his Rebel Without a Cause-style acting down pat. Sal Mineo was a child/teenage star who, as an adult, never quite achieved the same level of success that he did when he was young. He was murdered in his car, or maybe it was by it, or maybe it was in a hotel room—you know how these things go. Police never found the killer. A little side note: Sal Mineo’s aunt married my great-grandfather. Yep. Sure, they were only married for a couple of years or so, but I think that grants me the right to call Sal Mineo “Uncle Sal”. And demand 50% of all his profits.

Angel’s Revenge

2008-05-24T01:11:00.004-04:00

(Crow stages a 70’s black exploitation film titled “Chocolate Jones and the Temple of Funk”)

Well, I only wanted to mention that the title is from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which everyone probably knows already. The Temple of Doom starred Harrison Ford (of course) and Kate Capshaw, who ultimately married the movie’s director, Steven Spielberg. This was the first movie to house the PG-13 rating, mainly because of the now-famous dinner party scene, which was so gross that my sister refused to watch it for a while. The monkey brains, the eyeball soup, the stuffed beetles, the ball python stuffed with…smaller snakes—the gross-factor wasn’t in the same category as, say, Hannibal—it was fun, not vomit-inducing. My sister and I grew up on the Indiana Jones movies, and I have fond memories of watching this movie and being incredibly jealous of Short Round, getting to hang out with Indiana Jones and fight evil Thuggees and all. Oh well. One day.

Crow: What do you do? Shoot the hostage.

It’s a line from Speed, the hit action movie starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, and Dennis Hopper. Keanu Reeves’ character, Jack (I haven’t seen the movie in a while, I don’t remember all the names, but I know his name is Jack because every action hero’s name is Jack) is put in a situation where the Bad Guy (Dennis Hopper, natch) has taken Jack’s partner (Jeff Bridges) hostage and Jack has to choose between getting Hopper and losing his partner and letting Hopper get away and maybe lose his partner anyway. So what does he do? Well, he shoots the hostage. Right in the leg. Dennis Hopper is so weirded out by this that he lets the hostage go, but somehow he gets away nevertheless. I remember liking this movie, but nobody ever really shows it on television anymore (I guess the idea of terrorist acts involving means of transportation is a little too familiar now; which, by the by, is the reason I don’t think I’ll ever see Air Force One on TV ever again). And the fact that I actually enjoyed a movie starring Keanu “Whoa” Reeves is saying a lot. By the way, Jeff Bridges buys it in the end nonetheless.
Update: Spoke to soon. Not only was Speed on television, but also Air Force One. Never underestimate the callousness of the media.

Servo: For Lancomê and…Isabella Rossellini!

What a strange way to say such a thing. Isabella Rossellini is an actress who made a name for herself in the incredibly weird Blue Velvet, also starring Dennis Hopper as a masochist who gets high on helium or something to that effect. She also starred in the critically acclaimed television movies Merlin and The Odyssey, and is the spokeswoman for Lancomê, which explains the reference. She’s equally famous as the daughter of director Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, who happens to be my favorite actress. She favors her mother very much, and actually played her—or at least a character vaguely like her mother’s character Ilsa Lund in Casablanca—in an episode of “Tales from the Crypt”. I like Isabella Rossellini; a lot of actors try to get by because they have a parent who’s famous, but she can actually act. It must be in the genes.

(the opening credits are rolling, presenting B-list and below actors)
Mike: And Sir Laurence Olivier!

Laurence Olivier is considered the supreme Shakespearean actor—his film adaptations of Henry V and Hamlet are classics, and the latter has the distinction of being the only Shakespeare film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. He made other, lesser-known Shakespeare films—including As You Like It, Richard III, and Othello—and some non-Shakespeare films that went on to become classics: Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Spartacus, The Entertainer, and Marathon Man. Buuuutttt, my dad doesn’t like him very much. He thinks Kenneth Branagh is better with Shakespearean adaptations. And I’m inclined to agree with him on the second part, if only because I kind of grew up on Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations, although I do like Olivier's Henry V. I’ve seen The Entertainer (which I liked a lot), Pride and Prejudice (which I also liked a lot), Spartacus, and A Little Romance (starring a very young Diane Lane) and Rebecca and Wuthering Heights and so on. I’ve probably seen others but I can’t think of any. I don’t intend to sound as if I dislike him, because I actually really admire the man—talent oozes from him. And he was married to Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. In any case, Olivier is an incredibly, incredibly respected actor and thus is the irony of Mike calling him in the roster.

(the women are fighting on the beach)
Mike: Scenes cut from The Longest Day.

The Longest Day is, in my opinion, one of the best World War II movies out there. It’s packed with stars including John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, Roddy McDowell, Robert Wagner, Mel Ferrer, Rod Steiger, Sal Mineo, Red Buttons, and (mah boy) Richard Burton. The Longest Day was unique in that it depicted D-Day through the eyes of both the Allies (specifically, the Americans, British, and French) and the Axis (the Germans). This is a really interesting movie, if you can get over the length. Interesting to note that Roddy McDowell and Richard Burton were in the middle of the troubled production of Cleopatra at the time this was filmed. McDowell had to plead for a part in this movie, just because Cleopatra was so tempestuous. I’m guessing Burton just went along for the ride. I think he gives one of the best performances in the movie, along with Christian Marquand, who played a Commander in the Free French army.

(the blonde drug dealer is ambling desperately on the roof of the apartment building)
Mike: We are all like drug-dealer on the roof!

Reference to Fiddler on the Roof. There is actually only one shot of a fiddler on the roof in Fiddler on the Roof, although the same fiddler does scamper along country roads whilst playing his violin a lot—stalking the Father and protagonist of the story (whom Mike is mimicking here), who smiles warmly at him. Maybe the guy just wants some milk. Check out what I had to say about Fiddler on the Roof in the Touch of Satan section.

(the blonde drug dealer is roughing up the fruity-looking kid)
Mike (as the drug dealer): The Bad News Bears are going to lose that game today, aren’t they?

Ha. Okay, The Bad News Bears is a very, very seventies film (actually, it was made in 1976) about a drunken ex-baseball player (Walter Matthau, very funny) who is asked to coach a kid’s baseball team. The catch is that the kids really, really suck. After talking his lady friend’s talented daughter (Tatum O’Neal, very good) and a pee wee rebel (Jackie Earl Haley, who gets to ride a motorcycle, smoke and drink, and hustle adults at air hockey) into joining the team, the Bad News Bears work to reach the championships, where they’ll have to defeat their hated rivals. While this may sound like every other by-the-numbers kiddie sports flick (of which there are too, too many), it’s actually really good, really funny, and may be one of the first of its kind. And it probably holds the record for number of shaggy blonde-haired Californian kids in one film. Check it out.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

2008-05-24T01:06:00.004-04:00

(a weird, sick-sounding woman sings “Falling in Love Again” at the piano. Mike and the ‘Bots make fun of her)

I don’t particularly get that woman (I think her name was Lola). Raul Julia is supposed to be in his Casablanca world, right? Then, what’s that blonde woman doing singing “Falling in Love Again” on top of the piano? Nobody in Casablanca did that. Was she supposed to be Lauren Bacall, singing on top of the piano while FDR played? Then why did she have a German accent? Was she supposed to be Marlene Dietrich in Blue Angel? If so, how in bloody hell does that figure in at all with Casablanca? The woman didn’t even look like Marlene Dietrich, in any case. Anyway, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank is loaded chock-full with references to Casablanca (obviously). The guy who impersonates Peter Lorre is actually pretty good.

Sick-Sounding Woman: Buckle your seatbelt, Fingle…It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Mike: Wait, now All About Eve? What next, are the Bowery Boys going to stop by?

The Bowery Boys (also known as the Dead End Kids) were a group of kids who starred in 30’s and 40’s movies like Angels with Dirty Faces, Dead End, and Crime School (all of which starred Humphrey Bogart, although Humphrey Bogart did not star in all the Bowery Boys films). They were always tough-talking New Yawk kids who, as their films became more of a franchise, were kind of like the Little Rascals gone bad. Their best movie, in my opinion, was Angels with Dirty Faces, which starred Bogie and James Cagney. Story has it that Bogie got along really well with the kids, playing stickball with them and such, while Cagney couldn’t stand them, and even slapped one when the kid started ad-libbing. It reminds me of a scene in Angels with Dirty Faces, when Cagney is playing basketball with them, and they try to cheat, and he slaps them all over and over again! One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a non-comedic film. All About Eve, by the way, is one of the many classic films that Bette Davis made—it’s about an aging actress who gets upstaged by a creepy, egomaniacal starlet. The line spoken by the Sick-Sounding Woman is pretty much the line in the film, but it goes “It’s going to be a bumpy night,” and without the “Fingle” of course. It’s one of the most famous lines in film history, as famous as “You talkin’ to me?” (Taxi Driver) and “My boat.” (Waterworld)…just kidding about the second one. Sorry.

(the whole film’s about Casablanca)

(Warning: This is going to be rather long, because I love Casablanca and have to comment on it)
Casablanca is regarded as one of the best movies ever made, counted in the top five by Roger Ebert, the American Film Institute, Entertainment Weekly, and Leonard Maltin. Ebert calls it “The Movie” because it really does seem to be the most well known movie ever, and the most beloved. Everyone knows its lines like “Here’s looking at you, kid”, “You’ll regret it, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life”, “Is that cannon fire or is it my heart pounding”, “Round up the usual suspects”, “The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”, “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship”, and “Play it again, Sam” (although this last line was never actually said verbatim). Everyone knows the song “As Time Goes By” because of this movie and most everyone immediately identifies Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to their characters in Casablanca, Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lazlo. There’s the great scene in the beginning of the movie, with Rick meeting Ilsa again, the Paris flash-back, and the scene where Paul Henreid gets everyone in the bar to drown out the Nazis by singing “La Marseilles”, and of course the legendary final scene at the airport. It’s been parodied and referenced to in a million movies, from When Harry Met Sally to Play It Again Sam to Hot Shots. And it’s nearly played to death in this insipid little made-for-television movie, but I still love it. I loved Servo’s line, “Never play a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie”. Indeed.

(Raul Julia stands behind a caravan of what-looks-like corpses going by on stretchers.)
Mike: Corpse-spotting.

Reference to—Trainspotting. I already praised the movie in Revenge of the Creature, so I’ll skip it here. In the movie, there’s a scene where the group of druggies (Renton, Spud, Sick Boy, and Tommy, who technically is not a junkie yet but will be) go for a hike in the hills. They pass a train. The image of them standing in a row by the railroad tracks is a trademark of the film. Come to think of it, the movie’s title is never explained in the movie itself. I think I remember someone telling me it was because they’re always pinpointing the exact time the trains go by. Doesn’t make sense though. Hmm…

(Scary Fat Man is talking)
Crow: You once called me a warped, frustrated old man…

Yet another (another! For Christ’s sake!) reference to It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey has gone to Mr. Potter to ask for money, because Uncle Billy has “misplaced” 8,000 dollars. “Misplaced”, because Mr. Potter actually stole it. Poor George has to grovel at Potter’s feet and at one point Potter is rubbing it in his face and he says, “You once called me a warped, frustrated old man. Well what are you but a warped, frustrated young man?” He doesn’t give him the money. He intends to get Poor George arrested. He’s a mean old guy. This movie is pretty depressing, now that I think of it. No wonder everyone is always depressed at Christmas…

(Animals are drunk…)
Mike: They doppled Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole?

Ha—you know, no matter how good Oliver Reed and Peter O’Toole actually were, they’ll forever be known as alcoholic playboys (perhaps Reed more than O’Toole, since O’Toole was in a lot more good films). Both O’Toole and Reed are from England, but Reed had no theatrical training whatsoever, while I’m rather sure that O’Toole went to RADA. Reed died in 2000 while making Gladiator, and O’Toole was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars. Neither men ever won an Oscar—in fact, O’Toole is tied with Richard Burton for the greatest number of nominations without a win (although I don’t know if it’s moot now that he was given that award). If I had to name a best picture for both of them, I’d say Oliver! for Reed, and Lawrence of Arabia for O’Toole. So there you go.

Terror from the Year 5000

2008-05-24T00:59:00.004-04:00

(the wormy boyfriend walks down the hall)
Crow: I’m going to the city to be a stud.

A reference to Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. The only X-rated film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It’s about gigolos (the thought of Dustin Hoffman as a male prostitute frightens me even more than the thought of him in a dress).

(Angelo looks at sparkly things)
Crow: It’s Lee Marvin!

Lee Marvin was one of those big-drinkers of the ‘60’s—he had many off screen escapades but, unlike many of today’s “stars”, his talent made up for any indiscretions. He was a marine who went into acting as therapy, and ended up making a lot of classic westerns and war films. However, my favorite of his has to be the comedy-western Cat Ballou, also starring Jane Fonda. It garnered his only Oscar. He plays a washed-up drunk cowboy who takes Fonda under his wing. He pretty much makes the whole movie—the scene where he and the horse he’s riding on lean drunkenly against a wall is worth the price of admission. The horse’s legs are crossed! Horses can’t do that!

(the Wormy Bad Guy walks out of the house and to the boat)
Mike and the ‘Bots (singing): Heeee…He was a small oily man…

While this isn’t a movie reference, I like it so much I have to note it. It’s a takeoff of the song “She’s Leaving Home” by my favorite band, The Beatles. Mike and the ‘Bots sing it really well. “She’s Leaving Home” is on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, and is about a girl who uh leaves home.

(after a “big” car chase scene)
Servo: Grace Kelly and Frank Sumpin in To Catch a Pyle.

Servo is referencing Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. In the movie, Grant and Kelly are trying to get away from the French police and they go speeding around a dangerous cliff road to lose them. It’s a really famous scene, and kind of eerie too because about ten or twenty years later Grace Kelly died in a car accident on that same road. The guy in this movie has a crew cut and looks like he’s in the army, which explains Servo’s reference to Frank Sumpin (of "Gomer Pyle, USMD" fame) and the show where “Pyle!” is yelled a lot.

(Bob opens a box marked “fragile”)
Mike: Fragilee!

From A Christmas Story, when the dad won the radio contest and, as a prize, got…a plastic leg lamp! Wow! Mom, however, didn’t like it too much and “accidentally” broke it (I’m in the small camp of people who believe that she did it on purpose; sure she looks all nice and innocent) and Dad buried it in the back yard (whilst playing “Taps”, or so Ralphie thinks). To me, it was hilarious. So was Ralphie’s trip to see Santa Claus (“I like The Wizard of Oz…”) and, of course, when his friend is triple-dog-dared to stick his tongue on the flagpole.

(a shot of the house)
Tom: Tara awaits patiently.

Wow! A Gone with the Wind reference and I didn’t even have to stretch for it! Yep, as I’ve said millions of times before (well, twice), Tara was the plantation owned by the O’Hara’s. And the house in Terror from the Year 5000 does look a little like the one in Gone with the Wind. But I’m beginning to think that all Southern plantation houses do.

(the bartender is cleaning a glass)
Mike: Bartender’s a clean old man.
Servo: Clean.

Although I don’t believe there was a clean bartender in the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, Paul’s Grandpa is definitely a clean old man, or physically clean, at least. His character is uh suspicious to say the least. He gambles, he lies, he forges the Beatles’ autographs, he gets put in jail a couple of times. All the while, the Beatles are running and jumping (and sometimes standing still, one supposes) while singing their classic songs. A Hard Day’s Night was the first of five films they made, and definitely their best (with Yellow Submarine coming in a close second, since they’re not actually in the movie per se). A Hard Day’s Night is always in some film organization’s greatest films list (including critic Roger Ebert, whom I consider the best critic of all time). The man who played Paul’s grandpa wasn’t actually Paul’s real grandpa; he was an actor. Movies have them from time to time. During the filming, he discovered that the Beatles weren’t members of SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and got them inducted, right there on the set. The Beatles are certainly my favorite band; and the soundtrack to this movie is one of the few CD’s that I can actually listen to the whole way through. Vive les Beatles.

(the Nurse walks around the forest like a chump, just waiting to be killed by the Terror from the Year 5000)
Mike: Never get off the gosh-darn boat, absolutely golly-darn right.

This is a reference to the scene in Apocalypse Now, wherein a guy got off the boat when he really shouldn’t have, because they’re in freakin’ Vietnam. Personally, I liked the first half of the film, before Marlon Brando enters into it and it becomes even more of a metaphor of Heart of Darkness. I like the surfing-obsessed Robert Duvall with the Civil War hat, commanding his men to surf while they’re being shot at and bombed. I also like when Harrison Ford shows up. Because that guy is cool.

(the Terror is sparkling in a bush)
Crow: Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
(Bob opens the suitcase with the cat mutant)
Servo: Oh, it’s one of those Fly Monkeys Fly Monkeys!

I can’t believe I spelled monkeys “monkies”. It just seems right, doesn’t it? And then I spelled the singular as “monky”. Ugh. Well, these are both references from the classic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Crow references Dorothy’s question to the Good Witch of the North—she really should have figured that the Good Witch was in fact a good witch, because come on, she was attractive. The Wicked Witch of the West, however, was one sumbitch (a distaff one, at least) who tried in vain to kill Dorothy because she (Dorothy) had killed the Wicked Witch of the West’s sister, the Wicked Witch of the East. Now, the next logical question is, “Is there a Good Witch of the South then?” I’m guessing so, but I imagine the Good Witch of the South to be boozed up on mint juleps, with blonde hair and that half-out-of-the-bag look on her face, like Vivien Leigh in Streetcar Named Desire. Doesn’t do a lot of good deeds, admittedly, but boy can she tell you stories about the good ol’ days when they used to have the biggest plantation in Oz, and a hundred Munchkin “servants”, but then the government took the house and yadda yadda yadda. The flying monkeys, on the other hand, are the servants of the Wicked Witch of the West, and one can assume that—after she dies and all her evil minions are freed—they live out the rest of their days walking around Oz and acting like nothing ever happened. Heigh ho.

Attack of the She-Creature

2008-05-24T00:53:00.004-04:00

(the detective is talking)
Mike: Shtrawberries…

This is a little reference to The Caine Mutiny, with Humphrey Bogart. Bogart’s Captain Queeg goes on a tangent about people stealing his strawberries. The famous line goes something like this: “Ah, but the strawberries, that’s—that’s where I had them! They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and—with geometric logic—that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action.” and there’s more but I can’t possibly remember it all. Captain Queeg is arguably considered to be Bogart’s greatest role; that specific scene, where Queeg pretty much has a mental breakdown on the stand during the trial, is good evidence for the argument. Mike also says, “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow” as the detective is dying, which is a reference to Bogie in Casablanca. The detective in Attack of the She Creature has that Bogie lisp, kind of.

(two guys are talking [wow, I’m being vague, I know, but it’s just that I can’t remember the scene])
Crow: Big nasally line reads!

Well, damn it all if that didn’t sound like a reference to Cary Grant. It may well not be but this is probably going to be the only time I can talk about him, since he’s never really mentioned on “MST3K”. Okay. Cary Grant is considered one of the best actors ever, the essential screwball comedy star (watch Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Arsenic and Old Lace, and The Philadelphia Story) although he’s equally famous for his Alfred Hitchcock thrillers (Suspicion, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, and my favorite movie, Notorious). He was born Archie Leach in Bristol, England, although in most of the movies he’s regarded as an American. He was also in Gunga Din, which was a really great adventure movie. He is personally one of my favorite actors, a real handsome guy, and real funny too.

(a shot of the piano player)
Tom: Keyzer Soze is the piano player.

I’m guessing the piano player looks like Kevin Spacey, who in effect played Keyzer Soze/Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects; and I suppose they do look a little alike, in that they are both bald and they are men. Spacey ultimately won his first Oscar for the role of Verbal Kint (or did he win it as Keyzer Soze? Hmm…). Although I like The Usual Suspects, I feel it only fair to cite film critic Roger Ebert’s one-star rating of it in his review. He makes a lot of points in it. Keyzer Soze, by the way, is a Hungarian warlord who once killed his own family so his enemies couldn’t (and in movie his name is amusingly pronounced “Keezer Sozeee” by the John Gielgud of the ‘90’s, Benicio del Toro [sarcasm, perhaps…]).

(Mike gets the Lance Williams’ Book of Acting and tries a few lines from famous movies out)

As far as I can remember, Mike did lines from Waterworld (“My boat.”), Schindler’s List (“I could have done more. I could have saved more people.”) and The Odd Couple (“Now it’s garbage.”). I think the funniest part was with the line from Schindler’s List, because that was a really emotional scene for Oskar Schindler/Liam Neeson. Neeson played the scene perfectly, ending up on the ground sobbing. Mike’s bit was hilarious, in my opinion.

(At the end of the movie, a question mark springs up, as if to ask “Huh?”)
Crow: …And the Mysterians!

It’s the little things, y’see, that make me laugh…

(The Heroine is speaking her Cockney speak)
Tom: In ‘artford, ‘ereford, and ‘ampshire.

That was the classic scene in My Fair Lady where Audrey Hepburn’s talking in the nifty fire machine (don’t ask for technical terms; I don’t even know how to set my VCR)—Eliza Doolittle has to pronounce her h’s (“In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen”) and she burns the sheet of paper with the pronunciations! Ha ha ha—or perhaps, ‘a ‘a ‘a.

(the two guys are still talking)
Servo: Why don’t you kiss him instead of talking him to death?
(during Lombardy’s first act, a shot of the evidence)
Mike: Now wait a minute, you’re crazy, and you’re driving me crazy too!

Both of these lines are from—you guessed it—It’s a Wonderful Life. Or maybe you didn’t guess it. Maybe you assumed it was Gone with the Wind. But no, no, it’s from the 1946 Christmas classic. The first line is said by a strange old man in an undershirt (despite the fact that, a few seconds before, you could see James Stewart and Donna Reed’s breaths) while George and Mary are flirting. George says something to the point of, “Yeah, I’ll show you some kissing,” and then turns to kiss Mary, only to find that she’s run off. The second line is said by George when his Uncle Billy loses all their money. Poor guy.

(the beach is closed)
Mike: No Barbara Hershey-Bette Midler vehicles allowed!

A reference to the Barbara Hershey-Bette Midler drama Beaches, which is in the same vein as Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes and Terms of Endearment, in that it’s about friendship and womanhood and death, and everyone cries and, well, estrogen abounds. They were popular during the late 80’s, early 90’s for some reason. In Beaches, Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey (lifelong friends that they are) take a ride on the beach in their (rather nice) red convertible, as a symbol for their spiritual freedom, or something. I saw this movie when I was younger, and was a bit too young to find it tragic and heartbreaking and liberating; I simply found it boring. Buuttt you may be into that sort of thing, and if you are, all the more power to you. It does feature Midler’s song “You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings,” which I must admit I like a lot.

The Praying Mantis

2008-05-24T00:51:00.001-04:00

(the giant praying mantis flies above the clouds)
Crow: Dead Reckoning, starring Humphrey Mantis.

Dead Reckoning is a film noir starring Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott about a guy trying to find out who killed his best friend. Bogie plays an Air Force pilot and I presume that that’s what Crow means, as there are many shots of a big-ass airplane in Dead Reckoning, and that big-ass airplane looks a lot like a giant praying mantis.

Agent for H.A.R.M.

2008-05-24T00:50:00.001-04:00

(a shot of a beach house)
Tom: Xanadu, stately home of Charles Foster Manson.

Charles Manson is, of course, the serial killer who resided in California. But the rest is a reference to the line “Xanadu, home of Charles Foster Kane” from Citizen Kane, which is considered by nearly every film critic to be the best film of all time. While I did like it, I disagree. But that’s just my opinion.

(throughout the movie, Mike and the ‘Bots sing the James Bond theme, and quip about how James Bond would have used his special gadgets to kill a guy, or thwart an assassin, or so on)

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the James Bond movies are so well engraved in our culture that just about any spy movie seems like a rip-off of them. But, then again, Mike and the ‘Bots are right: James Bond was a lot cooler than the guy in this movie, and, had Bond and his gadgets appeared instead, this movie would have been a lot more fun. Of course, James Bond would have never gotten himself into such a stupid plot as this one (spores? What?).

Invasion of the Neptune Men

2008-05-24T00:37:00.004-04:00

(during an incredibly long, drawn-out air raid scene, Tom cracks and pretends he’s watching The Magnificent Ambersons)
Tom:…Little children in a sleigh, ding ding ding, hot and cold running water? Upstairs and down…oh it’s no use! It’s not The Magnificent Ambersons! I don’t even like The Magnificent Ambersons!

I didn't like The Magnificent Ambersons either, Tom. Anyway...The Magnificent Ambersons is a classic film by Orson Welles. There are missing reels of The Magnificent Ambersons (it was one of a handful of films that were victims of Welles' bad relationship with the studios). I don’t know exactly why Servo decided on The Magnificent Ambersons out of any film, especially if he doesn’t like it, but, after all, he has cracked. Poor guy.

(a group of kids are running down an alleyway)
Mike and the ‘Bots (singing): It’s been a hard day’s night…

This is from the Beatles’ first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night. In the opening sequence, we see all four Beatles running through a train station while swarms of teenage girls run after them, screaming. Although these Japanese children do not have swarms of teenage girls running after them, they do apparently have top-level clearance into Japan’s military buildings. And they run a lot in this movie. And make fun of their mothers/sisters (who is that woman and how is she in relation with the other characters? I love Servo’s line about her at the end: “Who am I?” Indeed).

(the opening credits, with a picture of some strange mass encased in a sphere)
Tom: It’s Oliver Reed’s liver encased in lucid.

Okay. Oliver Reed was a British actor who starred in lots and lots of movies, including musicals like Oliver! and Tommy, although I don’t remember him singing in either of them. He was, in my opinion, a rather scary-looking guy, kind of a talented version of Joe Don Baker. He was known for knocking back a few (dozen) and I do recall him getting into trouble because of it a few times. I actually like Oliver Reed—he’s rather underrated as an actor because of his “off screen antics”. He made cinema history (I guess, in a way) when, in Women in Love, he fought a nude wrestling match against (mah boy) Alan Bates. I myself have never seen it, although sheesh does it sound inviting (sarcasm, perhaps?) He was also in I'll Never Forget What's'isname, the first movie to have the word “fuck” in it (it was actually uttered by sixties icon Marianne Faithfull), as well as Sitting Target, the first movie to be given an X rating based on violence alone.

(an alien message is slowed down and played to an office of military personnel [and the kids])
Tom: It’s James Earl Jones.

James Earl Jones quite possibly has the deepest and most famous voice in Hollywood, which would explain the reference Tom makes. It’s, like, really deep, man. Jones did the voice-overs of Mufasa in The Lion King and Darth Vader in Star Wars. He is also a good actor, having been movies like Dr. Strangelove, Field of Dreams, Cry the Beloved Country, and I am not a Rappaport. And he does the “This is CNN” line for CNN, and is equally famous for that as well.

(a shot of a Japanese guy looking disturbed over a telegram)
Mike: Mr. Gower’s son died!

Mr. Gower was the druggist from It’s a Wonderful Life. Little George Bailey worked for him, and he found a telegram saying that his son, Robert (it’s sad that I know all the names, I know) died of influenza. Mr. Gower gets depressed and starts drinking and inadvertently puts poison in a Diphtheria patient’s pills. But George doesn’t give the patient the drugs and Mr. Gower beats the crap out of him before George tells him that there was poison in it. Personally, I cry as soon as I get to this scene and don’t stop until the end of the movie. But then again, I’m a wuss.

(pudgy, bespectacled kid runs toward alien doohickey, with the other children in tow)
Crow: Kill the pig, drink his blood—oh, wait, that’s another story.

Lord of the Flies. The pudgy kid looks like he’d be a suitable Piggy (chubby + bespectacled = inevitable bully fodder). There are two movie versions of William Golding’s novel: the 1964 black and white version, and the ‘90’s American version. The former is a bit of a cult hit; I prefer it to the newer version, which strays from the novel in the most important parts (“There are no adults on the island with the children, you sods, that’s the whole point of the story!!”) and becomes a sort of tribute to curse words. So there.

(as Mike and the ‘bots are leaving the theater)
Tom: I gotta go do an 80 offa Donnie Brasco.

Donnie Brasco was a true story about a detective (Johnny Depp, being Johnny Depp-ish) who infiltrates the mob, headed by Al Pacino (naturally—if not him, it’d probably been Robert De Niro). This is the movie that started the whole “Fuggedaboutit” thing, which was prolonged by movies like Analyze This and Mickey Blue Eyes, and then by television shows like “The Sopranos”. I actually like the whole “fuggedaboutit” thing. I’ve got a soft spot for mob movies, namely The Godfather trilogy and Analyze This, although I don’t get HBO and thus have never seen “The Sopranos”. If you see Mickey Blue Eyes or Analyze This, watch out for Joe Viterelli, who usually plays right-hand men. He’s one of the best parts of Analyze This, and a really great character actor (they make the world go round, folks, but unfortunately they don’t get 20 mil a picture).

(A row of scientists are looking at something off-camera)
Mike: People looking, very Spielberg-ian.

IMDb.com lists “people looking at something off-camera” as one of Steven Spielberg’s director trademark, although that seems a tad too vague for my liking. What movie doesn’t have people looking off camera? Why, I don’t think I’d trust a film that didn’t have people look off camera. In any case, Steven Spielberg has several other trademarks: firstly, he often uses original music by John Williams (who’s done the soundtrack for Schindler’s List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy); he also uses shots of stars, and of the sun (look to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for the former, and Empire of the Sun and Saving Private Ryan for the latter). And the most interesting (and ever-present) theme in his movies is the prominent impact of father characters. Elliott’s dad left his family in E.T. while Indiana Jones and his dad had been estranged in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Richard Dreyfus ultimately became estranged from his family in Close Encounters, while Tom Cruise lost his son in Minority Report. Also, Spielberg’s movie continuously feature children in danger of some kind—look at Schindler’s List, E.T., Empire of the Sun, Close Encounters, Minority Report, and a small feature of Saving Private Ryan. Cool, huh? Personally, I think Steven Spielberg’s best film is Schindler’s List (and I’m not alone, obviously), followed closely by Raiders of the Lost Ark—or perhaps tied with it, because it’s really like comparing apples and oranges. Although…they both had Nazis.

(Japanese people are doing Japanese things)
Servo: Kurosawa, eat your heart out.

Firstly, it’s been such a long time since I’ve heard the phrase “Eat your heart out”. Nobody uses it anymore. What does it mean? Why must I eat my heart? Isn’t that impossible? Isn’t that disgusting? Anywho, Akira Kurosawa is largely considered the greatest Japanese director, and is often in the short list of best directors in history. Kurosawa directed such classics as The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo. The great thing I like about Kurosawa’s films is how memorable all of his characters are. When you have a film that has a multitude of secondary characters (like Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai), you risk making them very bland—subjects that are there just to say lines. But Kurosawa’s characters were always multi-layered. My favorite Kurosawa character is probably Sanjuro, from Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Toshiro Mifune is one of the greatest actors out there. Second favorite character—Kyuzo from The Seven Samurai. A real cool cat.

Parts: The Clonus Horror

2008-05-24T00:23:00.004-04:00

(a security guard is talking on his headphones, and it looks like he’s talking to himself)
Crow (in a bad Jimmy Stewart imitation): Now, Harvey, Harvey…

The same thing goes for Jimmy Stewart imitations as it does Humphrey Bogart imitations. Actually, Crow didn’t do that bad a job. He’s referencing Stewart’s comedy Harvey, where Stewart plays a man with an imaginary friend, a giant rabbit named Harvey. It’s cute, although the portrait of Harvey used in the movie is kind of creepy. Like, I would be scared if I saw Harvey. Harvey's creepy.

(Clone Boy runs down the hallway)
Mike: No one’s guarding my father!

This is a line from The Godfather. Michael Corleone notices, at some point, that no one is guarding his mafia pop Don Corleone from assassins. Don Corleone is in the hospital, either having had a heart attack or having had been shot down. I haven’t seen the film in a while, you see. By the by, Don Corleone is played by Marlon Brando, who was in A Streetcar Named Desire, which also starred Vivien Leigh…

(Pearl Forrester asks for help keeping the evil space children docile.)
Mike (holding a knife): “Ah, so you need me. Once again you realize that there is nothing you possess which I cannot take away. The Hovidos should have warned you. If only you spoke Hovidos—acondemetusu, howugai! Sh! Sh!

Whoo, that was too funny. It’s a reference to the first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark (which, coincidentally, I’m watching right now), where Indiana Jones has just gotten a Chachapoyan Fertility Idol and escaped from the temple (remember the scene where he’s chased by a huge boulder? That’s it.) Renee Belloq meets Indy outside with a group of Hovitos and he takes away the idol, saying the line Mike said above (without the “Ah, so you need me”). I’m going to say a couple of things about Raiders of the Lost Ark, because—after Notorious—it’s my favorite movie. The first of the Indiana Jones movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark is arguably the greatest adventure movie of all time. It cemented Harrison Ford’s place as a movie star (I think he’s one of the greatest working actors right now) and indeed, he’s great in it. He typifies the anti-hero (handsome, intelligent, but mercenary), both here and in Star Wars. Karen Allen is the best of the Indiana Jones Girls: she’s tough, she’s funny, she’s smart; she’s not whiny like Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or bland like Allison Doody in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Who could forget John Williams’ theme song, which, when humming it, makes any menial chore you’re doing seem exciting? And then there are the great action scenes—the aforementioned first scene with the boulder, the great Tibetan barroom fight scene, the scene in the Cairo marketplace, and the exhilarating horse/truck/plane scene in the middle (considered by Roger Ebert to be the best chase in movie history; you’ve got to see it). It’s no wonder I never get tired of watching this movie (ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved Indiana Jones; I pretended I was his little sister, and would run around yelling, “Those damn Nazis! I hate those guys!”)

Clone Girl: I’ve grown accustomed to you.
Crow: Like breathing out and breathing in…

My Fair Lady, starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. A musical in the Pygmalion vein. Rex Harrison sings the above line in “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”, one of those “I’m about to give her up but, hey, wait a minute—I’m in love with her!” scenes. Despite the fact that Audrey Hepburn gave a darling version of “Moon River” in the previous Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the fact that she prepared to sing in this role, she for the most part doesn’t actually sing in this movie. Marni Nixon does her singing for her. Hepburn was reportedly pretty disappointed by it.

(Clone Boy is still running down the hallway)
Tom: I’m going to free Randall McMurphy!

Randall McMurphy was the hero of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a novel by Ken Kesey about a guy in a psychiatric hospital who gives the other patients the power to be free and think for themselves. He’s smothered by a mute Indian at the end, by the way. In the movie, he was played by Jack Nicholson. I myself have never seen the movie (read the book though) but I do know that it was the second movie to win all four of the major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The first movie to do such a thing was It Happened One Night: Frank Capra won Best Director, Clark Gable won Best Actor (his only win ever, although he was nominated for…uh…Gone with the Wind), and Claudette Colbert won for Best Actress. After Cuckoo’s Nest, the last movie (as of 2008) to win all four categories was Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme for Director, Anthony Hopkins for Actor, and Jodie Foster for Actress). In MST3K’s Invasion of the Neptune Men episode, Mike cries out “Ken Kesey’s got a gun!” If anybody out there has any idea as to why he yelled this, contact me. It’s driving me crazy.

(Clone Boy is sitting by the river)
Tom (singing): I’m all out of lunch! No, no, I’m all out of breath! No, I’m all out of Africa. No wait…

Out of Africa is a 1985 drama starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. See what I have to say about it in the Leech Woman section.

Future War

2008-05-24T00:19:00.003-04:00

(a shot overlooking a dirty sewer and marsh)
Tom: Meanwhile, in The African Queen, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn pick leeches off each other.

The African Queen was a great comedy with film legends Bogart and Hepburn; it garnered Bogie’s only Academy Award (beating out Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, which also starred [get ready for it] Vivien Leigh, who, by the way, picked up two Oscars in her lifetime: one for Streetcar and one for [again, get ready] Gone with the Wind. Like I says, it all comes together…). Anyway, there’s a great scene in The African Queen where Bogie and Katharine Hepburn have to pull their boat through the shallow marsh, and they get attacked by leeches. Hence the reference. If you ever by chance happen upon Katharine Hepburn's The Making of The African Queen: Or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall, and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, it'll do you good to at least look through it; there are a lot of great anecdotes about filming, and about Bogie and Lauren Bacall and John Huston.

The Revenge of the Creature

2008-05-24T00:05:00.004-04:00

(a dorky, spindly-looking scientist does a stupid trick concerning a mouse and a cat in a cage for John Agar)
Mike (pointing at the scientist): Hey, look who it is!
Crow (with a shot of the cat looking creepily into the camera): Punk.
Servo (when the scientist takes the mouse out of his pocket): Seeing as how I have a .44 Magnum in my pocket, the most powerful handgun in the world.
Crow (after the scientist’s scene): That guy’s bad. This is his first and last movie.

Yep, that scientist was none other than…Clint Eastwood! A really young Clint Eastwood making his screen debut! In a crappy John Agar B-movie, no less! Crow’s “Punk” line is pretty funny, especially when you don’t get the Dirty Harry reference (“Do you feel lucky? Do you…punk?”) and think that the cat’s saying it to the camera. Ha ha ha boy am I tired.

(some stock footage of the Amazon, with a shot of a bird in a tree)
Tom (singing): Nockety-nockety-now-now-now…

This may be a veiled reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. In the schoolhouse scene, the students are incessantly singing something similar to Tom’s tune. And, hey, there’s a bird.

(the swamp thing takes down an egret)
Crow (singing): Egrets I’ve had a few…

While not a movie reference, I mention this because for some reason it took me so long to realize that Crow was parodying Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” (“Regrets/ I’ve had a few”). I don’t know why it took me so long. Maybe because Crow mis-emphasized it (gotta lay the blame on somebody and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be me…)

(Dead fish float on the Amazon River)
Tom: Hey, check this out (singing) Eidelweiss, Eidelweiss…

The song “Eidelweiss” was used in The Sound of Music (it's sung by Christopher Plummer in one of the more touching scenes of the film). The Chicago River (in Chicago, 'natch) was/is so polluted that fish were/are often found floating belly up. The connection? I've heard the river being referred to "Aleweiss" or "Edeilweiss", but don't have a lot of facts on me. If anyone knows more about it, send me a message.

(a shot of a shark swimming around)
Tom: Fine, I’ll do it myself—(singing) duh dum…duh dum…duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh…

He’s singing the theme music for Jaws. It’s about a coastal town that is terrorized by a huge, man-eating shark. Steven Spielberg directed it, while Richard Dreyfuss and Rod Schneider starred. John Williams did the score for Jaws, and also the scores for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Schindler’s List.

(John Agar is talking to his girlfriend on the dock overlooking the ocean, or a lake, or some body of water)
Crow: And now the Creature has a scene with Cary Grant…

Cary Grant, as much as I love him, was in a lot of chick flicks in his later career—An Affair to Remember being the main one that comes to mind. Not to say that chick flicks are a bad thing (I myself like Sleepless in Seattle and Only You), but Mike and the ‘Bots were probably squelching on the fact that John Agar is having a sappy romance scene with his girl on the dock. It could be a reference with Charade, where Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn flirt on a boat, but I wouldn’t call that a chick-flick. More like “taut, Hitchcock-ian thriller”. Brief Trivia Tidbit: if you see a photo of Cary Grant smiling, look closely at his teeth. Something isn’t quite right. He’s missing a front tooth. When he was a kid, he chipped it while ice-skating. He was afraid of telling his dad so he went to a Dentist’s School and had it pulled. The remaining teeth pushed together, and his dad never found out. Hell, I thought it was interesting.

(Bobo the Monkey explains to Mike and the ‘Bots that monkeys now rule the world. At one point Mike growls, “You did it. You finally did it…It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!” You can see a half-buried Statue of Liberty outside of Bobo’s house-place.)

It’s all poking fun of Planet of the Apes. Mike’s line first came from Charlton Heston in the original. The monkeys weren’t as stupid as Bobo though. It’s all pretty funny.

(John Agar pumps medicine into a dead fish for the creature)
Mike: Fish-spotting.

Ref to Trainspotting, a very good Scottish movie (directed by Danny Boyle) about a group of heroin users in Edinburgh. Loads of sex, loads of drugs, loads of disgusting things (like the dirtiest toilet in Scotland), and loads of good music. The soundtrack is great, the dialogue is great, and this movie made a star out of mah boy Ewan McGregor (I’ve got a lot of “boys”, see. It’s hard to explain). Not for the weak-hearted. Go see it, especially if you’re some punk kid thinking of going into drug paraphernalia.

(divers are wrestling the Creature while dramatic music is playing)
Crow (singing): Camelot…

Camelot was a Lerner and Loewe Broadway musical about, well, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. On its first run in 1960, it starred mah boy Richard Burton as King Arthur, Robert Goulet as Lancelot, and Julie Andrews as Queen Gertrude. It did incredibly well and I think Burton won or was at least nominated for a Tony award. Then it was made into a movie starring Vanessa Redgrave as Gertrude and Richard Harris as King Arthur. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bomb—one of those it-did-so-badly-that-the-studio-nearly-tanked movies (in the same vein as Doctor Dolittle). But I personally think it actually wasn’t that bad. I think you’ll find me saying this about a lot of “bad” movies—specifically, “I don’t know, I liked it.” Visually entertaining (though a little bland in other aspects) like most big-scale 1960’s movies were (see Doctor Zhivago and Far from the Madding Crowd). Vanessa Redgrave actually had an affair with the Franco Nero, who played Sir Lancelot in the movie, and begot (Biblical term) a child from him. So art imitates life, I guess (except, Gertrude and Lancelot never had a child. Oh well.) In any case, I consider it a good movie. I mean, how bad can a play that makes use of the term “happy-ever-aftering” be?

(the Creature is swimming)
Tom: Esther Williams didn’t age well…

Esther Williams was the famous swimmer in a number of musicals—I think they were called “underwater ballets” or some such thing. She was primarily a diver, although she was good in the choreographed underwater sequences. She made a couple of movies with Busby Berkeley, including Take Me Out to the Ballgame (in a rare non-aquatic role) and Million Dollar Mermaid. Berkeley was a genius when it came to choreography (on both land and underwater)—he made a large number of musicals, the most famous being 42nd Street (with the famous, rousing speech Warner Baxter gives to Ruby Keeler: “You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!”) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (in which Ginger Rogers sings “We’re in the Money” in Pig Latin—pretty cool stuff; I’d like to know how long it took her to practice). Esther Williams is still alive (she’s one of those “living legends” one hears so much about) and actually had a successful book written about her not too long ago. There’s also a new DVD comprised solely of Busby Berkeley sequences, so you can get the goods without going through the often corny, clichéd plotlines of the movies.

(the Creature is taunting some tourists)
Tom: Come on, come on, put up your dukes! I can take you with both hands tied behind my back!

He said the above in the unique voice of Bert Lahr, or more specifically, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. He says those lines in his first scene, when he’s trying to scare Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow. One thing I like about The Wizard of Oz: the Cowardly Lion’s tail. Sometimes it stands up on its own, sometimes you can see the string holding it up and pulling it up and down. Sometimes it’s dragging on the ground, sometimes it’s bouncing around so much you think Lahr’s going to lift up the ground. I wonder if Lahr (or anyone in the film, for that matter) just stopped what they were doing, looked around at the others’ costumes, and the set, and themselves, and just asked aloud, “What the hell am I doing here?” I know I would.

(Chris the Dog is sitting with Helen)
Tom (in a doggy voice): Can we watch My Life as a Dog again?

My Life as a Dog actually doesn’t have that many scenes with a dog—maybe two or three, and those are at the very beginning. It’s a 1980’s Swedish movie about a little boy who goes to live with distant relatives after his mother gets sick. He has to leave his dog at home, and spends most of the narration thinking about him, and about the Russian astro-mutt Laika, who had recently been shot into space. If you happen to see this movie in the video store (and don’t mind reading subtitles), then rent it; it’s very good. I myself laugh whenever someone calls out, “Ingmar!” Just how they say it; it’s hilarious.

Pod People

2008-05-23T23:58:00.004-04:00

(Trumpy goes on a killing spree [or does he?])
Crow (in a Clint Eastwood voice): I know what you’re thinking…did Trumpy fire six shots or only five?

From Dirty Harry, if I’m not mistaken. I’ve never seen it but I think that’s where it’s from.

(the mean uncle is searching the wet bar while holding a gun and yelling)
Crow: Don’t start with me, Martha.

Crow has done a rather good impression of Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Burton (who is, coincidentally, one of mah boys) plays George, a jaded history professor (assistant professor), who’s married to Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), who pisses nearly everyone in the movie off. It’s a really good movie, and Burton is terrific in it. It’s rather maddening, so if you don’t take well to fast-talk, don’t see this. I’ll give twenty million bucks to whoever can tell me who played Martha and George’s son (wink wink).

(mother is accosting Little Creepy Boy)
Tom: And no wire hangers!

This is from Mommy Dearest, the “biography” on Joan Crawford and her daughter. Joan Crawford has something against wire hangers and yells at her daughter, “No wire hangers!! Ever!!” I read in an article that it brought back memories of her lower-class childhood. In any case, Joan Crawford is actually played by the equally-talented actress Faye Dunaway. Dunaway starred in some of the greatest films of the 60’s and 70’s, including Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man, Network, and Barfly. Mommy Dearest, on the other hand, wasn’t well-received in Hollywood circles, and Dunaway was somewhat blackballed for starring in a film that slandered the legendary Joan Crawford. Crawford, as legendary as she is, actually had a less than positive image in Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s. Humphrey Bogart, Norma Shearer, and Bette Davis hated her (she and Bette Davis constantly clashed on the set of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?). But she was also incredibly devoted to her fans, answering fan mail constantly, and when she took over a part that was slated for Carole Lombard before she died, she not only gave her entire salary to the American Red Cross (Lombard’s charity—she’d died in a plane crash whilst on a Red Cross tour), but she also fired her agent when she’d learned he’d taken his usual 10% cut. And she taught Steven Spielberg how to belch. So there you go.

(Creepy Boy is looking through his telescope)
Joel: And now Trumpy and I will do our version of Rear Window.

Rear Window is a great Alfred Hitchcock movie starring Jimmy Stewart, about a journalist in a wheelchair who witnesses what looks to be a murder across the street. It also starred Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter. It’s really fun, and the great thing is that it takes place, more or less, in one room. Stewart plays Jeff, who broke his leg, and while he’s spying on neighbors with his telescope/camera he sees the guy across the square fighting with his wife, then he sees the guy carrying big knives around the house, then carrying suspicious suitcases out of the house…everybody spoofs this movie—I’ve seen it referenced to in “The Simpsons” and even “Tiny Toons” (don’t ask why I watch children’s cartoons, please; it’s just too sad). It was also remade as a made-for-TV movie with Christopher Reeve in Stewart’s role. Go see it; it’s a lot better than Pod People in every respect.

(Creepy Boy finds a toy robot burnt up by his, uh, “friend”)
Joel: Carbon scoring all over my droid.

This is a reference to a little movie called—I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it—Star Wars (cue loud blast of soundtrack as the title pops up in front of a back drop of space. Thank you very much). In the first movie, Luke buys two droids—the cute but incomprehensible R2D2 and the snippety C3PO—from Jawas. Luke complains for a moment that there’s carbon scoring all over his droids (‘nough said about that. Now for some history of the movie). Star Wars was one of the most ground-breaking movies of the ‘70’s, as were its sequels, and its special edition was the #1 movie in terms of box-office receipts for awhile (that is, until Titanic came out, and I won’t scare you by going on a rant about how such a crappy film could become the biggest-selling movie). I always hear references to Star Wars on television or radio or in movies nowadays. In fact, I think I’ve heard about four times this week. No kidding.

(Creepy Boy is scared.)
Joel: I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do I do I do I do I do believe in spooks, I do…

The Wizard of Oz. The Cowardly Lion does believe in spooks. This comes about at the time that he, Dorothy, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow say the “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my” line. That’s also the scene where you can apparently see a stagehand who hung himself in the background. Just a legend, of course (Roger Ebert calls it a Legend that Will Not Die). It’s actually just a crewmember that got in the shot. I can’t find him, personally, but he’s supposedly there. Somewhere.

Joel: I like you, Tommy. I kill you last.

From the funniest of all funny movies, Arnold Schwarzeneger’s (damn if I spelled that right) Commando. Not being a huge fan of any Arnie movie myself, I haven’t seen it, although my cousin seems to love it, always shouting, “Get in de choppah!” Uh, maybe it was another Arnold S. movie. In any case, this line precedes one of the funniest (as in stupidest) exchanges in film history, which is often said on “MST3K”:
Arnie: Remember when I said I kill you lahhhst?
Some Guy: Yeah?
Arnie: I liiieeeeddd. [shoots him]
It makes me laaahhhhuuuuggghhh.

Mother: Tommy?
Servo: Can you hear me? Can you feel me near you?

Okey dokey, this is a reference to the song “Tommy” from the film Tommy (which was either first a Broadway musical, or later became a Broadway musical, but was first an album, in any case), which was created by the band the Who. Robert Daltrey, the Who’s lead singer, played Tommy, who as a boy saw his stepfather kill his father, and since then became rather autistic—he didn’t speak and wouldn’t react to anyone or anything, save for pinball machines. After becoming the Pinball Wizard, he gains a cult following, and becomes something like a Christ figure. It is, naturally, a musical—a very radical, 1970’s musical like Hair—starring a lot of famous singers and actors. Besides the Who, you also have Elton John as the Pinball Wizard, Eric Clapton as a preacher, and Tina Turner as the Acid Queen (hmm, I wonder what this movie was about…) In addition to these names, you also have Jack Nicholson as a psychiatrist (whaa?), Ann Margaret as Tommy’s Mom (forget Bye Bye Birdie; to me, she will always be the chick who rolls around in beans and champagne), and Oliver Reed as Tommy’s Stepfather. Believe it or not, Tommy was one of the movies my parents allowed me and my sister to watch when we were very young (around six and eight years old). Although I do remember the Acid Queen scaring the shit out of me, I also remember thinking this was the coolest movie ever, and I was a big fan of the Who even then. Incidentally, they also showed me Hair (the ending of which really screwed me up psychologically, to tell you the truth) and Rocky Horror Picture Show (I remember being in the second grade, and listening to its soundtrack—specifically “Damn It Janet”—and being asked by a friend if she could listen to it. I didn’t think it was a good idea, and I think I said no.)

Mitchell

2008-05-23T23:54:00.003-04:00

(Mitchell and the Bad Guy are having a showdown on the Bad Guy’s boat)
Joel: Why don’t we rip off the scene from Key Largo, Mitchell?

They really are ripping off the scene from Key Largo, so much so that IMDB mentions it as a “reference” on Mitchell’s site. Key Largo is a classic John Huston movie starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson. Robinson and Bogie have a showdown on the boat, Bogie having killed all of Robinson’s henchmen and ready to shoot Robinson down. Robinson pleads for his life, suggesting they work together, and the scene is ultimately much better than the one in Mitchell. Bogie shot him, by the way.

(Mitchell stumbles down a hallway, or a sidewalk, or something)
Joel (singing): It’s Bugsy Malone…
One wonders (well, I wonder) who exactly he’s imitating when he sings that, but Joel was more or less referencing the 1976 musical Bugsy Malone, which starred Scott Baio and Jodie Foster. Bugsy Malone has a very intriguing premise: a gangster flick made entirely up of children. Imagine the headache the director must have had. It’s actually a very good movie, with songs by Paul Simon. I remember watching this movie as a kid—I still know all the words of every song. It’s very fun; I recommend it. My favorite part of the movie is the cars, which look like real cars, but are pedaled instead of driven. I like how the cars idle nevertheless.

(the slowest car chase in history)
Servo: This makes Driving Miss Daisy look like Bullitt!

Um, okay. Firstly, Driving Miss Daisy is a drama about a li’l ol’ Southern lady (played by Jessica Tandy) whose son (Dan Akroyd) hires a black chauffer (Morgan Freeman) for her after she is unable to drive herself any longer. Of course, her being an old Southern lady and all, it takes her a while to warm up to Freeman, but ultimately they become the best of friends. Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for this film, making her the oldest Oscar winner ever (I think she was eighty-two, though I may be wrong). Incidentally, she was married to Hume Cronyn. Bullitt, on the other hand, stars Steve McQueen as a rebellious detective (“There are bad cops, there are good cops…and then there’s Bullitt.”) who works to solve the murder of a witness of a high-profile drug trial. The film contains one of the most celebrated car chases ever, as McQueen (doing most of his own driving) and a baddie race up and down the streets of San Francisco. If you’ve ever been to San Francisco—hell, if you’ve ever even seen San Francisco—you’ll know this is not an easy task. God knows I’ve tried it. Gosh I miss the use of the lower half of my body…

The Giant Spider Invasion

2008-05-23T20:32:00.005-04:00

(the white trash wino woman is looking lovingly at her white trash philandering husband)
Crow: Hi, Hud.

This is, apparently, a reference to the movie Hud, with Paul Newman. Why, exactly, they made the connection between the movies is a little beyond me, save for the fact that the White Trash Husband is wearing the same type of outfit as Paul Newman's Hud wore in the film. Needless to say, Hud is exponentially better than this film--you get Paul Newman as a hot-but-jerky son of a rancher, and Patricia Neal as the maid that Newman kind of likes but can't really express it right...so he ends up trying to rape her...yeah. The last scene between the two is amazing; really well-played by both actors.

(shows a dirty room)
Mike: Oh Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.

This is a line from The Odd Couple, with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Walter plays Oscar Madison, a really messy guy, and Jack plays Felix Unger (F.U.), a neat-freak (me and Jack and Walt were buddies, you see, which is why I can call them by their first names. Or maybe their first names are just easier to type…)

(a man walks into a store)
Mike: Well it’s my old boss Mr. Gower!

This is, once again, a line from It’s a Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart and Donna Reed. It’s from early on in the movie, still in the flashback, when George is just about to leave for Europe (he doesn’t get to go, of course. Poor dope) and he gets a huge suitcase with his name on it! It’s from Mr. Gower, his old boss, who beat the crap out of him in a drunken rage when he was a kid! Did I mention that this is an uplifting movie?

(a spider crawls up the Ultimate White Trash Guy’s leg)
Crow: My mission, take out the greasy hick, with extreme prejudice.

That was one of the many famous lines from Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Some other great lines are: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” and “The horror. The horror.” (which was actually a line from Heart of Darkness, which the movie was based on, but I digress). The line Crow referred to was originally spoken by none other than…Harrison Ford! Wow! Yeah, he was in Apocalypse Now for five seconds, named Captain Lucas (like George Lucas, get it?) and wearing glasses. He was also in American Graffiti, which was directed by George Lucas and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Apocalypse Now, by the by, was the first movie that ever really scared the shit out of me.

(Cigarette-Voice-Laden-Woman and Fat Guy roll on each other)
Tom: The defiant loads.

The Defiant Ones. Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. Chained. Together. See what I had to say about it riiiiggghhhtttt…in the Bloodlust section.

Mike: I don’t like this remake of Sabrina.

Sabrina is the classic romantic comedy starring Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden. It was directed by Billy Wilder, who was a master of romantic comedies (he made Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch). The filming of Sabrina wasn’t a terribly happy affair—Humphrey Bogart, upset that his wife Lauren Bacall was not cast as Sabrina, took it out on Hepburn, Holden (whom he’d had a tense relationship with in 1939's Invisible Stripes), and Wilder. He and Holden got into a car accident during the filming (it was the result of a stupid dare, I believe) and Bogie was hurt badly enough to require stitches or some such thing. The tension between Bogie and Wilder has been a bit over-dramatized—the fact is that Bogart would needle anyone to the hilt and he did so with Wilder; he called Wilder a Nazi (Wilder was a European immigrant) not knowing that most of Wilder’s Jewish family had been sent to concentration camps during WWII. Bogie was most definitely not anti-Semitic though (as some rumors state), seeing as how both Lauren Bacall and his best friend William Brady were Jewish. By the by, Audrey Hepburn and William Holden actually fell in love during filming Sabrina, but never married due to Holden’s inability to have children.
Oh yeah—Sabrina was remade in the ‘90’s. It starred Julia Ormond in the Hepburn role and Harrison Ford in Bogie’s role. Harrison Ford, in my opinion, is the closest modern actor to come to the personality of Humphrey Bogart. A couple of years ago there was some crazy talk about remaking Casablanca, with Ralph Fiennes in the Victor Lazlo role (um, okay, perhaps…), Harrison Ford in Bogart’s role as Rick, and Julia Roberts in Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa Lazlo role, to which I say ccccrrraaaapppp. If anything, Isabella Rosselini would be the logical choice, seeing as how she looks just like her mom, and she’s a good actress. But, ultimately, feh.

Soul Taker

2008-05-23T20:25:00.003-04:00

(Natalie’s mom calls to her from upstairs while Natalie says goodbye to that John Stamos-y guy.)
Mike: He’s making violent love to me, mother!

Once again, It’s a Wonderful Life. George is visiting Mary after his brother got married. He’s being pissy and they get into a fight, and Mary’s mother is pissy too and asks her what he’s doing down there. Why doesn’t she like him? She wants Mary to…um marry Sam Wainwright who is rich. Why is everybody pissed off in this movie? I don’t know. Everyone seems to have a chip on their shoulder, especially in Pottersville. What? You mean that’s The Point? Oh, okay.

(some nurses run into a patient’s room as she codes)
Crow: George Clooney’s taking his shirt off!

Um…although George Clooney started off as a TV star (playing Dr. Doug Ross on “ER”, which Crow is referencing here, by the by), he’s now a big movie star, and that’s why I’m going to write about him now (it’s not because I like him a lot. Nope. Not the reason). So, the movies Clooney made after becoming a star started out as crappy (Batman and Robin, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Peacemaker) then progressed to average (One Fine Day, The Thin Red Line). During his last season on the show and afterwards, his movies have gotten a hell of a lot better with Out of Sight (directed by Steven Soderbergh, who would go on to win a Best Director Oscar for Traffic), Three Kings, The Perfect Storm, Ocean's 11 and O Brother Where Art Thou? And now his movies are just awesome; he's won his Oscar for Syriana and has been nominated again for Michael Clayton, and has directed a great, Oscar-nominated film (Good Night and Good Luck). I like to think back on the days when people thought he was nothing more than a TV actor, and would never match the success of his days on "ER". I always had faith in you, George.

Jack Frost

2008-05-23T17:21:00.005-04:00

(a tree throws the hero into the house [uh, it makes sense once you see the movie])
Tom: In you pixies go, through the door or out the window!

This is a line said by Nick in It’s a Wonderful Life (except he says “Out you two pixies go…”), while George Bailey is in his little Alternate Universe and goes into what used to be Martini’s for a drink. George and his guardian angel Clarence sound like nutcases and Nick forces them from his bar. It’s a pretty funny scene, except that you see Mr. Gower all sad and homeless. Just go rent the movie.

(a shot of a flock of geese)
Mike: Norman, the loons, kill them!

Mike, doing a really good and funny imitation of Katharine Hepburn, is alluding to On Golden Pond, where Hepburn cries to Henry Fonda to kill some loons (obviously). On Golden Pond was Fonda’s swan song, if I’m not mistaken, and garnered him an Academy Award, and a nomination for Katharine Hepburn. Katharine Hepburn has the record for number of Oscars won (3, for Morning Glory, Alice Adams, and Lion in Winter) and number of times nominated (12). She did a lot of films with Cary Grant (Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, Sylvia Scarlett, The Philadelphia Story) but most notably with Spencer Tracy (Pat and Mike, Adam’s Rib, Keeper of the Flame, Desk Set, Woman of the Year, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?).

(the Overly Cute Heroine is taking water to a stump)
Tom (in sweet, high-pitched voice): I’m a welder by day and a dancer by night.

That’s the premise of Flashdance, about a girl who works as, well, a welder by day and a dancer by night to go to ballet school. Now that I think of it, Flashdance is a little like Billy Elliot. But Jennifer doesn’t pronounce it “bally”. Which is a pity.

(Overly Cute Heroine has been kicked out of the house by her mother)
Tom: Take this job and shove it.

A line from Funny Girl, a biography about Fanny Brice, starring Barbara Streisand. This is a rather famous film and Streisand won her first Oscar for it. It co-starred Omar Sharif, who at the time actually got into a lot of hot water in his native Egypt for filming a love scene with a Jewish actress.

(the Hero/Bear growls)
Crow: Chewbacca? What?
(Overly Cute Heroine is kneeling by a pond)
Crow: Help me, Obi Wan Kenoboski.

Chewbacca is the big hairy creature, and Han Solo’s sidekick, from Star Wars. Apparently the latter is the Russian-Finnish version of Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker’s mentor in Star Wars. Obi Wan was played by Sir Alec Guinness (who died not too long ago) who, ironically enough, had a role in the famous film Dr. Zhivago, about a Russian doctor who falls in love with a married woman. Russian, get it? But, unfortunately, there’s nothing to link it to Gone with the Wind (at least, not in less than three degrees) so I’ll move on…

(Overly Cute Heroine is standing on the hill, watching the sun come up)
Crow (in Southern accent): With God as my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!

Ah. Although Crow misquoted it somewhat, this is one of the famous lines from…Gone with the Wind (some other famous lines are, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” and “After all, tomorrow is another day”). The line that Crow quotes comes from after Scarlett O’Hara has just gotten back to Tara and found her mom dead and her dad gone mad. There’s nothing to eat, her sisters are sick, all the “help” (i.e. slaves) are gone, and Scarlett goes out and tries to eat a radish, but throws it all up (Vivien Leigh couldn’t produce adequate retching sounds so Olivia de Havilland, who played Melanie, did it). So she looks up at the sky and, shaking her fist, says, “As God as my witness, they’re not going to lick me! If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill, as God as my witness I’ll never go hungry again, no nor any of my kin!” and then “Tara’s Theme” swells up and they show her silhouette against the backdrop of a red sky. It’s a really great scene.

Hero/Bear: Granny’s stick! How will she walk without it?
Crow: I don’t know, Richard Burton.

Wow. I’m not used to “Mystery Science Theater 3000” actually directly referencing my favorite actors. Now if only they’d say something about Alan Bates, then I’d be stoked. I can only guess Crow referenced Richard Burton because the Hero/Bear was talking in a gruff, somewhat British voice. Burton’s actually Welsh, raised as Richard Jenkins in Pontrhydrfen (pronounced Pont-reader-ven) by his sister, and then his drama teacher Philip Burton, who later adopted him (and whom he obviously took his last name from). He went into theater and then into movies, although his lifelong dream was actually to write and/or teach. Little bit of trivia about him: early in his career, when he was famous enough but still living in Wales, a boy came into his house and found him shaving in the bathroom (with an electric razor and everything!). He asked for his autograph and Burton gave it to him. I find this rather funny, since in a couple of years this guy would be so famous that he’d have bodyguards, private jets, and probably would never let some kid into his home (and don’t even start about what would happen if a kid tried that nowadays). Well, the fact is that the kid was Anthony Hopkins, and as he watched Burton drive past him while he was walking home, and he promised that he’d become that famous one day. And he did. Hopkins is one of my favorite actors too, and he and Burton are similar in their attitudes and appearance. Check it out.

(The Stepmother slaps her daughter)
Mike: This Finn’s Life.
Crow: Shut your kringle hole!

This Boy’s Life was a 1990’s movie starring Robert De Niro and Leonard di Caprio about an abusive father and his stepson, respectively. I myself haven’t seen it (I’m not a di Caprio fan) but it got fair reviews from critics. If I ever see it, I’ll update.

Evil Stepsister’s Suitor: Nastinka’s the one I want.
(Nastinka [nee, Overly Cute Heroine] looks up)
Crow: She makes Olivia Hussey look like Thelma Ritter.

That’s funny, because I’d been thinking she looked like an Olivia Hussey knock-off before he said that. Well, Olivia Hussey is best known for her portrayal of Juliet in Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet—she made the film when she was fourteen, and really hasn’t made anything remarkable to date, unless you enjoyed Quest of the Delta Knights. Thelma Ritter, on the other hand, is one of those tough-talking no-nonsense actresses, best known as Stella, James Stewart’s nurse, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. If you want to watch a really fun movie—but you don’t want the violence of, say, Raiders of the Lost Ark—then rent this. It’s very fun and very involving. And if you liked Rear Window (or if you liked it well enough, but thought it was too confining) then rent Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, which is about as light (if not lighter) then Rear Window. If you don’t like black-and-white movies, then you’re an idiot. Just kidding. If you don’t like black-and-white movies, and you do like Rear Window (or if you liked it well enough, but thought it was too confining), then rent Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, which is just as involving and fun, but it doesn’t take place in one room (like Rear Window). In fact, it takes place all over America. There, now I have your whole weekend planned out for you

Time Chasers

2008-05-23T17:19:00.001-04:00

Hero of the Movie (to Bad Guy): You just don’t get it, do you?
Crow: Kevin Spacey was Keyser Soze!

Crow, the dimwit, gave away the surprise ending of The Usual Suspects, which was that Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kint really was Keyzer Soze! He was just pretending! He was in on it with Kobayashi all along! Oops, or did I just give it away further…

Werewolf

2008-05-23T17:14:00.003-04:00

(a truck pulls up to an archaeological sight in the desert)
Crow: Ford trucks, the official truck of The English Patient.

Again and obviously, a reference to The English Patient. TEP was set in the Sahara desert, although the characters were not archaeologists but cartographers (although they dabbled in archaeology, it seemed like, strangely…hmm…)

(a drunk guy talks in a really amusing raspy voice)
Drunk Guy: Yeah, I’ll take a walk…
Crow: …over to KIRK DOUGLAS’ HOUSE!!

This is my favorite line in that show. Just how Crow says it; it’s hilarious. Kirk Douglas was a famous actor in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s—he was in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Spartacus. He talked in that way. He’s the father of Michael Douglas, and is still alive, come to think of it. Little piece o’ trivia: he knew Lauren Bacall when they were both students at the AADA (American Academy of Dramatic Arts). Lauren Bacall had a giant crush on him. She talks about it in her book By Myself.

(the Heroine is sitting in front of a window, which gives those cool bar shadows look)
Mike: What, is she in Philip Marlowe’s office?
Crow: Bimbo noir.

Philip Marlowe is the famous detective of Raymond Chandler's mystery novels, the most famous arguably being The Big Sleep, which was first made in 1946 with Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge, and then in the 60’s by Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. I myself prefer the first version, with Bogart and Bacall, if only because I’m a mad Bogart-Bacall fan. Not only that, but this must be one of the best-written, wittiest detective films out there: there are great arguments between Marlowe and Eddie Mars, Marlowe and Vivian Rutledge—and pretty much Marlowe and everybody else in the movie. It’s incredibly good. There are two versions of this: the (longer) 1945 version and the 1946 version, which has more scenes between Bogart and Bacall (including the now famous racehorse conversation) and fewer with Vivian’s sister Carmen. If you can, get the 1946 version first, then get the 1945 pre-release version. Even better, get the 1945 version that, at the end, shows the 20 minutes of film used in the 1946 version and compares the two. Uh, I hope I didn’t confuse you there.
Update: Now that Warner Bros. has finally released The Big Sleep on DVD, you can watch both versions, and a 20-minute scene-by-scene comparison. Now go out and buy the damn thing!

(Werewolf Guy is howling on top of the roof of a building)
Crow: Made it, Ma! Top of the farmer’s bank!

Spin on James Cagney’s famous line from White Heat, “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” He was actually on top of some sort of burning fuel tank when he yelled it—for some reason Cagney had the idea that he would rob a bank placed inside an electric plant, and when the cops closed in on him, he had the further intelligence to run into said electric plant, up to the highest point of the plant (the aforementioned fuel tank)…and then get blown to bits when the cops shot at him. It makes for very riveting cinema, I assure you. James Cagney was one of those actors who was great in whatever film he was in—I can always enjoy a Jimmy Cagney movie, even if the film in itself isn’t that great. In short, I love James Cagney. I lurve him. I’m in luurrve with him.

I Was a Teenage Werewolf

2008-05-23T16:45:00.006-04:00

(a dorky kid stupidly walks through the woods at night, and is ultimately killed by a werewolf. At one point he stops and looks over his shoulder…)
Tom: Ralph Fiennes is Li’l Abner.
(later on, as the kid’s getting attacked)
Crow: Okay, I apologize for Strange Days but I was really good in The English Patient!

That shot of the kid looking over his shoulder looks a hell of a lot like the movie poster for The English Patient, the Oscar-winning 1996 film with Ralph Fiennes. I don’t think the kid looked a lot like Ralph Fiennes, however, but Crow’s line is just an addition to Servo’s earlier line. Strange Days was a laughable science fiction movie with (ugh) Juliette Lewis and Tom Sizemore (ugh again). But, on the bright side, Angela Bassett was also in the movie, and one of her lines is used in Fatboy Slim's song, "Right Here Right Now", which is a good song. Also, Juliette Lewis sings in the movie. Um...yay...

(Michael Landon walks forlornly down the streets of his town)
Crow (singing): Everybody’s barking at me/ I can’t hear a command they’re saying…

Crow’s doing a parody of a scene in Midnight Cowboy. The scene is pretty famous—Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight (the latter being in a cowboy suit, and about a foot taller than everyone else) walk down a crowded city street. Also the source of the famous line, "Hey, I'm walking here!" (yelled by Hoffman when a car almost hits him as he's walking through traffic.)

(after a cop says that the dorky kid’s throat was ripped out)
Tom Servo: Well, I guess they do those things.

The bank examiner in It’s a Wonderful Life says this to Uncle Billy after Uncle Billy explains to him that Harry Bailey is being awarded a medal for shooting down Japanese planes in World War II. This line is actually said in a lot of “MST3K” shows, along with the “Sam Wainwright is on the phone” line.

(Michael Landon sneaks behind a bush in silence)
Tom: You know, the Bernard Herrmann score really heightens the tension.

Bernard Herrmann, as previously stated, composed the scores for most of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, including North by Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo, and Notorious (he also did the score for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which might seem like a weird match, but it works, because Herrmann is that awesome). He’s known for having really gripping scores. And they really do heighten the tension, as is obvious with the shower scene in Psycho.

(Michael Landon jumps out of his hypnosis all sweaty and his doctor is staring at him real creepy-like)
Mike: The lambs, Clarice, what about the lambs?

Although this was never uttered by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, it’s obvious that this is what Mike is referring to. The movie was about a female detective (Clarice, nee Jodie Foster) who works with a super-intelligent cannibal (Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins) to find a serial killer. Anthony Hopkins only had about three or four scenes in the entire movie but was so creepy that he won an Academy award for best actor. He also starred in the sequel, Hannibal (sounds like a musical to me, and should have an exclamation mark—Hannibal!), which was a box-office smash and probably the grossest movie I’ve ever seen. Anthony Hopkins is coincidentally one of my favorite living actors—great British actor who apparently studied at the R.B.S. of A. (one day I’ll explain what this is). Hannibal was followed by the third and fourth Hannibal Lecter installments (or fourth and fifth, if you count Manhunter [isn’t that a Hall and Oates song?]): Red Dragon, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Emily Watson, and Philip Seymour Hoffman; and Hannibal Rising, which is just a terrible movie and shouldn't be mentioned further.

(scene with a sickeningly cute tow-headed girl)
Crow: She makes Sandy Duncan look like Bette Davis.

Sandy Duncan was a squeaky-clean actress in the ‘60’s who I think had her own television show for a while, which was probably in the same vein as “Gidget” and “The Brady Bunch”. Bette Davis was Sandy Duncan’s direct opposite, a movie legend from the 1930’s and 40’s who was in such movies as All About Eve, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Jezebel. She was forceful, intense, and usually played bitchy characters. She had legendary battles with Warner Brothers Studio about her contract. She was the one who said the legendary lines “Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride” and “Ah’d kiss ya but Ah just warshed mah hair” and “Every time you’d kiss me I wanted to wash my mouth! Wash my mouth!” She was in a lot of movies with Humphrey Bogart. The last line was from Of Human Bondage, also starring Leslie Howard, who played Ashley in Gone with the Wind. Coincidentally, she was considered for the role of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, but either didn’t take it or didn’t get it, and instead made Jezebel, which Selznick was furious about.

(a shot of a dead dog)
Tom (through tears): One member of The Incredible Journey down.

The Incredible Journey was a young adult’s book and a children’s movie. It was about a two dogs and a cat who travel through the wilderness looking for their family. In the movie, the older dog was voiced by Jack Palance, the younger voiced by Michael J. Fox, and the cat voiced by Sally Field. There was also a sequel, about the pets in San Francisco, but it was unseen by me.

(the Bad Guy’s Assistant is talking to the Bad Guy)
Tom: Reeekk…

I’m guessing (and this is only a guess) that he is saying either “Reeck” or “Weeck”. It would make a lot more sense for him to say “Reeck”, at least to me, because then he’d be referencing Peter Lorre’s character Ugarte in Casablanca. In the beginning of the movie, Ugarte is trying to get away from the SS and he goes to Humphrey Bogart’s Rick (Reeck) for help. He shoots at the SS and runs to Rick and yells “Reeck! You must help me Reeek!” Rick of course doesn’t help him because “I stick my neck out for nobody”. Peter Lorre is one of the great character actors—he began films in Germany (most notably in M) and went to Hollywood to make a lot of famous film noir movies, like The Maltese Falcon and Beat the Devil (both of which also starred Humphrey Bogart).

(the Girlfriend’s dad)

You might not remember his face, but you should pick up on the girlfriend’s dad’s voice—he had a bit part in Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie. He played Sam Ward, Mark’s assistant. He can never remember the combination of the safe so he keeps it written on an index card, and Marnie uses the card to open the safe to steal all of Sean Connery’s money. Michael Landon’s dad from this movie, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, was the guy at the bus stop in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. I wonder if the two actors sat around the set and talked about the time they actually made good movies. Actually I guess not—I Was a Teenage Werewolf was made before Marnie and North by Northwest. Actually, there’s a strange correlation between Alfred Hitchcock movies and movies featured on MST3K. There’s this one, then there is the dad from Space Children, who was also one of the hit men in North by Northwest. And you’ve got Wendell Corey, who was in Agent from H.A.R.M. and Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Was this intentional? Or was it a freak coincidence? Hmm…

The Bad Guy (whilst hypnotizing Michael Landon): Go on…
Mike: Go on, play!

Yet another It’s a Wonderful Life reference. Wow, two references in one. This is from the scene where George Bailey’s family is having quite a time to themselves, decorating the Christmas tree and all, while poor George is one step closer to killing himself. And his little daughter just won’t stop playing the piano. So he yells at her and breaks the model he made of a bridge, and creeps his family out. Then he tells his daughter to start playing, and she starts crying, and Mary starts yelling at him, and then the other kids start crying, and then he storms out. Which is pretty much what everyone’s Christmas is like, really.

(The dorky kid is running through the woods)
Crow: Counselor? Come out, come out, wherever you are…

Man, that was too funny. It’s from the remake of Cape Fear, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert de Niro, Nick Nolte, and Juliette Lewis. De Niro plays a murderer/rapist who goes after the man who put him in jail. It was based on the 1950’s film Cape Fear with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum (I don't recall Mitchum ever uttering the same line, as I haven't seen the original in a while, but I don't think he did). Both Peck and Mitchum make cameos in the remake. I'm about 60% sure that the line in question was just one of those things that De Niro came up with ("counselor" meaning "lawyer" and not "camp counselor", which I'd always assumed before seeing the movie).

(Michael Landon walks into the psychiatrist’s office)
Crow: It’s the back door of the Vertigo church!

Vertigo is considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s signature suspense films—up there with Psycho and North by Northwest. It stars Jimmy Stewart as a detective with vertigo, who falls in love with the woman he’s been hired to watch (played by Kim Novak). Then she falls off the roof of a church and Stewart finds a girl who looks exactly like her, and all in all it’s a big old mess. If you see the restored version of this film, you’ll notice that a lot of the background noises—like footsteps, most notably—are much louder than usual. Apparently Hitch meant for that to happen (though why he wanted it as such has escaped me at the moment); the first time I saw it (on the AMC marathon of Hitchcock’s movies) I found it jarring. But whatever—incidentally, I liked Rear Window (another Hitchcock film starring Stewart) a bit more than Vertigo, maybe because I consider it one of the great, fun thrillers (like Raiders of the Lost Ark and North by Northwest). But to each his own: Roger Ebert considers it—along with Hitch’s Psycho, Notorious, and North by Northwest—to be one of the greatest films ever.

(As Michael Landon is sneaking through the woods, Mike and the ‘bots bark a tune [rather well, actually])

The tune they were, uh, barking, was actually the theme to The Great Escape, starring—among others—James Garner, James Coburn, Donald Pleasance, Charles Bronson, Richard Attenborough, and (the King of Cool) Steve McQueen. This is actually a really good film, and I say “actually” because I don’t usually like war movies. It’s pretty smart, as it shows how the real POW’s the movie is based on went about escaping. There are differences between the movie and reality: in reality they were all British soldiers, for example (American POWs were involved early on, but unfortunately they were moved to a different camp before the operation could be carried out). Of the 76 men who escaped, only three were never caught. Fifty men were executed and twenty-three were returned to several POW camps. An interesting note about the real life escape: the news of the escape so enraged Adolph Hitler that Goebbels had to calm him down and talk him out of ordering the executions of all the captured men.

(two men—one in a fedora and another in a baseball cap—are searching for Michael Landon in the forest)
Crow: Indiana Jones and his sidekick Merle!

Indiana Jones is, of course, the adventure film icon played by Harrison Ford. Three movies were made—Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with a fourth released just yesterday, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Now, he never had a sidekick named Merle, but he did have several sidekicks in the films—along with Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) and Marcus (Denholm Elliott), who appeared in Raiders and The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones had Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) and the waiter who gets offed in the very first scene in The Temple of Doom; and he sort of has a sidekick in his father, played by Sean Connery, in The Last Crusade. And you can never rule out the Jones girls (Karen Allen, Kate Capshaw, and Allison Doody in RotLA, ToD, and TLC, respectively), who are really just sidekicks that Indiana gets to make out with (don’t linger too long on the idea of that). This new fourth film gives us four quasi-sidekicks--Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood (hooray!), Shia LaBeouf as greaser Mutt, Ray Winstone as the mercenary Mac, and John Hurt as a bat-shit insane archaeologist. Fun stuff.

This Island Earth

2008-05-23T16:41:00.004-04:00

(the scientist and his wormy assistant stand in the fog, waiting for the plane to arrive. Once it leaves, with the scientist on it, Mike and the ‘Bots hum “La Marseilles”).

Mike (in a bad Humphrey Bogart impression) says a couple of lines from the famous airport scene in Casablanca: “All the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”, etc. This is a now-immortal line, along with “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “Louie, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship”. In my opinion, no one can do a good Humphrey Bogart impersonation. It’s just impossible. “La Marseilles” is played at the end of the last scene in Casablanca (you have to see the movie to get the whole meaning of the reference), as well as a great scene where Paul Henreid drowns out a bunch of “Die Wacht Aum Rhine”-singing Nazis by getting everyone in Rick’s to sing the French anthem. Go to the Overdrawn at the Memory Bank section for more on Casablanca.

(the UFO is falling to earth)
Crow: Whoo-hoo! Whooooo-hooooo!

This is from the scene in Dr. Strangelove, where Slim Pickens drops the A-bomb with himself on it. As he falls to earth, he waves his cowboy hat in the air and yells “Whoo hoo! Whoooooo-hoooo!” It’s a really famous scene, and has been parodied in a lot of films and television shows (I remember seeing it on “The Simpsons” once or twice).

(shot of the plane controls, which are controlled by machines)
Tom: I’m your pilot, Claude Rains, with your co-pilot, Harvey the Rabbit.

Claude Rains played the Invisible Man in The Invisible Man (ooohhhh….), while Harvey the Rabbit is an invisible rabbit in Harvey (ooohhhh again) and since there isn’t anyone manning the controls, we can only assume that they are, indeed, being piloted by Claude Rains and Harvey the Rabbit.

(Alien Guy with the Big Forehead is talking)
Mike: Time to die.

This is a line from the famous cult-fave Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, Daryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos, and Rutger Hauer. Being a Harrison Ford fan, I felt I had to watch this movie, and let me say, this is one weird-ass motherfucker. I mean, it’s entertaining, it’s thought-provoking, it's beautiful, but it’s also weird. It reminds me a bit of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which is a weird movie in itself. Everyone in this movie is just weird as hell: Daryl Hannah is a child-like clone who kills people with her thigh muscles, Rutger Hauer is a sort of homicidal Rocky (from Rocky Horror Picture Show), Edward James Olmos likes to make origami and speaks in a Chinese/Hungarian dialect, even Harrison Ford is kinda weird—he uses a range of facial expressions I don’t remember him using in any of his other movies (the actor himself doesn’t like the movie, saying something like, “I play a detective who doesn’t do any detecting.”—I think he didn’t like the original, which had him doing a narrative and had a different ending, but I don’t know if he approved of the director’s cut. I’ve only seen the director’s cut). The line “Time to die” is said by the clones in the movie—once by Hauer and also by a James Cameron-looking guy who I’ve seen in a couple of movies but can’t remember the name of. I remember reading something about the movie The Avengers (starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman; it was one of the worst movies of the 90’s, apparently) incorporating the line, plus the chess moves from the same scene, into it. I can’t back this up because I never saw The Avengers, nor will I. Ever.

The Atomic Brain

2008-05-23T16:24:00.006-04:00

(as Victor walks up a small double staircase)
Tom: All right, all right, I’m coming (and he hums a little tune).

The “little tune” is the famous “Tara’s Theme” from Gone with the Wind. There was a huge staircase in the movie (there were, come to think of it, a lot of staircases in that movie). In regard to the huge staircase similar to the one in The Atomic Brain—it’s the same staircase that Rhett Butler carried Scarlett O’Hara up in the “This is one night you’re not turning me out” scene, and the same one Scarlett falls down from later on in the movie. I highly recommend Gone with the Wind to anyone who has never seen it. After The Atomic Brain, it’s like a breath of fresh air.

(throughout the movie, one of the ‘Bots always says, “Selznick Productions Presents!” when they show the exterior shot of the house)

David O. Selznick is a legendary Hollywood producer, and his movies always began with a shot of an idyllic mansion with a sign nearby that says “Selznick International Pictures Presents” and then the title of the movie would appear. Obviously, the house in The Atomic Brain looks like the one in this shot. Selznick, by the way, produced such great films as Notorious and, well, Gone with the Wind.

(when the house is burning down)
Mike: Oh no, Tara!

Tara was the plantation in Gone with the Wind. It looks like the mansion in this movie. It also looks like the mansion in David O. Selznick’s opening shot. The plantation in Gone with the Wind doesn’t burn down, although almost every other house in Georgia does. The main house of Tara was actually in the back-lot of Los Angeles, and the door was placed off-center, which explains why you don’t see a lot of front camera shots in the movie.

(when the two women are fighting on top of the roof of the mansion)
Crow: This is no good, we’re on top of the monument!
(and Servo hums a little tune)

Cary Grant says that line to Eva Saint Marie in North by Northwest when they find themselves on top of the Washington Monument. The song Tom hums is the main theme of the movie. North by Northwest is a really good movie, classic Hitchcock movie—twenty bucks to whoever can tell me the name of the guy who played George Kaplan (wink wink). The theme music, by the by, was written by Bernard Herrmann, who scored nearly all of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, including Psycho and Vertigo. Which leads us to…

(with a shot looking down a square flight of stairs)
Crow: Hey, vert-I-go.
Mike: I think you mean Vertigo.

Vertigo, as previously mentioned, is a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. There’s a shot a little like the shot mentioned above, except Hitchcock does this great (and simple) special effect to illustrate Stewart’s character’s fear of heights. (To film the vertigo scene, Hitchcock made a miniature of a staircase similar to the one in this movie and pulled out of it while at the same time zooming in. Creates a pretty fun illusion…unless you have vertigo.)

(a weird shot of the cat at the end)
Tom: The 400 Blows.

The 400 Blows is a famous French film, part of a trilogy by Francois Truffaut. It has camera actions similar to the one with the cat: freeze on the cat, move forward/to the side, freeze again. It's probably one of my favorite French movies; it was recently spoofed in an episode of "The Simpsons" titled Any Given Sundance (Nelson's movie about his crappy life ends in the same way The 400 Blows does, with Nelson walking on the seashore and looking into the camera, with the similar freeze shot). The music, in my opinion, was one of the best parts of The 400 Blows; it was done by Jean Constantin. Check it out.

(the dog/human monster is barking at the cat-woman—who’s on the roof—from the ground)
Tom: Stella—woof woof—Stella!

Save for the barking, this is the famous line in A Streetcar Named Desire. Marlon Brando yells to his wife, who’s on an upper floor of an apartment building, after he’s beaten her to a pulp and, oh yeah, she’s pregnant. Stupidly, she goes down to make up with him. This movie also starred Vivien Leigh who was also in…Gone with the Wind. It all comes together, see…

(the old lady gets up from her wheelchair and starts walking)
Crow: Mein fuhrer, I can walk!!

The last line, said by Peter Sellers, before the atom bomb montage in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sellers plays an insane Nazi scientist with an evil hand and he stands up from his wheelchair and yells out that line, which I believe is one of the funniest lines in a comedy ever. That’s a really great movie; really funny.

Tom (in a British accent): Mrs. Bat Guano, if that is your real name.

Yet another funny line from the classic black comedy (the blackest comedy of them all, in fact), Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It’s said by Peter Sellers, who plays about three (perhaps more) roles in the whole movie. This movie is extremely funny if you have a dark sense of humor, but if you don’t it’ll just seem incredibly weird and/or incredibly scary. And I think that’s kind of what makes it funny—the fact is that the plot (worldwide nuclear war occurs because of a bureaucratic error) hits so close to home that the fact it’s a comedy makes it all the more funnier. Don’t know if that makes sense. I’ll just go on. Other funny lines or scenes: well, George C. Scott (as Turgidson) makes me laugh when the Russian diplomat comes to the war room—“He can’t come in here! He’ll see the big board!” and when the look on his face when he learns that one of the American planes wasn’t shot down.
There’s also the classic telephone scene between the President of the United States (Sellers again)—“I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are!”, Mandrake’s conversation with Guano about shooting open the Coke machine, and his conversation with Ripper about “essence”, and Turgidson’s exchange with the President about the chance of simply conducting a full-blown attack on Russia: “Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.” Then there’s the final scene when Dr. Strangelove (also Peter Sellers) yells “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” and the bombs drop while “We’ll Meet Again” plays (if I can’t laugh at that then I’m in a really bad mood). And I always laugh, for some reason, at the opening credits, when the romantic music plays while the airplane refuels (maybe you have to see a plane refuel mid-flight to understand the humor in it). And of course, I always, always laugh when Turgidson (in the War Room) trips and rolls a couple of times before resuming his rant about the Big Board. That actually wasn’t scripted, but director Stanley Kubrick liked it so much that he kept it in. Oh, and there’s the classic line by Sellers: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

(the “Austrian” girl picks up the phone and listens, but there is no dial tone, apparently)
Tom (muffled): Watson, come here; Watson, I need you!

For some reason a lot of people think this is from a Sherlock Holmes movie or book (it sounds a bit like “Watson, the needle!” I guess). It’s not. It has nothing to do with movies. Those were the first words Alexander Graham Bell said on the telephone to his assistant Thomas Watson. Actually he said, “Mr. Watson come here, I want you!” because he had accidentally spilled some sort of liquid on his arm. So the first phone conversation was an emergency call.

(the “Austrian” girl and the “Spanish” girl are on top of the roof)
Crow: To catch a cat…

Wow, two Cary Grant/Alfred Hitchcock references in one scene! This time it’s a reference to To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It’s about a former cat burglar named John Robie (Grant) who’s framed and is thus forced out of retirement to catch the real burglar. Grace Kelly plays the girl he takes along for the ride (or is the other way around?) One of Hitchcock’s lighter movies, but still really fun, what with the classic car chase and fireworks scene. Incidentally (and perhaps ironically, in this case), John Robie’s nickname is “the Cat”.

Crow: Take over, Chewie!

Crow says under his breath “You know, Chewie; Chewbacca.” Chewbacca is the famous Wookiee in Star Wars, starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. Star Wars is arguably the best science fiction movie out there (I’m not a big fan of science fiction movies but I am a fan of this one). Star Wars is actually part of a trilogy (the other two movies being The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). The Empire Strikes Back is personally my favorite Star Wars movie, but everyone has their own favorite. Chewbacca is a very tall hairy creature, and co-pilot to Harrison Ford’s pilot Han Solo of the Millennium Falcon (which doesn’t look like much but it’s got it where it counts, kid.) Star Wars has been named one of the greatest films by both AFI and Entertainment Weekly, which are the only two that matter, really.

(“Austrian” girl and “Spanish” girl on the roof again)
Crow (rather whimsically): Where eagles dare…

Where Eagles Dare is a war movie starring Clint Eastwood and (mah boy) Richard Burton. I’m not too much into war movies, and thus I haven’t seen this one, and thus I can’t tell you too much about it. I can tell you some things about Richard Burton though. Like…uh…he read one book every day. He was in a lot of great movies such as Look Back in Anger, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Longest Day, Hamlet, The Robe, and many others. He’s the most nominated actor to never win an Oscar. He was married to Elizabeth Taylor. Twice. There is countless other trivia connected to him, but I can’t think of any at the moment. It’s late. I’m tired.

(women are walking around in white undergarments)
Mike: They’re at Maggie the Cat auditions!

“Maggie the cat is alive!” Once again, a reference to Elizabeth Taylor’s role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Yet another adapted Tennessee Williams play where an important male character’s homosexuality is swept under the rug. See also: Suddenly, Last Summer and Streetcar Named Desire starring, um, Vivien Leigh…

(The Old Lady is looking out the window. Crow says something about a woman being in Rear Window.)

And another reference to a Hitchcock movie! Unfortunately Cary Grant isn’t in this one. But James Stewart is.

(the Evil Scientist is doing experiments on a Nekkid Lady)
Mike: Jamie Gumm can only dream of the stuff this guy has [or something to that effect]

Christ I’m really half-assing it now. Oh well. Jamie Gumm is the famous freaky villain in Silence of the Lambs—he converted his cellar into a dungeon, with a pit to keep his victims (specifically, to starve them, so he can skin them and…go see the movie) and a tailoring room to keep his…um…you’ll see. This is the guy who kept saying the #1 children’s rhyme about putting the lotion in the basket (LL Cool J can do a really good imitation of it—see his guest spot on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”). It’ll scare the shit out of you. Silence of the Lambs is one of the scariest movies out there, and it doesn’t even come close to the graphic violence in its sequel Hannibal.

I Accuse My Parents

2008-05-23T16:16:00.004-04:00

(Jimmy’s dad walks into the room)
Crow: Suddenly the Thin Man arrives!

The Thin Man is a classic comedy/mystery made in 1934, with William Powell and Myrna Loy, based on a Nick and Nora Charles mystery of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. It was such a hit that five more followed, all of them good. The man in I Accuse My Parents looks a little like William Powell—in that he has a thin mustache and always has a glass of liquor in his hand—but Nick Charles was not actually the Thin Man; the Thin Man was the suspect in the first film.

(two hoodlums rush into a car with a painting)
Tom and Crow: Ze Bogard, ze Bogard!

This is a reference to the Marx Brother’s Animal Crackers. The Marx Bros. stay at Margaret Dumont’s house, where there’s a priceless painting by Bogard. The painting is stolen, I think, by Chico and Harpo and everyone staying at the house whispers, “the Bogarde” when its imposter is unveiled.

(an old man in overalls and a straw hat waits tables)
Crow: Ever been bit by a dead bee?

The line Crow gave is a bit incorrect—it’s spoken by Walter Brennan in To Have and Have Not (one of my favorite movies). Brennan actually says, “Was you ever bit by a dead bee?” Of course, only an asshole like me would be so precise. To Have and Have Not was the legendary first teaming of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. Brennan plays Eddie and this is how the whole “dead bee” conversation goes: Brennan: “Say, was you ever bit by a dead bee?” Bacall: “Were you?” Brennan: “You know you got to be careful of dead bees because if you step on them they can sting you just as much as live ones can, especially if they was really mad when they got killed. I bet I’ve been bit a hundred times that way.” Bacall: “Well, why don’t you bite them back?” Brennan: “I would, but I haven’t got a stinger!” Bogart and Bacall got married about two years after they made this.

(Jimmy is in line at the bank)
Crow: Uh oh, he’s going to give his newspaper to Mr. Potter!

This is a reference to the scene in It’s a Wonderful Life, where Uncle Billy (the poor dope) accidentally puts the $8,000 from the Bailey Building & Loan inside of Mr. Potter’s newspaper. This subsequently causes George to go crazy and contemplate suicide, but Clarence (his guardian angel) stops him and shows him what his town would be like if he Was Never Born At All. A lot of people got angry over the fact that Mr. Potter kept the 8,000 dollars! He kept it! Well, I don’t see why they should be surprised. Mr. Potter would be the last person to give money back, and especially not to the Baileys. And anyway, if he gave the money back, we wouldn’t have the great final scene of the film. There’s a great skit from “Saturday Night Live” where everyone from It’s a Wonderful Life realizes that Potter kept the money, and they go to his house to beat the living shit out of him.

(Jimmy walks into a nightclub and is greeted by the maitre de)
Crow: Ah, Monsieur Rick!

This is a reference to Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart as Rick. He’s the owner of Rick’s Café Americain, a little nightclub that everyone goes to (“Everyone comes to Rick’s.”) For a lot more on Casablanca, go to the Overdrawn at the Memory Bank section.

Doughy Deli Guy: You can have whatever you want…
All (singing): At Alice’s Restaurant!

Alice’s Restaurant was a 1969 musical in the same vein as Hair—kind of a social commentary, although I enjoyed the latter much more. It’s based on Woody Guthrie’s record, and I caught it the other day on AMC. Nothing much can or should be said about this movie. It’s not that great, in my opinion.

Manos: The Hands of Fate

2008-05-23T13:57:00.005-04:00

Frank: Now go on, play!
Servo (sobbing like a little girl, as he is wont to do): Oh, Daddy!
Joel: Now look what you’ve done.

This is a reference to It’s a Wonderful Life, when George Bailey scares his family by tossing over a model bridge he made. His daughter starts crying and Mary accosts him for it. It is, personally, one of my favorite movies and is referenced a lot in “MST3K”.

A little side note: there are a lot of episodes where someone insults Mike and Mike says something in agreement, stops himself short and cries, “Hey!” I’m pretty sure this is also a reference to It’s a Wonderful Life: in the scene at the dance. Mary is talking to this nerdy fellow but sees George and George asks to dance with her. As they’re going to the dance floor the nerdy guy says, “Hey, but this is my dance!” and George says, “Oh why don’t you go bother somebody else?” and the kid replies, “Well I’m sorry—hey!” Mike and the ‘bots always do this and it sounds a lot like the line from the movie. Oh, and if you’ve seen the movie and think that the nerdy guy looks kind of familiar, you’re right—it’s Carl Switzer, who played Alfalfa in the “Our Gang”/ “Little Rascals” movies.

(when the lady in the movie is in her slip and whips around after seeing Torgo peeking at her.)
Joel: Who’s lookin’ at Maggie the Cat?

Spoken by Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Liz Taylor plays a Southern belle who just wants some lovin' from her man (played by Paul Newman) but is, alas, scorned and verbally abused by him. Based on a Tennessee Williams play, so you should have an inkling as to why the guy doesn't really want to have anything to do with her...but made in the fifties, so they're never going to outright explain it.

Crow (singing): Charrreeeddd Fiiinnnggguuuhhhh!

A play on the theme song of the Bond film, Goldfinger. Considered by many to be the best James Bond movie ever. My own personal favorite is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but I can readily understand why people consider it the best of the series. I personally love it. Sean Connery is gorgeous, the theme song is great, but what the hell was with Miss Galore? Why did she not melt in Bond’s hands right away? Why did she keep a gaggle of pretty girls with her? What’s with that name? I mean, man, what’s up with that? You’d think she was… oh. I get it now.

Man: Where did this place come from? It wasn’t here a minute ago.
Woman: I don’t care. Let’s just ask for directions.
Crow: Maybe it’s Brigadoon.

Brigadoon was one of the lesser-known Gene Kelly musicals, about two Americans who travel to Scotland and end up in a town that only appears every couple of hundred years or so. Once you enter, and the moon is full (or maybe it’s when the fog sets in, because there was a lot of fog in the movie) you can never leave again. One would think, “Okey dokey, I’ll just have try the haggis and some shortbread and head the hell out of here,” right? Wrong—Kelly muffs it up by falling in love with one of the townspeople. I remember watching this when I was a lass; nevertheless, the songs were forgettable, and most of the dance numbers too, along with pretty much everyone except Gene Kelly. I remember the scene where Kelly and his friend run over the bridge to safety. It was foggy. Mom made me watch a lot of Gene Kelly movies, for some reason—there was Singin’ in the Rain, of course (except the tape was scratched at the very end, so I never knew the ending until about five years after the fact) and An American in Paris, and the really weird one in which he plays a sad clown in love with a trapeze artist, and falls off a high-wire at the end. That was certainly therapy-inducing.

(Woman is yelling at Torgo after Torgo made the world’s sloppiest pass at her.)
Crow: Then I hah-ve my ahnswer. I’m walking on air!

Funny line. It’s from Hannah and Her Sisters, one of Woody Allen’s earlier-ish movies. Post-Bananas but pre-Everyone Says I Love You. It’s been years since I’ve slept through Hannah and Her Sisters, but I’m sure it starred Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, and Carrie Fisher.

(the Man is looking out into the darkness)
Joel: Someone left a cake out in the rain!

Believe it or not, this is a line from a psychedelic ‘60’s song by—Richard Harris! Yes, the Richard Harris, legendary Irish actor. He was in the musical Camelot, plus the first two Harry Potter movies, and A Sporting Life. He actually busted out a couple of records, but none of his songs did as well as “MacArthur Park” (where the above line is from). Yes, the song goes something like this: “Someone left a cake out in the rain/ And I don’t want to take it/ Because it took so long to bake it/ And I’ll never find the recipe again.” Yes, those are the actual lyrics. It’s a very long, bombastic song—maybe four or five minutes long. But, hey, it was the 1960’s. What are you going to do?