It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

 

 

The Warner Brothers iconic Looney Tunes characters are some that are timeless.  Mainly because the studio keeps reinventing them now and again to stay in the hearts and minds not only of those of a nostalgic bent who remember them as kids, but also keeping them current enough that they can find new devotees.

Originally the studio would just release essentially compilation movies, an assembly of classic cartoons put into a major motion picture.  But beginning in 1993 they started incorporating classic characters into original features.  The first, I believe, was Space Jam, which featured the classic characters combating  an evil alien force in a basketball game and featuring Michael Jordan and a few other then popular real basketball players.

The Looney Tunes characters crop up now and then, even in feature films.  One of the best was not an official Looney Tunes movie, however.  That was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and featured not only Warner Bros. cartoon characters, but many from other classic cartoons, like Disney. But a new Looney Tunes movie is always a treat, mostly because those are the ones I enjoyed more as a kid. (See my posts on the classic cartoons here and here.)

So anyway, my sister and I watched this one last night and, though I usually don't delve into current or even recent releases, this one just seemed to beg for a spot at the Drive-In. 

 

 

 

The Day the Earth Blew UP: A Looney Tunes Movie: (2024): 

The movie begins with a scientist (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) witnessing an asteroid heading towards Earth, along with a UFO that seems to be chasing it.  The UFO crashes on Earth and the scientist goes to investigate.  He finds some weird goo and collects samples. On it's way to the it's crash sit it clips the roof of a house.

 

 

The background of our heroes, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (both voiced by Eric Bauza) begins when Farmer Jim (also voiced by Tatasciore) discovers the two as babies and raises them.  Over the course of their young days they get into a lot of trouble, usually as the result of Daffy doing something stupid, but with Porky being a sometimes unwilling accomplice. One day Farmer Jim leaves (dies?), telling the two they will always be a success as long as they stick together.

 

 

Flash forward to present day.  Daffy and Porky are awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Grecht (voiced by Larraine Newman), who,  after inspecting the house, points out the gaping hole in the roof (from the UFO), and tells them the house will be condemned unless they repair it. 

 

 

Of course, the two have no money, so they end up having to get (gah!)... jobs.  But they can't hold down real jobs because Daffy keeps trying to cut corners with wild ideas to speed up the job they are hired to do. Until they get a job packaging gum for a candy company, which they seem to be able to do, They meet Petunia Pig (voiced by Candi Milo), who is always trying to invent a new perfect flavor of gum.

 

 

Daffy catches the scientist, who has become a zombie from the goo at the crash site, pouring a load of the goo into the vat of gum.  Even Daffy knows this is not right and tries to raise an alarm.  But of course no one believes him. The contaminated gum goes out on the market, despite Daffy's efforts to try to derail it. 

It turns out that the contaminated gum is a plan instituted by an alien, The Invader (voiced by Peter MacNicol), and everyone who chews some of the gum becomes a zombie, like the scientist.

 

 

The gang try their best to stop this, but the gum becomes a sensation, and everyone (I mean EVERYONE) finds the gum irresistible and chews some, so that all of them become zombies.  The gang finds out that if they spray a fume, something like a rotten egg smell, causes the zombies to puke up the gum and become normal.  And it seems like they may just thwart the plan of The Invader. 

 

But The Invader is nothing if not resourceful. When Daffy ends up demolishing the weapon that Porky and Petunia are using to reverse the zombie-fication of the humans, The Invader employs the next stage of his operation.  All of the zombies blow Bubblegum bubbles, which combine to encase the Earth with a giant bubble.

But the gang don't give up hope yet.  The manage to burst the giant bubble. But after their success they find out that The Invader didn't have some evil nefarious plan... he was trying to create a bubble to deflect the asteroid (remember the asteroid) which was on a collision course with the Earth.  He didn't want to destroy the Earth. He wanted to save it.

So now the gang has to work in conjunction with The Invader to some how blow up the asteroid. They figure out that if they plant a huge pile of the gum in the center of the asteroid and have some toy chattering teeth chew it up, it will cause an explosion that will destroy the asteroid before it hits.  

At this point I'm not going to reveal any more of this film.  Suffice to say that things work out in the end (it is ostensibly a kid's cartoon movie, after all..) This is one movie that turns the standard cartoon movie on it;s ear, however,. It is TOTALLY insane, from beginning to end. (Why couldn't they have this kind of cartoon when I was growing up???) 

Just a final note.  This being a cartoon, the voice actors are never seen. But I saw the name "Peter MacNicol" and was waiting to see if I could figure out which character or characters he voiced. I didn't find out until the end. But if you watch the kind of stuff I like to watch, you would recognize him, if you do.  He played the hero in his first ever film role, Dragonslayer, and he was Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II. He was also Gary in Addams Family Values, Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It, and a regular in the TV series Numb3rs, as Dr. Fleinhardt. 

Also Wayne Knight, who many will remember as Newman on Seinfeld, or possibly as the slimy saboteur, Nedry, in the first Jurassic Park. Here he voices the Mayor of the town.

 

This is a fun movie and, as opposed to a lot of movies on The Midnite Drive-In, one that can be watched with the kids in the room. I must admit there are some (possibly) negative issues in it, if you are a real stickler for that kind of thing.  Common Sense Media, a Christian(?) watchdog review outlet,  states in it's review that there are some issues which didn't bother me in the least, but then I never had kids.  You can check their review out beforehand if you are hardcore in your child's film watching, but I personally think it's mostly harmless and typical of stuff that I saw growing up with The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show on Saturday mornings as a kid.

That's it from the back seat of the Plymouth this time. And by the way, if you are planning to stop off for a treat on the way home, opt for ice cream and leave the gum on the shelf.  Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

  

Hey! I Know That Guy! Episode #6

Hey! I know that guy!

It's time for another episode of Hey! I Know That Guy!

Once again, the theme of this series is one in which I pick a classic The Twilight Zone TV episode and highlight one of the actors in the episode and then delve into one of his or her major appearances in a Hollywood movie (Usually post TZ, but I'm leaving myself open in case a primo role occurred sometime before their appearance in the series.)

In the last installment I discussed the career of John Astin, an actor more well-known for his contributions in the realm of comedy.  This time I am going with a guy who was a great dramatic actor. Martin Landau had a fairly prolific career. He was a 3 time nominee for the coveted Oscar (one of which he actually won, that for playing the role of Bela Lugosi in the Tim Burton biopic of director Ed Wood.)

But that wasn't all.  He also received recognition as a cast member of the classic TV series Mission: Impossible. And among other TV roles he was the star of the highly underrated 70's TV series Space:1999, a British TV series that managed to make it's way across the pond to the States. (And was one of those way too often favorites of my childhood that didn't have enough staying power to continue past a second season...)

Up until about 1970 Landau was mostly a guest star on TV series episodes. Prior to his casting as Rollin Hand, the disguise master on Mission: Impossible, his credits numbered about 50 TV roles to only about 10 roles in film. His breakout role in film, in my opinion was as the co-star (and murder suspect) in the sequel to In the Heat of the Night, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! 

From there he went on to roles in a variety of genres, but two that stuck out for me (being a person that likes those kinds of movies) are Alone in the Dark and The Being. Alone in the Dark stands out because in that one he plays a truly psychotic evangelist who loves fire (an arsonist preacher).  

Landau, in the Twilight Zone universe, had two memorable roles. In the season 5 episode. The Jeopardy Room, Landau played the lead character, a Major Kuchenko from, ostensibly, Russia, who is attempting to defect. He is the victim of an insidious Commissar Valenko, who has trapped him in a hotel room and is egging him on with threats of various kinds.

But Landau first appeared in The Twilight Zone, an episode that was the third one of the first season, was one called "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".

In "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" Dan Duryea is a former gunfighter who has fallen on hard times.  He used to be a big guy, fastest draw in the west, and all that. Everybody who thought of himself as a big shot gunfighter would seek him out, and all failed to defeat him.  But when he killed a young fighter his conscience got the better of him and he took to drink.

He became the town drunk instead of the town gunfighter and thus the source of ridicule, especially with one unrelenting bully, Hotaling (Martin Landau). Hotaling taunts Denton into embarrassing himself with a rendition of "How Dry I Am"  in order to get his next drink.

But since this takes place in the Twilight Zone, on the scene comes Henry Fate (Malcolm Atterbury), who gives Denton some new life. Denton manages to humiliate Hotaling, but the downside is, now he will become a target once again for every wannabe big shot gunslinger.

The ultimate end of this story is that Denton indeed does end up having to go gun to gun with the next wannabe hot shot (played by Doug McClure, who just barely escaped being this episode's Hey! I Know That Guy!). Fate gives Denton a potion that is supposed to give him 5 seconds of super speed and super accuracy in shooting.  But it turns out that Fate has been playing both sides of the coin and gave the newcomer the same potion.

Landau, playing one of the less likeable characters here, always seemed to me to have that face that made him perfect, in my opinion, for playing bad guys.  And of course, over the course of his career, he did have his share.  But he also had some sympathetic characters. 

He won an Oscar for playing such a sympathetic character.  Your heart will break to see how far Bela Lugosi fell from earlier stardom to the drug addict that Ed Wood found (and probably took too much advantage of) in the biopic Ed Wood. Landau got Best Supporting Actor from the Academy for that role.

Hey, I loved that portrayal.  Mainly because I have always liked Lugosi movies (and, ok, I'm a huge fan of the real Ed Wood and his low budget schlock.) But I have to admit when he was a bad guy Landau  could exude deviousness like no one else.  But there was one movie where he played a guy who could seem good on the exterior but harbored some bad characteristics that would surprise you. That movie was They Call me Mr. Tibbs!, and the character he played was someone whom, at the outset, might come off as sympathetic.

In They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! Landau plays Logan Sharpe, a firebrand preacher and political firebrand as well. He is a prime suspect in the murder of a hooker.  In the beginning he is approached by Lt. Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), who is a friend and apparently the pastor of the church Tibbs and his family attend.

 

 

 

(Side note: This movie was a sequel to In the Heat of the Night.)

In an early scene in the movie Sharpe admits he had more than a preacher relationship with the victim. But since Sharpe is supposed to be a man of God, he doesn't want that to come out (obviously).  The investigation delves into the potential suspects, because, after all, Tibbs can't quite accept the fact that his pastor might be doing some rather un-pastor-like things. (I mean besides having a sexual relations with a hooker.  But if Jimmy Swaggart could get away with it, why couldn't Sharpe?

Ultimately the trail keeps leading back to the same people, one of whom is the landlord of the apartment of the hooker, played by Anthony Zerbe. (And there's another guy who plays slimy characters real well.) It turns out that the landlord has some drug dealing outside of the prostitution ring he is running in his apartment building, but he is not guilty of the murder.  He ends up dead, just the same, but not before Tibbs uncovers enough evidence to point to the real culprit.

You guessed it.  Sharpe. Even when he is found out it's still hard to really dislike Landau's character.  He puts enough  pathos into the portrayal that you might almost hope he gets away with it.  But Tibbs, if nothing else, is a dedicated fighter of crime, even when a good friend is the culprit. They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! is nowhere near on the same level as In the Heat of the Night, and without Landau's presence, it might be forgettable. Even Poitier seems to be just going through the motions.

Hope you are enjoying this series. Drive safely.

Quiggy

 

 

Two Heads Are Better Than One

The Midnite Drive-In has often been the source for numerous "double-header" features over the years (as in two movies for the price of one).  I guess we would have to class today's presentation as a "quadruple header"...

 

 

There is a standard catch phrase often used in some circles that "two heads are better than one". Of course, in the standard use of the idiom, people usually mean that two people working together on the same goal usually have better success than just one person by his or her self. This handy little motto has been around for centuries.  A passage from the Bible is one of the earliest examples I found of this:

"Two heads are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

But this is referring to two separate bodies of people.   What happens if both those people are sharing the same body however?  There are examples of the concept when one body is occupied by two people in film. All of Me, a Steve Martin comedy had Martin's character, Roger Cobb, being co-occupied by the spirit of Lily Tomlin's Edwina Cutwater, to comedic effect as both tried to work together to make the co-habitation work. 

You could add some of those demonic possession movies to this list, but, really, those are a different kind of animal all together, because the evil spirit in question completely dominates the character and the real owner of the body has no input into the decisions. 

On the other hand, there are these two examples. Each one involves a fully functional head attached to a body (with the original head still intact). That Biblical bit about helping each other becomes decidedly problematic.  Especially when the two heads are diametrically opposed to each other in principles or thought.  

 

 

The Thing with Two Heads (1972): 

Dr. Max Kirschner (Ray Milland) is a brilliant doctor. Well, brilliance and demented go hand in hand in these kinds of movies, so he is also a bit off his rocker.  

As per the norm, Max has been doing some decidedly strange work in the operating room.  What he has done is grafted a second head onto a gorilla. (That's Rick Baker in that gorilla suit, and also the designer of much of the more exotic special effects in this feature.)

Max is elated with his success. Except the two-headed gorilla is not exactly emotionally stable.  It breaks out of it's cage and runs rampant down the city streets outside the hospital. Eventually the gorilla is caught in a supermarket. It turns out he wasn't a rampaging savage creature... he was just hungry. The ultimate plan for the gorilla was to let the new head become acclimated to the body and then remove the original head.  (You didn't think he was just trying to create a new hit exhibit at the local zoo, did you...?)

The reason why Max has been working so diligently at this experiment is that he is dying.  And like most of us, he doesn't want to die just yet.  Fortunately he is a brilliant doctor, with his own medical research facility and the funds to change his future.  Unfortunately he is rather unprincipled as to his methods. He has a subordinate seek out an acceptable body. Then, when he gets his "victim" the plan is to attach his head to the body, and of course, ultimately take it over.

This movie is classed as a "horror/comedy" so there are several things that are spliced in to the film to get to that "comedy".  For one thing, at the outset it is established that Max is a racist. He had recently hired a new doctor for his facility, apparently without an interview or even a working knowledge of his new hire.  Because when he finds out that Dr. Fred Williams (Don Marshall) is an African-American, he tells the new doctor that the contract that Fred signed is null and void. 

Fred insists that Max has to keep him on for the trial period otherwise there will be some serious legal issues, so Fred is assigned to a desk job to keep him out of the way.  Meantime, Max's subordinate is seeking that body.  An effort is made to convince an inmate on Death Row in prison to agree, and they manage to get Jack Moss (Rosey Grier) to accept.

But wait. Jack is a black man. Won't that be a situation that Max would reject outright? Unfortunately he has no say in the matter, because he is basically going in to a coma and is about to die. So the doctors under him decide they have to act right away in order to save him.  Of course, when Max wakes up he's not entirely pleased the operation was a success...

For that matter, Jack is not entirely happy with having another head in the game. The comedy part comes into play in full force after this (although whether it's actually funny is a matter of opinion.) Jack only agreed to this situation because he is innocent of the murder he was convicted and sentenced for, and having this cranky old geezer just doesn't help matters much. 

(And just as a side note: How the hell long has Jack been on Death Row anyway? In these days when appeals can keep a Death Row inmate on there almost until death actually takes his life before the government does, it seems that Jack has had a short time on it.  The movie indicates he is due to be executed forthwith, the reason he is granted a stay of execution.) 

There is a conflict when Jack takes control of his body and escapes the hospital.  He has the advantage, however, because most people who see him run away rather than try to help capture him. (That extra head just might come in handy after all...) At first they try to commandeer a car, conveniently the car owned by Fred (remember Fred?). But with police chasing him and this car being a less than acceptable example of a getaway car, they end up crashing. But not to worry.  Jack manages to get a hold of a dirt bike. 

And with that, a chase through a dirt bike track and an open field with Keystone Kops in cars chasing them, the movie takes a weird turn.  I didn't time it, but I bet that police chase takes up at least 20 or 25 minutes of the film. And since this was BEFORE The Blues Brothers, it may be a source that John Landis got his iconic chase scenes from in that classic film.  This movie had a much lower budget, however, so there are only about a dozen police cars. And apparently the budget was stretched thin because several times the car that crashes in a scene already shows signs of having been in a previous crash.  (There is one scene, even, where the car that crashes flips, and it's obvious there is no engine under the hood...)

Eventually Jack and Max and Fred escape the cops and make their way to Jack's girlfriend, Lila (Chelsea Brown). She is surprised to see Jack, and even more surprised to see his new addition, but she apparently takes it into stride, rather than running and screaming for the hills.  She does, however have a bit of curiosity about Jack's new situation because she delivers what is probably the best line in the movie...

"Is there anything else you've got two of?"

A valid question, if you ask me...

Well evil Max has plans to get rid of Jack's head, even if his body is not one that Max is happy with, but jack is not ready to go so gently into that good night.  Ultimately Jack wins out, but being that this is a good-natured comedy more than a horror film, Max is still alive, albeit in need of a new body.  The last scene features Jack, sole possessor of his body, traveling down the road with Lila and Fred, singing:

"Oh, happy day! Oh, happy day! When Jesus washed my sins away!" (REALLY!!! Would I lie?)

There is one big hole here, plot wise.  For one thing, Jack is still a convicted (and now escaped) felon. And on top of that, the issue of who actually committed the murder that Jack was on death row in the first place is never really resolved. So maybe that "Oh, happy day!" is a little bit premature. But then no one ever overestimated the coherency of these kinds of movies.  Maybe they were looking towards a sequel.

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971):

From the trailer: 

 "No woman is safe from his deadly embrace! No man is safe from his killer lust!" (And no audience member is safe from the devastating ennui...)  

The story here is that Bruce Dern plays a demented (there's a stretch...) scientist. Dern plays Dr. Roger Girard, a man who lives with his wife, Linda (Pat Priest) and his assistant, Max. 

 

Dr. Girard

Linda

Max (with Linda)

 

Why is he demented? Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that he still holds a grudge over getting canned from his previous job. Or maybe it's because he has such a friendly relationship with Casey Kasem. But possibly it's just because he likes to, in his spare time, graft the head of one animal to another.  No reason, just because no one else is doing it...

Roger has a friend, a fellow doctor named Ken Anderson (Casey Kasem) who comes around to visit him. Ken is concerned because Linda has told him that Roger spends WAAAY too much time in his lab, to the detriment of neglecting his newlywed wife. But since Roger has much more interest in his secret scientific experiments, he doesn't really see the negative effect he is having on her.

 

Ken

 

Roger and his assistant, Max, are planning on the next phase of his experiments, that is to graft a head onto the body of a fully functioning body of another.  The ostensible reason is that they may be able to prolong the life of a valuable intellectual whose body is deteriorating.  It later comes out that Max has much more invested in the success of this experiment because he is suffering from a debilitating disease but wants to go on living.

When a really psychotic criminal, Manuel Cass (John Cole), escapes from a maximum security prison ("maximum security" apparently meaning the door is locked...), and ends up on Roger's estate, he is shot by Roger as he tries to do some bad things to Linda. 

Cass (with Girard)

 

Just prior to this he has killed Roger's estate caretaker.  The caretaker's son, Danny (John Bloom) is distraught.  Danny is also mentally disabled.

Danny (pre-op)

 

Max sees the opportunity to test Roger's head transplant theory, since Cass is now dead, and Danny can only be improved in mental capacity by the procedure. Psychotic brain of a criminal being considered a vast improvement on mental deficiency, take it as you will.  This is not Casablanca quality theater, you know.

As you might expect, Danny is not pleased with the change in situation, nor is he pleased with the fact that this psycho seems to have taken over every aspect of control of it's new body.  Danny can only look on in horror as Cass manipulates his new body and takes up his preferred method of dealing with life; killing and molesting people.

Danny (post-op)

 

The cops have surmised that Danny is a prime suspect, because apparently, by the footprints found at the scene of the crime, there can be only one person with that big a footprint. But when they try to find Danny to question him, they are told by Roger that Danny and his father left town a week before. Not entirely buying the story they keep looking, especially after bodies keep piling up that suggest the culprit is the same person. Although, by now, they are aware that Cass has escaped.

Eventually both Linda and Ken (remember Ken?) find out the truth and, with Roger and Max,  begin their own search for the monster Roger and max created.  And we find out that Max wants to capture him/it alive because he wants to use Danny's body for his own head transfer (so who is more demented... Roger or Max?)

You already know pretty much how this HAS to turn out. All of the bad people are killed in a cave in in an old mine, and Ken and Linda escape.  Of course, neither of them are going to reveal to the police what REALLY happened, just that Roger and Max and Danny were killed in the cave-in. (They don't even mention Cass, so I guess the escaped lunatic is officially still on the loose.)   

In summary, Harry and Michael Medved, in their book The Golden Turkey Awards, had a category "The Worst Two-Headed Transplant Movie". In it, these two movies competed with a third movie, a Japanese entry in the genre: The Manster: Half-Man, Half-Monster (not reviewed here). In their opinion, the winner of "the Worst" was The Thing with Two Heads.  Having not even seen the Japanese movie, I can't exactly make a completely knowledgeable decision, but if I were to make one just on these two movies I would have picked "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant.

Well, folks, the one head I have is telling me it's time to head home.  And thankfully I won't have to compete with a second head.  Driving the Plymouth is a tough thing to do by myself.

Drive safely.

Quiggy

 

 

Back to 1985 Blogathon is Here

 

There is something about 1985 (at least for those of us who were alive then) that resonates. And not just in movies. It was the year of the first Live Aid events (remember those?). We also got We Are the World, a phenomenon in itself. Both Playboy and  Penthouse published naked pictures of Madonna. Coca-Cola introduced "New Coke" in April. And due to the backlash from that fiasco, they announced the return of the classic Coke later that year. 

But also some of the most iconic movies of the 80's (or even all time) were released in 1985, like Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club and The Color Purple. Even movies that may or may not be as memorable came out that year. As I said on the announcement page for this blogathon, I think I saw more movies in the theater in 1985 than I saw any other year of my life.

So Rachel @ Hamlette's Soliloquy and I now present you with some of the more memorable of those movies, as presented by fellow bloggers who joined us in this celebration.  This list will be updated as more entries come in. Read about....

The Midnite Drive-In: "Science 101": Weird Science, Real Genius and My Science Project

Angelman's Place: Private Resort

 

 

18 Cinema Lane: The Bride 

 

 Hamlette's Soliloquy: Clue

 

 

 

Realweegiemidget Reviews: Letter to Brezhnev 

 

 

Any Merry Little Thought: Back to the Future

 

 

 

Sidewalk Crossings: White Nights

 

 

 

Taking Up Room: Jewel of the Nile 

 

 

 

Movies Met Their Match: The Breakfast Club 

 

 

Dubism: Brewster's Millions 

 

 

 

18 Cinema Lane: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

More to come...