Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Daffy Duck Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1948 What Makes Daffy Duck , (co-starring Elmer Fudd,) directed by Arthur Davis.
Daffy calls Elmer Fudd by his first name several times in this short. He also breaks the fourth wall briefly at the very end of the cartoon and addresses the audience. And the fox sounds like an early incarnation of the dog character, Foghorn Leghorn's nemesis.
Before the start of our feature presentation, the staff of ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like to share with you a cool video we saw the other day, discussing early film special effects, before CGI - Amazing Effects in Classic Films - How Did They Pull It Off?
The folks at Film Riot discuss all the ins and outs of film making
We've picked another entry from the excellent reference book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider. Today's film is the 1962 cold war thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, Henry Silva, and James Gregory. The film was widely praised after its initial release but was withdrawn from exhibition and withheld from distribution for many years. Several rumors have abounded to explain its disappearance. One held that Sinatra, who controlled the rights to the picture, locked up both The Manchurian Candidate and his earlier political assassination film Suddenly after the assassination of his friend John F. Kennedy, but that has now been disputed. There is, however, apparently some truth to the story that after JFK was murdered a year after the picture was released, some exhibitors requested it be given another run to capitalize on the event but that United Artists refused.
For years while the film was not available for viewing, it built up a great reputation. "The movie went from failure to classic without passing through success," noted its screenwriter, George Axelrod. As always, The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like you to join us in watching The Manchurian Candidate. So push away from the table, get comfortable and enjoy the film.
In spite of his reputation, Frank Sinatra turned out to be, for the most part, a hard worker and pleasant and cooperative on the set. Writer, producer, and director John Frankenheimer called him "one of the most charming human beings I have ever met." Janet Leigh was friends with Sinatra before filming began, but still nervous about stories she heard from others who worked with him. She found him to be "a caring, giving actor, willing to rehearse indefinitely, taking direction, contributing ideas to the whole." Writer and producer George Axelrod said he was "a dream to work with" and called him "one of the best screen actors in the world...lyrically sensitive...magic." Most people agreed that Sinatra's attitude could be attributed largely to the fact that he had tremendous respect for his director and enthusiasm for the project.
Demand Euphoria!
No comments:
Post a Comment