Welcome to tonights (and technically, yesterday evenings) forays into the Halloween mood setting media, the Halloween Youtube Countdown! Yesterday, I needed to take a rest because I had just gotten home from kardio kickboxing at the time that I usually start to write these little vignettes, so I decided to take a breather. As promised, Im doing double duty tonight to make up for a days lapse. So, on with the show! October 18ths entry marked the directorial debut of a major name in Hollywood, a name that would create some of the biggest films in cinema history...and he started out with a B-movie from American International Pictures... Im going to let that sink in for a moment. For anyone that knows the library of that film company, a good many of their works were NOT, shall we say, Oscar worthy. Oh, they were good for a quick viewing at the drive-in or a discount movie theater, but they wouldnt exactly be getting any coveted statues with their sometimes hokey scripts, or cheap production values. Any actors that starred in them were regarded in one of three categories: 1. It was their first or one of their first roles and the were on the way up. 2. They wanted to do the movie for fun or a little money or they essentially HAD to. 3. Their career was on the way down and they took what they could get. The other category of their works were, again, B-movies, but were unfairly labelled as such because, quite honestly, they really WERE good for what they were. Our film selection tonight falls into this second category. Before he was showing people The Rainmaker, before he was directing Dracula, before he was producing Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, even before he was producing movies with everyones favorite fictitious Italian crime family the Corleones, Francis Ford Coppola started out with this little gem. According to Wikipedia, Roger Corman gave the directing job to Coppola after he worked for Corman as a sound technician on one of his movies. Apparently, according to this article, ol Roger wanted a cheap Psycho ripoff in order to cash in on that movies success (considering its Roger Corman, is anyone really shocked?), and Coppola banged out a script in one night. Although Coppola was given total freedom while the movie was being shot, after production finished, Corman saw it and definitely put his two cents in everywhere (again, no surprises). While its response was mixed upon its initial release, over time it has been regarded as a good movie in its own right by many people. Ill admit, when I first saw this on THIS TV last year, my first thoughts were, Aw, God, better settle in, this is going to be a long one... However, upon finishing it, I really did enjoy this film. Its simple, but thrilling and very entertaining. Its a good little movie to watch during one of those late night film fests on TV. The plot and acting is believable, the setting incredible, and the thrills and spooky atmosphere genuine. This is worth the viewing time, and will not disappoint. From 1963, heres Francis Ford Coppolas directorial start, Dementia 13, starring William Campbell, Luana Anders, and Patrick Magee. youtube/watch?v=EQWBy8oACLE
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 00:10:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015