Bad Movies You Love

[klondike]

Night Of The Lepus (1972)
Husband-and-wife scientists unwittingly unleash a horde of giant man-eating rabbits. Cast: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun. Dir: William F. Claxton. C-89 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

Stuart. Janet. Giant, pink-eyed bunny rabbits. Need I say more?

Only that it's a shame Ray Harryhausen & Slim Pickens were both out of town that weekend . . . . but wait - I said it for you !

[MikeBSG]

The other night, I came across "Police Academy" (1984) on TV. My wife and I spent the next fifteen minutes laughing at Steve Gutenberg and the other cadets' antics. I can't stand "Animal House," "Blues Brothers," "Porky's" or the other comedies of that era, but "Police Academy" always breaks me up.

[klondike]

Hey, Guys, having just posted over in the Uninvited thread, I'm reminded of another film so howlingly bad, it's fun, fun, fun!
Remember X - The Man with the X-Ray Eyes ?
Talk about your live-action comic books! And Milland takes it all so seriously - everybody else on the screen have half a smirk going on in most scenes, but not Ray - he's treating it like Shakespeare, and giving it his all . . and man, this one's got it all - a secret science breakthrough gone askew, rampant voyeurism, the hovering threat of alcoholism & suicidal behavior, overtones of religious fervor & post-modern isolationism, accelerating paranoia, inspirationally horrid wardrobe . . and it's all filmed like the cameras were on a weekend rental!

[ChiO]

Remember X - The Man with the X-Ray Eyes ?

Why, of course. I think it is a brilliantly constructed and acted film. For the reasons you cited. I'd go so far as to say that only THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN surpasses it in the "Oh-My-God-What-Have-We-Done" category.

Pluck it out, indeed.

[MissGoddess]

Klonny, that's not the movie where Milland has to share a body with that ex-football player, Rosie something or other, is it?

[MissGoddess]

Moira, thank you for the upcoming schedule! This morning's DONDI might have qualified, from what little I saw.

Tonight at 6 (EST) TCM is airing, I think for the first time, ASSAULT ON A QUEEN. I won't call it a bad movie, but some might. However, I think it's one of Frank Sinatra's best "caper" films, of which he did quite a few in the 60s...much better in my opinion than the Tony Romes and I even like it better than the Rat Pack movies, though it admittedly lacks their light heartedness. Costars Virna Lisi, Richard Conte and unfortunately, Anthony Franciosa.

The title doesn't refer to any violence to HRH, but to a ship full of rich folks. The film is photographed and co-produced by famous MGM cinematographer, William Daniels.

[klondike]

Klonny, that's not the movie where Milland has to share a body with that ex-football player, Rosie something or other, is it?

Nope, that unique 'piece of work' was 1972's The Thing with Two Heads, in which Ray co-stars (and shares one set of shoulders) with former gridiron great Roosevelt "Rosie" Grier; unlike X, which RM made nine years earlier, this later fiasco does not rate a membership in this select little thread here - because it was just plain bad, as in: demand your money back, and drink til you forget you even saw part of it!

[Sue Sue Applegate]

I am such an easy mark for WWII stories, especially about an orphan who
finds a home. This was a 3-tear movie for me right before I reached the
double digits.

Dondi was a film I saw for the first time when I was 9 or 10, and I think I saw it
about the same time I first saw Stalag 17, so Robert Strauss, the gravelly-voiced
character actor famous for his role as Sergeant Stanislaus "Animal" Kuzawa, kind
of reminds me of WWII on the silver screen everytime I see him because he was often
cast in Army uniform on television as well as the big screen. (He and Harvey Lembeck
were also cast in The Last Time I Saw Archie.)

And while Dondi may not have the magnitude and importance of a Billy WIlder film,
it still made me tear up. Dondi, played by David Kory, was so adorable and when he
was lost after landing in New York because all of the commotion caused by the women
chasing Dealey (David Janssen), an irascible, conniving, yet lovable rake.

Patti Page, famous for her hits "The Tennessee Waltz" and the title song to "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," had a more challenging role in Dondi than in Elmer Gantry. She was the lead, and she was edgy, animated, and opinionated. I enjoyed Patti Page in this film.

I haven't seen this film since the early 70's, but the harmonica music struck me as so inapropriate or out of place this viewing.

Dondi was a comic strip that was originally published in 1955 about a WWII orphan of the same name written by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen, and it was called Dondi because he was supposedly discovered looking for his slain parents and asking "donde" which means where in Spanish.

[moira finnie]

Okay, I know I'm shallow.

After coming home in time to see how awful Kirk Douglas and Susan Hayward were at comedy for a few minutes, I let Stolen Hours (1963) begin. I know that Dark Victory was great, but there's nice Diane Baker as Susan Hayward's sister (which is kind of a stretch) and the beautiful production design of this movie. Apparently, that design extended to Susan's gowns in this movie which are credited to Beatrice Dawson, whose name is not familiar to me, but she seemed to have quite a career. Did anyone else notice the clothes or know anything about Beatrice Dawson?

Susan Hayward looks GORGEOUS in this movie and is wearing a golden dress in the party scene that looks both comfortable and comely. Even her nightgown at the hospital is lovely and an unusual yellow. Now I know I'm going to get sucked into this. Sue is recovering at her "country shack" on the Thames (?) riding her horse on a sunny day. And I just realized that poor Susan Hayward really did die of brain tumor in real life. I know she wasn't an actress with a light touch who could play comedy, but she was a hard worker, God knows and deserved better from fate.

[MissGoddess]

You seem to be enjoying Stolen Hours more than I. Two Susan Hayward movies today I am seeing for the first time, this and earlier today it was My Foolish Heart. I enjoyed the latter, it even made me cry even though I didn't really believe Susan and Dana Andrews as college age "kids". But I keep comparing Stolen Hours to the original and it's painful. I do like Susan's wardrobe, though, it's lovely.

I switched channels after about 15 minutes of Top Secret Affair. Yikes!

[moira finnie]

I liked the clothes and the settings (Cornwall was so lovely) in Stolen Hours, though I don't think it can replace the performance Bette Davis gave in the original. I'm glad I saw less than 15 minutes of the terribly strident Top Secret Affair.

I'll probably keep one eye on Where Love Has Gone just to see Joey Heatherton strut her *uh* stuff. I wonder if Bette and Susan discussed their approach to the role of Judith Traherne when they were making this movie? Yikes, that would probably be pretty frosty--but maybe it made Bette understand how Tallulah felt.

[JackFavell]

Jack Jones' theme song is nice....

[Sue Sue Applegate]

That feat (getting Bette to empathize) would be an undertaking needing the assistance of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Dr. Phil, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Professor Irwin Corey..

[moira finnie]

Jack Jones' theme song is nice....

Didn't it become some sort of guild rule in the '60s that there had to be a song attached to movies like Where Love Has Gone? The guild in question being the "Overblown Emotional Epics Guild" with Ross Hunter as the prez.

That feat (getting Bette to empathize) would be an undertaking needing the assistance of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Dr. Phil, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Professor Irwin Corey..

Bette had the strangest line readings in this movie. It. Was. As. Though. Every. Word. Was. Separated. By. A. Period. You. Know?

Moira, I believe that Beatrice Dawson designed the costumes for Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, which are worthy of Ava Gardner and of Jack Cardiff's cinematography, and that's saying something.

Beatrice Dawson also designed the crazy mod duds in Modesty Blaise! The woman had range.

Didn't tape Stolen Hours, but did tape Where Love Has Gone and I Thank a Fool, which has to be one of the worst titles ever before Gigli. According to Edward Dmytryk's autobiography, Hayward had script approval on Where Love Has Gone, which she used to make her character as sympathetic as possible. Dmytryk found her very insecure and preferred working with Davis.

I think you zeroed in on the cream of the crop by recording those, king. My eyes must have glazed over when reading Edward Dmytryk's autobiography. I read the first one he wrote that focused on his training, time in prison as one of the Hollywood Ten, and his subsequent films. I probably tried to pretend I didn't know he'd done this movie.

MILD SPOILER ALERT BELOW*MILD SPOILER ALERT BELOW!

I breathlessly await Joey Heatherton's thespian artistry--didn't one of you say that the word "starlet" might have been invented for her?

Joey didn't disappoint, though I still think she may have had a horseback riding accident instead of an affair. I loved the line from Mike Connors: "I had to stand in line in the islands. I didn't like it!" It sounds as though he was in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956). Now that was trash--Raoul Walsh style. One more thing--what was with Mike Connors' hair and eyebrows, which never, ever moved--not even when he fell on his wife when drunk? Did they put hair spray on his brows or add more hair to them? They looked like woolly caterpillars that grew and shrank from scene to scene.

I LOVED the B-girl with the giant hairdo in the dive who was played by Lisa Seagram, (Seagram, as in the alcohol, no doubt). She was the one who pitied Mike Connors, saying about him, "I know a hot suicide when I see one" and then showed why! Also, any time Jay Adler as the Bartender shows up in a movie, it's a good sign. Loved the way he laughed at his own lame jokes.

Did anyone like Susan Hayward's sculpture in Where Love Has Gone? Her objets d'art seemed just this side of those Precious Moments knick-knacks or Llardo design rejects--though cast in bronze to make them real classy. Boy, the UN was going to be pretty disappointed when they got that Family of Man piece her Mom liked. Of course DeForest Kelly (you knew he was an intellectual because he smoked a pipe and wore a vest) was going to be on easy street now that his main client was a goner and the price of all those tschotkes she cranked out was going to skyrocket.

What was Jane Greer doing in this movie? Still hiding out from Howard Hughes in 1964?