On this day, 15 April, in 1933 the iconic actor Elizabeth Montgomery was born (there is some controversy about the year; it might have been 1938). She is best known for starring in the television show Bewitched, which ran on ABC for 8 seasons.

It was an interesting role in that Samantha acted as the connection between the normal world of humans (represented by her husband) and the madcap witch world featuring such icons as Agnes Moorehead (The Woman in White), Paul Lynde (Send Me No Flowers), and Bernard Fox (Hogan’s Heroes).

After Bewitched

Her career after Bewitched took a decidedly dark turn with her starring in a lot of serious made-for-TV dramas. She won an Emmy Award in 1974 for A Case of Rape. She also starred (with OJ Simpson) in A Killing Affair in 1977 and Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story in 1993.

Montgomery had a big effect on my thinking with the 1975 made-for-TV movie, The Legend of Lizzie Borden. I had only known her as the very nice Samantha Stephens. And that movie was my introduction to casting against type.

Ever since, I’ve enjoyed seeing actors take roles like this. It isn’t just that it’s fun. It shows that the actors are serious about their craft. They didn’t go into acting so they could play the same part over and over. Montomery showed herself to be very serious and talented for the two decades that were left of her life.

She was also involved in politics, particularly the fight against AIDS. After Dick Sargent came out, she accompanied him in the Los Angeles Gay Pride where he was Grand Marshal in 1992.

She also narrated a number of political documentaries, most specifically the The Panama Deception about the absurd US invasion of Panama in 1989.

Elizabeth Montgomery died in 1995 due to colon cancer at the age of 62 (or maybe 57).

Also on 15 April

Actor Hans Conried (Dudley Do-Right) was born in 1917, Emma Thompson (Stranger than Fiction) is 61, Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express) is 38, and Emma Watson (Harry Potter) is 30.

Producer Craig Zadan (Footloose) was born in 1948.

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Image cropped from Elizabeth Montgomery by Milburn McCarty Associates-publicity agency and in the Public Domain.

Each year, I watch in confusion as people start talking about the Academy Awards. I just don’t get it. Film festivals can be interesting because you’ll be introduced to films you didn’t know about. But I just don’t see what the point is of the Academy Awards. And for that matter, I don’t see the point of the Cannes Film Festival.

The only films that you will see nominated for Academy Awards are ones that anyone who follows film seriously will already have heard of, if not seen, long before they are nominated. So what is the point? Well, we know: it’s an opportunity for Hollywood to fellatiate itself.

And when Hollywood doesn’t do the obvious thing, it spends the next year (or decade) congratulating itself. This is something I’ve long marveled at about Hollywood. As much as people believe Hollywood’s myths, it doesn’t compare to how much Hollywood believes them itself.

So watching Hollywood behave this way is just embarrassing to me. But it is worth noting that they occasionally do interesting things. The 36th Academy Awards occurred on this day, 13 April, in 1963. And they gave the award to Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field (a wonderful film but also a telling choice). This was the first time that the award went to an African-American man.

Of course, this was just another example of Hollywood patting itself on the back for being so enlightened. It would not be until the 74th Academy Awards (38 years later) that another person of color (Denzel Washington) won again.

It makes sense, though. It’s not just that #OscarsSoWhite; Hollywood is so white. The Academy Awards are an excellent indicator of Hollywood. And that’s the problem with them.

Also on 13 April

Actor Howard Keel (Annie Get Your Gun) was born in 1919 and Don Adams (Get Smart) in 1923.

Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal) is 83 today, Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas) is 81, Tony Dow (Leave It to Beaver) is 75, Ron Perlman (Hellboy) is 70, Peter Davison (Dr Who) is 69, Ricky Schroder (The Champ) is 50, and Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) is 44.

Director Stanley Donen (Charade) was born in 1924 and Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep) is 76.

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Image cropped from Sidney Poitier by unknown author via Wikipedia in the public domain.

Today, 11 April, the mediocre screenwriter and director John Milius is 76 years old. It says a lot about doing these anniversary posts that I would have to pick him today. I’m sure there are psychotronic icons that I could write about but I’m working with a decidedly weak database. If I keep this up, next year it should be better.

Apocalypse Now

Milius’ reputation rests upon two things. People who take film more seriously tend to note that he co-wrote Apocalypse Now. And I don’t doubt that Milius put a lot of interesting ideas into the film. It’s worth noting that one thing — the title — was, as usual, yet another reactionary political statement by the The Man Who Would Be a Marine.

(According to Milius, he really wanted to go to Vietnam was a marine. Of course, that was long before the war turned ugly. But I seriously doubt his commitment regardless. He seems too much the loud-mouthed reactionary who builds a fake past to justify his current jingoist beliefs.)

Red Dawn

His other great success if Red Dawn (1984). It’s more or less John Milius masturbating onto film stock. There’s nothing reactionaries like to do as much as fantasize about what they’d do to those [pick an enemy] if the time ever came. If it did, they’d be hiding under the kitchen table.

(Note that the terrific director Kevin Reynolds wrote the original script for Red Dawn. Milius took out all of the interesting conflict in the script and replaced it with the brainless shoot-em-up that we see on the screen.)

This is not to say that it isn’t an okay action film. It works well enough. I have a hard time believing that Soviet forces would drop into a rural high school and just shoot kids randomly, but whatever. If this were a low-budget independent film, I’d like it. Coming from Milius, I know he believes this nonsense.

A lot of my friends still enjoy Red Dawn. And that’s fine! My inability to make it all the way through the film is a problem with me, not it. I normally love children’s films. I have a problem when adults think they are True and Profound. But it would be great if I could get past that.

Fortunately, I don’t have to because there are so many films left to see! One of them is Amerigeddon — I wonder if that’s any good?!

Also on 11 April

Released this day: Scarecrow (1973), Critters (1986), Anaconda (1997), and Grosse Point Blank (1997).

Actor Joel Grey (Cabaret) is 88 today, Louise Lasser (Bananas) is 81, and Peter Riegert (Local Hero) is 73,.

Animator Norman McLaren (Neighbours) was born in 1914, producer Howard W Koch (The Manchurian Candidate) in 1916, and producer Bernd Eichinger (The Name of the Rose) in 1949.

Director Vincent Gallo (Buffalo ’66) is 59.

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Image made from Angry Smiley Face. It is in the public domain.

Today, 9 April, Marty Krofft is 83 years old. He is the younger of the Krofft brothers — creators of about half of my childhood television entertainment with shows like HR Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and above all, Land of the Lost.

Recently, a friend gave me the complete Land of the Lost on DVD and so I’ve revisited it. And it’s weird. I can see why I liked it at ten. It’s an exciting adventure to a 10-year-old. And it’s smart and generally rips off the right people.

Krofft Art: Then and Now

Watching it now, I see what it always was: the result of an extremely limited budget but an abundance of creativity. The brilliance of their shows was how they worked with their limitations.

Some time ago, I saw an interview with the Krofft brothers and they said the reason the Sleestak moved so slowly was that they had limited space on their sets so in order to create action, they had to be slow. This is what most creative work is: problem-solving.

Despite all the low-budget special effects, their stories could be performed on a middle-school cafeteria stage. And it’s amazing that they don’t seem like that. In fact, if you had asked me as a kid, I would have said that they were epic.

Thirty-five years later, Land of the Lost was produced as a big-budget film. I liked it, but it wasn’t at all like the series. Most important, the series took its premise seriously. The film constantly winks at the audience, “Yeah, we know this is silly!”

But that’s the beauty of the work of the Krofft brothers: they were brave. They used all the tools they had available to tell wonderful stories for a particular audience that loved them for it.

Also on 9 April

In 1976 on this day, the films All the President’s Men and Family Plot were released.

Actor Dennis Quaid (DOA) is 66 and Cynthia Nixon (James White) is 54.

On this day, 8 April, in 1977, the science fiction horror classic Demon Seed was released to the world. (It premiered in Los Angeles the week before, but today was its official release.)

When I was 14, my parents took the family to see Demon Seed at the drive-in theater. You might think that’s an odd choice for a family movie, but things were different back then. People didn’t assume “family entertainment” meant “children’s entertainment.”

The film was terrifying. It’s even more so when I watch it now. What’s shocking is that this is a genre film aimed at thoughtful adults. I don’t think I really grokked the rape scene when I was a kid.

What’s more, none of the three characters is evil. They all just have conflicting needs. I highly recommend watching Demon Seed. It has aged remarkably well!

Also on 8 April

Rabid opened in 1977 and The Players Club in 1998.

Mary Pickford (Coquette) was born in 1892, John Gavin (Psycho) in 1931, Tim Thomerson (Trancers) is 74, Jim Piddock (A Mighty Wind) is 64, Robin Wright (The Princess Bride) is 54, and Patricia Arquette (Bringing Out the Dead) is 52.

Special effects artist Douglas Trumbull (2001: A Space Odyssey) is 78 and director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) is 71.

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Demon Seed poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

On this day, 2 April, in 1920, Jack Webb was born. Most people know him as an actor. “Just the facts, ma’am.” He played Sergeant Joe Friday in the original Dragnet movie, 276 episodes of the original TV series, the TV movie Dragnet 1966, and finally 98 episodes of Dragnet 1967-1970.

But it’s more correct to think of Web as a writer and producer. In addition to creating Dragnet, he co-created O’Hara, U.S. Treasury (with long-time collaborator James E Moser) and Adam-12 (with Robert A Cinader).

From Radio to Television

Jack Webb got his start in radio after World War II. It was there that he started Dragnet as a radio series. He continued to work in radio while doing more work in film and television. In fact, Dragnet was still being produced on the radio after the series was airing.

Apart from Dragnet, his acting career never amounted to more than a handful of minor roles (although one of them was as William Holden’s friend in Sunset Boulevard).

Mark VII Limited

Almost all of Webb’s work was done through his production company, Mark VII Limited. It produced another of his big successes, Emergency! When I first revisited this company as an adult, I figured it must be some kind of religious reference.

After all, Webb had created and written a series early in his career called Noah’s Ark. There was just one problem: the show had nothing to do with the Bible story. It’s about a couple of veterinarians. Webb was married 4 times and doesn’t seem to have been religious.

I remember Mark VII Limited primarily because it had one of the coolest production logos I’ve ever seen. I’ll leave you with it (in many forms over the years) as a hat-tip to Jack Webb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzuDDx3AypM

Also on 2 April

On this day, The Young Lions was released in 1958, Supervixens in 1975, the remake of Cat People in 1982, and The Crush in 1993.

Actor Buddy Ebsen (The Beverly Hillbillies) was born on 1908. He lived to be 95 years old, which just goes to prove some people are too mean to die at a proper age. Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai) was born in 1914.

Linda Hunt (The Year of Living Dangerously) is 75, Pamela Reed (Kindergarten Cop) is 71, Clark Gregg (Marvel’s The Avengers) is 58, Ajay Devgn (Singham) is 51, and Michael Fassbender (Prometheus) is 43.

Producer David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) is 61 and Zane Lamprey (Drinking Made Easy) is 48.

Screenwriter George MacDonald Fraser (The Three Musketeers) was born in 1925. Gavin Heffernan (The Taking of Deborah Logan) is 40. Director Donald Petrie (Mystic Pizza) is 66.

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Jack Webb by NBC Television — in the Public Domain

Lon Chaney is an icon of horror film — to a large extent because of his skill with make-up. Sadly, all but one of his films were silent.

In the one film where he spoke, The Unholy Three (1930), he is shown to be as good with his voice as he had always been with his face. In fact, he has almost a “broadcast voice” before there was such a thing.

Had he lived, Chaney would have played the part of Dracula rather than Bela Lugosi. I don’t think it would have been better or worse — just different.

I think about it often. Legosi brings a strong otherness to it but I tend to think it would have been more frightening with Chaney.

But despite his films being silent and thus even less seen that older movies, he was responsible for many of the iconic horror images that people still know today.

Here is probably the most iconic from The Phantom of the Opera:

But don’t get the impression that Lon Chaney was an old-fashioned actor. Check out two shorts scenes from The Unholy Three.

Also on 1 April

Actor Wallace Beery (Treasure Island) was born in 1885, Abner Biberman (His Girl Friday) in 1909, and Toshiro Mifune (Yojimbo) in 1920.

Actor Jonathan Haze (The Little Shop of Horrors) is 91.

Director Peter Collinson (The Italian Job) was born in 1936.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family) is 67.

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Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera from a movie still scan in the Public Domain.