Monday, July 22, 2013

A Fistful of Spaghetti

For those in the Chicago area, the Music Box Theatre has been showing a different spaghetti western movie every weekend as part of their matinee series. Each film will be shown at 11:30am on Saturday and Sunday only. The Music Box is located at 3733 North Southport Avenue.  Here's the upcoming schedule for those who may be interested...
  
The Grand Duel (Il Grande Duello)
Starring: Lee Van Cleef & Horst Frank
Directed by: Giancarlo Santi
Music by: Luis Bacalov 
July 27 & 28
94 min - HDCAM
 
After their powerful father is brutally murdered, the Saxon Brothers hire a group of bounty hunters to bring suspected killer Philipp Wermeer to justice. But when grizzled Sheriff Clayton saves the fugitive Philipp’s life, the two team up and set out to confront the Saxons and reveal the shocking truth about who really killed The Patriarch. Newly transferred from the original Italian negative and fully restored!
    
   
The Mercenary (Il Mercenario)
Starring: Franco Nero & Jack Palance
Directed by: Sergio Corbucci
Music by: Ennio Morricone
August 3 & 4
110 min - 35mm
 
A group of Mexican revolutionaries hire a Polish gun-for-hire to assist their cause, but they meet stiff resistance by a well-dressed and brutal government agent (Jack Palance).  Features a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai.  One of the seminal spaghetti westerns. Brand new 35mm print!
   
  
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
(Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef & Eli Wallach
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Music by: Ennio Morricone
August 10 & 11
179 min - DCP
 
Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach are the title triumvirate - double crossing rivals in a Civil War-era odyssey for a treasure in hidden gold. Encountering a group of dying soldiers, each of the desperadoes learns but one facet of the secret bounty, each man focusing his squinty eyes on the $200,000 bounty. Leone’s final chapter in his “Dollars” trilogy has been magnificently restored to its original Italian running time.
   
  
Sabata
(Ehi Amico... C'รจ Sabata, Hai Chiuso!)

Starring: Lee Van Cleef & William Berger
Directed by: Gianfranco Parolini
Music by: Marcello Giombini
August 17 & 18
111 min - 35mm
  
After an acrobatic bank robbery leaves a town without a safe, the mysterious Sabata lends his services in recovery of the vault.  Things quickly escalate into blackmail and gunplay, involving politically powerful criminal boss Stengel.  Aided by sting-playing Banjo, mute acrobat Alleycat, and alcoholic Civil War vet Carrincha, Sabata sets out with his comic book posse to extort Stengel for everything he's worth. Filled with wild stunts, quick zooms and whip pans, Sabata is one of the most energetic and entertaining spaghetti westerns around.
 
  
Duck You Sucker (Giu La Testa)
Starring: Rod Steiger & James Coburn
Directed by: Sergio Leone
Music by: Ennio Morricone
August 24 & 25
138 min - 35mm
 
The results are explosive when self-exiled IRA explosives specialist John Mallory teams up with a Mexican peasant-turned-revolutionary to knock over the Mesa Verde bank... with dynamite. What started out as a nice joint venture to get rich, quickly turns into an operation for the revolutionary cause, and the two are drawn into a fight against the Mexican army, bearing painful similarities to Mallory’s IRA past.
 
 

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Happy Birthday Mr. Ford

Happy Birthday Mr. Ford
by Alex Smith
 
Harrison Ford, who turns 71 this week, created one of the most beloved and lasting characters in movie history with his role in Star Wars as the irascible but lovable space smuggler Han Solo. But that isn't even his greatest and most iconic part -- that superlative must go to his archaeologist adventurer character Indiana Jones, star of Raiders of the Lost Ark and its sequels, TV prequels, graphic novels, actual novels, and more. But few people know how close this force of culture came to not being our Indy at all.
  
Raiders Stole Its Character Design Fair and Square
  
 
Jones is a no-nonsense, rough-and-tumble adventure seeker with a trademark brown fedora, leather jacket, and stubble. But so was the Charlton Heston character in 1954's Secret of the Incas, a movie that was looted for our hero's character design, costume, and even his attitude. Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas have admitted as much, and perhaps because of a wish to cover their tracks, Secret of the Incas has never been released on video. A big difference in Indy's case, however, is that he is irrepressibly good-hearted and honest -- Heston's character in Secret was a horrible louse.

Magnum, P.I. was almost Indy ... peeyew!

 
When Spielberg and Lucas were created their movie's hero, his rough charm and charisma, the director was drawn to casting one of the hottest television stars of 1980: Tom Selleck, best-known as Magnum, P.I.. Selleck was the favorite to play Indy -- his falsetto voice notwithstanding -- until Spielberg saw a little movie called The Empire Strikes Back, where he was blown away by the actor playing Han Solo. Since Selleck couldn't get out of his contract with CBS to allow him to do the movie anyway, Harrison Ford (Lucas's first choice the whole time) stepped in and made motion picture history. And his voice is deep, too.
   
Other Actors Who Would Have Been Indiana Jones
 
How might gravel-voiced Nick Nolte been as the titular scholar-adventurer? Steve Martin had the chance to don the fedora, but he chose the musical Pennies from Heaven instead. Bill Murray was ready to crack the whip but, like Selleck, couldn't get out of his TV obligations for long enough. Fellow SNLer Chevy Chase was one of the most popular stars in the world in 1980, but he passed. Animal House star Tim Matheson had the look, as did future E.T. actor Peter Coyote. Finally, Jack Nicholson turned it down, and Harrison Ford was cast just three weeks before filming began.
  
His name was almost Dr. Indiana ... Smith. And he was almost a duck
 
The name everyone knows almost wasn't Harrison Ford's character's at all. It wasn't until the first day of filming that Indy's name was changed from "Indiana Smith" to "Indiana Jones." Somehow the lack of a long vowel in the original last name makes the character's moniker less impactful ... which is probably why they made such an important change once they heard the actors saying the old name. But at least it wasn't "Indiana McDuck," since Spielberg and Lucas have both cited the 1950s Disney Ducks comic books as inspiration for the series, including one issue where Uncle $crooge steals a native idol and has to run from a giant round boulder!
 
The Biggest Hit of 1981, But So Much More
  

Indiana Jones is an unforgettable character, and his portrayal by Harrison Ford both showed that the actor could do more than Han Solo and also propelled Raiders of the Lost Ark to the No. 1 box office spot. The original movie also lifted director Spielberg to iconic status, something that would be cemented with his next movie, 1982's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
   

 
Author Bio: Alex Smith is a movie blogger for Direct2TV.com where he covers everything from the latest rumors about up coming releases to retrospectives of cult classics and forgotten cinema gems. He’s particularly interested in sci-fi and horror flicks from the 1970s and 80s. He lives in Washington, D.C.
  
Note:  For those who are interested, Secret of the Incas is available to view online via the Amazon Prime instant streaming service.
  

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

It's Alive!


Hello there,
  
I just wanted to drop a line to let you all know that Cinema Raiders is alive once again... and we have some very exciting things in the works. So stay tuned fellow nostalgia fans...