Oh, my God, yes indeed, that film certainly does ring a bell (to take your last question first).
The movie is LOST CONTINENT (1951), with a surprisingly all-star cast for such a low-budgeter: Cesar Romero, Hugh Beaumont (whose 100th birthday was yesterday, Feb. 16! -- doesn't that make you feel old?!), John Hoyt, Sid Melton, Chick Chandler, Whit Bissell, Hillary Brooke. A team of scientists is flown by a couple of Air Force boys to track a missile that's been lost somewhere in the Pacific, climb up a rocky mountain and find dinosaurs.
I have this film on DVD and it's one of my favorites. You can get it on DVD in a generally excellent print from Image, and with a great cover -- Cesar, Hugh and the triceratops, all against a lush green background.
The best thing about this disc is that they've restored the 90-second triceratops attack on Sid Melton that for some reason had been cut out of most prints 25 years ago (that's probably the scene you remember). PLUS -- they've restored the original green tint to all the "lost continent" sequences atop the plateau. These were in the theatrical release in 1951 but never reproduced for TV prints. I read about it years ago but never saw it till I got this print about ten years ago (on VHS, since put out on DVD). Only when I learned there'd been a green hue to these scenes did some dialogue between the crew members make sense -- when they reach the top of the plateau, they talk about how they can't believe their eyes, of how things look like someone had put a green bulb in the sky, etc. That was all due to the tint, but when reproduced only in b&w for television none of it made sense.
By all means, get it -- you won't regret it. Amazon has it for either $7.99 or $9.99. Just saw it listed the other day. If you get it and watch it, alert me here so we can discuss it on its own board. I love that movie. (Cesar Romero took a percentage of the gross instead of his normal salary and after just two weeks in theaters he had already made more money from this film than he had from any in his career up till then! His final take was something like $70-80,000, a huge sum for a second-tier star in 1951...and from a B science fiction film at that!)
On less intellectual subjects, I know of the book you refer to but haven't read it, I hang my head in shame to admit. I really wonder whether the Yeti exists. I'd like to think so. Not to give too much away, but in The Abominable Snowman the key element is that these are peaceful creatures who have retreated out of sight of man to avoid destruction (and to inherit the world after mankind destroys itself) and are protected by the Tibetan monks, who deny their existence to outsiders. You never see the Yeti till near the end, and then only briefly, but it's a fascinating scene. The film is no longer available on DVD but it does turn up on FMC every so often. (The disc used a print saying it was released by Warner Bros., but the FMC print has the 20th Century Fox logo: odd.)
As to our little film here, yes, I can see a nicely-budgeted remake, but I doubt they could prevent it from becoming an effects-riddled, blow-'em-up monster rampage -- you know, a 150-foot Yeti tearing apart downtown LA after leveling Katmandu.
Should this thread's title be "Writer's Ice Block"?
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escalera-2
15 years ago
That's great! -- "The Lost Continent"! I was barking up the wrong plateau, thinking that Rod Cameron was in this picture in question (I suppose I confused this picture with "The Jungle")and also thought it may have been "King Dinosaur", but they did not match my recollections. Once you mentioned Sid Melton, well, if I would have remembered him I'd have found the title, as I was a big fan of TV's "Captain Midnight" and Mr. Melton was the good Captain's side-kick and so seeing him get squished by the wonderful dinosaur was a bit of a shock to me at the time. Hillary Brooke -- wow! -- she made my heart race when I was a boy. Hugh Beaumont was a capable actor. I'm glad he is remembered for his work on the "Leave It to Beaver" show. I'll certainly look "the Lost Continent" for purchase now that I know what to look for. You need to buy a cape!
I am tired of gory re-makes. The last big budget "Godzilla" was for me a major disappointment. All the hype in the world can't sell a bad product.
Well, I hope you can get a copy of "The Long Walk" as it is a most excellent read, a real page turner. I hesitate to say that it would make a good movie but maybe back then in the 50's and not today, unless it was faithful to the book. The episode in the book with the creatures is engaging and believable although the entire story is fantastic. I read a borrowed copy and later found a used one on e-Bay that I purchased and, indeed, quoted from in my earlier post. It's a keeper.
I like to think there are still things unknown to mankind. I like the Bigfoot movies, Loch Ness's "Nessie" movies and all. Sense of wonder, I suppose. It's a big world.
Somewhere someone has an surplus telephone booth rigged up to maintain low temperatures....just in case!
("Writer's Ice Block?" -- sheesh!)
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Just a quick clarification, esc -- the movie is plain old Lost Continent, not The Lost Continent, and I don't say this out of pedantry but just to make sure there is no confusion if you order it.
There is another movie called The Lost Continent, a British film made in 1968 that has something to do with voyagers stranded in the seaweed-swamped Sargasso Sea, with mysterious creatures and whatnot -- not as good as it sounds. If you go on line to Amazon and type in either title (with or without the definite article) you'll find both DVDs, and while I'm sure you'll recognize the right one, just to make sure...no "The"!
But -- do you know that VCI has a double feature DVD of...King Dinosaur AND The Jungle?! I got that one because those were two of the worst s-f films of the 50s, as well you know! The Jungle at least had a fairish cast -- Rod Cameron, Marie Windsor and good old Cesar Romero again, fresh off the Lost Continent and now battling elephants sporting shag rugs masquerading as woolly mammoths. Of course, as Groucho Marx once said, in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. This DVD is also quite inexpensive and surprisingly the prints are very good (VCI usually does a good job on its discs). You might want to look into that one -- highly recommended!
Rod Cameron caused a scandal in 1960 when he divorced his wife of ten years and married her mother! The next Mrs. Cameron said too bad, they were in love. I think her daughter called her disgusting. Quite a public relations coup for a man who got his start in movies as a stand-in for Fred MacMurray! He could have had a much more complex family sitcom than My Three Sons, that's for sure.
As for Godzilla (1998), the less said, the better. Personally, I'll stick with the wonderful original Japanese-language Gojira.
And I'll look up "The Long Walk" -- your recommendation sounds very good indeed.
No to "Writer's Ice Block", hmph? Mmmm....okay, how about, "No, as yeti have not had a chance to see The Snow Creature"?
Guess I should have quit while I was ahead, huh?
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Thanks for making the distinction. Before I saw your addendum I had to go to Sid Melton's file and look for the title (I thought maybe it had an alternate name), found it on the list of work and I saw my mistake.
I like this title and actually like Wilder's work. "Phantom from Space" is surely a bit overstuffed, but it has a nice feel to it.
I think "Snow Creature" may be his best work in the genre.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
My favorite WLW film is actually Killers From Space, and I guess this puts me in the minority. Most reviewers consider that his worst film (admittedly, a relative distinction), but it was the first of his I saw when I was a widdle kid, and to me it was always the scariest, and I still think the basic premise has something. Also easily the best, most experienced cast of his three sci-fis. Plus the weirdest use of close-ups I've ever seen.
But technically, Phantom and Snow probably have more solid story lines, although I do think TSC is a little slow-moving.
One memory from the day of a great American tragedy that sticks with me (just to show how out of it I was): The Snow Creature was scheduled to run on The Early Show on Channel 2, WCBS in New York, at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963. As I recall I had only seen it, or maybe not even all of it, once before, and had been looking forward to watching it after I got home from school. Of course, another event intervened that day, and all programming was suspended for the next four days. But I was so young that after being outside on the street all afternoon talking about the President's assassination (the street was filled with neighbors in shock, all talking together), I made sure to get back home in time to see the movie...it never dawned on my innocent, dopey brain that they'd actually cancel all the regular programming. I was sad about President Kennedy, but not showing The Snow Creature was really inexcusable!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
And don't feel so al alone about "Killers from Space". I throw that one on every once in a while. I especially like the opening when the Nararrator speaks linking together all of those carefully selected bits of stock footage. When the Peter Graves character turns up alive, it is a weird scene.
Wilder knew how to run out the clock, too. He always had his people run around. In "Killers..." the Graves character runs through Bronson Caves then has the central casr run through the electric company before the explosive ending. In "Phantom from Space", the cast runs around the backlot and then inside Griffith Observatory. "The Snow Creature" has the great scenes in the sewers.
I suppose I like his stuff because all of those running places are familiar to me since I was born and raised out there in Los Angeles. I had also met Harry Thomas(he had something about eyebrows), a very nice man. Now that I'm living on the East Coast, these movies manage to transport me back over time and space. Not a bad stunt for a bunch of cheapie movies.
Yours is a very interesting recollection. Those were difficult days. I saw grown-ups crying then, on TV and in person. You surely did, too. Back then I'd want the comfort of a B-movie, as well, but there was no comfort like that to be had. We had to learn how to mourn.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Thank you for the support for my feelings about Killers From Space. Like having an intervention!
I actually ran it the other night on a DVD I just got (for 59 cents!) that is a double feature with Phantom From Space. It had been a while since I'd seen it and I consciously looked for any more goofs I could send in to IMDb. I collected ten! Hope they'll turn up in the next couple of weeks. (I also found a goof listed on the site that actually is mistaken, concerning Peter Graves's use of his slippers. I sent in a delete message explaining why it should be removed, so I'll also be curious to see whether they toss it. I have gotten erroneous goofs removed from a few films, such as 49th Parallel and The Guns of Navarone, though it took me three tries to get that one removed.)
As you know I often resort to using the initials or acronyms of movie titles to make writing posts quicker, but every time I abbreviate Killers From Space -- KFS -- I feel like I'm placing an order for intergalactic chicken.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Is that another chicken joke?
"Snow Creature" seems like a mad parody of 50's TV's "Dragnet".
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Nah, I gave them up after that broiler controversy on the Rooster Cogburn site.
If The Snow Creature had been released through Columbia Pictures, could they have had a product tie-in with Sno-Cohns?
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Olee crow!-- Maybe monster movies do rot the brain!
Actually -- those are pretty good.
Well, all this talk about it, I think I will throw on "The Snow Creature" and see what I see.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Lots of Japanese, optically-added snowflakes, a perpetually obscured creature, and an imitation Lt. Dunbar, I'll betcha.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
hobnob, an article that may be of interest to you turned up today and I wanted to make sure you got to read it. It is somewhere around here.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Yeti Could Exist, Respected Expert Says
(Feb. 28) --A revered naturalist and broadcaster said in a TV interview that the legendary yeti, or abominable snowman, could exist.
In a BBC TV interview, Britain's Sir David Attenborough said he is "absolutely baffled" by footprints that may have been left by such a creature.
"Very, very convincing footprints have been found," at 19,000-foot elevations, he said. "Nobody goes up to 19,000 feet just to make a joke."
When asked about the Loch Ness Monster, Attenborough was more skeptical. He argued that there would have to be more than one, and that they would likely need to come up for air and expose themselves.
Attenborough, 82, is known for his coverage of animals and nature for the BBC.
For article and photos: http://news.aol.com/article/yeti-could-exist-respected-expert-says/362 965?icid=200100397x1219223869x1201251954
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hobnob53
15 years ago
You know, I saw this on the BBC website, when looking for something else. If Sir David thinks it possible, then perhaps there is something to it...although with satellites overhead and climbers scrambling all over the Himalayas, you'd think the poor Yeti wouldn't have much room left to hide.
Unless...you don't think it's possible they're being sheltered by the High Lama in Shangri-La? Or maybe Ronald Colman put them on the menu?
Perhaps we should arrange to send Sir David a copy of The Snow Creature. After viewing it, I'm sure he'll retract his statements at once.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Come in, England!
Sir Dave thought the matter over and it does seem unlikely that some one woould go to all the trouble to get a hoax going. Unlike those crop circles in other places. But, who knows? Maybe the moutain dwellers need soemthing to entertain themselves. "Here comes another one! Get the fake footprint out!" Seems a bit like a rejected Gary Larson panel.
But Sir Dave just tossed off a comment just like Professor Arronax did about sea monsters in the Disney version of "20,ooo Leagues Under the Sea". Sir Dave's statement is noteworthy and belongs here in this thread.
In the 60's, I recall reading that US spy satellites were so good that one could identify the brand of cigarette a man held in his mouth from one of its images. Imagine that! So, why hasn't Elvis been spotted by the ones we have now?
Maybe no one is looking.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Well, obviously, he's at home in the Himalayas with the Yeti and a still surprisingly young Amelia Earhart.
Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the snow cave.
But I do think that anyone who decides to perpetrate an elaborate hoax at 25,000 feet deserves to have his last, oxygen-deprived laugh.
However, under the circumstances, I felt it was necessary to at least temporarily amend the title of this thread, or at least this entry on said thread.
I guess Eugene O'Neill believed in Yetis.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Well, one thing for sure "The Ice Man Keeps Going!" This thread has gotten quite long!
By the way, the Smiley Face progression is a hoot. Well done!
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Damn! Yeah! When I saw this listed on page 3 I knew something was seriously wrong. With us, probably.
Naaaaaaaah!
On the other hand, this movie is so neglected that maybe it deserves some attention. Still, three pages....
Actually, between you and me and the 35 million other IMDb users, I'm awaiting delivery of what appears to be a deluxe [sic] edition of old Snow, which among other things says it's available in both French and English. Mon Dieu! Regardez! La Creature de niege! Amoi! Ahh!
I have no idea about this DVD. Other than its being available in multiple languages -- I wonder if they've dubbed the Nepalese into Nepalese from Japanese -- I have no notion whether something may be wrong with it (colorized or some unpleasant surprise) or what the story with this disc may really be, but I'm soon to find out and can always comfort myself with the understanding that if I'm dissatisfied I can return it, or throw it down the sewers and shoot it. I'll let you know after it arrives.
In a phone-booth-style box, no doubt. With a little tiny parka.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Maybe you can help out ikar-33. He's been looking for a "full length" version of "The Snow Creature" for over a year now! Is the zoom-zoom version you're getting longer than the standard one out there?
As for me, I'd be curious about your latest acquisition. Maybe all of the Snow Creature scenes have been jazzed up with CGI! Something like the Jabba the Hutt scenes in "Star Wars".
"Tiny parka
in my booth
makes me happy...
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Hey, I don't remember seeing that face! Good time to bundle up, what with that Tibetan-style storm we've just been through.
Yes indeed, when this DVD arrives I'll watch and report. The cover is quite good -- a big painting of t.s.c. with a very imaginative version of his face, which, if you'll recall, is unseen in the actual movie. But that never stopped poster artists! Quite a nice job, too. I saw it on Amazon and got either the last or next-to-last copy in stock. More expensive than the cheapo Alpha Video version, of course, so it had better be worth it.
Oh, this is The Snow Creature, isn't it? Yeah, hmmm.... Okay, okay, I didn't know what I was saying! Jeez....
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escalera-2
15 years ago
We only got a couple of inches of snowfall here. Just about gone now.
Say, hobnob, old buddy old pal, maybe you should consider the idea, just a notion you understand, that maybe you are getting a little, just a little, too deep into this "Snow Creature" thing. Have a seat. Think about it, old buddy old pal. That's it. Take it easy.... take it easy now....
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hobnob53
15 years ago
NEVER! NEVER! DO YOU HEAR!!? IT'S ME, ME AND THE SNOWMAN, THE TWO OF US, AGAINST THE WORLD!!! GRRRRR! GIVE ME MY PARKA!!! I AM NOT CARGO, I AM A MAN!!!. WELL, OKAY, I'M A YETI, BUT IT'S A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE.
Oh, I'm sorry, were you saying something?
I posted a quick review of the French/English TSC on our other busy thread here, which you may have already seen....
Whew....okay....I'm calm....calm.....calm....you're right of course....I have to get my bearings....I need to get a handle on reality....okay....okay....
Hamph! There. Fine. Back in balance. From now on, things are back in perspective. I'm back to reality. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Phew.
Ooh, I also just got Two Dollar Bettor!! Did you hear me, escalera?! Two Dollar Bettor!!! With Barbara "Two Dollar" Bestor! I've got to go watch it! Have to watch it now!! Get your hands off me, you people! I have to see Two Dollar Bettor! Let me go! No! No! You mustn't let the snowman out! He'll freeze! Or thaw! For God's sake, he needs his parka!!!!
Anyway, I'll post a reply to your as-yet-unseen-by-moi post on the Barbara Bestor site after I sit through TDB. (Green for moolahhhhh.) I'll probably put up a brief review on its own site too.
Say, do you think that the snow creature was impressed by the little home they transported him in, which due to its size he took to be a closet for his outerwear? And especially its little wheels. I'll bet he loved the way that parka house rolls.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Glad to have you back.
Parka House Rolls, eh? So -- we've come to this. The Rocky and Bullwinkle of the IMDb. Who can ward that off?
I'll take a peek on the "Two Dollar Bettor" page and see what you have to say.
But with "The Snow Creature" I'm glad to hear that a new version is out. That will only increase the value of the originals, something like owning the Beatles' "Butcher Cover" album. I'll put my drab, mono-tongued version on e-Bay. Starting Bid: $100.00
You've done the Motion Picture Public a great service, hobnob.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Thank you. As to your question, I believe Mr. Cleaver can ward them off. Although he was just picked up for J-walking. On his way to pick up his wife from the grip of that $2 bettor.
A loop, a whirl, a verticle climb...
I'll leave it on that line, appropriate as it is for a film set in the Himalayas.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
And -- Ker-plunk! -- the heroic Bullwinke in the drink.
Well, it is not so out of line to bring up Moose and Squirrel in this title. Didn't they meet the Abominable Snowman?
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Yeah, you know -- wasn't there something up in the mountains with them? I think you're right.
God, I hope nobody else ever reads this thread.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
We seem to be the only ones on this title anymore.
Maybe we should push on. I might go to "Giant from the Unknown"though, and you've heard me sing this song before, I haven't seen it in many years.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Any place you say. Come to think of it, I haven't been on the Invaders From Mars site, well, maybe ever, and I know you'd mentioned that little item too. Any further Snow items can be relegated to the other thread, whither I am now bound. Or is that snowbound? See you elsewhere!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
From one sci-fi title to another --hobnob, have you ever seen or heard of Invisible Invaders with John Carradine and Jean Byron? New title to me!
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Oh, absolutely! Have it in the collection here. It's available on DVD in a double-feature disc with another goodie (i.e., baddie), Journey to the Seventh Planet, in the MGM Midnite Movies series. Still available -- check them out.
I.I. (1959) also stars Robert Hutton and...none other than John Agar; so you know it's got to be something. Invisible beings from the Moon inhabit dead Earthmen and threaten the world. Yes, again. An army of zombies in business suits. But it has its scary moments, and I enjoy it. Phillip Tonge, the Macy's executive from Miracle on 34th Street (1947), had his last film role here.
JTTSP (1961) is a Swedish sci-fi color clinker that also stars -- John Agar. (He always loved to travel for his craft.) Plus a bunch of Scandinavian actors and actresses you've never heard of outside of Reptilicus, which was made by the same bunch, then reedited by AIP (as with Reptilicus). They spliced in used monsters from The Angry Red Planet and Earth Vs. the Spider to replace even poorer Swedish monsters! Voyagers to Uranus encounter an evil being that transforms their deepest thoughts into reality. The only thing they can't figure out is how to pronounce Uranus without laughing. They try it two ways, and neither works. Plus, it's got one of the worst love songs (yes, a love song) ever heard in a film, sung over the closing titles by some guy with a name out of the Berlin Wall era. I love it!
I believe I have some comments on the Journey site, especially about that song, but don't think I have any posts on II. Let me know if you want to pick up on either movie over on their respective yonders.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Well, I might have known.
John Agar was terrific in The Brain from Planet Arous eee-HA!
And Journey to the Seventh Planet is an old fave, too.
I'll dig around for Invisible Invaders and get back to you when I do.
The Snow Creature -- Good show, that! Bravo! Author! Author!
(just keeping the postings legitimate)
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Huzzah for "The Snow Creature"!
The sound of two ice-caked mittens clapping!
If only W. Lee had had the foresight to have hired John Agar.
But, we got Paul Langton instead, so, that's kind of okay.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
This must be what it's like to put stuff into a time capsule. Someday this title will be discovered and cinephiles will come rushing to these threads and find our humble comments waiting for them.
Wait... is that an echo...?
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Are we losing our minds, escalera? (I know, I know; don't ask, don't tell.) I just moseyed over to Journey to the Seventh Planet and found you and I had exchanged missives over there just three months ago -- on a thread about the title tune! I even mentioned Invisible Invaders, albeit in suitably invisible white (Invisible Invaders)! This was January 18.
We've definitely been at this waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too long.
Next thing, I'll be mixing up The Snow Creature with The Abominable Snowman.
Or, worse, with Two-Dollar Bettor!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Blame it on the snow.
I remember the exchange about the ditzy and wonderful Theme from Journey to the Seventh Planet... or was that just the Rat Creature or the Big Brain?
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escalera-2
15 years ago
I was just at The Aurora Encounter when your note came through.
Mars Needs Good Songs!
"Send more Chuck Berry!"
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hobnob53
15 years ago
I thought Mars needed women? Oh, well.
They already had a lock on Martin: from Invaders From Mars to The Snow Creature. A cold climate guy.
Hey, do you think LM could have had a third career as a spokesman for that aircraft company? Plenty of flying saucer and air cargo experience, after all.
You know, Lockheed Martin?
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escalera-2
15 years ago
It's raining down here. The taxes have been filed, we just had a late lunch and I was checking the mail box.
Imagine, if you will, the gray day being punctuated by the sound of a very loud and long groan.
By the way -- 5 PAGES 5! This has snowballed to FIVE pages! That's right "snowballed"! You deserve that!
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hobnob53
15 years ago
It took 55 years for TSC to get its due!
On his deathbed W. Lee Wilder told his family, "Do not grieve, meine kinder. One day, the comments on The Snow Creature will stretch to five pages. On Killers From Space, maybe only three."
We've made an old ladies' handbag manufacturer turned incompetent filmmaker proud. His brother, on the other hand....
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Well, if we're part of the prophecy, it's OK then.
You know, Wilder really did give it a shot, he made a go of it. Considering the time and money he had to make this picture he actually did a lot more than most. I really give him a lot of credit.
As you pointed out, 55 years later people are still talking about his little opus. Sure, mostly those "people" are two gray haired dudes that have unhealthy affection for movies.
Willy Wilder contributed to cinematic history. He was there while others only talk about doing what he did, some only dream about it and are too afraid to even say it out loud.
Deride his movies, laugh at them, but he had the guts to get out there. I wonder if his brother ever went out on location with him or spent a few hours in the editing room to to lend support. Brothers are known to do that. Of course, there's Cain and Abel, too. Maybe that was the case.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
I think among the VIL-ders Billy viewed Willy as the Cain whose camera-wielding could (inadvertantly) kill off Billy's career, or at least his reputation amongst his peers. There have been a handful of brothers who worked in the industry (Henry and Louis King, for example; Howard and Kenneth Hawks, although Kenneth was killed in an air accident while filming a movie in 1930), and in every case one brother always did much better than the other. But I know of no pair whose careers were at such diametrically opposite ends of the filmmaking spectrum as Wilder vs. Wilder.
(Too bad Stanley Kramer didn't have a brother in movies.)
Still, as you say, here we are, discussing this movie over half a century later. Art is a stubborn and mysterious thing. Not unlike The Snow Creature him/itself.
Here's to an even 50 posts!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Perhaps it is not what is being discussed that matters but who is doing the discussing. If not one else reads this stuff, it's been fun on this end.
"There are no uninteresting things, just uninterested people." --H.G. Wells
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hobnob53
15 years ago
As always, and double for me. Plus we always pick up elsewhere. But I like to think some web archeologist scans this stuff and, whether he adds to it or not, enjoys a good chuckle out of it, and maybe even learns a cool factoid or two.
Hey, about that "gray-haired" remark a post or two back...speak for yourself! I've still got half my original color! Matches my brains. (1/2 and 1/2, I mean, not the color, which I guess is...oh, hell...gray.)
Now, where did I leave my furry parka...?
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Yes, movies can still be a social event -- even an old number like this title.
As for me, yes, yes -- I'm auld. Auld!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Say, hobnob -- is that yours, that single entry in the TRVIA section? It sounds like something you'd enter (you had mentioned it once in this thread but hadn't noticed the entry until recently).
Well, if it's not, it ought to be...
What's with the pig?
(I just liked the look of it's face)
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hobnob53
15 years ago
Yeah, that's mine. See? The Wilder rivalry even extended to ripping off characters' names. Leutnant Doon-bar!
Just gets wilder and wilder.
I've been hoping they'd add a snowman's face, at least a Frosty-type thing, in the mark-up selections for inclusion on these threads as a sort of visual punctuation. But no. So, my congratulations on your upcoming, unauthorized semi-remake...The Sty Creature.
50 replies!!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
...and 6 pages!
Yes, a re-make of Invasion of the Sewer Men.
I think I'll throw on Mr. Wilder's little Himalayan effort. It's Friday, there's nothing on television. O for the days of Elvira's Movie Macabre!
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hobnob53
15 years ago
We had Zacherley in NYC. "The Cool Ghoul." Enjoy the movie! Have a good weekend.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Believe it or not, "enjoy" I did.
I'm going to start another thread ("B-b-big deal." -- ) based on the premise that The Snow Creature actually had some good points other than the ones we may have unintentially mentioned. To list them here is getting away from the original topic (Yes, yes, as if it didn't already go haywire several pages back).
But, here I will mention to you, hobnob, in relation to your TRIVIA entry: Paul Langton, while a fine actor in his own right, was a dime store version of William Holden. When I watched this picture again last night, there were times that Langton's performance reminded of Bill Holden's appearance on the "I Love Lucy" episode, "Hollywood at Last!" Yes, I know that installment came out in 1955 a year afterThe Snow Creature but I'm just using that an an example.
It made the viewing all the more humorous to me.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
I like Paul Langton, but I think calling him a dime-store William Holden is an insult to dime stores.
But this is weird...just as I was writing that sentence I had a flash, and left the keyboard for a moment to check one of my reference books. I was going to note that yesterday (April 17, 2009) would have been Bill Holden's 91st birthday, when it suddenly came to me that April 17 was also Paul Langton's birthday! Well, I went and checked, and sure enough -- yesterday would have been Paul's 96th birthday.
Langton was born April 17, 1913 and died April 15, 1980, age 66 (two days before he would have turned 67). Holden, April 17, 1918 - November 16, 1981, age 63.
I don't think they ever made a movie together but that's something we can check. Paul made major movies at MGM in the 40s (like Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) before sliding into low-budget stuff like It! The Terror From Beyond Space, The Cosmic Man and our little ol' The Snow Creature. So unless it was early on, his and Bill's paths probably never crossed. Langton always seemed gruff to me, unlike Holden's smoothness. But slightly similar hair, I guess.
I think the I Love Lucy episode was in 1954 -- part of their 1954-55 season about the Ricardos' trip to Hollywood. [LATE ADDENDUM: I was wrong -- the episode was broadcast Feb. 7, 1955.] Holden was as you noted in the first episode after their actual arrival in Tinseltown. A couple of years before he died I saw Holden on some talk show and one of the women in the audience asked him about filming that ILL episode; Holden replied that he got a lot of questions about that -- but had no recollection of ever doing it! Alcohol? You'd think he'd at least remember doing it, even if not any details about it. (Or would have tried to watch it again, given he got so many questions about it.) Very strange. I'll bet Paul Langton remembered making The Snow Creature...and may have wished for a Holdenian memory lapse in that regard!
See you over on the new post.
And by the way, I like TSC too! Now, if a more adept actor like William Holden had starred in it, they'd have had to adapt the snowman accordingly, made him a little more sophisticated -- pipe, carrot, Abe Lincoln hat, the works.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
Curiouser and curiouser! Wow! -- that's quite a find! Imagine them sharing the same birthdate, if nothing else.
(as I was reading the last part of your post and got to the Abe Lincoln part, Elly May Clampett said "Abraham Lincoln" on the television machine)
I didn't know what you meant when you wrote "...by the way, I like TSM too!" but figure you mean The Snow Creature.
I was corn-fused thar for a moment.
I have some notes I put together on the finer points of W. Lee Wilder's little blockbuster that I need to tidy up then I'll get to that new thread after I finish up a little yard work. "B-b-b deal."---
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hobnob53
15 years ago
I did mean TSC -- don't know how I made that dumb mistake.
Also, I added an addendum that you were right, the Holden episode on I Love Lucy was indeed broadcast in 1955 -- Feb. 7, to be exact.
Both items have been corrected or annotated in the former post, changing the past just like in 1984. Only they're owned up to here!
Have also read your subsequent post about the new thread, and will head on over now.
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escalera-2
15 years ago
I'd like to Report Abuse:
There's no credit given to the man who throws out the blonde floozie (none for her either) in the middle of the night ("..and if I never see you again, it will be too soon!") and was wondering if that wouldn't be Mr. W. Lee Wilder hisself pulling a Hitchcock. I can't find a mug shot of the mug not even on the google-net. Jes' wondering.
I've seen photos of his better known brother and now recall his being a pear-shaped cherub and said man might be mistaken for his sibling in a dark alley, if I'm not mistaken.
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hobnob53
15 years ago
I looked to see if there was a photo of WLW in Billy's biography, but no. I'll watch that part again to see if the guy looks at all like baby brother. Did he have a "Chermen excent"?
I suspect that if W. Lee or his kid Myles ever turned up in one of their films it had less to do with imprinting a Hitchcockian signature than in saving money on extras!
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escalera-2
15 years ago
hobnob, the below link (let me know if it works) for the very fine Monster Movie Music web-site features some of the music and some sound bites from our topic pic. At about 1:24 one can hear the uncredited actor recite his line. Maybe you can dope out whether or not it is a German accent from it. You do have a personal Wehrmacht Enigma machine lying around, don't you?
http://monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com/2009/04/snow-creature-planet-fil mplays-1954.html
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