It happens every time some new technology threatens to put people out of work: a public campaign to save jobs. One example was in the 1920s and ’30s, when synchronized sound was added to movies, which meant that theaters no longer had to pay live musicians to accompany the films. The Music Defense League sprang into action, with a $500,000 advertising budget to rally the public against soundtracks recorded by just “300 musicians in Hollywood.” Read about the battle against canned music in theaters at Paleofuture. Link

This little short film appears to be a teaser for a longer story by effects designer Aaron Sims. If he is trying to raise interest in getting a studio to fund a feature film, this is the way to do it. Wouldn’t you like to see the rest of the story? Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

The Kodak produced circular snapshots, two and a half inches in diameter. The Kodak was sold already loaded with enough paper-based roll film to take one hundred photographs. After the film had been exposed, the entire camera was returned to the factory for the film to be developed and printed. The camera, reloaded with fresh film, was then returned to its owner, together with a set of prints. To sum up the Kodak system, Eastman devised the brilliantly simple sales slogan: ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’

The idea was resurrected many years later with the “development” of the disposable film camera. Link -via the Presurfer

Neatorama presents

Why do nerds so often wear glasses? This is an interesting question, and obviously it has a significance in my own life and career.

The word “nerd” was actually coined by my favorite fiction writer, the great Dr. Seuss. In 1950, in Dr. Seuss’s book If I Ran the Zoo, Seuss drew a non-human creature called a ‘nerd” from the land of Ka-roo. This is the first instance of the word “nerd” in print. Some theorists believe the word started at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the 1940s. The students who liked to party there were called “drunks” and the quieter, less-inclined-to-party types were labeled “knurds.” See, “drunk” spelled backwards is “knurd,” the precursor to the modern “nerd.”

In 1957, in Glasgow, Scotland, “nerd” was first defined as “square.”

Motion pictures, the most powerful medium of communication in human history (before television) had, of course, a huge impact on the lives of almost everyone on earth. The “nerd” in movie history has not, to my knowledge, ever been fully written. As far as I can determine, the first nerd in movie history was the popular silent comedian Harold Lloyd. Lloyd played a weak, underdog type of comedic character, one bullied by men and ignored by women. But in the end, he would triumph and inevitably get the girl of his dreams. The Lloyd character wore trademark glasses. In fact, Lloyd always referred to his character as the “glasses” or “glass” character, much as Charlie Chaplin was “the Tramp.”

After Lloyd, the nerd character was on the shelf for many years in movies -with sporadic exceptions. Ironically, Cary Grant, perhaps the most dapper actor in movie history, donned glasses and played a nerd character in 1938′s classic comedy Bringing Up Baby.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the great Jerry Lewis often played a nerd-type character in his wonderful comedies. Once in a while, Jerry would wear glasses in his films, notably The Nutty Professor and The Ladies Man. One of his early films with Dean Martin (That’s My Boy) Jerry played a classic glasses-wearing nerd. Jerry as “Junior Jackson” is a shy, clumsy nerd who is trained to be a football player by the handsome, popular Dean Martin. Lewis almost always played a semi-nerd, but it was always a bit of a very cool nerd with Jerry Lewis. While Jerry was always a dumb klutz in his films, he always danced gracefully and also, Jerry was a relatively good-looking fellow, unlike most nerds (or comedians) in comedies. And of course, Jerry did not usually wear glasses. But the movies next classic nerd did.

Woody Allen made his movie debut in 1965 in the smash hit What’s New, Pussycat? Allen, besides being Lewis’ successor as the next great movie comedian, also took over the crown as “movies’ next great nerd.” By the late 1970s, Allen had stopped playing a nerd in hilarious comedies and took his bespectacled character into more serious films.

In 1972, in a homage to the film Bringing Up Baby, Ryan O’Neal dons glasses and plays a nerd character in What’s Up, Doc?, one of the last great screwball comedies (and the only Barbra Streisand film I ever liked).

It was in the wonderful classic American Graffiti (1973) that Charles Martin Smith played a 1950s-type nerd character named “Toad.” Smith was wonderful and his portrayal was the first modern movie “nerd.” Smith’s brilliant portrayal set the standard for the modern nerd as we all know him -glasses, pocket protector, unkempt hair, etc.

About five years later, after a fallow “no nerd” period in the mid-1970s, I started playing the nerd character as my one and only character. I may be a lot of things, but a versatile actor is not one of them. Maybe because I grew up worshiping the great comedians: Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, Dean and Jerry, Laurel and Hardy, et. al., I early on decided that I would only ever play one character. These classic comedians always played just one basic character.

I just did a slight variation on the person I am in real life. I was always the offbeat character, never a handsome guy, never a great athlete, never a ladies’ man. But I was always a relatively funny guy; I always enjoyed making people laugh. I wore glasses naturally and because I was skinny and had scoliosis (my spine is curved), I always moved in a comic way.

(YouTube link)

I started churning out films -mostly B-movies, but a few good ones. Grease is the standout, although ironically Grease is actually the movie I have the smallest role in. I started playing the squeaky-voiced, spastic, clumsy nerd character and soon, a lot of nerd movie (and TV) characters followed. Okay, enough of my autobiography.

Nerds quickly spread like wildfire in many movies, A-movies and B-movies alike. The nerd character was frequently featured in 1980s low-budget films, and it became a standard movie “type,” much like the “jock,” the “spoiled rich kid,” the “dumb blonde.” the “best friend,” and the “gay guy.” In 1984, the nerd in movies reached its peak in Revenge of the Nerds, a comedy classic.

The last truly great nerd character was in one of my all-time favorite films Superbad (2007). Christopher Mintz-Plasse as “Fogel” creates a hilarious nerd character and almost steals this excellent movie, except for the fact that the entire cast is great.

Okay, enough movie history- Why do nerds so often wear glasses? I have always had three theories about this…

1. The nerd is always an outsider. Glasses immediately make a person appear different. In a random group of ten men (or ten women), if one person in that group is wearing glasses, he or she is very easily identifiable. In a quick glance at any group, a person wearing glasses is immediately seen as somehow looking different. The ‘different one” in almost any group is the one who is laughed at, and put at a distance from the other, more “normal” group members.

2. Glasses symbolize weakness or a low confront. The nerd is thought to be a not very strong character. Let’s face it, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, etc. would not wear glasses in their movie roles. Neither would James Bond or Rambo. Superman wore no glasses. Clark Kent did. Whereas Superman could and would confront anything, Clark Kent would inevitably run away. The typical guy hero can face evil or villains or tough situations. Glasses symbolize a type of low confront or non-confront. Where a typical guy hero has a “high confront” of life, a guy wearing glasses apparently has a “low confront” level. There is also something inherently funny about a guy who is in fear.

It is worth noting that almost every great comedian in movie history had a cowardly side: from Bob Hope to Jerry Lewis to the Three Stooges to Laurel and Hardy to Don Knotts to Abbot and Costello. Pretty much every great comedian has been in a haunted house and ran away scared and screaming from ghosts or whatever. The sight of a man running away in fear is just naturally comical. The nerd wearing glasses appears to be a “low confront” guy.

3. Glasses symbolize sexual unattractiveness. This generally seems to hold true for both men and women. Remember Dorothy Parker’s famous quote: “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” The nerd is thought to be sexually unattractive and thus wears glasses. Interestingly, I have never though this about women or girls. On the contrary, I have always been very attracted to girls and women who wear glasses. I never thought they lessened a woman’s attractiveness.

Miss C says: Glasses may designate a nerd character, but we aren't really fooled.

Following the 1980s Film Alphabet, artist Stephen Wildish has created a new alphabet poster for the movies of the 1960s. I’ve only studied this a few minutes, so there are a couple I haven’t deciphered yet. It’s not that I don’t recall the movies, it’s more that I just can’t remember the titles. Link -via Laughing Squid

Movie producers and directors have vision. Art directors and designers have ideas. And then there are people who are charged with getting these things done behind the scenes, on time and under budget. Special effects master Stan Winston is one who figures out how to make the ideas work, such as Edward cutting shrubs with his scissor hands, the seamlessly realistic creatures running through Jurassic Park, and the battle between Ripley and the Alien Queen. Read about how he works his magic at Unreality magazine. Link

(YouTube Link)

This eye opening, and beautifully edited, video shows a shot-by-shot comparison of Raiders of the Lost Ark and 31 other films made between 1919 and 1973.

To say that there are a few similarities would be an understatement, so obviously this is due to Spielberg doing his homework, right? *wink*

If you’ve seen this before, good for you! Enjoy it again, why don’t you?

–via Super Punch

I’m not usually good at this sort of thing, but I looked at the 1980s Film Alphabet and could name all the movies! Yes, even Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is under “I”, for the character, I guess. This is a creation of artist Stephen Wildish. Link -via Laughing Squid

Of course you want to visit Pandora! We all do! But since it’s a fictional planet, maybe the next best thing would be to visit the location where Avatar was filmed. You can do that, because it was in the Keahua Arboretum in Hawaii. The arboretum is chock-full of lush and exotic plant life, just like Pandora -without the Na’vi or the man-eating monsters. Find out eleven more locations where your favorite sci-fi movies were shot at TravelSupermarket. Link -Thanks, Danny!

Most people are probably too distracted by one of the finest opening shots in film to actually contemplate how it was achieved.

After all, it’s an impressive special effect for 1979. How did they go about making it look like a huge section of forest had been burned to the ground?

Surprise! They did it by actually burning a huge section of forest to the ground.

That’s pretty much it. Around 1,200 gallons of gasoline were poured over the splendid palm trees and then set alight. Tires were also burned to generate more smoke for the shot, while canisters were dropped onto the area to look like falling napalm. Acres of the forest were destroyed in a matter of seconds. Fitting, for a shot that was supposed to visually demonstrate the mindless, indiscriminate destruction of war.

But that’s just the beginning. Read stories of four other disturbing movie shoots at Cracked. Link

Soon to be a full-length feature, TimeScapes by photographer Tom Lowe is a breathtakingly beautiful video.

This is production footage from my forthcoming debut film, “TimeScapes,” a portrait of the American Southwest. This video was filmed and edited at 4K (4069×2304) resolution, four times greater than regular 1080p HD. A 4K DCP file is available upon request. Shot on Red Epic and Canon RAW still cameras.

I can’t decide which part I like best: the landscapes, the rolling stars, the music, or the dancing VLA dishes. You’ll want to watch the trailer twice; the second time in full screen. -via Geekosystem

(YouTube Link)

Peter Jackson is such a visionary film director that he’s even changing the way movies are advertised to the public by releasing a video blog series which shows the making of his new J.R.R. Tolkien movie adaptation “The Hobbit”.

He shows things that directors generally keep to themselves, like the process of filming 3d footage with a stereoscopic camera, all the while remaining in charge of the production like a total badass. This video is number 4 in the series, so check out the other 3 if you want to see more behind-the-scenes footage from “The Hobbit”.

–via Ology

Neatorama presents

Some Like It Hot, besides being the most famous film made by legendary sex symbol Marilyn Monroe (her signature performance) is a comedy classic in its own right. In 2000, it was voted by the American Film Institute as #1 on its list of the 100 Funniest Movies (interestingly, the #2 choice was Tootsie, making both the #1 and #2 choices cross-dressing films).

Besides the great Marilyn (and Billy Wilder’s awesome direction), the brilliant gender-bending performances by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon make it, without a doubt, one of the most entertaining comedies ever filmed. Let’s take a look at a few facts you may not know about a truly hilarious movie: Some Like It Hot.

* The “almost cast” list is almost as great as the final choices. Director Billy Wilder originally wanted Bob Hope and Danny Kaye to play the Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon roles. Frank Sinatra was another early choice the play the Jack Lemmon “Daphne” role. Perhaps the strangest actor to audition for Lemmon’s role was a young Anthony Perkins (rejected. He was to star in Alred Hitchcock’s Psycho the next year).

* Jerry Lewis was also offered the role of the zany “Daphne.” Lewis turned down the role because he “didn’t think drag was funny.” Lemmon, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, sent Lewis chocolates annually in gratitude. According to Jerry, every time he ran into Billy Wilder, Billy greeted him with, “Hello, Schmuck!” Jerry later admitted he regretted his rejection of the role.

* Actress Mitzi Gaynor was the original choice for the female lead “Sugar Kane” role, but as soon as Wilder found out Marilyn Monroe was available, he offered her the role.

* The film’s original working title was Not Tonight, Josephine.

* Marilyn wanted the film to be in color (her contract actually stipulated that all her movies be filmed in color), but after looking at Curtis and Lemmon in the color film tests, they were deemed to be too grotesque-looking (they photographed with a green tinge).

* Tony’s feminine “Josephine” voice was dubbed in by voice over artist Paul Frees. According to Curtis, it was a combination of Frees and his own voice. The reason? It was because Tony found it impossible to maintain a high-pitched womanly voice for an entire take.

* To test the waters in their female drag outfits, Curtis and Lemmon strutted around Goldwyn Studios lot to see if they could pass as women. But the supreme test was when the two went into the ladies’ room on the Goldwyn lot and fixed their makeup in front of the mirror, imitating how typical females would do it. When no women complained or even seemed to notice their presence, they knew they looked convincing.

* Marilyn was actually pregnant during the filming, accounting for her slightly bigger-than-usual appearance. As a result, most of her stills were posed by her stand-ins Evelyn Moriarty and Sandra Warner (who was given an uncredited role in the film as one of the girl band members). Monroe’s head was later superimposed on the photos.

* Marilyn, as most movie fans know, was pretty messed up by this point in her career. It reportedly took her 47 takes to correctly deliver her line “It’s me, Sugar,” in one scene. Exasperated, director Wilder finally had the line written on a blackboard for the actress to read. In another, it took 59 takes to say the line “Where’s the bourbon?” A fed-up Wilder had the line written on a slip of paper and placed in the drawer Marilyn was searching through. If you watch the final climactic scene where Tony Curtis has to say goodbye to Marilyn over the phone, it is easy to see Marilyn’s eyes going back and forth, back and forth. This is because she is reading her dialogue directly off a blackboard.

* Tony Curtis had to film take after take of his kissing scene with Marilyn, because she kept forgetting or flubbing her lines. The kissing, of course, was not so unpleasant (being every man’s fantasy), but before they kissed, poor Tony had to take a bite of a chicken leg. Curtis grew so sick of chicken, he couldn’t eat it again for years. Curtis’ famous reply when asked by reporters what it was like to kiss Marilyn Monroe: “It was like kissing Hitler.”

* According to Billy Wilder (referring to Marilyn Monroe): “We were mid-flight and we had a nut on board. Marilyn’s erratic behavior was so upsetting to so many people, she was not invited to the film’s wrap party.

* The film’s final, classic line “Well, nobody’s perfect,” delivered by Joe E. Brown after his “girlfriend” Jack Lemmon reveals he is really a man, was actually just a throwaway line. It was used in the original take, but it was going to be changed later when they found a better line. Interestingly, no one will claim credit for the immortal closing line. Billy Wilder claims it was written by the film’s writer I.A.I. Diamond, and Diamond claims it was Wilder’s line.

* Upon its original release, Some Like It Hot was banned in the state of Kansas. Cross-dressing was considered “too disturbing for Kansas.”

You may have heard that Michael Bay’s newest film will contain his 1000th explosion ever. If you’ve ever wondered just how his explosion per movie breakdown looks, then you’ll certainly appreciate this infographic detailing all of his 992 explosions so far (the whole thing can be found at the link).

Link Via Film Drunk

This clip, recorded in the 1930s, features Confederate Army veterans demonstrating the “rebel yell.” It is part of the Library of Congress’ collection of rare footage of Civil War veterans committed to film before they passed on. Smithsonian describes some of the films that still exist, and how they give us a glimpse into not only the Civil War era, but also how it was remembered for decades afterward. Link

According to the attending priest, the boy attempted to contact his late aunt using an Ouija board, after which paranormal activity started in the home including unexplained noises and an occurrence of a poltergeist-like event involving blankets flying around of their own accord. Robbie then began to show signs of possession, speaking in tongues and blisters and cuts appearing. He was taken to a mental institute in St. Louis where he was treated both mentally and spiritually. It was here that a group of priests started to perform various exorcising rituals to try and extract the demon. After a staggering total of 30 attempts, the priests were satisfied that they had successfully banished the demon from Robbie’s body.

After the ceremony he went on to have a very normal life, including a successful career at NASA. If my mother only knew that demon possession could lead to working for NASA, I’m positive that she would have made me play with Ouji boards every night.

Each of the 13 horror stories has a video clip from the film, and many have documentary clips from the stories that inspired them. Link

This amazing new device does a lot more than project little duckies onto objects, it projects a truly 3d image onto whichever surface you choose. You can walk around your projection, view it from all sides, and would make for the greatest ghost prank ever. Scooby Doo-style crimes via ghostly projected images have never been easier!

Link

A few years ago one of our BRI writers saw the classic 1931 horror film Dracula for the first time …and thought it was terrible. He never knew there was a story behind why the film had so many problems -or even that other people agreed with him that this Hollywood classic was flawed- until he came across this story in a book called Hollywood Gothic by David J. Skal, a leading authority on the history of monster movies.

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

One of the nice things about silent films is that everyone can understand them, regardless of what language they speak. Of course, they needed title cards to help explain the plot, but it was easy -and cheap- to write new cards for each foreign market.

As a result American films found their way into countries all over the world, and silent films became a truly universal art form: American studios made half of their revenues from foreign film sales; silent screen stars like Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan became the most recognized human beings on the face of the earth.

SILENT TREATMENT

But the advent of talking pictures changed everything -and not just for silent-screen stars whose thick accents quickly consigned them to the Hollywood scrap heap. Suddenly, American films became incomprehensible to anyone who didn’t speak English. American film studios faced the prospect of losing up to half of their business overnight.

Bela Lugosi

Foreign countries that had become used to a steady stream of Hollywood films found themselves left out in the cold; some threatened to retaliate by slapping tariffs on films with dialogue in English, or by boycotting American films entirely.

Making matters worse, sound recording and synchronization technology was still very primitive, and dubbing foreign-language dialogue onto English-language films was all but impossible. Besides, one of the things that attracted audiences to the first “talkies” was the thrill of hearing their favorite actors speak for the very first time. Even if dubbing had been practical, it might not have been very popular. There was no easy solution to the problem, and as a result many foreign language markets were left out of the early years of the talkie era -except for the Spanish-language market. Spanish was too popular, and Mexico, Central, and South America were too close for Hollywood to ignore.

THE DOPPELGÄNGER ERA

No film crew works 24 hours a day. At some point everyone goes home, leaving the soundstage and the expensive sets unused until morning. So, reasoned Hollywood studios, why not bring in a second cast and crew at night to film foreign-language versions of the same films that were being made in English during the day?

Because the sets had already been constructed and second-string actors and crews could be hired for much less money than Hollywood stars, a film like Dracula that had cost nearly $450,000 to film in English during the day could be remade in Spanish at night for as little as $40,000. By 1930, nearly all of the major studios had begun filming Spanish “doppelgänger” films at night.

GRAVEYARD SHIFT

Lupita Tovar

Universal Pictures was one of the last major studios to adopt the idea, when it filmed Spanish and English versions of the film The Cat Creeps in 1930. Dracula was slated to be only the studios second Spanish-language film.

Paul Kohner, Universal’s head of foreign production, hired director George Melford, who’d worked with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik, and cinematographer George Robinson. A 38-year-old Spanish actor named Carlos Villarias was cast as Dracula, and a multilingual actor named Barry Norton was hired to play “Juan Harker.” A 17-year-old Mexican actress named Lupita Tovar was hired to play Harker’s fiance Eva, who was known as Mina in the English version.

“The American crew left at 6:00 PM and we were ready,” Tovar recalled. “We started shooting at eight. At midnight, they would call for dinner… They didn’t pay us much, but we didn’t complain. We were happy to have some money -most actors were starving.”

FIRST RATE

Since they were using a second-rate cast and crew after Hollywood’s finest had gone home for the day, the assumption was that the film made at night would be inferior to the original. That may have been true in most cases …but not in the case of Dracula.

For all of its popularity and accomplishments as Hollywood’s first vampire film, on a technical level, the English-language Dracula is considered a very poorly made film. A lot of the blame for this goes to director Tod Browning, a hard-drinking recluse with a reputation as a troublemaker. Browning had been fired from at least one studio for his drinking, and was blacklisted from the entire industry for two years in the early 1920s. Making matters worse, Browning had directed nine films starring horror superstar Lon Chaney, Sr. when both men worked for MGM, and he was still reeling from Chaney’s recent death from throat cancer.

Browning’s myriad personal problems found their way into the finished film. “In scene after scene,” Skal writes, “the script demonstrates just how much Browning cut, trimmed, ignored, and generally sabotaged the screenplay’s visual potentials, insisting on static camera setups, eliminating reaction shots and special effects, and generally taking the lazy way out at every opportunity.” In one scene, a piece of cardboard the crew used to reduce the glare of a lamp takes up nearly a quarter of the entire screen, and in the film’s climax, Dracula’s death isn’t even shown on film; moviegoers had to settle for the sound of Lugosi groaning offscreen.

ON PURPOSE

Legend has it that cinematographer Karl Freund got so exasperated with Browning’s slipshod style that he just turned the camera on and let it run unattended, Skal writes:

Indeed, there is one endless take in the finished film featuring Manners (who played Jonathon Harker), Chandler (Mina Murray), and Van Sloan (Dr. Van Helsing) that runs 251 feet, nearly three minutes without a cut that was clearly meant to be broken up with close-ups and reaction shots. At one point Chandler tells Manners, “Oh, no -don’t look at me like that,” in an apparent reference to a dramatic change in his expression. The two-shot, however, shows Manners as motionless as a wax dummy -as if oblivious that the camera is even catching his face.

As if that isn’t sloppy enough, in the final credits, Universal President Carl Laemmle’s title is misspelled as “Presient.”

¡EL VAMPIRO!

The film crew on the Spanish Dracula was another story.

Kohner, who had produced the Spanish version of The Cat Creeps, was headstrong and ambitious -and not above second-guessing the English-language unit, trying to improve upon their work. On The Cat Creeps, he watched the daily footage produced by Robert Julian, the director of the English version, and found the scenes to be poorly lit and uninspiring. So when filming the same scenes for the Spanish film, Kohner relit every set and filled them with atmosphere-creating candles, cobwebs, and shadows that had been missing in the English version. Universal Pictures head Carl Laemmle, Jr. was so impressed with Kohner’s work that he ordered Julian to refilm his own footage, this time using Kohner as his artistic advisor.

Kohner did the same thing during the making of the Spanish version of Dracula. Using a moviola machine that was kept on the set, they watched the daily footage, or “dailies” that had been shot for the English-language version, made notes of the sloppiness and mistakes, and then made sure that their own scenes were better.

One thing they didn’t try to improve on was Bela Lugosi’s masterful performance as Count Dracula. Instead, Kohner insisted that Carlos Villarias imitate Lugosi as closely as possible, and he alone among the actors was allowed to watch the English-language dailies to make sure he got it right. They even let him wear Lugosi’s hairpiece, although it’s unclear whether Lugosi ever knew about it.

Carlos Villarias as Count Dracula

Now You See Him, Now You Don’t

Perhaps the most notable difference between the two films is their use -or lack thereof- of special effects. In scenes showing Dracula climbing out of his coffin, for example, the Spanish version uses a double exposure to show a cloud of mist rising out ofthe coffin and turning into Dracula.

In the English version, the coffin lid starts to tremble, the camera turns away from the coffin and points at a wall …and by the time it returns, Bela Lugosi is already out of the coffin.

NUMERO UNO

When completed, the Spanish version of Dracula cost just over $66,000 to make and only took 22 nights to film, compared to the seven weeks and $450,000 it took to film the English version. In fact, the Spanish crew shot the film so fast that they ended up shooting some of their scenes on sets that weren’t completely finished. Rather than wait for them to be finished, the filmmakers compensated for the empty sets with clever lighting.

The first preview was held in early 1931, before the original Dracula was even finished, and the reviewers who saw the Spanish version were impressed. “If the English version of Dracula, directed by Tod Browning, is as good as the Spanish version,” Hollywood Filmograph magazine wrote, “why, the big U (Universal) hasn’t a thing in the world to worry about.”

Villarias and Tovar

The only problem, of course, was that the English version wasn’t as good, as Filmograph reported a few weeks later. The first few minutes of the film were enthralling, the magazine wrote, but quickly deteriorated after that. “Tod Browning directed, although we cannot believe that the same man was responsible for both the first and later parts of the picture. Had the rest of the picture lived up to the first sequence in the ruined castle Transylvania, Dracula would have been a horror and thrill classic long remembered.”

INTO THIN AIR

Dracula was one of the last foreign-language films produced in Hollywood. By 1931 the Great Depressions was in full swing, and American film studios, desperate to cut costs whenever possible, abandoned Spanish-language markets almost entirely. Universal never even bothered to register the copyright on the film and never had preservation copies made so that new prints could be made when the originals wore out.

The Spanish Dracula made the rounds of Spanish-language countries into the 1950s, then gradually disappeared.

Life After Death

It was thought to be lost entirely until the late 1970s, when an incomplete negative was found in a warehouse in New Jersey. Then, in 1989, a complete version of the film was found in the Cuban Film Archives in Havana. In the late 1990s, Universal and the UCLA Film Archives restored the film and released it to cable and video markets, where it is developing a new following and has finally received the recognition it deserves.

Here is the complete movie for your enjoyment.

(YouTube link)

_______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader.

The 13th book in the series by the Bathroom Reader’s Institute has 504 pages crammed with fun facts, including articles on the biggest movie bombs ever, the origin and unintended use of I.Q. test, and more.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

During the Golden Age of Hollywood, big-budget movies were classy affairs, full of artful scripts and classically trained actors. And boy, were they dull. Then came Roger Corman, the King of the B-Movies. With Corman behind the camera, motorcycle gangs and mutant sea creatures filled the silver screen. And just like that, movies became a lot more fun.

Escape from Detroit

For someone who devoted his entire life to creating lurid films, you’d expect Roger Corman’s biography to be the stuff of tabloid legend. But in reality, he was a straight-laced workaholic. Having produced more than 300 films and directed more than 50, Corman’s mantra was simple: Make it fast, and make it cheap.  And certainly, his dizzying pace and eye for the bottom line paid off. Today, Corman is hailed as one of the world’s most prolific and successful filmmakers.

But Roger Corman didn’t always want to be a director. Growing up in Detroit in the 1920s, he aspired to become an engineer like his father. Then, at age 14, his ambitions took a turn when his family moved to Los Angeles. Corman began attending Beverly Hills High, where Hollywood gossip was a natural part of the lunchroom chatter. Although the film world piqued his interest, Corman stuck to his plan. He dutifully went to Stanford and received a degree in engineering, which he didn’t particularly want. Then he dutifully entered the Navy for three years, which he didn’t particularly enjoy. Finally, in 1948, he set his sights on something he did want -to make his mark in Hollywood.

Rising from the Ocean Floor

Corman’s career began at the bottom. He started in the film business as an entry-level reader for 20th Century Fox, wading through the worst scripts at the studio. The job was thankless, but the incompetent writing inspired Corman to give screenwriting a try. He moved to Paris to focus on his craft and eventually sold a script to Allied Artists Pictures. However, the resulting film was so awful that Corman vowed never to let a studio meddle with his work again. From that point on, Roger Corman was determined to make his own movies.

It was a bold statement at the time. Because Hollywood studios owned all the theater chains, movies couldn’t be shown without studio backing. But in 1948, the Supreme Court decided the system constituted a monopoly, and it forced studios to sell off their theaters. Suddenly, every Ed Wood with a camera could get his movies on the big screen. But without big stars or big budgets, indie flicks had to find other ways to attract audiences. And so the “exploitation movie” was born. The films shamelessly drew in crowds with shocking subjects, jazzy titles, and special effects -three things right up Corman’s alley.

In fact, part of Roger Corman’s legend sprang from the fact that he could create an entire movie out of a single good special effect. One of his earliest films, Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954), was conceived when Corman posed as a major producer and convinced inventors to lend him their new, one-man submarine for his “next project.” With a spiffy prop secured, all Corman needed was the little stuff -a title, a story, a screenplay, actors, and money. After scrounging up $12,000, he concocted a film about a man-eating, mutant sea creature that terrorizes good-looking tourists until a dashing marine biologist rams the beast with a submarine. (clip) Then he sold the movie for $100,000. All in all, it provided Corman with his trademark recipe for success -cheap production values, a wild sense of humor, and pulp-fiction plots all whipped briskly into a hefty profit.

Little Shop of Hormones

It wasn’t long before Monster caught the attention of American International Pictures (AIP), a production company that believed in the then-revolutionary idea of marketing movies to teens. And Corman fit right in with their mission. With AIP’s backing, Corman began churning out an unbelievable six movies a year. At that pace, logic and continuity went out the window. Vikings appeared on screen wearing sunglasses, and actors were reused in multiple roles. In one Western, a cowboys shoots at himself dressed as an Indian. But with the cheapskate director behind the camera, it wasn’t just the actors being repurposed; it was also the scenes. Corman liked some of his footage so much that he used it in other movies, again and again.

Corman also ruthlessly jettisoned elements that bogged down big-budget Hollywood films -elements such as nuanced characters and storylines. Instead, Corman focused on bells and whistles. In Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), he drew on his engineering background, meticulously placing a horror scene every five minutes throughout the film. (trailer/full movie) With a running time of 62 minutes, only the basics of plot and humor survived. The final product wasn’t art, but it wasn’t boring, either.

Surprisingly, the faster Corman made his movies, the better they turned out. Another cornerstone of his legend is the making of The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), which he reportedly conceived, wrote, and filmed in less than one week to take advantage of a leftover stage set before it was torn down. The result (which included an early Jack Nicholson appearance) was one of Corman’s finest movies. (trailer)

Tripping Ahead

Roger Corman aspired to make more than just cheapo flicks. In the 1960s, he began directing bigger-budget films based on Edgar Allan Poe stories, starring Vincent Price. These became instant classics of gothic cinema. The success encouraged Corman to flex his creative muscles further and make what his peers thought impossible -a serious film. The Intruder (1962), starring newcomer William Shatner, told the story of a man fighting racism in the South. (clip) The movie was shot on location in Missouri, but when the locals discovered that the script addressed the evils of segregation, they physically chased the crew out of town. Although the film played well to critics and was hailed as a masterpiece in Europe, U.S. audiences hardly got a chance to see it. American theaters refused to show the incendiary film, and the movie flopped. The director learned his lesson and never made another “message” film again.

Not one to sulk, Corman reverted to what he knew best -fast, cheap entertainment. His assembly-line productions required a huge amount of manpower, and in the process they attracted an entire generation of young directors and actors. Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Robert De Niro, and Sylvester Stallone all apprenticed under Corman, accepting minimum-wage work in exchange for the opportunity to study his low-budget ways. As legendary director James Cameron once put it, “I trained at the Roger Corman Film School.”

But the younger generation provided more than just cheap labor. They also gave Corman a window into America’s growing counter-culture of motorcycle gangs, hippies, and LSD. The result can be seen in his definitive LSD movie The Trip (1967). The fact that he dropped acid before filming (to create a more “authentic” experience) only added to the lore. (trailer)

Through the years, Corman’s films became increasingly anarchic, putting him at odds with the older producers at AIP. The final straw was his 1971 flick Gas-s-s-s, in which  mysterious gas wipes out everyone over the age of 25, and wild subcultures dominate the Earth. (clip)  AIP re-edited the entire film without Corman’s permission, dramatically decreasing its grooviness. Corman retaliated and formed his own company, New World Pictures, where he continually refined his aesthetic. In his own words, he aimed to produce “contemporary dramas with a liberal-to-left-wing viewpoint and some R-rated sex and humor.”

How B-Movies Joined the A-List

Working with Hollywood’s future luminaries, New World raised trashy cinema to an art form during the 1970s. Ironically, Corman’s company also brought legitimate art films to the masses. It distributed the works of critically acclaimed foreign directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Roberto Rossellini to drive-in theaters. Corman knew the films’ casual attitude towards nudity would appeal to the drive-in crowd, while their artistic merits would draw in the intellectuals. Bergman, for one, never decried the crass commercialization of his work, but rather rejoiced at the thought of drunken teenagers necking to his brand of existential dread.

During the 1980s, Corman’s empire slowly dwindled, as companies such as Miramax muscled him out of the foreign-film market. His movies also suffered as VHS killed off smaller theaters, meaning his exploitation films were forced to go straight to video. Worst of all, he lost his pool of talented young directors and writers to the big studios, which were replicating his style of action movies, emphasizing thrills and humor over plot and character. The only difference was that instead of calling them “exploitation movies,” the studios called them “blockbusters.”

In fact, Hollywood’s obsession with blockbusters originated with the success of one movie. The plot? A man-eating sea creature terrorizes good-looking tourists until a marine biologist hunts it down. The movie was Jaws. But it sounds an awful lot like Monster from the Ocean Floor, doesn’t it?

Bonus: Roger Corman’s Frugal Hall of Fame

The Movie: Waterworld (1995)
The Problem: Upon reading the script, Corman famously announced, “We can’t do this. It’ll cost $5 million!”
The Solution: Corman sold the screenplay to Universal Studios, which produced it for $175 million. The movie bombed at the box office.

The Movie: The Terror (1963)
The Problem: After completing The Raven ahead of schedule, Corman had a leftover set and actors, and nothing to do with them.
The Solution: Make another movie. Written in five days and shot in two, The Terror makes absolutely no sense. Corman let his crew take turns directing it, so in the end, the film fell into the hands of Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill (one of Quentin Tarantino’s greatest influences), and even Jack Nicholson -thus earning it the “Most Great Directors Ever to Make One Bad Movie” award. (trailer/full movie)

The Movie: Cockfighter (1974) Tagline: “he came into town with his cock in hand, and what he did with it was illegal in 49 states.” (trailer)
The Problem: The sport of cockfighting was a source of shame in the South, and many people were uncomfortable seeing a movie about it.
The Solution: Corman downplayed the cockfighting by adding sex scenes to the film’s trailer, despite the fact that those scenes didn’t appear in the movie. When Cockfighter‘s director, Monte Hellman, argued that this was false advertising, Corman simply inserted the sex scenes into the film. Cockfighter turned a nice profit.

The Movie: The Big Bird Cage (1972)
The Problem: Women in prison make for great exploitation movies, but it costs money to film in a prison. (trailer)
The Solution: A little barbed wire and some bamboo huts in a Philippine jungle helped Corman invent an entirely new (and incredibly cheap) genre -women in prison camp! The increased sweatiness didn’t hurt sales, either.

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The above article by Ian Lendler is reprinted with permission from the September-October 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

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Felicia Day is one of the hardest working people in the entertainment industry today, and normally seems sweet as blueberry pie, but her new web series, based on the Dragon Age video game franchise, finds the demure Miss Day kicking some serious tail. I think it’s going to be a bloody good time, and seems to stay faithful to the games, but let’s hear from the gamers out there. Dragon Age web series-fun or failing?

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/14/felicia-days-new-dragon-age-series-is-epic-fun/feed/ 3 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/09/09/nike-is-about-to-take-shoes-back-to-the-future/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/09/09/nike-is-about-to-take-shoes-back-to-the-future/#comments Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:03:48 +0000 Zeon Santos http://www.neatorama.com/2011/09/09/nike-is-about-to-take-shoes-back-to-the-future/

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If you thought you had to go back in time to see the shoes Marty McFly wore in Back To The Future II, you’ll be positively delighted by Nike’s release of the 2011 MAG, faithful reproductions of the shoes seen in the film which are being auctioned off to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. If you’re like me, though, and can’t come anywhere near affording the hefty $5000 price tag, you’ll just have to wait until 2015 when Nike releases the real deal version of these shoes, complete with power laces. Now someone needs to get to work on creating a working hoverboard and all of our BTTF fantasies will have come true!

-via Destructoid

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This smart, and very affordable, little device might not turn you in to the next George Lucas, but it will definitely help stabilize your home movie making, and might help you become the next net video sensation.It’s the Pico Dolly, made for the modern era of homegrown video stars, this modular mini camera dolly can be outfitted with attachments for lights, mics, and all the peripherals you need to step up your home cinematography skills. And with a price tag of around $65, it is affordable even for someone working on a no string budget.

Link -via LifeHacker

Read about more full-grown adults who played angsty teenagers over at FlavorWire.

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If you think your life is strange, watch this animated short and thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to deal with the strangeness this guy deals with every day. Made by Santiago Grasso, this short yet insightful cartoon has lots to say and plenty of style to keep your eyes satisfied. This is animation for the lost, with a stark style that matches the dark subject matter, and an overall feeling that some people will identify with from frame one. Watch it while you’re at work and you just might end up with a better appreciation of what you do for a living!

Behind-the-scenes footage of anything is usually interesting (if you’re interested in that sort of thing), but these screen tests from classic movies are more fun than most. Above, a probably-intoxicated Judy Garland testing for the role of Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls. She won the role, but was replaced by Susan Hayward after coming to the set drunk. Check out nine more on Flavorwire. Link

Viewing movies in the movie theater is a problem for many deaf people as theaters just don’t offer that many subtitled screenings. Now however Sony is developing glasses that will provide subtitles to films within the glasses themselves.

Sony has been working on subtitle glasses that should allow deaf viewers to have their own personal subtitles without other viewers having to be distracted by them. While it seems like a pretty simple concept, the real trick is ensuring that the viewer doesn’t constantly have to switch focus from the glasses, to the screen, to the glasses, to the screen. These glasses manage to provide the subtitles in such a way that they appear to be projected on the screen, in the same field of view as the action of the movie.

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In a lot of films there is that moment where a character actually says the name of the movie. This can either be cool or lame depending on the context. Now here are 110 titles being said in the film in 159 seconds. Which is your favorite title being said in a movie?

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New images  have been released of the zombies in the film based on the book World War Z. Is it me or do they kind of look like mummies?

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More than a decade before Pixar, the film was not only a technical feat of animation execution but also a seminal work in bringing more attention to animation as a serious art form, both for audiences and for creators.

It’s worth watching even if you’re not a Beatles fan for the history and great one-offs from the narrator, who calls Yellow Submarine “a sort of open-end Rorschach filled with Joycean puns.” Check out the documentary on Brain Pickings. Link

A lot of people think their boss is a real “monster.” However this list imagines if your boss actually was monster from TV or film.   What monster would your boss be? Or what Monster would you WANT to be your boss.

5) The Jagrafess, from Doctor Who
The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe from Doctor Who is a pretty reasonable boss, and its underlings get to help influence public opinion. “I’d get to work at in Broadcasting!” exults Bradley. And to be fair, if you live in the Jagrafess’ world, then you already work for it one way or another. Just make sure you wear a sweater to work.

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The bizarre story was set in Beverly Hills, where a man visited the office of a literary agent and left behind a briefcase that he said contained a computer, police Sgt. Brad Cornelius said.

The man left instructions for it to be delivered to someone at the business, who told another person in the office, “This guy’s been kind of pestering me to read his stuff” and said he neither asked for nor wanted the briefcase, Cornelius said.

A security guard took the case into an alley, and an LAPD police bomb squad was sent to investigate the suspicious package.

Officials sealed off one square block and evacuated dozens of people from a handful of businesses on nearby Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard before blowing open the briefcase, which contained no explosives.

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Fauxgo.com collects fictional logos or designs that only exist to represent a fake company in a film. One my favorite logo from film is the “Clamp” corporation from Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which was clearly a parody of Trump. What is your favorite fake logo from the movies?

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Sure you might love Ariel, Belle, Glinda, Scarlet and Sherlock, but did you know they all have serious mental disorders? Cracked takes a look at the character’s questionable mental states with this great article. I think their assessments seem pretty spot on for the most part. What about you?

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If you said Canadian Bacon, you know your movies. I saw this yesterday when Zeon and I were watching the comedy and I have to say I was surprised to see that. He even makes a cameo in the movie as a red neck who is eager to go to war with the Canadians.

It got me thinking, do you guys know of any other movies who were directed or written by someone totally unexpected?

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Exploitation films, Grindhouse cinema and good old fashioned “B” movies if for anything were always good for their outlandish posters that were usually better then the films themselves. The scantily glad women and hideous monsters on the poster and cover art usually didn’t live up to their promise once you actually watched these films. This gallery of posters imagines if more mainstream, classic Hollywood films had used the same techniques in trying to entice an audience.

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To most people a 20-foot-high pile of discarded refrigerators in Hackney, London, is an eyesore. But to Lindsey Scannapieco, the so-called "Fridge Mountain" (which was so tall it was visible in Google Earth) was an inspiration to create Films on Fridges, "East London's newest temporary outdoor cinema built primarily out of discarded fridges."

Link - via Core77

Psst, Neatoramanauts! We've got lots of refrigerator magnets over at the NeatoShop that would be awesome for the festival :)

This neat scene from a 1979 Danish film “The Olsen Gang Never Surrenders” shows an electronic Lego device that expertly sneaks into a building, making its way up a flight of stairs. I don’t know who the Olsen Gang is, but they sure have some innovative Lego designers.

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Remember Mel Gibson’s movie The Man Without A Face? This is what that tale of a isolated and introverted man would be about if it were made today, courtesy of Dan De Lorenzo & Ben Stumpf. -via The Daily What

There is probably no greater revenge on a teacher that you hated then becoming one of the world’s most successful authors and using them as the basis for your epic villain. Although fighting them to the death with magic would be cool too.

For those of you who’ve ever dreamed of turning your childhood enemies into objects of ridicule and hatred, with a side of jackass to boot, this list is for you. These iconic fictional characters were based on real-life people, and their creators couldn’t give the least bit of a damn who knew it.

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Have you ever found yourself wondering about the layout of the Overlook Hotel while watching the Shining? No? Well, me neither, but film analyst Rob Ager sure has, and he’s made an unusual little film about it, in which he uses a Duke Nukem mod as a virtual tour guide with a gun.

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When a movie becomes a hit, the studio’s natural tendency is to do the same thing again. However, making a sequel that is anywhere near as good as the original film is hit-or-miss. Making a third movie that is worth watching is even more difficult. There have been many attempts, many failures, and a few successes. Unreality magazine looks at the few successes that had a certain something that other movie trilogies don’t. Link

This in part may stem from my undiagnosed ADD, but watching Part I of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows left me abused and confused.  To me it seemed like lots of random stuff that looked expensive was happening but a coherent plot wasn’t one of them. How could I enjoy the new HP flick without remembering all the details of the first six films?  That’s when I discovered The Fine Brothers seven minute recap of the Harry Potter franchise that will bring diehard fans and newbies (like me) up to speed.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes to theaters this week, so we present a recap of the 7 Harry Potter films, so you can be fully caught up to watch and enjoy the final film with your friends, and make them think you actually know the series when in reality you just spent 7 minutes watching this video.

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The other night I turned on TV and caught half an episode of the original Star Trek where Captain Kirk meets Abraham Lincoln. Seriously. Sometimes even our favorite science fiction and fantasy franchises can be quite silly. Check out this list of unintentionally hilarious lines from science fiction and fantasy. What are some favorites of yours?

Sometimes our favorite movies and TV shows feature some hideously ridiculous dialogue. Sometimes nonsensical and melodramatic speech is part of why bad movies are such a guilty pleasure. Here are the 10 awesomest lines of unintentionally funny dialogue from science fiction and fantasy movies and television.

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Kid Casting is a blog that looks at adult movie and TV characters and the children who play those same characters as youngsters, whether in flashbacks or in earlier parts of the narrative. Oddee has collected the best examples of well-done kid casting in their latest list. Shown here are the characters of George Bailey and Mary Hatch from the movie It’s A Wonderful Life as both kids and adults. Link

I keep getting phone books and the Yellow Pages dropped in front of my door and I keep throwing them out. Who needs a phone book anymore? Most people I know primarily use a cell phone and wouldn’t be listed in the local phone book anyway.  So it’s funny to think that there was a time when people had to learn how to dial their own phone. This short film from the early 1950’s was created by AT&T to show the public how to use a rotary phone.  Such helpful words of wisdom include “When you want to make a call always be sure you have the right number.”

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The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema enforces old-fashioned theater etiquette. They have two rules: no talking during a movie, and no phone usage. After a woman was ejected from the theater for texting during a film, she left an angry voice mail. The theater promptly turned her message into a public service announcement. In discussions at the Drafthouse site, Roger Ebert’s blog, SlashFilm, reddit, Fark, and Metafilter, most commenters applaud the theater for enforcing silence during films. Link (video at the site contains unedited NSFW language)

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This short video is thought to be the last footage of comedians Laurel and Hardy; it was shot in 1956 at the home of Stan Laurel’s daughter, Lois. Also featured in the clip: Stan Laurel’s wife Ida Kitaeva Raphael Laurel, Hardy’s wife Virginia Lucille Jones, Andy Wade (who shot the film), Laurel’s daughter Lois, her husband Rand Brooks and their children, Randy and Laurie.

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When Hollywood movies are renamed for overseas audiences, the results can be literal or inexplicable, and sometimes remarkably apt. For example, Knocked Up was released in China as One Night Big Belly, which makes perfect sense. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me became Austin Powers: The Spy Who Behaved Very Nicely Around Me in Malaysia, which sounds like a scheme to get past censors. But what do you make of Dragnet, which was shown in Germany as Floppy Coppers Don’t Bite? Link -via Gorilla Mask

This film of the Apollo 11 rocket launch that put a man on the moon, was recorded at 500 frames per second. This slowed down video shows the first 30 seconds of the lift off where we get to see in great detail the fire power of these rockets. The narration provides some interesting additional facts as well.

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Are you a movie geek? More importantly, are you an evolved movie geek? It’s a long journey from watching cartoons as a kid to honestly enjoying films for what they are -and some stages in between can be difficult. Read about all six stages at The Droids You’re Looking For. Link -via Blame It On The Voices