When I did that Cesar Romero Joker I didn’t realize how much flat out fun it was to draw the Batman TV show villains.
So, after that Joker piece and Burgess Meredith’s Penguin, I present Frank Gorshin’s Riddler. You know what’s coming next, right? Same Bat… er… channel.
You know, sometimes the mood just hits you…
So I finished up the Cesar Romero Joker and I just had to give the Burgess Meredith Penguin, from the 1960’s Batman TV show, a go. Collect ’em all! 
I’ve never seen or indeed heard of Slightly Scarlet, the early talkie before finding an image from it which I’ve recreated.
Frankly, I felt the image was absolutely -and very humorously!- preposterous, with our leads (Clive Brook and Evelyn Brent) examining precious jewelry taken from a wall safe while a shadowy figure with a gun menaces them. According to IMDB, this film is a comedy/drama, so perhaps the image makes sense.
Both Mr. Brook and Ms. Brent had very long careers which extended from silent films into talkies and appeared in many, many films and TV productions. Interestingly, the two were also the stars of the 1928 film Interference, which was Paramount’s first “talkie”.
I love darkness and heavy shadows in film and perhaps the best -and earliest- examples of this sort of expressionism was found in the early German cinema of the 1920’s and into the 30’s. Here then is Conrad Veidt as the killer somnambulist in the classic film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari…
The German cinema heavily influenced another cinematic movement which came a few years later: Film noir. Boasting similar visuals (at least when it came to heavy shadows) and stories often involving crime and desperation usually centered around a “big city”, there are quite literally hundreds of great films noir movies out there worth checking out.
Here then is my interpretation of a still from one of the more memorable ones, Laura (1944). Featuring Gene Tierney as the mysterious “victim” of murder -or was she?- and Dana Andrews as the cop investigating this strange case, Laura also featured a young Vincent Price and was directed by Otto Preminger. The plot of the movie was essentially lifted by author William Diehl for his novel, then subsequent movie, Sharky’s Machine (1981).
Here though is the original, with too-cool Gene Tierney’s Laura being interrogated by Dana Andrew’s cop.
Marilyn Monroe… what more is there to say?!
Originally released in 1922 and directed by F. W. Murnau, the film Nosferatu is one of my all time favorite horror films and easily my all time favorite vampire film (the Bela Lugosi starring Dracula being #2). Max Schrek plays the good Count Orlok and the movie’s story was… er… stolen pretty completely from Bram Stoker’s famous novel Dracula.
The theft was so obvious that when Stoker’s widow sued the studio that released the film she not only won a judgment against them but the studio was ordered to destroy all prints of the film. Most were indeed destroyed but luckily for audiences today not quite all and we get to marvel at this film even today.
Having said that, I have to admit: What the studios and Mr. Murnau did was… well… I wish they had gone through the right channels and created a legitimate, non-ripoff product to begin with.
Regadless… here’s Nosferatu!
Ann-Margret Olssen is a singer/actor/dancer whose professional career in music began in 1961.
She would go on to appear in movies, including co-starring with Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas!, co-starring with Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid, appearing in the film version of the famous Who album Tommy, as well as co-starring in the critically acclaimed film Carnal Knowledge.
Still active today, Ann-Margret’s had a long and very productive career!
Way back in the 1950’s there was a film that… nah, just kidding.
The subject matter this time around is your’s truly. A self portrait, as it were!
The luminous Carole Lombard had a stellar career which began in 1921 and during the silent film era. She would successfully make the transition into “talkies” and made many successful films, including the 1936 comedy My Man Godfrey.
In 1939 she married Clark Gable. On January 16, 1942, Carole, her mother, and 20 other people were flying back to California -Carole Lombard having completed a war bond rally in Indiana- when their plane went down outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. All aboard the aircraft perished and Mrs. Lombard was dead at the age of 33.
So the other day I’m wasting some time online and find the novel Are You In The House Alone?: A TV Movie Compendium 1964-1999 by Amanda Reyes and, to make a long story short, I picked that sucker up quick.
The book deals with TV movies of this period of time, including some favorites like Steven Spielberg’s Duel, the wild William Shatner/Andy Griffith Pray For The Wildcats and assorted other films I recall seeing way back when on TV and, frankly, recall very fondly.
The subject of this piece is self explanatory, the excellent Dan Curtis (Night Stalker) directed, Karen Black starring (and, in the case of the picture, Richard Matheson written) Trilogy of Terror. A great trilogy of tales of terror/horror with the standout being the final tale, presented here.
