Category Archives: E. R. Torre Art

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 53

After doing as many of these pieces as I have, sometimes it takes a while to figure out which celebrity to take on next.

And sometimes inspiration comes to you instead of you looking for it.

Over on Turner Classic Movies they were playing the charming, romantic, and suspenseful 1963 film Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, a film I’ve seen countless times and could see countless others. Known by many as the best Alfred Hitchcock film Alfred Hitchcock didn’t make, the film features a spectacular turn by Ms. Hepburn, who is at her charismatic best playing the freshly widowed Regina Lambert. Her husband, she finds only after he’s gone, was likely involved in hiding nearly a quarter of a million dollars stolen during the late stages of WWII.

At the man’s funeral, strange characters appear out of the woodwork, including Cary Grant -quite wonderful- as a man who may or may not have her interests at heart. The film also boasts early appearances by Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and George Kennedy. It’s a great film and, unfortunately, was re-made, not well at all, in 2002 as The Truth About Charlie.

Stick with the original and forget the remake was ever made.

And now, Ms. Hepburn…

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 52

Released between 1967 and 1968, The Prisoner remains, in my opinion and to this day, one of the most ambitious and fascinating TV series ever made.

Running a mere 17 episodes, the show featured Patrick McGoohan as the mysterious titular character, a man who is abducted from his flat after forcefully resigning from his job. He awakens to find himself a prisoner on a strange island where everyone has a number -he is assigned #6- and escape appears impossible.

Through those 17 episodes #6 fought to free himself both physically and mentally from the forces of the island, and the final episode of the series’ run was met with considerable controversy.

Who was #6? Was he a secret agent who simply knew too much?

This is certainly possible but, ultimately, #6 is all of us, each trying to find our own escape from the forces that imprison us. If you haven’t caught the series, what in the world are you waiting for?!

(A quick aside: Avoid the 2009 mini-series remake featuring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen. Great actors in the titular roles and a handsome production, but there’s no way to be polite about this: The remake was horrible)

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 51

When news came that actor Yvonne Craig passed away in 2015, I admit to being shocked. How could someone that young have passed away?

It was an illusion: Mrs. Craig passed away at the age of 78, hopefully after a very full and beautiful life, and my surprise was based on the images I had of her in my mind, frozen as they were in her prime and while she appeared in many TV shows. Her most famous role, of course, was that of Batgirl in the famous Adam West starring Batman TV show.

Mrs. Craig would appear in the show’s final 1967 season but, as I mentioned before, she had appeared in many shows and movies before and after, including appearances in the original Star Trek show, The Wild Wild West, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Starsky and Hutch, among many others.

But she had a role, way back in 1958, in the TV show Perry Mason that always intrigued me. It was the 35th (!!!) episode of the show’s first season and titled The Case of the Lazy Lover and the reason it intrigues me is that not only was Mrs. Craig in the episode, but so too was Neil Hamilton, who would subsequently appear as, yes, Commissioner Gordon in the Batman TV show!

I know, I know, perhaps not as big a deal as William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appearing together in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s 1964 episode The Project Strigas Affair a few years before they played Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock in Star Trek, but I’ve always enjoyed the coincidence.

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 48

If you’ve looked through my artwork you should see that I’m a fan of movies.

Why is that?

The image presented in this entry is the answer…

Released in 1971, the movie Duel was directed by a then mostly unknown by the name of Steven Spielberg.  It was released theatrically in Europe but aired on TV in the US and Canada and, I do believe, I caught it when it aired in that year.  I was likely between four and five years old at the time and this proved to be the first film I saw where I realized a story was being told from beginning to end.

It was, to my very young mind, nothing short of magic.

I would not see the film again for at least ten years, and when I did I was shocked to find that it was directed by Mr. Spielberg but in retrospect, that should have been obvious.  For Duel is essentially an early draft, if you will, of the film that made him a superstar: Jaws. Only Duel featured a homicidal truck driver pursuing a harried driver along desert roads, their encounters proving more and more dangerous.

So why did this particular film affect me as much as it did?  Easy: It was essentially a silent film.

Sure, there was dialogue, but it was incidental at best.  In his commentaries for the DVD release, Mr. Spielberg pointed out the film was originally intended to not have one bit of dialogue, but the studio balked at that idea.  Still, for the most part it is a silent film… punctuated by the sounds of engines and squealing tires.  If you haven’t seen the film yet, give it a look.

It’s well worth it.

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 47

Released way back in 1955 and directed by Robert Aldrich (perhaps best known for directing 1967’s The Dirty Dozen and the original 1974 Burt Reynolds starring The Longest Yard), Kiss Me Deadly is, to me, one of the most fascinating post-modern “noir” films ever made. It was WAY ahead of its time and skirted with what I’m sure were considerable censor issues, presenting us with a Mike Hammer we’d never seen before or since.

In this movie, Mike Hammer (played by Ralph Meeker) was a smiling shark, a sleazy, blinged out P.I. who made a living off of equally sleazy divorce cases. Once hired by a disgruntled wife, he’d set his faithful and sexy secretary Velda (Maxine Cooper, terrific in her role and accompanying Mr. Meeker in the picture below) off to seduce the soon to be divorced men while Hammer takes photographs of the whole thing.  Here they are, the sleazy P.I. and his faithful girl Friday…

In the movie, Hammer’s living is good enough for him to dress well and have a very modern -for the time- apartment while driving around in an exotic car. But Hammer is after a bigger score, and when he gets involved in a case of some stolen …something… that has the government, local police, and the mob all excited, he senses he’s about to make himself the biggest score of all.

And when Lt. Pat Murphy, who has absolutely zero tolerance for this creep, tells him he’s in “way over his head”, Hammer should have listened to the man’s warning.

If you haven’t seen the film and this sounds like your cup of tea, by all means go out there and get it. It was recently released by Criterion films on BluRay and is very much worth checking out. A bit of trivia: Remember the glowing suitcase in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction? That idea was taken directly from this movie.

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 46

Caroline Munro… an incredibly beautiful actress best known today for playing Naomi, bad guy Karl Stromberg’s lovely (and deadly) helicopter pilot in what many consider Roger Moore’s best James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me.

According to Ms. Munro, at the time she had to chose whether to take that role or Ursa in the Superman films and chose Bond. While I’m glad she played Naomi, I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t have been intriguing to see her play Ursa!  Ms. Munro would appeared in many other films, including At The Earth’s Core and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 45

Question: Who was the first superhero to make the transition from comic books to the screen?   It was Captain Marvel, the one now called -stupidly- Shazam.

The 12 part serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel was released in 1941 and featured the imposing Tim Tyler in the role of the good Captain, a man who made Zach Snyder’s Batman look like Ghandi (I kid, I kid, but you should check out some of the stuff he does to the bad guys!).  Anyway, Mr. Tyler as Captain Marvel!

Curious about Mr. Tyler, I looked his bio up on IMDB and was saddened to find that he passed away in 1954, only 13 years after the release of Captain Marvel, and at the too young age of 50 due to rheumatoid arthritis. Another bit of trivia: Mr. Tyler would also be the first person to portray The Phantom in the 1943 serial, as well.

E. R. Torre Art

Sketchin’ 44

One of my favorite actors is Robert Redford and if all you know him from is his villainous turn in Captain America: Winter Soldier (a very clever bit of casting if you are aware of his past roles!), then you don’t know nearly enough about him.

Check out Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, All The President’s Men, or Three Days of the Condor and you’ll get a great idea of how versatile and charismatic he is!

So, without further ado…