BITS AND PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FILM #14

JOHN GARFIELD

“When I asked for an autograph, he said, “What should
  I write?” “How about ‘Sincerely, John Garfield’? His face 
  fell. “How do you spell sincerely?”

                                     Alfred Kazin
**
PRESTON STURGES/ HOWARD HUGHES -INVENTORS
“You may wish for more detailed view of
Sturges’s movies, but Todd McCarthy’s 
script is knowing and informal; it notes,
for example, that when the moviemaker
became a partner in Howard Hughes’s
California Picture Corporation, the deal
linked ‘Sturges, inventor of kiss-proof 
lipstick, and on Hughes, creator of the
aerdynamic bra.”

Michael Stragow. Preston Sturges: Rise and
Fall  of an American Dreamer (1989)
**


WALT DISNEY’S MOST SCSARY ANIMATED FILM

“ what was the Walt Disney movie that scared you 
the most ? Was it ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' 
(1937) where the evil queen falls off a cliff to 
her death?(Dr. Benjamin Spock once wrote that all 
the seats in the vast auditorium of Radio City Music
 Hall had to be reupholstered because so many 
children wet their pants while watching the film.)

Joan Acocella. “Puppet Regime” in The New Yorker 
(June 13, 2022

**

ROBIN WILLIAMS & DUSTIN HOFFMAN

“Dustin will try anything. I’ve been on three films 
that he was supposed to do. ‘Popeye,’ ‘Garp’ and ‘
Dead Poets.’ I should be just hanging out by his 
house.. ‘What did you pass up? ‘Yeah? O.K. that 
sounds good.”

Robin Williams, interviewed by Lawrence Grobel    
for PLAYBOY (JANUARY 1992)

**
**

THE FIGHT SCENE IN THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

“Frank Sinatra broke the little finger of his right 
hand on the desk in the fight sequence with Henry Silva.
 Due to on-going filming commitments, he could not rest
 or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the 
rest of his life.”

IMDb Trivia

**
Rin TinTinnitus – Movie dog whose barking leaves 
fans with ringing in their ears for hours after 
the movie is over.
**
ON CASTING ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND RICHARD BURTON AS 
LOVERS IN A FILM

“I can only confirm my opinion that the chemistry of 
having them both in a film, regarded as a rare ‘coup’ by financiers, in fact lacked mystery. Love scenes, and 
even worse, lust scene, between people who presumably
 have them anyway in the privacy of their home are 
inevitably somewhat flat on the screen, and if they 
happen to be passing through a momentary  crisis, 
such scenes are worse than flat, merely a tribute 
to their professionalism, and there are few things 
worse than that. “

Peter Ustinov. Dear Me (Boston: An Atlantic Monthly Book,
1977)
**

T

MY HYMN TO SATURDAY MATINEE
 HORSE OPERAS

My heroes,
Descended from  gods,
Rode horses
That did anything but talk.
Sometimes even that.

My heroes
Strode through swinging doors
Into saloons
Where villains spat
Out of the side of their mouths,

& whiskey-stocked bars
Were longer than leggy lines
Of chorus girls,
All of whom were pure,
Unmarried & hsd hearts of gold.

The bars,
Owned by black-hatted villains,
Housed poker chips
Held by the owner’s gang.
Always someone with aces up his sleeve.



Barroom brawls,
Like daily stage coast robberies,
Were anticipated,
With heavies tossed thru windows
& chairs broken by the dozens.

Then Wild Bill Elliot
Wd swing upon a chandelier
& knock 4 men 
Under the only player piano
East of the Pecos. 

Then the Durango Kid
Or Lash LaRue or somebody
With six-shooters
Or a black whip 
Wd leap from a hotel's balcony

Onto Trigger or Champion.
Under a hail of bullets 
Roy Rogers 
Or Gene Autry escape furiously
With bad guys in hot pursuit.

On magnificent stallions
My heroes ride to defeat evil.
Horse operas!  
Don’t tell me. I know.
The arias came afterwards.


Louis Phillips