THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956) *** I would have liked to been a fly on the wall (but not Mike Pence’s head) for several conversations throughout motion picture history.
For example, when Chevy Chase was offered Oh Heavenly Dog. We all remember that one, right, where Chase plays a private detective who’s murdered real early in the picture and then, almost just like Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait, he’s reincarnated as, wait for it, Benji. We see Benji solve the murder and hear Chase on the soundtrack. Yes, it’s a real movie.
Another example would be how Alfred Hitchcock reacted when he was told his Man Who Knew Too Much star Doris Day would sing Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) not once but twice during the movie — the first time about 12 minutes in and the second with about 12 minutes left.
Isn’t it obvious, though, that Hitchcock wasn’t into Que Sera, Sera, even before Day sings that line about 500 times.
I search it up (as the kids today say) and find this juicy bit of IMDb trivia: Throughout the filming, Doris Day became increasingly concerned that Alfred Hitchcock paid more attention to camera set-ups, lighting, and technical matters than he did to her performance. Convinced that he was displeased with her work, she finally confronted him. His reply was, ‘My dear Miss Day, if you weren’t giving me what I wanted, then I would have to direct you!’
Apparently, Day (1922-2019) herself was initially turned off by the notion of singing what became her signature song, even in death. She thought it was a forgettable children’s song.
I call this 1956 version The Woman Who Sang Too Much.
The Man Who Knew Too Much ’56 (a remake of Hitchcock’s own 1934 film) predominantly works because of the performance of James Stewart and a couple spectacular set pieces.
Despite this being the least of the four features Stewart made with Hitchcock, way behind Vertigo, Rope, and Rear Window (in that order), we follow the events from beginning to end mostly because of the inherent pull of Stewart … and we also know that even during a lesser Hitchcock film, that sly old master, that dirty old dog, would still come up with something to wow us.
Here, it’s the murder of the mysterious Frenchman in Morocco and the attempted assassination of the prime minister at Royal Albert Hall. Personally, I still prefer Jimi Hendrix’s two nights at the Royal Albert in February 1969. Que sera, sera, right?
Bernard Herrmann, the man responsible for the scores to seven Hitchcock films as well as Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver, makes a cameo as the conductor.
Hitchcock apparently made his trademark cameo around 25 minutes in, but I missed it. Que sera, sera, right?
Especially now that I’m blaring Hendrix’s Hear My Train A Comin’.
AUTO PILOT CINEMA: THE AIRPORT MOVIES When thinking of the worst series in movie history, I am tempted to start with Saw and Fast and the Furious then move back through time with The Omen and Amityville Horror and finally go way way way back to the Dead End Kids, er, Bowery Boys.
In piecing through all this cinematic carnage, I should not leave behind the four Airport movies that were churned out by Universal Pictures from 1970 to 1979. Maybe I should leave them behind.
Airport, based on Arthur Hailey’s 1968 novel of the same name, made a killing at the box office upon its late May release in 1970 and it even received 10, yes, believe it or not, 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and 70-year-old Helen Hayes won Best Supporting Actress.
The three subsequent films — helpfully labeled 1975, ’77, and ’79 — got worse and worse, naturally, and the last film in the series, The Concorde … Airport ’79, is so bad (and so aggressively stupid) in fact that it could kill off any series. That’s despite the fact that it reportedly made $65 million, a much better take than, for example, Irwin Allen productions The Swarm ($7.7 million), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure ($2.1 million), and When Time Ran Out ($3.8 million). Regardless, Universal stopped making Airport movies after The Concorde and I’m almost dumbfounded why there’s not been a remake or a reboot loaded with today’s stars.
Hey, wait, did somebody mention stars? Yes, stars, that’s what these Airport movies were about — speculating which ones would emerge at the end of the picture relatively intact and which ones would die spectacularly. Grand Hotel in the sky, not exactly, since none of the careers in the Airport movies were at their peak like the ones in Grand Hotel, but the idea of stuffing the screen with stars in every scene applies just the same.
Airport: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, Hayes, Van Heflin, Maureen Stapleton, Barry Nelson, Dana Wynter, Lloyd Nolan.
Airport 1975: Charlton Heston, Karen Black, Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Susan Clark, Helen Reddy, Linda Blair, Dana Andrews, Roy Thinnes, Sid Caesar, Myrna Loy, Gloria Swanson.
Airport ’77: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Branda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee, Robert Foxworth, Kathleen Quinlan, James Stewart.
Airport ’79: Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner, Sylvia Kristel, Kennedy, Eddie Albert, Bibi Andersson, Charo, John Davidson, Andrea Marcovicci, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, Jimmie Walker, David Warner, Mercedes McCambridge.
More like Hollywood Squares in the Sky? Yeah, believe so, especially since Davidson hosted a Hollywood Squares revival in the late ’80s.
Beside Airport in the titles, Kennedy (1925-2016) proved to be the connective tissue between all four pictures, meaning he’s the inverse of the Brody boys (Jaws) and the Griswold children (Vacation). Kennedy played Joe Patroni — first as mechanic, then as vice president of operations (1975), a consultant (’77), and finally an experienced pilot (’79). Regardless of position or rank, the character got worse and worse over the course of the films, not that he or the films started out all that hot. I found even his cigar was guilty of overacting in the original film and Patroni was so odiously obnoxious in the fourth film, especially after he utters the line that articulates the sexism of the entire series, They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing, honey. George Kennedy as sex symbol? Sure, I’ll believe anything, nearly anything except for, oh, the entire plot of The Concorde.
I’ll talk more about The Concorde and the original because they’re fresher in my memory. To be honest, though, I probably won’t even feel like discussing the original because …
Movies rarely come any dumber than The Concorde: Let’s see, this is going to be fun, not really, anyway TV reporter Susan Blakely comes across some highly incriminating evidence against defense contractor (and covert arms dealer) Robert Wagner. Wagner decides that he’s going to attempt to blow up real good the plane she’s on en route from Washington to Paris. Okay, okay, his plot to blow up the Concorde real good fails and they have dinner together in Paris during the middle section of the movie, because, you know, they have a history together and they still love each other. She still has this incriminating evidence, naturally, she’s going to eventually go public with it, of course, and what does he do? Kill her? He lets her walk away safe and unharmed, so he’ll have to go after the plane again. That’s right, she gets back on the Concorde for the final leg of the flight from Paris to Moscow. Guilt stricken, Wagner commits suicide very late in the picture and I believe it’s not because his secret’s been discovered and will be exposed regardless of whether he’s alive or not, but more that he’s one of the worst villains in cinematic history.
The Concorde is so laughable in so many ways, as if that whole plot discussed in the last paragraph wasn’t enough. The Concorde stops over in Paris for a night, and every single passenger gets back on the plane the next morning. They all seem way too calm and collected after the events of the first half of the movie. I would love to have just heard one character say ‘Hell no, I’m not getting back on that damn plane!’ They all deserved to die, but we know that’s not happening.
At one critical point during the first attack on the Concorde, the Übermensch George Kennedy proves that he’s truly The Übermensch by sticking his hand out the window of the Concorde and throwing a flare. Unbelievable, utterly unbelievable even in this preposterous movie. If only the first Airport had been the in-flight movie on The Concorde, especially that scene where Patroni discusses the effects of a bomb on a 707 and concludes, When I was a mechanic in the Air Force, I was being transferred on a MATS plane. At 20,000 feet, one of the windows shattered. The guy sitting next to it was about 170 pounds. He went through that little space like a hunk of hamburger going down a disposal, and right after him coats, pillows, blankets, cups, saucers. That was just a MATS plane, not the fastest plane in the universe.
I’m done, I can’t take it anymore, and I’m bailing out on the Airport movies.
Nostalgia became a dominant cultural force in the 1970s, between AMERICAN GRAFFITI, “Happy Days,” ANIMAL HOUSE, ROCKY, STAR WARS, SUPERMAN, and THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT I and II.
Nostalgia also explains THE MAGIC OF LASSIE, in everything from everybody’s favorite cinematic collie to genial old timers James Stewart and Mickey Rooney to the songs by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman and especially the values implied and directly stated by Lassie, Stewart, Rooney, and their songs.
The picture opens, for crying out loud, with All-American cinematic icon Jimmy Stewart singing “That Hometown Feeling.” I came up with a couple quick reactions: Thankfully, Stewart rarely ever sang during his long entertainment career; They are laying it on awful darn thick real quick in this pic. Of course, paraphrasing Bachman-Turner Overdrive, I hadn’t seen nothin’ yet. Is BTO on the soundtrack? No, but Stewart, Mickey Rooney, Debby Boone, and the Mike Curb Congregation are instead … hot diggity dog!
I just moaned and groaned about the Sherman Bros. songs in the 1972 animated SNOOPY, COME HOME, a picture about 10 or 50 or 100 times better than THE MAGIC OF LASSIE even with them darn songs.
In addition to songs that might cause somebody to wish for temporary hearing loss, THE MAGIC OF LASSIE relies heavily on a couple of my least favorite plot devices: A shady businessman leans on a property owner to sell his property (in this case a vineyard) and (mostly) comic villains ineptly chase our heroes.
In some real cutthroat business practices, Jamison takes Lassie away from kind old Grandpa Clovis Mitchell (Stewart) and his feisty grandchildren Kelly (Stephanie Zimbalist) and Chris (Michael Sharrett) and that horrible man makes it all the way to Colorado Springs with the prized bitch. Lassie runs away, headed for California. Chris runs away, headed for Colorado. Clovis takes off to look for Chris and Lassie. Clovis and Chris should be thankful, eternally grateful that Lassie’s the absolute smartest character in the entire movie, although maybe she wished she wasn’t so smart because her name would not have been in the title. Then again, wasn’t Lassie’s name always in the title of her entertainment packages?
It would take approximately 20 hours by automobile to get from Colorado Springs back to Sonoma (filming location of THE MAGIC OF LASSIE) and walking amounts to a trip lasting 414 hours. There are moments when THE MAGIC OF LASSIE feels like it lasts that long.
They really burden Lassie with some indignities during THE MAGIC OF LASSIE, all within that glorious ‘G’ rating. At least three name changes. A nasty addiction to banjo. Lassie rescues a cat from a burning building. That last one, why that’s just going way, way, way too far. I hope they paid her owners very handsomely.
Believe it or not, centerpiece song “When You’re Loved” (seen and heard in by my count two would-be feel good montages during the 100-minute cinematic endurance contest) received a nomination for Best Original Song at the 51st Academy Awards. I really can believe it, though, that “When You’re Loved” lost to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” from THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY.
By the end of THE MAGIC OF LASSIE (or TGIF, for that matter), though, all I was saying was “Thank God It’s Over.”
Attack of the Killer Librarian 