Sorry, Wrong Movie...

Woe to the poor young movie buff in the late-20th century, scanning the local TV guide in the hopes of stumbling across one of the classic films he'd been hankering to see for a long time. In those early-VCR/pre-TCM days, one had to become actively involved if he wished to actually see a particular movie. You had to be in front of the set at the given time and pray for no pre-emptions, power failures or static on-screen. So imagine the horror that awaited young Irvin or Marty, settling in with the 27" in his grandma's basement to catch the great 1948 classic Sorry, Wrong Number with Miss Barbara Stanwyck only to discover....

The 1989 TV-movie Sorry, Wrong Number starring Loni Anderson!

This is most likely the only time one would find Anderson and (a slumming) Hal Holbrook in the same airspace, unless perhaps it was at her then-husband Burt Reynolds' house for a dinner party! The on-screen husband in this movie, Carl Weintraub, has a considerable number of credits considering I've never heard of him before in my life! Turns out he also appeared in another one of Anderson's re-dos, Coins in the Fountain in 1990! Anderson had also done A Letter to Three Wives in 1985. The only reason I didn't put those two in this post was because I've already noted them here.

Or how about the nail-biting classic Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum, redone in 1991 with Richard Chamberlain as the sadistic phony preacher in search of some stolen loot?

This redux lacks the atmospheric direction of the great Charles Laughton, has Diana Scarwid in Shelley Winters' old role and doesn't even bother trying to cast an actress of any notoriety in Lillian Gish's part...

Now, granted, the 1965 William Castle shocker was no sterling screen classic, but it did offer the ferocious charms of Joan Crawford to help offset some of the teenage inanity on display. This 1988 remake, I Saw What You Did, offers no such recompense.

Instead the movie enlists two Carradines, Robert and David, for "star power" and hopes in vain that the two young stars (and an even younger Candace Cameron as the sibling of Shawnee Smith) can carry the rest of the dramatic load.

While we have you on the line, let's take a peek at Dial M for Murder, not the 1954 Hitchcock thriller with Ray Milland a Grace Kelly, but a 1981 remake with Christopher Plummer and Angie Dickinson.

Stepping into the roles once essayed by Bob Cummings and John Williams are Michael Parks and Anthony Quayle. (This venerable tale was done once more as a feature film with Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998 and called A Perfect Murder that time.)

Another Hitchcock movie, the revered 1954 suspense drama Rear Window, was given a redux in 1998. Now we aren't about to pick on the severely injured Christopher Reeve and actually applaud the fact that he, in his disabled state, was able to continue working as an actor and director...

However, like so many remakes of good movies, the end product just didn't quite do it. And the less said about a dressed-down Darryl Hannah in a rendition of Grace Kelly's role the better.

On paper this one looked fascinating. A remake of the 1962 Bette Davis-Joan Crawford thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with real-life sisters, Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave.

In execution it was a dour, dreary, wrong-headed mess, completely lacking the delicious tension and high-pitched emotional flourish of the original.

One nearly always thinks of Doris Day and Mary Crosby in the same vein, right? WRONG. Somehow the slinky babe whose character was responsible for seducing and shooting J.R. Ewing on Dallas wound up as the frantic target in Midnight Lace, a redo of Day's 1960 melodrama.

Stepping into Rex Harrison's (!) shoes was Gary Frank of the TV series Family.

This glitzy 1988 pairing, of Robert Wagner and Lesley-Anne Down, was brought about for the TV remake of 1958's Indiscreet.

The original got by on it's star power (no less than Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman), not on it's thin story of forbidden romance. So this pale imitation really didn't stand much of a chance from the get-go.

If Wagner and Down in any way fell short of Grant and Bergman, imagine John Shea and Jenny Robertson stepping into the pair's shoes for a 1992 remake of one of their more enduring works, 1946's Notorious!

This time, once again, someone was doing over a Hitchcock film that had been a tremendous hit. WHO was even asking for these pale remakes?!

At least this one, 1984's Sentimental Journey, was a remake of a film that wasn't exactly a blockbuster the first time around (in 1946, with Maureen O'Hara and John Payne.) Here, Jaclyn Smith and David Dukes played a married couple faced with the oncoming death of the wife.

Smith insists upon adopting a young boy (a girl in the original) so that Dukes will have someone on-hand to love after she's gone (this was pre-Tinder and possibly even pre-Great Expectations dating service?) Smith later did a lacking remake of 1950's Three Secrets in 1999.

This one was rough. 1985's The Bad Seed was a remake of the 1956 camp classic that had netted Oscar nominations for several of its participants. This pallid, pastel update starred Blair Brown and an utterly resistible Carrie Wells as the title figure.

In Henry Jones' old role of the skeptical and cantankerous handyman, David Carradine took over. Lynn Redgrave also appeared as the smothering landlady (only in this instance, bedecked in horrible '80s clothing, including some gaudy aerobic gear!)

Now the 1939 film Jamaica Inn (yet another Hitchcock redo) was not exactly an indelible classic (in fact, it's the one sound film of Hitch's that I've never been able to get all the way through), so perhaps this 1983 one isn't all bad.

One thing going for it is the fact that Jane Seymour (in Maureen O'Hara's old role) was often highly watchable during this part of her career. Also, apart from Patrick McGoohan in Charles Laughton's part, the movie boasted some great character actors like Peter Vaughan and Billie Whitelaw, so this one might be worth a look.

Jane was back at it the following year, this time in a double dose, for Dark Mirror (the TV title eliminated the "The" no matter what this artwork says), a remake of the 1946 Olivia de Havilland thriller The Dark Mirror.

In the 1980s, pre-Dr. Quinn, Seymour was an EXCEPTIONAL bad girl in a slew of projects, the highlight of which was East of Eden (a remake done as a miniseries.) This movie was a camp hoot but, since it costars Stephen Collins, it isn't likely to be popping up a lot on the tube.

Still going "dark" for a moment, I give you 1976's Dark Victory, starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Anthony Hopkins! Note the way the advertising imposes a smiling, long-haired Montgomery over the short-haired photo of her after enduring a brain tumor removal. What the hell were they thinking? "Samantha Stevens Does Cancer?"

This was one of several serious telefilms that Montgomery made in the wake of Bewitched to reinvent her screen persona and avoid being typecast as a sitcom spellbinder. Note Michele Lee in the inset as her best friend. It may have been an okay film (I don't recall seeing it), though I doubt it made anyone forget Bette Davis' famous 1939 tearjerker!

Christmas is nearly upon us, so I may as well begin to wrap things up in that vein. You say you don't recall 1977's It Happened One Christmas ever being a feature film beforehand? Well, you'd be right if you were going strictly by the title...

The story, however, was a re-envisioning of 1946's immortal It's a Wonderful Life, which starred James Stewart and Donna Reed. Here, we have Marlo Thomas as their grown daughter, about to commit suicide off the side of a bridge until an angel (Cloris Leachman) comes to save her. So it's both a distaff remake and a continuation all in one!  (Or to some, a rip-off!)

I end for good with one more television remake, this time of the musical Kismet (filmed sans music in 1944 with Ronald Coleman and Marlene Dietrich and then in its musicalized form in 1955 with Howard Keel, Ann Blyth and Dolores Gray.)  Here, the headliner is Jose Ferrer.

You see, I promised I Dream of Jeannie's Barbara Eden that she could have equal time with Bewitched's Elizabeth Montgomery. Here she is in yet another belly-baring, Arabian-flavored role! (And don't miss her shirtless pal in the background.)

In fact, that's a great place to end this post. It's getting warm in here! This might be one occasion in which the remake is (in at least one way) more "entertaining" than the original. We know there are more of these (Tuesday Weld's 1981 take on Madame X comes to mind), so share any recollections you might have if you wish!

A Brief Camp-ing Getaway!

Oh, duckies... We've been overwhelmed by the final rehearsals and opening of our latest stage show (and positively pounded at work as well!), so we can only arrange for a little "camp"-ing trip until things let up a bit. A round of photos that tickle our camp sensibility for one reason or another. We hope you find them interesting or entertaining! Thanks to our cover boy Mark Damon (and his twirling, whirling friend!)

You know that we like vintage ads, especially vintage underwear ads, so we kick things off with four of them from a series of popular ones that have hooty camp characteristics (as well as some beefcake) now.

Hmmm... I like underwear ads that start off with a man naked but for a towel!

I beg your pardon??

The (cut-off) title of this one was "The Long and the Short of It" (and they were allegedly talking about their briefs...)

This publicity portrait for the kiddie show Space Patrol (1950-1955) has Lyn Osborn receiving some attention from gal-pals Virginia Hewitt and Nina Bara while Ed Kemmer and Ken Mayer look on. Are they jealous of Lyn or of the girls?  LOL

The plot and cast of The Girl in Black Stockings (1957), a murder thriller, has built-in camp value that this rather awkward publicity portrait only emphasizes further. Shown are Mamie Van Doran, Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor (though a scenery-chewing Ron Randell isn't depicted here.)

Presumably a portrait taken for a TV special (?), Chita Rivera brings along the camp and a trio of hirsute safety gays.

Populating the TV-movie High School U.S.A (1983) with a plethora of former child actors and sitcom stars past their "best if sold by" date was already a recipe for corniness, but this bizarre photo, in which Gilligan's Island's (1964-1967) Dawn Wells head is quite larger than anyone else's and looms over Michael J. Fox like a Carnival or Mardi Gras decoration seals the deal. Also shown are Father Knows Best's (1954-1960) Elinor Donahue and Make Room for Daddy's (1953-1965) Angela Cartwright. (The movie also included Bob Denver, Dwayne Hickman, Tony Dow, David Nelson and Dana Plato!)

In 1950's Return of the Frontiersman, velvet-voiced Gordon MacRae is serenading Julie London, but Rory Calhoun seems to be taking just as much, if not more, interest in what Gordy's got to offer!

This staged portrait is from the middle of Barbara Stanwyck's career (maybe around 1952's Clash By Night?), not the early days, so it is quite rare to find her doing swimsuit/cheesecake poses. The actress was resistant to anything of this sort from the very beginning of her film career, which started in the very late-1920s.

In the 1962 peplum adventure My Son, The Hero, Giuliano Gemma seems to be positioning himself for something more than a fight with Serge Nubret! Make love, not war, I always say...

I couldn't resist sharing a better view of Gemma's li'l get-up. Look closely at the cute construction of it, how it wraps around his torso. (P.S. - the King's outfit on the right is just the sort of thing that I would - and have - been put into in a show!)

We recently mentioned Vince Edwards' career start during our tribute to The Seduction (1982) and here he is (blond!) in Mister Universe (1950) with a collection of cohorts that includes Bert Lahr, Jack Carson and an unrecognizable Janis Paige.

Sal Mineo, during one of his films such as Tonka (1958) seems to have been caught with his pants down or over a barrel...

What an odd composition of humpy Van Williams for his series Surfside 6 (1960-1962), but then if I looked the way he did, I'd gaze at myself often, too!

Williams' pal and fellow TV hero Adam West had it far worse with this campy shot from Batman (1966-1968)  From the soaked-through chest sweat, we can surmise that the costume was an absolute furnace on that hot beach!

Talk about weird (but not unwelcome!), we have this promotional photo of 4/5ths of the cast of The Rat Patrol (1966-1968), a desert-set WWII action show that starred Christopher George, Lawrence Casey, Justin Tarr and Eric Braeden (then known as Hans Gudegast.) Missing from this uncharacteristically-undressed shot is Gary Raymond.

Here during a break in filming Planet of the Apes (1968), Charlton Heston enjoys a moment with a diminutive actor portraying one of the ape youngsters. We hope it's not an actual child, considering he's having a smoke - through a holder to avoid damaging the extensive make-up!

Even crazier is this shot of a couple of gals grabbing their masks, but not the rest of their simian get-ups!

What, you may ask, is happening here?! No this isn't a snapshot from Fire Island, but a publicity photo for the TV miniseries Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (1979.) The examination of the demise of six male friends' relationships starred Billy Crystal, Tony Musante, Ted Bessell, David Ogden Stiers, Robert Conrad and Jeff Conaway.

Look at him go! Gregory Harrison portrayed a male stripper in the landmark TV-movie For Ladies Only (1981)

You might recognize this couple, but do you know what the project was? No cheating! I'll tell you their names in any case:  Jean Simmons and Bert Convy. Answer a little later below.

The unfortunately silly disaster flick The Concorde...Airport '79 issued this press photo of the plane spinning upside down (something it did over and over, even after the passengers survived it and disembarked... they got back on for more!!)

Just for fun, here's that same press photo upside-down so you can see the flip side!

We really do love Jane Seymour, and she may very well warrant a tribute here one of these days for her stunning work in miniseries TV and Somewhere in Time (1980), but remember in the late-'80s when she was shoving her intensely romantic life down our throats?

She even prepared a coffee table book on the subject, as if members of her general fan base were going to in any way be able to live in a castle with swans floating around and bedeck themselves in jewels and voluminous gowns!

This over-the-top display of home perfection and romantic ecstasy did backfire a bit when she and her husband divorced about six years after the publication of her guide...

Look who we have here! Linda Rogo and Reverend Scott from The Poseidon Adventure (1972)?

Well, not quite, but sorta... this pair of models are wearing the film's costumes in order to demonstrate some of Paul Zastupnevich's work during the presentation of the Best Costume award at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony!

In a trend that went on several times over the course of about a decade, music played while the clothing was shown off by models (or some years, making it even more fun, actresses!) Campy and tacky, but SO MUCH FUN! You can view the whole spectacle here. Do note that the same piece of John Williams music - from The Poseidon Adventure's New Year's Eve party - is reworked for each of the five vignettes!

And now we'll leave you with the answer to our earlier question about what Jean Simmons and Bert Convy were doing, gussied up and in an embrace. They were costars of the fabulously horrendous, thus captivatingly compelling, TV miniseries Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls (1981)! Seen here is David Birney as Lyon Burke and a gaggle of nautical chorines.

Someone somewhere felt the need to cast Bert Convy as the medically (and mentally!)-challenged Tony Polar and Jean Simmons as the fire-breathing diva Helen Lawson. They are shown in the program performing a number from their latest alleged spectacular movie musical! True, both had sung before - he in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway and she in Guys and Dolls (1955) - but they were hardly the types to portray hit musical stars of 1981! Pictured with Simmons is the movie's costumer Jean-Pierre Dorléac, who wrote to me once after reading a blog entry concerning Pamela Hensley, (whose costumes on Buck Rogers he'd designed!) but whose e-mail I accidentally deleted not long after receiving it! My apologies, Mssr. Dorléac!