Celebrating Father’s Day

by Kimberly Lindbergs | June 16, 2011

Categories | Rants & Raves, Westerns, War, Musicals, Steve McQueen, Elliot Gould, Clint Eastwood, Movie Morlocks, TCM

Steve McQueen in THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963)
Me and my dad (1972)

From my latest at the Movie Morlocks:

“I recently became an aunt again so I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately and with Father’s Day right around the corner I thought I’d share some thoughts about my own dad and how the movies we watched together helped make me the person I am today.”

- Life With Father @ TCM’s Classic Movie Blog

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My Grandfather And Me

by Kimberly Lindbergs | May 6, 2010

Categories | Movie Reviews, Westerns, Movie Morlocks, TCM

All month long TCM will be running a series of films under the banner Race & Hollywood: Native American Images On Film. It’s a broad and complex topic so I decided to write about a broad and complex film, Arthur Penn’s extraordinary Little Big Man (1970). While watching it again recently after a 20 year hiatus I was taken aback by how much the movie had influenced other films like Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) and Robert Zemeckis’s less interesting Forest Gump (1994). I also got the urge to hunt down a copy of John Hammond’s wonderful soundtrack for Little Big Man since Hammond’s score got lodged in my head while I was watching the movie. I didn’t mention this in my review, but I think Little Big Man is probably my favorite Arthur Penn film. It’s a sentimental movie that I first saw in a drive-in with my parents when I was just a kid. Obviously this colored my view of the film along with other personal experiences.

Long before I was born my own grandfather and grandmother were divorced. My grandmother remarried a wonderful man by the name of Willie who happened to be a Native American. Although Willie was only my mother’s step-father he never let me know it. For years I assumed Willie was my real grandfather and he treated me with the kind of love and tenderness that you’d expect from a member of your own family.

Willie lived in a trailer right outside Nevada where he had created a makeshift farm and he surrounded himself with chickens, goats and an occasional cow or two. He also had vast gardens where he planted corn, squash and other delicious vegetables. In the summertime my mother would often leave my brother and myself with Willie and we’d spend the warm summer months sleeping in his crowded trailer home, feeding the chickens, milking the goats and cows, and picking vegetables. He was a quiet and reserved man who liked watching The Lawrence Welk Show and he smelled like gasoline. When he wasn’t at home he was working at a gas station and his hands were stained from oil. I grew up loving the smell of gasoline and the sweet taste of goat’s milk thanks to my grandfather.

As laid-back as my grandfather was, he wasn’t afraid to be aggressive if the need arose and he didn’t suffer fools lightly. I may even owe him my life. One hot summer day I was on my way to feed the chickens when I heard the sound of a rattlesnake close by. I froze in fear and was afraid to shout for help as I watched the rattler make its way towards me. Suddenly my grandfather seemed to appear out of nowhere with a shovel in his hand and in a blink of an eye he threw it right at the snake and took off its head. I’ll never forget that moment and I’ll never forget Willie.

If you’d like to read my contribution to TCM’s film series Race & Hollywood: Native American Images On Film you’ll find them at the Movie Morlocks.

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Hannie’s Revenge

by Kimberly Lindbergs | April 1, 2010

Categories | Movie Reviews, Westerns, Movie Morlocks, TCM, Raquel Welch

In memory of the recently deceased actor Robert Culp and in honor of Raquel Welch’s appearance on TCM tonight as a Guest Programmer I decided to write a bit about one of my favorite revenge westerns, Bob Kennedy’s Hannie Caulder (1971). Like many of my favorite films, the movie is far from perfect but I appreciate it more every time I see it. If you’d like to read my lengthy thoughts about Hannie Caulder you can currently find them over at the Movie Morlocks Blog.

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The Magnificent Soundtrack

by Kimberly Lindbergs | March 18, 2010

Categories | Soundtracks, Composers, American Cinema, Westerns, Steve McQueen, Movie Morlocks, TCM

The sexiest group of cowboys ever? Hell yes!

Over at the Movie Morlocks Blog I posted a brief piece about one of my favorite westerns, John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (1960). It’s one of the earliest movies I can remember watching as a kid and falling in love with. I’m not sure why I was so drawn to The Magnificent Seven but I suspect it has something to do with my ranch hand roots, the amazing cast and Elmer Bernstein’s terrific score. Check out Variations on a Theme if you’re curious about the evolution of Elmer Bernstein’s unforgettable theme for The Magnificent Seven.

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Clint Eastwood in Swinging London

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 22, 2009

Categories | Actors, Italian Cinema, Westerns, Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone

Clint Eastwood during the ‘67 promotional tour in London for A Fistful of Dollars

Over the last few years I’ve come across various photos taken during the promotional tour that Clint Eastwood did in London for the release of A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone; 1967) and recently Cinema Retro uncovered an interview that Eastwood did with a British reporter during that same promo tour. It’s a great interview and I highly recommend giving it a look if you happen to like Clint Eastwood and the westerns he made in the ’60s as much as I do. Eastwood looks incredible in the clip, but he also has a lot of smart and insightful things to say about Italian westerns. I only wish the clip was a little longer.

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My Top 20 Favorite Films of 1968

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 6, 2008

Categories | Horror, Giallo, Comedies, Crime, Westerns, Hammer Horror, Elizabeth Taylor, Alain Delon, Mario Bava, Steve McQueen, Terence Stamp, Jess Franco, David Hemmings, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Burton, 1968, Klaus Kinski, Brigitte Bardot, Joseph Losey, Girl On a Motorcycle, Julie Christie, Peter Sellers, Marisa Mell, Stanley Kubrick, Terence Fisher, Roman Polanski

At the Britannica blog Raymond Benson has finished listing off his Top 10 Favorite Films of 1968 so if you’re interested in the final results stop by and give them a look. I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions how much I dislike making lists of favorite films myself since they’re limited by what I’ve seen and are subject to change at anytime. Roger Ebert recently asked his blog readers to “. . . agree that all lists of movies are nonsense.” I agreed with him wholeheartedly at the time, but in the process of watching Raymond Benson share his list favorite films from 1968 I naturally began thinking of my own favorite films released the same year.

Compiling a list of favorite films restricted by their release date without implying that they’re “the best” (whatever that means) started to seem like a fun exercise. And while reading the complaints and reservations about Raymond Benson’s own selections I even suggested that it would be interesting if all the participants of the Britannica blog “round-table” supplied their own list of Top 10 Favorite Films for 1968 so we could compare them. I figured that if we were going to scrutinize Raymond Benson’s selections we might as well scrutinize each other. I also thought that it would probably enrich the discussion. No one else seemed willing or able to share a list of there own picks, but for the past two weeks I’ve been quietly compiling a list of my own favorite films from 1968.

I wasn’t planing on sharing my own list with anyone, but over the weekend I listened to an interesting discussion between Greencine’s David Hudson, Film Comment’s Gavin Smith and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum about the current state of film criticism that got me contemplating my list again. During the discussion Jonathan Rosenbaum smartly pointed out that, “People love lists now because they need to. There’s too much to navigate through.” In my own experience I’ve found this to be very true. Since I started blogging my “Favorite DVDs of the year” lists for 2006 and 2007 have become some of my most popular posts and they’ve generated some lively discussions and lots of email. I think other people appreciate them because they offer a brief look at some films I’ve enjoyed and recommend. And in the words of Jonathan Rosenbaum, the lists are easy to navigate through.

So without further explanation, here’s a list of some of my own favorite films from 1968. I couldn’t manage to narrow all my choices down to a mere Top 10 so I just decided to share my Top 20 list instead. I purposefully left off documentaries so you won’t find any listed and four of the films on my list were also on Raymond Benson’s list. The numerical order doesn’t mean much and naturally my list is subject to change at anytime since I’m continually being exposed to new movies. It also should be noted that after looking at various print and online sources I’ve come across different release dates for some films. As far as I know, the following 20 films were originally released in 1968.

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A Double Dose of William Beaudine

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 24, 2007

Categories | Movie Reviews, Horror, Westerns, Blogathons

When I was a kid I often spent my weekends watching double features that played on television as part of the “Monster Matinee” and I thought I’d write about one I can vividly remember seeing for the Double Bill-a-thon currently running at Broken Projector.

I watched a lot of great double features on the Monster Matinee show during the late seventies and lots of forgettable movies as well. One double bill that really stands out in my memory was when William Beaudine’s Billy the Kid versus Dracula (1966) and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966) were aired back-to-back. I had seen a brief commercial for the movies before they played and I was more than excited about seeing them together since they promised lots of “terror,” “thrills” and “action.” I had grown up loving westerns and horror movies, but until that point I had never seen any movie that combined cowboys with monsters. I just knew that Billy the Kid versus Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter had to be great. The mere idea of a horror/western film sent my 10 year-old mind reeling!

I invited some neighborhood kids over and asked my mom to make us some Jiffy Pop Popcorn and Tang to enjoy with the movies. We all gathered around the TV as the films began and anticipation was high, but nobody was looking forward to seeing these movies more than me. The first film shown was Billy the Kid versus Dracula, which starred the great John Carradine. I had previously seen John Carradine in the terrific 1945 film House of Dracula where he was very good. He scared me silly in that movie, so naturally I assumed he’s be great as Dracula again. Boy, was I wrong! As this incredibly dull film trotted along I immediately knew something wasn’t right. Billy the Kid versus Dracula totally lacked suspense and I couldn’t understand why. The other kids got restless and started playing board games. I ended up making excuses for the movie the entire time it was playing even though I found myself giggling at all the wrong moments. When Billy the Kid versus Dracula ended all the kids got up to leave, but I tried explaining to them that this was a ”double feature” and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter was on next. I was sure it would be better than the first movie we watched. The kids all ignored my desperate pleas and left. The popcorn and Tang were all gone so there really wasn’t any reason for them to stick around anymore.

I ended up watching the second half of this double feature all alone and that probably was for the best. Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter was actually a little better than Billy the Kid versus Dracula, but it was nowhere near as good as I had hoped it would be. I was totally dumbfounded by how bad the movies I had just seen were. My little brain was doing cartwheels trying to understand why the acting seemed so terrible and why the scripts made no sense. They were also shot so poorly that I could hardly make out was going on most of the time. I wondered out loud to myself how in the world anyone could make a boring movie with a fantastic title like Billy the Kid versus Dracula? I literally gave myself a headache trying to make sense of William Beaudine’s movies that afternoon.

My mom ended up asking me what I had thought of the films, but I was rather speechless. I explained to her that I didn’t understand them and I couldn’t figure out why they had been so bad. It was the first time in my life that I can remember being genuinely disappointed with a movie, so I told my mom I thought they were “real stinkers” and they were.

The director of these two stinkers was known as William “One Shot” Beaudine and he earned that nickname late in his career due to the fact that he would often shoot just one take, regardless of the problems that happened while he was shooting. It didn’t matter to Beaudine if actors forgot their lines or the special effects failed. He would go on filming and if any changes were made to the final product he churned out, they were done in the editing room. Before becoming a b-movie maker and working on popular television shows, Beaudine had been an assistant director to D.W. Griffith and even worked with him on films like The Birth of a Nation (1915). Beaudine also helped make Mary Pickford a star with movies like Little Annie Rooney (1925) and Sparrows (1926). Billy the Kid versus Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein Daughter were the 74 year old director’s last feature films after making over 350 movies, and they’re the work of a tired man just trying to make a buck who doesn’t seem to care what he’s shooting anymore. Both movies were often shown as a double feature at the drive-in during the sixties, so it’s not too surprising that the movies were also often shown together on television.

Beaudine’s Billy the Kid versus Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein Daughter are both currently available on DVD. If you’re curious to see one of Beaudine’s stinkers I recommend Jesse James Meets Frankenstein Daughter since it’s slightly better than Billy the Kid versus Dracula. The lovely Narda Onyx stars as Dr. Maria Frankenstein and she’s worth watching even if all the others actors involved with the film seem like their sedated and reading their lines off of cue cards.

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DVD of the Week: They Call Me Trinity

by Kimberly Lindbergs | September 5, 2007

Categories | Comedies, Westerns, DVD of the Week

This week’s Recommended DVD Release of the Week is the Trinity Twin Pack from Hen’s Tooth Video which contains the films They Call Me Trinity (1970) and Trinity Is Still My Name (1971). The Trinity movies have been available on DVD for awhile, but this new DVD set features all-new digital transfers remastered from the original Technicolor prints and both films are presented in their correct widescreen ratios for the first time.

As I mentioned back in May, I really enjoy all the Spaghetti Western comedies starring the handsome blue-eyed Italian/German actor Terence Hill (a.k.a. Mario Girotti). Both movies in the Trinity Twin Pack feature Terence Hill along with his longtime co-star Bud Spencer (a.k.a. Carlo Pedersoli) as two unlikely half-brothers who find themselves in all sorts of unusual and very funny situations in the wild and wacky west. The Trinity films parody previous Spaghetti Westerns and seem to really enjoy poking fun at the genre as well as celebrating its eccentricities.

The talented Italian director and cinematographer Enzo Barboni directed and wrote both of the Trinity movies featured in the Trinity Twin Pack and he really knows how to make entertaining slapstick comedies that appeal to all-ages. I first saw the Trinity films when I was just a kid and I still find them funny today. Both of these Trinity movies contain plenty of creative gunplay and exciting action, but the violence and bloodshed found in many Spaghetti Westerns has been replaced by lots of laughs.

To learn more about the films I recommend visiting the official Cinedelic Records site for They Call Me Trinity and for more information about the handsome and funny star of the Trinity films check out Terence Hill’s Official International Website.

The Trinity Twin Pack DVD set is currently available at Amazon and you should be able to find both movies at better online DVD rental sources like Netflix and Greencine.

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Kiss Kiss… Bang Bang!

by Kimberly Lindbergs | May 23, 2007

Categories | News, Spies & Secret Agents, Westerns, Television

My favorite spy - Modesty Blaise

A quick reprieve from my French obsessions to chat about my obsession with spies & secret agents…

I was recently the very lucky Grand Prize Winner of the first contest held over at Tanner’s wonderful Double O Section blog. I received a brand new Wild Wild West - The Complete Second Season DVD set in the mail on Monday and I couldn’t be more happy about it. Thanks Tanner!

The Wild Wild West has long been one of my favorite TV shows (but I must add that I loathe the Will Smith movie) and I actually prefer Season II of The Wild Wild West to Season I because the show gets more entertaining and just plain crazy at times. The earlier episodes were shot in black and white and they’re a little more subdued. The second season has a few more laughs and it’s shot in color, which adds a lot to the almost psychedelic inspired action that often takes place.

I’m really happy that the success of the recent James Bond film has led to a renewed interest in all things spy related. Lots of great old TV shows like The Wild Wild West and Jason King are now being released on DVD and many old films such as Kommisar X and Espionage In Tangiers are also finding their way onto DVD. This coming weekend there is even a 007 Film Festival happening in San Francisco that I would love to attend.

If you happen to be interested in spies and secret agents yourself, I highly recommend visiting Double O Section. Tanner knows his stuff and shares lots of great info about the latest spy films, books and anything else he comes across that is spy related. He’s also planning to hold other contests in the future.

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