Moviefone's 31 Scariest Movie Moments

Movie list "slideshows" are everywhere these days. But I did run across this one that I liked— Moviefone's day-by-day countdown to, not the scariest movies, but the scariest actual movie moments. They have "clues" for each day in October and reveal the answers one day at a time.


Link to Moviefone's 31 scariest movie moments.

Halloween's clue? "This ghostly tale was the director's first and only "horror" flick. The scariest scene will have you seeing double."

Top Ten 1970s Films On My Movie-Radar

The decade that introduced the Hollywood blockbuster; the rise of "new" Hollywood: Allen, Altman, Ashby, Coppola, Scorsese, etc.; the maturation of several European greats: Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut, to name a few; plus Blaxploitation, disaster flicks, and outer-space! Here's a list of ten classic 1970s films that have managed to elude me so far, but they're on my radar:

The Conformist - 1970

The Hospital - 1971

Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Assssss Song - 1971

What's Up Doc? - 1972

Lenny - 1974

Bite the Bullet - 1975

Smile - 1975

Assault on Precinct 13 - 1976

Harlan County, U.S.A. - 1977

The Tin Drum - 1979

Biography Book Corner #1: Frank Capra's "The Name Above the Title"— Chapter 10: "Burn the First Two Reels"

This blog entry will be my first in a series of ongoing irregularly posted entries highlighting individual chapters of biographies and autobiographies of film personnel. It's meant to be a blog version of grabbing a book off the shelf that catches your eye— at a friend's house or the book store— and reading a chapter of it. The summarization of the chatper below may inspire the reader to take a look at the book for themselves, or at the very least, it will supply some info on a classic film.


The "Burn the First Two Reels" chapter of Capra's autobiography, The Name Above the Title deals with the 1937 classic Lost Horizon. Below, a summary.


• Capra was invited by Columbia studio head Harry Cohn (along with others) to see a Stanford-U.S.C. football game in Palo Alto, and browsing in Union Station's newstand he came upon James Hilton's book, bought it, read it, and dreamed about it that night.

• At breakfast the next morning Capra told Cohn he wanted him to option the book and that he wanted $2 million for the budget— five times the cost of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Cohn agreed on a six-month option on the book, but said he'd wait to see how Deeds did before greenlighting Lost Horizon. When Deeds was a success, Cohn decided to take the gamble.

• Famed explorer, writer, and photographer of Tibet, Harrison Forman served as technical advisor.

• The Tibetans were played by Pala Indians from the San Diego Mountains.

• Henry Eichman, a California collector of rare, authentic Tibetan trumpets and horns, loaned the production his antique instruments.

• Ronald Colman was Capra's only choice for the lead. He felt that the others on the plane should be "familiar faces" too because they represented the "known" world, and that the inhabitants of Shangri-La should be unknowns (including newcomers Jane Wyatt [with Colman, on right] and Margo).

• The casting of the High Lama was originally given to a 90-year-old stage performer who had never been in movies, but after a successful screen test, he died ("The long hoped-for Hollywood call had come. He smiled, and died.") [The next candidate, Henry B. Walthall, the Little Colonel of The Birth of a Nation, died before he could be tested.]

• Stage actor Sam Jaffe got the part of the High Lama— his whispery line readings were initially a problem since the microphones were left wide open to pick up his dialogue and the occasional stomach rumble from a crew member was heard.

• The snow sequences were filmed in a industrial cold storage warehouse, which caused such technical issues as fogged film and short-circuiting cables. ("With wind machines, snow machines, and back-projection machines we conjured up the Arctic rigors of the Himalayas.")

• Capra hired Dimitri Tiomkin (who he strongly believed in) for his first movie score; Capra, though, had Max Steiner conduct the orchestra, knowing that had Steiner disliked the score he would have stepped in himself. Capra was ecstatic with Tiomkin's score, however. [NOTE: Tiomkin has a few earlier screen credits.]

• At the first screening in the studio projection room, everyone was pleased including Cohn. At the Santa Barbara preview, the film was met with laughter and walk-outs. ("The preview was a shambles. Lost Horizon was an unshowable, unreleaseable motion picture.")

• Capra made a bold decision in deleting and burning the first two reels of Lost Horizon— amounting to twenty minutes screen time— and asked Cohn for a new preview screening. [NOTE: Capra's claim of cutting the first two reels is considered an oversimplification of what really happened. Film historians believe that Capra did indeed cut twenty minutes of the film but that it included more sophisticated cutting than simply deleting the opening. The early part of the film, was, however, cut. It was a prologue in which Ronald Colman begins to tell his story on a cruise ship. The footage, which Capra claims to have burned, has never been recovered.]

• The new preview, in San Pedro, was a success; "the audience was spellbound."

• Columbia's "class" VP, "bon vivant" Nate Spingold, marketed the film to the world's literati according to Capra and thusly "put [the] Poverty Row [studios] on the map."

• Capra concludes his chapter saying (without much in the way of modesty), that he pioneered the beginning of the "one man, one film" concept versus the "committee" method of Louis B. Mayer.

Here, Capra is on Cavett talking about the Santa Barbara preview:

Alfred Hitchcock's Silent Features: "Easy Virtue"

Continuing my irregularly scheduled capsule reviews of Alfred Hitchcock's eight extant silent features, I present Easy Virtue. Easy Virtue can be found on those cheapy DVD sets of Hitchcock's early films; it's one of his more interesting early efforts (second only to The Lodger).

Hitchcock's silents were his training ground; and his later films are that much more visual as a result of his having started in the silent era. His silents are unfortunately either unreleased on VHS/DVD or in unrestored state on poorly presented DVDs. For the best quality/most reliable seller out there, if you are looking for Hitchcock's unreleased DVD titles (such as Downhill, Waltzes From Vienna, among others) I recommend this seller.

Easy Virtue (1927)
A woman, fleeing the tabloid gossip surrounding an artist’s suicide and her subsequent divorce, falls in love with a young suitor at a French Riviera resort and silently suffers as she keeps her real identity a secret from him and his family.

Dated melodrama (based on a Noel Coward play) is given momentum by Hitchcock’s deft direction. Some interesting visuals include: in the opening courtroom scene, the judge looks through his monocle and we see a closer shot of the lawyer through it, a stationary tennis racket starts in motion as its owner runs toward the ball and away from the camera, the expressions of a nosy switchboard operator reveal the various subjects of a conversation she’s listening in to. The use of a still camera as a motif is, however, heavy handed. The opening courtroom scene presents a well-constructed series of flashbacks; however, the bulk of the film from then on, is straight soap opera (consisting of such title cards as: “If only I could remember where I’ve seen her face before… I’m certain she wants to conceal something from us!”). Beautiful on-location scenery (interior as well as exterior) abounds during the second half of the movie. SPOILER!: Memorable final title card, as Larita is greeted by photographers: “Shoot! There’s nothing left to kill.” Worthy of a screening to see the hand of the (young) master at work.

Kino Puts Out Second Griffith Box Set

The modern eye may wince at the mere mention of D.W. Griffith, but he was such a significant figure in the push for film as an art form, that every single one of his films should be (a) restored (b) released on DVD. Kino Video is leading the way to getting the Griffith films out, including now, the obscure The Avenging Conscience (1914), plus a few of his more familiar titles, including his two sound features: Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Griffith Masterworks 2 comes out on Nov. 18.

Woody Allen's Typeface— Windsor

Blogging about the "Art of the Titles" website a few days ago reminded me that I came across an an article online a while back, which gave the origin of the "Woody Allen" titles/movie poster font. Apparently, the font (WINDSOR) was suggested by Ed Benguiat, who used to have breakfast at the same diner as Woody Allen in the mid-70s. See link.

Although title design can offer an exciting open to a film, I've always enjoyed the plain Woody opens (white-on-black WINDSOR titles and jazz music)-- maybe it's like seeing/hearing the opening and theme song to a favorite television show-- gives you that feeling of comfort.

"Quantum of Solace" Theme Song and Video Online

The Jack White/Alicia Keys theme song for the new Bond film, "Another Way to Die," has been online for a bit (link) and now the video is too (on youtube, below). I like the song and the video is very retro. I guess you couldn't expect them to do song called "Quatum of Solace"! I'm just dying to see Quantum, just a few short weeks away!