36 Hours 1965  N/R, 115 min.
Genre: Drama / Thriller
Director: George Seaton
Cast: James Garner, Rod Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Werner Peters, Alan Napier, Celia Lovsky, John Banner, Ed Gilbert, Sig Ruman, Russell Thorson, Oscar Beregi Jr., Karl Held, Martin Kosleck, Marjorie Bennett, Henry Rowland
During World War II, U.S. Army Intelligence Major Jefferson Pike (James Garner) is captured by the Germans shortly before D-Day. In an effort to get information about an Allied invasion, Pike's captors drug him to convince him that the war is long over and that he has suffered from amnesia for the last six years. Pike is also told that he has a wife, but Anna (Eva Marie Saint) is not really married to him. She took this assignment to get away from abuse in her concentration camp. Pike catches on to the ploy, and the game of cat-and-mouse ensues between Pike and the Nazi doctor, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor), who is pumping him for information.
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Desert Legion 1953  N/R, 86 min.
Genre: Adventure
Director: Joseph Pevney
Cast: Alan Ladd, Richard Conte, Arlene Dahl, Akim Tamiroff, Oscar Beregi Jr., Leon Askin, Anthony Caruso, George J. Lewis
Alan Ladd leads a group of legionnaires in search of a guerilla leader who has been ambushing legionnaires, and this time it happens again with Ladd as the only survivor. When summoned back by Princess Morjana to rid her hidden city of the evil Crito and his followers, Ladd has his hands full. Stiff and stale.
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 The Incredible Mr. Limpet 1964  N/R, 102 min.
Genre: Family / Animation / Comedy / Fantasy
Director: Arthur Lubin
Cast: Don Knotts, Carole Cook, Jack Weston, Andrew Duggan, Larry Keating, Oscar Beregi Jr., Charles Meredith, Elizabeth MacRae, Paul Frees, Phil Arnold
Harry Limpet (Don Knotts) is a nervous little bookkeeper who is infatuated with fish. He volunteers for the Navy at the start of World War II but is turned down. Then the miracle happens: he slips off a pier, becomes a fish, and helps the war effort by hunting down German U-boats. Good animation in this enjoyable film.
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The Oregon Trail 1959 N/R, 86 min.
Genre: Western
Director: Gene Fowler Jr.
Cast: Fred MacMurray, William Bishop, Nina Shipman, Gloria Talbott, Henry Hull, John Carradine, Elizabeth Patterson, Addison Richards, Oscar Beregi Jr., John Dierkes
A 19th-century journalist (Fred MacMurray) covers a story of Indian attacks on Oregon settlers.
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 Young Frankenstein 1974   PG, 105 min.
Genre: Comedy / Sci-Fi
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Gene Hackman, Teri Garr, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn, Liam Dunn, Danny Goldman, Oscar Beregi Jr., Arthur Malet, Anne Beesley, Monte Landis
This is a great satirical look at Frankenstein as seen through the eyes of comedy when the Monster (Peter Boyle) comes across as a sympathetic creature who elicits many laughs. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is the grandson of the infamous Frankenstein and has inherited his Transylvanian estate. He moves in and meets hunchback Igor (Marty Feldman), assistant Inga (Teri Garr), and housekeeper Frau Blucher (Cloris Leachman). Frankenstein creates his Monster, but Igor has stolen the wrong brain, and problems–and humor–are a certainty. 1 User Review
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| | The Most Successful Mel Brooks Movie | 1fatts 11/08/2007 | I think the credit goes to Gene Wilder -- not as an actor, although he is very good in this, but as the co-writer. Wilder shares writing credit with Brooks on this film, and that may be where the disciplined structure comes from in the film.
The film is, of course, zany and contains the requisite number of Brooks silliness, bad puns and misfires, but, as a film, we have a tight, controlled structure. And we end up, because of it, with a true spoof and tribute to the original James Whale movies.
Wilder does a fine job. Madeline Kahn was a wonder. Kenneth Mars does another one of his truly gifted dialect roles. Gene Hackman's cameo as the blind hermit is, hands down, the funniest thing he ever did. Still, my own personal favourite here is Cloris Leachman doing a take-off of Judith Anderson's housekeeper in "Rebecca"/
I can't say it's the funniest Mel Brooks stuff on film -- that must forever go to two or three of the best scenes in The Producers (That's the original; we won't talk about the musical), but Young Frankenstein, taken as a a whole, is the best "film" Brooks ever did. |
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| 1. 36 Hours (1965)
2. Anything Can Happen (1952)
3. Desert Legion (1953)
4. The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
5. The Oregon Trail (1959)
6. Young Frankenstein (1974)
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