Shame (Cliff Robertson) is back, escaping from prison with the help of Calamity Jan (Dina Merrill) and her mother, Frontier Fanny (Hermione Baddeley), who is also interfering in their potential romance, but that won’t stop Shame for preparing for his latest caper. The Great Escape was written by Stanley Ralph Ross and first aired on…
Tag: cliff robertson
Batman (1966) – Come Back, Shame, and It’s How You Play the Game
Holy guest stars, it’s Cliff Robertson as this week’s villain! He seems to be leaning into the camp of the thing, as he dons a cowboy outfit and claims the name Shame just so that a child, Andy (Eric Shea) can later on deliver a riff on the iconic line from Shane. This two-parter was…
Brainstorm (1983) – Douglas Trumbull
Special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull delivered his last Hollywood movie in 1983. Problems with the production company, and the untimely death of one of the film’s leads, Natalie Wood, impacted his opinion of the Hollywood machine, and he left them behind. The film features a solid cast, Christopher Walken, Louise Fletcher and Cliff Robertson join…
Escape From L.A. (1996) – 4K Review
You either love this film or you don’t. There’s really no two ways about it. Some of it is so out there, that you can’t help but roll your eyes. But if you want to see director John Carpenter, and star Kurt Russell bringing their anti-hero Snake Plissken back to the screen some fifteen years…
The Twilight Zone (1962) – The Gift, The Dummy, and Young Man’s Fancy
Buckle up, there’s the sign post up ahead! It’s time to return to The Twilight Zone, courtesy of Paramount Pictures The Complete Series on blu-ray. First up is The Gift. Written by series creator Rod Serling, this episode debuted on 27 April, 1962. Williams (Geoffrey Horne) is an alien. He just crashed south of the…
The Twilight Zone (1961) – Long Distance Call, A Hundred Yards Over the Rim, and The Rip Van Winkle Caper
Paramount Pictures dares me to go deeper into The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series on blu-ray, and I took them up on it. First up this week is Long Distance Call. Written by Charles Beaumont and William Idelson, this episode had its premiere on 31 March, 1961. Young Bill Mumy (making his first of three…
633 Squadron (1964) -Walter Grauman
Cliff Robertson leads the lucky 633 Squadron in this World War II melodrama that is the next recommendation from my screening of The Dam Busters for the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book. The actual aerial photography of the film is stunning, above and around England, while the rotoscope work behind the cast…
Escape From L.A. (1996) – John Carpenter
I love me some John Carpenter, and his work with Kurt Russell is always enjoyable, but this next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book isn’t as good as it could have been, but I still enjoy parts of it, I mean there’s Kurt as Snake Plissken, again. This time the year is 2013, L.A. has…
Spider-Man 3 (2007) – Sam Raimi
My web-slinging adventures continue with my screening of Spider-Man 3 for the Sc-Fi Chronicles, and this is a bit of a mixed bag, as instead of trusting to the director who brought them two very successful pictures, the studio wanted to shoehorn in a fan favorite character, Venom (Topher Grace) instead of letting Spidey…
Spider-Man (2002) – Sam Raimi
The 101 Action Movies list brings yet another comic book hero to its fold with this fun adaptation of the Marvel comic by director Sam Raimi, perhaps best known until that point for his Evil Dead films (watch for Bruce Campbell’s cameo!). The Marvel Universe is brought to wonderful life in this film, Tobey…
The Mind Reels 