Author: Ga2so

  • Walk of Fame Movie Adventures: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Edna Best

    Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre in The Man Who Knew Too Much.
    Edna Best in The Man Who Knew Too Much.

    I haven’t seen Hitchcock’s 1956 self-remake of this, but I sure hope it’s better than this. The best thing in the movie is Peter Lorre; he’s an oily ball of creepy charm.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Edna Best's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Edna Best.

    This movie has Edna Best’s best-known part as a mother/clay pigeon sharpshooter. Her last movie was 1948’s The Iron Curtain, but she was on radio and television through most of the 1950s.

    Fun Fact: Edna Best’s star is the first one I’ve been able to identify on google maps! And someone is stepping on it- how rude!

    I almost used the poster for the 1956 version for the model of this one, but I thought this was funnier. Certainly harder to lay out!

    A fake poster for THe Man Who Knew Too Much mimicking the poster for The Man Who Fell to Earth.
    Yes, this poster (and the original version) use the same font that Iron Maiden uses.
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  • Walk of Fame Retro Movie Adventures: Seconds (1966) and Rock Hudson

    Rock Hudson, his face wrapped in bandages, while doctors examine him.
    Rock Hudson looking at multiple reflections of himself in Seconds.

    I wonder how many times Coralie Fargeat has seen this. It’s not the same story as The Substance, but it sure seems to share a lot of style DNA. I bet Lynch saw this, too.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Rock Hudson's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Rock Hudson.

    I had somehow never seen a Rock Hudson movie, so naturally the one I did see is the weirdest movie he ever made.

    Hey look! A fake poster!

    A fake poster for Seconds mimicking the poster for Say Anything.

    BONUS! Progress report!

    Here’s a rough map of the Walk of Fame and my progress. Yellow is incomplete, red is done.

    A map with the Hollywood Walk of Fame marked in yellow, and my progress marked in red. There isn't much red.
    Yeah, this is going to take a while.

    This map makes it look like I have a lot of stars to cover- and I do – but fewer than you think. It only shows completed sections. I’ve already seen something in almost every section, and almost every movie I watch for this project covers more than one star, so this should speed up as I go. If I really pushed I could probably finish by Christmas.

    I will not finish by Christmas.

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  • Retro Movie Adventures: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

    Stylized image of Mary Woronov as Miss Togar. She is rendered in hot colors (reds, magentas, yellows). The background is a distorted image of The Ramones in two tones (black and blue).
    Some of the cast of Rock 'n' Roll High School, featuring Paul Bartel in a Ramones ringer t-shirt.

    Dumb fun, and almost no racist caricatures! PJ Soles plays a high school student. She was 30 when she made this, but she really manages to look like a teenager being played by a 35 year old.

    This poster is a little jankier than usual, but I think that fits the vibe of the movie.

    A fake poster for Rock 'n' Roll High School mimicking the poster for Superman.
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  • Walk of Fame Movie Adventures: Jungle Bride (1933) and Anita Page

    Styized image of Anita Page in Jungle Bride
    Eddie Borden and Charles Starrett in Jungle Bride

    Well, this isn’t very good. Just over an hour long with probably twenty minutes of not-compelling stock footage, and lots of weak dialogue and stiff performances. One thing I was glad it do not do: it didn’t have any racist “jungle tribes.”

    I really only watched this for one thing:

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Anita Page's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Anita Page.

    Anita Page had a weird career. She started in Silents, was a co-star with Joan Crawford, and apparently at one point second only to Greta Garbo at MGM. She worked sound movies for about a year and retired, then came back for a film in the sixties (that didn’t get released until 2001!) and retired again, then came back in the late 1990s/early 2000s to make a few low budget shot on video movies.

    Jungle Bride is a pre-code film, and has some nudity: about a tenth of a second of exposed breast. The fake poster is based on another shipwreck movie that featured controversial nudity.

    A fake poster for Jungle Bride mimicking the poster for Blue Lagoon.
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  • Walk of Fame Adventures: Design For Living (1933) and Will H. Hays

    Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, and Gary Cooper in Design For Living.
    Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, and Gary Cooper in Design For Living.

    A woman falls in love with two men, so they all live together? Where man has sex with a laundry woman so he can have a clean shirt for a date with someone else? Pretty wild for 1933.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Will H. Hays's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Will H. Hays.

    Will Hays had nothing to do with this move. He never starred in a movie. He never wrote, directed, or produced a movie. He was a politician and chairman of the Republican National Committee before becoming the first chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. He’s best remembered for the Hays Code, a set of moral rules that films were required to follow. I thought there could be no better way to celebrate him than to watch a film that gleefully breaks a bunch of those rules.

    Lucky for us, the Hays Code was abandoned, and no Republicans ever try to censor any one any more.

    This fake poster is based on the incredibly clever idea that the opposite of “living” is “dead.”

    A fake poster for Design For Living mimicking the poster for Dawn of the Dead.
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  • Walk of Fame Movie Adventures: Shock (1946) and Lynn Bari

    Lynn Bari and Vincent Price in Shock.
    Michael Dunne and Frank Latimore in Shock.

    What if seeing a stranger murder someone made you CRAY-ZEE??? And the only doctor who could help you turns out to be the murderer??? If this happens to you, you’re probably a character in a film noir.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Lynn Bari's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Lynn Bari.

    Wikipedia says Lynn Bari “specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers.” She’s more of a “get a man to be a killer” here, but close enough. Her real name is Marjorie Fisher, and I can totally see a parallel world where Marge Fisher specializes in playing the sassy friend to the romantic lead. She worked on at least 113 films over 20 years, so she kept busy.

    It’s hard to find posters to mimic for titles as generic as this. I ended up making something that matches the layout of the original, but that’s about it.

    A fake poster for Shock mimicking the poster for Point Break
    I also got lazy and used Photoshop’s “automatic color” thing, which is why her hair fades to black and white.
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  • Movie Pass Adventures: Together

    Stylized image of Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim looking down at the camera in Together. They are shades of brown and tan. The background is shades of green.
    Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim in Together.

    Now that’s what I call a sticky situation!

    Here, a poster for you:

    A fake poster of Together mimicking the poster for Singles.
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  • Movie Pass Adventures: The Naked Gun

    Stylized image of Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson looking at each other intensly.
    Pamela Anderson on stage at a nightclub.

    It was a pleasure to sit a room full of strangers and laugh at something that was intentionally made to be funny. And they nailed the most important requirement of any Naked Gun movie: a Weird Al Yankovic cameo.

    For today’s poster I thought “What’s the opposite of naked?”

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  • Movie Pass Adventures: Oh, Hi!

    Stylized image of Geraldine Viswanathan and Molly Gordon in Oh, Hi! They are shades of purple and magenta. The background is yelllow and orange
    Logan Lerman and Molly Gordon riding in a car in Oh, Hi!

    A classic “we have a great idea for the first half of a story” movie. No bad performances (and some really good ones), but they can’t charm the movie into having an ending that both makes sense and sticks to the tone of the first two thirds of the film.

    Not my best fake poster. The only people who will know what movie is referenced are true film freaks.

    A poster for Oh, Hi! mimicking the poster for Freaks.
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  • Retro Movie Adventures: A Place in the Sun (1951) and Montgomery Clift

    Montgomery Clift, eyes closed, rests his head on the chest of Elizabeth Taylor
    The mouths of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift facing each other in A Place in the Sun.

    Why are all the other characters in this movie smitten with George (Montgomery Clift)? He’s handsome, but he’s a lunkhead. George’s uncle gives him a job where one rule is explicitly given as unbreakable: Don’t date employees. If George had just followed that one rule, everyone ends up happy. Grow up, George.

    Composite picture. On the left, a mockup of Montgomery Clift's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On the Right, a black and white portrait photo of Montgomery Clift.

    George is played by Montgomery Clift, who I knew stories about but mostly knew through the Clash song about him. He played a lot of aloof, sensitive men. I won’t get into it here, but he had a rough, short life.

    There are only two motion picture Walk of Fame stars at 6104 Hollywood Boulevard. Next up: 6116!

    The dumb thinking for today’s poster: This movie is called “A Place in the Sun,” and the sun shines, so…

    A poster for A Place in the Sun Mimicking the poster for The Shining.
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