Bert I. Gordon sure loves “Eat and Get Large” movies.
Marjoe Gortner is a football player who confidently makes bad decisions that get people killed. Pamela Martin plays the woman whose type is apparently “guys who look like scared birds who believe they are always right.” Together they fight giant rats that are actually normal-sized mice or cheap rat costumes.
The lesson I learned from this movie: If you find a mysterious puddle of white goo, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
Today’s fake poster is based on a different exploration of the unpredictable effects of deities on mankind.
This is actually five unrelated stories of couples finding out that their marriage licenses are invalid because the Justice of the Peace who signed them started a week early. Everything after that is based on legal nonsense. It never quite works. Lee Marvin shows up for a couple of lines.
Mitzi Gaynor plays a woman who is supposed to be married to a soldier going overseas. They find out they’re not married at the same time that she learns she’s pregnant, and hi-jinks happen when they try to get properly married before he leaves.
Gaynor’s star is at 6288 Hollywood Boulevard. The closest star is Janet Gaynor’s, and it turns out having the same last name is not a coincidence. Mitzi took her stage name from Janet.
Gaynor’s star is also the last on before I turn the corner and head down Vine. I’ve fully completed about a fifteenth of the walk.
This movie is often called things like “A dark supernatural romance.” It could also be called “pretty much everyone is a jerk.” Almost every single person in this movie is horrible to someone else, including (and especially) the two main characters.
“My love for you is huge and undeniable, but you’re not rich so I’m gonna marry this other guy.”
“Well, my love is huger and undeniabler, but you’re marrying some else so I’m going to marry your sister in law purely out of spite.”
I learned today that Merle Oberon was half Asian, but hid it until her death. The chemicals she used to lighten her skin were so rough on her face that someone invented a special light to hide all the scarring. If she had been open about her heritage she almost certainly would not have been nominated for Best Actress; the next Asian to get that nod was Michelle Yeoh, 85 years later.
Merle Oberon’s star is at 6274 Hollywood Boulevard.
It was hard to find a connection to another movie; there are very few movie titles that include the word “wuthering.” I ended up finding another movie with a mythical castle instead.
I do not want to admit how much effort I put into that dumb logo.
100 minutes of beautiful people staring longingly at each other. Totally works.
My biggest regret: I wasn’t feeling well, so I ducked out before In the Mood for Love 2001, a coda short that hasn’t played anywhere but Cannes until this remaster. Stupid oncoming cold made me miss it!
Today’s fake poster is from a different movie about love and trust.
This is the first of this year’s Stephen King Perambulation Pictures- The Running Man comes out in November.
What I don’t understand about this movie: they know they can’t stop for any reason, not even to go to the bathroom. So why are they all wearing normal pants? If I were doing this I’d wear a kilt regimental style.
Also: If I were doing this I would die.
I think this is a good idea for a fake poster, but I’ve got a cold coming on and my body seems to think going to bed would be a better use of my time than making a poster that only four people will see, so you get this proof of concept:
More than once during this Mike Figgis says something like “when you make a documentary it’s always more interesting when there’s a disaster.” I guess things worked out for him.
The most interesting thing about this is the archival footage going back a quarter century of different actors reading the script and doing test shots. This could have been a Ryan Gosling/Uma Thurman movie!
Also: Shia LaBeouf has a bad reputation, and does nothing to challenge that here.
Today’s fake poster comes from a different movie fiasco.
This was fun, but once again I must ask: writer/directors, please stop casting yourselves as leads.
This fake poster was motivated by nothing but the fact that I liked the font on the original but couldn’t find anything that resembled it. So I made my own. It’s only letters right now, and the spacing is a little weird, but it works!
Seriously, that font rips.
Love Me Forever
I watched this because it was the only Grace Moore movie I could find. She was an opera singer turned actress, so naturally she plays a woman who just happens to be really good at singing opera. She’s fine, but Leo Carrillo (who I honestly only knew from the beach named after him) is way more fun to watch.
This poster continues my current “one good one, one bad one” pattern. This was a good idea, but the execution is weak.
Bonus Walk of Fame Thing!
One of the walk of fame stars is for Frank Fay. He is credited as the creator of modern standup comedy and the entertainment job of emcee. He was also a racist, fascist, antisemitic, egotistical ass, so I went out of my way to watch enough of him to say “I saw him on film” without having to sit through a real performance. I found a twenty minute promotional film with tons of stars called The Stolen Jools. Fay is in it for about ten seconds, and that’s plenty for me. And no star for him, either.
This is going to get a little spoilery. You have been warned.
This wasn’t based on a play, but it sure felt like it was when it started.
Also: if you’re making a grounded movie about three daughters fighting to resolve their differences while dealing with their dying father, and our only way of knowing he’s even there is the beep of a heart monitor in the other room, maybe don’t have him show up in nearly the last scene and give a show stopping surreal performance that blunts all the growth the characters have gone through over the last two hours.
I looked this up on Letterboxd, saw that it had a 3.7 rating out of five, and decided it was worth watching. About halfway in I was so bored that I looked it up again, and learned that its number are probably artificially inflated by sharing the name of a popular TV series. I WUZ HOODWINKED, I TELL YA!
I chose this movie because I was looking for something with Constance Moore I could watch for free. She had pretty high billing, but she only has a couple of scenes at the beginning of the movie, and in the middle we find out that she was killed off-screen. I almost expected a scribbled card reading “POOCHIE DIED ON HIS WAY HOME” to pop up.
…and to finish off this turd fest: I couldn’t figure out a decent parody poster, and there were pretty much no decent pictures from the movie. And that’s why today’s poster is a halfass reference to the poster for “Ernest Goes to Jail.” The only thing that’s close to the original poster is the lettering.
