HARRY DEAN STANTON
He had a face that looked like it had worn out three or four bodies. But Harry Dean Stanton, who died recently at 91, had a great run. His career began in 1954 and spanned over 60 years. He appeared in over 100 movies and 50 TV shows. He even had a part in a still-to-be-released movie at the time of his death (Frank And Ava, now in post-production).
Wise Blood (1969), a weird movie from a weird Flannery O’Connor novel, features Bard Dourif as an anti-preacher, roaming the South spouting hateful drivel against Christianity and its followers. This film is definitely not for all tastes, but it does have a cult following. John Huston, master of weird stories, directs. Harry Dean Stanton has an excellent turn as a standard, and fraudulent, sidewalk preacher.
The Black Marble (1980) is one of the more successful adaptations of Joseph Wambaugh’s delicious cop novels. Robert Foxworth and Paula Prentiss play LA cops ordered to investigate the kidnapping of a Beverly Hills socialite’s pet dog. Harry Dean Stanton is just spot-on as the sleazy kidnapper, who runs a beauty shop for pets and desperately needs money to pay his debts.
Goldie Hawn is an Oscar nominee for Private Benjamin (1980) as a socialite adrift after her new husband dies on their wedding night. A very questionable Army recruiter, ably played by Harry Dean Stanton, convinces her that the US Army is fun and games, almost like a vacation. She quickly discovers it is not that at all, but she can’t unenlist. Her expectations meeting the reality of basic training are the stuff of high comedy.
Perhaps the capstone of Mr. Stanton’s career was his role in Paris, Texas (1984). He appears as Travis Henderson, a mute amnesiac wandering through Texas. The extremely convoluted plot involves Travis eventually finding his son and wife after four missing years. The Straight Story (1999) is one of my favorite movies you’ve probably never heard of. It is the late Richard Farnsworth’s crowning achievement. He plays Alvin,an aging man who is estranged from his brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton). Learning that Lyle has had a stroke, Alvin decides he must go visit him in the hopes of a reconciliation before Lyle dies. Since Alvin has no driver’s license, he drives the 240 mile journey on his John Deere lawn tractor!
You can also catch good HDS moments in Cool Hand Luke (1967) as one of Paul Newman’s fellow convicts, and as Molly Ringwald’s Dad in Pretty In Pink (1986). He also has a brief, but important, part in The Green Mile (1999)
All of the flims in this article are available on DVD and are for grown-ups.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
WHO SAID THAT? 5
Yes, yet another helping of movie quotes. These are the hardest yet. Answers at t he bottom. No cheating! If you get number 16, you’re brilliant!
1- This is really a great city. I don’t care what anyone says!
2- Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
3- I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ babies!
4- My first wife drove me to drink. I’ll always be grateful to her.
5- Years from now when you talk about this- and you will- be kind.
6- In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart.
7- When I die, in the newspapers they’ll write that the sons of bitches of the world have lost their leader.
8- I like to watch.
9- I’ll be back.
10- I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.
11-All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.
12- The only question I ever ask any woman is “What time is your husband coming home?”
13- Round up the usual suspects.
14- To infinity...and beyond!
15- Beulah, peel me a grape.
16- 24601.
1- Woody Allen to Diane Keaton in Manhattan (1979)
2- Jean Harlow to Ben Lyon in Hell’s Angels (1930)
3- Butterfly McQueen to Vivian Leigh in Gone With The Wind (1939)
4- W.C. Fields in Never Give A Sucker An Even Break (1941)
5- Deborah Kerr to John Kerr in Tea And Sympathy (1956).
6- Millie Perkins in The Diary Of Anne Frank (1959)
7- Vincent Gardenia in Bang The Drum Slowly (1973)
8- Peter Sellers in Being There (1979)
9- Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator (1984)
10- Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
11- Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
12- Paul Newman to Patricia Neal in Hud (1963)
13- Claude Rains to his police officers in Casablanca (1942)
14- Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) in Toy Story (1995)
15- Mae West to Gertrude Howard in I’m No Angel (1933)
16- Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) confessing his prison number in Les Miserables (2012)
16- Brilliant! Mensa candidate
12-15 Cinephile
9-11 Fair
Yes, yet another helping of movie quotes. These are the hardest yet. Answers at t he bottom. No cheating! If you get number 16, you’re brilliant!
1- This is really a great city. I don’t care what anyone says!
2- Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
3- I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ babies!
4- My first wife drove me to drink. I’ll always be grateful to her.
5- Years from now when you talk about this- and you will- be kind.
6- In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart.
7- When I die, in the newspapers they’ll write that the sons of bitches of the world have lost their leader.
8- I like to watch.
9- I’ll be back.
10- I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.
11-All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.
12- The only question I ever ask any woman is “What time is your husband coming home?”
13- Round up the usual suspects.
14- To infinity...and beyond!
15- Beulah, peel me a grape.
16- 24601.
1- Woody Allen to Diane Keaton in Manhattan (1979)
2- Jean Harlow to Ben Lyon in Hell’s Angels (1930)
3- Butterfly McQueen to Vivian Leigh in Gone With The Wind (1939)
4- W.C. Fields in Never Give A Sucker An Even Break (1941)
5- Deborah Kerr to John Kerr in Tea And Sympathy (1956).
6- Millie Perkins in The Diary Of Anne Frank (1959)
7- Vincent Gardenia in Bang The Drum Slowly (1973)
8- Peter Sellers in Being There (1979)
9- Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator (1984)
10- Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)
11- Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
12- Paul Newman to Patricia Neal in Hud (1963)
13- Claude Rains to his police officers in Casablanca (1942)
14- Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) in Toy Story (1995)
15- Mae West to Gertrude Howard in I’m No Angel (1933)
16- Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) confessing his prison number in Les Miserables (2012)
16- Brilliant! Mensa candidate
12-15 Cinephile
9-11 Fair
Sunday, September 10, 2017
WHO SAID THAT? Part 4
Yet another fun (I hope!) quiz about famous movie quotes. This one may be a little harder than the previous ones. Answers at the bottom. No peeking!
1. Oh, Jerry, don’t ask for the moon. We have the stars.
2. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.
3. A boy’s best friend is his mother.
4. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
5. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.
6. Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!
7. Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?
8. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
9. Here’s Johnny!
10. They’re here!
11. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
12. Hello, gorgeous.
13. Tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.
14. A martini. Shaken, not stirred.
15. I’m king of the world!
ANSWERS
1. Bette Davis to Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager (1942)
2. Groucho Marx (who else?) to everyone in Animal Crackers (1930)
3. The extremely creepy Anthony Perkins to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)
4. Michael Douglas to Charlie Sheen in Wall Street (1987)
5. Vivian Leigh to the whole wide world in Gone With The Wind (1939)
6. Stan Laurel to Oliver Hardy in Sons Of The Desert (1933)
7. Dustin Hoffman to Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967)
8. Humphrey Bogart to Dooley Wilson in Casablanca (1942)
9. Jack Nicholson to his terrorized family in The Shining (1980)
10. Heather O’Rourke (the little girl) to the family in Poltergeist (1982)
11. Vivian Leigh to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
12. Barbra Streisand to Omar Sharif in Funny Girl (1968)
13. Ronald Reagan ( yes, him!) to Pat O’Brien in Knute Rockne, All-American (1940)
14. Sean Connery to a bartender in Goldfinger (1964)
15. Leonardo DiCaprio to Kate Winslett in Titanic (1997)
12-15 Cinephile
9-12 Fair
Yet another fun (I hope!) quiz about famous movie quotes. This one may be a little harder than the previous ones. Answers at the bottom. No peeking!
1. Oh, Jerry, don’t ask for the moon. We have the stars.
2. One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.
3. A boy’s best friend is his mother.
4. Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
5. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.
6. Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!
7. Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?
8. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
9. Here’s Johnny!
10. They’re here!
11. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
12. Hello, gorgeous.
13. Tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.
14. A martini. Shaken, not stirred.
15. I’m king of the world!
ANSWERS
1. Bette Davis to Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager (1942)
2. Groucho Marx (who else?) to everyone in Animal Crackers (1930)
3. The extremely creepy Anthony Perkins to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)
4. Michael Douglas to Charlie Sheen in Wall Street (1987)
5. Vivian Leigh to the whole wide world in Gone With The Wind (1939)
6. Stan Laurel to Oliver Hardy in Sons Of The Desert (1933)
7. Dustin Hoffman to Anne Bancroft in The Graduate (1967)
8. Humphrey Bogart to Dooley Wilson in Casablanca (1942)
9. Jack Nicholson to his terrorized family in The Shining (1980)
10. Heather O’Rourke (the little girl) to the family in Poltergeist (1982)
11. Vivian Leigh to Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
12. Barbra Streisand to Omar Sharif in Funny Girl (1968)
13. Ronald Reagan ( yes, him!) to Pat O’Brien in Knute Rockne, All-American (1940)
14. Sean Connery to a bartender in Goldfinger (1964)
15. Leonardo DiCaprio to Kate Winslett in Titanic (1997)
12-15 Cinephile
9-12 Fair
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