Category Archives: John Landis

Stalk John Landis*, Buy His Book, See Great Movies!

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Danny


A whirlwind of times, places, events, circumstances, happenstances, and excuses to do and see something awesome! (*Please don’t stalk Mr. Landis.)

Read More… Stalk John Landis*, Buy His Book, See Great Movies!

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New at TFH: John Landis on LORD LOVE A DUCK

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Danny

And who doesn’t love Tuesday Weld?

George Axelrod’s unclassifiable satire is one of the oddest Hollywood movies, which over the years has engendered passionate support and derision. For some it’s an incisively bizarre portrait of sixties America, for others it’s a sloppily made, undisciplined mess (with more boom mikes visible in full frame than even Play It Again Sam). However, nothing can dim the luster of the incredibly perverse scene where Tuesday Weld’s horny dad (Max Showalter) practically ejaculates while watching his sexy daughter try on sweaters.

 

Click here to watch the trailer. Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on LORD LOVE A DUCK

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New at TFH: John Landis on THE LADIES MAN

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Danny

Jerry Lewis brought to you by John Landis.

The spirit of Frank Tashlin hovers over Jerry Lewis’s first auteurist triumph which came at the height of his power at Paramount, allowing him to construct a huge set, add video tape (which he’d been using since The Bellboy) and fill the stage with a large number of microphones a decade before Altman did the same. Mel Brooks contributed a number of gags, but his original script wasn’t used.

 

Click here to watch the trailer.

Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on THE LADIES MAN

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New at TFH: John Landis on HAVE ROCKET WILL TRAVEL

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Danny

Birthday Boy John Landis celebrates (appropriately*) with some Stooges.

This cheap but popular sci fi spoof was the first Columbia feature for  the Stooges, who had contemplated retirement until the galvanic response to the release of the Stooges shorts on nationwide tv in 1958 brought them back into the limelight. The boys accidentally travel to Venus and encounter a giant fire-belching spider a talkative unicorn. Moe retired the eye-poking after this one, averting a blindness epidemic on the playground. This was the first Stooge appearance by Curly Joe DeRita (replacing Joe Besser, who replaced Shemp, who replaced Curly)as the third Stooge.

Click here to watch the trailer. 

Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on HAVE ROCKET WILL TRAVEL

Posted in Commentaries, Gurus, John Landis, John Landis on Comedy | 1 Comment

New at TFH: John Landis on A CHUMP AT OXFORD

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Danny

John Landis takes on A CHUMP AT OXFORD.

Like Saps at Sea, this Hal Roach Laurel & Hardy vehicle was originally conceived as a four-reeler, but was bumped up to 63 minutes to compete in the feature market. These were arguably their last substantial feature releases before a contract with 20th Century Fox reduced them to formula B-pictures. It’s a cultural crime that today’s kids know nothing of Stan and Ollie, but that’s their loss. John McCabe’s 1961 biography “Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy” remains the definitive word on the duo.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on A CHUMP AT OXFORD

Posted in Commentaries, John Landis, John Landis on Comedy | 2 Comments

New at TFH: John Landis on LA STRADA

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Danny

Mr. John Landis takes us for a ride along Federico Fellini’s La Strada.

The film that put Federico Fellini on the map internationally, with his wife Giuliana Masina’s indelible performance as the waif mistreated by brutish strongman Anthony Quinn. Richard Basehart provides further US name value although he doesn’t dub himself in the English version. Winner of the first Academy Award for foreign language film in 1956.

 

Click here to watch the trailer and some last minute thoughts and corrections from John Landis himself.

Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on LA STRADA

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New at TFH: John Landis on HEAVEN CAN WAIT

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Danny

John Landis walks us through all the things we won’t see in the trailer for Heaven Can Wait.

No, it’s not the Warren Beatty remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but the sublime Ernst Lubitsch comedy fantasy, his biggest commercial hit and generally considered the last of his films to exemplify the inimitable “Lubitsch touch”. Feckless womanizer Don Ameche recounts his love life to urbane devil Laird Cregar at the gates of Hell in a sparking rumination on life, death and the importance of the common man.

Click here to watch the trailer.

Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on HEAVEN CAN WAIT

Posted in Comedy Greats, Commentaries, Gurus, John Landis | 1 Comment

New at TFH: John Landis on OUR MAN IN HAVANA

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Danny

John Landis King Faisal tells us about Havana, about Graham Greene, about auteurism, and about Carol Reed’s Our Man In Havana.

Director Carol Reed filmed his extremely well-cast adaptation of Grahame Greene’s spy novel on location in Havana only three months after Fidel Castro’s January 1959 revolution, and completed it just before Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union. Alberto Cavalcanti had explored the idea of directing this in the late ’40s (but set in Estonia) and Alfred Hitchcock was also interested, but former film critic Greene nixed him.

Click here to watch the trailer, then come along for some bonus material.

Read More… New at TFH: John Landis on OUR MAN IN HAVANA

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