In Bernard Girard's 1966 crime flick "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round," James Coburn plays a con man who, having charmed his way out of prison, uses seduction and larceny to plan a major bank heist at Los Angeles International Airport. The film has not been noted in many major cinema journals, however, other than to mark it as the first notable, uncredited appearance of a young Harrison Ford, then only 23, who appeared as a bellhop.
Ford, now 80, has become one of the more recognizable and celebrated movie stars of his generation, having appeared in some of the highest-profile action-adventure films of all time. As the adage goes, however, it took a long time for Ford to become an overnight success. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ford appeared in several films and TV shows as a bit player or an extra. After "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round," for instance,...
Ford, now 80, has become one of the more recognizable and celebrated movie stars of his generation, having appeared in some of the highest-profile action-adventure films of all time. As the adage goes, however, it took a long time for Ford to become an overnight success. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ford appeared in several films and TV shows as a bit player or an extra. After "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round," for instance,...
- 12/20/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
11 years before Harrison Ford hit the hyperdrive to stardom via George Lucas' "Star Wars," he made his amusingly unassuming big-screen debut in the James Coburn vehicle "Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round." Directed by Bernard Girard, the film is a standard-issue con-man yarn designed to go as far as Coburn's considerable charm will take it and not an inch further. If you enjoy watching Coburn be Coburn, it's diverting enough, but the only reason it's at all notable today is for Ford's 30-second appearance as a bellboy.
This bit part was a test run of sorts for Ford, who'd joined Columbia Pictures' New Talent Program a year prior. By 1965, studios were getting out of the talent-development business, an old-fashioned system that required performers to report to the set every weekday in a suit or dress, and busy themselves with acting classes and promotional photoshoots. Ford was hardly a standout amongst his peers,...
This bit part was a test run of sorts for Ford, who'd joined Columbia Pictures' New Talent Program a year prior. By 1965, studios were getting out of the talent-development business, an old-fashioned system that required performers to report to the set every weekday in a suit or dress, and busy themselves with acting classes and promotional photoshoots. Ford was hardly a standout amongst his peers,...
- 12/12/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
While the summer movie season will kick off shortly––and we’ll be sharing a comprehensive preview on the arthouse, foreign, indie, and (few) studio films worth checking out––on the streaming side, The Criterion Channel and Mubi have unveiled their May 2021 lineups and there’s a treasure trove of highlights to dive into.
Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….
On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...
Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….
On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...
- 4/26/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
It’s cold-blooded murder, I tell ya! Feisty Ruth Gordon goes undercover to find the evidence of homicide at Geraldine Page’s desert home, where companion-housekeepers keep disappearing. Robert Aldrich produced this marvelous, E-Ticket battle between celebrated actresses, and the result is a creative new solution for retirement finance problems!
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date January 8, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller, Mildred Dunnock, Joan Huntington, Peter Brandon, Michael Barbera, Peter Bonerz, Richard Angarola, Claire Kelly, Valerie Allen, Martin Garralaga.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editors: Frank J. Urioste, Michael Luciano
Original Music: Gerald Fried
Written by Theodore Apstein from a novel by Ursula Curtiss
Produced by Robert Aldrich
Directed by Lee H. Katzin (and Bernard Girard)
Few fans of Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen realize that he used the windfall profits...
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / Street Date January 8, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller, Mildred Dunnock, Joan Huntington, Peter Brandon, Michael Barbera, Peter Bonerz, Richard Angarola, Claire Kelly, Valerie Allen, Martin Garralaga.
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Film Editors: Frank J. Urioste, Michael Luciano
Original Music: Gerald Fried
Written by Theodore Apstein from a novel by Ursula Curtiss
Produced by Robert Aldrich
Directed by Lee H. Katzin (and Bernard Girard)
Few fans of Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen realize that he used the windfall profits...
- 2/19/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Kino resurrects an odd curio with Shoot the Sun Down, a counter-culture Western from 1978, notable for headlining Christopher Walken just prior to his Oscar win for The Deer Hunter and Margot Kidder before she was that year’s Lois Lane in Superman. Of further note, director David Leeds, who financed with his own production company, would never again lend his name to another film in any capacity. The film, which is obviously modeled after Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name series, considering it’s mysterious protagonist, has all the makings of a subversive genre entry, it’s stance on violence guided by an incredibly idiosyncratic score (that’s not Ennio Morricone) and Michael Chapman’s beautifully photographed landscapes (with plenty shots of rising/setting suns for its grand motif). However, muddled plotting and a comatosely constructed climax peg the film as rather forgettable, which is unfortunate considering its strange ambience.
- 11/5/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Apart from the three sneak screening titles that will stir up the buzz in the coming days, Julie Huntsinger and Tom Luddy’s 40th edition of the Telluride Film Festival excels in bringing a concentration of solid docus from the likes of Errol Morris and Werner Herzog who this year cuts the ribbon on a theatre going by his name and introduces Death Row, a pinch of Berlin Film Fest items (Gloria, Slow Food Story, Fifi Howls from Happiness) Palme d’Or winner (this year Abdellatif Kechiche will be celebrated), upcoming Sony Pictures Classics items (Tim’s Vermeer, The Lunchbox), Venice to Telluride to Tiff titles (Bethlehem, Tracks and Under the Skin), the latest Jason Reitman film (Labor Day) and the barely known docu-home-movie whodunit (by helmers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine) The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden which features narration from the likes of Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger and Connie Nielsen.
- 8/28/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
As happened for so many other genres, the 1960s/1970s saw a tremendous creative expansion in crime and cop thrillers. The old Hollywood moguls had died off or retired, most of the major studios were bleeding red ink, attendance had gone off a cliff since the end of Ww II, and a new breed of young, creatively adventurous production executives had been tasked with trying to save their business by coming up with movies which could hook a new, young, cinema-literate audience.
It also happened to be one of the most socially turbulent times in American history. Even before the American public grew restive over the growing disaster in Vietnam, the social fabric was unraveling with self-examination and doubt. The Cold War; a certain inner emptiness that went with a period of great material prosperity; once invisible fault lines on matters of race and gender discrimination beginning to crack – all...
It also happened to be one of the most socially turbulent times in American history. Even before the American public grew restive over the growing disaster in Vietnam, the social fabric was unraveling with self-examination and doubt. The Cold War; a certain inner emptiness that went with a period of great material prosperity; once invisible fault lines on matters of race and gender discrimination beginning to crack – all...
- 3/22/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Yesterday's birthday boy Christopher Walken makes no secret of the fact: he loves to work. And that's one of the reasons he makes as many bad movies as good ones. For every Deer Hunter, Dead Zone, King Of New York, Pulp Fiction or Hairspray, there's a Kangaroo Jack, Man On Fire, Click or Domino. But where does The Mighty Haired One's first lead role in a movie fall fit in the spectrum? In 1972 -- coming off a supporting part in Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes -- the 29-year-old scored this adaptation of Dennis Reardon's Off-Broadway play The Happiness Cage. Given the snazzier title of The Mind Snatchers when it hit cinemas, Bernard Girard's film was praised as "a frightening contemporary thriller" by Judith Crist. Walken, however, was more succinct when he reappraised it as "piece of garbage" and said "it seemed my career in film was finished.
- 4/1/2010
- Movieline
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