•THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932), •PORKY'S DUCK HUNT (1937), •THE F.B.I.
(1947), •THE HUNTER (1967) - GILLIGAN'S ISLAND •THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME
(1932), <<< THE THRILL OF THE CHASE!!!

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SPLODGE! NOTES: 1st. Mon. MARCH (01/03/04)
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ON THE FIRST MONDAY OF EVERY MONTH

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1st. Quartile

MARCH
AD 2004

Monday, 01st.

Registration: 7.30 - 8.00 pm
Screening: >>>>> 8.00 (*EIGHT*!!!!) pm <<<<<

TONIGHT: STRICTLY MEMBERS-ONLY
MEMBERSHIPS STILL AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR ON THE NIGHT
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THE THRILL OF THE CHASE!

•PORKY'S DUCK HUNT (1937),
PORKY PIG and his hound go duck hunting, and DAFFY DUCK does his best
to make PORKY's life a living Hell. This was DAFFY DUCKs first
appearance. An early BUGS BUNNY prototype is also present. The eighth
LOONEY TUNES cartoon. Prod Co: WARNER BROS. Prod. Leon Schlesinger.
Dir. TEX AVERY. Anim. Virgil Ross, ROBERT (BOBE) CANNON. Mus. CARL
STALLING. VO: MEL BLANC (as Porky), Billy Bletcher. 9 mins. NFVLS

•THE F.B.I. (1947),
An edition from the newsreel series THE MARCH OF TIME (0470), dealing
with the state of law enforcement circa WWII. Describes the
24-hour-a-day vigilance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
techniques and crime detection methods shown at the F.B.I.
laboratories, and the rigorous training an agent must undergo. Features
FBI Director J. (John) Edgar Hoover ( - here seen in male attire), and
an hilarious, dramatized spy-ring bust involving the case of the Nazi
spy, August Baumeyer and the pro-Nazi German American Bund in the US,
illustrating the effectiveness of F.B.I. counter-espionage. "Bund
members came from all walks of life, from the very young to senior
citizens, as can be seen from these three photographs and the one at
the top of the next page. The young were sent to various summer camps
for Nazi indoctrination, and this was here in the United States!". Prod
Co: Time/ Life/ Fortune. 17:25 mins. ALC

•THE HUNTER (1967),
Episode 86 from the second (colour) season of the beloved - although
generally-considered dumbest show ever to have run on tv - the
'Sixties sit-com GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. The show was something of a
masterpiece of comedic construction, distilling decades of
joke-smithing, characterisation and delivery. Everything about it was
great fun, especially the way Gilligan always messed things up no
matter what.

In this episode, Jonathan Kincaid, a famous big-game hunter, played by
RORY CALHOUN (MOTEL HELL, 1980), accompanied by his turbaned assistant,
Ramoo [Harold (Oddjob: GOLDFINGER, 1964) Sakata], land on Gilligan's
Island in search of wild game to hunt, but, since they have hunted just
about every kind of animal on earth, and no game at all is available
there, they decide that the ultimate challenge would be to hunt a human
being.

After much debate, they choose Gilligan as their target, and promise
that, if Gilligan can stay alive for 24 hours, they will have the
castaways rescued. After Gilligan manages, in his own
stumbling-bumbling way, to out-wit and out-run the maniacal hunters'
bullets for the twenty-four hour period, Kincaid welches on his promise
to rescue them, for fear they will report him to the authorities. ( -
However, in an earlier episode: #74, "WHERE THERE'S A WILL," the
castaways were able to trap a wild boar for Mr. Howell's party! Maybe
the castaways wanted Kincaid to hunt Gilligan... after all of his
blunders!!! )The idea for this episode is based on the famous short
story THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, by Richard Connell - considered
something of a staple among American schoolchildren, much as, in the
same way, we and our young continue to have Steinbeck's OF MICE AND
MEN, or Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE rammed down our throats in high
school. The story was also parodieD in GET SMART episode #44, "Island
Of The Darned", (1966).

Created: SHERWOOD SCHWARTZ. Wr. Bill Freedman. Dir. Leslie Goodwins.
Cast: BOB DENVER, ALAN HALE Jr., JIM BACKUS, NATALIE SCHAFER, TINA
LOUISE, RUSSELL JOHNSON, DAWN WELLS. Guest Stars: RORY CALHOUN
(Jonathan Kincaid), HAROLD SAKATA (Ramoo). 25 mins. RM

•PORKLIPS NOW (1980),
Ernie Fosselius, ex-Mystic Knights of The Oingo Boingo band member, has
done it again with another perfect parody of a blockbuster film.
PORKLIPS NOW is one in-joke after another, elbowing the ribs of Francis
Ford Copolla's APOCALYPSE NOW (1979). Everything from the briefing to
the journey to the encounter is poked at.

Instead of going up the river to kill his target, the hero, health
inspector Will "Dullard", played by William "Billy" Gray, one-time
child star who, incredibly, would-you-believe, was the little kid,
Bobby, in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) - and actually had quite
an extensive film career spanning four decades, and here uncannily
passes as a dead-spit ringer for Marty Sheen; you gotta see it to
believe it!, - is sent by car "uptown" to "investigate with extreme
predjudice" a "renegade butcher", a certain Fred Mertz, the owner of a
meat processing shop, whose "low, low prices" threaten the profits of
the Meatcutters Protective Association.

PORKLIPS NOW is relentless. With lines like "I love the smell of carbon
monoxide in the morning", how can you resist? This is typical fun fare
from director Fosselius (CLOSET CASES OF THE NERD KIND, 1980, and
HARDWARE WARS, 1978), who here plays the double role of renegade,
skin-head butcher Fred "Madman" Mertz, and the "Famous Italian American
Director" who offers the viewer three endings to the film.

Because here Fosselius has taken a Vietnam War film about a Special
Forces officer going up a river to terminate a rebel commander and
turned it into a San Francisco crime movie about a Meat Inspector who
has been sent by crooked butchers to shut down a cut-rate Chinatown
meat market the satire works. Everything in APOCALYPSE NOW is mocked or
referenced, like the bandage on Martin Sheen's face, Marlon Brando's
unwillingness to be filmed in light and his speechmaking, even the
chaotic making of the film and Coppola's inability to find an ending
until the last minute. And all FROM three guys in a yellow '63
Oldsmobile convertable on a 4th of July in the late 1970's. The way
Ernie catches the whole mood and style is amazing. The writing was
incredible, the way he turned bad clichés into almost sensible strings
of thought, not to mention the great camera work.

Favorite quote: Mertz: Do you find my method...acting...unsound?
Dullard: I saw no acting at all.

Dir. & Wr. Ernie Fosselius. Cast: William (Billy) Gray, Ernie
Fosselius, John Brent, Leon Martell, Mark Lee, Jim Turner, Larry
Walker, Tom Bullock. 22 mins. RM

and featuring:

•THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932),
Somewhere off the American coastline, near a remote, exotic jungle
island, a cabin cruiser is shipwrecked (realistically achieved with
convincing miniatures) from which apparantly the only passenger to
survive is the big-game hunter Bob (Robert) Rainsford, (JOEL McCREA).
Rainsford crawls ashore the mysterious island and finds his way to a
creepy castle - a hidden fortress - a solitary chateau, outfitted with
every luxury and inhabited by a charming lunatic, an enigmatic Russian
Count named Zaroff (Leslie Banks), who offers him sanctuary until he
has recovered from his ordeal. There he also meets the lovely Eve (FAY
WRAY) and her drunken, boorish brother, Martin (ROBERT ARMSTRONG), who
have also survived the wreck.

But nutty Zaroff has an underlying motive for his apparent hospitality.
Having hunted every single animal there is to hunt, it turns out the
mad Count has settled on one particular kind of "game" to add to his
trophy case - the most dangerous kind - Man! The irony emerges of the
big-game hunter, Rainsford, who himself becomes the hunted, further
handicapped in flight by his duty to his female companion. At the same
time, Rainsford is no slouch, adequate matched as Zaroff's foe, being
the world's most famous big game hunter himself, so the danger cuts
both ways. But in the most dangerous game, there can be only one
winner. And Zaroff is palpably hostile.

The story is the famous tale of one crazed hunter deciding to hunt and
kill men on his private playground, and his eventual downfall to a man
his equal in the skills of hunting. The crazed killer Zaroff and the
moral hunter Rainsford match wits in a game of life, encapsulating
primal elements of competition, of kill or be killed, as Zaroff vainly
uses his Sadean reasoning to coolly explain his insane justifications
to his prey of what is clearly the unjustifiable in hope of winning
them over and sharing his enthusiasm for his grotesque proposition.

Both a suspenseful thriller and a horror movie, and an action flick all
of sorts, the film was shot, largely at night, on the same jungle sets
being used by day for KING KONG (1933); four of its cast members
appeared in both films. JOEL McCREA and FAY WRAY make a fine romantic
couple, with Robert Armstrong suitably annoying in the small role of
the intoxicated brother. A very young McCREA is the likeable hero of
the piece, forced to play the most dangerous game, though he at least
has the fetching FAY WRAY for company, and she manages to keep the
screaming to a minimum, a trait which some may miss but others applaud.

But it is Leslie Banks as the mad Russian Zaroff, who remains in the
mind the longest. Like a sophisticated and urbane serpent, he coils
himself around his florid role of the master huntsman who has
discovered a new sensation - that of stocking his island and hunting
through its jungles the most dangerous big game of them all... Banks
(in his first film after his debut eleven years earlier in silent
cinema) makes a terrific villain, fantastic and over-the-top as the
creepy Count, complete with accent-overuse and scar, one minute the
perfect debonair host, the next a deranged killer willing to take his
hunting convictions to the extreme, and never resorting to campiness,
and maintaining an underlying sense of menace early on, until
completely letting it all out, once the characters have learnt exacting
what it is he's up to on his island. In that early talkie style, Banks
enunciates every syllable and bugs out his eyes at every opportunity.
This is undoubtedly the performance of a lifetime for Banks as the
cunning, macabre sadistic butcher. Zaroff is evil personified, with his
flamboyant accent, opulent gestures, and cool reserve. He looks like a
demon clothed for the hunt; a man dedicated to his own pleasures and
pursuits.

Noble Johnson stares admirably, and often, as the mute Ivan, Zaroff's
servant, - not the sort of fellow one would want to meet in a dark
alley, or for that matter, a bright one.

Once the initial exposition is established, the film becomes a non-stop
adventure with close encounters, booby traps, and a pack of wild dogs,
eventually erupting into one of the most thrilling chase sequences ever
filmed, complete with MAX STEINER's adrenaline-pumping score to shove
things along at full throttle. The often witty dialogue scenes are a
decent build up, and well ahead of most movies of the period. Finally,
for nearly seven solid minutes to conclusion, it's nothing but sheer
visual and musical action.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME was filmed on RKO's standing sets of KING KONG
(1933) during a lull in production of that classic film, utilising most
of the KONG personnel, some of the actors and also most of the crew.
Producers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack are, of course, the
same team who made KING KONG. They actually made KONG right after they
made this film on some of the same sets, and you'll recognize that, if
you're a KONG aficionado. Co-director Irving Pichel we remember fondly
for his direction of She (1935), also from the same stable. THE MOST
DANGEROUS GAME might possible have come to have been as well known as
KING KONG (1933) had it only been an half-hour longer. As it stands,
it's only 63 minutes; half of that is exposition, and the other half,
the chase.

The evocative jungle sets are, naturally, the same used in the movies
KONG and also in BIRD OF PARADISE (1932), and are always a pleasure to
encounter. Count Zaroff's castle ("built by the Porta-geese", as Zaroff
recounts) is almost as forbidding as the jungle itself. The film is set
almost entirely at night, and since the movie has a dark tone to begin
with, this only enhances it's brooding, adrenal ambiance.

This first movie adaptation of the Richard Connell classic story is
still the best. GAME is a masterpiece of sorts. Well-known as the
blueprint for many a chase movie ever since, though few come close it.
It is an excellent adventure movie, often remade and yet never
equalled, an exercise in wit, suspense, and the moral barrier that
exists between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour of mankind in
relation to itself. Once the hunt begins, the suspense doesn't let up.
It keeps on pounding until the last bark of the savage hounds used to
track down the helpless quarry. The only "special effect" is the
excitement generated by a very simple yet original story. The drama is
in the characters, and the fact that you grow to care for them in a
remarkably short period of time. The movie is propelled by the
characters, not the characters by the movie.

While the film may not be so commonly well-remembered these days, its
influence is still keenly felt in film and TV circles. Countless films
and television shows have used the story of "man hunting man" time and
time again, from from ROBERT WISE's A GAME OF DEATH (1 46) to John
Woo's HARD TARGET (1993) and SURVIVING THE GAME (1994), even PREDATOR
(1987), if you think about it. Further, it has served as the butt of
numerous parodies, notably episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND ("The Hunter")
and GET SMART ("Island of the Darned").

Though officially remade twice, it is this original version which still
stands, and is likely to stand as the best adaptation of the story. The
lost ship, the mysterious island, Count Zaroff and his creepy cossacks,
the dungeon, the hero and heroine, the chase.... It all adds up to pulp
fiction at its finest and crackerjack entertainment from a bygone era.
It works because it just zips right by and it's a fun ride.

http://www.shillpages.com/faywray/fw-c-h.jpg

And we'll be interested to see if our print contains the shot with the
floating head in a jar. That's one to watch for alright! Prod Co: RKO
Radio Pictures. Prods. DAVID O. SELZNICK, MERIAN C. COOPER, Ernest B.
Schoedsack. Dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel. Scr. James
Ashmore Creelman. Phot. Henry Gerrard. Mus. MAX STEINER. From the story
of the same name, by Richard Connell. Cast: JOEL McCREA (BUSTER CRABBE:
stunt double), FAY WRAY, Leslie Banks, ROBERT ARMSTRONG, LON CHANEY Jr.
63 mins. NFVLS


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Minor programme changes may occur due to unforseen
circumstances.
Feature runs last; shorts order may vary from listing.

* Acknowledging ACMI Inc. ;) *

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ADMISSION IS RESTRICTED TO MEMBERS FOR THIS PROGRAMME

THIS IS A FILM SOCIETY SCREENING OPEN TO MEMBERS

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If you wish to join on the night, we strongly advise you to
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SPLODGE! GETS BOLSHY WHEN IT'S MATES ARE IN TROUBLE!

Our amiable hosts at The Empress Hotel, who supply us with a safe and
congenial space for our exclusive use and enjoyment ( - which we could
never otherwise afford - ) are under siege by nefarious anti-joy
forces, so we are rallying to their help!

If you support Splodge!, you can play YOUR part in helping fight the
sound restrictions unfairly placed on our beloved venue by signing THE
PETITION! And RETURNING IT! ( - You could send it back over to
Splodge!, or straight to the kindly folk at the Empress. If you're
coming to our future screenings, you'll find a hard copy of the
petition at our admin desk.)

http://www.theempresshotel.com.au/fair%20go.htm

- Splodge! says thanks for you consideration in this matter. You could
not begin to imagine how much our l'il film society owes these people!

"VicMusic supports it. Fair go 4 Live Music supports it.
hundreds - if not thousands - support it and enjoy it!

This call for help is wider, though, not only punters and musicians
need to respond to this call. Anyone who has taken advantage
of the colourful and diverse live music scene in Melbourne
will be affected by this. The Threat? One resident!

The Empress stands as a 16 year old supporter and promoter of live
music.

And her demise will undermine the value and joy of our inherent musical
talent, and jeopardise the future of local businesses and artists. The
solution? Well! Its starts with your support at the benefit gigs.

Highly regarded artists such as Vika and Linda, The Lucksmiths and
Machine Translations as well as locally celebrated artists such TZU,
Curse of Dialect, Music Vs Physics and The Dave Broadly Band, to name a
few have banded together, making a stand to save a stronghold of the
Melbourne Live music scene currently under fire.

The petition, already signed by so many across Melbourne, is available
at:

http://www.theempresshotel.com.au "


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- PorklipsNow80Dullard.jpg (14k)
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