sixties

BAD MOVIES WE LOVE

Tonight at 11pm Turner Classic Movies broadcasts The Oscar (1966)one of the campiest looks at conniving actors, scheming starlets, and all of Tinseltown’s backstabbers. Stephen Boyd is the cad who steps on everyone including his pal Tony Bennett, ex-stripper Jill St. John, good girl the miscast Elke Sommer and other louses as he ascends the Hollywodd ladder rung by rung until he gets a coveted Oscar nomination. Along the way he has a run-in with his female counterpart a vapid, career driven bitch played by the lovely Jean Hale (pictured)a sweet sweet lady in real life. Below are her comments about the movie contained in my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Hollywood:

“I originally auditioned for the role of the stripper because the movie star part was already cast. I went in and read for it but told the producers that I wanted the other role. They said, ‘Sorry but it has already been cast.’ I pleaded with them to let me read for it and they finally relented. Before I got home they had called my agent to say the movie star role was mine.”

“I had a ball playing such a nasty character. Before this I always got parts where I had to cry and kiss the guy. It was so nice not to have to do that for this role.”

“Edith Head was an absolutely amazing woman and a creative genius. She had an office about sixty to seventy feet long. At the entrance to it there was a light panel with a great number of switches. At the other end of the room she’d have you stand on this pedestal with mirrors three quarters of the way around it. Three or four of her assistants would then take a piece of fabric and with their hands create all different looks for the evening gowns she was designing for me—from various necklines to all types of skirt styles. They would literally create the dress on you while you were standing there. Edith could see you from every angle in every type of light and would decide your finest look. I remember her telling me that my best look was a scoop neck. She designed three gowns for me and all of them had a variation on that type of neckline.”

STARLETS ON THE GO-GO

Drive-in Dream Girl Gail Gerber returns to the big screen after almost a 35 year absence playing a wheel-chair bound crazy old woman in Lucky Days. It was written by Angelica Torn (daughter of Rip Torn and Geraldine Page) who stars as a depressed woman seeking freedom from an abusive boyfriend and family during the last days of Coney Island as we know it before the developers get their hands on it. Co-starring are Luke Zarzecki, Will Patton, Rip Torn, and Anne Jackson. Click here to see the trailer.

Fantasy Femme Lana Wood as been busy lately making movies and now guest stars in a TV pilot called Divas of Novella. She plays “Zeld” in this proposed sci-fi series about 4 women convicts from an intergalatic prison colony who have to unite to stop a long dormant male society from rising to take domination over their star system. Click here for the official web site.

Wicked, Wicked

Set those DVRs for overnight Friday June 6 at 2AM. Turner Classic Movies has once again dug into its vaults for a cult classic and dug out the rarely aired Wicked, Wicked (1973). A slasher movie ahead of its time, it is about a psychotic hotel worker with a penchant for donning a mask and killing nubile long-haired blondes. Randy Roberts who went on to briefly play “Chuck Cunningham” on TV’s Happy Days is the maniac, Edd “Kookie” Byrnes is a lifeguard, and the blondes in peril include Fantasy Femme Diane McBain and Tiffany Bolling. It was directed by Richard L. Bare who was best known at the time for directing epiosdes of Green Acres and filmed in Duo-Vision a split screen process where as the ads proclaimed, “See the hunter, see the hunted – both at the same time!”