Ghost Story Story

In 1981, they made "Ghost Story," a cool movie about four old men with a terrible secret. It was a horror movie but instead of teenagers getting killed it was old men. Think about it, there's never been a movie like it since. All horror movies are teenage driven.

But let's look at the casting. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas and John Houseman.  All but Houseman were major movie stars from the 30s, some 50 years earlier.

Hollywood ultimately remakes everything. If it were to remake "Ghost Story" today, who would they get? Let's see. Fifty years ago was 1963. Which young movie stars from 1963 would they get?

It's easy to say Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood, but they're still  major movie stars. Astaire at the time was voicing TV holiday specials and Fairbanks was on the "Love Boat." Only Douglas was making major Hollywood motion pictures (see "Being There").

OK, so we want major movie stars from the 60s, who are not movie stars now (i.e. affordable). This rule would exclude Sean Connery.

Michael Caine
Roger Moore
George Hamilton
Christopher Plummer
Frank Langella
Albert Finney
Peter Fonda
Burt Reynolds

Who am I missing?

Flying Down to Rio and mental illness in the '30s

As I've posted before, I'm a sucker for movies from the 30s. TCM was showing "Flying Down to Rio," and I was stunned by the climax in which chorus girls are shown dancing on the wings of biplanes.

This is insane!

The girls would dance, then they'd cut to the ground where people would ooh and ahh.

Of course it was all done with rear-screen projection, but you'd have to be insane to even come up with an idea like that.

Then it gets better: Under the planes are trapezes, and two trapeze artists are tossing a girl back and forth. And they drop one! But it's OK, she lands on then wing of another plane. They gives a thumbs up to the crowd, and everyone claps.

Truly the work of maniacs!