Archive for the ‘1970′s Animals’ Category

The Black Stallion

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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The Black Stallion is a 1979 film based on the 1941 classic children’s novel The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. It tells the story of Alec Ramsey, who is shipwrecked on a deserted island, together with a wild Arabian stallion who he befriends. After being rescued, they are set on entering a race challenging two champion horses.

The film is adapted by Melissa Mathison, Jeanne Rosenberg and William D. Wittliff. It is directed by Carroll Ballard. The movie stars Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Hoyt Axton, and the Arabian horse Cass Ole. The film features music by Carmine Coppola, the father of Hollywood producer Francis Ford Coppola, who was the executive producer of the film.

In 2002, The Black Stallion was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Plot

Alec Ramsey is aboard the steamer Drake off the coast of North Africa, where he sees a wild black stallion being forced into a makeshift stable and heavily restrained by ropes leading to his halter. Captivated by the horse, Alec later sneaks to the horse to feed him some sugar cubes, but he is caught by the horse’s supposed owner, who tells him in Arabic to stay away from Shetan and shoves the boy away.

Later in his bunk, Alec’s father shows Alec his winnings from a card game and gives him a pocket knife and a small statue of Bucephalus, and tells the story of how Alexander the Great became Bucephalus’ master. Later that night, Alec is thrown out of his bunk; the ship has started to capsize. In the chaos, Alec grabs his knife and makes his way to the black stallion and manages to free him. The stallion then jumps into the sea. Alec himself is thrown overboard by the waves. In the water, he swims toward the stallion and managed to grab hold of the ropes of the stallion’s restraints.

Alec wakes on the shore of a deserted island and starts to explore. He finds the stallion caught in his restraints with the ropes stuck between the rocks. With his knife, Alec manages to free the stallion once again and the stallion runs away. For a time, the two keep their distance. Alec discovers means to survive by catching fish and seaweed. As Alec suddenly faces a cobra eye to eye, the Black comes to the rescue and kills the snake, only to run off again.

By now, Alec decides to try to get closer to the horse and offer him some seaweed. The hungry stallion finds himself unable to resist, but visibly struggles with his distrust for humans. Eventually, the hunger wins and he takes Alec’s offer; their bond has been sealed and the two are now inseparable. Alec even manages to ride the unbroken horse, after many times falling off the horse. One day, a fishing ship arrives, rescuing both Alec and the stallion.

Back home, Alec is given a hero’s welcome. The Black has a temporary home in Alec’s back yard, but a garbage man not knowing that there is a wild horse in the back yard is chased by the Black, who races off down the street after being spooked by a passing car. Alec chases after him through every part of town, but loses track of him. The next day, Alec meets Snoe (and Napoleon) who tell him where the Black is. Alec finds the stallion in the barn of Henry Dailey, a retired racehorse jockey, who apparently spent all night catching the Black. Alec arranges for the Black to stay at the barn.

When Alec wonders how fast the Black is, Alec and Henry decide to train the Black for the racetrack, while Henry teaches Alec how to be a jockey. The Black surprises Henry with his speed. Henry immediately starts plotting a plan to get the Black into the match race between the country’s current two champions. To do that, he sets up a secret demonstration at night where the press can witness his speed, keeping the identity of Alec and the Black secret. The news about the mystery horse is soon widespread and the Black is entered into the race.

The race is the most anticipated horseracing event of the year. Before the two champions and the Black enter the starting gate, the Black gets into a fight with one of his opponents, wounding his leg. Alec does not see the wound until he is in the gate. As he dismounts, the bell rings and the horses take off. Alec desperately tries to stay on his horse and trying to stop him. He falls behind, but the Black won’t stop. When Alec regains his balance, the Black is well on his way to catch up with his opponents. Alec now encourages the Black to run as fast as he can, remembering the wild rides on the island, as they catch up. The Black eventually wins by two lengths.

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Watership Down

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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Watership Down is a 1978 animated film directed by Martin Rosen and based on the book by Richard Adams. It was largely financed by Jake Eberts’ company, Goldcrest Films. After a slow start upon release, it became the sixth most popular film of 1979 at the British box office.

The film featured the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne and Roy Kinnear, among others, and was the last film appearance of Zero Mostel, as the voice of Kehaar the gull.

Art Garfunkel’s British No. 1 hit, “Bright Eyes” which was written by British singer and songwriter Mike Batt, was also featured, although in a different arrangement from the version released as a record. The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson.

After the genesis story rendered in a narrated simplistic cartoon fashion, the animation style changes to a detailed, naturalist one, with concessions to render the animals anthropomorphic only to suggest they have human voices and minds, some facial expressions for emotion and paw gestures. The animation backgrounds are watercolors. Only one of the predators, the farm cat, is given a few lines, the rest remaining mute.

Synopsis

Set in the English countryside, Watership Down opens with a narrated prologue establishing the Lapine culture and mythology, describing the creation of the world by the sun god “Lord Frith,” who gives many animals the instinct to hunt the rabbits, but makes the rabbits and their prince, “El-ahrairah” agile and smart survivors. The film then switches from the cartoon narrative to a realistic-looking story for the remainder of the film. Fiver, a young runt rabbit with prophetic abilities, foresees the end of his peaceful rabbit warren and asks others to leave with him. Fiver and his older brother Hazel attempt to persuade their chief rabbit to have the warren evacuated and moved elsewhere, but they are dismissed, and attempt to recruit individuals instead. The group meets resistance from the warren’s Owsla, or military, but eight manage to fight and escape: Fiver, Hazel, the burly ex-Owsla officer Bigwig, the cunning Blackberry, the smallest rabbit Pipkin, Dandelion, Silver, and the only female, Violet. Eventually, the rabbits stop to rest at a nearby field, where Violet is killed by a nearby hawk.

After crossing a road, evading a hunting dog, and escaping from a rat-infested cemetery, the band meets a rabbit named Cowslip, who comes from a warren of what appears to be friendly rabbits. The rabbits are invited inside Cowslip’s warren for food. The majority of the group is content and grateful for shelter, but Fiver senses something wrong and soon leaves. Bigwig follows him, taunting, but becomes caught in a snare. Fiver attempts to get help from Cowslip and the rest of his warren, but he is dismissed. The Sandleford rabbits discover that the warren is fed by a farmer, who occasionally snares rabbits in return for his food and care from predators. Bigwig passes out, still trapped, and after he is released the rabbits assume he is dead; however, he awakens moments later. On Fiver’s advice, the band moves on with a profound new respect for the seer’s wisdom.

The rabbits discover Nuthanger farm, which contains a hutch of female rabbits, does. Hazel realizes that females will be needed to begin a new warren, but the rabbits are forced to leave by the appearance of the farm’s cat and dog. Hazel promises to return, and the rabbits set off again. They are unexpectedly found by the Sandleford’s Owsla Captain, Holly, who is injured and at the point of death. He recounts the destruction of the Sandleford warren, proving Fiver’s visions to be true, and collapses after mentioning a warren called Efrafa. Shortly after, Fiver discovers the hill Watership Down, where the rabbits discover an empty space suitable to live in.

They settle in, developing their own warren, and Hazel is informally recognized as Chief Rabbit. They befriend an acerbic injured seagull, Kehaar, who offers to survey the local area for females. Meanwhile, the rabbits return to Nuthanger farm to free the does, but as they make their escape, Hazel is shot by a farmhand and presumed dead. Fiver, following a vision telling him that his brother is alive, returns to the farm just in time to find and save Hazel. Kehaar returns, having found Efrafa as a main warren which may have females. Holly, who knows of Efrafa, begs them not to go there, describing it as a highly militarized and totalitarian state. Hazel, however, feels they have no choice but to seek does. Bigwig decides to infiltrate the colony. He meets the Chief Rabbit, the powerful General Woundwort, who makes him an officer of the warren. Bigwig easily recruits several would-be escapees to his cause. Among them are Hyzenthlay, an outspoken, rebelious doe, and Blackavar, a male rabbit who was wounded and permanently scarred by Efrafa’s Owsla to be an example in order to dissuade any rebelious rabbits. They soon flee Efrafa, with the help of Kehaar and the other Watership Rabbits. However, their union is short-lived. Efrafa’s trackers find their trail several days later, following them to Watership Down, and the General himself has come to recapture the escapees.

Hazel attempts to reason and offers an alliance, but when he is refused, he decides to fight. The Watership rabbits dig themselves into their own warren to be safe and are besieged. In all the commotion, Fiver slips into a trance, in which he envisions “a dog loose in the woods.” His moans scare the Efrafans, but he inspires Hazel to free the dog from Nuthanger and lead him to the warren to attack the Efrafans. Several of the rabbits taunt the dog into following them uphill, where the dog will be let upon the Efrafans. When the Efrafans finally break into Watership Down, Woundwort jumps in first. Blackavar attacks him, but Woundwort quickly overwhelms and kills him. Woundwort is soon ambushed by Bigwig, and the two fight to near exhaustion. Woundwort tries to persuade Bigwig to surrender, but Bigwig defies him. Suddently, the farm dog arrives, having been led to the warren by Hyzenthlay; the dog goes into a blood-rage and quickly kills most of the Efrafan rabbits. The General emerges and leaps to attack the dog; later, no trace of him is found, and his memory becomes a ghost story used by rabbit parents to frighten their children into obedience. All of the rabbits of Watership Down are safe at last.

The epilogue shows the warren several years later. Hazel is old and tired, but his warren is thriving. As stories of the warren’s early exploits—distorted and mythologized—are retold in the background by new rabbits, he is visited by a shadowy shape he cannot make out. The rabbit reveals himself to be El-ahrairah, the mythological rabbit trickster, inviting Hazel to join his Owsla. In a reprise of other mystical scenes in the film, Hazel discards his body and follows him towards the sun—which metamorphoses into Frith—and into the afterlife.

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The Cat from Outer Space

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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The Cat from Outer Space is a 1978 Walt Disney Company film, starring Ken Berry and Sandy Duncan.

Plot

An unidentified flying object crash-lands on Earth and is taken into custody by the United States government. The occupant of the “flying saucer” turns out to be a cat-like alien named Jake (A tawny Abyssinian cat). Using a special collar, he is able to communicate with humans. The cat tries to have American scientists help him find some Org 12 so that his ship may rendezvous with his fleet. After determining that “Org 12″ is gold, Jake uses his collar’s powers to affect the outcome of various sporting events, including horse races and pool games, to win money to buy the needed gold and repair his saucer.

In the end, a ship returns to take Jake back, but he decides to stay with Frank.

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The Rescuers

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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The Rescuers is a 1977 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977. The twenty-third film in the Disney animated features canon, the film is about a society of mice, called the Rescue Aid Society, headquartered in New York and shadowing the United Nations, who go about doing good deeds in the world at large. Two of these mice, a hesitant Bernard (Bob Newhart) and the elegant Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), set about rescuing Penny, a kidnapped girl, with the help of a comical albatross and the various animal inhabitants of the bayou where Penny is being held.

The film was based on Margery Sharp’s “The Rescuers” children’s novels, most notably, The Rescuers (1959) and Miss Bianca (1962). The film was four years in the making with the combined talents of 250 people, including 40 animators who produced approximately 330,000 drawings; there were 14 sequences with 1,039 separate scenes and 750 backgrounds.

Synopsis

The Rescuers begins when a young orphan named Penny throws a message in a bottle from an abandoned luxury river boat on which she is held a prisoner. The bottle washes up in America and is taken to the Rescue Aid Society, a UN-like group located in New York City consisting of representative mice from all over the world and dedicated to providing assistance to people in peril. The mice read the message inside and learn that Penny was kidnapped, but do not learn where she is. The compassionate Hungarian representative, Miss Bianca, volunteers to save the girl. The Chair of the society agrees, on the condition that Bianca chooses a partner for her safety. Of all the eager male delegates, she chooses Bernard, the janitor, for whom she has a soft spot. The two set out to the orphanage where Penny lived and there meet a local cat, Rufus, who has secretly retired from hunting mice. He tells them that Penny was a close friend of his, who despaired of being adopted by any family; that he had attempted to re-assure her; and that she is assumed to have fled of her own accord. The only alternative is to the effect that she was kidnapped by a mysterious, ill-meaning woman called Madame Medusa.

The mice then travel to Madame Medusa’s pawnshop. While they are searching for clues, they hear Medusa talking on the telephone to her assistant and partner, Mr. Snoops, whom she reprimands for being unable to find the “Devil’s Eye” Diamond and for failing to prevent Penny’s message being sent. Angrily, she tells Mr. Snoops that she will take “the next flight down to Devil’s Bayou” and leaves in her car. Bernard and Miss Bianca try to climb into her suitcase, but are thrown from it by Medusa’s reckless driving.

To reach the Bayou, the mice recruit the help of an albatross named Orville, who flies them to Devil’s Bayou. There, they are greeted by two muskrats named Ellie Mae and Luke and a dragonfly named Evinrude, who loathe Medusa for causing havoc in their neighborhood. With Evinrude’s help, the rescuers are able to reach the ship on which Penny is held. Eavesdropping on Madame Medusa and Mr. Snoops, they learn that the Devil’s Eye is a diamond coveted by Medusa, and that Penny was captured so as to provide the criminals with one who could enter the underground pirate‘s cave wherein the gem is kept and recover it. Shortly after entering, Miss Bianca and Bernard attract the attention of Medusa’s half-tame crocodiles, Brutus and Nero. The crocodiles, who serve Medusa as guards to prevent or spoil Penny’s escape, attempt to devour the mice. In the resulting chase/battle, the ship’s pipe organ, some curtains, and Medusa’s patience are all broken. Medusa, who cannot tolerate mice, complicates the pandemonium by her panic, her summons of the incompetent Mr. Snoops, and her use of a large gun.

Bernard and Miss Bianca escape, later to visit a disconsolate Penny. Penny still maintains hope that she might have a family of her own; yet her resolve is waning. The arrival of two well-meaning mice, who speak of co-operation and faith (a concept made familiar to her by Rufus), raises her morale. Together, the three devise a plan, which is put into action on the following day.

Meanwhile, Ellie Mae has roused her neighbors to action. They wait only for Bernard’s message, which Evinrude is expected to deliver; once it has arrived, they will attack the steamship and rescue Penny. Evinrude, meanwhile, receives orders to find and bring Ellie Mae and her friends; en route to do this, he is pursued by hungry bats. He therefore takes refuge in an empty bottle, delaying delivery of his message.

During the next morning, Madame Medusa and Mr. Snoops send Penny into the cave to find the Devil’s Eye. With her are Miss Bianca and Bernard, concealed in a pocket. The cave itself is implied to have been a treasure-trove used by pirates to store their plunder, before the crew (presumably) fought among themselves and killed each other. After a brief search, the friends discover the Devil’s Eye inside the skull of one of the pirates; the means of its concealment therein is not explained. As they are opening the skull in order to bring the gem out, the oceanic tide rises and floods the cave. Miss Bianca, Penny, and Bernard just barely manage to retrieve the diamond and escape.

Medusa, passionate and jealous in greed, takes possession of the diamond immediately. Rather than give Snoops a 50% share in it as she had evidently promised, she takes it entirely for her own, concealing it in Penny’s teddy bear. When both Snoops and Penny protest, she threatens to kill them.

Evinrude, eluding the bats, arrives at Ellie Mae’s house. There, the tired insect is given a drop of Luke’s stimulating beverage, whereupon he gives the order to charge. The locals then run in a body to the riverboat.

As Medusa is backing away from Penny and Mr. Snoops, clutching the toy bear in which is the diamond, Bernard trips her up by means of a cord. She loses control of the diamond. Before she can recover it, Ellie Mae and her friends attack, punishing Medusa relentlessly for disturbing their peace. Medusa retaliates with gunfire, causing the rebels to flee; they are met by Brutus and Nero. Just as the crocodiles are poised to kill the smaller animals, Bernard and Miss Bianca trick them into entering a cage-like elevator, which is then closed upon them.

The locals, following Penny’s plan, set off flares and fireworks (formerly used by Mr. Snoops on Madame Medusa’s orders) into the riverboat’s living quarters, while Penny and the mice commandeer Medusa’s “swampmobile” (a type of motor-boat used by Medusa to traverse the bayou). Medusa attempts pursuit, but is thwarted. By the flares and firecrackers, the ship is caused to explode and sink. Medusa is left clinging to one of its smokestacks while the crocodiles (whom she had abused in her desperation) attack her from below. Mr. Snoops, rowing on a makeshift raft, laughs at the sight of her ruin.

The Devil’s Eye is given to the Smithsonian Institution, and Penny is adopted by a new father and mother. Bernard and Miss Bianca remain partners in the Rescue Aid Society’s missions and soon after depart on Orville, accompanied by Evinrude, to a new rescue mission.

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For the Love of Benji

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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For the Love of Benji is the second film featuring Benji the dog.

Plot Synopsis

In this film, Benji is lost and becomes a stray animal in Athens, Greece, trying to reunite with his family while secret agents pursue him, trying to get a formula which was glued to his paw in order to get it past customs. There are lots of interesting location shots as Benji hides out in the ruins of the Acropolis, where he is befreiended by another stray, and through the narrow streets of an old Greek neighborhood, where he is pursued by a vicious Doberman Pinscher dog who has been brought in to kill him.

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The Shaggy D.A.

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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The Shaggy D.A. is a 1976 film sequel to The Shaggy Dog (1959). Both are live-action films produced by Walt Disney Productions. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and starred Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Tim Conway, Keenan Wynn, Dick van Patten, Jo Anne Worley and Shane Sinutko. It was written by Don Tait and inspired by the novel by Felix Salten.

Tagline: A Real Shaggy Dog Story. The Only Candidate With a Law Degree and a Pedigree!

Background

The Shaggy Dog had been at that point the most profitable film produced by Walt Disney Productions and heavily influenced the studio’s live-action film production for the next two decades. Using a formula of placing supernatural and/or fantastical forces within everyday mid-twentieth century American life, the studio was able to create a long series of “gimmick comedies” (a term coined by Disney historian and film critic Leonard Maltin) with enough action to keep children entertained with a touch of light satire to engage their adult chaperones. Using television actors on their summer hiatus who were familiar to audiences but did not necessarily have enough clout to receive over-the-title billing (or a large fee) from another major studio was one way these comedies were produced inexpensively; they also tended to use the same sets from the Disney backlot repeatedly. This allowed Walt Disney Productions a low-risk scenario for production, any of these films could easily make back their investment just from moderate matinee attendance in neighborhood theatres, and they could also be packaged on the successful Disney anthology television series The Wonderful World of Disney (some of these films were expressly structured for this purpose).

Occasionally Walt Disney Productions would find one of these inexpensive comedies would become a runaway success and place at or near the top of the box office for their respective release year (The Absent-Minded Professor, The Love Bug). The initial release of The Shaggy Dog grossed over nine million dollars on a budget of less than one million dollars—an almost unprecedented return on a film investment, making it more profitable than Ben-Hur (released the same year). It also performed very strongly on a 1967 re-release.

In the original film, young Wilby Daniels (played by prolific Disney actor Tommy Kirk) discovers a ring reputed to have belonged to Lucrezia Borgia. After chanting an inscription on the ring (in canis corpore transmuto) he finds himself repeatedly shape-shifting into a large, shaggy dog. Many comic scenes were built from the concept of a dog acting like a human, brushing his teeth, driving a car etc. and from the comic situation of the hero transforming into a dog at inopportune times. Eventually, he manages to break the spell and returns to a normal life.

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King Kong

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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King Kong is a 1976 American motion picture produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Guillermin. It is a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong, about how a giant ape is captured and imported to New York City for exhibition.

The remake’s screenplay was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the original movie story written by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, which had been adapted into the 1933 screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose. It starred Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange, in her first movie role, playing a part similar to the one made famous in the original by Fay Wray.

Plot summary

The remake differs from the original in several major story details. Instead of a film production crew, King Kong’s world is invaded by a petroleum corporation’s exploratory team. Fred Wilson (Grodin), an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms the expedition based on infrared imagery which reveals a previously undiscovered South Pacific island hidden by a permanent cloud bank; Wilson believes the island has a huge depository of oil, and has promised his bosses he will come back with “the big one.” Jack Prescott (Bridges), a primate paleontologist, sneaks onto the expedition’s enormous vessel en route and attempts to warn the team against completing its mission, citing an ominous final message about “the roar of the greatest beast” from previous doomed explorers. Wilson orders Prescott locked up, claiming that he is really a spy from a rival corporation. However, while being led below deck, Prescott spots a small life raft in the ocean and convinces members of the crew to search the raft. On board is the beautiful Dwan (Lange). Prescott’s medical experience enables him to perform a cursory exam of Dwan, who, after awakening, tells Prescott that she is an actress who was aboard a rich man’s yacht which suddenly exploded, apparently killing everybody except for her. During the ship’s ongoing voyage, Prescott and Dwan become attracted to each other.

Once arriving at the island, the team quickly finds that the oil can’t be used and discovers instead a primitive tribe of natives who live within the confines of a gigantic wall, built to protect them from a mysterious god known as Kong. The natives kidnap Dwan and attempt to use her as a sacrifice to Kong, tying her to an altar outside of their walled village and chanting ominously the word “Kong” over and over again. The captive Dwan begins to scream in horror as something gigantic slowly approaches, crashing loudly through the jungle trees until it reveals itself as a monumental ape standing triumphantly over her, who then grabs her and departs back into the jungle. Although an awesome and terrifying sight, the soft hearted Kong quickly becomes tamed by Dwan, whose babbling sweet talk calms and fascinates the monstrous beast.

In the meantime, Prescott and First Mate Carnahan (Ed Lauter) lead a rescue mission to save Dwan. Kong takes Dwan back to a waterfall. He washes her, and then uses a great gust of his warm breath for a blow-dry. Prescott, Carnahan, and their party have the misfortune of catching up to Kong while crossing a log bridge spanning an abyss, and Kong rolls the huge log, sending Carnahan and the rest of the sailors falling to their deaths. Prescott and Boan are the only ones to survive. Kong then takes Dwan to his lair. Just as he slowly begins to undress his ‘wife’, a giant snake appears and attacks the pair. Prescott finds Dwan, and as a battle of the beasts ensues, they escape. Kong then chases the pair back to the native village, only to fall into a hole and be smothered with chloroform.

Without any of the promised new oil, Wilson decides to transport Kong to America as a promotional gimmick for his company. Brought back aboard an oil tanker, Kong is fed and kept in the dark. When they finally reach New York, Kong is put on display in a beauty and the beast farce, bound in chains and exhibited to the masses. Finally being mobbed by reporters, the unhappy ape goes berserk, breaking his chains and terrorizing the city in an orgy of destruction. Wilson trips while running away and Kong steps on him, killing him instantly. The ape destroys a subway car. Prescott and Dwan flee across the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan; since apes can’t swim they think that they are safe. However, because of his great size Kong is large enough to simply walk across. They stop at an abandoned bar so that Jack can call the military and tell them where Kong is headed. Kong locates Dwan and she allows him to take her; he then begins to make his way to the World Trade Center, with Jack and the military in hot pursuit.

In the climax, instead of climbing the Empire State Building as in the original film, King Kong climbs one of the towers of the World Trade Center. After being attacked by men with flame throwers while standing on the roof of the South Tower, Kong flees by leaping across to the North Tower. Later, he is attacked by helicopters while Dwan is trying to stop them. The fatally injured Kong falls from the roof to the World Trade Center plaza, where he dies from his injuries.

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Gus

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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Gus is a 1976 movie by Walt Disney Productions. Its center character is Gus, a football-playing mule.

Synopsis

The basis of the film is based on a football-kicking mule named “Gus” and his trainer “Andy.”

The film opens with a soccer game, and the Petrovic family watching their son Stepjan win the soccer game. Andy Petrovic works on his farm in Yugoslavia, and can’t play soccer at all. A soccer ball is behind his mule, Gus. After saying that he never wants to see a soccer ball again, Gus kicks the soccer ball and Andy tries it with him and he says, “Oyage!” and Gus kicks the ball.

Meanwhile, the California Atoms are a team that cannot do anything thing right. Debbie Kovac, a woman with Yugoslavian parents gets the Yugoslavian papers, and once Hank Cooper and Coach Venner find out about Gus, they want him over. So with that, Andy and Gus fly over to California and Gus’ kicking of the football gets them to agree to keep him in.

Film Information

The film had done reasonably well and was released on home video in 1981. The movie is remembered for two sequences involving a hotel and a supermarket.

The only one of their five movies where Don Knotts and Tim Conway do not share any scenes.

Johnny Unitas appears as a color commentator with Bob Crane supplying the play-by-play during the football broadcasts. Dick Enberg did the play-by-play for the local games.

The name “Hank Cooper” was later used in the Disney film The Love Bug as the name of the mechanic who meets Herbie (played by Bruce Campbell). Don Knotts co-starred with Dean Jones in the film Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.

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Jaws

Friday, December 12th, 2008
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Jaws is a 1975 thriller/horror film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel, which in turn was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. The police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council, which wants the beach to remain open to draw a profit from tourists during the summer season. After several attacks, the police chief enlists the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. Roy Scheider stars as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as marine biologist Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Lorraine Gary as Brody’s wife Ellen, and Murray Hamilton as Mayor Vaughn.

Jaws is regarded as a watershed film in motion picture history, the father of the summer blockbuster movie and one of the first “high concept” films. Due to the film’s success in advance screenings, studio executives decided to distribute it in a much wider release than ever before. The Omen followed suit in the summer of 1976 and then Star Wars one year later in 1977, cementing the notion for movie studios to distribute their big-release action and adventure pictures (commonly referred to as tentpole pictures) during the summer. The film was followed by three sequels, none with the participation of Spielberg or Benchley. Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987). A video game titled Jaws Unleashed was later made in 2006.

Plot

The film begins at a late night beach party on Amity Island, from which a young woman named Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) leaves to go swimming. She strips naked on the beach and dives into the water. While in the water, she is suddenly jerked around and then pulled under by an unseen force. The next morning, Amity’s new police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is notified that Chrissie is missing. Brody and his deputy Len Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) find her mutilated remains washed up on the shore. The medical examiner informs Brody that the victim’s death was due to a shark attack. Brody, who fears the ocean, heads out to close the beaches, but is intercepted and overruled by the town mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), who fears that reports of a shark attack will ruin the summer tourist season which is the town’s major source of income. The medical examiner says he was wrong about a shark attack and tells Brody that it was a boating accident. Brody reluctantly goes along with this.

A week later, a young boy named Alex Kintner is attacked and eaten by a shark while swimming off a crowded beach. Mrs. Kintner places a $3,000 bounty on the animal, sparking an amateur shark hunting frenzy and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw). Quint interrupts a town meeting to offer his services; his demand for $10,000 is taken “under advisement”. Brought in by Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) conducts an autopsy on Chrissie’s remains and concludes she was killed by a shark. A large tiger shark is caught by a group of novice fishermen, leading the town to believe the problem is solved, but an unconvinced Hooper asks to examine the contents of the shark’s stomach. Because Vaughn refuses to make the “operation” public, Brody and Hooper return after dark and learn that the captured shark does not contain human remains, just fish and garbage. Scouting aboard Hooper’s state-of-the-art boat, they come across the half-sunken wreckage of local fisherman Ben Gardener’s boat. Hooper dons a wetsuit and discovers a giant shark tooth and another victim, Gardener (this causes Hooper to drop the tooth). Vaughn still refuses to close the beach; on the Fourth of July the beaches are covered in tourists. While a prank triggers a false alarm and draws the authorities’ attention, the real shark enters an estuary, kills another man, and nearly kills Brody’s oldest son Michael. Brody forces a stunned Vaughn to hire Quint. Brody and Hooper join the hunter on his boat, the Orca, and the trio set out to kill the man-eater.

At sea, Brody is given the task of laying a chum line, while Quint uses a large fishing pole to try to snag the shark; the first results are inconclusive. Quint suspects shark, Hooper, a game fish. As Brody continues his task, the enormous shark suddenly looms up behind the boat. After a horrified Brody announces its presence (“You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”), Quint and Hooper watch the great white circle the Orca and estimate that the new arrival weighs 3 tons (2.7 metric tonnes) and is 25 feet (8 m) long. Quint harpoons the shark with a line attached to a flotation barrel, designed to prevent the shark from being able to submerge as well as to track it on the surface; but the shark pulls the barrel under and disappears. Night falls without another sighting, so the men retire to the boat’s cabin where Quint and Hooper compare their various scars and Quint tells of his experience with sharks as a survivor of the World War II sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The shark reappears while the men sing, damages the boat’s hull, and slips away before the men can harm it. In the morning, while the men make repairs to the engine, the barrel suddenly reappears at the stern. Quint destroys the radio to prevent Brody from calling the Coast Guard for help. The shark attacks again, and after a long hard chase, Quint harpoons it to another barrel. The men tie the barrels to the stern; but the shark drags the boat backwards, forcing water onto the deck and into the engine, flooding it. Quint harpoons it again, attaching three barrels in all to the shark, while the animal continues to tow them. Quint is about to cut the ropes with his machete when the cleats are pulled off the stern. The shark continues to attack the boat and Quint powers towards shore with the shark in pursuit, hoping to draw the shark into shallow waters where it will be beached and drowned. In his obsession to kill the shark, Quint overloads his damaged engine, causing it to explode.

With the Orca immobilized, the trio try a desperate approach; Hooper dons his scuba gear and enters the ocean inside a shark proof cage, intending to stab the shark in the mouth with a hypodermic spear filled with strychnine nitrate. The shark instead destroys the cage, causing Hooper to lose the spear and flee to the seabed. As Quint and Brody raise the remnants of the cage, the shark throws itself onto the boat, crushing the transom and causing the boat to begin sinking. Quint slides into the shark’s mouth, slashing at it in vain with his machete, before being pulled under and devoured. Brody retreats to the boat’s cabin, which is now partly submerged, and throws a pressurized air tank into the shark’s mouth when it rams its way inside. Brody takes Quint’s M1 Garand rifle and climbs the rapidly-listing mast of the boat where he temporarily fends off the attacker with a harpoon. The shark circles around and charges one last time at Brody, who is now only a foot or so above the water. Brody starts firing at the air tank still wedged in the shark’s mouth. He says “Smile you son of a bitch!“, and scores a hit, and the highly pressurized tank blows the shark’s head to pieces and sends the rest of its body to the bottom of the ocean in a cloud of blood. Hooper surfaces and reunites with Brody, whereupon the two survivors use the leftover barrels to construct a makeshift raft and paddle back to Amity Island.

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A Boy and His Dog

Friday, December 12th, 2008
Movies Online

A Boy and His Dog is a short story by Harlan Ellison which was also the basis of a 1974 post-apocalyptic science fiction film of the same name directed by L. Q. Jones. The story was first published in 1969. A revised and expanded version was printed in Ellison’s 1976 story collection The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, and Ellison continued the story in the graphic novel Vic and Blood which was illustrated by Richard Corben. The film version is often cited as an inspiration for George Miller’s Mad Max though Miller said he had not seen Jones’ film until after he had completed his own. The film was also distributed after the initial run under the name, Psycho Boy and His Killer Dog, among other titles.

Plot

This is a post-apocalyptic tale in which the earth’s surface has been devastated by nuclear war, and the few survivors who remain above ground must forage and fight for food, ammunition, and women. Of these necessities, women are the rarest; most survivors are male because while the males were off fighting the war, their leaders bombed their enemies’ cities and destroyed their homes.

The main character, Vic (Don Johnson), is an 18-year-old boy focused on stealing food and fulfilling his sexual needs. He is accompanied by a well-read and wise-cracking telepathic dog named Blood, an “experienced female provider”. Blood was voiced by Tim McIntire.

In addition to locating women for Vic to rape, Blood also has the unenviable task of trying to educate Vic and keep him safe from harm. Blood is the result of human genetic experimentation, which resulted in an intelligent canine mutation with telepathic abilities. However, the only human Blood can communicate with is Vic, whom Blood refers to as “Albert” as a “term of endearment”. In the graphic novel “Vic and Blood”, Blood explains: “I get such a kick out of calling him Albert – after Albert Payson Terhune, who wrote all those stupid dog books in which we noble creatures were pets, always being saved by some sappy human – it is my best gambit to make him scream.” Blood’s opinion of the human race is not generally a positive one. As Blood notes, “human sex is an ugly thing”.

Most of civilization has gone into the “downunder”, a subsurface setting. One underground city, Topeka, fashioned in a mockery of 1950s rural innocence and brave-new-worldian madness, solves its need for exogamous reproduction by forcibly extracting fluids from sperm donors. But the city is running low on viable donors. Quilla June (Susanne Benton), the daughter of one of Topeka’s committee leaders, is sent to the surface to bait Vic into “service”. Vic takes leave of his lifelong friend Blood and pursues the young lady into the downunder. He soon learns the harsh reality of the authoritarian committee and of its need for his semen.

Quilla June, along with a few other rebellious teenagers, have other plans for Vic. They free him from captivity and beg him to kill the committee members and their android enforcer Michael, thus leaving Quilla June in power. Vic, however, has interest in neither politics nor in remaining underground. The rebellious teenagers are all sentenced to death. Quilla June and Vic manage to disable the pursuing Michael and then escape to the surface. Above ground, they find that Blood is near death. Vic faces a difficult situation, and in a surprise ending, it is assumed he kills his new love and cooks her to save Blood. She only disappears and the dialog implies her fate.

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