rate the last movie you saw

[Eric Paddon]

Gray Lady Down (1978)

-I hadn't realized this old favorite of mine had been given a Blu-Ray release by Shout! The transfer is great, bringing clarity to F/X sequences I'd never picked up on before in the more murky, grainy look of the old DVD release. Fielding's score really comes through as well too. The film's weaknesses are a little more evident to me as I grow older in the area of editing. Some scenes are too slow-paced and could have used trimming and also there is clearly a narrative gap after the sub collides with the freighter because we don't see Heston and Stephen McHattie scramble back inside off the bridge. Ronny Cox's disappearance during this sequence and Heston's surprised reaction when he sees him later drop out of the conning tower with a wound in his head is clearly because he thought Cox had been trapped outside the sub and didn't make it back in.

-For the first time ever, a trailer for the film is included and it gives a brief glimpse of a cut scene showing Rosemary Forsyth, playing Heston's wife nervously at home listening to a radio report on the sub's rescue. I knew there had to have been a lot of material of her left on the cutting room floor because in the final cut of the film, her screen time is one scene, 15 seconds and precisely five words of dialogue. A set of publicity photos also included as an extra show one of an additional cut scene of Stacy Keach (sporting his natural receding hairline) talking with his wife.

-The film had been shot in late 76-early 77 and the Navy ship scenes at sea had been shot by Universal simultaneous with those for "Airport '77". But Universal then lost confidence in the film and shelved it until 78 for release where it disappeared quick. I first saw it on NBC in the early 80s where TV previews made much of Christopher Reeve's small part in the film just months before he landed the role that changed his life forever. For all the flaws that are now evident I still enjoy it as a nice low-key type of film at tail end of the disaster cycle that doesn't step into embarrassing territory like Irwin Allen's last three films did. It is also really when you get down to it, Heston's last major studio release with top billing and represents an end of an era there too.

[Monterey Jack]

It's officially the beginning of Summer (and my birthday), so now it's finally safe to go back in the water...





-Jaws (1975): 11/10

-Jaws 2 (1978): 8/10

What more can be said about the original Jaws at this point? When it's celebrating its 100th anniversary, it will still be making audiences gulp, laugh and thrill to every perfectly-pitched moment. And Jaws 2 manages to hurdle itself past the mercenary commerce it was created to generate with fine film craftsmanship, a likeable (if generic) batch of proto-slasher movie teen victims, a committed performance by Roy Scheider and another marvelous John Williams score. It's getting lumped in with the truly lousy third and fourth movies that has given Jaws 2 a needlessly bad rap over the last thirty years. Hell, as far as think-of-the-paycheck sequels to Spielberg movies, I'll take this over The Lost World any day...and that one was actually directed by Spielberg!

[Eric Paddon]

I picked up the book on the making of Jaws 2. It didn't give enough details on the changes in the scripts along the way I felt, but did have a lot on the change in cast from Hancock to Szwarc, and it also mentioned that the reason why Donna Wilkes is flipping out as in that clip is because she's reacting to the demise of Billy Van Zandt who was a shark victim, but they decided his death was too grisly so they did some re-editing to make it look like he survived.

[Monterey Jack]

I picked up the book on the making of Jaws 2. It didn't give enough details on the changes in the scripts along the way I felt, but did have a lot on the change in cast from Hancock to Szwarc, and it also mentioned that the reason why Donna Wilkes is flipping out as in that clip is because she's reacting to the demise of Billy Van Zandt who was a shark victim, but they decided his death was too grisly so they did some re-editing to make it look like he survived.

If Scream Factory ever gets their hands on the Jaws sequels (they're the go-to label for luxe editions of cheeseball horror sequels ), it'd be fascinating to a have a truly in-depth look at the original Hancock vision of the movie, especially if they could dig up that unused footage. I vaguely remember the Hank Searls novelization, and how it went into detail about how Mayor Vaughn was in deep to the mob for borrowing money to keep Amity afloat after the bad press from the shark attacks in the first movie (I actually found these elements hard to follow and kind of boring as a kid). Too bad that copies of the novelization are running for $530 on Amazon.

[Eric Paddon]

$530?????? Sheesh, I used to have a copy for years and re-read it a number of times I know it by heart! Yes, the novelization was bringing back on a grander scale the whole Mafia angle that was also in the original Benchley novel. Here are some of the things I remember.

1-"Pete" (not Len) Peterson is the guy developing a casino on Amity that is going to save the town and help shed its "Shark City" image. We then learn that he is in debt to the Mafia who are taking over the casino project. The Mafia guy who is calling the shots, I am not making this up, is "Shuffles" Moscone.

2-Brody is a doofus for two-thirds of the story and doesn't realize another shark is back. What happens is that a crooked town pharmacist, Nate Starbuck, upon developing the film from the divers camera sees the shark image, believes its the first shark never killed and hides it from Brody and decides to try and cut his own deal with the Mafia figures. It leads to his eventual demise.

3-Brody meanwhile believes that the ski boat explosion (which we know is caused by a shark) is caused by a vacationing crooked NY cop named Charlie Jepps who he caught on the beach shooting at a seal. Jepps is in solid with the Mafia forces too but eventually gets blown away by Moscone's deaf and dumb nephew hit man. Brody is wasting a lot of time trying to pin this on Jepps instead of realizing another shark is out there.

4-Oh and Searls was responsible for the genesis of the Jaws: The Revenge gimmick. His narrative establishes this second shark is a female impregnated by the first one, and is giving birth to baby sharks just when Brody electrocutes it in the climax. The novel ended with the baby shark now roaming about. Searls did the Jaws: The Revenge novelization too and recycled a lot of passages from the Jaws 2 novelization to drive this point home.

[Monterey Jack]

I vaguely remember a lot of that! Wasn't there a bit where Ellen Brody slapped one of her sons, "Hard, like a housewife in a Naples slum"?

Sounds like the eventual movie did us a service jettisoning most of this needless filler, like Spielberg did with Benchley's novel (what with Hooper having an affair with Ellen, a subplot which alternately confused and embarrassed l'il me ). Of course, if anyone ever remakes the first movie (which will probably happen within five years of Spielberg's death), I'm sure they'll put a lot of this crap back in to be "more faithful to the source material".

[Eric Paddon]

Yes, that's right she slaps Sean at one point because "Shuffles" has a son Sean's age and I think at one point he takes a ride home with him. There's also a black female cop named "Swede" who gives Brody the bad news that Jepps gun didn't cause the ski boat explosion and that the driver shot his own flare pistol into it by accident.

Turns out I still have my copy! But checking Amazon it's not really going for that high a price, that apparently refers to an import edition and not the typical Bantam paperback version which is quite cheap used.

I can't believe all of this was in the original script and that maybe what happened was Searls being allowed to expand upon the basic elements of the original Tristan/Sackler script to get it novel length. He goes back to the Benchley novel when giving us the names of Amity councilmen etc.

Actually if they remade it today, the shark would be portrayed as the innocent victim and that the shark victims had it coming to them for trespassing in its domain!

[Monterey Jack]

Actually if they remade it today, the shark would be portrayed as the innocent victim and that the shark victims had it coming to them for trespassing in its domain!

Yep...and Brody's sons would tag along on the adventure, and there'd be a greedy industrialist who is the only one killed at the climax, and the last shot would be the shark swimming away into the sunset while John Williams' music swells with emotion.

[AndyDursin]

I never actually read the JAWS 2 screenplay drafts by Dorothy Tristan, but was the mafia element actually in her story, or was it just Searls throwing it in the book for a good read? Because you know none of that was in the JAWS THE REVENGE film, ever, lol (his novel is at least superior to the film). I agree with Eric wholeheartedly -- that MAKING OF book was very poorly written (and edited especially), but there's still some nuggets of info in there, even a lot of it was taken from that JAWS 2 LOG paperback (which I have a copy of).

I see there's an "updated and expanded" version too -- wonder if reads better (or was proofread!):



BTW MJ you can find a much cheaper JAWS 2 novel here -- from $5 shipped:

[jkholm]

I watched KRULL last night with my eleven year old son. He more or less enjoyed it although he kept pointing out the old school special effects. The flaws in the movie are much more apparent to me now, especially the shaky plot. There were several moments when my son asked “Why is he doing that?” or “What’s going on here?” and my response was, “Ummm, that’s not clear to me.” We did have fun watching Liam Neeson (Look, there’s Qui-Gon!) and Robbie Coltrane (It’s Hagrid!)

What really stood out to me though was the cinematography. There were many scenes shot in real locations. Outside. During the day. In bright sunlight. It was glorious. Is there an actual reason why so many sci-fi/fantasy movies today are deliberately shot with low light? An artistic reason? When the director and cinematographer get together, do they mutually agree to make the entire movie hard to see? Is it a political statement about the “dark times we live in?” Are they trying to be the SF version of The Godfather? It just baffles me.

[AndyDursin]

Yes exactly John. The plot is dopey but Peter Suschitzky's cinematography and Horner's score are both terrific. I think so much of what we see today in genre films is computer generated that its just easier to render a fake backdrop in darkness most of the time!

[Monterey Jack]

Watched 1966's Fantastic Voyage for the first time...what a neat slice of 60's sci-fi, with cool F/X and a bristlingly atonal Leonard Rosenman score that turns the inside of the human body into an fascinatingly alien universe. Had I seen this as a kid I would have been over the moon for it (Innerspace was one of my faves in the late 80's), and even coming to it for the first time as an adult I really dug it. Raquel Welch could have been wearing less, but otherwise, this was aces. 8.5/10

[Eric Paddon]

It's a great film, and Raquel in her first major film role is a wonderful bonus.

The set was used for the "Jonah And The Whale" episode of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" and the "Derelict" episode of "Lost In Space."

[Monterey Jack]

It's a great film, and Raquel in her first major film role is a wonderful bonus.

Listened to the Jeff Bond commentary, and he related a humorous anecdote about how the male cast was leery of going anywhere near her breasts while ripping the "antibodies" off her, so she ended up with an ersatz "bikini top".

[Paul MacLean]

Yep...and Brody's sons would tag along on the adventure, and there'd be a greedy industrialist who is the only one killed at the climax, and the last shot would be the shark swimming away into the sunset while John Williams' music swells with emotion.

Don't you mean Hans Zimmer's power anthem (co-written by Harry Gregson-Williams, Benjamin Wallfisch, and a drum circle)?