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Five Minutes to Live (1961)
Ronnie Howard outwits Johnny Cash
Five Minutes to Live (1961) is one of the funniest "bad" movies I've ever seen. By this I mean the filmmakers took the subject seriously, but unintentionally made a hilarious movie. I laughed more at this than some so called comedy movies I have seen. Picture Johnny Cash as a guitar-playing psycho hired by Vic Tayback (Mel from Alice) hired to watch over the wife of a local resident while he forces the husband at gunpoint to rob a bank, or his wife will be killed. I've never thought of this method of bank robbing, but based on this movie, it's not a good plan.
Johnny Cash menaces the poor wife by breaking her precious pottery and assorted knick-knacks she has in the house - "Don't scream or I'll break this expensive vase!". It's very funny because it is Johnny Cash doing the menacing. I have no idea how he got induced to make this movie, but I'm sure he didn't advertise that he was in it.
To make things even funnier in contemporary terms, the son of the menaced wife is played by a young Ronnie Howard. If you ever wanted to see a movie with Johnny Cash using Ronnie Howard as a human shield, this is the movie for you. Not only that, but Ronnie outwits Johnny by pretending to be dead. Johnny has some weird obsession about kids in his past, so he freaks out when he thinks Ronnie is dead and is killed by the police.
I can't recommend this movie as any good, but as bad movies go, this is one of the best.
My Favorite Brunette (1947)
A Bob Hope Classic!
When people my age (50) think of Bob Hope, they probably remember an old guy reading jokes off of cue cards and doing silly sketches with people like Brooke Shields or Mr.T. Hope had an entire career before I was born that is much better than any of the latter day specials and movies he made, and "My Favorite Brunette" is one of the best.
The movie has co-stars like Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney who were familiar movie villains at the time, and cameos by other famous stars of the time. Some of the jokes are topical and would have been funny in 1947. But, it has a good plot, great actors, and is funny. Bob Hope excels at playing the coward and is really into the part, not just reading lines.
Even though some of the jokes or references are dated, there are plenty of laughs that are timeless. It's kind of like a Road movie without Bing Crosby.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes (1965)
Good escapist movie
"Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" is one of many mid- 60's chase movies that were popular. They all had an international cast, and lots of money was spent on making them as spectacular as possible, I guess to draw people away from their television sets.
Stuart Whitman plays the American pilot from Arizona, and does it fairly well. I liked seeing Benny Hill as the fireman, and there is one scene where the Monty Python's Flying Circus theme can be heard in the background.
I think Hannah-Barbera must have got their inspiration for the Dick Dastardly character from the part Terry-Thomas plays in this movie. He was in a lot of these chase movies at the time, such as "It's a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World" , and "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies", which I have not seen, but it has the same director and some of the same actors (Gert Frobe, Eric Sykes.)
While not a classic, it is a fun movie to see, and has a catchy theme song that will get stuck in your head.
Perry Mason: The Case of the Simple Simon (1964)
Who Killed the Critic?
This is a good Perry Mason episode, with a great supporting cast and a memorable last line.
Victor Buono plays his usual role as a smug, egocentric fat man, and there is hardly anyone better at it, except maybe Sydney Greenstreet. It's hard to believe he was only 25 years old when he played this part, he always looked much older than his real age. It's a shame that he died of a heart attack at 43.
Tom Conway, in one of his last appearances, does a great impression of his younger brother George Sanders. I would have thought it was Sanders if I had not seen the credits.
The actress who played Ramona Carver was unknown to me, but she played the part well. All in all a good solid episode of this classic show.