Ryan Watches 50 Movies

Hi, everyone. Here's the deal: I haven't written about Swamp Women yet. I've had an unusually full week. But I will write about Swamp Women ! Soon! And it will be the swampiest thing you've ever seen.

First of all, I want to say that I discovered something very cool while watching this movie. But I'm not going to tell you what it was until my "comments" section, so keep reading. Now, here's something odd. Before this week, I'd seen the 1922 silent classic Nosferatu once, on Turner Classic Movies, and in the version I saw there, the vampire in the film was named Count Orlok. In the version included on the 50 Movie Classics: Horror DVD set I'm trudging through now, that character's name is Count Dracula. Apparently the Bram Stoker novel Dracula was still copyrighted in 1922, which explains why the German filmmakers changed the villains name and many other details. But I wonder, at what point did somebody create a new English print of the film in which his name was Dracula instead of Orlok? And if the film is in the public domain, does that mean I could take the film, add new titles establishing his name as Dr. Macadamia van Goofberry, and sell cop...

Two weeks ago I watched a Lon Chaney, Sr. movie. Last week I watched a Lon Chaney, Jr. movie. This week it's the elder Chaney's turn again as I watched 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame . I've never read the Victor Hugo book, and the only other adaptation I've seen is the Disney musical which I assume took one or two liberties with the original story. But I do happen to own a copy of Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk versus Quasimodo from 1983: Is that cool or what? It was written by longtime Hulk writer Bill Mantlo, with art by Sal Buscema and Steve Mitchell, and features the Hulk actually fighting the hunchback in the cathedral of Notre Dame. But of course, I'm here to talk about the classic movie, not some silly comic book, so let's proceed. Synopsis The Notre Dame cathedral is a big ol' church in Paris. It serves as a sanctuary for many of the city's impoverished, and today it's the site of the Festival of Fools , a big ol' party ...

So, did everyone see where Lon Chaney, Sr. himself commented on last week's entry on his movie The Phantom of the Opera ? Yep, despite being dead, the veteran actor has his own Blogger account. And a MySpace! His age is listed as 125. Man, you never know who you'll find on the internet. While watching Indestructible Man , I honestly wasn't sure whether the title character was played by the elder Chaney or his son Lon Chaney, Jr., also a horror movie actor (best known for The Wolf Man ). The credits just say "Lon Chaney," and the movie is from 1956, 31 years after Phantom , so it seemed feasible enough that it could be the old guy. It's not like I would recognize his real face after seeing him in that phantom makeup. But according to both Wikipedia and IMDb, it's Lon Jr., and I guess I'll take their word for it. Unless one of the Chaneys corrects me. Synopsis The movie is narrated by a detective named Dick Chasen . With a name like that, you...

First of all, I want to mention that I just spent 20 minutes wandering around my apartment looking under things because I could not find my notes on this movie, before finally finding them in an unlikely place. Now, it may just be that I misplaced them, but I don't think that's the true explanation. I'm almost certain that my notes were, in fact, stolen and hidden from me by... THE PHANTOM ! The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney (Senior), based on the 1909 novel by Gaston Leroux, which was of course based on the Twiggy episode of The Muppet Show , in which the theater is haunted by the Phantom of the Muppet Show. These days, of course, when most people think of the Phantom story, they think of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. I've seen the musical, but fortunately I had forgotten enough of it that I didn't know everything that was going to happen in the movie. Synopsis The Paris Opera House is enormous, and grand, and palatial... and...

Hi there. I ran out of time to watch The Phantom of the Opera this week. But I had a pretty good reason... or rather, reasons. Let me tell you about it (them). On Thursday, I attempted to go to a free outdoor screening of Cabaret , but it was rained out, so I watched it at a friend's apartment instead. It was not quite what I expected. I was surprised to see that all of the musical numbers in the film were presented as performances at the titular nightclub, and the characters never spontaneously burst into song, as is traditional in musicals. Is there a term for this subset of musicals? But it was still a pretty good movie. On Monday, I went to a free outdoor screening of Superman , which was the most crowded and high-energy movie screening I've ever been to. People were cheering and whooping and applauding for pretty much everything Superman ever did, and for the duration of the film, for all of the New Yorkers squeezed together on the lawn at Bryant Park, Superma...

Several movies ago, I watched The Fatal Hour , a detective movie starring Boris Karloff as the Chinese detective Mr. Wong. Doomed to Die is the second Wong movie in this DVD set, which doesn't mean much because as you know, two Wongs don't make a right. According to IMDb, Doomed was made just after Fatal Hour , in the same year (1940). It also features the return of spunky girl detective Bobbi Logan and cranky cop Captain Street, and like its predecessor, it's not a horror film at all, but rather a murder mystery. Yep, it sure has a lot in common with The Fatal Hour , which is a movie I have seen. So it was interesting to me that when I went back and read my entry on Fatal Hour just now, I remembered almost nothing from it. When I saw Bobbi Logan and Captain Street in this week's movie, I had no idea I had seen them before. As I've gone through these "horror classic" movies, I've often wondered how much will stick with me... and now I have my answer....