Hotchka Movies by the Decade feature #13 :: October 21•27

United Artists

As we get closer to Halloween, it’s generally the time Hollywood releases their big horror titles but that didn’t seem to be a thing until 1990 with the release of a film adapted from a Stephen King story. And it’s not his favorite adaptation of his work. 2000 had horror for adults and children, and 2010 gave us a sequel that was actually a prequel. Other than that, there’s really only one big in scope studio film of note and some films that may best be better left forgotten. Let’s take a look and see if any of your favorites debuted this week through the decades!

1920

October 21 – Just Pals

• Cast: Buck Jones, Helen Ferguson, Georgie Stone, Duke R. Lee, William Buckley, Eunice Murdock Moore, Bert Appling, Edwin B. Tilton
• Director: John Ford
• Studio: Fox Film Corporation
• Trivia: Ford is credited as ‘Jack Ford’ as was typical of his early films.

October 24 – Drag Harlan

• Cast: William Farnum, Jackie Saunders, Arthur Millett, G. Raymond Nye, Herschel Mayall, Frank Thorwald, Kewpie Morgan, Al Fremont, Earl Crain
• Director: J. Gordon Edwards
• Studio: Fox Film Corporation
• Trivia: The film does survive in a highly contrasted print at the Library of Congress.

October 24 – A Full House

• Cast: Bryant Washburn, Lois Wilson, Guy Milham, Hazel Howell, Vera Lewis, Beverly Travers, Lottie Williams, J.P. Wild, Z. Wall Covington, Frank Jonasson, Lillian Leighton
• Director: James Cruze
• Studio: Artcraft Pictures Corporation, Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, distributed by Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: Based on the play by Fred Jackson. The film’s status is unknown indicating it may be lost.

October 24 – Held by the Enemy

• Cast: Agnes Ayres, Wanda Hawley, Josephine Crowell, Lillian Leighton, Lewis Stone, Jack Holt, Robert Cain, Walter Hiers, Robert Brower, Clarence Geldart, Byron Douglas
• Director: Donald Crisp, Wilton Welch
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: Based on the 1886 play by William Gillette. The film is lost.

October 25 – Wanted at Headquarters

• Cast: Eva Novak, Agnes Emerson, Lee Shumway, William Marlon, Lloyd Sedgwick, Howard Davies, George Chesebro, Frank Clark
• Director: Stuart Paton
• Studio: Universal Film Manufacturing Company
• Trivia: Based on the 1918 novel Kate Plus Ten by Edgar Wallace.

1930

October 26 – Renegades

• Cast: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Noah Beery, Gregory Gaye, George Cooper, Bela Lugosi, C. Henry Gordon
• Director: Victor Fleming
• Studio: Fox Film Corporation
• Trivia: Based on the novel Le Renégat by André Armandy.

1940

October 22 – North West Mounted Police

• Cast: Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Paulette Goddard, Preston Foster, Robert Preston, George Bancroft, Lynne Overman, Akim Tamiroff, Walter Hampden, Lon Chaney Jr., Montagu Love, Francis McDonald, George E. Stone, Willard Robertson, Regis Toomey, Richard Denning, Douglas Kennedy, Robert Ryan, Ralph Byrd, Rod Cameron Chief Thundercloud, David Dunbar
• Director: Cecil B. DeMille
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: The film opened in Canada on October 21, 1940, and was based on the 1938 novel The Royal Canadian Mounted Police by R. C. Fetherstonhaugh. This was DeMille’s first film in Technicolor and he also provided the voice of the narrator. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards and won the Oscar for Best Editing. Though based on a real life incident in Saskatchewan, Canada, the film was shot on Paramount sound stages and on location in California and Oregon. The lead was originally given to Joel McCrea but Cooper traded roles so McCrae could star in Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent. The film was Paramount’s biggest box office hit of the year.

October 25 – The Green Archer (serial)

• Cast: Victor Jory, Iris Meredith, James Craven, Robert Fiske, Dorothy Fay, Forrest Taylor, Jack Ingram, Joseph W. Girard, Fred Kelsey, Kit Guard
• Director: James W. Horne
• Studio: Columbia Pictures
• Trivia: This was Columbia’s 12th serial, and was based on the 1923 novel The Green Archer by Edgar Wallace. A silent serial with the same name had been adapted from the novel in 1925.

October 25 – Hullabaloo

• Cast: Frank Morgan, Virginia Grey, Dan Dailey, Billie Burke, Nydia Westman, Ann Morriss, Donald Meek, Reginald Owen, Charles Holland, Leni Lynn, Virginia O’Brien, Curt Bois, Sara Haden, Larry Nunn, Barnett Parker, Connie Gilchrist
• Director: Edwin L. Marin
• Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Trivia: One scene features Morgan reenacting a scene from MGM’s Boom Town in which he appears to mimic the voices of the actors. In reality, the actors’ voices — Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Spencer Tracy, and Hedy Lamarr — were dubbed over Morgan’s.

October 25 – Seven Sinners

• Cast: Marlene Dietrich, John Wayne, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, Anna Lee, Mischa Auer, Billy Gilbert, Richard Carle, Samuel S. Hinds, Oskar Homolka, Reginald Denny, Vince Barnett, Herbert Rawlinson, James Craig, William Bakewell
• Director: Tay Garnett
• Studio: Joe Pasternak Productions, distributed by Universal Pictures
• Trivia: Known in the UK as Cafe of the Seven Sinners. This was the first of three films Dietrich and Wayne made together. This was the second American film Anna Lee made but the first to be released. Lee said Dietrich insisted she dye her hair brown so she would not clash with Dietrich. Lee also said Dietrich saw Wayne in the commissary and told producer Joe Pasternak, ‘Mommy wants that for Christmas’, and he was hired. The film was remade in 1950 as South Sea Sinner.

October 25 – They Knew What They Wanted

• Cast: Carole Lombard, Charles Laughton, William Gargan, Harry Carey, Frank Fay, Janet Fox, Lee Tung Foo, Karl Malden
• Director: Garson Kanin
• Studio: RKO Radio Pictures
• Trivia: The film had its premiere in San Francisco on October 8, 1940. Gargan was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Based on the 1924 Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name by Sidney Howard. This was the only instance of a film adaptation using the same title as the play. Two previous adaptations had been filmed as The Secret Hour (1928) and A Lady to Love (1930). In 1956, the play was turned into a musical titled The Most Happy Fella, which was videotaped and aired on PBS in 1980.

1950

October 25 – Flying Disc Man From Mars (serial)

• Cast: Walter Reed, Lois Collier, Gregory Gaye, James Craven, Harry Lauter
• Director: Fred C. Brannon
• Studio: Republic Pictures
• Trivia: Going $4,799 over budget, the serial was the most expensive made by Republic in 1950. The film had several working titles including Atom Man from Mars, Disc Man from Mars, Disc Men of the Skies, Flying Planet Man and Jet Man from Mars. This was a sequel to the serial The Purple Monster Strikes. Footage from several previous Republic serials was used to pad out the serial and keep production costs low. A 75-minute edit of the serial was released as a feature film under the title Missile Monsters.

October 26 – The Miniver Story

• Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Leo Genn, Cathy O’Donnell, Reginald Owen, Anthony Bushell, Richard Gale, Peter Finch James Fox
• Director: H.C. Potter
• Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Trivia: This is a sequel to 1942’s Mrs. Miniver, with Garson, Pidgeon, Owen and Wilcoxon reprising their original roles, and was filmed on location in England. Cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was almost let go due to British film regulations but was kept on after Garson threatened to quit. The film lost $2.3 million, making it MGM’s most costly flop of 1950.

1960

October 24 – The Alamo

• Cast: John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Frankie Avalon, Patrick Wayne, Linda Cristal, Joan O’Brien, Chill Wills, Joseph Calleia, Ken Curtis, Carlos Arruza, Jester Hairston, Veda Ann Borg, John Dierkes, Denver Pyle, Richard Boone
• Director: John Wayne
• Studio: The Alamo Company, United Artists, Batjac Productions, distributed by United Artists
• Trivia: The film was originally set up with Wayne at Republic Pictures but they clashed over the film’s $3 million budget. Wayne left Republic but could not take his script, which was later rewritten and filmed as The Last Command. Wayne decided that to preserve his vision for the film, he would produce and direct but not star, however funding could not be secured unless he agreed to appear in the film. Additional funding for the movie came from wealthy Texans who insisted the movie be filmed in Texas. Wayne invested $1.5 million of his own money. A three-quarter scale replica of the Alamo Mission was constructed for the film over a period of two years, and has been used in 100 other Westerns. Wayne wanted to play the smaller role of Sam Houston but was forced by investors to take on a leading character, so he chose Davy Crockett. Wayne hired Frankie Avalon to attract younger viewers to the film, just as Ricky Nelson had done for Rio Bravo, which also starred Wayne. Richard Widmark tried to quit the film, claiming he’d been miscast, but after threats of legal action he agreed to stay on. Sammy Davis Jr. asked Wayne for a role as a slave to get away from his usual song-and-dance roles, but the casting was blocked by producers allegedly because Davis was dating white actress May Britt. Wayne’s mentor John Ford arrived on set unannounced and tried to exert influence over the film. Wayne sent him off to direct unneeded second unit footage which was not used in the film. Laurence Harvey broke his foot after a cannon recoiled but did not scream in pain until Wayne called ‘Cut!’ He praised Harvey for his professionalism. The film’s world premiere was held at the Woodlawn Theatre in San Antonio. The film was criticized for its historical inaccuracies and the film’s historians demanded their names be removed from the credits. Many saw the film as a political platform for Wayne’s beliefs. Chills Wills, who was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, took heat from Academy voters and Wayne for his campaign ad that said the film’s cast was praying harder for his win than the defenders of the Alamo prayed for their lives before the battle. Wayne responded with his own ad deploring Wills’ tastelessness. Wills’ ad also claimed the voters were his ‘Alamo cousins’ prompting Groucho Marx to take out a small ad that said, ‘Dear Mr. Wills, I am delighted to be your cousin, but I voted for Sal Mineo.’ The film’s premiere and road show version ran 202 minutes in length but was cut to 167 minutes for wide release. The road show version was believed lost until a pristine version was discovered in Toronto in the 1970s. This version was used to make VHS and LaserDisc transfers, but by 2007 it had deteriorated in storage and was unusable for any medium. The only road show version that now exists is a 480i digital video which has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

1970

October 21 – Little Fauss and Big Halsy

• Cast: Robert Redford, Michael J. Pollard, Lauren Hutton, Noah Beery, Jr., Lucille Benson, Ray Ballard, Linda Gaye Scott
• Director: Sidney J. Furie
• Studio: Alfran Productions, distributed by Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: The title song, ‘The Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsy’ written by Carl Perkins, was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. The role of Rita Nebraska, played by Lauren Hutton, was originally offered to Grace Slick.

October 26 – Waterloo

• Cast: Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles, Jack Hawkins, Virginia McKenna, Dan O’Herlihy, Rupert Davies, Philippe Forquet, Gianni Garko, Ivo Garrani, Ian Ogilvy
• Director: Sergei Bondarchuk
• Studio: Mosfilm, Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, distributed by Columbia Pictures (other countries), Paramount Pictures (North America, Argentina and Spain)
• Trivia: 15,000 extras in authentic dress recreated the battle scenes without the benefit of special effects, the highest number of costumed extras in any film. The extras, jokingly referred to as the world’s seventh largest army, lived in an encampment next to the battlefield and each day would march into wardrobe to don their costumes, in position to film fifteen minutes later. A bird’s eye view of battle formations was footage from the Russian film War and Peace shot four years earlier using hot air balloons. John Huston had originally been announced to direct in October 1965. The film failed to recoup its costs, leading to the cancellation of Stanley Kubrick’s planned film biography of Napoleon.

1980

October 24 – It’s My Turn

• Cast: Jill Clayburgh, Michael Douglas, Charles Grodin, Beverly Garland, Steven Hill, Jennifer Salt, Dianne Wiest, Daniel Stern
• Director: Claudia Weill
• Studio: Rastar, distributed by Columbia Pictures
• Trivia: Diana Ross sang the film’s theme song which played over the end credits. The film was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay.

October 24 – Loving Couples

• Cast: Shirley MacLaine, James Coburn, Susan Sarandon, Stephen Collins, Sally Kellerman, Nan Martin, Anne Bloom, Helena Carroll, Marilyn Chris, Pat Corley, Michael Currie, John de Lancie, Peter Hobbs, Sam Weisman
• Director: Jack Smight
• Studio: Time-Life Films, distributed by 20th Century Fox
• Trivia: Scenes in Mexico were filmed in San Diego, CA, and the hotel interiors were filmed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. This was one of two 20th Century Fox films of 1980 starring Shirley MacLaine that dealt with marital infidelity. In an interview, James Coburn brought up the similarities of the film to A Change of Seasons and was baffled as to why MacLaine was basically playing the same character.

1990

October 25 – The Never Ending Story II

• Cast: Jonathan Brandis, Kenny Morrison, Clarissa Burt, John Wesley Shipp, Alexandra Johnes, Thomas Hill, Donald Arthur, Martin Umbach
• Director: George T. Miller
• Studio: CineVox Filmproduktion, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
• Trivia: The film opened in Germany on October 25, 1990 but did not get a North American release until February 8, 1991. Thomas Hill was the only actor from the original to appear in the sequel. Over 600 children were auditioned for the roles as the original actors were now too old. The film was to rely more on life-size models and physical effects to avoid the special effects issues with the first film and keep the budget lower. Three stages were to be built so main photography could be shot at the same time on two stages while effects were done on the third, but the studio opted not to build the third, forcing the two main units to film on the first stage simultaneously while effects were done on the second. Because of child labor laws and a fear of falling behind schedule, many scenes with the child actors were covered with three cameras which put production so far ahead of schedule that the effects were not completed for later scenes.

Paramount Pictures

October 26 – Graveyard Shift

• Cast: David Andrews, Kelly Wolf, Stephen Macht, Andrew Divoff, Vic Polizos, Brad Dourif, Frank Welker
• Director: Ralph S. Singleton
• Studio: Distributed by Paramount Pictures (USA and Canada/Japan), Columbia Pictures (International)
• Trivia: Based on the short story by Stephen King published in Cavalier magazine in 1970, and later included in the 1978 collection Night Shift. The film was shot in Harmony, Maine at the oldest woolen yarn mill in the United States. Other scenes were shot in Bangor and Corinna. King called the film one of his least favorite adaptations of his work.

October 26 – The Hot Spot

• Cast: Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Connelly, Debra Cole, Jerry Hardin, William Sadler, Charles Martin Smith, Barry Corbin, Leon Rippy, Jack Nance, Virgil Frye
• Director: Dennis Hopper
• Studio: Orion Pictures
• Trivia: The film premiered September 8, 1990 at TIFF. Based on the 1952 novel Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams, who also co-wrote the screenplay. A screenplay was written by Williams in 1962 for Robert Mitchum. Madsen was supposed to do a nude scene but opted to wear a negligee because she felt the nudity was weak storywise and the negligee gave the audience a chance to undress her. Hopper later admitted she made the right decision. Johnson and Hopper were a bit at odds with Hopper calling out Johnson’s entourage, and Johnson calling Hopper’s approach to filmmaking a bit disappointing, alleging that the film Johnson signed on for was a heist film called The Hot Spot by Mike Figgis that Hopper tossed out three days before filming was to begin for another script called The Hot Spot that had been written in the 1960s. Hopper had said he was disappointed by the lack of promotion for the film by Johnson and Madsen. He claimed Johnson wouldn’t do any publicity until the reviews came out (Johnson countered that he was too busy filming Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man), and that Madsen was embarrassed by the amount of time she spent nude on screen.

October 26 – Sibling Rivalry

• Cast: Kirstie Alley, Jami Gertz, Bill Pullman, Ed O’Neill, Carrie Fisher, Scott Bakula, Frances Sternhagen, John Randolph, Sam Elliott
• Director: Carl Reiner
• Studio: Castle Rock Entertainment, Nelson Entertainment, distributed by Columbia Pictures

October 26 – Soultaker

• Cast: Joe Estevez, Vivian Schilling, Robert Z’Dar, Gregg Thomsen, David ‘Shark’ Fralick
• Director: Michael Rissi
• Studio: Pacific West Entertainment Group, Victory Pictures, distributed by Action International Pictures
• Trivia: The story was based on a real-life car accident screenwriter Vivian Schilling was involved in. The film was originally planned as a direct-to-video release but got a limited release in the US. The film earned negative reviews but won the Saturn Award for Best Genre Video Release in 1992. A sequel was planned with James Earl Jones and Faye Dunaway mentioned as starring, but the film never materialized and the idea was turned into a novel, Quietus, in 2002. Soultaker was the film featured in the tenth season premiere of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1999.

2000

October 27 – Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

• Cast: Jeffrey Donovan, Erica Leerhsen, Stephen Barker Turner, Kim Director, Tristine Skyler, Lanny Flaherty, Lauren Hulsey, Raynor Scheine
• Director: Joe Berlinger
• Studio: Haxan Films, distributed by Artisan Entertainment
• Trivia: Original Blair Witch Project cast members Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard appear in archival footage as fictionalized versions of themselves. Artisan wanted a sequel to The Blair Witch Project while the film was still at its peak popularity but Haxan Films wanted to wait to let it die down a bit so Artisan proceeded without them. Berlinger had previously — and subsequently — only directed true documentaries. Berlinger spent time in Burkittsville, Maryland interviewing the locals on how the original film impacted the town and their lives and incorporated those conversations into the film. Berlinger has stated that his vision for the film was more character driven but Artisan insisted on a more traditional horror film with less ambiguity. The interrogation sequences were meant to be one eight-minute segment, but Artisan wanted Berlinger to intercut it throughout the film, compromising his intention of a linear narrative. The film opened with Frank Sinatra’s ‘Witchcraft’ but Artisan replaced it with Marilyn Manson’s ‘Disposable Teens’.

October 27 – The Little Vampire

• Cast: Jonathan Lipnicki, Richard E. Grant, Jim Carter, Alice Krige, Pamela Gidley, Tommy Hinkley, Anna Popplewell, Dean Cook, Rollo Weeks
• Director: Uli Edel
• Studio: Propaganda Films, Cometstone Pictures, distributed by New Line Cinema
• Trivia: The film premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival on August 18, 2000. Based on the children’s book series of the same name by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg. The film was shot at various locations in Scotland.

2010

October 22 – Bear City

• Cast: Joe Conti, Stephen Guarino, Brian Keane, Gregory Gunter, Sebastian La Cause, Alex Di Dio, James Martinez, Gerald McCullouch, Ashlie Atkinson
• Director: Doug Langway
• Studio: TLA Releasing
• Trivia: The film premiered at the Newfest New York LGBT Film Festival on June 11, 2010. A novelization of the film written by co-screenwriter Lawrence Ferber was published in 2013. The film spawned two sequels.

October 22 – Hereafter

• Cast: Matt Damon, Cécile de France, Frankie and George McLaren, Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard, Thierry Neuvic, Marthe Keller, Derek Jacobi, Lyndsey Marshal, Richard Kind, Steven R. Schirripa, Jenifer Lewis, Franz Drameh
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• Studio: The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Malpaso Productions, Amblin Entertainment, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
• Trivia: The film premiered at TIFF on September 12, 2010, and opened in limited release on October 15 before its general North American release on October 22. The script was originally sold to DreamWorks in 2008 but after the studio’s split with Paramount Pictures it transferred to Warner Bros by the time Eastwood had signed to direct in 2009. Damon had worked with Eastwood on Invictus which led Eastwood to cast him for Hereafter, but Damon was tied up with The Adjustment Bureau and suggested Eastwood cast Ben Affleck, Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Hayden Christensen or Josh Brolin. Eastwood wanted Damon and adjusted his shooting schedule to accommodate Damon’s. Thierry Neuvic’s audition took fifteen minutes as he read two scenes for Eastwood in a Paris hotel. Derek Jacobi appears as himself. Executive producer Steven Spielberg was worried about the script’s low-key ending and it was rewritten to be more grand but subsequent drafts of the script reverted back to the original ending. The film was playing in Japan at the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the film was withdrawn from cinemas due to its own tsunami sequence that was deemed not appropriate at that time.

October 22 – Knucklehead

• Cast: Big Show, Mark Feuerstein, Melora Hardin, Stuart Pointer, Kurt Doss, Dennis Farina, Wendie Malick, Rebecca Creskoff, Will Patton, Lester Speight, Saul Rubinek, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Lurie Poston, Lance E. Nichols, Jake Austin Walker
• Director: Michael Watkins
• Studio: WWE Studios, distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films
• Trivia: This is the second produced film from WWE Studios. The film received universally negative reviews with Slant Magazine saying the film’s title was ‘a description for both the film and anyone who chooses to be its audience.’ Dennis Farina said it was the most embarrassing project of his career.

October 22 – Paranormal Activity 2

• Cast: Sprague Grayden, Brian Boland, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat
• Director: Tod Williams
• Studio: Blumhouse Productions, distributed by Paramount Pictures
• Trivia: Though carrying the number 2 in the title, the film is a prequel to the original set two months before and leading up to the events of the first film. Saw VI director Kevin Greutert was signed to helm the film but Lionsgate exercised a clause in his contract to have him direct the final film in the Saw franchise. The film was shot in three weeks. The Cinemark theater chain pulled the film’s trailer from several Texas theaters after complaints that it was too scary. At the time of its release, it broke the record for the largest grossing midnight showing with $6.3 million, and broke the record for the biggest horror film opening of all time, earning $20.1 million on opening day and a total of $41.5 million its first weekend. An unrated director’s cut version of the film was released to home video.