Calypso Heat Wave
Produced by Sam Katzman and directed by Fred Sears, this musical film stars Angelou’s performing the song Run Joe. Angelou is 29 years old at the time, and is hired for the film due to her experience on stage as both an actress and singer.
From Russia With Love
United Artists releases the second James Bond film—From Russia With Love. Based on the novel by Ian Fleming, the lead role is played by Scottish actor, Sean Connery. Bond falls into an assassination ploy into stealing a valuable Russian decoding machine. Bond gets involved with the irresistible Tatiana Romanova, played by Daniela Bianchi. He finds himself enmeshed in a deadly game of cross and double cross.
Once Upon A Coffee House
In this comedy, directed by Shepard Traube, Rivers plays a coffeehouse singer who is the object of a young man’s fancy and pursues her endlessly. Co-starring Curtis Taylor, Karen Thorsell, and Oscar Brand.
I Spy
Cosby becomes the first African-American actor to be cast in an episodic television series when he stars in I Spy, about two American agents facing, funny but skillful espionage adventures. Cosby plays Alexander Scott, his partner’s trainer and a language expert. Co starring Robert Culp
People writing and people news said that I was the Jackie Robinson of television drama.
Jaws
Dreyfuss stars as an oceanographer brought in to consult when a shark starts killing swimmers on the beaches of a New England tourist town. Roy Scheider, and Robert Shaw also star in this Steven Spielberg directed horror film, which will eventually become famous for all the difficulties that occurred during the production.
We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark.
Carrie
Carrie becomes the first of King’s novels to be adapted into a feature film. Directed by Brian Da Palma and starring Sissy Spacek and John Travolta, the film grosses $33.8 million after being filmed on a $1.8 million budget. King believed Da Palma depicted his character perfectly.
Carrie White is a sadly mis-used teenager, an example of the sort of person whose spirit is so often broken for good in that pit of man- and woman-eaters that is your normal suburban high school. But she’s also Woman, feeling her powers for the first time and, like Samson, pulling down the temple on everyone in sight at the end of the book.
Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses?
Williams plays a lawyer and a man with a toothache in this film of short sexually suggestive skits, directed by Robert Levy. Co-starring Roger Behr and Joey Camen. Williams states about this first film:
Gave me the idea that it can be free-form, that you can go in and out of things pretty easily.
Invasion of The Body Snatchers
Nimoy plays Dr. David Kibner, a psychologist, in the remake of the 1953 science fiction horror thriller, directed by Philip Kaufman. A group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion. Co-starring Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams.
Mad Max
Gibson plays the role of Mad Max Rockatansky, an Australian policeman who sets out to avenge his partner, wife and son’s death which was a result of a motorcycle gang’s retaliation for the death of their leader:
It was the only job. I just walked in and director George Miller asked me to tell him a joke. I did, and I got the gig.
Skatetown, U.S.A.
Swayze plays Ace Johnson, a skater who indulges into a rivalry with Stan Nelson(Greg Bradford) which culminates in a contest, the winning prize for which is $1000. The two rivals later become friends. This comedy is directed by William A. Levey. Co-starring Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormick and Katherine Kelly Lang.
A dancer-turned-actor is not viewed very well in this business. I kept it quiet at first, hoping it would turn into ‘actor with other talents.’ But I saw what dancing would and could do to me after my first movie came out. The reviews came in, and they were accolades, not for the movie, or for my acting talent, but just for the way I could move. I read those reviews and knew that’s what I was headed for: teen-idol status. So I turned down a four-picture deal at Columbia – turned all the offers down, in fact – and went back to acting classes.
All That Jazz
Scheider plays Joe Gideon, a director/choreographer, in this musical drama written by Robert Alan Aurthur and Bob Fosse, directed by Fosse. Gideon is a thinly veiled version of Fosse himself in a cynical and fantasy driven vision of his own life, fueled as it was by his many addictions. Co-starring Ann Reinking, Jessica Lange, and Leland Palmer.
That will always be my favorite film. But I never worked harder in my life. I felt I had to prove myself to the dance company. I didn’t want to misrepresent them. . . . I was in relatively good shape. But at the end of the day, I’d return to the Holiday Inn with my Tiger Balm.
The Shining
Stanley Kubrick adapts King’s The Shining into a feature film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall as young parents who move with their young son to a large abandoned hotel to be caretakers for the winter off season. The film grossed $44.4 million after being filmed for $19 million. The famous line proclaimed by Jack Torrence as he chops down a bathroom door, “Here’s Johnny!” was improved by Nicholson on the spot, originally being inspired by the introduction of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. King was disappointed with Kubrick’s decision not to film at the Stanley Hotel and did not like the adaptation, saying that his novel focused on main problems such as the disintegration of a family and the dangers of alcoholism, which, he believes, Kubrick completely ignored.
Parts of the film are chilling, charged with a relentlessly claustrophobic terror, but others fall flat. Not that religion has to be involved in horror, but a visceral skeptic such as Kubrick just couldn’t grasp the sheer inhuman evil of The Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn’t believe, he couldn’t make the film believable to others. What’s basically wrong with Kubrick’s version of The Shining is that it’s a film by a man who thinks too much and feels too little; and that’s why, for all its virtuoso effects, it never gets you by the throat and hangs on the way real horror should.
![The Shining - Official Trailer [1980] HD](https://newslines.org/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FS014oGZiSdI%2F0.jpg)
The Blues Brothers
Aykroyd plays Elwood Blues, brother to “Joliet” Jake Blues, who is fresh out of prison, in this comedy directed by John Landis. The pair set out to bring their band back together so they can raise $5,000 and save the Catholic home where they were raised. Co-starring John Belushi, Cab Calloway, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin.
The idea is based on two classic recidivist American characters. It’s based on a love of the city of Chicago and the music that came out of there.
Popeye
Williams portrays Popeye in Robert Altman’s musical comedy live-action realization of the American comic strip character Popeye the Sailor Man. Popeye is a spinach-eating sailor in love with Olive Oil (Shelley Duvall) and at odds with Bluto (Paul L. Smith), his perennial nemesis.
Near the end of the movie . . . the studio had pooled all of the money, so all the special effects people left. It was Ed Wood the last weeks of the movie. Shelley Duvall was in a pond, basically, with an octopus with no internal mechanism, having to drape it over her body like a feather boa. I’m in the water, and I’m kind of like sitting there .. . . . . we’re there on Malta, which is a very small island in between Italy and North Africa, and it was some of the worst weather they had had in 60 years. So it was a pretty crazy experience. But! I got to work with Robert Altman and I’ll never forget that.
Raging Bull
DeNiro plays Jake La Motta, a middleweight boxer and portrays his violent journey through life. This biopic is directed by Martin Scorsese and co-stars Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty.
It was sent to me by Pete Savage who was very helpful in getting the whole thing started and very helpful in getting me trained with Jake and Jake was one of the associate producers and something about the story interested me.
Mad Max 2
In the second of the series, Gibson plays Max, a former Australian policeman, who is living in the post-apocalyptic outback as a warrior who agrees to help a community of survivors living in a gasoline refinery. He defends them and their gasoline supplies from evil barbarian warriors. Co-starring Bruce Spence and Emil Minty,
We filmed in the only place nobody would go, where the turd wranglers would drop all their sh–. It wasn’t glamorous at all. It was low-budget. Twenty-five guys in the crew. You didn’t have a trailer. You want to change your costume? Go over to the side of the road and strip down. That was it.
![Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior - Official® Trailer 1 [HD]](https://newslines.org/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FCaDc5C2bTCE%2F0.jpg)
The World According to Garp
Based on the novel by John Irving, Williams plays T.S. Garp – an only child conceived when his single mother has sex with a brain-damaged soldier in her nursing care, in this drama directed by George Roy Hil. Garp’s life from birth to death is punctuated by events such as: marriage and infidelity, parenting and the loss of a child, social and political activism, fame and death threats. Co-starring, Mary Beth Hurt. Helen Holm, Glenn Close and Jenny Fields.
I started off just improvising like crazy. And [director] George Roy Hill made a face like a weasel in a wind tunnel and I then I went, ‘Not good?’ And he went [breathes deep and whispers], ‘Just say the words.’
The Survivors
Williams portrays Donald Quinelle, an executive who is fired from his job in Michael Ritchie’s comedy. He goes to a diner and meets Sonny Paluso (Walter Matthau) who owns a gas station that was blown up. The two of them witness a robbery and the hit man threatens to kill them. Quinelle becomes obsessed with guns as a way to protect himself from the mob and enrolls in a survivalist training school in the mountains of Vermont. Co-starring Jerry Reed, James Wainwright, and Annie McEnroe. Ritchie:
Walter [Matthau] becomes straight man to Robin, and then Robin is straight man to him. That doesn’t happen in great comedy teams, where they form a pattern; Dean Martin is always in a certain relationship with Jerry Lewis, or Abbott is with Costello. Instead, with Walter and Danny or Walter and Robin, you have this balance constantly shifting.
Christine
John Carpenter directs the film adaptation of King’s novel, starring Keith Gordon. The film grosses $21 million after being made on a $9.7 million budget. King approved of all the work done on the film, apart from one major difference from his original novel. In King’s version, Christine was haunted by the spirit of a previous owner. In Carpenter’s version, the car is haunted from the very moment it’s built. When asked why he made Christine a 1958 Fury:
Because they’re almost totally forgotten cars. They were the most mundane fifties car that I could remember. I didn’t want a car that already had a legend attached to it like the fifties Thunderbird, the Ford Galaxies etc. […] Seriously, I don’t know how Chrysler feels about Christine, anymore than I know how the Ford Company feels about Cujo, in which a woman is stranded in a Pinto. But they should feel happy, because it’s a pretty lively car and it lasts a long time. It’s like a Timex watch, it takes a licking and goes on ticking.
Children of the Corn
King’s Children of the Corn is adapted into a feature-length film. The tale was originally released as a short story in his compilation book, Night Shift. It’s a story of a twelve-year-old preacher who convinces all the kids in a rural neighborhood to kill everyone over eighteen for Jesus. King originally wrote the screen play for the film adaptation of Children of the Corn, but his version was thrown out due to having too much dialogue and back-story. Instead, a much more violent/gory version with more conventional narrative style was written by George Goldsmith and used for the film. Directed by Fritz Kiersch and starring Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton, the film grosses $14.5 million after being made on a minimal budget of $800 thousand.
