Muhammad Ali beaten by Ken Norton

Tonight I’m going to review one of my boxing films. I have about a half dozen that I got when I bought a whole bundle.  I’m not a boxing fan, but I want to spread these out, so I don’t bunch these all up at the end.

But I will say that Boxing has an important place in the history of the moving picture. Early on, when moving pictures were just a fad, one thing that kept it going was boxing. At the time, boxing was outlawed in many states, and the only way to view any boxing for fans, was by these films, which helped keep the industry alive. And Boxing, of all sports, was probably the easiest to capture in the early days. Simple action confined to a rather small area in short time increments. That couldn’t be better for those big bulky cameras with limited shot time.

So the one I watched was Muhammad Ali beaten by Ken Norton. The movie consisted of rounds 1, 5, 11, and 12, or at least I think so. The sub titles were hard to see. This was my only real complaint about the technical aspect of the film. White titles on a light background just never works. Whatever the first round shown was, it was the one where Ali got his jaw broken. We know this because there was an interstitial saying that. So the whole time I’m waiting for a definitive punch as the “Jaw Breaking” punch. Didn’t happen. Count down in the corner, anticipation rising, and then nothing. You couldn’t prove by me that this was when it happened. 

The rest of the rounds, were just boxing. Two guys punching each other. Not being a judge, I can’t tell one dominating over the other. Then at the end we get an interstitial that says *Spoiler Alert* Norton won. I mean, good for him. Glad he’s good at his job but, still not a boxing fan.

Gandy Goose - Somewhere in Egypt

Finally getting back to watching films

So the one for this time is Gandy Goose: Somewhere in Egypt.

Now, I had never heard of Gandy Goose before. He was a Terrytoon like Mighty Mouse and Heckel and Jeckel, but some how Gandy Goose cartoons didn’t have the staying power. For the life of me I don’t know why.

This one, at least is a surreal trip. Gandy and his partner, the cat Sourpuss, are as you can guess, Somewhere in Egypt. Gandy plays a flute sending Sourpuss of to a Egypt inspired dream land. There they fly in to the Sphinx, where they are greeted by dancing hieroglyphics. Around a few corners, and they release some mummy  skeleton fire fighters. And Gandy winds up with a skull on his head. I am always fascinated when cartoons make jokes with what are essentially human remains.

The next few sections, we see a bevy of sexy cats, and Gandy is quickly discarded. Now it is sourpuss chasing and flirting with various Harem looking female cats, but they do keep disappearing at inopportune times. Then, the dream becomes a nightmare and Sourpuss is chased by Giant Egyptian guards out of the sphinx. 

Sourpuss is woken  up, but then asks Gandy to play his flute again, and off he goes, back into dream land.

Like I said, I’d never seen Gandy Goose before but I did enjoy this cartoon. What little research I’ve done, it looks like it’s pretty common for the Gandy Goose cartoons to get a little trippy.

One thing was the interstitials were rhyming lines. Having not seen the original cartoons, I’m left to wonder, was there narration and this was copied verbatim, or if this was added by the 8mm company. I can’t think of too many cartoons of this era which had running narration. 

And as a interesting note, the first gag of the cartoon is a Nazi joke. A sign reads “Rommel slept here”. Just a reference to a Nazi, for laughs.

I’ve had this film for a while and had seen it before, but I have another Gandy Goose that I haven’t watched yet. I’m anxious to see if I like that one as much.

Wish List

Wow, ok.  It’s been over a year since I was here. 

New baby, new job, Wife has new job, that’s my excuses.

Now I hope to get back to doing this.

I want to write a post, but I’m not in a position to watch a film, so I thought it would be a good time to write about my wish list. While I’m always looking for interesting films, there are a few that I just haven’t gotten my hands on. In no particular order:

Psycho- This is the Castle films digest of the Hitchcock classic. It has a beautiful blue and green box, so that’s alone is awesome. I know that there is another version out there from some British company, but from what I understand, that one focuses on the shower scene. I know that it’s the most iconic moment of the film, but I’m really more interested in how the Castle Films version tackles the film as a whole. I’ve tried bidding on it a few times, but it always winds up just a few bucks out of my range.

Coffy- Not only is it Blaxploitation, a genre I don’t have any examples of, but it’s also unique in that it is rated “R”. Not a digest of a rated R movie, but the digest itself is labeled as rated “R”. From what I understand, there is a shot of boobies in the digest and that makes it rated “R”. I don’t know of any other films like that. That’s not to say that there aren’t any Adult Films out there, there are a lot of them. Yes, I have some, and No I won’t be reviewing them here, only to say in one of them, they actually went to the trouble to subtitle all the grunts and groans.

The Detective- I used to see this movie on Ebay all the time, and nothing ever compelled me to want it. Frank Sinatra playing a typical Chicago cop. I’m a fan of the original Manchurian Candidate, but not necessarily really a big fan of Sinatra himself. But then I learned something about the movie. Follow me on this…This movie was based on a book. The book had a sequel. In the mid-eighties they made a movie based on the sequel. That movie was about a typical Chicago cop trapped in a skyscraper with a bunch of terrorists. So essentially, The Detective is a prequel to Die Hard. If I’d have known that I would have snatched it up a quick as I could. Since then, I just don’t see it on Ebay anymore.  I’ve seen the color/sound version, but that doesn’t do me any good.

The incredible Jewel Robbery- As I said earlier, I’m a big fan of the Marx Brothers. This TV special starred Harpo and Chico as jewel thieves and with a cameo by Groucho at the end, which makes this the last appearance of all three Marx Brothers together.  Now I am looking for the silent version of this, as I have the sound version. And honestly I don’t even know if they released a silent version of this. And this makes no sense, because except for one line of dialogue spoken by Groucho at the end, this was done entirely in pantomime, there was no dialogue. If any film didn’t need a sound version, it was this one.

I’ll be trying to get back to watching films in a few days.  I think my next one will be the awesomeness of Gandy Goose.