#roland culver | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

knickynoo · 11 months

Text

Back to the Future: The Animated Series, s01ep13 “Clara's Folks” Review and Commentary

Previous episodes linked HERE

In this episode: Clara and the boys are at risk of being wiped from existence because Marty doesn't know how to say no to a nine-year-old.

And just like that, here we are at the last episode of season 1.

Doc begins his broadcast by carrying in a box and explaining that Clara has been urging him to do some serious cleaning and get rid of all the junk he's gathered over the years. One particular item catches his eye, and he pulls it out to show us, explaining that it was his entry into the 1932 Hilly Valley Junior Science Fair (which would have put him at 10 years old according to his birth year in the animated series).

Doc: "A videotape recorder with full 14-day programming capability. It worked perfectly! Too bad there weren't any TV sets around."

So, yeah. That's something Doc did, evidently.

The next thing he finds is one of my favorite parts of these live-action segments. Doc retrieves a videotape from the box and tells us that he was tight on money a few years back and had to resort to selling some of his inventions on the home shopping network. He pops the tape into the VCR, and we get to see a clip of one of his infomercials featuring the new and improved mind-reading helmet he's perfected. It's wonderfully silly.

Now I want to know about these financial issues Doc was having? What's the story there? Did he not have any ethical qualms about selling a functioning mind-reading device to the general public? How is such powerful technology being sold for only TWENTY DOLLARS?

The Back to the Future universe it truly a strange place.

Doc also shows us a net, which he says belonged to Clara's father, Daniel. Doc speaks very highly of the man and says the two met back in 1850, five years prior to Clara's birth. This little story then brings us into the cartoon to hear the full story.

While Doc is doing some work on a giant robot, Jules and Verne enter, having just arrived home from school. Jules tells his father he "discovered two new elements in chemistry class," to which Doc replies, "Everyone's entitled to a slow day now and then." Verne, however, had a horrible day and is majorly bummed out about something.

Meanwhile, Marty—who is also at the Brown residence—is playing his guitar that always makes me annoyed to look at because it has these two pathetic little strings on the body and then zero strings going up the neck.

It just. It makes no sense. How is he playing this thing? It makes appearances in multiple episodes, and it never has strings on it. Is this supposed to be some kind of ultra-futuristic guitar that Doc bought him? If so, couldn't they have at least mentioned that in passing so that my mind could be at peace? (It's like they weren't even considering me in this decision at all. Rude.) Is it that terribly difficult to draw a few strings on a cartoon guitar?

Verne storms into the room and tells Marty why his day was so bad. Turns out a classmate, Roland Culver, was bragging about his grandfather's accomplishments, which upset Verne since he never had a chance to know his grandparents or any of the cool things they might have done in life. Marty points out that Verne does know some stories about Clara's parents and directs him to a frame on the wall. It contains a piece of buckboard from Martha and Daniel's wagon, on which their wedding announcement was burned into the wood.

Verne goes on to recite some of the story he's heard a hundred times, informing us that Martha and Daniel met on the Oregon Trail and married that same day.

Wanting to get solid proof of his grandparents' love story, Verne announces that he's going to travel back in time to meet them. I'm glad to say that Marty, who is typically a major enabler of the boys' shenanigans, does warn Verne about the dangers of going back in time and meeting relatives. Verne doesn't see the big deal.

"Don't get your shorts in a wad," he tells Marty. "I'm just gonna take a stinkin' picture." Verne is such a little smart-mouth, and I love the dynamic he has with Marty.

Unfortunately, even the plethora of bad things Marty experienced as a result of messing with the past isn't enough to motivate him to put a stop to Verne's plan. He ends up tagging along with them to 1850.

One neat detail in this episode is that we actually get some of the BTTF part III music in the 1850 scenes. In the one pictured above, we hear a few seconds of the music that plays as Marty walks through the town after leaving Seamus' house. And a few seconds later, as the boys are all running from a buffalo stampede, we hear the music that plays when Doc and Marty are attempting to get the horses to pull the DeLorean up to 88mph. It's very cool.

Marty, Jules, and Verne are saved from the stampede by none other than Clara's mother, Martha, who falls in love with Marty the moment she sees him. Marty is not thrilled by this development.

I mean, I don't know, McFly. Maybe you should simply stop being so ruggedly handsome and irresistible to every woman you come across. Have you considered that?

A whole line of wagons show up then, with Clara's father being the last one to arrive. He causes a collision because he's too busy reading a book to pay attention to where he's going, and we're obviously supposed to get the impression that he's a nerd.

"That's Grandpa? I hope Roland Culver never hears about this," Verne comments, ashamed of his bowtie-wearing, bookworm of a grandfather.

Poor Daniel Clayton.

The group plus Marty and the boys continue along the trail, and Jules laments that he now has to repair the damage done to the DeLorean during the stampede, along with figuring out how to undo the damage to their family tree. The future isn't looking too good for Clara's side of the family. Martha has tied Marty up and is insisting that they get married.

She literally tells him that she won't set him free until he agrees to walk down the aisle with her. And you know what? Clara is a lovely person, but her mother? Not liking her so far.

Marty manages to escape and ends up in Daniel's wagon, where Daniel confesses that he's got a crush on Martha, who doesn't even know he exists. Marty tells Daniel he's going to help him win Martha's affection.

Also, Daniel is a bug enthusiast. His wagon is just filled with jars of bugs. I like him a lot.

As part of his plan to make Daniel more appealing to Martha, Marty helps to give him a makeover of sorts—exchanging his formal clothing for cowboy attire.

Daniel: "Will this really make the lovely Miss O'Brien notice me?"

Verne: "Yeah, and she'll say, 'Who's the stinkin' geek?'"

VERNE. Verne, you are not helping.

That evening at dinner, Marty urges Daniel to go and talk to Martha, but he's interrupted by none other than "Wild Bill" Tannen, who also has eyes for Martha. He ends up kidnapping her after she witnesses him stealing from their gold.

We then take a scene jump to the present day, where something alarming is happening to Clara. She's beginning to become transparent. Which is, um, not a good sign.

She's oblivious to her current state and very upset that someone has "sanded" the wedding announcement off of the buckboard. Doc assures her that he'll take care of things and instructs her not to look in any mirrors.

After taking the time train to 1850, Doc sets out with Marty, Daniel, and Jules to find Martha (and Verne, who has gone to rescue her on his own). They have trouble trying to track them down, but it's okay because Martha and Verne manage to escape on their own after Wild Bill blinds himself with the flash from Verne's camera. They don't get too much time to relax, though, seeing as a giant bear finds them a moment later.

From over on a nearby cliff, Jules spots his brother and grandmother, who appear seconds away from becoming bear-chow. After taking some time to survey the land, Doc spots a nearby geyser and recognizes that the area they're in will eventually become Yellowstone National Park. Doc yells down for Verne to lay some buffalo hide over the opening of the geyser and sit on it with Martha. When the geyser soon erupts, they're lifted up into the air and out of harm's way. Doc and Daniel then use the covering for a wagon to construct a paraglider and swoop in to catch Marth and Verne once the geyser stops.

This heroic rescue wins Martha over, and she falls in love with Daniel, setting the timeline right. During their ceremony, Daniel (the bug enthusiast, remember?) catches a butterfly, which he says is a new species. He names it after Martha.

We return to the present day, where Verne is showing the picture of the butterfly to his class as part of his show-and-tell. Roland Culver tells Verne that he has a cool grandfather. End of cartoon.

Back in the garage, we find Doc in a state we don't often see him in: angry.

Except, surprise. The big goofball was just pretending. In fact, he was doing "geyser talk," which brings us into a little lesson on how geysers work, along with an experiment to create one using boiling water and a funnel.

After the experiment portion with Bill Nye, we go back to Doc, who is wearing glasses. I'm not sure why. But he looks nice in them. They compliment his face well.

Anyway, that's the end of the episode.

This was a fun one, and I really liked getting to see Clara's parents. You can see where she got the various aspects of her personality from. Strong-headed and tough like her mother, yet sensitive and intelligent like her father. Revisiting season 1 has been nice, and I'm excited to begin season 2, which I've never seen before.

Join me next week for the first episode of season 2, in which Marty lies to Jennifer, then sneaks off with Verne to 1697 so that Verne can get an earring in the Caribbean. ??? Really, Marty??

(I use the Futurepedia summaries to write the "join me next week" parts, btw. Very intrigued by. Whatever is going on in the next episode.)

#back to the future #bttf: the animated series #once again apologizing for the messed up gif formatting for those viewing on a laptop #no clue when tumblr is going to address that bug

17 notes · View notes

flammentanz · 2 months

Text

"Was wir auch sehen oder scheinen, ist bloß ein Traum in einem Traum." (Edgar Allan Poe)

“Traum ohne Ende” (“Dead of Night”) (1945)

Der Londoner Architekt Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) fährt am Wochenende zu Eliot Foley (Roland Culver) und dessen Mutter (Mary Merrall), die ihn eingeladen haben, ihr Landhaus “Pilgrim’s Farm” umzubauen. Dort begegnet Craig einigen Gästen: der attraktiven Joan Cortland (Googie Withers), dem Psychiater Dr. van Straaten (Frederick Valk), dem Rennfahrer Hugh Grainger (Anthony Baird) und dem Teenager Sally O’ Hara (Sally Ann Howes) Kurz darauf trifft - wie von dem sich stetig unwohler fühlenden Craig vorhergesagt - noch Graingers Gattin Joyce (Judy Kelly) ein. Walter Craig eröffnet den Anwesenden, dass er sie alle aus einem ständig wiederkehrenden Traum kennt, an dessen Inhalt er sich zunächst nur vage zu erinnern vermag, der sich jedoch im Laufe des Abends zu einem Alptraum wandeln wird. Während der Psychiater Craigs Angaben bezweifelt und seine düsteren Andeutungen in das Reich der Imagination verweist, sind die übrigen Gäste bereit, dem Architekten Glauben zu schenken, zumal alle von ihnen bereits selbst mit übersinnlichen Phänomenen konfrontiert waren. Jeder der Anwesenden erzählt die ihm widerfahrene Geschichte, und selbst der skeptische Psychiater weiß von einem solchen Fall zu berichten. Nach dem plötzlichen Ausfall des Notstromaggregats wandelt sich Craigs Traum in den von ihm prophezeiten Alptraum, in dem der Architekt den Psychiater erwürgt und durch sämtliche Schauplätze der zuvor geschilderten Erzählungen zu fliehen versucht. Walter Craig erwacht aus einem Alptraum. Ein Anruf von Eliot Foley bestellt ihn zu dem Landhaus “Pilgrim’s Farm” …

youtube

#dead of night #traum ohne ende #michael redgrave #mervyn johns #classic horror #Youtube

3 notes · View notes

untitleddiarybetweenfriends · 9 months

Text

hollywood's happiest couple

the films of billy wilder (writer&director) and charles brackett (writer&producer)

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938). Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Cast: Claudette Colbert. Gary Cooper. Edward Everett Horton. David Niven. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From the play by Alfred Savoir; English-language adaptation by Charlton Andrews.

That Certain Age (1938). Director: Edward Ludwig. Cast: Deanna Durbin. Melvyn Douglas. Jackie Cooper. Nancy Carroll. Irene Rich. Screenplay: Bruce Manning. From an original story by F. Hugh Herbert. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder received no screen credit for their work on That Certain Age.

Ninotchka (1939). Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Cast: Greta Garbo. Melvyn Douglas. Ina Claire. Bela Lugosi. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch. From an original story by Melchior Lengyel.

Midnight (1939). Director: Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Claudette Colbert. Don Ameche. John Barrymore. Mary Astor. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From a story by Edwin Justus Mayer and Franz Schulz.

What a Life (1939). Director: Theodore Reed. Cast: Jackie Cooper. Betty Field. John Howard. Janice Logan. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From the play by Clifford Goldsmith.

Arise, My Love (1940). Director: Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Claudette Colbert. Ray Milland. Dennis O’Keefe. Walter Abel. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Adaptation by Jacques Théry, itself from an original story by Hans Székely and Benjamin Glazer.

French Without Tears (1940). Director: Anthony Asquith. Cast: Ray Milland. Ellen Drew. Janine Darcey. David Tree. Roland Culver. Screenplay: Ian Dalrymple, Terence Rattigan, and Anatole de Grunwald. Brackett and Wilder worked on the story treatment.

Ball of Fire (1941). Director: Howard Hawks. Cast: Gary Cooper. Barbara Stanwyck. Oskar Homolka. Henry Travers. S.Z. Sakall. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From an original story by Wilder and Thomas Monroe.

Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Director: Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Charles Boyer. Olivia de Havilland. Paulette Goddard. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From Ketti Frings’ story “Memo to a Movie Producer.”

The Major and the Minor (1942). Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: Ginger Rogers. Ray Milland. Rita Johnson. Robert Benchley. Diana Lynn. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From the play by Edward Childs Carpenter, itself based on a story by Fanny Kilbourne.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943). Director: Billy Wilder. Associate Prod.: Charles Brackett. Cast: Franchot Tone. Anne Baxter. Akim Tamiroff. Erich von Stroheim. Peter van Eyck. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From the play by Lajos Biró.

The Lost Weekend (1945). Director: Billy Wilder. Prod.: Charles Brackett. Cast: Ray Milland. Jane Wyman. Phillip Terry. Howard Da Silva. Doris Dowling. Frank Faylen. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. From the novel by Charles R. Jackson.

The Bishop’s Wife (1947). Director: Henry Koster. Cast: Cary Grant. Loretta Young. David Niven. Gladys Cooper. Monty Woolley. James Gleason. Elsa Lanchester. Screenplay: Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici. From the novel by Robert Nathan. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder received no screen credit for their work on The Bishop’s Wife.

A Foreign Affair (1948). Director: Billy Wilder. Prod.: Charles Brackett. Cast: Jean Arthur. Marlene Dietrich. John Lund. Millard Mitchell. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Richard L. Breen. Adaptation by Robert Harari. From an original story by David Shaw.

The Emperor Waltz (1948). Director: Billy Wilder. Prod.: Charles Brackett. Cast: Bing Crosby. Joan Fontaine. Roland Culver. Screenplay: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder.

Sunset Blvd. (1950). Director: Billy Wilder. Prod.: Charles Brackett. Cast: William Holden. Gloria Swanson. Erich von Stroheim. Nancy Olson. Fred Clark. Cameos: Hedda Hopper. Cecil B. DeMille. Anna Q. Nilsson. Buster Keaton. H.B. Warner. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman Jr.

1 note · View note

thealmightyemprex · 2 years

Text

Favorite Movie Ramble :The Legend of Hell House

Today we shall take a look at my favorite haunted house flick The Legend of Hellhouse

This 1973 film follows a team investigating the haunted house known as Hell House on behalf of an eccentric millionaire Rudolf Deutsch (Roland Culver).Lead by skeptical physicist Dr Barret (Clive Revill ),the team concists of Barrets wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt),the young mental medium Florence Tanner (PAmela Franklin ) ,and physical medium Benjamin Fischer (Roddy McDowall ) the only survivor of a previous investigation

So fair warning this film despite being PG .....is INTENSE ,with se*ual assualt and some bloody scenes

This film is a mixture of classic gothic horror and the more intense contemporary horror that was appearing in the late 60's and early 70's .It is a grounded telling of the classic haunted house story ,its almost a procedural

I really like the way the haunting is depicted.....In that you dont see the ghosts ,you FEEL the ghost presence .The spirits are malovelnt ,destructive and deadly . Part of this is due to the film having one of the greatest horror movie villains that we dont actually meet :The Roaring Giant AKA Emeric Belsco played (Kind of ) by Michael Gough .He is the guy who made the house and his depravity is why it is haunted .The way he is described just paints the picture of a total monster and once you learn more about him he is fascinating to me .The house just has a aura of evil and malice that gives the film a feeling of doom

The thing that makes the film work is the cast ,this is a great ensamble :Gayle Hunnicutt's Ann is kind of the tag along character ,the outsider to the world of the paranormal ,who while she and her husband clearly love each other ,she has a bit of sexual frustaration .Her husband Dr Lionel Barrett is played by the great character actor Clive Revill ,who shines as the man of science.He believes in the hauntings are not literal ghosts but actually energy and is a bit stubborn ,and often comes in conflicet with Florence. Florence is the youngest member of team ,highly religious but also a bit niave ,who believes there are multiple ghosts .Florence being the representative of the spiritual often clashes with the scientifically minded Lionel .PAmela Franklin delivers one hell of a performance ,with a lot of layers to it

However the best part of the movie is Roddy Mcdowell as Fischer .Fischer is actually a very quiet character.....But only cause he is the only one who knows how dangeous the house is .McDowell plays Fischer as a victim of trauma ,who is very reluctant to revisit this place that has haunted him for 20 years .The scene where he opens up about his pain is one of McDowells finest moments as an actor ,as is the films climax and I truly believe this is one of his best performances ever

Honestly I think this film is underrated and is a must see for horror fans

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland @the-blue-fairie @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark @amalthea9 @angelixgutz @princesssarisa @filmcityworld1

8 notes · View notes

themarvellousmichaelbryant · 1 year

Text

The Playbill for Five Finger Exercise when it played in Boston in October 1960.

#Michael Bryant #Walter Langer #Five Finger Exercise #Jessica Tandy #Roland Culver #Brian Bedford #Pinkie Johnstone #Peter Shaffer #John Gielgud #Colonial Theatre in Boston #1960

2 notes · View notes

byneddiedingo · 2 years

Photo

David Niven, Deborah Kerr, and Jean Seberg in Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger, 1958)

Cast: Jean Seberg, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Mylène Demongeot, Geoffrey Horne, Juliette Gréco, Walter Chiari, Martita Hunt, Roland Culver, Jean Kent, David Oxley, Elga Anderson, Jeremy Burnham, Eveline Eyfel. Screenplay: Arthur Laurents, based on a novel by Françoise Sagan. Cinematography: Georges Périnal. Production design: Roger K. Furse. Film editing: Helga Cranston. Music: Georges Auric.

Only a couple of years after Otto Preminger's adaptation of Françoise Sagan's novel Bonjour Tristesse was released to critical and box office indifference, filmmakers like Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni would make their international reputations with films about moneyed Europeans fighting vainly the old ennui. In fact, Bonjour Tristesse is not so very much different in content from movies like Antonioni's L'Avventura and Fellini's La Dolce Vita, both of which rocketed to success in 1960. They're all about what today we might call "Eurotrash" -- people with too much money and not enough to occupy their souls. Preminger's film was hindered a bit by the censors, who forbade any explicit descriptions of what was going on between Raymond (David Niven) and his several mistresses, much less his exceptionally close relationship with his daughter, Cecile (Jean Seberg). And the casting of the British Niven and Deborah Kerr and the American Jean Seberg as characters meant to be très French, feels more than a little off-base. There's also some heavy-handed telegraphing of the film's message, summed up in a title song by composer Georges Auric with lyrics by screenwriter Arthur Laurents that's sung by Juliette Gréco in a Paris boîte. But Bonjour Tristesse has gained in favor over the years, no longer dismissed as a complete misfire. Mylène Demongeot adds some much needed comic relief in the form of Elsa, Raymond's sunburned mistress, a necessary counterpoint to Cecile's existential angst. Auric's score provides a continental flavor to the film, and Georges Périnal's cinematography makes the most of locations, especially the Paris that's viewed in monochrome as contrasted with the Technicolor vividness of the Riviera. Since the film is told from the point of view of Seberg's Cecile, the place where she feels depressed and regretful is necessarily more drab than the place where she had a brief encounter with something like freedom and power. It's Paris as Kansas and the Riviera as Oz, but without the "no place like home" nostalgia.

#Bonjour Tristesse #Otto Preminger #David Niven #Deborah Kerr #Jean Seberg

8 notes · View notes