I also dance just as good as I walk. Unfortunately.

Here's Archie Bell and the Drells from Houston Texas!

1. Lie Down 2. Close eyes 3. Repeat

A 1953 article from Mechanix Illustrated offers helpful hints on How To Sleep.

Turkish Superman

It must be fun to be a film maker in Turkey. Shortly after Superman: The Movie was released, there was a Turkish version: Supermen Donuyor ("Supermen Donuyor" or "Superman Returns") complete with swiped opening theme.

Here are some highlights:



I don't know any Turkish, but this other small clip from the movie shows that the Turkish Clark Kent is probably a mild-mannered reporter in this movie too!



...and the Turkish Lois Lane is as dim as her American counterpart too. :)

Turkish Star Wars!

I can't believe that I haven't posted this yet!

This is a scene from "Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam", one of those Turkish films that borrow "stock mileage" from Hollywood films to make their own movies. In this case, Star Wars! That's why the film also has been named "Turkish Star Wars".

This is one part that always makes me smile--our hero training to fight the "Darth Vader" figure in this film.



Yes, that is the theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark that the filmmakers swiped!

I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille

Here I am, hard at work on the computer..

The Turkish Adam Sandler

The Turkish movie industry likes to do blatant ripoffs of Hollywood films. This Turkish version of Star Trek, Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda, looks to be fun in a cheesy way.



...that is, until the hero of the film, Omer the Tourist shows up. I watched the full version of Turist Omer..., with English subtitles, on Google video and I have to say that perhaps Turkish humour is lost on me. The Star Trek actors were fun, but Omer the Tourist struck me as a Turkish version of Adam Sandler. Perhaps they needed Omer to bring in viewers. I don't know...

I've posted (alas, without subtitles) the Omer-free opening part of the film.

Johnny Remember Me

Here's another British hit that never made it across the Atlantic: Johnny Remember Me by John Leyton:



It might sound like a "death disc" type song, like Teen Angel or Leader of the Pack, but if you listen carefully to the lyrics, it's not. [The producer made a couple little changes to the lyrics so the BBC would play it.)

Twist? Bien sur!

Yes, French chanteuse Dalida could try to teach me the twist, but I fear that I would look like the fellow in this "Lecon de Twist" video from 1961...

The worst car ever!

I see that a Time Magazine writer has compiled a list of the 50 Worst Cars of All Time. I am surprised that the Chrysler Simca didn't make the list.

When I was about to graduate from high school, I came home from school to learn that my father had bought me a present. "I bought you a car," he said. I raced to the back yard of the house to see a 20 year old Chrysler Simca 1000, a rusty blue-coloured box of a car. (I am pretty sure it was a mid-60s model, which would have made it around 20 years old.) It looked completely unhip...but it was a car.

Here's a comment from the auto expert from the above link on this car:

Not a performance car, it made do with 12-inch wheels, drum brakes, worm and roller steering, transverse leaf front suspension and swing axles at the rear. Early Simca 1000s were not known for directional stability, although this was cured as we shall later see.

(While looking for information on the car on the internet this morning, I learned that the French had seen this car as chic and hip when my *dad* was a teenager. Check out this set of ads and publicity shots. Here is a different set of magazine ads about the car.)

"I bought it from an auto wrecker yard for $50," my dad said. Yes, my late dad was sometimes as dumb as a bag of hammers, but he had no excuse as he was a professional auto mechanic for many years.

We went for a drive, my father driving down the deserted street. At 40 MPH, the car started to vibrate, backfire and belch smoke. Looking around the car, I noticed that the floor was rusty in the front passenger side, where my feet rested on black plastic mat. I pulled up the mat to find that there was a vacant space about 24 inches square. I watched through the hole as the road sped by under where my feet would have been. "Hmm. Guess I'll have to fix that," my dad said.

"Well, if the brakes ever fail, we can stop the car just like the Flintstones stop theirs," I replied.

Well, it was a car, so I started studying my drivers education booklet. Then, a couple of weeks later, I noticed that the car was gone.

"I took it back to the wrecker and he gave me back my $50!" my dad said. He had been working on the car that afternoon, and had taken it for a quick spin to test his work.

"I was driving down the street," he added, "and the engine fell out of the car."

My son, the music store

The late Pavarotti, singing Ave Maria

"Are you sure it's the most bedunged?" "Yes, my lord."

You can pick up interesting details when you read first-hand accounts of history.

Here a Byzantine lord, shortly before the Fourth Crusade, advises how to dispose of Andronicus, who has just been deposed as the emperor of Byzantium:

"....I have at home a camel which is the foulest beast and the most bedunged and ugliest in the world. Now we will take Andronicus, and we will strip him stark naked, and we will bind him to the camel's back in such fashion that his face shall be against its rump, and we will lead him from one end of the city even unto the other...."

Andronicus was beaten to death by Constantinople's inhabitants as the camel carried him through the city.

Who says history is boring? Not I, certainly. :)

The Rapture

It looks like Christian movie day at Rick's Miscellany!

This is The Rapture, a 1941 Christian film by C.O. Baptista Films

Here's the first half...



...and the second half...



It's understandably old-fashioned, but I think it's a good explanation of the theological concept of "the Rapture".

Check out the footage of the crashing trains!

If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?

Thanks to the film making talents of Ron Ormond and minister Estus W. Pirkle, we have what looks like the community theater version of the Soviet takeover of America!

It's the 1971 film If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? And, thanks to a kind soul on Google video, it's the complete movie!



If it loads slowly for you, click here to go to the Google Video site showing the movie.

Advisory to my parents: It's worse than Bubba Ho-Tep! :)

"Please Do Not Reveal The Ending!"

Here are the trailers for my fave Christian movie, A Thief In The Night, and two of that film's sequels...



Please keep in mind that I like a little cheese with my movies. (And these movies were good evangelistic tools, back in the day.)

It was only a dream...OR WAS IT? :)