Recently saw the new Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie. Loved it, an excellent homage to the genre. Fun, classy, and the earrings! Also great soundtrack. Directed by Guy Ritchie, and all that you'd expect from a Guy Ritchie film.
The movie is based on the television series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which I watched faithfully as a kid. I even joined the fan club! And in proper spy mode, I used a different name -- an alias, you know -- which for some reason infuriated my mother, as I remember.
An item on Lon Sticker’s Phantoms and Monsters about Elvis and his life long interest in UFOs inspired me to write about the time I met Elvis in Los Angles when I was working at the Free Clinic. (see my post on UFO Mystic.) That was one of my brushes with fame, and esoteric in a round about way, since Elvis had a strong curiosity about UFOs and believed in extraterrestrial life.
Another esoteric brush with fame is, I think, waaaaaaaay cool. It concerns Boris Badenov. Yes, that Boris Badenov! Legend has it that the character actor Akim Tarmioff was the inspiration for the spy character Boris Badenov of the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Here is what a Wikipedia entry has to say about Akim’s inspiration:
Badenov's name is a play on that of the 16th-century Russian Tsar Boris Godunov ("bad enough" vs. "good enough"). His accent and explosive temper are an homage to Hollywood actor Akim Tamiroff, especially Tamiroff's role in The Great McGinty, a 1940 movie directed by Preston Sturges.
Akim (Mikhailovich) Tamiroff, the Russian born character actor who appeared in dozens of films and television shows was often typecast as a Mexican or Greek, among other ethnic characters. He played spies, cops, thieves; all manner of roles. Among the films Akim appeared in:For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943, Lord Jim, 1965, Oceans 11, 1960, Topaki, 1964, and dozens more.
Akim was married to my grandfather’s niece, actress Tamara Shayne. My mother lived with them when she was in her late teens (that would be in late 1940s, early 1950s) when she first arrived in Los Angeles from Oregon. I met them once when I was little; I remember Tamara as being stand offish , but Akim was pretty nice, very funny and playful.
Truly, how cool is it that one of the iconic cartoon characters, Boris Badenov, was based on a family member? (Another fun esoteric synchronistic fact: my mother’s name is a variation of Natasha.)
Is it fair to say Boris was a MIB? No, it just sounded good for the title. Boris was short, fat, and hardly MIB like in behavior or appearance. He was an Eastern European/Russian spy, bumbling, the bad guy, created during the Cold War, when the spy business was everywhere. It still is; and actually, we’ve come back around to Russian spies recently, with movies like SALT and the plethora of Russian spies on television shows.
I have other claims to esoteric fame, which I'll write about in future columns.
Actress Patricia Neal passed away at age 84 from lung cancer recently. She had suffered greatly in her life; but she also had what sounds like a strong and loving family. I think the following is beautiful:
"She had a beautiful death with her daughters," Warren Langton, a longtime friend, sometimes assistant, and frequent traveling companion of the actress, told The Martha's Vineyard Times.
Patricia Neal was fantastic in many films, Hud being one of course. In keeping with Vintage U.F.O.'s theme, we'd like to remember her in the classic 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still, starring Michael Rennie as the alien Klaatu and Neal as Helen Benson whose character spoke these famous words: "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto"
A trailer of the film:
And a section of the film that includes a scene with Patrica Neal:
Just read on Christopher Mills' Atomic Pulp blog that he's started another blog called The Spy-Fi Channel, which is a cool name and a cooler idea. The blog is an homage to spy movies and shows.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I love these kinds of movies, and monster maker king Ray Harryhausen was the best. Some classic images from the 1955 movie "It Came From Beneath the Sea."
This is what Whitley has to say about now, regarding his experiences:
Friday December 12th, 2008 - By Whiteley Streiber It is late here, midnight passing. December has come again, and for the past few months I have been enduring the same demonic nights that I experience every year at this time, as my spirit relives the hard pilgrimage that led to the night of December 26, 1985.
The feelings are so complex, the fears so deep and the love, too, so deep, that sometimes, even after all these years,the whole emotional avalanche of having the visitors emerge into my life threatens to drown me.
This is a great find I happily stumbled on: from the UK, 1952 black and white movie Supersonic Saucer.
The story begins:
Somewhere in Great Britain, a group of schoolchildren visit the local planetarium. While looking through the giant telescope, one young lad, Rodney, sees what appears to be a flying saucer circling the planet Venus. Nobody believes him, however, and the class returns to school.
For more on the movie, including two pages full of images from the movie, visit the Kiddie Matinee site.
Mars, the red planet. (yet Martians are said to be green, as in “little green from Mars." Why is that?) It's the war planet. Mars has “The Face.” A ton of movies have been made about Mars. We’ve been thinking on life on Mars for centuries. We have a candy bar named after Mars. Aries is ruled by Mars, and the symbol for Mars is the Ram, which is Mars spelled backwards. (well, not exactly, that'd be "mar". . .okay, it's a stretch.) Mars rules iron, which is said to repel fairies and entities in folklore.
Mars is smaller than Earth, and close by. Maybe that’s why we like it. We’re also a war like people; is there something in our subconscious or cellular memory about that? Is that why we’ve named the god of war Mars?
Lots of movies about Mars. Like the 1924 film Aelita of Mars, a Russian film directed by Yakov Protazanov and a cousin of Tolstoy.
The serial Flying Disc Man From Mars (I love that one!) from 1950. Stay tuned for more Mars stuff; much more to come!
I have good memories of watching Jackie Gleason (yes, I'm that old) his show, the Honey Mooners, etc. ("Norton" always cracked me up.) Gleason was more than just an actor in a television comedy program, he was a very talented man. This is from his obitutary from the New York Times:
When he was not performing, Mr. Gleason was often conducting or composing mellow romantic music, ''plain vanilla music'' he called it, which was marketed in record albums with such unpretentious titles as ''Lazy Lively Love'' and ''Oooo!'' He recorded more than 35 albums with the Jackie Gleason Orchestra, and millions of the records were sold. ~ (June 25, 1987)
It's an interesting obituary, full of information about his creative life, but no mention (naturally) of his UFO interest.
I remember reading in FATE magazine a few years ago, in a “filler” or sidebar type thing, that the great Jackie Gleason donated his library of UFO books to, I think, someplace in Florida. Gleason had something like over 200 books about UFOs. Here’s an item about Gleason’s “occult library” on exhibit in Miami, Florida.
On Frank Warren’s excellent blog, there’s a piece on Gleason and UFOs that was posted in 2005 (the piece is written by Bill Knell.) Jackie Gleason, Richard Nixon and ET. It’s full of fun information on Gleason and his UFO interests and what Knell learned from talking with Gleason. Jackie Gleason’s Trip to the Alien Morgue, by Marty Murray, is about a classic UFO legend: President Richard Nixon took Gleason to see alien bodies in a morgue at Homestead Air Force base.
Robert Barrow (Not Your Grandfather's UFO Blog) has an item about a 1956 UFO movie, called U.F.O. It was an United Artists documentary; read here for more info.
