Caine Watch: The Italian Job (1969)

Sunday evening, our own SimonUK - who moonlights as a server at The Alamo Drafthouse near my house - was given the opportunity to take it up a notch with their "Staff Presents" program, wherein a member of the staff not usually in programming selects a movie and the Alamo shows it.

You like movies.  I like movies.  We all like movies.  Simon LOVES movies.  He lives amongst piles of them and may well have underwear made of celluloid taped into a rough briefs shape.  I don't know.  And, no matter how many movies you think you've seen, Simon has seen more.  During the Alamo pre-shows when they're showing clips of deep-cut obscure 1970's horror flicks, Simon has seen them all.

Simon is from some far-flung part of England I can never remember, so he had access to movies we really didn't in the U.S., and he's seen a goodly chunk of American movies we all watched growing up, too.  Every once in a while I'm surprised he hasn't seen something from a typical American kid of the 1980's heyday, but not all that often.  He's been responsible for me seeing a lot of flat out great stuff the past several years, gotten me out of the house for Planet of the Apes marathons, etc...  and for all that and more, and making me eat a Full English Breakfast only once, I am forever in his debt.

So, while I had previously seen The Italian Job (1969), when I heard he was showing and introducing the movie, I couldn't not go.  Plus, I really like the movie.  It's good, cheery fun and a great heist pic.  Plus: Michael Caine.

Bond Watch: You Only Live Twice (1967)

We give You Only Live Twice (1967) the most prized of all Signal Watch awards: The Stefon (the award for the movie that has EVERYTHING).

After the frantic shenanigans of Goldfinger, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman clearly believed they were in some sort of race against The Devil who would consume their souls if they did not keep making bigger and crazier James Bond films.  Thunderball went all over the place, winding up in a massive underwater battle and then out of control hydrofoil battle.

You Only Live Twice has:

Musical Watch: Bye Bye Birdie (1963)

I take exception with the promise of this poster's tagline

My Sophomore year of high school I had participated in some stuff in the drama department at my high school.  By the end of the year they were doing the Spring musical, which, that year, was Bye Bye Birdie.  As I'm not a single-threat, let alone a triple one, I wasn't planning to participate.  But, as I am extremely good at happening to be just standing there, someone came by and grabbed me to work crew on the show.  And, because I believed there was no "I" in "team", I somehow wound up as the guy in the "fly booth".  Which is a small box above the stage with a few cranks where I'd wrangle the signs, "flying" them in and out of view of the stage.

So, for three showings of Bye Bye Birdie in the Spring of 1991 (and lord knows how many rehearsals) I sat in a black box thirty-something feet above the stage and pondered the imponderables of high school while my classmates danced, sang and "acted" their way to glory.*

Consequently, I know the play of Bye Bye Birdie fairly well.  Or did, I guess.  And, for a while, I was really over my fear of heights.

I think I've seen the movie version before, but it was a long time ago, and, frankly, I didn't remember it at all.  I've also seen part of a televised newish version, but I doubt we made it very far through that one.

Orson Watch: Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight) - 1965

I had more or less no idea what this movie was until about a half hour before I left to go see it.  PaulT and I haven't been able to hang much lately, so when he pitched going to see an Orson Welles movie I'd only heard of here and there, I said "yeah, sure!".  Because (1) hanging out with PaulT is always a good time and (2) I am truly trying to weight the number of movies I watch this year that are new to me at something like 70%.  Thus, I'm trying to be game for anything pitched my way, especially if it'll include a beer with a pal.

At this point, I am still not sure if this movie is called Falstaff or Chimes at Midnight or Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight).  I do know it was released in 1965.  It was not well regarded or received upon its release, and it doesn't get much play out there.

It's a strange adaptation of Shakespeare, and I actually asked my boss a few questions Thursday as she has a Masters from UT in English, and did her thesis on some aspect of Shakespeare, and my familiarity with The Bard is exceedingly limited.  Welles plays Falstaff, a recurring character in Shakespeare's plays, specifically Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, as well as The Merry Wives of Windsor.   I haven't seen any of these as movies or on stage, nor have I read them.  To me, Falstaff is an operatic character and one I mostly equate with Thor's buddy, Volstagg.  And, at that, I haven't thought much about the character other than that by my late 50's, I expect to be referred to as Falstaffian in stature and temperament.

Caine Watch: The Ipcress File (1965)

The Ipcress File (1965) is one of those movies you see mentioned a lot, especially in conjunction with the name "Michael Caine", but I'd never actually seen it, myself.  Just as Bond movies were taking off, Bond producer Harry Saltzman decided to launch a competitor to Bond's sexy, sly cartoonish spy adventure and gave us a spy somewhere between Bond and George Smiley.*  His world is not about bureaucracies being very sneaky against each other, nor is Harry Palmer going to drive a high end sports car with a smoke screen and rockets, either.

What really stood out for me, though, was that Harry Palmer - at least in this film (and he's in 3-5 films, depending on how you count them) - feels like a very real sort of person in comparison to James Bond.  Chalk this up to Michael Caine's talents or a very clever script, but Harry Palmer is a semi-ne'er-do-well who is happy having a government check, finds all this easier than working for a living, and is riding out this "spy" gig he's got going on until the gravy train runs out.  In the meantime, he peeps on people and doesn't particularly care for the rest of the rubbish paperwork.

Until he's changed offices and put on a real assignment.

Bond Watch: Thunderball (1965)

this poster does a surprisingly good job of summing up the movie

This was the one Bond movie that, even during the 7th grade sprint of renting Bond movies back to back all summer, somehow I never picked up.  I don't know why.  It's possible it was checked out.  Even stranger, I always assumed I'd run into it on cable or at the Paramount during the summer, but it never showed, or I never came across it.

So, here in 2016, I finally watched the movie.

Unfortunately for me, I had triple-checked the plot of Thunderball (1965) over the years to make sure I really hadn't seen it, and - yes, that movies absolutely was the one where the guy crashes a Vulcan with two atomic bombs into the ocean near The Bahamas and ends with a wicked underwater fight.

Don't worry.  If I had that spoiled for me over and over and still enjoyed the movie, you'll be fine.