Dispatch #437: Barbara Rush 1927-2024

Barbara Rush (1927-2024)

After a long life and a remarkable career, actress Barabara Rush has died at 97.

Rush's big-screen co-stars included Rock Hudson (Magnificent Obsession), Paul Newman (The Young Philadelphians), Kirk Douglas (Strangers When We Meet), and Frank Sinatra (Robin and the Seven Hoods). She also had a prominent role on TV's first primetime soap opera, Peyton Place.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I hadn't seen any of that yet. Because of my predilection for mystery, horror, and science fiction, I knew Barbara Rush primarily from her film & TV performances in those genres.

When Worlds Collide & It Came from Outer Space

My earliest memories of her are from a pair of classic sci-fi flicks, When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came from Outer Space (1953), both of which I saw on late-night TV. Rush was especially good in the latter—playing both plucky Arizona schoolteacher Ellen Fields and her alien doppelganger.

Rush with Yvonne Craig (left) and Lindsay Wagner (right)

Later roles such as the villainous Nora Clavicle on Batman and the mystery woman who-may-or-may-not be Jamie Sommers' mother on The Bionic Woman only increased the affection genre fans like me already had for her.

The Forms of Things Unknown (1964) and Cool Air (1971)

I especially enjoyed Rush in spooky fare such as The Outer Limits (The Forms of Things Unknown with Vera Miles and David McCallum) Rod Serling's Night Gallery (an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's Cool Air with Henry Darrow) and even a 1972 TV movie about a Bayou Loup-Garou, Moon of the Wolf, with David Janssen and Bradford Dillman.

Rush in Moon of the Wolf (1972)

Beyond those roles, Barbara Rush turned up on scores of other shows I watched back then, including Cannon, Fantasy Island, Ironside, Knight Rider, The Love Boat, Mannix, Magnum P.I., McCloud, Marcus Welby M.D., Maude, Medical Center, The Mod Squad, and The Streets of San Francisco—to name just a few.

Rush was a classy, terrific actress—much better than the material she usually had to work with—but that's why I enjoyed it so much whenever she turned up on the shows I watched—her performance always elevated them.

Barbara Rush (1927-2024) R.I.P.

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2024 SummitCityScribe

 

Dispatch #432: Richard Amsel TV Guide Covers

 

Amsel's Police Woman & Rhoda

Earlier this month, I posted colorful, vibrant TV Guide covers from artists Ramon Ameijide and Bob Peak. Today's dispatch features the work of Richard Amsel (1947-1985).

Amsel at the movies: Flash Gordon & Raiders of the Lost Ark

Today, Amsel is probably best known for his work on posters for blockbuster movies such as The Sting and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but from 1973 to 1985 he was responsible for over 40 covers for TV Guide magazine.

Amsel's Hart to Hart and Shogun

Among the qualities I always admired in Amsel's TV Guide work was his photo-realistic portraits of performers and captivating use of color. 

Amsel's Magnum P.I. & Miami Vice

This talented artist may have died far too young, but he left behind an impressive legacy of artwork. Director Adam McDaniel is working on a documentary about Amsel's life—you can learn more about that project here.

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2024 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #427: Bob Peak TV Guide Covers

 

Bob Peak's Marcus Welby & Mannix Covers

The late Bob Peak (1927-1992) is legendary for the iconic posters he designed for films such as My Fair Lady, Apocalypse Now, The Spy Who Loved Me, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Excalibur.

Peak Film Posters—Star Trek: The Motion Picture & Excalibur

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure the first time I ever saw his amazing art was on the cover of TV Guide magazine in the early 1970s.

Sci-Fi Heroes: The Six Million Dollar Man & Man from Atlantis

It didn't matter if the cover depicted a cop show, family drama, or science-fiction adventure, Peak's masterful use of light and color made them all coffee-table masterpieces. Even his signature looked cool.

Fantasy Island & Search

You can learn more about Bob Peak's career—and view other examples of his incredible art—at his official site.

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2024 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #382: Tucson's Century Park 16

 

Tucson's Century Park 16 multiplex

  In May of 1999, The Phantom Menace—the first new Star Wars film in 16 years—debuted on movie screens. I had moved to sunny Tucson, Arizona the year before but outside of work, I still didn't know many people in the city at that time. 

  I suppose that's one of the reasons I remember attending the opening day screening so fondly. Eager to see the earliest showing that day, I headed out to the Century Park 16 multiplex at 1055 West Grant Road, just east of 1-10.

  As one might expect, a sizeable contingent of Star Wars fans lined up outside the box office that morning. Fortunately—given Tucson's omnipresent sunshine and May temps averaging in the high 80s—the space outside the box office was covered by a shady arcade (with its multiple domes, the theater wouldn't have looked out of place in Theed, the Naboo capital city seen in the film)

  As I stood (and eventually sat) in the cool shade of that arcade with my fellow moviegoers, I struck up a conversation with some of them—and although complete strangers—we quickly bonded over our love for George Lucas' space sagas. 

  Once the doors opened, my new friends and I filed into the auditorium and sat together, remaining in our seats to hear Darth Vader's spooky breathing during the end credits. Episode One eventually had its share of online detractors, but I—and the people sitting with me that day—loved it.

Demolition of the theater complex in February 2023

  That May 1999 screening is a pleasant memory, so it was a little sad when the Century Park 16 closed for good in 2011. After sitting idle for over a decade, the theater complex was finally demolished in February 2023.

  The cineplex had opened October 6th, 1989, on the former site of the Tucson Five Drive-In. The land itself, of course, was historically associated with the region's Pascua Yaqui Tribe, which—through an act of Congress—they eventually reclaimed.

One of the cineplex's iconic domes is still visible on the right.

  The tribe has plans for a large casino on the site, with groundbreaking scheduled for late 2024. 

  Tucson has plenty of movie theaters, and during my 15 years there, I don't think I ever saw another film at the Century Park 16 other than that one time in 1999. Even so, it's a very happy memory of my early time in the Old Pueblo—and the camaraderie of Star Wars fandom, too.

 There's more to come in the next dispatch.

 ©2024 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #363: Stop Motion Animation/Claymation

FX wizard Ray Harryhausen at work

   As a kid, I was enthralled by films featuring the FX wizardry of Ray Harryhausen. Whether it was the science fiction tale First Men in the Moon, a sword-and-sorcery epic like The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, or a steampunk adventure such as Mysterious Island, I dearly loved them all.

  Harryhausen brought all manner of fantastic creatures to life—from winged stallions to a towering cyclops—using Stop-Motion Animation, a process in which an object is physically manipulated by an animator in tiny increments between individual frames of film so that it has the illusion of movement when the film is played back.

  The creation of Harryhausen's creatures usually began with stainless steel or aluminum armatures that were then covered in foam latex. For show-biz appeal, he called his stop-motion process Dynamation.

  My pet peeve is when people refer to the painstaking effects process Harryhausen used to animate his fantastic creations not as stop-motion animation or even Dynamation but as Claymation instead.

  The term Claymation was coined by animator Will Vinton (of California Raisins fame) in the late 1970s to differentiate his FX work from that of his competitors. 

  Claymation—aka plasticine animation—is a form of stop-motion animation, but one using clay models—as seen in work by Vinton, Art Clokey (Gumby) and Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit).

  Since Ray Harryhausen's magnificent models were made of foam latex and not clay, it's proper to refer to his work as Stop-Motion Animation or even Dynamation but not Claymation.

  I doubt today's dispatch will do anything to correct this common mistake, but as a life-long fan of Ray Harryhausen, I had to try.

 There's more to come in the next dispatch.

 ©2024 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #331: The Music of John Barry, Part Two

 

  Today's dispatch continues my reflections on the film music of John Barry. You can read Part One here.

  By the time I became aware of John Barry's work in the early 1970s, he'd already won three Academy Awards—two for Born Free (1966) and a third for The Lion in Winter (1968). He would eventually go on to win two more—Out of Africa (1985) and Dances with Wolves (1990)—for a total of five Oscars.

  As I got older, I began seeking out Barry's work beyond the James Bond series, which led me to discover the wonderful music he wrote for films such as Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), Midnight Cowboy and The Appointment (both 1969), Monte Walsh (1970), and Robin and Marian (1976).

  While tracing the Barry's film career, I noted the evolution of his sound—from the early big, brassy, Stan Kenton-esque Bond films to his later, lushly romantic scores. 

  This later period produced not only his gorgeous work on the classic cinematic love stories Somewhere in Time (1980) and Out of Africa (1985) but even—believe it or not—a beautiful romantic theme for George Lucas' Howard the Duck (1986). 

  

  His work on the later Bond films reflected this evolution, which is evident in tracks such as Bond Lured to Pyramid from Moonraker (1979), Wine with Stacey from A View to a Kill (1985) or the evocative Mujahadin and Opium from The Living Daylights (1987).

  

  As a devoted John Barry fan, I love all of his wonderful film scores, but I suppose my personal favorites are The Lion in Winter, Somewhere in Time, and Out of Africa. 

  Like all great scores, they perfectly complement and enhance the images they accompany onscreen—but also exist as beautiful music that can be enjoyed by itself.

John Barry (1933-2011)

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #330: The Music of John Barry, Part One

 

Composer John Barry

  As a long-time film score aficionado, Jerry Goldsmith and John Barry top the list of my favorite composers. Today's dispatch focuses on the Yorkshire-born John Barry.

  In the early 1970s, the James Bond films began airing on American television for the first time, usually on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. 

  The first of these broadcasts I remember watching was Thunderball in September of 1974, followed by Dr. No two months later. As a kid, I was thrilled not just by the action and exotic locales in both films, but by the stirring music, too—although at the time I didn't note who'd composed it.

   A year later, ABC aired Diamonds Are Forever in September of 1975, followed by You Only Live Twice in November. This time I watched the opening credits closely to learn the name of the composer: John Barry.

  Each film contained thrilling sequences set in outer space: in the climax of Diamonds, a satellite laser weapon wreaks havoc on military targets, while YOLT opened with the abduction of an American spacecraft in Earth orbit. 

  John Barry's lush score elevated both sequences: in Diamonds, it's his track 007 and Counting, while for YOLT, it's Capsule in Space.

  The following year, in December 1976, the Dino DeLaurentis remake of King Kong hit theaters. Although it paled in comparison to the 1933 original (which I'd already seen on TV by that point), I loved the '76 Kong for all its flaws. 

  In fact, King Kong became the very first film I ever went back to see more than once in the theater (it would be five months before I would do so again—when Star Wars came out in the summer of 1977).

  

  Aside from Kong himself, a big reason I returned to see the film was to experience the magnificent John Barry score. I mean, who'd have thought a movie with a guy running around in an ape suit would contain tracks as lovely as John Barry's Arrival on the Island?

  I'd recognized Barry's name in Kong's opening credits as the same fellow who'd done those terrific James Bond scores, and the burgeoning movie music fan in me quickly claimed him as one of my favorites. 

  A few months later, when I stumbled across the original soundtrack LP for Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the bargain bin at Musicland, it became the first film score I ever purchased—inaugurating a life-long hobby and cementing an appreciation for the talented composer—both of which continue to this day.

  There's more to come in the next dispatch.

  ©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #292: The Time(s) My Mother Took Me to a Slasher Film

       John Carpenter's Halloween turns 45 this month, and lately I've been thinking about the first time I saw that classic fright flick up on the big screen.

     As I wrote in a much earlier Dispatch, my mother loved movies, and among her favorite kinds were thrillers and murder mysteries.

     One of my earliest childhood movie memories is watching Stanley Kubrick's Killer's Kiss on the living room couch with my mom—eventually pulling a blanket over my head when the picture's creepy climax in a warehouse full of mannequins became too much for me.

     On that same living room couch we also watched Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry, Wrong Number, Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase, Ross Martin and Stephanie Powers in Experiment in Terror, and a very scary Bette Davis as The Nanny.

     As I got older, mom and I would often spend Saturday afternoons at one of our local cinemas. We saw all kinds of films during those weekends in the 1970s, but in particular a lot of thrillers—both good and bad: Jaws, William Castle's Bug, Grizzly, The Eagle Has Landed, The Cassandra Crossing, Twilight's Last Gleaming, The Boys from Brazil, Capricorn One, and Phil Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

     In late October 1978, mom saw a commercial for a new flick she thought looked pretty scary and chose it for our weekly movie outing. 

     As it turns out, she was right, but I don't think either of us were prepared for the intensity of John Carpenter's Halloween. This wasn't a murder mystery like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians—it was a full-on slasher film, and it scared us silly that Saturday afternoon. 

     As I hadn't seen any of his earlier films (Assault on Precinct 13, Dark Star), I remember thinking beforehand it was pretty bold the film was advertised as John Carpenter's Halloween, a privilege usually only afforded to established directors such as Alfred Hitchcock. 

     Afterward, I realized it was pretty clever, assuring that everyone knew the name of the man behind the stylish, low-budget thriller—who would later go on to give us The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, and They Live, among other iconic films.

   That screening of John Carpenter's Halloween wasn't the only time my mother and I saw a rather intense film together, either. Thanks to our weekly movie ritual, we also saw Midnight Express, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Ridley Scott's Alien, too. 

     As these features were all R-rated, I was usually the only kid in my class to see them, but even for those of my intrepid peers who did manage to sneak into a Halloween screening back in October of '78, I think it's safe to say that none of them saw the spooky slasher film as I did—with a movie-loving mother by my side. 

     Several months later, in the summer of 1980, mom took me to see another thriller with a high body-count: Friday the 13th. Yes, that's right: I actually saw two iconic slasher films with my mother. 

     Unfortunately, director Sean Cunnigham was no John Carpenter, leaving us both disappointed. "I can't believe Betsy Palmer was in such a lousy picture," mom grumbled as we walked out of the theater. 

     Obviously, we had no idea at that moment how Jason Voorhees would continue to haunt movie screens for decades to come—we just agreed that Friday the 13th couldn't hold a candle to those old black & white thrillers we used to watch together on the living room couch.

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #200: Indiana Jones and the Dial-In of Destiny

 

This summer moviegoers will see the fifth (and reportedly final) Indiana Jones film starring Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. All the press surrounding this latest big screen adventure got me thinking about the time I got to see an advance screening of the very first Indy film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the summer of 1981.

Back in the pre-internet era, information on upcoming films was pretty scarce. I didn't have access to industry trades like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter when I was younger, so often the first time I found out about a new film was when I saw the coming attractions trailer for it at my local movie theater.

 This all changed with my discovery of Starlog Magazine in 1977. After its debut, I finally had a place to learn about the latest science-fiction/horror/fantasy films & TV shows in development. 

An early mention of Raiders in Starlog #32 (1980)

A few years later, in early 1980, I began to read brief news items in Starlog about the thrilling possibility that two genre film titans—George Lucas & Steven Spielberg—were about to embark on a new film project together.

A Raiders update from Starlog #33 (1980)

 As with most properties involving either filmmaker, secrecy was extremely tight around the Raiders project, so for many months all I saw were notices in Starlog about casting, filming locations, and one about John Williams' hiring as the film's composer (welcome news but not a huge surprise). By the time the movie was "in the can" as they say, I still knew nothing at all about the plot.

The Nazi Flying Wing, from Starlog #48

 In fact, secrecy was so tight, it was less than two weeks prior to Raiders' release before I saw any still photographs from the film—in the pages of Starlog #48. The issue has a cover date of July 1981, but I remember buying it the first week of June at my local comic book store (the Broadway Comic Book and Baseball Card Shop at the corner of Broadway and Scott Avenue in Fort Wayne—which, sadly, is now the parking lot for the Philmore theater).

Indiana Jones at the Well of Souls, from Starlog #48

The three pics in the magazine—which accompanied an interview with star Harrison Ford—included the first one I ever saw of him as Indy in his battered fedora, a shot of a Nazi flying wing in the desert, and a third still of Indy lowering himself into a snake filled Well of Souls. A brief plot synopsis was included before the interview moved on to other subjects, namely Ford's work on future projects Blade Runner and Return of the Jedi.

The Raiders plot synopsis from Starlog #48

The synopsis really wasn't very much to go on, and I remember being slightly disappointed—because of the presence of Nazis, it sounded more like a straight-ahead WWII adventure to me (I was thinking Guns of Navarone) than the rollicking special-effects epic I expected from Lucas and Spielberg. Little did I know!

Then, one Friday afternoon in early June 1981, a local radio station announced that in just a few minutes, a few lucky callers would have a chance to win tickets to an advance screening of the latest Steven Spielberg movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Boy, talk about a Dial of Destiny (or maybe I should say a Dial-In of Destiny)! 

I already had the station's request line memorized, so I grabbed the phone, called in, and was thrilled when the DJ picked up and informed me that I'd just won two tickets to the Raiders screening at the Georgetown Theater on East State Boulevard in Fort Wayne. He also told me the special screening would take place that very evening—in about two hours. Now all I needed was someone to accompany me.

Of the first two people I immediately thought of asking, one wasn't at home when I called (this was the pre-cell phone era) and the other had to work that night. What followed was a mad telephone scramble to connect with any of my other friends who I thought might want to go. 

Frustratingly, almost none of them were home (to be fair, it was a late Friday afternoon in June)—that is until I finally got through to my old elementary school friend, Danny (who's currently an elementary school teacher/coach over in Kosciusko County, Indiana, and now prefers to be called Daniel). 

Danny seemed vaguely interested but wanted to know more about the film. I told him that all I really knew was that it involved Harrison Ford (in my excitement, I might have actually said Han Solo) fighting Nazis. 

My friend sounded uncertain, "I don't know...that theater is all the way across town...", so I reminded him that it was a free movie and that I would drive him to and then home from the screening—all he had to do was buy his own soda and popcorn. 

That did the trick, and seconds after I hung up the phone, I sprinted out the door to my '72 Chevy Impala in the driveway. Fortunately, I didn't get a speeding ticket during the whirlwind trip to pick up my friend and make it across town to the theater on time.

Danny still seemed a bit wary as we sat down inside the Georgetown General Cinema less than an hour later, "I sure hope this doesn't suck," he said before taking a sip of his Pepsi as the house lights went down.

Personally, I was hooked from the moment the Paramount logo dissolved into a South American mountain peak, but I could tell Danny wasn't on board until the tense sequence inside the Peruvian temple with Indy and his traitorous sidekick, Satipo (Alfred Molina). 

By the time that gigantic boulder rolled down toward Indy, everyone in that theater knew they were in for one heckuva ride. Indeed, most of the film was a straight-ahead action-adventure flick, but the supernatural fireworks in the finale did deliver the state-of-the-art special effects I'd expected in a joint project from George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. 

As we walked out of the theater into the warm June night afterward, Danny gushed that it was one of the best movies he'd ever seen—and in that moment, who was I to argue?

There were many elements that made Raiders a success, but for me a big part of why I enjoyed the film was how little I knew about it beforehand—leaving me constantly surprised and amazed by the rollercoaster ride of action and thrills onscreen. These days it's hard to experience a big-budget summer blockbuster the way I saw Raiders—not with the plethora of spoilers, leaked script pages, and early footage available online. 

For that reason alone, I can't remember when I've had a better time at the movies since that free screening back in 1981. It was a blast.

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2023 SummitCityScribe