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DavidParis
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)
How To Marry A Millionaire (1953)
Death on the Nile (1978)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
The Towering Inferno (1974)
The Egyptian (1954)
The Cat's Meow (2002)
The Last of Mrs Cheyney (1937)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
North By Northwest (1959)
Gone With The Wind (1939)
The Talk of the Town (1942)
Sunset Blvd (1950)
Mommie Dearest (1980)
TV..
Are You Being Served?, Bewitched, Absolutely Fabulous, Kath & Kim, Something Stupid, Keeping Up Appearances, Nighty Night
Fave Stars...
Carol Lynley, Joanna Lumley, Stella Stevens, Bella Darvi, Cary Grant, Faye Dunaway, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Agnes Moorehead
Reviews
The Shape of Things to Come (1979)
Total dud
With the names Jack Palance and Carol Lynley above the title, you would think that The Shape of Things to Come (purportedly from the book by HG Wells, although I see little similarity) would be a sci-fi adventure to die for.
Well, it is...after watching this for half an hour you realise that yes, you have actually died and gone to hell. The special effects are below average for their time and the cast performs VERY badly. Palance has some interesting moments playing one of his typical evil characters but on the whole is fairly bland. As for Carol Lynley, who I usually adore, Niki is by far her worst performance, mainly due to her monosyllabic delivery.
However there are some laugh-out loud moments (unintentional), mainly caused by the cast's feigned fear of the "robots" which are obviously stunt men in cardboard looking costumes who look about as fearsome as a newborn.
Don't waste your time with this tripe, watch Star Wars instead.
Up in Town (2002)
A huge contrast to Ab Fab's Patsy Stone!
No other actress could deliver such a performance and hold the audiences' attention quite like Joanna Lumley in what could easily be described as quite a boring concept i.e. a middle-aged woman relating her past & present while putting on makeup. Yet I watched this when it first aired here in Australia on the ABC and was captivated at every nuance of Lumley's face as she described her now bland life and relived past glories as the house-bound Madison Blakelock. The very definition of a black comedy, often you want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Not to be missed, Up in Town shows the great breadth of Lumley's talents.
Once You Kiss a Stranger... (1969)
Carol Lynley goes crazy! Love it!!
A very campy psycho story which viewed today is unintentionally hilarious. It is so easy to bag this movie, but I actually found it great fun. Carol Lynley played a few deranged characters in her time, but Diana definitely takes the cake. She attacks her bedridden grandmother, chases her cat with a carving knife, tries to run over the hideously attired Martha Hyer in a dune buggy (also tries to shoot her with a harpoon gun!!) and of course drives over Philip Carey in a golf buggy and then bashes his head in with his own golf club! She is also into amateur photography and films her one-nighter with boring Paul Burke and then edits it to blame the murder on him! Poseidon Adventure fans beware - Carol's Diana is far-removed from mild-mannered Nonnie!
The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
All-time favourite
My all-time favourite movie! I first saw Poseidon when I was 12 years old and luckily taped it. Since then I must have seen it thousands of times. I don't know what it is about this film but I just cannot get enough of it.
The stand-out performance for me here comes from Stella Stevens as the acid-tongued reformed hooker Linda. This woman spends most of the film in a grimy pink shirt with running mascara and haphazard hair but looks absolutely gorgeous - despite those clunky silver platforms!! I love the shot of Linda slouched in the bottom left of the screen swilling from a whisky bottle while Ernest Borgnine and Jack Albertson are debating whether to ditch Gene Hackman and follow the doctor and the nurse in the bee-hive wig! Carol Lynley quite often gets a bagging for whining but I thought it a good performance as she wasn't really given a lot to work with script-wise and yet turned Nonnie into a memorable character (even if sometimes I did want to leave her there blubbering in the air shaft!) Gene Hackman's performance for me was a little over-the-top and as others have noted, he shouts....A LOT....Roddy McDowall and Arthur O'Connell didn't really get enough screen time to stand out much. Red Buttons is good, but I can just see Gene Wilder as fantastic Martin, a perfect role for him, and of course everybody loves Shelley Winters as the kindly and cuddly Belle Rosen.
An absolute classic which will always have a special place in my heart.