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The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Three

The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Three

By the end of Airport ’77 we cannot help but wonder if Joe Patroni is the only one to disappear into the Bermuda Triangle, along with all the carefully documented unanswered questions. Lord knows the Devil’s Triangle does not give up its secrets easily. The only thing new offered is Joe’s phantom company, Patroni’s Gently Used Airplane Parts and Stress Points. What was clear, Universal hit the jackpot again with another huge return on investment. Audiences were still hungry for…

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1941: “To Hollywood…and Glory!”

1941: “To Hollywood…and Glory!”

Released: December 1979 Directed By: Steven Spielberg Cast: Dan Ackroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, John Candy, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, Eddie Deezen, Bobby Di Cicco, Dianne Kay, Slim Pickens, Wendie Jo Sperber, Lionel Stander. When I went to see Steven Spielberg’s 1941 when it was first released in 1979, I knew I was going to like it. What I didn’t know was how much. It turned…

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Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: That Magical Time of Year When We Turn to Warm Thoughts of Alien Invasion.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: That Magical Time of Year When We Turn to Warm Thoughts of Alien Invasion.

Released: November 1964 Directed By: Nicholas Webster Cast: John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck, Bill McCutcheon, Victor Stiles, Donna Conforti, Chris Month, Pia Zadora. It was the middle of Septober on the planet Mars, and Kimar (Leonard Hicks) was concerned. His children, Bomar (Chris Month) and Girmar (Pia Zadora), were addicted to watching Earth programs on the video scope. If you saw the programs the kids were watching, you’d be concerned as well. KID-TV was broadcasting live from Santa’s Workshop…

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Casablanca: Monsieur Rick, Signor Ugarte, and the Fine Art of World Building.

Casablanca: Monsieur Rick, Signor Ugarte, and the Fine Art of World Building.

Released: January 1943 Directed By: Michael Curtiz Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre. By the time we meet Richard Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in the first act of Casablanca, two German couriers have been murdered and two valuable letters of transit have been stolen, Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains) has rounded up the usual suspects, Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) of the Third Reich shows up ahead of the impending arrival of Victor…

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The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Two

The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Two

When we last left off, Joe Patroni was on the tarmac at Salt Lake City International Airport with his ‘wife’ and ‘son’, who have just survived the emergency landing of Columbia Airlines Flight 409. And as already stated in my previous post, we are left with many unanswered questions about Joe Patroni’s seemingly sketchy past, the least of which being why Gloria Swanson was on Flight 409 in the first place. Gloria Swanson notwithstanding, there are no easy answers, at…

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Gun Crazy: “Thrill Crazy… Kill Crazy… ‘Deadly is the Female.’”

Gun Crazy: “Thrill Crazy… Kill Crazy… ‘Deadly is the Female.’”

Released: January 1950 Dir.: Joseph H. Lewis Cast: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger, Anabel Shaw, Harry Lewis, Nedrick Young, Russ Tamblyn. Right from childhood Bart Tare (John Dall) was crazy about guns. So much so he tried to break into a hardware store to steal a revolver. His attempt failed and earned him 5 years up the river to reform school. Bart learned his lessons the hard way, at the ripe old age of 7 he shot a baby…

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Buck Privates: ‘You’ll Be Caught in a Draft…of Laughter!’

Buck Privates: ‘You’ll Be Caught in a Draft…of Laughter!’

Released: January 1941 Dir.: Arthur Lubin Cast: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lee Bowman, Alan Curtis, Jane Frazee, Nat Pendleton, The Andrews Sisters. Imagine a world where you and a pal could hangout on a street corner selling neckties for 10 cents apiece. Be chased by a cop, for illegally selling said neckties, hide from him by ducking into a movie theater and then accidentally enlisting in the army. Imagine a world where while waiting to be shipped off to boot…

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The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part One

The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part One

When Arthur Hailey’s novel Airport was published in 1968, the literary world was introduced to TWA maintenance chief Joe Patroni, a no-nonsense, cigar chomping trouble-shooter operating out of Chicago’s fictional Lincoln International Airport. In the novel, Patroni races the clock to remove an Aero-Mexico Boeing 707, that is mired in snow and mud, blocking a crucial runway, before another crippled 707 can make an emergency landing on the same runway. Set during a massive snowstorm, Airport unfolds over an 8-hour…

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Berlin 1945: Diary of a Metropolis.

Berlin 1945: Diary of a Metropolis.

Released: 2020 Dir.: Volker Heise Berlin 1945: Diary of a Metropolis is a 3-part documentary mini-series from Germany about the fate of Berlin from Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1945. As told through the diaries of average citizens, soldiers, both German and Soviet, POWs used as forced labor to build makeshift defenses, a Jewish woman hiding in the city fearing for the fate of her husband and children, among others, and the arrogant and delusional Dr. Goebbels who misleads the populous that…

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The Gumball Rally: Bringing Back Memories of the Drive-in Movie.

The Gumball Rally: Bringing Back Memories of the Drive-in Movie.

Released: 1976 Dir.: Chuck Bail First viewing in over 40 years. Every decade or so, a movie comes along with the power to inspire, motivate, even change the course of one’s life. The Gumball Rally is not one of those films, it is, however, what most movies should be: good, escapist entertainment. The Gumball Rally also brought back some fun memories. Growing up in the 1970s we were lucky enough to have a drive-in theatre in our neighborhood, I could…

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