Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite Mel Brooks movies.  Mental Floss details 15 thing we may not know about the movie.

From MENTAL FLOSS:

In 1974, Mel Brooks gave the world Young Frankenstein—a movie that would set the bar for all future horror comedies to come.

Studio Executives tried Tricking Director Mel Brooks into Shooting the Film in Color

By the mid-‘70s, black and white cinema was an endangered species. Nevertheless, Brooks felt strongly about replicating the feel of Universal’s classic Frankenstein films by going colorless. However, not everybody shared his vision. Columbia Studios’ brass thought the style was unmarketable and, as Brooks explains in this delightful interview (skip to 47:40), used some slippery tactics in an attempt to get their way:

“They said ‘Okay, we’ll make it in black and white, but on color stock so that we can show it in Peru, which just got color. And I said ‘No. No because you’ll screw me. You will say this and then, in order to save the company, you will risk a lawsuit and you will print everything in color. It’s gotta be on… black & white thick film.”

Thankfully, Brooks prevailed, though 20th Century Fox wound up taking charge of the project.

Star and Co-Writer Gene Wilder Convinced Brooks to Forgo his Usual Cameo Appearance

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Brooks usually gave himself a part in his own films, from Blazing Saddles’ loopy governor to the wine-selling Rabbi of Robin Hood: Men in Tights. These characters regularly broke the fourth wall and “winked” at the audience, something Wilder felt would clash with Young Frankenstein’s tone. So, as a condition of his taking on the lead role, Wilder made Brooks agree to remain off-camera. However, the director did provide some howling: As Frederick Frankenstein (Wilder) takes his first ride to the family castle, the distant wolf cry which startles him is a sound Brooks actually vocalized himself.

Early On, We Hear the Exact Same Conversation Repeated in Both English and German

En route to Romania, our protagonist catches a train to New York, whereupon he hears an American couple bickering. In the very next scene, Frederick (now on a Transylvania-bound locomotive) witnesses a European pair having an identical, word-for-word exchange in German

One of Igor’s Best Moments Inspired a Hit Aerosmith Song

“Walk this way!” Marty Feldman’s Igor instructs his master, who proceeds to copy the hunchback’s shuffling gait. Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler found this line hilarious and repurposed it as the title of a track about high school lovers.

Hans Delbrück Was a Real Person

As Frederick readies his monster, he sends Igor to fetch a very special brain which rests in a jar labeled “Hans Delbruck: Scientist and Saint”. The actual Hans Delbrück (1848-1929) was an accomplished military historian whose son, Max, won a Nobel Prize for his work with viruses.

Several Props Had Previously Appeared in the Masterful 1931 Frankenstein Film

Taking his feature-length tribute to the next level, Brooks included much of the faux lab equipment used in that earlier picture.

Teri Garr Based Her Character’s Voice on Cher’s Hairdresser

Garr made several appearances on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and used Cher’s German wig-stylist as a model for ditzy lab assistant Inga’s heavy accent.

Brooks Hired Kenneth Mars After the Actor Signed Off on an Odd Costuming Choice

The two had already collaborated in 1968’s The Producers, and while casting Young Frankenstein, Brooks offered Mars the role of grumpy Inspector Kemp, but not before pitching an eccentric wardrobe gimmick that ultimately wound up on-screen.

“He [said],” Mars later reminisced, “‘Let me ask you this… if you’re wearing an eye patch and you’ve got a monocle on top of the eye patch, is that too much?’ I said ‘Of course not.’ He said ‘Good, you’re hired!’”

Gene Hackman Specifically Asked Wilder for a Part in Young Frankenstein Because he “Wanted to Try Comedy”

According to the movie’s Blu-Ray commentary, Hackman—who’d been thrice nominated for an Academy Award (and won one in 1971)—learned about Young Frankenstein through his frequent tennis partner Wilder and requested a role. Ultimately, ‘Harold’—the lonely blind character he briefly portrayed—sparked one of the most memorable sequences in comedic history.

Peter Boyle Had to Wear a Special Pad Over His Crotch to Avoid Getting Scalded During the Famous Blind Man Scene

During their hysterical encounter, sightless Harold winds up accidentally dumping a bowlful of hot soup onto the poor creature’s lap. Fortunately, Boyle’s protective gear kept him from having to method act his way through the ordeal.

A Huge Percentage of the Movie Had to Be Deleted

“For every joke that worked, there were three that fell flat,” says Brooks, who whittled Young Frankenstein down to its current runtime after observing several mixed reactions from test audiences. This cut material included a clip in which Frederick’s relatives listen to a recorded will left by his great grandfather Beauvort von Frankenstein whose message starts skipping and nonchalantly repeats the phrase “Up Yours!”

In addition, the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” number was nearly axed as well. Brooks reportedly felt that having Dr. Frankenstein and his monster tap dance to an old Irving Berlin song seemed “too crazy.” Hearing this, Wilder—who though it brilliant—snapped and came “close to rage and tears” before Brooks unexpectedly changed his tune. “I wanted to see how hard you’d fight for it,” said the director, “And I knew if you fought hard enough, it was right…You did, so it’s in.”

Wilder was Constantly Cracking Up During Takes

According to Cloris Leachman, “He killed every take [with his laughter] and nothing was done about it!” Shots would frequently have to be repeated as many as fifteen times before Wilder could finally summon a straight face. But, to be fair, he certainly wasn’t the only one who couldn’t always keep it together.

Young Frankenstein sees Marty Feldman’s comic genius on full display, which was often more than his castmates could handle. For example, the scene where Frederick’s fiancée Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn) greets him at the castle generated a lengthy gag reel because Feldman—whose character starts ravenously gnawing on her mink scarf—kept everyone in stitches with his manic over-acting.

Brooks’ Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein were the 1st and 3rd highest-grossing films of 1974, respectively

“It’s good to be the king!” Before this pivotal year, the funnyman’s earlier efforts—The Producers and The Twelve Chairs (1970)—netted mixed reviews and had lackluster box office performances. But after turning out these back-to-back hits at breakneck speed, Brooks’ reputation as one of Hollywood’s greatest comedic directors was secured.

Leachman Was Asked to Reprise Her Role for the ‘Young Frankenstein’ Musical

After getting eliminated from ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, Brooks offered the 82-year-old actress a chance to take a second stab at playing Frau Blücher for his on-stage Young Frankenstein musical, but the show’s run ended before her schedule freed up.

Throughout the Shoot, Brooks Offered Wilder Directing Advice

Knowing his star dreamed of one day sitting in the director’s chair, Brooks made a point to give him as many pointers as possible before shooting concluded. Wilder reminisced, “Mel would say, ‘Do you know the trouble I’m in because I didn’t shoot that close-up? Don’t do that.’ I would say, ‘To whom are you talking?’ ‘You, when you’re directing.’”

Though both headed various productions after Young Frankenstein, they’d never collaborate on another flick. Nevertheless, the pair’s shared legacy is unimpeachable. All three of Brooks’ movies in which Wilder appeared—The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein—have been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry and included on the American Film Institute’s “100 Funniest Movies of All Time” list.

SOURCE: MENTAL FLOSS  MARK MANCINI

Today is Melissa McCarthy’s birthday, born in 1970, and I do not know her politics, but I do enjoy the movies and series I have seen her in—Spy, The Heat, and Mike and Molly.  In Spy, she plays an agent for the government who was tricked into providing support for a handsome agent.  When he is neutralized, she is sent abroad for a low-key surveillance mission where she is assigned aliases such as housewife and cat lady, which she rejects and shows off her true spy capabilities (with some hilarious, but impressive results.) I found an article on factinate.com her describing 42 things we may not know about her, and I wanted to share a few of these.  

From Factinate:

Why Buy It When You Can Make It

Thanks to her fashion background, McCarthy designs the majority of the dresses she wears at award shows and premieres for her movies.

A Little Heads up Would Have Been Nice

In 2011, McCarthy and Joshua Jackson announced the nominees for various Emmy categories, but apparently, no one told her she was up for an award for Mike & Molly. When Jackson announced her name, she was genuinely shocked and so overcome with emotions that she could barely get through the rest of the nominees.

A Dress for Every Occasion

She returned to her fashion roots in 2015 when she launched her own fashion line, Melissa McCarthy Seven7, which offers reasonably priced clothing options for women from size 4 to 28.

Makeover: Diet Edition

After landing the role of Sookie St. James in Gilmore Girls, McCarthy decided to go on an all-liquid diet that resulted in her losing 70 lbs (32 kg) in four months! According to McCarthy, she would never do it again because it drove her crazy, and she would rather have a beer and a burger than starve herself. I’m with ya there, Melissa!

A Very Canadian Heist

In 2011, McCarthy and Mumolo sold a pitch to Paramount Pictures for a movie that has yet to be made and I can’t figure out why. The film would’ve starred McCarthy as a woman who tries to steal the Stanley Cup. Can someone at Paramount finance this movie already!

They Said What?

McCarthy admitted that she was “shocked and heartbroken” after her sitcom Mike & Molly was canceled after 6 seasons. After all, it was one of her first starring roles and she’d achieved much of her film success while still appearing on the show. One of the weirder rumors that was spread after the cancellation was that the show had been axed because McCarthy had lost too much weight after taking diet pills. These rumors were quickly disproven and found to have originated from—you guessed it—a manufacturer of diet pills.

You can read more facts about Melissa at the factinate.com website!

SOURCE: FACTINATE.COM

Find 10 differences.

Find 10 differences.

Find the hidden pictures.

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Summer word scramble.

Summer word search.

Fact: Frankenstein’s Creature is a vegetarian

Both Victor Frankenstein and Creature are fictional characters in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In the classic novel, Creature says, “My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment.” This is one of the interesting facts you should definitely share with your vegetarian friends!

Fact: Medical errors are a top cause of death

According to a Johns Hopkins research team, 250,000 deaths in the United States are caused by medical error each year. This makes medical error the third leading cause of death in the country.

Fact: Sloths have more neck bones than giraffes

Despite the difference in neck length, there are more bones in the neck of a sloth than a giraffe. There are seven vertebrae in the neck of a giraffe, and in most mammals, but there are 10 in a sloth’s. While they’re on your mind, here are some adorable sloth pictures you totally need to see.

Fact: Bees can fly higher than Mount Everest

Bees can fly higher than 29,525 feet above sea level, according to National Geographic. That’s higher than Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.

Fact: Ancient Egyptians used dead mice to ease toothaches

In Ancient Egypt, people put a dead mouse in their mouth if they had a toothache, according to Nathan Belofsky’s book Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages. Mice were also used as a warts remedy in Elizabethan England.

Fact: Cap’n Crunch’s full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch

He’s also been called out for only having the bars of a Navy commander, but the so-called cap’n held his ground on Twitter, arguing that captaining the S.S. Guppy with his crew “makes an official Cap’n in any book!”

Fact: Paint used to be stored in pig bladders

The bladder would be sealed with a string and then pricked to get the paint out. This option wasn’t the best because it would often break open. American painter John G. Rand was the innovator who, in the 19th century, made paint tubes from tin and screw caps.

Fact: Humans have jumped farther than horses in the Olympics

The Olympic world record for the longest human long jump is greater than the world record for longest horse long jump. Mike Powell set the record in 1991 by jumping 8.95 meters, and the horse xtra Dry set the record in 1900 by jumping 6.10 meters.

Fact: The Terminator script was sold for $1

James Cameron is the award-winning director of movies like Titanic and Avatar. In order to get his big break with The Terminator, he sold the script for $1 and a promise that he’d direct it. Of course, this movie has some of the most famous movie quotes of all time in it.

Fact: Pigeon poop is the property of the British Crown

In the 18th century, pigeon poop was used to make gunpowder, so King George I confirmed the droppings to be the property of the Crown.

Fact: Onions were found in the eyes of an Egyptian mummy

Pharaoh Ramses IV of ancient Egypt had his eyes replaced with small onions when he was mummified. The rings and layers of onions were worshipped because people thought they represented eternal life. This aligns with the reason for mummification: to allow the pharaoh to live forever.

Fact: Abraham Lincoln was a bartender

You know that the 16th president of the United States fought for the freedom of slaves and the Union, but what you didn’t know is that he was a licensed bartender. Lincoln’s liquor license was discovered in 1930 and displayed in a Springfield liquor store. According to Wayne C. Temple, a Lincoln expert, Congress wanted to fire Ulysses S. Grant in 1863 because he drank a lot, and Lincoln’s response was to send Grant a supply of whiskey.

Fact: Beethoven never knew how to multiply or divide

The renowned pianist went to a Latin school called Tirocinium, where he was taught some math but never learned multiplication or division—only addition. Once, when he needed to multiply 62 by 50, he wrote 62 down a line 50 times and added it all up.

Fact: Japan released sushi-inspired Kit Kats

For a limited time in 2017, Tokyo’s Kit Kat Chocolatory shop made three types of the chocolate bar that were inspired by sushi but didn’t actually taste like raw fish. The tuna sushi was raspberry, the seaweed-wrapped one tasted like pumpkin pudding, and the sea urchin sushi was the flavor of Hokkaido melon with mascarpone cheese. All were made with puffed rice, white chocolate, and a bit of wasabi.

Fact: An espresso maker was sent into space in 2015

Coffee lovers will appreciate this interesting space fact: Samantha Cristoforetti was the first astronaut to get a warm and cozy piece of home sent to her while in orbit. The Italian Space Agency worked with Italian coffee manufacturer Lavazza to get the coffee capsules into space.

Fact: The word “aquarium” means “watering place for cattle” in Latin

Of course, today’s aquariums aren’t for cows. The first aquarium that looks like what you’d imagine was created in 1921 and opened in 1924 in England.

Fact: An employee at Pixar accidentally deleted a sequence of Toy Story 2 during production

Ed Catmull, the cofounder of Pixar, wrote in his book, Creativity Inc., that the year before the movie came out, someone entered the command ‘/bin/rm -r -f *’ on the drive where the files were saved, and scenes started deleting. It would have taken a year to recreate what was deleted, but luckily another employee had a backup of the entire film on her laptop at home.

Fact: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ron Wayne started Apple Inc. on April Fools’ Day

The three technology innovators signed the documents to form the Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976. But the company was not fully incorporated until January 3, 1977. Thirty years later, the company was renamed Apple Inc. and is no joke. In 2018, Apple became the country’s first trillion-dollar company.

Fact: The inventor of the tricycle personally delivered two to Queen Victoria

In 1881, Queen Victoria was on a tour on the Isle of Wight when her horse and carriage could not keep up with a woman riding a tricycle. Intrigued by the bike, the queen proceeded to order two. She also asked that the inventor, James Starley, arrive with the delivery. Though you might associate tricycles with toddlers, Queen Victoria made them cool among the elite at the time.

Fact: Your brain synapses shrink while you sleep

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Sleep and Consciousness studied mice to observe what happens to their brains while they sleep. Dr. Chiara Cirelli and Dr. Giulio Tononi found an 18 percent decrease in the size of synapses after a few hours of sleep. Don’t worry, though—this nighttime brain shrinkage actually helps your cognitive abilities.

Fact: A waffle iron inspired one of the first pairs of Nikes

Bill Bowerman was a track and field coach in the 1950s who didn’t like how running shoes were made. He first created the Cortez shoe but wanted a sneaker that was even lighter and could be worn on a variety of surfaces. During a waffle breakfast with his wife in 1970, he came up with the idea of using the waffle texture on the soles of running shoes. Waffle-soled shoes made their big debut in the 1972 U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, Oregon.

Fact: Boars wash their food

National Geographic reported that at Basel Zoo in Switzerland, zookeepers watched adult and juvenile wild boars pick up sandy apples and bring them to a nearby creek in their environment to wash before eating. Though some items like sugar beets were eaten without the human-like behavior, the boars brought a whole dead chicken to the creek to wash before chowing down. One ecologist called this a “luxury behavior.”

Fact: Baseball umpires used to sit in rocking chairs

People have been playing baseball since the mid-19th century. In the early days, umpires would officiate the games while reclining in a rocking chair located 20 feet behind home plate. By 1878, the National League also declared that home teams must pay umpires $5 per game.

Fact: The first commercial passenger flight lasted only 23 minutes

In 1914, Abram Pheil paid $400 (which would be $8,500 today) for a 23-minute plane ride. The Florida flight flew between Saint Petersburg and Tampa, where only 21 miles of water separate the cities. Pheil, a former mayor of Saint Petersburg, and the pilot, Tony Jannus, were the only passengers. This momentous flight paved the way for air travel as we know it.

Fact: The world’s first novel ends mid-sentence

The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century, is considered the world’s first novel. After reading 54 intricately crafted chapters, the reader is stopped abruptly mid-sentence. One translator believes the work is complete as is, but another says we’re missing a few more pages of the story.

SOURCE: Reader’s Digest: Elizabeth Yuko

Today would have been Hitchcock’s birthday. He was born August 13, 1899 and died peacefully April 29, 1980.  This article from Mental Floss highlights fifteen interesting things about the Master of Suspense.

From Mental Floss:

The shower scene in Psycho. The biplane chase in North by Northwest. The gas station attack in The Birds. They’re some of the most memorable and terrifying scenes in cinema history—and they came from the mind of one man: Alfred Hitchcock. The Master of Suspense, who went by the nickname “Hitch,” is also one of the most recognizable Hollywood icons, and his life was as fascinating as his films. Here are 15 things you might not have known about the legendary filmmaker, who was born in London on August 13, 1899.

1 Alfred Hitchcock was afraid of law enforcement … and breakfast.

Hitchcock’s mastery of thrillers may have earned him the nickname the “Master of Suspense,” but the plucky filmmaker had phobias of his own.

His lifelong fear of police stemmed from an incident in his childhood when his strict father, William, punished him by sending him to the local Leytonstone police station on the outskirts of his family’s home in east London. “I was just sent along with a note, I must have been four or five years of age, and the head of the police read it and then put me into the cell and said, ‘That’s what we do to naughty boys,’” Hitchcock later recalled of the experience.

Also, omelettes were decidedly not his favorite breakfast food. “I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me,” he once said in an interview. “That white round thing without any holes … Have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it.”

2 Alfred Hitchcock began his work in silent films.

Known for the complex title sequences in his own films, Hitchcock began his career in cinema in the early 1920s, designing the art title cards featured in silent films. The gig was at an American company based in London called the Famous Players-Lasky Company (it would later become Paramount Pictures, which produced five Hitchcock-directed films). As Hitchcock later told French filmmaker François Truffaut in their infamous Hitchcock/Truffaut conversations, “It was while I was in this department, you see, that I got acquainted with the writers and was able to study the scripts. And, out of that, I learned the writing of scripts.” The experience also led Hitch to try his hand at actual filmmaking. “If an extra scene was wanted, I used to be sent out to shoot it,” he told Truffaut.

3 Alfred Hitchcock learned from another cinema master.

In 1924, Hitchcock and his wife Alma were sent to Germany by Gainsborough Pictures—the British production company where he was under contract—to work on two Anglo-German films called The Prude’s Fall and The Blackguard. While working in Neubabelsberg, Hitchcock was taken under the wing of expressionist filmmaker F.W. Murnau, who created the chilling Dracula adaptation Nosferatu, and was shooting a silent film called The Last Laugh. “From Murnau,” Hitchcock later said, “I learned how to tell a story without words.”

4 Most of Alfred Hitchcock’s early films are lost, but a 1923 silent melodrama was discovered in New Zealand.

Only nine of Hitchcock’s earliest silent films still exist. The earliest surviving film he worked on, a 1923 melodrama titled The White Shadow—about twin sisters, one good, one evil—was thought lost until three of the film’s six reels were found sitting unmarked in the New Zealand Film Archive in 2011. The film reels were originally donated to the Archive in 1989 by the grandson of a Kiwi projectionist and collector. While the film was technically directed by leading 1920s filmmaker Graham Cutts, the 24-year-old Hitchcock served as the film’s screenwriter, assistant director, and art director.

5 Alfred Hitchcock brought sound to British movies.

The 1929 movie Blackmail, about a murder investigation headed up by the murderer’s fiance, was Hitchcock’s first hit film, and also the first “talkie” film released in Britain. (The first full-length talkie, The Jazz Singer, was released in the U.S. in 1927.) While Blackmail was originally conceived and created as a silent film, the final cut was dubbed with synchronized sound added in post-production using then-state of the art audio equipment imported from the U.S.

6 Alfred Hitchcock popped up on screen all the time.

The most constant image in Hitchcock’s films seem to be Hitchcock himself. The filmmaker perfected the art of the cameo, making blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances in 39 of his own films. His trickier appearances include the single-location film Lifeboat, where he appears in a weight-loss advertisement in a newspaper read by one of the film’s characters. The only film he actually speaks in is 1956’s The Wrong Man; his traditional cameo is replaced by a silhouetted narration in the introduction. That replaced a scrapped cameo of the director exiting a cab in the opening of the film.

7 Alfred Hitchcock was as successful in front of the camera on the small screen as he was behind the camera on the big screen.

By 1965, Hitchcock was a household name. That was the same year his long-running anthology TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents—which began in 1955 and was later renamed The Alfred Hitchcock Hour after episode lengths were stretched from 25- to 50-minute runtimes—came to an end. The series was known for its title sequence featuring a caricature of Hitchcock’s distinctive profile, which was replaced by Hitchcock himself in silhouette. But Hitchcock also appeared after the title sequence to introduce each new story. At least two versions of the opening were shot for every episode: An American opening specifically poked fun at the show’s network advertisers, while Hitchcock usually used the European opening to poke fun at American audiences in general.

7 Alfred Hitchcock literally wrote the encyclopedia entry on how to make movies.

The filmmaker would write (at least part of) the book on the medium that made him famous. Hitchcock personally contributed to writing a portion of the “Motion Pictures, Film Production” entry in the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, giving typically cheeky first-hand insight into the fundamentals and technical aspects of filmmaking.

On the practice of moving the camera during a shot, Hitchcock wrote, “it is wrong to suppose, as is all too commonly the case, that the screen of the motion picture lies in the fact that the camera can roam abroad, can go out of the room, for example, to show a taxi arriving. This is not necessarily an advantage and it can so easily be merely dull.”

8. Alfred Hitchcock popularized the MacGuffin.

Even if you don’t know it by name, you know what it is. The MacGuffin is the so-called motivating element that drives a movie’s plot forward. Think: the eponymous statue in The Maltese Falcon, or the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, or the airplane engine plans in Hitch’s own The 39 Steps.

The term was coined by Angus MacPhail (note the prefix in his surname), Hitchcock’s screenwriting collaborator on films like Spellbound and The Man Who Knew Too Much. Even though such plot details were supposed to be important, Hitchcock didn’t seem to think they truly mattered. “The main thing I’ve learned over the years is that the MacGuffin is nothing. I’m convinced of this, but I find it very difficult to prove it to others,” Hitchcock told Truffaut in 1962, highlighting how the audience never finds out why the government secrets (a.k.a. the MacGuffin) in North by Northwest truly matter. “Here, you see,” Hitchcock said, “the MacGuffin has been boiled down to its purest expression: nothing at all!”

9 Alfred Hitchcock scrapped his own documentary about the Holocaust.

Hitch’s films flirted with mentioning the escalating tensions in Europe that would spark World War II, like in the shocking plane crash climax of 1940’s Foreign Correspondent. But the film Hitchcock collaborated on about the explicit horrors of the war would go unseen for decades.

Memory of the Camps, a 1945 documentary filmed by crews who accompanied the Allied armies that liberated those in the Nazi death camps at the end of the war, was stored in a vault in the Imperial War Museum in London until 1985. Originally commissioned by the British Ministry of Information and the American Office of War Information, Hitchcock served as a “treatment advisor” at the behest of his friend Sidney Bernstein, who is the credited director of the film. But the final film was scrapped because it was deemed counterproductive to German postwar reconstruction. The film was put eventually together as an episode of PBS’s FRONTLINE, and aired on May 7, 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.

10 Alfred Hitchcock didn’t want you to see five of his famous films for decades.

Vertigo may have topped many best-of movie polls, but for over 20 years, between 1961 and 1983, it and four other Hitchcock classics were almost virtually impossible to see. It turns out it was Hitchcock’s fault that Vertigo, Rear Window, Rope, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much were purposefully unavailable to the general public.

The filmmaker personally secured full ownership to the rights of the five films per a contingency clause in the multi-film deal he made with Paramount Pictures in 1953. Eight years after the release of each film, the rights reverted back to Hitchcock, which, in the years before Blu-ray and DVD, seemed like a financially savvy move on Paramount’s part. Three years after Hitch’s death in 1980, Universal Pictures acquired the film rights to all five classics, making them available once again.

11 Alfred Hitchcock didn’t want to work with Jimmy Stewart after Vertigo.

Everyman actor Jimmy Stewart worked with Hitchcock a number of times, including as the nosy, wheelchair-bound photographer in Rear Window, and as the dastardly murderer in the “one-take” film Rope. After Stewart appeared in Vertigo in 1958, the actor prepared to appear in Hitchcock’s follow-up a year later, North by Northwest. But Hitch had other plans.

The director felt that one of the main reasons Vertigo wasn’t more of a smash hit was because of its aging star, and vowed to never use Stewart in any film ever again. Hitch wanted actor Cary Grant instead, and, according to author Marc Eliot’s book, Jimmy Stewart: A Biography, “Hitchcock, as was his nature, did not tell Jimmy there was no way he was going to get North by Northwest.” But when Stewart grew tired of waiting, and took a part in the movie Bell Book and Candle instead, “Hitchcock used that as his excuse, allowing him to diplomatically avoid confronting Jimmy and maintaining their personal friendship, which both valued.”

12 Alfred Hitchcock personally funded Pyscho.

When Hitchcock approached Paramount Pictures—where he was under contract—to put up the money to make Psycho, the studio balked at the salacious story. So Hitchcock financed the movie himself, foregoing his normal salary in exchange for 60 percent ownership of the rights to the film; Paramount agreed to distribute the film. To cut costs even more, the filmmaker enlisted his relatively cheaper Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV crew and shot the film on less pricey black and white film. Hitch’s gamble worked: He reportedly personally earned $6 million from Psycho—about $50 million in today’s dollars.

13 Alfred Hitchcock wouldn’t allow theaters to let anyone—not even the Queen of England—in to see Psycho once it had started.

Psycho (1960) has one of the best twists in movie history—and Hitchcock went to great lengths to not only make sure audiences didn’t spoil that twist, but to make sure they enjoyed the entire movie before the twist. Hitchcock attempted to buy all copies of author Robert Bloch’s source novel to keep the twist under wraps in cities where the movie opened. The promotional rollout of the film was controlled by Hitchcock himself, and he barred stars Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins from doing interviews about the movie. He also demanded that theaters in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia adhere to strict theatrical showtimes and not allow admittance after the movie had started.

Marketing materials for Psycho included lobby cards meant to be prominently displayed with the message, “We won’t allow you to cheat yourself. You must see PSYCHO from the very beginning. Therefore, do not expect to be admitted into the theatre after the start of each performance of the picture. We say no one—and we mean no one—not even the manager’s brother, the President of the United States, or the Queen of England (God bless her)!”

14 Alfred Hitchcock loved movies that were not “Hitchcockian.”

The filmmaker had a habit of screening films in his studio lot office every Wednesday, and his daughter Patricia revealed that one of his favorite films—and, in fact, the last movie he personally screened before his death—was the 1977 Burt Reynolds movie Smokey and the Bandit.

15 Alfred Hitchcock never won a competitive Oscar.

Hitchcock is in the bittersweet class of venerable filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Ingmar Bergman, and more who never received their industry’s highest honor as Best Director. Hitchcock did get Oscar nominations for directing Rebecca (which took home Best Picture), Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho. But he personally went home empty-handed every time.

When the Academy finally honored him with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1967, his long-time-coming speech was only five words long: “Thank you, very much indeed.”

SOURCE: MENTAL FLOSS

Today is Sam Elliot’s birthday.  He was born August 9, 1944 and I always thought he was an okay guy…till recently when he narrated an ad for the maggot.  But his memes still are funny.  So the heck with the man, let’s celebrate the memes!

In honor of Lucille Ball’s birthday (born August 6, 1911 and died April 26, 1989), I thought we’d look at some interesting facts about her show.

From Screen Rant:

There have been a lot of very important television shows since television was invented, and one of the most important and influential ones has been I Love Lucy. Even though it aired long ago, this series still has an impact on television these days.

The effects of it will probably be seen for many more years, since it was such a game-changer back then. For example, Lucille had a lot of power behind the scenes of the show. That was a groundbreaking thing since women didn’t typically have much control over television shows back then. Here are some other interesting facts about this series that fans probably didn’t already know.

Lucille Didn’t Like Desi Being On The Road

Part of the reason why audiences have been able to enjoy I Love Lucy for so long is because Lucille did not want her husband being on the road all the time. Fans might remember that Desi was part of a band in real life, and that meant that he was spending lots of time traveling, and Lucille was not a fan of that.  The actress wanted her husband to spend more time with her, so that is why she wanted him to play her husband on the series. It’s interesting to think about what the show might have looked like if she did not feel that way.

William Was Not The First Choice For Fred

William Frawley was not the first choice when it came to who was going to play Fred Mertz. Lucille actually wanted someone else to play the part, and that was Gale Gordon. Apparently, she loved the work the actor did on the radio show they starred in together, which was My Favorite Husband.  But that actor ended up asking for too much money, so he was not cast in the role. William heard that I Love Lucy was being created, so he gave Lucille a call to find out if there was a part for him. Some people who worked on the series were reluctant to hire him, but Desi believed he would be great for the role, so they met for lunch, and Desi offered him the role.

CBS Didn’t Want Desi To Play Ricky

It is hard to imagine what this show would have been like if any of the main characters had been played by different actors, but some of the creators of the show were originally not in favor of Desi being cast as Lucille’s husband, despite the fact that they were really together at the time. CBS really liked My Favorite Husband, and they wanted the man who played her husband on that show to play him on television as well.  But, Lucille would only take the role of Lucy if her actual husband was cast as Ricky. The creators didn’t think the audience was going to believe that they could ever be a couple, but history has proved them wrong.

A Dream Pushed Lucille To Take On This Role

Lucille was not sure about whether she should take on the role of Lucy Ricardo or not, but a dream is what convinced her to do it. The actress was very reluctant to join the cast of the show because she was unsure about how the transition from movies to television was going to affect her career, but then she had a dream that pushed her to do it.  In the dream, a deceased friend of hers talked to her. The friend was an actress named Carole Lombard, and if Lucille had not had that dream, television as we know it would certainly look a lot different than it does at the moment.

Vivian And William Did Not Get Along

Lots of shows have had some behind the scenes feuds between the cast members, and even I Love Lucy could not escape that since the people who played Fred and Ethel Mertz never really got along with one another. Part of the reason why they did not like one another is because William was so much older than Vivian (there was 22 years between them) and she did not think anyone would believe she was married to a man who was so much older than she was.  William didn’t have many nice things to say about her, either. He often referred to her as “that old sack of doorknobs.”

Lucille Was Not A Natural Redhead

Lucy Ricardo’s hair was one of her most famous and identifiable features, but the actress who played her was actually not a natural redhead. Another interesting fact is that her hairdresser did not just use any common hair dye to color her hair.  Someone brought the hairdresser a unique mixture that involved hair dye and henna, and that is what was used to create the iconic hair color that I Love Lucy fans are so familiar with. The distinct mixture was locked up in a safe spot when the hairdresser was not using it on the actress, since it was such an important part of her character.

Reruns Are A Thing Because Of This Show

Anyone who loves to watch reruns of their favorite shows are probably very thankful to those who created I Love Lucy. In real life, Lucille and Desi shared two children. Desi thought his wife could use a break from work when she had their second child, so that is when he came up with what audiences now know as a rerun.  The actor suggested that instead of filming new episodes for a bit, the studio could show some of the old episodes that had already proven to be really popular with the shows’ fanbase. This obviously worked out pretty well for them, since fans can still catch reruns of the series on television today.

It Was All Part Of The Script

Every line that was spoken when the show was being filmed was scripted out. That may seem pretty obvious, but there are actually lots of movies and television shows that feature some lines that the actors made up on the spot, since some unexpected things can happen on the set (there is a rumor that a certain scene in The Dark Knight is a perfect example of this).  But some people might be surprised to find out that none of the actors ever said anything that was not scripted when they were creating any of the episodes of I Love Lucy.

There Was One Thing That Only Lucy Was Allowed To Do

Lucy was the only character on the series who was allowed to make fun of Ricky’s accent. Those who have seen the series probably noticed that Ricky has a very thick accent, and they also probably noticed that the only person who ever made fun of him for it was Lucy.  When Lucy did it, the audiences seemed to think it was very funny. But when the series creators attempted to have the other characters do it, things were a bit different. The jokes were not very well-received, so the writers stopped allowing the other characters in the show to poke fun at his accent.

Nearly Everything Shut Down When New Episodes Aired

Lots of businesses closed up shop when new episodes of I Love Lucy aired. These days, there are multiple ways for people to catch episodes of their favorite television shows, even if they have already aired on television before, but things were not always like that.  Back when I Love Lucy was still being filmed, fans could only watch it when it aired live each week (except for when Desi invented the rerun), and that resulted in some businesses closing when they knew a new episode was going to air. Almost everyone loved this show, so it seems that the title was fairly appropriate.

SOURCE: SCREEN RANT

At the surprise party 2 weeks ago for my son, I learned about a new conversation starter: Five Things.  The person in the spotlight has to say 5 things that the others probably do not know about them.  For family members this can be either hard or hilarious.

I’ll start:

ONE:

I cannot throw a frisbee or hula hoop AT ALL.

TWO:

My favorite jello flavor is strawberry.

THREE:

I believe in ghosts.

FOUR:

I once wrote tips and tricks for the game Candy Crush on a website called Crushing Candies.

FIVE:

I do not own a single pair of shorts or flip flops.

So, who’s next???

Sandra Bullock was born July 26, 1964 and I wanted to look at one of her earlier movies—The Net.  Released in 1995, The Net is relevant to today.  (Just as Dave and many other movies seem prescient in their releases, so does The Net.) The following is from the IMDb website:

Synopsis

In Washington DC, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Michael Bergstrom (Ken Howard) commits suicide after being informed that he has tested positive for HIV.

Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) is a computer systems analyst in living in Venice, Los Angeles, California who telecommutes to her employment at Cathedral Software based in San Francisco. Her interpersonal relationships are almost completely online and on the phone, with the exception of forgettable interactions with her neighbors and visits to her 60-year-old mother (Diane Baker), who is institutionalized with an early onset type of Alzheimer’s disease and often forgets who Angela is. Angela’s co-worker Dale (Ray McKinnon) sends her a 3.5 inch floppy disk with a backdoor labeled ‘Pi’ that permits access to a commonly used computer security system called “Gatekeeper” sold by Gregg Microsystems, a software company led by CEO Jeff Gregg. Dale and Angela agree to meet, but later that night the navigation system in Dale’s private aircraft malfunctions and it crashes into a tower, killing him.

Angela travels to Cozumel, Mexico for a week-long on vacation, where she meets Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam), a charming English-accent businessman who charms his way into her life. After seducing Angela, Devlin pays a local mugger to steal her purse as they walk along the beach during an after-dinner stroll. He chases the mugger into the foliage, catches the mugger, and roots through the purse to find the disk before shooting the mugger dead. Devlin takes Angela out on his speedboat to kill her as well after sleeping with her again, but she finds his gun and confronts him. While fleeing with the disk and Devlin’s wallet, Angela’s dinghy collides with rocks, destroying the disk and hospitalizing her. She is unconscious for three days.

When Angela wakes up, she finds that all records of her life have been deleted: She was checked out of her hotel room in Cozumel, her car is no longer at the LAX airport parking lot, and all of her credit cards are invalid. When she arrives home by taxi, Angela discovers that her house is now empty and listed for sale. Moreover, because none of the neighbors remember her, they cannot confirm her identity. Things turn from bad to worse when after contacting the police, Angela’s Social Security number is now assigned to a “Ruth Marx,” for whom Devlin has entered an arrest record by hacking the police computer system. Angela is forced to flee for her life. Once on the streets, she steals a cell phone from the real estate agent in her former house and calls her own desk at Cathedral Software, an impostor (Wendy Gazelle) answers and offers Bennett her old life back in exchange for the disk.

Angela contacts the only other person who knows her by sight, psychiatrist and former lover Alan Champion (Dennis Miller). He checks her into a hotel, offers to contact a friend at the FBI, and arranges to have her mother moved for her safety.

Using her knowledge of the backdoor and a password found in Devlin’s wallet, Angela logs into the Bethesda Naval Hospital’s computers and learns that Under Secretary of Defense Bergstrom, who had opposed Gatekeeper’s use by the federal government, was misdiagnosed. Fellow hacker “Cyberbob” connects ‘Pi’ with the “Praetorians,” a notorious group of cyber-terrorists linked to recent computer failures around the country. Angela and Cyberbob plan to meet, but the unseen Praetorians intercept their online chat and relay it to Devlin who is now relentlessly pursuing her. Angela manages to escape from Devlin… who is now revealed to be a contract killer for the cyber-terrorists, but the Praetorians kill Champion by tampering with pharmacy and hospital computer records for his medication.

Angela is forced to steal a car to flee from Los Angeles, but she is chased and arrested by the California Highway Patrol. While in jail waiting trial for a series of false criminal charges, a man identifying himself as Ben Phillips (Robert Gossette), Champion’s FBI friend bails her from jail. While driving, Angela realizes that “Ben” is an impostor after he makes a slip to her about the Praetorians, and escapes again, killing the impostor with his own gun.

Now wanted for murder and thought to be Ruth Marx, Angela hitchhikes to Cathedral’s office in San Francisco where, she triggers a fire alarm to evacuate the building and now using her impostor’s computer, she connects the cyber-terrorists to Gregg Microsystems and uncovers their scheme: once the Praetorians sabotage an organization’s computer system, Gregg sells Gatekeeper to it and gains unlimited access through the backdoor. Angela downloads another 3.5 inch disk and escapes just as the impostor realizes her presence.

Angela escapes from the building and makes her way to the Moscone Center with Devlin and the Bennett impostor in pursuit. After finding a desktop site to log on, she emails evidence of the backdoor and Gregg’s involvement with the Praetorians to the FBI just before Devlin and the Bennett impostor catch up with her. Angela then tricks Devlin into releasing a virus into Gregg’s mainframe, destroying Gatekeeper and undoing the erasing of her identity.

During a battle on the catwalks of the convention center, in which Devlin accidentally kills the Bennett impostor from Cathedral Software (revealed to be the real Ruth Marx), Angela ambushes Devlin with a fire extinguisher, causing him to fall to his death.

At the end, Angela Bennett regains her identity, home, and life. She then reunites with her mother (who still does not remember her) and goes back to her old solitary life. In a series of news reports, the conspiracy is exposed, with Jeff Gregg being arrested by the FBI.

Today would have been Robin William’s birthday (born in 1951 and died August 11, 2014) and I think Good Morning Viet Nam is one of his most memorable movies.  Mental Floss had an article detailing 12 “surprising” things we might not know about him.  

From Mental Floss:

Robin Williams had a larger-than-life personality. On screen and on stage, he embodied what he referred to as “hyper-comedy.” Offscreen, he was involved in humanitarian causes and raised three children—Zak, Zelda, and Cody.

Since his untimely death on August 11, 2014, HBO has released the documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, directed by Marina Zenovich, which chronicles his rise on the stand-up comedy scenes during the 1970s, to his more dramatic roles in the 1980s and ‘90s in award-winning films like Dead Poets Society; Good Morning, Vietnam; Awakenings; The Fisher King; and Good Will Hunting. In 2018, a mural with Williams’s face on it went up in Chicago, his hometown; that same year, journalist Dave Iztkoff published the book Robin.

Here are some things you might not have known about the iconic funnyman.

1 Robin Williams got his start in comedy at a church.

After leaving Juilliard, Robin Williams found himself back in his hometown of San Francisco, but he couldn’t find work as an actor. Then he saw something for a comedy workshop in a church and decided to give it a shot. “So I went to this workshop in the basement of a Lutheran church, and it was stand-up comedy, so you don’t get to improvise with others, but I started off doing, ostensibly, it was just like improvising but solo,” he told NPR. “And then I started to realize, ‘Oh.’ [I started] building an act from there.”

2 He formed a friendship with Koko the gorilla.

In 2001, Williams visited Koko the gorilla, who passed away in June, at The Gorilla Foundation in Northern California. Her caregivers had shown her one of his movies, and she seemed to recognize him. Koko repeatedly signed for Williams to tickle her. “We shared something extraordinary: laughter,” Williams said of the encounter. On the day Williams died, The Foundation shared the news with Koko and reported that she fell into sadness.

3 He spent some time working as a mime in Central Park.

In 1974, photographer Daniel Sorine captured photos of two mimes in New York’s Central Park. As it turned out, one of the mimes was Williams, who was attending Juilliard at the time. “What attracted me to Robin Williams and his fellow mime, Todd Oppenheimer, was an unusual amount of intensity, personality, and physical fluidity,” Sorine said. In 1991, Williams revisited the craft by playing Mime Jerry in Bobcat Goldthwait’s film Shakes the Clown. In the movie, Williams hilariously leads a how-to class in mime.

4 He tried to get Lydia from Mrs. Doubtfire back in school.

As a teen, Lisa Jakub played Robin Williams’s daughter Lydia Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire. “When I was 14 years old, I went on location to film Mrs. Doubtfire for five months, and my high school was not happy,” Jakub wrote on her blog. “My job meant an increased workload for teachers, and they were not equipped to handle a ‘non-traditional’ student. So, during filming, they kicked me out.”

Sensing Jakub’s distress over the situation, Williams typed a letter and sent it to her school. “A student of her caliber and talent should be encouraged to go out in the world and learn through her work,” he wrote. “She should also be encouraged to return to the classroom when she’s done to share those experiences and motivate her classmates to soar to their own higher achievements … she is an asset to any classroom.”

Apparently, the school framed the letter but didn’t allow Jakub to return. “But here’s what matters from that story—Robin stood up for me,” Jakub wrote. “I was only 14, but I had already seen that I was in an industry that was full of back-stabbing. And it was entirely clear that Robin had my back.”

5 He wasn’t the producers’ first choice to play Mork on Mork & Mindy.

Anson Williams, Marion Ross, and Don Most told The Hallmark Channel that a different actor was originally hired to play Mork for the February 1978 Happy Days episode “My Favorite Orkan,” which introduced the alien character to the world. “Mork & Mindy was like the worst script in the history of Happy Days. It was unreadable, it was so bad,” Anson Williams said. “So they hire some guy for Mork—bad actor, bad part.” The actor quit, and producer Garry Marshall came to the set and asked: “Does anyone know a funny Martian?” They hired Williams to play Mork, and from September 1978 to May 1982, Williams co-headlined the spinoff Mork & Mindy for four seasons.

6 Williams “risked” a role in an Off-Broadway play.

In 1988, Williams made his professional stage debut as Estragon in the Mike Nichols-directed Waiting for Godot, which also starred Steve Martin and F. Murray Abraham. The play was held off-Broadway at Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center. The New York Times asked Williams if he felt the show was a career risk, and he responded with: “Risk! Of never working on the stage again! Oh, no! You’re ruined! It’s like you’re ruined socially in Tustin,” a town in Orange County, California. “If there’s risk, you can’t think about it,” he said, “or you’ll never be able to do the play.” Williams had to restrain himself and not improvise during his performance. “You can do physical things,” he said, “but you don’t ad lib [Samuel] Beckett, just like you don’t riff Beethoven.” In 1996, Nichols and Williams once again worked together, this time in the movie The Birdcage.

7 He ushered in the era of celebrity voice acting.

The 1992 success of Aladdin, in which Williams voiced Genie, led to more celebrities voicing animated characters. According to a 2011 article in The Atlantic, “Less than 20 years ago, voice acting was almost exclusively the realm of voice actors—people specifically trained to provide voices for animated characters. As it turns out, the rise of the celebrity voice actor can be traced to a single film: Disney’s 1992 breakout animated hit Aladdin.” Since then, big names have attached themselves to animated films, from The Lion King to Toy Story to Shrek. Williams continued to do voice acting in animated films, including Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Happy Feet, and Happy Feet 2.

8 He forgot to thank his mother during his 1998 Oscar speech.

In March 1998, Williams won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. In 2011, Williams appeared on The Graham Norton Show, and Norton asked him what it was like to win the award. “For a week it was like, ‘Hey congratulations! Good Will Hunting, way to go,’” Williams said. “Two weeks later: ‘Hey, Mork.’”

Then Williams mentioned how his speech accidentally left out one of the most important people in his life. “I forgot to thank my mother and she was in the audience,” he said. “Even the therapist went, ‘Get out!’ That was rough for the next few years. [Mom voice] ‘You came through here [points to his pants]! How’s the award?’”

9 He comforted Steven Spielberg during the filming of Schindler’s List.

At this year’s 25th anniversary screening of Schindler’s List, held at the Tribeca Film Festival, director Steven Spielberg shared that Williams—who played Peter Pan in Spielberg’s Hook—would call him and make him laugh. “Robin knew what I was going through, and once a week, Robin would call me on schedule and he would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone,” Spielberg said. “I would laugh hysterically, because I had to release so much.”

10 Williams helped Ethan Hawke get an agent.

During a June 2018 appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Ethan Hawke recalled how, while working on Dead Poets Society, Williams was hard on him. “I really wanted to be a serious actor,” Hawke said. “I really wanted to be in character, and I really didn’t want to laugh. The more I didn’t laugh, the more insane [Williams] got. He would make fun of me. ‘Oh this one doesn’t want to laugh.’ And the more smoke would come out of my ears. He didn’t understand I was trying to do a good job.” Hawke had assumed Williams hated him during filming.

After filming ended, Hawke went back to school, but he received a surprising phone call. It was from Williams’s agent, who—at Williams’s suggestion—wanted to sign Hawke. Hawke said he still has the same agent today.

11 He was almost cast in Midnight Run.

In February 1988, Williams told Rolling Stone how he sometimes still had to audition for roles. “I read for a movie with [Robert] De Niro, [Midnight Run], to be directed by Marty Brest,” Williams said. “I met with them three or four times, and it got real close, it was almost there, and then they went with somebody else. The character was supposed to be an accountant for the Mafia. Charles Grodin got the part. I was craving it. I thought, ‘I can be as funny,’ but they wanted someone obviously more in type. And in the end, he was better for it. But it was rough for me. I had to remind myself, ‘Okay, come on, you’ve got other things.’”

In July 1988, Universal released Midnight Run. Just two years later, Williams finally worked with De Niro, on Awakenings.

12 Williams and Billy Crystal used to talk on the phone for hours.

Starting in 1986, Williams, Billy Crystal, and Whoopi Goldberg co-hosted HBO’s Comic Relief to raise money for the homeless. Soon after Williams’s death, Crystal went on The View and spoke with Goldberg about his friendship with Williams. “We were like two jazz musicians,” Crystal said. “Late at night I get these calls and we’d go for hours. And we never spoke as ourselves. When it was announced I was coming to Broadway, I had 50 phone messages, in one day, from somebody named Gary, who wanted to be my backstage dresser.”

“Gary” turned out to be Williams.

SOURCE: MENTALFOSS.COM

GARIN PIRNIA