Turner Classic Movies showed the premiere episode of "Wonderful Worlld of Color' featuring 'Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land' caught the last 30 minutes or so - excellent!! Then after. from Disney 1978, 'Hot Lead and Cold Feet.' Western comedy starring Jim Dale (in three roles), plus Don Knotts, Darren McGavin, Jack Elam and a very fetching Karen Valentine. I suffered through this and others like it the first time around in theaters, and age has not been kind to this one. These movies Disney produced in the 70s 'post-Walt' era all have a similar look. Cinematography is very stark and bright outside, and then has deep shadows for interior scenes -- plus the camera has very little movement. All the dialogue has very obviously been looped in post-production, goofy music underscores whole scenes and then specific queues are used to accent 'funny' scenes or moments, old school sound effects (like gun fire, ricochets, punches and 'castle thunder') and the scripts and dialogue are just painful. In this one, they even have the blonde girl and brunette boy who are obviously replacements for Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann who were in the popular 'Escape to Witch Mountain.' Box office take wasn't as publicly examined back then - but you gotta wonder - did these turkeys make money? I didn't DVR it, but 'Trenchcoat' starring Margot Kidder followed this one on TCM. Oy vey!
I DVRed Waking Sleeping Beauty, Hot Lead, and Trenchcoat (mostly to see how terrible it is), but haven't had a chance to watch them yet. Given that I've never actually seen any of them before, I'm excited to give them a chance. I know there are some references to Hot Lead and Cold Feet in DL's Frontierland, so I'm excited to see the source material
FerretAfros, not sure about the Frontierland references - but if you make it to the end, I'll buy you a churro.
Can't believe I just read this and missed last night. Sob ... but thanks to this I found the link to lots of new Disney fun such as Frozen as told by Emoji and Star Wars and Aladdin. The Aladdin one is great it features a sidebar APPLE watch and REY calls for a Chewber instead of Uber
At the very least, I think some of the background music is taken from the film, but I'm not positive. I thought there was some other connection in the Big Thunder queue too, but I have no idea what it is (the one time I'm at a disadvantage for not having seen it!) I have a lot of patience, so I suspect I'll make it all the way. I probably won't get a chance to watch it until next week or the following weekend, but I'm already bracing myself for a thoroughly mediocre film. And once I get through that, I can wash it down with Trenchcoat, just to add some self-loathing!
I'm sure there are props from the movie in the big thunder queue, but I forget which ones they are. I think maybe the steam mules, aka iron donkeys.
Just read this on imdb.com Eli Bloodshy's No. #11 Iron Donkey train seen in the film is now located at the Big Thunder Railroad at Disneyland, California. So there you go
On Xfinity this month, a handful of Disney movies are being offered. Among them, 'The Monkey's Uncle.' Annette Funnicello, Tommy Kirk and Stanley the chimpanzee. Lest we forget that all the movies produced back in Walt's day were fabulous - go back and watch this thing. It's a sequel to 'The Misadventures of Merlin Jones' - a movie that was apparently very popular at the box office. It plodding, silly and just bad.
Just watched 'Now You Ses Him, Now You Don't' - sequel to 'The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.' Not great. But fun seeing Kurt Russell as college student Dexter Riley going to head--to-head with flustered and befuddled Dean Higgins played by the Joe Flynn. And Cesar Romero as villain A.J. Arno. Some decent 1970s Disney special effects when the various people are rendered invisible. The actual Walt Disney Studios stands in for Medvale College. And I always liked that kid who plays Schuyler - he didn't act in many movies and I think his dad was the director.
I finally got around to watching Hot Lead and Cold Feet, and it wasn't great but it wasn't nearly as bad is you guys made it out to be. It seemed like they took every overused Disney contract actor, storyline, special effect, and stylistic choice, and threw them into a blender with a western theme and this is what came out the other side It wasn't terrible, but there was just absolutely no suspense or conflict. From the moment the storyline was introduced, you knew exactly how it was going to end. It had a couple marginally fun moments, but nothing particularly memorable; the whole thing just seemed to be forgettable at best. It wasn't the worst film of that era that I've seen (that honor goes to Escape to Witch Mountain, which became somewhat of a franchise of its own), but there really wasn't much remarkable about it Being familiar with Jim Dale from Pete's Dragon, I was surprised to see how young he looked without the goatee. I also thought it was funny the sheriff was just Barney Fief, moved from Mayberry to a generic western town The movie itself may have been kind of lame, but it got a great title song by the Beach Boys. That's certainly more than most of those forgotten films can say!
I always liked him too. Michael McGreevey (different last name than the director, by the way). In fact, I haven't seen that movie since it came out, but the only scene I remember well was where he was featured - thinking he had become invisible when he hadn't. Saying (slowly and loudly like the people watching him were hard of hearing) "Y-o-u c-a-n't s-e-e m-e.... b-u-t... " and of course he was completely visible. For whatever reason that cracked me up at the time.
Two others that I've seen recently are 'The Snowball Express' and 'The Boatniks' - both just really terrible. And perhaps my Top Most Awful Live Action Disney Movie from the 70s - "Superdad" starring Bob Crane, Kurt Russell and Barbara Rush. Oy vey!
Really?! Maybe it's because I didn't see it until I was an adult, but I was thoroughly unimpressed by it. Perhaps the sequels set my expectations too high, but I think I would have been disappointed regardless. There just wasn't a whole lot going on, and the kids were kind of creepy
I saw it when I was 9. Thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. To this day I'm ticked off that I don't have a Star Case, even though I'd've probably been beat up if I had one. Missed marketing opportunity there, Disney.
Yep. Pretty hard to top Superdad for a big bowl of crunchy awfulness. Even if you didn't know about Crane's, um, extra-curricular activities at the time. It's just unrelentingly bad, and not even in a fun MST3K way. Million Dollar Duck is "up there" too.
