The Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie Game

Shooting at air balloons.... it won't ever become a popular hobby, but oddly enough you will see men doing it in several films. Can you guess which film this gentleman with the yellow balloon appeared in?

As always, if you are not familiar with the rules to the Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie game or the prize, click here!

British Pathé: St. Valentine's Cards (1961)

Exchanging Valentine's cards is one of the sweetest things about Valentine's Day and this tradition dates back to 15th century. The first known Valentine's card was sent in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. The holiday itself was celebrated long before that even. It is named after Saint Valentine, a Christian martyr who lived in the 3rd century. According to legend, he performed secret marriages for young lovers, defying the Roman Emperor Claudius II's decree that young men remain single. When his actions were discovered, he was executed on February 14th....the day we now celebrate love and the act of exchanging loving words. 

This 1961 newsreel from British Pathé shows how greatly Valentine's Day cards have evolved from the elaborately decorated cards of the Victorian-era to the simple messages of sentiment seen in the 1960s. King Gridley, an illustrator, is shown painting a light-hearted message of love on a card and then we get a view of Valentine's cards being mass-produced at a factory in Edmonton, England. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ready to watch St. Valentine's Cards? Simply click on the link below. 

St. Valentine's Cards (1961) - 2:21 sec

Similar British Pathé newsreels:

Valentines (1939) - 1:45 sec

Candy Cards (1956) - 1:14 sec

Check it Out! An Irene Dunne Fan Site

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, I was re-watching An Affair to Remember (1957) for the umpteenth time and that got me to thinking about the original film - Love Affair - and what a great job Deborah Kerr did of stepping into Irene Dunne's shoes when she took on the role of Terry McKay in the remake. That's not an easy task. Irene Dunne was not only a very classy actress, but a great comedian and I loved how she would utter serious lines with a smile.... like she was inwardly chuckling. Deborah Kerr was also a classy actress and she, too, had that quality of charmingly making fun of what someone is saying. The banter between her and Cary Grant is what makes An Affair to Remember so addictive to watch. 

So thinking about Love Affair led me to searching online for information about Irene Dunne... and I discovered a marvelous site that I want to share: The Irene Dunne Site. 

This site is chock-full of information about Dunne's film career, her life off the camera, and her singing and theater careers as well. It is very well organized and a delight to browse. Check it out! 

John Kobal's interview with Irene Dunne is definitely worth a read: https://irenedunnesite.jimdofree.com/press/interview-with-john-kobal-1972/

The End of the Affair (1955)

 

Van Johnson and Deborah Kerr are taking a quick break during the making of the romantic melodrama The End of the Affair (1955). This was several years before Kerr had her most famous affair with Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember (1957).

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures

Robert's Robots (1973-1974)

Robert Summerby is not your ordinary brilliant eccentric inventor. He has developed a group of humanoid robots in the laboratory of the country house he shares with his aunt and uses two of them - the clunky "KT" and the much more advanced Eric - to help him build and develop other robots as well as do chores around the house. The scrapes that he and his robots get into formed the basis of Bob Block's 1973 children's sitcom Robert's Robots... and they certainly got into a lot of them! 

Bob Block was the brains behind several memorable children's comedies, including Pardon My Genie and Rentaghost, so when his name comes on the screen, you know it's going to be a funny show. What provides the most humor in Robert's Robots is the fact that Robert Summerby wants to keep his humanoid robots a secret, even from his fiancée Angela, and comes up with wild excuses for the way they sometimes behave. Adding to the fun is Mr. Marken and Mr. Gimble. Marken (Leon Lissek) represents a foreign electronics firm who wants to find out what Summerby's latest invention is and so he hires Mr. Gimble (Richard Davies), a private detective, to find out. Each episode has the twosome peering into or above bushes trying to look into Summerby's laboratory. Marken speaks English well enough but has a tendency to pick other words that sound like the ones he wants to use. 

"I can smell from the aroma that this is not immediate coffee. Has it been soiled?"

"He means ground."

John Clive was cast as Robert Summerby and he is marvelous as the English inventor always coming up with new ideas or ways to improve the robots... for example, he recircuited Eric's emotional control once to make him less impatient and more caring towards humans. This backfired of course, but it was a clever idea. Clive tends to talk nervously so luckily his calm and comforting Aunt Millie (Doris Rogers) is always there to give him some stability. She thinks Robert's work is wonderful and uses the robots throughout the house. Katie "KT" (Brian Coburn) always listens to Aunt Millie but sometimes does things wrong. "And what did we do wrong, Katie?" she asks him every time he busts through the door without opening it first. 

Eric (Nigel Pegram) on the other hand, never makes mistakes and often rolls his eyes at Katie and the other robots' incompetency. Eric is so life-like that Robert's fiancée Angela (Jenny Hanley) thinks he is Robert's lab assistant. It is not until the final episode of season 1, that she realizes he is a strange character... and then we never see Angela again. Season 2 brought a few other changes, like the replacement of Mr. Gimble with Mr. Plummer (David Pugh) as the private "eyeball". 

Unfortunately, Robert's Robots lasted just two seasons and, since they were UK shows, each season only have 7 episodes so it was a short-lived program but a memorable and a funny one. 

Film Albums: Drive-In Movie Time - Bobby Vinton Sings Great Motion Picture Themes

It's time to hit the drive-in and sit back and listen to that famous Polish-American pop star Bobby Vinton as he sings "Great Motion Picture Themes". This Epic album not only boasts a great cover design but does indeed cover a lot of themes from great motion pictures. Many of these songs appeared on numerous albums of the early to mid-1960s but Vinton gives them a touch of his unique style....granted, it's a style that not everyone may warm up to (after years of listening to Jerry Vale, I still make a face when he hits those Jolson-like high notes). 

Drive-In Movie Time was released in 1965 and it was Bobby Vinton's twelfth studio album. Vinton's popularity began to wane in 1966, but he continued to have a loyal following of fans and released two albums every year up until 1977. He was quite a versatile performer and, in addition to writing some his own songs, he had a few albums where he was featured playing the saxophone. 

"Lonely Girl" from Harlow (1965) is a highlight of this album. It was penned by Neal Hefti for the Carroll Baker film (not the Carol Lynley film of the same title). 

Click here to listen to the full album on Youtube. 

Track Listing

Chim-Chim Cher-ee

Around the World in 80 Days

Theme from A Summer Place

Goldfinger 

Moon River

Never on Sunday

More from Mondo Cane

The Song from Moulin Rouge

From Russia with Love

Theme from Harlow "Lonely Girl"

The Exodus Song

Dear Heart

Top Picks: Around the World, Theme from A Summer Place, The Song from Moulin Rouge, "Lonely Girl", Dear Heart

From the Archives: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Walter Pidgeon and his group of submarine sailors head down into deep waters in the 1961 action-adventure film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, produced by 20th Century Fox. In this scene, Robert Sterling and John Litel share Walter Pidgeon's concern that the Earth will burn up and sync their watches as the Seaview races to launch a rocket to blow up the Van Allen belt before the Earth is destroyed. 

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures