Film Albums: Lawrence Welk's Baby Elephant Walk (1962)

Bandleader Lawrence Welk was always keeping in musical step with the current generation and he loved to play music from the latest films on his weekly television show The Lawrence Welk Show. Many of these tunes appeared on the 1962 album "Lawrence Welk's Baby Elephant Walk". 

It may not be entirely a "film album" but there are a number of great movie tunes on this album so we thought it worth sharing anyway. "Baby Elephant Walk" (from the John Wayne film Hatari!) was one of Lawrence Welk's big hits of 1962. In fact, this album debuted on Billboard magazine's popular album chart in September of 1962, reached No. 9, and remained on the chart for 10 weeks. 

Track Listing: 

Baby Elephant Walk (from Hatari!)

Are You Lonesome Tonight 

Love Me Tender 

Gigi 

It's All In The Game 

Pretend 

Theme From The Brothers Grimm 

Three Coins In The Fountain 

Mona Lisa  (from Captain Carey U.S.A)

It's Not For Me To Say 

Vaya Con Dios 

Because Of You

Top Music Picks:  Baby Elephant Walk, Gigi (this has a great Ray Conniff-ish choral backing), It's All in the Game, Theme from The Brothers Grimm, Because of You

Click here to listen to the album on Youtube.

Announcing the 100 Years of Warner Brothers Blogathon!

One hundred years ago, in 1923, Warner Brothers Pictures was founded by the four Warner Brothers: Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack. They started in the silent picture business but, by the 1930s, WB Studios became one of the giants of the industry. 

Silver Scenes is celebrating the legacy of this fantastic film studio by hosting the 100 Years of Warner Brothers Blogathon running from December 15th to 17th. It will be a three-day event honoring the great stars, character actors, films, and behind-the-scenes personnel from the golden years of Warner Brothers: 1923-1985. 

If you want to join in on the fun: just click on the comment box below and leave your name, blog site, and the topic you would like to write about. You can also email us at silverbankspictures at gmail ( you know the rest ).

"Here's looking at you, kid"

Are there any rules for the blogathon? Heck no! You can write a review of a film, a profile of an actor, a history of the studio (or one aspect of the studio), cover your favorite Looney Tunes cartoon, post a picture gallery of Errol Flynn, rave about your favorite Max Steiner score, or even review a Warner Brothers television series (did you know that Maverick, F Troop, Wonder Woman and The Dukes of Hazzard were all WB productions?). You can submit as many posts as you like so the more the merrier! 

Warner Brothers Studios excelled at making adventure films, gangster films, women's weepies, war dramas, and cartoons so there are hundreds of great films to pick from. Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Doris Day were just a few of the talented contract players from the studio during their heyday. Plus, they had some of the most entertaining character actors and skilled behind-the-scenes personnel in the industry.....but just in case you can't think of any ideas at the moment, here are some suggestions:

Stars: Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Bette Davis, Doris Day, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Alan Hale, Claude Rains, Edward G. Robinson, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Paul Muni, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, George Brent, Patricia Neal, Eleanor Parker, Dane Clark, Alexis Smith, James Dean, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gig Young.

Films: Doctor X, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, Anthony Adverse, Jezebel, The Adventures of Robin Hood, High Sierra, The Strawberry Blonde, Sergeant York, The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Desperate Journey, Christmas in Connecticut, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, House of Wax, Calamity Jane, Dial M for Murder, East of Eden, The Spirit of St. Louis, Auntie Mame, A Summer Place, The Music Man, Days of Wine and Roses, My Fair Lady, Bonnie and Clyde, Bullitt, The Omega Man, The Last of Sheila, The Towering Inferno, Superman.

Behind-the-Scenes: Busby Berkeley, Max Steiner, Michael Curtiz, Anton Grot, Carl Stalling, Harry Warren, Hal B. Wallis, Mervyn LeRoy, Raoul Walsh, John Huston, Orry-Kelly, Edith Head, Franz Waxman

Click here for a complete list of Warner Brothers films throughout the years. 

Banners are available below, so please post them on your site and help spread some brotherly love for WB on their 100th anniversary!

BANNERS

Entrants

Favorite Looney Tunes Cartoons - Whimsically Classic

Casablanca (1942) - Make Mine Film Noir

Mayday at 40,000 Feet! (1976) - Realweegiemidget Reviews

Behind the Scenes at Warner Brothers - Silver Scenes

Fort Dobbs (1958) - Hamlette's Soliloquy

A Star is Born (1954) - Taking Up Room

The Music Man (1962) - Critica Retro

My Fair Lady (1964) - Box Office Poisons

The Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie Game

Here's an interesting-looking group of people... and they seem to be staring at something. If you have seen the film that this screenshot came from you may remember what it is. It's not a bird, or a plane, or even Superman but something much more commonplace. 

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

GAME OVER. 

Congratulations to Kayla for correctly identifying this screenshot as being from The Notorious Landlady (1962) starring Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak. In this scene near the beginning of the film, a family stops to look at a flat for rent but once they inquire about it they recognize the owner and quickly walk away. 

Irene Dubrovna in "Cat People" (1942)

The Classic Movie Blog Association is hosting the Blogathon and the Beast blog event this week. This theme gives us bloggers a chance to write about a film character who has a beast within themselves. 

All of us have a sleeping beast within who, hopefully, never awakens in our lifetime. As the old saying goes, "Let sleeping dogs lie." I always had the notion that my sleeping dog was the Beast of Jealousy which, thankfully, has never had cause to open its eyes. 

Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) in Cat People (1942) was not so fortunate. She had what I believe was the Beast of Jealousy within her and, one afternoon, an unexpected encounter at the zoo began a chain of events that caused this sleeping dog (or rather, cat) to wake. 

Irena was a sketch artist for a fashion design company. She had an apartment that was a short walk away from the New York City Zoo, and she enjoyed spending her afternoons there sketching the animals...namely, the resident panther. 

One day at the zoo, she meets Oliver (Kent Smith), a marine engineer, and within a few hours, they become romantic friends. 

Unlike most of us who are unaware of our inner beasts, Irena knows very well what hidden danger may be inside her. She tells Oliver a story about a certain group of evil people from the village in Serbia where she came from. They were known as "cat people" and were, supposedly, pushed back from her village by King John quite a long time ago. However, Irena always feared she may have been an ancestor of these people, and her suspicion is later confirmed when, on her and Oliver's wedding night, a mysterious woman greets her as one of the "cat people".

The cat people destroy the ones they love. Like real felines, they are averse to strong displays of affection, especially if it creates an unwanted bond of dependency. Irena believes that if she were to kiss Oliver, she would have to kill him, and so months pass with their marriage unconsummated. Meanwhile, Oliver grows more and more apart from Irena and her obsession with this belief in "old folklore". He turns to Alice, a longtime friend and coworker, for advice and, later, for comfort. 

This arouses Irena's feelings of her "inner cat" even more and one evening she follows Alice home. She begins by walking a good distance behind Alice but shortly she takes on the physical appearance of a cat - a panther - and actually stalks Alice like prey. 

"There is, in some cases, a psychic need to loose evil upon the world. And we all of us carry within us a desire for death. You fear the panther; yet you are drawn to him again and again. Could you not turn to him as an instrument of death?"

Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941) went into a mental fog when he transformed into the wolf and he was afraid he would harm someone unknowingly while he was a wolf. Irena's transformation is quite different. She seems to be well aware of whom she is stalking and attacking as a panther. 

Irena is quite a shy and gentle woman by nature and dreads having a duel-personality, especially one that is an animal. She willingly agrees to undergo psychiatric treatment to be cured of this belief, but at the same time seems to take pleasure in her predicament and clings to it. Typical feline complexity. 

In one eerie scene, she follows Alice to the indoor pool of her apartment complex at night and prowls and growls in the shadows around the pool. After Alice screams and others come into the pool room, Irena transforms back into her human self and innocently remarks "I'm sorry I disturbed you, Alice. I missed you and Oliver. I thought you might know where he is." Clearly, she was enjoying herself. 

Irena's cat personality may not have been entirely a beast of jealousy but this emotion was a strong trigger for it to come forth into the physical realm. Thank goodness the evil nature we sometimes suppress, be it ever so small, does not take the physical form of an animal. Although... dating back to ancient times, people's inner personalities were referenced in relation to animals. In Western and Chinese astrology, human character traits are linked with animal counterparts. And all of us, at some time or another, refer to others as animals.... "He's like a timid mouse"... "She's like a frightened rabbit". But how strange it would be to see these animal natures take form! 

Irena had no control over her unusual situation. Whether she wanted to be a cat or not, she became one. She was just an innocent victim of presumably an ancient gypsy curse in her village. Sadly, her husband Oliver thought her fear of being transformed into a cat was only a problem of her mind...an issue he later got bored with when it made him unhappy. At one point, Irena was willing to cast aside her fears and superstitions and concentrate on being a good wife to Oliver, but by that time it was too late. Oliver now loved Alice and Irene was then more than willing to unleash her inner beast....knowing very well it meant her death. 

From the Archives: The Buccaneer (1958)

Claire Bloom, Charles Boyer, Yul Byrnner, and Inger Stevens are featured in this color lobby card from The Buccaneer (1958), Cecil B. DeMille's lavish production about the privateer/buccaneer Jean Lafitte. 

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

The Hour of 13 (1952)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios always had a flair for making period films, especially those with a Victorian setting.....and they made quite a number of them, too. Being quite a savvy production company, they also discovered that a good script is worth repeating. Hence, many of the Victorian-era thrillers that the studio made in the 1930s and 1940s were later remade. One such film was The Mystery of Mr. X (1935) which they remade in 1952 under the title The Hour of 13. 

Robert Montgomery starred in the original film as dapper gentleman thief Nicholas Revel. A killer known as "Mr. X" is on the loose in London targeting police constables. By a strange coincidence, his latest killing occurred the same night and in the same location as one of Revel's latest robberies. In order to clear his name, Revel decides to play an amateur detective and track down the fiend himself, all the while dodging the suspicious eye of Police Commissioner Sir Herbert Frensham (Henry Stephenson). 

The Mystery of Mr. X was based on the novel "X vs Rex", written by Philip MacDonald (The List of Adrian Messenger). Howard Emmett Rogers worked it into a quick and thrilling script and MGM had another winning Robert Montgomery picture in the theaters. 

What works once can work again, hence, seventeen years later, producer Hayes Goetz blew the dust off the script and hired screenwriter Leon Gordon to rework it into a vehicle for MGM's young star, Peter Lawford. What resulted was a charming gaslit London mystery that holds up quite well for its age. 

This time, Nicholas Revel is tracking down the killer known as The Terror. The police - primarily Inspector Connor (Roland Culver), believe that if they find the thief who stole Lady Elmbridge's emerald, they find the Terror. Since Revel stole the emerald, he wants the real Terror caught before they fence him in for a series of murders he did not commit. 

The Hour of 13 was made at the MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, England and, while there are not many location scenes, the film sets are excellent and perfectly evoke that Jack-the-Ripper setting of old London. 

Peter Lawford is not my idea of a gentleman thief (Stewart Granger would have been excellent in this part) but he is surprisingly good. In fact, it would have been nice to see him in a series of Nicholas Revel mysteries. Playing his leading lady is English actress Dawn Addams who had a long career with MGM and an even longer career working in television. Also in the cast is Michael Hordern as Sir Henry Frensham, Derek Bond, Leslie Dwyer, and Colin Gordon. 

The Hour of 13 is available on DVD via Warner Archives.

Hammer Horror - The Golden Era (1956-1967)

Each year along with the approach of Halloween comes the bombardment of Hammer Horror films on television. Blood, gore, and buxom babes are splattered onscreen in brilliant Eastmancolor, while sanguinary counts and grimly ghoulish characters lurk stealthily in dark corners of seedy districts intent on carrying out nefarious deeds on their unsuspecting prey.

And we…sweet, kind, gentle, innocent viewers…sit by with pizza in hand, eyes-a-goggled and heart-a-pounding as we stare transfixed at our screens while these deliciously diabolical scenes are being carried out.

Prior to the British Hammer film, there really was no such thing as a “gory” film. There were lords of tiny European hamlets suffering from lycanthropy, mad scientists making pastiches out of gently worn body parts, secluded islands inhabited by horrific animal creatures, misguided poor souls continually making themselves disappear, and of course the all-too-common haunted house filled with frustrated spirits (and the occasional runaway gorilla)……but alas, no gore. Hammer Studios had found a niche and filled it capitally.

Just what would Halloween be without Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing entertaining us?  

Hammer Productions was formed in 1934 by William Hinds, a comedian and businessman who once went by the name of Will Hammer on stage. His films were low-budget and simply made but, even with his own distribution company, he wasn’t able to find a market for them and filed for bankruptcy in 1937.

A year later, his son, along with producer James Carreras, resurrected the production company and began work on a series of BBC radio adaptions such as Dick Barton Special Agent, and The Adventures of PC 49. Many films were made during the 1940s and early 50s but nothing of noteworthy attention, until, that is…1955. This was the year Hammer Studios released The Quatermass Xperiment, a wonderfully chilling adaption of the popular BBC television series of the same name. 

Quatermass, also known as The Creeping Unknown, was about a missile sent into space with three astronauts on board. Only one of the men return to Earth and with him, brings an alien infestation which turns him into an ‘orrible blood-sucking monster. Professor Bernard Quatermass (played by American actor Brian Donlevy) becomes the first of many, many scholarly extraterrestrial/mythical/vampyr hunters to be featured in Hammer film….Van Helsing being the most famous of these.

The film became the first to ever receive an X rating certificate from the British Film Board and was so successful that similarly themed pictures were quickly put into production and released.

X- The Unknown (1956) 

Radiation tests done by the British Army in a remote Scottish village unearth an unknown radioactive “blob” that leaves only the bodies of its burnt victims behind. Dr. Royston sets out to stop the beast before it grows bigger and bigger and feeds off of them all! Dean Jagger, Leo McKern, Edward Chapman, Anthony Newley.

Quatermass II: Enemy from Space (1957) 

Professor Quatermass explores a deadly gas that is originating from a hidden factory in rural England. Unusual creatures just may be planning something deadly for planet Earth and, once again, Quatermass is the man to stop them. Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sidney James, Brian Forbes.

But it was when The Curse of Frankenstein came out in 1957 that the studio earned its infamous title as a House of Horror. This was, officially, the start of Hammer Horror.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) Using the hands of a pianist and the brains of a renowned scholar, Doctor Frankenstein sticks together a "human" from leftover bodies and finds that it didn’t quite turn out to be the success he had planned. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Hazel Court.

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, heretofore relatively unknown company players, quickly earned worldwide recognition for their roles as Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster and for the next ten years basked in the sunshine – or rather moonlight – of success.

The Abominable Snowman (1958) High in the snow-covered Himalayan mountains, an English botanist and a burly American scientist lead an expedition to discover the legendary Yeti creature. Peter Cushing, Forrest Tucker, Maureen Connell.

Universal Studios was the American distributor of the Hammer horror series and since they earned such great returns off of them, they let them have access to their stock house of scripts. Numerous retellings of their horror classics were plotted out, and the studio focused all its efforts and funds on the making of these colorful adaptions.

The Horror of Dracula (1958) After a man attacks Dracula in his castle (yes, bold man he be!), Dracula travels to a nearby village to seek revenge on his family and his fiancée. They turn to Professor Van Helsing, a fellow student of vampires, for help in destroying him. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes novel gets a colorful retelling here, as the ace detective and his doctor friend come to the aid of a nobleman who is being threatened by supernatural hounds on the moors of his estate. Peter Cushing, Andre Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi

The Hound of the Baskervilles was one of the less successful films in the series though Peter Cushing made an admirable Holmes, as did Andre Morell as Dr. Watson. During 1951 – 1967, Hammer Studios' home was in Bray, near Windsor, Buckinghamshire. A house (Down Place), a large backlot, and several smaller studios were on this property. The house was included in many of the films (it added a lot to that “Hammer atmosphere”) and the backlot was turned into a European village which was used again and again in different films. First in The Brides of Dracula, then as a Spanish village in The Curse of the Werewolf, as London in The Phantom of the Opera, and then as a Russian palace in Rasputin, the Mad Monk.

From 1960 on, Hammer consigned themselves to raising their monsters from their graves in sequels or rehashings of their previous successes…with the exception of The Phantom of the Opera, Curse of the Werewolf (another misfire), and The Gorgon…which were new characters to the series.

The Brides of Dracula (1960) A schoolteacher unknowingly sets free a young man ( of the undead variety ) in Transylvania, and worse yet, finds that he’s after her students at her school for girls. Peter Cushing, Martita Hunt, Yvonne Monlaur, David Peel

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) A young Spanish boy on a hunting trip gets bitten by a wolf, and years later moonlights as a first-class howler in this retelling of the classic Universal The Wolf Man. Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain

The Phantom of the Opera (1962) In Victorian London, a poor musical professor finds that his life work has been stolen by a corrupt lord and, with his fire-burnt disfigured face, he hides out in an Opera house as a “phantom” waiting for his moment of revenge. Herbert Lom, Edward de Souza, Michael Gough, Heather Sears

Kiss of the Vampire (1963) A young honeymooning couple gets stranded in a southern European village and are “helped” by an aristocratic family…who have a taste for newlywed blood. Clifford Evans, Edward de Souza.

Evil of Frankenstein (1964) – Penniless Baron Frankenstein, returns to his family castle to renew his work on his beloved Monster, only to find that an evil aid, Zoltan has been using his monster for his dirty work. Peter Cushing, Peter Woodthorpe, Duncan LaMont

The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) An Egyptian mummy is delivered to London, where it begins a rampage while under the control of a man with murderous intentions. Terence Morgan, Ronald Howard, Fred Clark

The Gorgon (1964)  In pre-WWII Germany, a small village is being plagued by a snake-haired gorgon who turns those who bear their eyes upon her to stone…only during full moons though. Professor Meister and Dr.Namaroff come to the aid of the townsfolk. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Richard Pasco, Michael Goodliffe, Barbara Shelley

All of these Hammer Horror pictures really weren’t that scary (especially compared to today’s standards) but, in 1965, gore, as in bottles of oozy gooey goopy red ketchup, entered the picture. EEeeek!!

This was the year that the content of the Hammer films became more….ahem, mature…with the eyes of our blood-sucking fiendish friends glaring more fiercely, the bodices of their voluptuous prey creeping lower and lower, and pools of blood squirting to and fro, making Van Helsing’s appearance – along with his cross of Christ – all the more anticipated so we can see our anemic villains writhe in terror at their impending doom.

Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966) Four unwary tourists take refuge in Count Dracula’s castle for the night (!). Within a few hours one of them is drained of his blood and his wife ( Shelley ) gets transformed into a vampire so the gruesome twosome can pursue the remaining two “guests”. Some hospitality. Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Charles Tingwell

Island of Terror (1966) A group of doctors head to a remote island off the coast of Ireland to investigate a series of medical mysteries and discover a deadly lifeform unleashed. Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Carole Gray, Keith Bell. 

Rasputin, The Mad Monk (1966) The story of the mad Russian “monk” Rasputin (aid to the Czars) is exploited in all its gory glory. Christopher Lee, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley, Suzan Farmer

Quatermass and the Pit (1967) While digging a subway in London, a construction crew discovers a skeleton and what seems to be a German missile….but in truth it is an alien spaceship. James Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley

The Reptile (1966) While investigating his brother's death, a man and his wife move into his former cottage in a small village in England and become embroiled in a reptilian curse. Ray Barrett, Noel William, John Laurie, Jennifer Daniel. 

The Mummy's Shroud (1967) An archeological team discovers the remains of a mummy while on a dig in Egypt in 1920. Returning home to England with their find, the members are killed one by one. Andre Morrell, David Buck, Elizabeth Sellars, Maggie Kimberley.

There were also a number of "Scream Queens" that became associated with Hammer Horror (Hazel Court, Barbara Steele, and, later, Ingrid Pitt) but of them all, no one can top Barbara Shelley, that lovely English lady who somehow got caught in the vortex known as “the horror genre”. In total, she made seven pictures with the studio, sometimes as the victim, but not infrequently as a vampire herself.

Many believe that the golden age of Hammer Horror ended with Dracula: Prince of Darkness and that does indeed have some credibility to it, for the films made after this tend to be repetitious and rather malodorous.

All in all though, Hammer Studios had a long line of successes and it is during this bewitching month that we fans appreciate them the most. We get to sit back, have some popcorn, and enjoy Peter Cushing and those legendary ghouls give us goosebumps….what more fun could you have than that?