Adventure movies (and Disney live action '50s'-60s)

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Okay, I've been sick all weekend and quite delirious (so forgive me if this doesn't make much sense). Luckily I had snagged a copy of a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea DVD from my old work when I was filling in there last week. It was the perfect thing to watch on a sick Saturday afternoon, especially as I'd seen this movie so many times on the Saturday afts of my childhood. This movie is great! Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre, James Mason--why don't they make kids' movies without kids any more?

I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but there's something I really love about this era of Disney--the colours, the set design, the music--there's a great very storybookish aesthetic.

So later yesterday my friend brought by The Three Musketeers, the Richard Lester version with Michael York, Oliver Reed, Christopher Lee, Racquel Welch et al. Another great adventure movie, and one I'd never seen before. I was delighted by how slapstick it was, even though I couldn't really follow the plot as I kept passing out.

Umm, I'm not really sure why I started this thread or what I expect anyone to reply. Ummm... anyone see any of these movies or care to comment?

― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 4 May 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

doesn't that version of the three musketeers end in a really grisly way?

(like the heroine gets her head cut off, across the river, and michael york looks glum for abt 4.2 seconds, and then the musketeers all link arms andwalk off in a jolly fashion)

(warning: i may totally have misremembered this...)

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 4 May 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

No, it was weird though, she gets bashed by some sort of mannequin. They pick her up and march along smiling.

Very strange. I figured it was referring to some earlier joke I had slept through.

― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 4 May 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

another weird thing is that in 20,000 Leagues Peter Lorre plays the scientist's apprentice--everyone calls him "lad" and treats him like a kid, even though he's middle-aged Peter Lorre with his pants pulled up to his nips!

― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 4 May 2003 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

haha slutsky our tastes-during-illness are polar opposites - the only time i DON'T complain about all the movies w/kids in is when i'm feverish and numb. my last flu got me thru the second Potter picture and most of Spy Kids 2.

another lots-of-stars-underwater-including-Peter-Lorre adventure that immediately springs to mind is Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea but i haven't seen it recently enough to know if it's any good or not.

― jones (actual), Sunday, 4 May 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

That sounds like something I'd like to watch right now.

― slutsky (slutsky), Sunday, 4 May 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was the first movie I ever saw, along with Pinnochio on a double feature in some weird repertory house in London. It was below street level so you had to descend a flight of stairs to reach the lobby, in which they had a large fish tank with a miniature of the Nautilus in it. I was very young but I remember it Vividly. The belly of the whale and the octopus attack scenes are burned into my mind like I saw them yesterday.

― PVC (peeveecee), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Remember RAISE THE TITANIC with Kojak in it? It was a mega budget, all star snooze fest. There's a movie I hope james Cameron remakes... I'd bet he has secretly considered it.

― PVC (peeveecee), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I know it's got kids in it and it may be from the 70's (I'm not sure), but I'd like to mention Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain. I loved that movie to death when I was a kid. The harmonica! And Ray Milland!

― dave k, Sunday, 4 May 2003 23:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I was going to mention that, I used to love that movie.

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 00:00 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was little, I thought The Cat from Outer Space was the best movie ever.

― rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 5 May 2003 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I think used to see these movies a lot at my grandparents' house... or on Saturday afternoons when we lived in Boston, on channel 56--in other words, in some of my most idealized nostalgic settings--and that's why their particular aesthetic has such a strong effect on me when I see them again.

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is another good one

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 5 May 2003 03:58 (twenty-two years ago)

does the swiss family robinson count here?

― j fail (cenotaph), Monday, 5 May 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

j fail -- yes. yes it does.

― PVC (peeveecee), Monday, 5 May 2003 19:07 (twenty-two years ago)

but D.A.R.Y.L. doesn't

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 5 May 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is starting to make my head swim with images from some of the earliest films I saw.

I'm starting to get the feeling most of us here are 28-32 years old.

― PVC (peeveecee), Monday, 5 May 2003 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

slutsky -- no. no it does not. shiver

― PVC (peeveecee), Monday, 5 May 2003 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

what about Cloak and dagger with Dabney Coleman -- NO!

― PVC (peeveecee), Monday, 5 May 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm with you on the Witch Mountain. Those two movies and the Herbie movies have to be some of the first movies I remember going to the theatre to see.

The Cat from Outer Space is a cool movie.

Thinking about it, I think the Apple Dumpling Gang with killa comedy team of Don Knotts and Tim Conroy may be the very first movie I saw in a theatre.

― earlnash, Tuesday, 6 May 2003 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

did disney do "the shaggy dog"?

― john w fail (cenotaph), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

yes. and let us also have a moment of silence for the shaggy d.a.

― jones (actual), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

district attorney?

― slutsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

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