A Movie Scene Quiz

I guess Valentino was a desert prince in "The Shiek". A much drier climate than the one I'm looking for.



The Burton movie that contains the first two words of the movie I'm looking for was actually a remake of that movie.

The third word in the Burton movie is a verb.

Dang -- at one point, as I was scrolling through his titles, I remember I looked at "The Rains of Ranchipur" and thought about trying to do something with it, but then something else must have caught my eye and I never got back to it.

The Rains of Ranchipur + The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Yes to The Rains Came. I liked both versions. Usually I don't care for the remake, but Richard Burton........

I've never seen the original -- just the remake, and that was ages ago.

Off to think of a new question.

New question:

Ellen Burstyn (1) + Robin Williams (1)

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Burstyn) + Patch Adams (Williams)

That was fast -- I thought I'd come up with one that would take you at least half an hour!

I love Alice Adams, although parts of it (her awful family) are painful to watch.

I've never seen Alice Adams all the way through for some unknown reason, (I remember Fred MacMurray walking Hepburn home.) and I think I'd enjoy it. I'll try to catch it next time it's on.

"Awful" family brings to mind "dysfunctional" family - more so in the book than in the movie as the movie left out a major character (although it did mention him in one or two scenes).

The book/movie I'm thinking about is:

(The) Richard Burton (2) + Ernest Borgnine (1)

Too tired to work on this tonight -- I'll take a look at it in the morning, See you then.

I'm off to bed, too. For some reason I've been going to bed much earlier than usual.

Pleasant dreams.

Work reared its ugly head today, so I never had a chance to look at this question. Maybe this evening.

(The) Prince of Players (Burton) + Tides of War (Borgnine)

You're right -- they sure were dysfunctional!

The Prince of Tides is correct.
Did you read the book? I was so disappointed in the movie - although I thought Nick Nolte was very good in the part.

I never read The Prince of Tides. I liked the movie, but maybe I would have felt differently if I had read the book.

New question:

Judy Garland (2) + Queen Latifah (1) + Richard Burton (1)

I'm leaving shortly for shopping and lunch. Hope to have some guesses after 2PM.

I liked the movie, Prince of Tides, too, - thought the scenery was beautiful and was glad that the ending wasn't Hollywoodized - but I was disappointed that my favorite character in the book was omitted. It was a mighty big book though. (I loved the book.)

I loved the book too. The movie actually left out a lot of the story, as I recall.

While we're waiting for Raggedy to return from gallivanting, I thought I would post this obituary of Brock Peters, which appeared in today's New York Times. I knew him best from "To Kill a Mockingbird" (as I suspect most people did). It was interesting to read about what an extensive career he had in addition to his appearance in that movie.

Brock Peters of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Is Dead at 78
By MEL WATKINS
Brock Peters, the versatile film and stage actor, singer and producer who first rose to prominence in the 1960's and 70's with his powerful singing voice and poignant screen portrayals of angry, belligerent black men, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 78.

The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, his companion, Marilyn Darby, told The Associated Press.

Among his most striking roles were the lead in the 1972 Broadway musical "Lost in the Stars" and in the later movie, and the minor but striking part of the man wrongfully accused of rape in the film version of "To Kill a Mockingbird," released in 1962.

Mr. Peters's first screen appearances were in two lavish 1950's all-black musicals directed by Otto Preminger. He was cast as Sergeant Brown, the brutal army officer who harasses Harry Belafonte in "Carmen Jones" (1954), and Crown, the equally terrifying Catfish Row villain who stalks Dorothy Dandridge in the 1959 film adaptation of George Gershwin's classic folk opera, "Porgy and Bess." His explosively convincing performances in the roles proved as much a burden as a blessing.

With his dark skin, searing eyes and intimidating scowl, Mr. Peters was quickly type-cast as the archetypal, menacing, black villain on screen.

"It was almost disastrous," he later told a reporter for The New York World Telegram and Sun. "Producers didn't want to see me. They had liked my performances but couldn't see me as anything but a heavy."

In the early 60's, however, he began stretching out as an actor. In 1962 he received solid reviews for his role as Johnny, a sensitive and complex homosexual trumpet player who befriends Leslie Caron in a seamy London rooming house in the British film "The L-Shaped Room." He also vied with James Earl Jones and won the role of Tom Robinson in the movie version of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, with Gregory Peck winning as best actor and Horton Foote winning for best screen adaptation. Mr. Peters received high critical praise and won the All-American Press Association Award as best supporting actor.

By the mid-60's, Mr. Peters was recognized as one of the most versatile and talented black actors in America.

Mr. Peters was born Brock Fisher in New York City in 1927, the son of Sonny and Alma A. Fisher. He made his stage debut at 15 in the 1943 Broadway production of "Porgy and Bess" in a minor role, as Jim, one of the denizens of Catfish Row. After attending the University of Chicago (1944-45) and City College of New York (1945-47), he continued training for the stage in New York while working as a Y.M.C.A. and Parks Department instructor, hospital orderly and shipping clerk. He also honed his resonant bass singing voice as a member of the de Paur Infantry Chorus and toured clubs in the United States and Canada with a cabaret act.

In 1953 he made his first television appearance as a singer on "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts." In 1961 he married Delores Daniels, a television producer and public relations consultant, with whom he later started Delbro Enterprises, an independent production company that produced the feature-length comedy "Five on the Black Hand Side" (1973) and the PBS documentary "This Far by Faith" (1975).

Throughout his career Mr. Peters worked behind the scenes for the rights of actors in general and black actors in particular, and both he and his wife were also involved in community affairs. Mr. Peters served as the chairman of the California State Arts Commission and, along with Cecily Tyson and Arthur Mitchell, was a founder of the Dance Theater of Harlem.

Mrs. Peters, known as DiDi, died in 1990. Besides his companion, Ms. Darby, Mr. Peters's survivors include his daughter, Lisa Jo Peters.

His success in "Mockingbird" was followed by a minor role in the British comedy "Heavens Above!" (1963), which starred Peter Sellers. In 1965 he received rave reviews for his role as the ghetto hood Rodriguez, Rod Steiger's bitter antagonist in Sidney Lumet's film "The Pawnbroker." In the 60's and 70's Mr. Peters had supporting roles in more than a dozen feature films, including "The Incident" (1967), "Slaughter's Big Rip-Off" and "Soylent Green" (both 1973), and "Two-Minute Warning" (1976).

Onstage, he played the title role in a 1963 production of Shakespeare's "Othello," starred as the prize fighter Jack Jefferson in the touring company of "The Great White Hope" (1969-71) and appeared in the lead role of Stephen Kumalo in "Lost in the Stars," the musical adaptation of Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country," with a score by Kurt Weill. He was nominated for a Tony and won the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for outstanding performance by an actor in a musical for "Lost in the Stars," and he reprised the role in the 1974 motion picture adaptation.

Mr. Peters remained a familiar presence on television, screen, stage and radio into the 1990's. His later credits include the television mini-series "Battlestar Galactica" and "Roots: The Next Generation" (both in 1979), the Emmy-nominated television musical "Polly!" (1989), as well as popular feature films like "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1986) and "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

He also appeared in the stage productions of "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989) and "My Children, My Africa" (1990). His voice-over work included the character Lucius Fox in "Batman: The Animated Series" (1992), and he was the sinister voice of Darth Vader in the NPR radio version of the "Star Wars" trilogy.

He was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1976, and he received a Life Achievement Award from the National Film Society in 1977. The Screen Actors Guild also honored him with an achievement award in 1990, citing his durability and versatility.

The movie left out the mother's background story and Tom's beloved brother Luke who stood alone in a fight to keep the town from being turned into a nuclear power plant site and more.

Jimmy Buffett penned a song I love:

Prince of Tides
By: Jimmy Buffett, Michael Utley
1988
Pat Conroy, Doc Pomus and the people of Dafuskie Island have already said it all. I am thankful for such inspiration.

--Spoken:
"The sun, red and enormous, began to sink into the western sky. And simultaneously the moon began to rise on the other side of the river with its own glorious shade of red, coming up out of the trees like a russet firebird. The sun and the moon seem to acknowledge each other and they moved in both apposition and concordance in a breath taking dance of light across the oaks and the palms. My father watched it and I thought he would cry again. He had returned to the sea, and his heart was a low country heart."

African drums are silent and the Wingos are poets at last
Out on Dafuskie Island, the bulldozers bury the past
And the low country sinks, she can not swim
The dogwood feels the hurt
While the foursome plays on borrowed days in their alligator shirts

Chorus:
Now I realize who killed the Prince of Tides
How can you tell how it used to be
When there's nothin' left to see

One night they put a price on the sunset
And that got the whole world shaking
They rose from the grave both the weak and the brave
'Cause history was there for the makin'
And the winos surrounded the condos forming a frail human fence
And they shouted out loud to the roar of the crowd
"Same old story, more dollars than sense" .......................

-- Spoken:
"The white porpoise comes to me at night, singing in the river of time, with a thousand dolphins in radiant attendance, bringing charismatic greetings from the Prince of Tides."


(I love anything about the ocean -- and dolphins. )



And the question of the day - could it be

Strike Up the Band (Garland) + Bringing Down the House (Queen Latifah)+ The Staircase (Burton)

Interesting info on Prince of Tides.

And you're right about Up the Down Staircase.

Oh, I just saw your article about Brock Peters, bree.

He was outstanding in "Lost in the Stars". I've been trying for years to get a copy of that movie.

And such a sympathetic sweet character in "The L-Shaped Room". Porgy and Bess and Carmen Jones didn't give him an opportunity to show his singing talent. Funny, because almost all of the leading singers' voices were dubbed in both of those movies.