#Jocelyn Brando

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Darkroom | S1.EP11 | Catnip | 1981

story and teleplay by Robert Bloch

[citizenscreen]

Jocelyn Brando’s brother visits the set as she prepares for her role in Don Siegel’s CHINA VENTURE (1953)

[onenakedfarmer]

Currently Watching

THE BIG HEAT Fritz Lang USA, 1953

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H I N G

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Dark Night of the Scarecrow

There are some critics who consider Frank De Felitta’s TV movie DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1981, Shudder, Peacock, AMC+, Tubi, YouTube) one of the greatest horror films ever made. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from THE NORMAN CONQUEST: there are also people who like being thrown into canals. I do not happen to be one of them. Despite a few nice touches and one or two spooky scenes, the picture is wildly uneven and at times laughable.

Small-town bigots led by the postmaster (Charles Durning, who’s not bad but looks a touch absurd spreading evil in a polyethylene sun helmet) have a hate on for Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake), a young man with a cognitive disability. When his playmate (Tonya Crowe) is injured by a dog while trespassing, the yahoos assume Drake killed her, because if they didn’t, there would be no plot. They find him hiding in a field pretending to be a scarecrow, kill him and place a pitchfork in his hand to make it look like self-defense. Then each sees a scarecrow where one shouldn’t be before dying in mysterious ways. When one encounters the scarecrow, the wind changes and the object’s arm starts to move. It’s one of the few decent chills in the picture.

Part of the film’s problem is that writer J.D. Feigelson has turned most of the small-town characters into raging stereotypes, stupid and violent. When they catch Drake in his scarecrow suit, Durning stares at him for a seeming eternity trying to figure out what’s off about him even though you can clearly see the man’s face through the eye holes. And Durning’s room at the local boarding house (run by Large Marge herself, Alice Nunn) has enough guns to make J.D. Vance’s grandmother jealous. Once the killings start, the surviving men seriously think they’re being committed by Drake’s grieving mother (Jocelyn Brando, who’s quite good), an overweight woman in her sixties they imagine climbing into one man’s hayloft and pushing him into the mouth of a woodchipper. That kill, by the way, is the silliest in the film. It’s not just that it’s obviously telegraphed, with the farmer (Lane Smith) coming home late, hearing the woodchipper running in his barn, and going in to investigate. He turns it off, but when he goes to check the hayloft, it comes on again, so you know where he’s headed. Then De Felitta cuts from a zoom into the machine to a close shot of some red preserves being dumped on Durning’s breakfast plate. Is this what it takes to be a great horror film? I don’t think Hitchcock, Murnau, Lang or James Whale have anything to worry about.

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Wagon Train: The Complete Season Five 1961-1962

[cultfaction]

Cult Faction Podcast Ep. 112: Dark Night of Scarecrow (1981)

In this weeks episode Frank De Felitta’s 1981 made-for-television horror film Dark Night of the Scarecrow goes under the spotlight. It stars Larry Drake, Charles Durning, Robert F. Lyons, Claude Earl Jones, Lane Smith, Tonya Crowe, and Jocelyn Brando. It takes place in a small Southern town where four vigilantes wrongfully execute a man with Special Educational Needs – after the court sets them…

[madmoviemark]

The Big Heat (1953) Review - Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a detective investigating a murder. As he delves further into his investigation he realizes that their is a ladder of corruption that goes far up the crime syndicate. After his family comes under attack Bannion will do anything necessary to avenge them and catch the criminals. Will Bannion catch the criminals or will the corruption take his sanity and his life. You'll have to tune in to find out!

[satedanfire]

Happy heavenly Birthday Jocelyn Brando, November, 18, 1919

[brokehorrorfan]

Dark Night of the Scarecrow and Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2 will be released together on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on September 10 via VCI Entertainment.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is a 1981 made-for-TV horror movie directed by Frank De Felitta and written by J.D. Feigelson. Larry Drake, Charles Durning, Tonya Crowe, Jocelyn Brando, and Lane Smith.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2 is a 2022 sequel written and directed by J.D. Feigelson. Amber Wedding, Aiden Shurr, Carol Dines, Adam Snyder, and Tim Gooch star.

Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Dark Night of the Scarecrow audio commentary by writer J.D. Feigelson (new)

Dark Night of the Scarecrow audio commentary by film historians Heath Holland, Robert Kell, and Amanda Reyes (new)

Dark Night of the Scarecrow audio commentary by director Frank DeFelitta and writer J.D. Feigelson

Bubba Didn't Do It: 30 Years of the Scarecrow featurette

Dark Night of the Scarecrow cast reunion Q&A at Frightfest 2011

1981 CBS world premier promo

1985 CBS re-broadcast promo

Photo gallery

Dark Night of the Scarecrow tells of the murder of a young girl, Marylee Williams (Tonya Crowe), and the vicious mob justice wrongly enacted on Marylee’s innocent, mentally challenged friend Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake). A cover-up by the murderous mob, led by Otis P. Hazelrigg (Charles Durning), results in a strange turn of events. Soon, one by one, the guilty are stalked and served a specific kind of justice by an unknown figure.

40 years in the making, Dark Night of the Scarecrow 2 picks up with Chris (Amber Wedding) and her young son Jeremy (Aiden Shurr), moving to the small town where the events of the first film took place. Chris finds a tattered scarecrow amongst the cornfields of her new home and tells the effigy her secret; the real reason she has come to this small town. Soon after, a mysterious figure begins to roam the fields of their new home… stalking them or protecting them from unknown threats?

Pre-order Dark Night of the Scarecrows 1 & 2.

[byneddiedingo]

The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966)

Cast: Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Richard Bradford, Robert Duvall, James Fox, Diana Hyland, Henry Hull, Jocelyn Brando. Screenplay: Lillian Hellman, based on a novel by Horton Foote. Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle. Production design: Richard Day. Film editing: Gene Milford. Music: John Barry.

Bad movies are often fun to watch anyway, and most of the people involved with The Chase, including director Arthur Penn, screenwriter Lillian Hellman, and star Marlon Brando, agreed that it was a bad movie. Brando let his opinion show, giving a sluggish performance that validates the old criticism that he mumbled his lines. Hellman had her script taken away and rewritten, and Penn struggled to deal with an ill-conceived project. The chief interest the film generates today is seeing actors like Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and Robert Duvall on the brink of major stardom. There's a good deal of miscasting, including E.G. Mashall as the boss of a small town that seems to be in Texas or Louisiana. Marshall lacks the ruthless aura that the character needs. Angie Dickinson is wasted as the loving and dutiful wife of the town sheriff played by Brando. And Redford feels out of place in the role of Bubber Reeves, the town bad boy who escapes from prison (it's never quite clear what he did to be sent there) and stirs a manhunt, a lynch mob, and a conflagration in a junkyard. The town itself is a hotbed where everyone sleeps with everyone else's spouse and goes orgiastic on the Saturday night when the news of Bubber's escape breaks. It's a silly and lurid movie, but a little too long to be entertainingly bad.

[citizenscreen]

Jocelyn Brando and Randolph Scott publicity photo for H. Bruce Humberstone‘s TEN WANTED MEN (1955).

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Darkroom (1981–82) is a short-lived horror anthology TV series hosted by James Coburn.

Just seven one-hour episodes were made, each containing two or more stories (each story is classified as an episode on IMDb).

S1.EP9 | "The Partnership": A chatty amusement park owner (Pat Buttram) uses folksy charm to trap a cranky biker (David Carradine). 

This one's a real treat. 

Watch for a symbol, found in many of Carradine's screen appearances, that eerily foreshadows his real-life death.

Two fun stories follow The Partnership, featuring stars like Rue McClanahan and Jocelyn Brando (Marlon's sister).

[sporadiceagleheart]

My favorite actress and actors television stars Joan Geraldine Bennett, Joan Benedict Steiger, Douglas "Doug" Stuart Sheehan, Claude Earl Jones, Frank Paul De Felitta, Judy Garland, Margaret Hamilton, Jocelyn Brando, Baby Peggy Montgomery, Baby LeRoy, Shirley Temple, Darla Jean Hood, Jean Darling, Mary Ann Jackson, Dorothy DeBorba, Mary Kornman, Mildred Kornman, Peaches Jackson, Peggy Cartwright, Shirley Jean Rickert, Billy Miller, Tyler Christopher, Jacklyn Zeman, Sonya Eddy, Judith Barsi, Heather Michele O'Rourke, Zelda Rubinstein, Richard Belzer, Michael Gambon, Richard Harris, Richard Griffiths, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson, Robbie Coltrane, Helen McCrory, Sir John Vincent Hurt, John Heard Jr., John Franklin Candy, Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald, Roberts Blossom, John Ingle, Anna Lee, David Lewis, David Jacobs, Julie Harris, June Marlowe, Betty White, Carl Weathers, Virginia Weidler, Jane Withers, Jane Adams, Jane Wyman, Jane Waddington Wyatt, Cammack"Cammie"King, Lisa Loring, Raul Julia, Susan Lynn Gordon, Juanita Quigley, Julie Vega, Samantha Reed Smith, Dominique Ellen Dunne, Marie Eline, Ann E. Todd, Marlene Lyden, Frank Sutton, Jim Nabors, Phyllis Brooks, Jacquie Lyn, Janet Elizabeth Burston, Anissa Jones, Bridgette Andersen, Raymond Burr, Brittany Murphy, Denise Marie Nickerson, Clara Blandick, Jack Haley, Terry, Buddy Ebsen, Charley Grapewin, Billie Burke, Frank Morgan, Bert Lahr, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Betty Ann Bruno, Carol Tevis, Betty Tanner,

[kinojunk]

Bud (#MarlonBrando) babysits his nephew David (4 years old), reading BAMBI to him, while his sister, Jocelyn Brando, and her husband go out.

Fun bit about this photo: In the original 1948 publication, it states Brando was so overcome by the tragic end to Bambi's mother, he almost wept, while his nephew remained unmoved, "only waved his foot."

[classicfilmfan64]

Marlon Brando with his sister Jocelyn Brando who visited him on the set of The Wild One (1953).