#george grizzard

[grandmastv]

3rd Rock from the Sun

3.20 My Daddy's Little Girl (1998)

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/2/2024: THE STRANGER WITHIN (1974)

I wish I had made this the first movie of the season, because it was an ABC Movie of the Week from October 1, 1974! I really enjoyed this weird thriller about how Barbara Eden gets pregnant despite her husband George Grizzard's vasectomy, and her increasingly bizarre behavior suggests that something more than infidelity is afoot. Screenwriter Richard Matheson adapted his own 1953 novelette Trespass, and I have learned that a novelette is longer than a short story and shorter than a novella. I did not know this.

Roe v. Wade was codified the year before THE STRANGER WITHIN came out, and the film is full of casual but surprisingly frank remarks why a person might need an abortion. Barbara Eden had a traumatic miscarriage not long ago, which motivated George Grizzard's vasectomy, and his suspicions about her mysterious new pregnancy are threatening the integrity of the marriage, and then she starts getting sort of sick or something--so it's clear that a person might be reasonably entitled to end a pregnancy based on various quality of life issues for the child and the mother. I wonder if it was a big deal for Barbara Eden to choose to do this movie where she and her costar regularly and openly discuss abortion with no moral quibbling. I wonder also if it was a big deal for ABC to show it, at the dawn of legal abortion.

Anyway, soon the couple has bigger problems than family planning, because Barbara Eden becomes hypersensitive to sound, and she needs the house to be ice cold, and she makes weird paintings, and she eats pounds and pounds of salt with scalding black coffee, and she craves information which she absorbs through her hands, rubbing and touching and feeling everything in the library. The couple gets Bob the hypnotist (David Doyle) involved, and it seems like hypnotism is a really great job if you are a gigantic busybody who immediately asks and won't stop asking probing personal questions, even if people beg you to stop. Anyway, Bob has one of the best lines of dialog I've heard all year: "Why do people always assume that anything from outer space is horrible?"

THE STRANGER WITHIN is not a perfect film; it's an obvious ROSEMARY'S BABY knockoff with a little EXORCIST sprinkled in, and for a movie that is only 75 minutes long it has a few too many long scenes of Barbara Eden wandering aimlessly in nature as she communes with whatever knocked her up. But it's intriguing and entertaining, and it seems like everyone enjoyed making it, especially cinematographer Michael D. Margulies whose pedigree includes John Cassavetes' MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ, POLICE ACADEMY, DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY, and of course, THE BABY. Night scenes are illuminated by dramatic pools of light and splashes of saturated color, which heightens the drama even of exposition and repetitive bickering; it's just a fun movie overall. Recommended for viewers who assume that anything from outer space is horrible.

[coolscreenshotsbro]

[thebarroomortheboy]

 In a way, it can be said that Walter Ryder succeeded in his life's ambition, even though the man he created was, after all, himself. There may be easier ways to self-improvement, but sometimes it happens that the shortest distance between to points is a crooked line - through the Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone | 4.01 In His Image

[eternal--returned]

Rod Serling ֍ George Grizzard & Patricia Berry in The Twilight Zone Season 1 Episode 31: The Chaser (1960)

Narrator: [Opening Narration] Mr. Roger Shackelforth. Age: youthful twenties. Occupation: being in love. Not just in love, but madly, passionately, illogically, miserably, all-consumingly in love - with a young woman named Leila, who has a vague recollection of his face and even less than a passing interest. In a moment, you'll see a switch, because Mr. Roger Shackelforth, the young gentleman so much in love, will take a short but very meaningful journey into The Twilight Zone.

[abs0luteb4stard]

W A T C H E D

(On February 18)

[kwebtv]

Character Actor

George Cooper Grizzard Jr. (April 1, 1928 – October 2, 2007)  Stage, television, and film actor. He was the recipient of a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award, among other accolades.

Grizzard made his television debut on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  He guest starred in many television series, including The Millionaire, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Espionage, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Marcus Welby, MD., Hawaii 5-0, Trapper John, MD, Spenser: For Hire, The Cosby Show, Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Girls.

Grizzard guest-starred several times during the 1990s on the NBC television drama Law & Order as defense attorney Arthur Gold. He also portrayed President John Adams in the Emmy Award-winning WNET-produced PBS miniseries The Adams Chronicles. In 1980, he won an Emmy for his work in The Oldest Living Graduate. He starred as reporter Richard Larsen in The Deliberate Stranger, a television movie about serial killer Ted Bundy. (Wikipedia)

[clemsfilmdiary]

The Stranger Within (1974, Lee Philips)

6/3/24

[letterboxd-loggd]

Advise & Consent (1962) Otto Preminger

June 3rd 2023

[softinsidewithroughedges]

[therealmrpositive]

Wrong Is Right (1982)

In today's review, I discover the lengths that the media will go to to get a good story, as I attempt a #positive review of the 1982 prophetic political satire Wrong Is Right #SeanConnery #RobertConrad #GeorgeGrizzard #KatharineRoss #GDSpradlin #JohnSaxon

The trick to a good, long-lasting satire is understanding that the problems often parodied don’t get fixed soon enough: are your elected officials letting you down? Count to a couple of years, and they will still be doing it again. Is the media stoking the flames of conflict, political or otherwise? Funny how the same criticisms were levied years ago. In 1982, a film showed the world as it is and…

[lobbycards]

Wrong Is Right (aka The Man with the Deadly Lens), German lobby card. 1982

[cinemaquiles]

Baseado em terríveis fatos reais: "David", 1988, o amigo de Michael Jackson!

[citizenscreen]

The original Broadway production of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened on October 13, 1962. The cast included Uta Hagen as Martha, Arthur Hill as George, Melinda Dillon as Honey and George Grizzard as Nick.

[thebarroomortheboy]

GEORGE GRIZZARD and GAIL KOBE in THE TWILIGHT ZONE | 4.01 IN HIS IMAGE

[eternal--returned]

Rod Serling ֍ Patricia Berry & George Grizzard in The Twilight Zone Season 1 Episode 31: The Chaser (1960)

NARRATOR: [Closing Narration] Mr. Roger Shackelforth, who has discovered at this late date that love can be as sticky as a vat of molasses, as unpalatable as a hunk of spoiled yeast, and as all-consuming as a six-alarm fire in a bamboo and canvas tent. Case history of a lover boy, who should never have entered The Twilight Zone.