#MondayActionMovie X #Cinemon X #GHWP - Live Tweet All-Out Attack (Monday, July 18, 2016)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Original planned date was June 13, 2016, but I'll be out of town for a family funeral. 

I’ve got myself a full plate three days out of the week again with live movie tweeting, and I’ve landed a three-hour slot for July 18 that promises to be a whopper. First, for my fill-in #MondayActionMovie, I’ve chosen a belated Memorial Day tribute of my own with the 1956 Robert Aldritch WWII action drama Attack! I would link the trailer here, BUT trust me when I say that, if you haven't seen it, then you're better off not watching it. It's one of those trailers that feels like it tells too much of the story, and it even features a poorly-delivered alternate take of one of the best scenes of the entire film. Watch the trailer after the movie or not at all. Just my two cents.

“I'm not a war movie buff. I saw a number of Vietnam War era movies as a young child because I had premium cable during the Nam nostalgia boom of the early 80s, but outside of seeing a few classic Cirio Santiago movies as a kid, I wasn't really into war movies. I wouldn't have given this movie a chance at all if not for the Phil Hendrie Show on talk radio. One reason I became a fan of his show was how similarly we share tastes in classic movies, and this was a film he mentioned fondly and often, even taking time out during one show to explain why he loved the movie and why he quoted it so much. Phil's recommendation still stuck in the back of my head for a few more years before I finally got my hands on it. Attack! immediately became one of my favorite movies of all time with a cast of some of my favorites from Richard Jaeckel to Buddy Ebsen to Lee Marvin, and it's Jack Palance and Eddie Albert at their best. It's a dark and powerful tale of political nepotism putting soldiers' lives at risk and putting integrity, morality, and mental stability to the test on the battlefield.”

The above review quote was copied and pasted from my Letterboxd page (SonOfKaras). I don’t even remember writing it. I almost sat on Microsoft Word writing an entirely new review that would have said the same thing almost verbatim, so I’m glad I checked Letterboxd first and saved my addled brain some time. It's worth repeating that I owe Phil Hendrie everything for that one. I’m one of Phil's “no life, VCR-petting geek” talk radio listeners. He didn't mean it as a compliment when he said it, but I take it as one. Every once in a while I'll dig into my old Backstage Pass collection just for shows like an hour he did in December 1999 about made-for-TV movies like Deliberate Stranger; Mother May I Sleep with Danger?; Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway; and Sweet Hostage. A few months earlier, he devoted an hour to the films of George C. Scott (with the aid of young film buff R.C. Collins) shortly after the actor’s passing, and I can't count how many times he printed off a filmography list from IMDB and ran through it with hilarious commentary. I'll never forget how hard I laughed when Phil's intern Bud Dickman insisted that all of the titles of John Wayne and the Little Rascals were gay porn. Phil inspired me to seek out several of those films (I don't mean gay porn, not that there's anything wrong with that), but there are many that I still need to see. Some of the quotes Phil snuck into the dialogue of his show the most came from classics like Halloween, The Exorcist, Dracula, and, of course, Attack! 

Some people listen to music on a portable music player when they're on the go. I listen to music, too, but I also mix in a heavy dose of Phil for some of the best laughs I ever got when I was driving home from college in my early twenties between 1998 and 2003. I still have a shelf of cassette tapes of almost every show he did from Summer 2001 up until 9-11 and even into parts of Spring 2002, recorded myself right off the local radio, and I'll pop one of those tapes into the car tape deck every so often depending on the mood I'm in. Since his was considered a comedy show, my local station was one of those afraid he was going to keep doing comedy following 9-11. He didn't, but it took them more than a week to figure that out and put him back on the air where he belonged. His straight talk and his understanding of history were just as important to me in those times as his Comedy Gold, and I consider him a mentor and part of the family. If you're reading this, Phil, and I know you're not, I love you, brother.

As I say in every review I’ve ever written on a war movie, I just don’t do war movies. Even the fiercest recommendations like Phil's usually take me a few years to pursue. Nonetheless, when I do get around to watching a war movie, I really sink my teeth into it. Two of the maybe five war movies total I have seen in my life are among my top favorite movies, and I only saw one of those for the first time—Das Boot—three days ago (June 4). I’ve hoped for years that Turner Classic Movies might add Attack! to its schedule at some point, and I’ve been saddened to see that it’s available on Blu-Ray in France but was released only on DVD several years ago in the US (and I think is out of print). For the love of Pete, it’s Robert freaking Whatever Happened to Sweet Charlotte on The Longest Yard with The Dirty Dozen Aldritch! Well, y’know what? It’s on YouTube. If TCM ain’t gonna host it, then I will.

(Edit: I'll already have hosted a few #CineMon shows by the time this altered schedule takes place, but for the sake of continuity, I'm postponing this particular Route 66 episode until July 18 as well.)

After Attack!, I’ll be starting a new bi-monthly gig as host of #CineMon. I’ve filled in a few times here and there, but I’m in for the long haul now for at least the summer, grasping the reins every other Monday from the previous co-host to take us out of the water and onto the open highway. I’ve been in the mood for some classic television lately, but live tweeting Japanese superheroes (Spider-Man on Tuesdays and Spectreman on Fridays) has all of my #GHWP hosting slots filled for the foreseeable future. The offer of the #Cinemon slot was perfect timing, so now I’m using it to plug in something that’s been itching in back of my head for a little while: an old favorite called Route 66. As the heat of the summer rises, I'll mix in a little more of The Hitchhiker along the way. Or I may do a little of both in one night.

I’m a Nickelodeon baby, as a couple of my previous blog posts have stated very clearly. Nick and I grew up together. We lost touch around the age of twenty, but I was right there at the ripe young age of seven on July 1, 1985, when Nick at Nite was born. It was an amazing feeling staying up late one summer night watching Lassie, Dennis The Menace, Turkey Television, The Donna Reed Show, My Three Sons, National Geographic Explorer, and, of course, Nick at Nite’s flagship drama series, Route 66. A few years later, even though a couple of cherished favorites like Route 66 were gone, I was still with the channel every night for Susie; Mister Ed; Car 54,Where Are You?; Bewitched; The Monkees; Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection; Make Room for Daddy; The Dick Van Dyke Show; Laugh-In; Saturday Night Live; The Patty Duke Show; Looney Tunes; Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp; Green Acres; Dobie Gillis; SCTV; The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; On The Television; Fernwood 2Night; Hi Honey, I’m Home!; Mork & Mindy; F Troop; Casey Kasem’s annual New Year’s rerun countdowns; a marathon of Sid and Marty Krofft shows; and another all-time favorite drama, Dragnet. I heated up Nick at Nite on a spoon and shot it directly into my arm for well over a decade. There was no other channel worth watching after 8PM any night. Old reruns were king. And they still are thanks to current channels like MeTV and H&I.

Having watched The Incredible Hulk while still in diapers (my grandmother has photos to prove it), Route 66 was my second taste of a dramatic anthology, and this one didn’t have any flashy colors or mutating superheroes. If you were seven years old in 1985 and had the attention span to sit up around 10PM or later at night to watch a show like Route 66 or Dragnet, then you’re already a friend of mine. Although Route 66 was shot in black and white, it was a beautiful travelogue of scenery of 1960s America and a who’s who of amazing actors such as George Kennedy, Beatrice Straight, Walter Matthau, Darren McGavin, Julie Newmar, Leslie Nielsen, Lois Nettleton, Lee Marvin, and even Rin Tin Tin. I had no clue who Jack Kerouac was at age seven, but I already felt familiar with him when I pursued literature in my college years thanks to Route 66. It was a weekly series depicting the frustrations of youth to find a place in the world, always finding out that you never were far from home no matter how far you traveled (or ran) away from it.

I’ll be starting my #CineMon run with a real Route 66 gem and perhaps the most famous of the series: Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Tail, guest-starring the legendary Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney, Jr., AS THEMSELVES! As an added bonus, the episode available on YouTube is an original 1962 broadcast complete with original station breaks and commercials! I never caught this episode on Nick at Nite as a child. There's no doubt I would have worshiped it if I had. The first time I saw it was on MeTV on Halloween night 2014, a year to the day after my mother died, and it was a blessed hour lifting the fog. Horror movies and old TV reruns were something my mother and I shared very passionately, and this was the best of both worlds.

So cinch up your danglies, maggots, and join me Monday, July 18, for #MondayActionMovie with  Attack! at 8PM EST. Then, stick around at 10PM EST for #CineMon and Route 66 – Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Tail.