Wayne's notorious and, yes, quite racist, PLAYBOY interview shows how relying on too small a sample can result in a simplistic and possibly distorted impression of someone's character. Not long after he did that unflattering interview, he became close friends with the great African-American actor Roscoe Lee Browne,…

I attended HeroesCon last year with a friend who was there for the express purpose of completing her ROM: SPACE KNIGHT collection (yes, there are women who collect that, or at least a woman who does) but who's also a big FABLES fan. She dragged me to the Bill Willingham panel, and as I'd stopped reading the book…

I can vouch for the odor thing. I was a guest at DragonCon back in 2000 (I think). Walking into the crowded Green Room, I was jostled by a tipsy and scowling Claudia Christina (Ivanova on BABYLON 5). "Sorry hon," she said hooking a thumb over her shoulder, "but I gotta get away from that stink!" Even before my…

The pre-eminence of ENTER THE DRAGON is obvious, but it's sad to see Pam Grier relegated to also-ran status. She's one of the great cinematic badasses of all time (as well as one of the great beauties, obviously), and along with Meiko Kaji, is the premiere female action hero of the 70s. None of the women starring in…

Just as Big Bill Smith was originally cast as Roper (see my other poster), Rockne Tarkington from BLACK CAESAR was originally cast as Williams. While Smith would have made a wonderfully badass Roper who could have believably beaten Bolo, Kelly is a marked improvement over Tarkington, whom I can't imagine being…

Bruce Lee supposedly chose Robert Clouse to direct ENTER THE DRAGON, or at least approved the studio's choice, on the strength of this legendary fight scene between Rod Taylor and William Smith in the Travis McGee adaptation DARKER THAN AMBER. Soderbergh later showed this scene to Gina Carrano and Michael Fassbender…

I think that 1976's MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE, with Jimmy Wang Yu in his recurring role as the one-armed boxer (not the One-Armed Swordsman, that was another Wang Yu series hero) was the first Tournament Movie in the sense that we think of it. Again, the tournament doesn't continue to its end, but we do see…

Yes, the first Gene Roddenberry pilot, GENESIS II, starred the uncharismatic Alex Cord as unfrozen NASA scientist Dylan Hunt. In the 1974 sequel, PLANET EARTH, he was replaced by Saxon. In the third busted pilot, STRANGE NEW WORLD, Saxon's unfrozen character was now called Captain Anthony Vico. Roddenberry was much…

He was born in the US while his father's Peking Opera troupe was touring, but he grew up in Hong Kong and was a child movie star there. His increasing gang activity led his family (whom I'd love to read an accurate biography of) to take advantage of his dual citizenship by shipping him off to the US, first to learn…

Why are so many ghosts after Wyatt's descendants? Wyatt only shot one man in the gunfightt outside Fly's Photographic Studio a block away from the OK Corral (the others were killed by Doc and Morgan). After unknown assailants killed Morgan and crippled Virgil, Wyatt, his brother Warren and Doc, with the help of…

This is it exactly.

Hong Kong shot in synch sound in the 50s, but by the 70s, everything was dubbed in post, and continued to be until the 90s.

Yes. Italian speakers have told me that the dialogue is just as mismatched on the original soundtracks of Italian films, whether by Bava or Fellini.

He kills Norris with a guillotine choke, takes out Sammo with an armbar, and kills Kareem with a choke on the ground.

His English doctor, quoted in Death by Misadventure, claimed allergy to cannabis had almost killed him once before, and that it was a rare but known condition in men of (I think) Northern Chinese extraction, although he also said too much liquor and overwork and not enough sleep all played their parts. The doctor…

That would be Sir Richard Francis Burton.

SHERIFF OF BABYLON is great. I'm glad it's been giving as much page-time to Saffiya and Nassir as to Christopher, as they're much more interesting, even if Christopher is the Tom King surrogate. I think he's being written a bit more naive than King probably was in Baghdad, but he's not that engaging.

Dammit, now I'm going to cry.

It's weird that the much bigger Sammo Hung, whom one would think took harder falls, never got injured as much. This may be why, even though he's older, he still seems more physically impressive than Jackie, whom I can't imagine doing something like Sammo's fight with Donnie Yen in that film with several different…

We really need a Criterion Edition of this (along with Tsui Hark's PEKING OPERA BLUES).