Tag: Charlton Heston

SIR EDWIN FLUFFER RECALLS CHARLTON HESTON

HOLLYWOOD- Sir Edwin Fluffer once again delves into his personal memoirs – soon to be published as ‘Not THAT Kind of Fluffer!!!’ – to recall the actress they called the ‘Holy Arse’: Charlton Heston.

Years ago Technicolor was quite the in thing and I was all for it. I know that Spencer Tracy wasn’t a fan, but that was only because it made his knees look silly. There was a time when if you were filming a biblical epic it had to be in Technicolor, or Charlton Heston would refuse to have anything to do with it! 

They were lovely pictures to make, even if they all ended up as long as the Roman Empire, and if truth be told they weren’t really that difficult. All you had to do was put on a toga, swap your brogues for a nice pair of sandals, and remember to say ‘aye’ instead of ‘yes’.
To this day I’ll still tell anyone who’ll listen about the time we were standing at the bottom of a mountain waiting for Heston to make his was back down with the Ten Commandments, and I bet Yul Brynner $15 that he wouldn’t be able to remember them all. He got stuck after the first three and started blabbering on about guns instead, and poor old Yul had to pay up! 

The only bit I didn’t enjoy was the chariots, because as soon as Heston got behind a horse good manners went out the window and he’d start racing around like a mad man and try to knock you over. I was also in that one with Betty Taylor where she played Cleopatra, what was it called? Memory falters. 

During the death scene I had a lovely bit of comic business where it was revealed that I was terribly afraid of the asp, and my delivery of the line ‘why did it have to be snakes?’ brought the house down! Sadly the film was already running at over three weeks long and my part ended up on the cutting room floor, but when I suggested to little Stevie Spielberg that he use it in Raiders of the Lost Ark he jumped at the chance. Spielberg repaid the favour by casting me as Harrison Ford’s father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but I had to let Sean Connery have the part after I broke one of his golf clubs. 

Incidentally it was my idea that he should have a bash at a Scottish accent in The Untouchables, but that’s another story…

MAN WHO SAW BEN-HUR SAYS IT WASN’T BAD

HOLLYWOOD – A man who went to see the new epic remake Ben-Hur said it wasn’t bad.

Despite performing poorly at the box office, the new Ben-Hur has won over some fan.

ben-hur
Jonathan Doe

Jonathan Doe spoke to the Studio Exec EXCLUSIVELY having seen the film this weekend:

I like it. I mean it was exciting the acting was fantastic. Of course, it has a lot to live up to with the old Charlton Heston version very much in your mind when you watch it. But there’s a fresh take on it and the young cast are really something. Especially the guy who plays Ben-Hur. Wow! He’s one to watch.

In the film Jack Huston plays Judah Ben-Hur, who loses everything after his adopted brother Messala (Toby Kebbell), now an officer in the Roman army, returns to Jerusalem and accuses the young prince of treason. Stripped of his title and separated from his wife (Nazanin Boniadi) and family, Ben-Hur must endure years of torment and slavery before he can redeem himself and face his enemy in a life or death chariot race. The film has performed poorly and been badly beaten by Sausage Party and Suicide Squad so the testimony of an ordinary viewer like Jonathan Doe will be prized by the film makers.

Ben-Hur is currently on release.

 

TOP 5 MOVIES WITH PEOPLE IN THEM

HOLLYWOOD – In our relentless mission to list every single aspect of cinema and film making the Studio Exec is proud to present a list of 5 movies that have people in them.

The Studio Exec FACT Squad was sent through the archives and watched every film ever made and here are the top five films with people in them:

  1. The Crowd. You want people, you’ve got them. There are loads of people here. In fact so many that the 1928 film is actually called The Crowd. The only problem is that you can’t hear them. It isn’t because they can’t speak; it’s because this film was made in a time period when they didn’t record sound with films, but this King Vidor silent classic is well worth the watch. And it is the only film to be directed by an actual monarch.
  2. Solyent Green. ‘Solyent Green?’ you say. ‘I see Charlton Heston but where are the people?’ Well, actually Solyent Green itself is… oops almost a SPOILER. Phew, just avoided. But aside from Solyent Green being people, the whole film is based on Harry Harrison’s novel of over-population Make Room Make Room!
  3. Cleopatra. There are so many people in the Roman epic that Italy had to stop doing everything on the day it was filmed, so that everyone could work as extras on the film. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor starred as Marc Antony and Cleopatra, both of whom are also people.
  4. Lincoln. Directed by Steven Spielberg, this film starred Daniel Day Lewis as the 16th President of the United States of America. It really is a film for the people, about the people and by the people.
  5. Barry Lyndon. Considered by many to be Stanley Kubrick’s dullest film, other people argue it is one of his best. There’s a person in the actual title and other as he journeys from his home in Ireland, across Europe, his fortunes rising and falling along the way, he meets even more people, including a card sharp and his future wife! Ryan O’Neal plays the main person.

For more FACTS click HERE.

3 NEW PLANET OF THE APES FILMS GREEN LIT

HOLLYWOOD – Three new Planet of the Apes films are to be made back to back it was confirmed today by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves.

Buoyed by the critical and commercial success of the most recent entry, the Studio Exec can reveal that three scripts have already been put into development which will take the saga up to the beginning of the original 1968 Charlton Heston picture.

Although details are sketchy, we can say that Andy Serkis will reprise his role as Caesar at least for the first of the new trilogy. Reeves told Studio Exec EXCLUSIVE:

The next film in the saga – Around About Lunch Time of the Planet of the Apes – will see the immediate aftermath of Dawn. Caesar and his ape community must learn to survive against a humanity which now knows of the threat from the simians and are seeking to wipe them out. The apes, if they are to survive, must learn to become an army. Late Afternoon of the Planet of the Apes will take place many years later as the military dominance of the apes becomes overwhelming and the final film – The Planet of the Apes Bought a Zoo – will be lighter in tone and will show how the humans slowly became the caged animals who Charlton Heston meets in the 1968 film.

In a tactic taken from the Peter Jackson game book, the films are to be filmed almost simultaneously in the hope of maintaining continuity and cutting costs. They will also be released a year apart.

Around About Lunch Tim of the Planet of the Apes will be released in 2016; Late Afternoon of the Planet of the Apes, 2016 and The Plant of the Apes Bought a Zoo (Part One) will be released in 2017.

ROGER MOORE WAS NEVER MARRIED TO MARY TYLER MOORE, CLAIMS NEW BOOK

HOLLYWOOD – Perhaps one of Hollywood’s most famous families – the Moores – are to be the subject of scandal mongering author Jinx Splack’s new book Moore the Merrier. Roger Moore and Mary Tyler-Moore founded the dynasty in 1963 when the future 007 renounced his bachelor ways for domestic bliss with an American icon.

Fiercely competitive from the start – especially with his younger brother the comedian and pianist Dudley Moore – Roger and Mary began hatching children almost immediately. First came the twins Demi and Julianne, and then troublesome little Mikey, who raged against his parents’ VIP lifestyle and made angry documentaries against close family friend Charlton Heston.

Patrick Moore – Roger and Dudley’s elder brother and famous in the UK as a TV astrologer – wrote in his memoirs Very Moore-ish:

To sit around Roger’s dinner table is to be hit with all the vulgarity of American success unleavened by any sense of humility. Demi and Julianne chew gum noisily in competing stages of dishabille; Michael stuffs himself with entire farms of food while talking about the poverty in the Third World (a science fiction film, perchance?), Mary ‘cracks wise’ and Roger cannot even bring himself to raise the famous eyebrow of disapproval.   

However, Jinx Splack’s new book claims controversially that the Moore family are not actually related.

Roger never married Mary Tyler Moore; he is not Dudley or Patrick Moore’s brother and Michael Moore, Demi Moore and Julianne Moore are not their children. They simply have the same surname.

Friends close to the family have reacted with anger, shock and confusion. ‘She’s just a bitch,’ said one source. Jinx Splack has a history of famous exposés including The Stewarts, in which she claimed that Jon Stewart and Patrick Stewart were not Rod Stewart’s children and Patrick Stewart and Martha Stewart were not married and had not had Kristen Stewart as their daughter. The publication of the book, however, was a severe blow to her credibility as it was disproved by ample DNA testing. Many see this as the end of a career which had begun so promisingly with her birlliant uncovering of The Baldwin Myth.