Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Slaps for July, 2023



Rain for July, 2023



AI Videos



The trailers for The Galactic Menagerie and The Whimsical Fellowship were created by a YouTuber named Curious Refuge. The Socrates and Bill Gates interview was made by Linus Ekenstam. The Jesus and Einstein interview is the work of Silver_smokes987.

Midjourney for July, 2023



Reimaginings



Double Feature: "The Secret Florist" and "The Bedpan Chronicles"



Charlie Chaplin on Midjourney



Comedians from 1850 to 2023



Dark Romance









Tinkering with Classic Films on Midjourney

A Midjourney member, nixter67, had the idea for a film noir version of The Big Lebowski starring Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman.  The results were not as good as they could have been, so I fooled around with the idea myself.  




I then simplified my request, simply asking Midjourney to show the original Dude in a film noir setting.  I like this better.  


And then we have marehori, who had the clever idea of giving tragic stories a happy ending.  In his new happy version of Titanic, enough lifeboats are available for every passenger to evacuate the sinking ship.  So, in the final scene, Jack calmly waits for rescue along with Rosa.  

John Coffey from The Green Mile (1999) serves his sentence and is released from prison.   

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) ends with McMurphy being released from the psychiatric hospital with his brain fully intact.  

At the end of Se7en (1995), Mills and Somerset open the mysterious package and see that it is filled with M & M candies.

I got to thinking about other films with tragic endings.  It would be great if Champ avoided serious injury in the climatic bout of The Champ (1931).  

I wouldn't have needed two packages of  tissues if Antonio got back his bicycle at the end of The Bicycle Thief (1948).  

I could have saved myself heartache if Old Yeller could have scared off the rabid wolf without a fight in Old Yeller (1957).  

Travis and Old Yeller should have been able to enjoy many more days together. 




I was inspired to contribute my own happy endings to marehori's series. 

Citizen Kane ends with Charles Foster Kane getting back his beloved sled Rosebud and joyfully riding it down a snowy hill.

Casablanca ends with Rick, Ilsa and Victor agreeing to a polyamorous relationship.

Norman Maine wears a flotation device as he walks into the ocean at the end of A Star is Born (1954).

Rosemary finds out that her baby is a little angel at the end of Rosemary's Baby (1968). 


See That Script Girl?


You see this extra acting as a script girl in The Bank Dick (1940)?  

Her name is Dolly Haas.  A few years earlier, she was a major star in German films.  But Hilter's rise to power prompted her to abruptly flee from Germany.   

Haas had Germay's top filmmakers fashioning vehicles for her.  Two of her directors were Anatole Litvak and William Dieterle, both of whom went on to great success in Hollywood.  Litvak did well with women's films.  His films include All This, and Heaven Too (1940), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and The Snake Pit (1948).  Dieterle's best-known films are The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), The Life of Emile Zola (1937), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941).  The Life of Emile Zola won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The team that produced The Private Secretary Gets Married (1933), one of Haas' most popular films, included Joe Pasternak (producer), Henry Koster (director) and Felix Jackson (writer).  When Haas relocated to England, the trio continued their efforts with a similarly appealing young actress, Franciska Gaal.  Their films with Gaal, including Spring Parade (1934), A Precocious Girl (1934), Peter (1934), Little Mother (1935) and Catherine the Last (1936), were popular in Europe and all but Peter inspired Hollywood remakes.  Later, in Hollywood, Pasternak, Koster and Jackson created a series of hit films starring Universal phenomenon Deanna Durbin.  Haas and Gaal served as prototypes for Durbin, though it must be said that Durbin was feistier on screen than her predecessors.

At the time of her appearance in The Bank Dick, Haas was married to director John Brahm.  She had no need to work as an extra.  How she ended up in the script girl role is unknown.   

Let me now feature the actress in a photo gallery.