Midjourney Notes for March 2025

Recent advancements in image-generation programs inspired me to revisit a couple of my old projects.  In 2023, I created a video mash-up of Oppenheimer and Pee-wee's Big Adventure.  I wanted to see if I could improve on that idea with current technology.  That was nineteen months ago and a lot has changed with AI since then.  But I wasn't able to produce any images that inspired me to remake the old video.  Here are a few of the new images.

I have created three videos to examine film roles that Cary Grant turned down.  In two of these videos, I used AI to illustrate how Grant might have looked in these roles.  I thought that I could use advanced AI to update those videos.   

Mr. Jordan In Heaven Can Wait (1978)

James Bond In Dr. No (1962)

Norman Main In A Star Is Born

Colonel Nicholson In Bridge on The River Kwai (1957)

George Bailey In It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

Professor Henry Higgins In My Fair Lady (1964)

Cherry Valance In Red River (1948) 

Joe Bradley In Roman Holiday (1953)

Linus Larabee In Sabrina (1954)

Professor Harold Hill In The Music Man (1962)

Holly Martins In The Third Man (1949)

I submitted an old photo of myself to Midjourney.  The program responded with the following images.

I submitted the same photo to Grok.  Grok was less kind in their interpretation.

This old-time comedian was generated from a publicity still of Lloyd Hamilton. 

No other actor could wear a checkered cap as well as Hamilton. 

Not even Cary Grant could be as charming and funny with a checkered cap.   

A Midjourney member, jacobmo92, created two versions of a fictitious 1930s comedian called Buddy Bobinsky.  I like Buddy.

Here are a few funny images set in a barber shop.  I have always found barber shops to be funny places.  Comedians as varied as Charlie Chaplin and W. C. Fields have shared my view.
I cannot remember what inspired me to create  this image.  

I gave the image a plain and obvious name - Clothesline Man.

I wish that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios had figured a way to team up their rugged and charming star Clark Gable with the suave and charming Cary Grant.  Would their charm have blended into one big spectacle of charm?  Or would it have clashed and exploded and disintegrated into nothingness?
Both actors successfully shared the screen with other strong leading men. Gable worked well alongside Spencer Tracy in San Francisco and Boom Town, while Grant played beautifully against Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story.  Their approaches were different, but a good director could have worked that out.  And a scriptwriter would have managed to find a balance that didn’t make one overshadow the other. 

I imagine a buddy comedy in which the men became reluctant allies to help a mutual friend.  Or a screwball comedy in which Gable is a gruff, no-nonsense reporter and Grant is his smooth, fast-talking editor.  Or a heist film in which Grant is a suave thief and Gable is a police detective.  Or a war adventure in which Gable and Grant are rival officers forced to work together on an important mission.  Or a romantic comedy in which Gable and Grant slyly compete for the same woman.

It is fun to imagine what could have been.

In 1956, John Huston made plans to feature Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart in a film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's short story "The Man Who Would Be King."  Unfortunately, Bogart died before the film could be made.

I fooled around with the idea of creating a Laurel and Hardy Meet Frankenstein film.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get the images right.  

I imagined a dog stealing a sausage from a butcher shop.  Midjourney gave me four variations of the scene.

I asked Grok to create portraits of vaudeville comedians.

I have been playing around a bit with AI animation.  I used a program named Kling to create a brief 1950s horror movie scene.  And I created a brief animated film that shows Lloyd Hamilton scratching his ear.