Trouble Is My Middle Name (If You Don't Count My Nickname), 1953
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Rex Riley directed this neo-noir story of a detective who takes on a strange case of a man who has
lost his lisp. The man hires Rip Rosenblat, a cheap detective, to find out if his lisp has been
stolen. At first, the detective thinks the guy is nuts but when the guy pays in advance Rip goes
ahead with investigations. The sheer audacity of the plot, a signature of Rex Riley's only three
films (he was killed by a runaway taxi while hailing a taxi in Hollywood) absorbs the viewer and
makes him or her wonder about their own speech patterns.
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Taste The Blood Of Dracula, 1946
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The only movie that used the name Dracula without asking permission turns out to be the most
inventive and frightening of any made that had permission to use the name. Ignoring any other
Dracula story, director/writer Posh Bigstow weaves a tale of a vampire that became one of the
undead communities when a Swedish Count disguised himself as a dentist only open after sunset.
Oddly enough, the Dracula character is names Joseph Dracula before he becomes a vampire, which is
a clever twist, which kept Bigstow from copyright infringement. Duart Newbury played Joe Dracula
with an edge more cruel than any actor that played the vampire and Bigstow was relentlessly graphic
about it. The movie had to be edited many times to pass Standards and Practices.
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Son Of The Tractor, 1961
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An animated short from genius filmmaker Leslie Front features a baby tractor that desires to be as
strong as his old and rickety dad had been when in his prime he towed five times his weight across
the state of Oregon. The little tractor is a delightful character that rivals any cute animal
Disney ever drew into a cartoon movie.
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Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You
can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.
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