Other credits include “Invasion of the Bee Girls”, “The Incredible Hulk”, “Salvage 1”, and “Halloween II”.
In honor of Mr. Emmich, the Saturday Movie Group watched “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”, which I had never seen before. I like it, but it is kind of an odd film: sort of a weird blend of a road movie and a heist movie, with lots and lots of landscape. (No surprise there: this was the first movie directed by Michael Cimino. Arguably, one of the problems with “Heaven’s Gate” was Cimino’s obsession with landscapes, at the expense of plot, length, and coming in under budget.)
Notes:
- Per Wikipedia, Clint Eastwood was available for this movie (which Cimino wrote specifically for him) because he turned down the lead in “Charlie Varrick”. I liked “Charlie Varrick”, but supposedly Eastwood didn’t find anything likeable in any of the characters. So the role went to Walter Matthau, who I think acquitted himself well. But he found the movie incomprehensible.
- This is the second week in a row we’ve watched a movie with George Kennedy in a key role. (Last week, it was “Airport ’75”.)
- I think Lawrence and I were both a little surprised by the vault scene. Both of us were wondering, “Are they going to put on ears?” And then, yes, the Eastwood and Kennedy characters put on both ear and eye protection before the real star of the movie comes into play.
Back in the day (before GCA 1968) you could purchase 20mm surplus anti-tank guns and shells. Today, Anzio Ironworks will sell you a single-shot 20mm for a mere $9,800, and a mag-fed one for $11,900. Add $3,200 for a suppressor.
And as a fun historical note, suitable for use in schools: here’s an article from American Rifleman about the real life heist that may have inspired “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”.
Bob McGrath, longtime “Sesame Street” guy.
Aline Kominsky-Crumb, underground comic artist.
A lot of T&L (as opposed to T&A 😀 ) was filmed in and around Great Falls, Montana, where I grew up. The diner where they got shot up by Red was a Baer’s Truck Stop, where my mom bought cigs because they were slightly cheaper there. (Same for gas – tended to be 5-10 cents cheaper at the westside truck stops.) The motel was just over the tracks and north a bit from the old train station, and eventually got bought by the Girls Scouts for use as a campground/local HQ or something, IIRC.
Digging up the yard was in the newer nice development uphill towards the TV stations – turn the camera around and you’d see the oil refinery maybe a mile and a half away. The drive-in theatre was eventually closed and the land sold to the city, and the school district offices builot there. (In the late ’70s, I believe.)
The dive bar where they played pool was one of the interchangable joints on Central Avenue downtown, and I may have been it it at one point. Where Red encounters the roadblock is right along the train tracks, around Fifth Avenue South I think (but with no actual connection to the rest of 5th) and blowing through that would have put him into a stone wall and kept him out of the Missouri River.
And finally, the department store (which never had attack dogs as far as I know) was the Paris, later the Bon Marche. (They had an official boy Scouts of America section upstairs, for uniforms, badges and knives.)
First time I watched that movie, I was going “hey, I know that place” and “I’ve *been* there” for about half the film. :V
I like a lot of older films. But a lot of times I have to ignore the older movies, due to the new technologies making them so outdated. I can suspend disbelief on a lot of them, but there are a few movies that jump out as too tough to ignore.
Ygolonac, cool about the filming locations. I grew up in a small rural area, so nobody filmed our town. We were like a zillion other small towns in America, nondescript, everyone knows everyone else, etc. The only thing we had that many did not, was the fact that our main street was also the dividing line of two counties. So if you lived in our 1 square mile town, you could live in either of 2 counties. Our school was on one side of the street, so it was in one county. And we played sports in all of the schools on that side. We had an athletic association called the NCAA. The Newaygo County Athletic Association. The other side of the street was Oceana County. Both counties names are from Native American Indian Tribal names. I now live in a county just south of both of them called Muskegon County, which also comes from a Native American Tribal name.
Michigan is very built up the further to the southeast we go. The further north and west you go, even just north and east, the less built up it is, with smaller towns and cities. Of course, as most people know, the upper peninsula is like a different state almost, with wilderness being the rule, with St. Ignace being the close city to the Bridge, and the further east or west you get, the more rugged and less developed the area is.
I know that some roads have been championed as beautiful, such as historic route 66, etc. But I have it on good authority that travel across the entire route 2 is among the most beautiful in all of America. I can vouch for it being at least the most beautiful routes in Michigan. It roughly follows the south border of the upper peninsula, and you get the occasional glimpse of the Lake Michigan as you head west.
Wow. Thank you, Ygolonac.
I haven’t spent much time in Montana (just a little bit on vacation when I was really young) but I’ve been to Idaho more recently. I really do like that area of the country: if my Austin privileges are ever revoked, I feel like i could live there.
(Except for the snow. But I guess you learn to live with that.)
Another fun fact that I didn’t know (because she’s unaccredited in the movie): the vault manager’s wife was Beth Howland.