What was David Lean’s last picture?
A Passage to India (1984) was David Lean’s last picture.
He was scheduled to start on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo when he died in 1991.
The exterior set of Fort Knox in the climax of Goldfinger (1964), built at Pinewood Studios in England, was accurate down to the driveway. The interior, however, was completely invented, since the filmmakers were not allowed to explore inside. Production designer Ken Adam dreamed up a set full of tubular chrome and gold piled forty…
Tim McIntire gave his voice to the telepathic dog Blood in the post-apocalyptic science fiction movie A Boy and His Dog. Blood himself was played by Tiger of TV’s “The Brady Bunch” (ABC, 1969-74).
Producer Michael Todd, who filled Around the World in 80 Days (1956) with forty-four cameo stars, adopted the word “cameo” as a cinematic term for walk-on parts for well-known people.
The silent vamp, Theda Bara’s name was an anagram for “Arab Death.” She was born Theodosia Goodman.
Mike Todd, Jr., introduced the aromatic cinema gimmick Smell-O-Vision in 1960. Smells were directed at each individual theater seat through a tubing system activated by a “smell track” on the film. The only film made in Smell-O- Vision was Scent of Mystery. John Waters’s “Odorama” system, introduced with Polyester in 1981, used a more low-tech…
Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker directed Airplane! (1980). David and Jerry are brothers.