The first American serial was the groundbreaking 12-reel What Happened to Mary? (1912), a production of Thomas A. Edison's Company, that starred Mary Fuller (the first true serial queen), and was released concurrently with the serial story "What Happened to Mary?" in McClure's Ladies' World Magazine. Each film chapter was released simultaneously with the corresponding story in the magazine, one story per month, beginning July 26th, 1912. The series was followed with the six-episode Who Will Marry Mary? (1913), and with another twelve episode series, The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies (1914).

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The Marx Brothers' greatest and funniest masterpiece - the classic comedy Duck Soup (1933) is a short, but brilliant satire and lampooning of blundering dictatorial leaders, Fascism and authoritarian government. The film, produced by Herman Mankiewicz, was prepared during the crisis period of the Depression. Some of its clever gags and routines were taken from Groucho's and Chico's early 1930s radio show Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel. Working titles for the film included Oo La La, Firecrackers, Grasshoppers, and Cracked Ice.

It was the Marx Brothers' fifth film in a five-picture contract with Paramount Studios, before they went on to MGM. It was their last and best film with the studio. The film was directed by first-class veteran director Leo McCarey (who would go on to direct The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939), Going My Way (1944), and An Affair to Remember (1957) - a remake of his 1939 film), and its screenplay was written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby (with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin). Originally, it was to have been directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The film was devoid of any Academy Award nominations.

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The iconoclastic, not-politically-correct Blazing Saddles (1974) is one of Mel Brooks' funniest, most successful and most popular films. It is an unsubtle spoof or parody of all the cliches from the time-honored genre of westerns, similar to the comic attitude of numerous Marx Brothers films. Brooks' third feature film tagline blurb advertised: "Blazing Saddles...or never give a saga an even break!" Notice in the film's poster, the gold coin is inscribed: "HI, I'M MEL. TRUST ME."

The crude, racist and sexist film with toilet humor and foul language includes the main elements of any western - a dance-hall girl, a gunslinger, a sheriff, a town full of pure folk, and more, but it twists them around. So they become a black sheriff, a racist town, a sex-obsessed Governor, and so forth. In addition, there are other anachronistic elements - Hedley Lamarr (a misnaming of actress Hedy Lamarr), hints of the seductive character Frenchy (played by Marlene Dietrich) in Destry Rides Again (1939), a medieval executioner, a Cole Porter song, redneck bigotry of all flavors, and a 'film-within-a-film' concept, exemplified by Lamarr exclaiming: "Drive me off this picture."

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Short who-dun-its in the 1930s and 40s featured the B-movie, Canton-born, Honolulu-based Oriental sleuth Charlie Chan, derived from Earl Derr Biggers' works, and based on real-life Hawaiian cop Chang Apana (very unlike the movie version). The round-faced, meticulous sleuth was one of the screen's most prolific detectives, with 46 Chan films and one serial from 1926 to 1949. [Charlie Chan was never played on the screen by a Chinese actor.]

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Fairbanks, in the silent era, was succeeded by the dashing Australian actor Errol Flynn - the major swashbuckling male star of the 30s and early 40s adventure films in the sound era. His first of many historical, costume adventure films was director Michael Curtiz' Captain Blood (1935) about an Irish surgeon named Dr. Peter Blood who was charged with treason, sold into slavery, and ultimately became a buccaneer in the Caribbean. This was Flynn's first film (of eight features) with a young and lovely 19 year-old Olivia de Havilland, and the film featured the first original film score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Flynn played a 19th century British army officer stationed in India in the military swashbuckler The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and he portrayed Sherwood Forest's 12th century legendary outlaw in the three Oscar-winning The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). The latter was his most popular film and the quintessential adventure-tale swashbuckler about the Robin Hood legend. The Technicolor film was noted for the lengthy swordfight in Nottingham Castle between Flynn and Basil Rathbone (as Sir Guy of Gisbourne), and Flynn's love for leading lady Olivia de Havilland.

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Cast:
Adam Johnson
Brad Johnson (III)
Maclain Nelson

Review:

Being a self professed horror comedy hater it pisses me off that these damn things are winning me over. First we had the way better than it should have been Tucker and Dale Vs Evil charm my pants off, (Burn those damn photos of me, T & D!) and now we have Orcs once again putting a coochie eating grin right on my face. Dont get me wrong its not quite as good as T.A.D.V.E but it still had its own charm that coddled me just right. Take note directors, having some cool interesting characters goes a long way in making a movie enjoyable. Even if you have a crappy unoriginal story, but you like the characters, then that makes up for a lot.


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Starring Ulrich Tukur
Daniel Brühl
Steve Buscemi
Anne Consigny
Jingchu Zhang

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Cast:

Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Liev Schreiber, Deborah Unger, John Hannah, Dan Hedaya, Clancy Brown, David Paymer, Rod Steiger

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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra writers David Elliot and Paul Lovett sold their pitch of an action fantasy about stone gargoyles on buildings coming to life to Disney.

Download G.I. Joe Writers Take on GARGOYLES For Disney!