Dean Stockwell was an American actor, internationally perhaps best-known for lip syncing “Blue Velvet” (1951) in Blue Velvet (1986) with a lamp shining on his face.
Tag Archives: American cinema
RIP Melvin Van Peebles (1932 – 2021)
Melvin Van Peebles was an American writer, actor and film director best known for his film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).
I would advise against watching that movie since it’s historically significant but just not very good.
Instead, I advise to watch Classified X (1998), a film on African-American cinema and the African-American representation in Hollywood.
RIP Robert Downey Sr. (1936 – 2021)
Robert Downey Sr. was an American film director and film person, father of Robert Downey Jr. He is known for having written and directed underground films such as Chafed Elbows (1966), almost entirely consisting of film stills; Putney Swope (1969), a satire on the New York Madison Avenue advertising world; and Greaser’s Palace (1972), an acid Western based on the life of Jesus. The films are typical of 1960s counterculture.
RIP Richard Donner (1930 – 2021)
Richard Donner was an American film director of blockbuster movies.
His film The Goonies (1985) featured a Rube Goldberg machine to open a gate. The cage of the chicken in that sequence bore the text: “RUBE G. 83”.
RIP Clare Peploe (1942 – 2021)
Clare Peploe was a British-Italian film director and screenwriter (Zabriskie Point, 1970).
Luck has it that there is a complete version of Zabriskie Point on YouTube.
RIP Ned “squeal like a pig” Beatty (1937 – 2021)
Ned Beatty was an American actor known for his parts in Deliverance (1972) and Network (1976).
Deliverance is known for its “dueling banjos” scene, its degenerate hillbilly trope and its brutal male-on-male rape, in which Ned Beatty is ordered to “squeal like a pig” while being anally raped.
In Network Beatty plays an executive who gives a speech on the nature of capitalism.
This is also a good time to call to mind that in the novel Deliverance on which the film of the same name is based, the dictum “there exists at the basis of human life a principle of insufficiency” by Georges Bataille, is used as epigraph in the original French.
RIP Tawny Kitaen (1961 – 2021)
Tawny Kitaen was an American actress and model.
She first came to my attention as the lead to The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak (1984).
To the world at large she is probably best-known for her parts in the Whitesnake videos, especially in the 1987 clip for the song “Here I Go Again” (1982). In that clip, she is seen cartwheeling across the hoods of two Jaguars XJ dressed in a white negligee.
RIP Monte Hellman (1929 – 2021)
Monte Hellman was an American film director known for his cult films.
I remember seeing Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) on the Moviedrome cult movies programme.
I’m fond of road movies and suddenly I am reminded of C’était un rendez-vous (1976) by Claude Lelouch, the short film that plays in Paris and where the race ends at the Sacré-Cœur.
Another road movie of particular interest is Vanishing Point (1971) with the unforgettable part of DJ Super Soul.
RIP Jessica Walter (1941 – 2021)
Jessica Walter was an American actress best known for Play Misty for Me (1971) in which she was Evelyn Draper, an obsessed female fan of a radio disc jockey played by Clint Eastwood.
RIP George Segal (1934 – 2021)
George Segal was an American actor best-known for his portrayal of Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), the man who admits he aims to charm and sleep his way to the top in this film that celebrates love gone awry.