Film

‘Wherever you go …’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

W.D. Richter has so far directed only two films in his long film making career; neither was a hit. In the 1970s and ’80s, he was one of Hollywood’s more successful screenwriters, authoring films in several genres, from sci-fi to adventure.

A movie a year was made from his scripts from 1976 to 1982, and several were huge hits that are still fondly remembered: the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” starring Donald Sutherland, “Dracula” starring Frank Langella (Richter adapted the stage play), “Brubaker” with Robert Redford. His most recent film listed on IMDB is a movie from 2005 called “Stealth” starring Jessica Biel.
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Fly Away Home

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Fairy tales and superstitions come down to us from the past like hearsay. “They say Mother Goose used to sing this to her grandchildren: ‘Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home …'”

Who the heck is this Mother Goose? And why are her stories and rhymes so apocalyptic? “Your house is on fire and your children … .” Sheesh.
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‘A Conversation with Cary Grant’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Starting in the mid-1980s, Cary Grant toured in a one-man question-and-answer show, “A Conversation with Cary Grant,” in which he spent ninety minutes or so answering questions from audience members. Several other movie stars and celebrities have since taken on similar productions in which they and their fans bask in an accepted and reflected adoration— Gregory Peck, for one—but Grant was the first. The show was an extended, and deserved, curtain call from beginning to end.

One cool feature to Grant’s tour was that it visited theaters in which he had performed during his vaudeville years in the 1920s. Thus it was that in April 1985 I found myself sitting in the balcony of the small (1500 seat) Ulster Performing Arts Center (UPAC) in Kingston, NY, a stage on which he had performed. I was 16 and a movie nerd and Cary Grant was my idol.
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