FILM 1904: THE WITCHES

FILM 1904: THE WITCHES

TRIVIA: After a test screening, Roald Dahl angrily expressed to the producers how "appalled" he was at "the vulgarity, the bad taste" and "actual terror" in certain parts of the film. Dahl demanded his name and the title be removed from the film prior to release, but after receiving an apologetic, complimentary letter from Jim Henson, Dahl grudgingly withdrew his threat.

Most of the witches in the meeting are men in women's clothing.

Felicity Dahl has stated that Roald Dahl never again requested someone for a role in his book after the producers of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) denied his request to cast Spike Milligan as the title character. But he was ecstatic when Anjelica Huston was cast as the Grand High Witch, as she had been Dahl's personal favorite for the role.

It took Anjelica Huston eight hours of make up time to transform into "The Grand High Witch".

The last film Jim Henson personally oversaw.

The German title is "Hexen hexen", which literally means "Witches practice witchcraft".

Cher, Eartha Kitt, Fiona Fullerton, Geneviève Bujold, Anne Bancroft, Olivia Hussey, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Blair, Faye Dunaway, Susan Sarandon, Jodie Foster, Vanessa Redgrave, Frances Conroy, and Liza Minnelli were all at some point considered for the part of The Grand High Witch prior to Anjelica Huston's casting. Huston's casting later satisfied Dahl.

BOOK 125: OF MICE AND MEN: JOHN STEINBECK

Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in California, United States.

Based on Steinbeck's own experiences as a bindlestiff in the 1920s (before the arrival of the Okies he would vividly describe in The Grapes of Wrath), the title is taken from Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse", which read: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." (The best laid schemes of mice and men / Often go awry.)

Required reading in many schools, Of Mice and Men has been a frequent target of censors for vulgarity and what some consider offensive and racist language; consequently, it appears on the American Library Association's list of the Most Challenged Books of 21st Century.

The first film adaptation was in 1939, two years after the publication of the novella, and starred Lon Chaney Jr. as Lennie, with Burgess Meredith as George, and was directed by Lewis Milestone. It was nominated for four Oscars.

In popular culture:

The Warner Bros. cartoon duo Pinky and the Brain (of Animaniacs fame) are somewhat similar to Lennie and George.

In Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) two of the gremlins are named Lenny and George, after the characters of the book. They both have the same personalities as the characters Lennie and George from the novel, and are often seen together.

In Fever Pitch (1997), Paul Ashworth (Colin Firth) claims that getting a boy to read Of Mice And Men is the pinnacle of his career, and it will only go downhill from then on.

John Leguizamo sings (or raps) "Which way did he go, George; which way did he go?" on his song "Voodoo Mambo", as does Tupac Shakur on "Can't C Me" (Can't See Me).

Katy Perry references the novella in her song "Pearl": This love's too strong like "Mice and Men" / Squeezing out the life that should be let in.

In Stephen King's serial novel The Green Mile (1996), John Coffey (played by Michael Clarke Duncan in the 1999 film) is similar to Lennie in that he is large, unintelligent, and innocent at heart. In both stories, mice fall into their care at some point and ultimately, at the time of their deaths, both Lennie and John Coffey were executed in the most compassionate way possible under the circumstances that occur in both novels.

In the season 3 episode of the sitcom Friends titled "The One with a Chick and a Duck" (1997), Joey is playing with a little chicken. Chandler alludes to Of Mice and Men by saying, "Easy, Lennie", to Joey. This was written in the subtitles, "Easy Lenny", by misunderstanding.

Film 823: The Rescuers

Trivia: Evinrude the dragonfly, who pushes a small boat in the film, is named after a manufacturer of outboard boat motors.

The film was one of the last Walt Disney classics to be animated by members of Walt Disney's "nine old men".

Many crazy sound "instruments" were used in the recording of the "Rescue Aid Society" song, including a toy piano.

This was the first Walt Disney animated feature to inspire a sequel.

Early in story development, Bernard and Bianca were supposed to be rescuing a poet much older than Penny from a gloomy prison. This idea was scrapped since the directors decided that it was just not working.

HIDDEN MICKEY: A Mickey Mouse watch hangs on the wall in the Rescue Aid Society mouse organization building.

The Rescue Aid Society honors their founder, Euripedes Mouse, who removed a tiny needle from a ferocious lion's paw, a clear reference to the classic Aesop fable, "The Mouse and the Lion."

The last Disney animated classic film to receive an Oscar nomination until The Little Mermaid, twelve years later.

Originally, the Rescue Aid Society was to be placed in a hole somewhere, until the idea of a luggage bag in the basement of the United Nations building came up.

When Miss Bianca enters the Rescue Aid Society's headquarters, she takes her seat as the delegate representing Hungary. Eva Gabor (the voice talent for Miss Bianca) was born in Budapest, Hungary.

In the scene where Penny is seen carrying Rufus the cat off to supper, Penny grabs Rufus and uncomfortably carries him off in her arms, pushing him up with her knee as he begins to slip. Ollie Johnston, who animated this scene, explained that he did this in order to show the tender affection between Penny and Rufus, by having the cat be too fond of Penny to complain, since it would have been easier for Penny to walk away and have Rufus follow her.

The talking animals in this film can communicate not only with other animal species but also with human children who bother to begin conversation with them. The 1977 "Disney's Wonderful World of Reading" picture book based on the film revealed that the reason Rufus had not told of Penny's fate to another child at Morningside Orphanage was because no child or adult had bothered to ask him. It is unknown whether Rufus could have spoken to a human child without being talked to first, or if he could talk to grown-ups at all.

The popularity of the film almost led to a spin-off TV-series in 1989; however, when the animation department green-lit its sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, the project was scrapped. The series was still made, but Bernard and Miss Bianca were replaced with Chip and Dale, and the series was called Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers.

Fans of Walt Disney animation, and animation in general, have often mistakenly referred to the sometimes "sketchy" style in this film, as well as in others such as The Sword in the Stone and The AristoCats as "lazy" and budget-cut. In fact, the veteran animators working on these films, particularly Milt Kahl, strongly objected to their drawings being altered in any way and demanded that they should appear on the film's animation cels exactly as they had been drawn.

The VHS version of the film was recalled by Disney in 1999 due to an inserted image of a topless woman, which appears about 38 minutes into the movie, as Bernard and Bianca fly through the city.

Madame Medusa's fiery red dress and hair and Penny's light blue overalls use their color to contrast the theme of good and innocence against evil. This use of color for personification was later used in other Walt Disney Company films such as Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

This is the very first Disney animated classic film to feature a small prologue prior to the start of the opening credits; the credits are thus attached into the storyline as they are shown over images describing the journey of Penny's bottle. Madame Medusa is also the first Disney villain to affect the flow of the story from the very start of the film.