Hot Date with Dan and Vicky

After Italian producers balked at director Enzo Castellari's idea to remake The Dirty Dozen, he raised the money himself and hired American B-movie titans Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson to lead a group of military prisoners across Nazi German territory (really the backlots of Cinecitta and surrounding areas) on a trek to freedom into Switzerland.  In 1978's The Inglorious Bastards, Castellari uses...

Michael Sarnoski, director of the recent summer horror hit A Quiet Place: Day One, made his feature directorial debut with 2021's Pig starring Nicolas Cage and Alex Wolff.  Pig is the story of a withdrawn farmer living in the Oregon woods with his trusted and lucrative truffle pig.  When the pig is kidnapped, Cage's character embarks on a journey to find it and also maybe himself.  The producers d...

After winning the Oscar in 1948 for best actress in Johnny Belinda, Jane Wyman had her pick of projects and leading men.  She chose the winning comedy Three Guys Named Mike in 1951 because of it's potential box office appeal and the chance to try her skills in a different genre.  Her supporting cast of Mikes included Van Johnson, Howard Keel and Barry Sullivan.   Dan and Vicky discuss the film whe...

Hot Date has reached another tenth episode and that means a Top Ten extravaganza of movie memories and memorable moments.  This time Dan and Vicky discuss their favorite Moms and Dads from film across the ages.  The mission was accepted differently by your co-hosts so you're getting an eclectic list of perfect and imperfect parents.  Dan, of course, found his choices mostly from the horror genre a...

A star studded cast joins Guy Ritchie regular Jason Statham in Revolver, the British auteur's violent meditation on the Ego and revenge.  Ray Liotta, Andre Benjamin, Mark Strong, Vincent Pastore and Francesca Annis are all members of warring crime syndicates with Statham as the ex-con caught in the center.  Ritchie was ultimately unhappy with the theatrical version and reinstated and rearranged ma...

In 1944's Christmas Holiday, Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly, both known for their achievements in musical comedies, were cast against type as a lounge singer with a sordid past and her abusive husband respectively.  Audiences seemed to be ready for the change as Christmas Holiday, directed by stylist Robert Siodmak and based on a W. Somerset Maugham story, quickly became one of Universal's most succ...

Alan Alda plays George Plimpton in Paper Lion, the 1968 film based on Plimpton's book of the same title.  The book and film chronicle his attempt at joining the Detroit Lions during pre-season training for a story in Sports Illustrated.  Several real life football players appear as themselves in the film inlcuding Alex Karras (who starred two more times on film with Alda in Springtime and M*A*S*H*...

When Francis Ford Coppola hired German auteur Wim Wenders to direct his first American film, little did he suspect the difficulty that film would have getting to screens.  The movie was Hammett, a fictionalized account of the mystery writer Dasheill Hammett's second career as a private investigator.  In real life, Hammett stuck to penning noirs but in Wenders' film he's enlisted to solve the disap...

1952's Stolen Face was an early Hammer Films production.  The British studio, which would later become synonymous with thrillers and horror films, also churned out it's fair share of melodramas and comedies. This film, about a heartbroken plastic surgeon who physically transforms a prisoner into the woman who jilted him, stars Lizabeth Scott, Paul Henreid, Andre Morell and Mary Mackenzie and set t...

Actor Ray Liotta was coming off crtitical acclaim for his star making turn in Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas and was looking for a vehicle that would turn him into a bonafide movie star.  For others that path was paved by action movies so Liotta signed on to 1994's No Escape hoping it would catapult him to international acclaim.  As the stoic, brooding J. T. Robbins, Liotta was able to not only show...

1974's The Tamarind Seed was considered a departure for star Julie Andrews.  After a break to raise her family, Andrews was looking for a role that would reintroduce her to audiences in a new light.  As the 70's were rife with political and paranoid thrillers, she jumped at the chance to play Judith Farrow - a woman reeling from personal tragedy who gets embroiled in a Cold War bait and switch.  I...

1939's horror comedy The Gorilla was meant to be another 20th Century Fox showcase for the talents of The Ritz Brothers - three Newark born and Brooklyn raised brothers snatched from vaudeville by the studio in hopes they would bring Marx Brothers or Three Stooges size audiences.  The film, however, was plagued with false starts, lawsuits and bad blood.  It's failure effectively ended the trio's t...

A very special episode of the Hot Date Podcast with Dan & Vicky.  There's drama, there's tears, there's nausea inducing popcorn.  And, oh yeah, a movie to discuss.  This time it's 2000's Cornwall shot Saving Grace starring Brenda Blethyn and Craig Ferguson in the charming tale of a woman on the verge of bankruptcy with a plan to save her home by growing weed.   But truth be told, the movie isn't r...

We've reached another tenth podcast which means Dan and Vicky give you their Top Ten! This time, your hosts are counting down to their favorite top ten creepy performances! Man, woman and children are eligible.  Try and guess which actor appears on both lists, which actor has two performances highlighted.  What made-for-TV film makes the list!?  Have a listen and see if you agree.  Send us some of...

Italian horror director Lucio Fulci's 1988 Aenigma seems to have been inspired by films as varied as Carrie and Patrick, with a dash of Argento madness and 80's slasher thrown in for good measure.  Shot in Serbia standing in for Boston, the film features make up effects by Guiseppe Ferrante, cinematography from Luigi Ciccarese and a score by Carlo Maria Cordio. Dan and Vicky discuss the film along...

Take a trip on decommissioned Streetcar 133 in Luis Bunuel's surreal and sweet 1954 film Illusion Travels By Streetcar (La Ilusión Vaja en Tranvía).  When two mechanics learn their favorite streetcar is being taken off the line for good, they take it for one last drunken joyride that turns into an existential examination of life in a big city.  The film stars Carlos Navarro and Fernando Soto as th...

1954's Sleep, My Love was an early directorial effort from German born emigre Douglas Sirk.  Sirk would later become recognized as an auteur - by, of course, the French - for his work with melodramas (Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows).  Sleep, My Love, starring Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings, Don Ameche and Hazel Brooks, was his attempt at a domestic thriller. Dan and Vicky discus...

Actors Griffin Dunne, Mark Metcalf, and Amy Robinson were looking for film projects for their fledgling production company and all agreed that Ann Beattie's novel Chilly Scenes of Winter was ripe for adaptation.  Indie director Joan Micklin Silver came on board with John Heard and Mary Beth Hurt leading the cast.  The film struggled at the box office in 1979 under the new United Artists imposed ti...

Mike White's (White Lotus, Enlightened, Chuck and Buck) directorial debut Year of the Dog tells the story of Peggy Spade, a mild mannered people pleaser who's life is upended when she loses her dog Pencil in a poisoning accident.  Or was it an accident?  Molly Shannon plays Peggy with a strong supporting cast that includes Peter Saarsgard, John C. Reilly, Regina King, Laura Dern, Josh Pais and Tom...

Dan and Vicky head back to the old west for a Gunfight at the OK Corral.  The 1957 film directed by John Sturges and starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas tells the oft told tale of the legendary, albeit short, gun battle between the Earps and the Clantons and the violence, greed and passions that lead up to it.   In a wide ranging conversation, your hosts talk about the recent actors strike, D...

1985's Crimewave was the sophmore effort for Evil Dead director Sam Raimi, actor and producer Bruce Campbell and producer Bob Tapert.  The film started as the script The XYZ Murders by Joel and Ethan Coen.  Raimi and genre friendly production company Avco-Embassy agreed the script was a winner and started shooting on a 2.5 million dollar budget.  And that's when the problems started.  With really...

1963's Shock Corridor was director/writer/provocateur Sam Fuller's depiction of the search for truth in a hostile society bent on obfuscating and distorting it.  Set in a mental institution, Fuller's story of a Boston Globe journalist who gets himself committed to solve a murder gets at the hypocrisy and violence that can occur when that search butts up against racism, sexism and preservation of t...

At a time when there was considerable United States naivete and even support around Hitler's domination of Europe, Warner Bros. took the calculated risk of releasing the fervently antifascist 1943 film adaptation of Lillian Helman's Tony award winning play Watch on the Rhine.   Aiding them in delivering the important message was outspoken liberal Bette Davis, Hungarian born leading man Paul Lukas...

We're back with another Top Ten!  Every tenth show we try to pick a fun and engaging topic that'll yield a list of our favorite top tens.  This time it's Top Ten remakes.  Vicky's criteria was films that are better or just as good as the original.  Dan didn't really stick to that criteria as you'll hear but the lists are eclectic, cover several genres and span the globe!  Have a listen, enjoy and...

Dan and Vicky discuss the 1998 Canadian psychological thriller Pin from writer/director Sandor Stern starring David Hewlett, Cynthia Preston, Terry O'Quinn and the voice of Breaking Bad actor Jonathan Banks.   Stern is most famous for penning The Amityville Horror from 1979. Your hosts discuss the cult favorite along with plenty of recently seen including the horror docuseries In Search of Darknes...