James Garner appeared in Twilight (1998), a noirish detective thriller starring Paul Newman, Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon. The movie was released by Paramount Pictures, the same studio that later released Twilight (2008), about a young girl becoming infatuated with a vampire.
Gene Hackman lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was discharged a corporal in 1951 after five years’ service as a field radio operator. In his long acting career, he played a Marine sergeant in First to Fight (1967), a Polish general in A Bridge Too Far (1977), an American major serving in the French Foreign Legion in March or Die (1977), a Marine colonel in Uncommon Valor (1983), an Air Force lieutenant colonel in Bat 21 (1988), an Army sergeant in The Package (1989) and a Navy captain in Crimson Tide (1995), among other military-related roles.
Here is Gene Hackman’s USMC picture —
In play —
Until the 1980s, Corporals were the lowest USMC rank eligible to be Drill Instructors for training recruits in boot camp. The rank of Lance Corporal, one rank below Corporal, is unique to the Marine Corps. It is the most commonly held rank in the Marines, and it has been used since the Indian Wars of the 1830s.
Because of its large population, large fangs. propensity to defend itself and the strength of its venom, the fer-de-lance (Bothrops asper) is considered by most to be the deadliest snake in the Western Hemisphere.
Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout is the first Nero Wolfe detective novel. It was published in 1934.
The dire wolf is an extinct species of canine native to the Americas about 10,000 years ago. In 1988 attempts were made to selectively breed dogs to present a dire wolf-like appearance and sell them to private owners.
Dire wolves were the pets of the Stark children in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones books. Google AI tells me (lightly edited), “The Stark dire wolves’ names are Grey Wind, Lady, Nymeria, Shaggydog, Summer and Ghost. These names are associated with the six Stark children: Robb, Sansa, Arya, Rickon, Bran and Jon Snow, respectively.”
The Shaggy Dog was a Disney movie starring Tommy Kirk sbout a man who turned into a sheepdog due to an magic ring.
Capt. James T. Kirk never married under Federation law. He was briefly, while suffering amnesia, married to a native woman, Miramanee, in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “The Paradise Syndrome.”
In the second pilot (the first one with James Kirk) Where No Man Has Gone Before, Kirk’s tombstone reads James R. Kirk.
Personal opinion, related to topic: With hindsight, always 20-20, it would’ve been awesome if Kirk had told Spock and Bones that he knew Mitchell wasn’t omniscient, and so he could be beaten, when he saw the tombstone reading “James R. Kirk”. Spock or Bones would ask why, and Bones or Spock would reply, “His middle name is Tiberius.”
Back in play: The first Star Trek pilot was called “The Cage”, and parts of it were later included in the episode “The Menagerie”. The first episode to air was “The Man Trap”.
The Parent Trap was a 1961 film about a pair of identical twins who had been separated shortly after their birth as a result of their parents’ divorce. After being reunited at summer camp, they scheme to switch places in an effort to reunite their mother and father. Hayley Mills starred as both twins, and Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith played the parents. The film was a huge box-office success, grossing over 9 million dollars in the USA. (Big money in 1961).
A remake of the movie was released in 1998, starring Lindsay Lohan as the twins.
Two actors known for being Disney staples are Hayley Mills and Dean Jones. That Darn Cat was Mills’ last film for Disney and Jones’ first film for Disney.
Disney made several live-action movies featuring a house cat:
- Homeward Bound
- Homeward Bound II
- That Darn Cat (1965)
- That Darn Cat (1997)
- The Three Lives of Thomasina
- The Cat from Outer Space
Ooo, I like that!
In play:
In his January 20, 1965 Inaugural Address, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves in a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene that is different from our own.” He was referring to the Mariner 4 mission, which flew by Mars on July 14 and 15 of that year, providing the first images of another planet ever captured in deep space.
One of the best examples of analog horror is Local 58TV. One of there videos is titled Contingency about the announcement Lyndon B. Johnson would have made had our enemy defeated us.
Remember the 3 "F"s.
In case the Germans had been able to repel the D-Day landings and the Allies had not been able to establish a beachhead in Normandy, General Dwight D. Eisenhower had a letter prepared for release in which he assumed all responsibility for the failure of the assault.
As we now know, the landings were a resounding success and the letter – now a part of the National Archives – is just a side-note to history.
-“BB”-
The Parent Trap, mentioned above, is based on a 1949 children’s book by German author Emil Erich Kästner. While he’s best known for another of his children’s books, Emil and the Detectives, Kästner also wrote anti-war works and was interrogated by the Gestapo. The Nazis burned his books as “contrary to the German spirit” and had his name on a list of authors to be killed before the Soviets entered Berlin; he and several others were warned and fled to Austria. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in six separate years.
Disney also made a movie based on Emil and the Detectives, in 1964, three years after The Parent Trap.
Emil is the name of one of the “Little Men”, students at Plumfield Academy in Louisa May Alcott’s novel of the same name, a sequel to her more famous work Little Women.