I had a great post in mind for tonight about Hope Hicks and Delta Airlines, but, as I figure this might be our last big snowfall of the winter, I’ve decided instead to just sit in front of the fireplace with a glass of scotch and watch Boris Karloff in Targets.
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Solid choice. I’m working extremely ineffectively.
It’s a great movie. Very much ahead of its time, as it deals with mass shootings and the like in 1968. (It was clearly inspired by the murder of 14 at the University of Texas in 1966.) If I had more time, I’d start a club where we could discuss books and movies. Targets would definitely be on the list.
I’ve actually written to Peter Bogdanovich before, requesting an interview about this film. He never wrote back. (The reason I’m interested has nothing to do with the subject matter, by the way. I just find the constraints put on Bogdanovich by the producer, Roger Corman, absolutely fascinating. I don’t have time to get into it here, but it’s really an interesting story.)
I was six months old when Targets was released.
Constraints make for great art.
I believe that Bogdanovich talks about the making of Targets at length on the WTF podcast and Corman as well on a different episode of the same podcast. Also the You Must Remember This podcast has a series on Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff that is worth checking out. I think it covers Targets as well. It’s high up on my list of movies to check out.
I now have a projector and so do many of my friends. Maybe we should start doing a series of screenings and you know, get out of the house or at least travel to one another’s. I find my kids, like the rest of us, are better able to watch movies with focus in a darkened room with the gentle whir of a projector, even video.
Yes, Max. It’s in episode six of the “Bela and Boris” season of You Must Remember This. And it’s very good.
http://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/episodes/2017/11/20/bela-and-boris-episode-6-boris-karloff-and-roger-corman
“Where Bela Lugosi lived his last decade in sad obscurity, Boris Karloff worked until the very end of his life, even as his body began to fall apart. Some of that work was for Roger Corman, the extremely prolific independent genre film producer whose movies helped to define the generation gap in the 1960’s, while serving as a training ground for the next generation of auteurs. Karloff’s and Corman’s finest collaboration, Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut Targets, would serve as a bridge between cinematica eras, paying tribute to Karloff and his long career while depicting events that were shockingly of-the-moment–and still relevant today. Featuring Patton Oswalt as Boris Karloff and Rian Johnson as Roger Corman. “
“It was complicated, how it all came about. Roger was owed two days work by Boris Karloff, and he asked me if I would take on the assignment of shooting 20 minutes with Karloff in two days, taking 20 minutes of Karloff footage from a previous film, The Terror, and then shooting with other actors for 10 days to shoot another 40 minutes, so I’d have a new 80-minute Karloff film. That was how it started out, which was not very promising. But we came up with some good ideas, and eventually wrote a script Roger liked a lot, and ended up getting Karloff for three more days. So we had Boris for five days, for a total of 23 days, shooting for $130,000. It created a career for me, even though it didn’t make a lot of money—a lot of people saw it, and it got good reviews, generally speaking, and it made it possible for me to make The Last Picture Show.” – Peter Bogdanovich
What kind of scotch?
Glenmorangie. The same stuff I took to MPT’s Cleveland session, Dan.
If they ever do a remake, Matt Damon was made for the Tim O’Kelly role.
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