Opening Credits I Love: Flight of the Phoenix

On this day, December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright powered a heavier-than-air airplane and made it fly. On December 15, 1965, Flight of the Phoenix (d. Robert Aldrich) premiered, starring a plane that hits the ground before the credits are even finished. And that opening credits sequence is among my favorites in the annals of movie history. The freeze-framing on each actor as his name appears on the screen, the anguished screams from the men as things fall on them, the heightened looks of concern on their faces harking back to the silent era and the musical score punching in a cue for each new action all work in concert to produce a kind of festival of cheese that came to be standard for most of the action movies of the era where the actors in character are shown (either at the start of the movie or its finish) rather than simply scrolling the names up the screen. At some point they stopped doing credits this way, right around the time Burt Reynolds turned credit rolls into blooper reels with the Cannonball Run movies, but I sure wish they'd bring them back.



During the filming, Jimmy Stewart had a birthday and also marked his 70th film appearance with the lead role. The cast and crew made sure Stewart got a party and presents for his trouble.

Opening Credits I Love:The Astro Zombies

This past weekend while everyone was out of the house going about their weekend duties, activities and errands, the youngest and I sat down with the laptop and took in The Astro Zombies on Netflix Instant. She loved it, especially the opening credits (well, actually, especially the astro zombie running around holding a flashlight to his head but after that, the credits). If you're not familiar with Ted V. Mikels, the writer, producer, director of The Astro Zombies, or his work, you can do no better than reading this wonderful piece penned by Kimberly Lindbergs for my Ed Wood Blogathon last July. In the meantime please enjoy this amazing opening credit sequence which blasts onto the screen without warning after the pre-credit zombie killer sequence. And when I say "blasts" I mean it, audio-wise. It's loud so if you're at work you might want to turn the volume down a tad. Enjoy.

Opening Scenes I Love:Persona

This lead-in to the credits of Ingmar Bergman's 1967 Persona has always reminded me of the closing of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Persona's opening the central character is a young boy in white pristine surroundings finally reaching out from his bed to a giant screen holding the faces of Bibi Anderson and Liv Ullmann. In the 2001's closing the central character is an old man in white pristine surroundings finally reaching out from his bed to a giant monolith, alone and silent in the middle of his room. Was Kubrick influenced by Bergman here or are the similarities just in my head? Probably the latter. Still, this opening sequence, truncated here to just the lead-in and credits, is one of my favorites. Thanks and enjoy.

Opening Credits I Love:Bunny Lake is Missing

Everyone seems to have a favorite Saul Bass opening credit sequence. Lord knows, the man did so many and with so much ingenuity it's easy to see why so many claim his credit sequences as their favorites but it also presents the problem of which one to choose. With such credit sequences as Vertigo, Anatomy of a Murder, North by Northwest and Walk on the Wild Side on his resume it's a veritable cornucopia of title sequences from which to choose. And while it's hard to deny those, especially that slinking black cat from Walk on the Wild Side, I have to go with Bunny Lake is Missing for my own personal favorite.

One of the factors in my choice, aside from the obvious, which is to say the fantastic tearing away motif, is probably that I like Bunny Lake more than Walk on the Wild Side what with its twists and turns, Keir Dullea on the swingset and Noel Coward in one of the most entertaining supporting performances of the sixties. And of course there's Laurence Olivier, walking through all of it with his kitchen sink accent, the kind he used in his cameo in The Magic Box or in his role of Archie Rice in The Entertainer, the kind where he tries to sound as if he isn't completely refined and sort of succeeds. And I'm not being derisive, I love Olivier's kitchen sink accent, even if it never quite pulls off the deception. It has a wonderfully rugged flatness about it that's entertaining just to listen to.

Back to the credits. I love them enough that they even inspired one of my favorite banners of the nearly 400 I've made here at Cinema Styles, this one here. Anyway, enough of this talk. The credits speak for themselves... and here they are.

Opening Scenes I Love:Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

And now for the second in the series, Opening Credits I Love. For this edition we have Martin Scorsese's 1974 Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, not a film most people think of when they think of Scorsese but another great entry nonetheless in his stunning succession of films that started with Mean Streets in 1973 and ran through King of Comedy in 1983. Watching it again this week I realized that so many Scorsese films have superb opening title sequences. Think about the cab moving through the smoke and steam rising up from hell at the beginning of Taxi Driver or the beautiful image of Jake LaMotta, alone in the ring, shadow-boxing, in the opening of Raging Bull. Whatever you may think of the movies, and I think highly of them, those opening title sequences are marvelous. But here, in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, we have my favorite of all Scorsese's openings.

It begins in Academy aspect ratio rather than widescreen as the music and blue satin background emulate the starry-eyed showbiz tales of old. After the titles themselves comes Scorsese's version of Dorothy's Kansas, except it's in color with a Gone With the Wind tinted red sky throughout. Alice as a child strolls along the landscape singing and despite the lack of appreciation she feels she gets, she knows she will be a star. Only little Alice's language betrays the rustic nostalgia on display, purposefully, and helps jolt the viewer forward in time to the present where, aided by Mott the Hoople's All the Way from Memphis and a sweeping crane shot (GWTW again?) that beautifully makes majestic the ordinary, we find the grown-up Alice at a sewing machine (Singer?), presumably having never succeeded in becoming a big-time entertainer. It's a fantastic introduction to the character and the story and it's one of my favorite opening credit sequences. Enjoy.



At Unexplained Cinema, the dark side of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Opening Credits I Love:My Man Godfrey

This isn't another edition of The Land Before CGI but it could be. Instead it's another series I've built up video for and would like to share. Favorite opening credits sequences have been discussed on movie blogs for as long as I can remember so this is nothing new but now with software that makes it so easy to grab the credits and post them I figured, "Why not?" I'll start it off with My Man Godfrey.

Like I said, it could be another edition to The Land Before CGI because it employs miniatures for its opening credits and finishes on a photograph of the first frame of the movie proper that it can dissolve into to get the story rolling. It's a great title sequence. Enjoy.



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BTW, I plan on doing some reviews of new movies next week including a couple of independent releases so I'll hope you'll check in often.