John Tartaglia
When his dreams of being a flamenco dancer or a cocktail waitress didn't pan out (hoop earrings are a bitch!), John Tartaglia settled on being a freelance idiot. This chosen path took him many places but, sadly, none that can be revealed here. He later wrote about theater and television for the Burlington County Times. John loves Joni Mitchell (with the fervor of an Elvis fan, but minus the velvet paintings), Stephen Sondheim, and sunshine on a cloudy day. Some of his favorite films are Splendor In The Grass, Ordinary People, Go, What's Up, Doc?, and The Purple Rose Of Cairo. John has worked at Movies Unlimited since 1984.
John's Posts
John Tartaglia | Staff Notes
Valley Of The Dolls was first a best-selling novel, then it became a box office smash, but the film version of Jacqueline Susann’s show-biz saga might be most famous for its dialogue being delivered with such unknowing campiness. Not since The Oscar with Stephen Boyd had so much emoting gone into something so deliciously bad. Barbara Parkins got top billing in the film after becoming famous on the nighttime soap Peyton Place. She wanted the meaty part of the doomed megastar Neely O'Hara (the role went to Patty Duke) and Parkins ended up as Anne Welles, the “good” girl from New England. Check out the extras on the DVD and you can see her Neely screen test. It’s god-awful and so much fun to watch! Dolls also starred the beautiful Sharon Tate as Jennifer, the girl with no talent, “just a body”. Susan Hayward replaced Judy Garland as Helen Lawson, a grande dame of the theater. Garland was supposedly fired for missing rehearsals and maybe this was one time the old adage "better late than never" does not apply. Parkins reveals on the DVD extras that she felt Garland was scared the Lawson role (fading star, growing older) was going to somehow mirror her own career. It was rumored that Susann based the Neely O'Hara character on Garland.
John Tartaglia | Staff Notes
These days made-for-TV movies on network and basic cable channels are relegated to the Lifetime network (television for women… and gay men) and mostly continue the practice of the “women in jeopardy” genre, often with "fatal" or "deadly" in the title. But the TV movie and mini-series were staples of network programming in the '60s and '70s, and they didn't just exist to provide work for Barbara Eden, Barbara Feldon, or Karen Valentine. They attracted movie stars (Bing Crosby in Dr. Cook’s Garden, Bette Davis in Madame Sin) and also let the small screen favorites of the day flex their acting chops in different kinds of roles (Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery in A Case Of Rape and The Legend of Lizzie Borden or Andy Griffith in Savages). Sometimes they were pilots for potential series (Kojak was spawned from The Marcus-Nelson Murders and Peter Falk’s detective Columbo came from Prescription: Murder). And sometimes they were just a fun ride (think Connie Stevens in Call Her Mom or Clint Walker battling an alien-controlled bulldozer in Killdozer).
George D. Allen, Irv Slifkin and John Tartaglia | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
This time out, "Movie Irv" has reviews of Sugar, Tyson, and Alien Trespass, plus a "groovy" tribute to Hal Ashby, lots of news about sci-fi and horror DVD releases, and more. Not to mention costume changes and props. Enjoy!
John Tartaglia | Staff Notes
Although it has recently been brought back to life (ironically) by the vampire saga True Blood, and maybe by the too-soon-to-tell Hung, HBO has lost a lot of cache since its days of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex And The City. Big Love has never gotten the big love it has deserved (Emmy nomination for Chloe Sevigny!) and Entourage seems stale. The It’s Not TV It’s HBO network passed on the AMC hit Mad Men and decided not to even show 12 Miles of Bad Road, starring Lily Tomlin and Mary Kay Place and executive produced by the team behind Designing Women.
John Tartaglia | Staff Notes
On the red carpet for his new film Public Enemies, Johnny Depp confirmed that the long planned big screen adaptation of the Gothic ‘60s soap opera Dark Shadows is going to happen with director Tim Burton at the helm. Depp will play Barnabas Collins, the tortured vampire of Collinwood. Anyone of a certain age (old!) remembers running home after school to catch the ghoul-filled 4 o’clock ABC show, Originally conceived as a suspense drama starring ‘30’ s and 40’s beauty siren Joan Bennett, the sudser was floundering in the ratings until executive producer Dan Curtis decided to go for broke and add a supernatural element. Jonathan Frid was cast as Barnabas Collins, a reluctant bloodsucker, and suddenly Curtis had the hottest show in daytime. The show spawned a fanatical following (myself included) and became a merchandiser’s dream. There were Dark Shadows cards, games, dolls, LP’s, books, a comic strip, fangs and endless magazine coverage especially ones geared to the teen market like 16, Tiger Beat and Flip. Later the show added David Selby as Quentin Collins, a werewolf, and it found itself with another teen heartthrob. (Frid, a middle-aged Shakespearean actor who had once shared a stage with Katharine Hepburn, was the most unlikely of sex symbols, but housewives couldn’t get enough of him).
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