- Crack In The Mirror Movie 1988 Movie
- The Mirror Crack'd
- Crack In The Mirror Movie 1988 Movie
- Crack In The Mirror Movie
| Million Dollar Mystery | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Richard Fleischer |
| Produced by | Stephen F. Kesten |
| Written by |
|
| Starring | |
| Music by | Al Gorgoni |
| Cinematography | Jack Cardiff |
| Edited by | John W. Wheeler |
| Distributed by | De Laurentiis Entertainment Group |
Release date | June 12, 1987 |
| 95 minutes | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million[1] |
| Box office | $989,033[2] |
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Million Dollar Mystery (also known as Money Mania) is a 1987 American film released with a promotional tie-in for Glad-Lock brand bags. This was the final feature-length film directed by Richard Fleischer.It starred an ensemble cast of 'America's new comic talent'. The film was largely inspired by Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Dar Robinson, a stuntman, died on November 21, 1986 after riding his motorcycle off a cliff while attempting to do a stunt.
Plot[edit]
Sidney Preston, a disgruntled White House aide, takes off with $4 million that belonged to the government. While on the run, he stops at a roadside diner in Arizona and has their world-famous chili,while flirting with the waitress. Two clumsy government spies named Fred and Bob are looking for Sidney. Sidney suffers a fatal heart attack and before dying asks for a kiss from the waitress, then he reveals to the onlookers the location of the first million dollars which he says is 'In the city of the bridge'.The onlookers are The Briggs Family (Stuart, Barbara, and Howie),nerdy newlyweds Rollie and Lollie, amateur singer Crush and his group of three blonde back up dancers (Faith, Hope, and Charity), brother/cook Tugger and sister/waitress Dotty. Soon, they meet professional wrestlers Bad Boris and Awful Abdul, cops Officer Gretchen and Officer Quinn, and deranged ranger Slaughter Buzzard.
The onlookers are skeptical, until Rollie turns on the television which is playing the news talking about Sidney Preston and the buried money. The newsman talks about his life and says he was born in El Puente, Arizona. The onlookers of the diner head out on a mad dash to find the dough. When they find the money in El Puente's famous bridge, Slaughter accidentally drops it into the canyon. They follow clues to the next million which is in Sidney's houseboat and lose it as well as it gets shredded in Sidneys table sized paper shredder. After finding and losing the third million as it falls out of the hands of a greedy aeronaut, they all give up as the movie ends. During the closing credits, Bob informs the audience that there is a million dollars somewhere in the US and if they follow the clues in specially marked Glad-Lock bags, they have the chance to win $1 million.
Cast[edit]
Crack In The Mirror Movie 1988 Movie
- Tom Bosley as Sidney Preston
- Eddie Deezen as Rollie
- Wendy Sherman as Lollie
- Rick Overton as Stuart Briggs
- Mona Lyden as Barbara Briggs
- Douglas Emerson as Howie Briggs
- Royce D. Applegate as Tugger
- Pam Matteson as Dotty
- Daniel McDonald as Crush
- Penny Baker as Charity
- Tawny Fere as Faith
- LaGena Hart as Hope
- Mack Dryden as Fred
- Jamie Alcroft as Bob
- Rich Hall as Slaughter Buzzárd
- Gail Neely as Officer Gretchen
- Kevin Pollak as Officer Quinn
- Hard Boiled Haggerty as Awful Abdul
- Bob Schott as Bad Boris
- Peter Pitofsky as Toxic Werewolf
- Greg Travis as 2nd Toxic Man
- Tommy Sledge as Private Eye
- Christopher Cary as Chuck
- Rudy De Luca as Money Counter
- Paul Stader as Old Man in Car
- Jack Carpenter as Biker in Window
Production[edit]
The Mirror Crack'd
Parts of the film were shot at Glen Canyon in Utah.[3]
While performing a routine stunt for this film, stuntman Dar Robinson died on November 21, 1986.
Marketing contest[edit]
Producer Dino De Laurentiis conceived the idea for Million Dollar Mystery when he visited New York and saw a row of people lining up for what he presumably thought was a movie. A companion told De Laurentiis that they were actually lining up for lottery tickets.[4]
Glad Bags sponsored a sweepstakes timed for the film's release. The company gave away entry forms, and the audience would fill out these forms with their answer to where the last million is hiding, based on clues given in the film. De Laurentiis said of the film:
This is a really broad comedy with car chases, designed for the young major moviegoing audience, about 12 to 24 years old. The sweepstakes gives us the potential to reach even more people – the infrequent moviegoer, the person more interested in winning a million dollars than in going to the movies, and these are the kind of people who use Glad Bags, housewives who maybe go to the movies once or twice a year.[5]
De Laurentiis had high expectations for the film, but it did not turn out to be a hit. The winner of the contest ended up being 14-year-old Alesia Lenae Jones of Bakersfield, California, who successfully guessed that the loot was hidden in the nose of the Statue of Liberty.[6][7][8] Apparently, thousands of contestants had arrived at the same answer, and her entry was chosen in a random drawing.[9]
Crack In The Mirror Movie 1988 Movie
Reception[edit]
Million Dollar Mystery was a box office flop grossing $989,033 against a $10 million dollar budget.
The film received negative critical reviews. The film currently holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on six reviews.[10]
Home media[edit]
The film was released on VHS, Laserdisc, CED videodisc, and DVD.
Award nominations[edit]
- Nominated: Worst Original Song, Barry Mann & John Lewis Parker (1988)
- Nominated: Worst Supporting Actor, Tom Bosley (1988)
- Nominated: Worst Supporting Actor, Jamie Alcroft (1988)
- Nominated: Worst Supporting Actor, Mack Dryden (1988)
References[edit]
- ^'De Laurentiis PRODUCER'S PICTURE DARKENS'. latimes.com. LA TIMES.
- ^Million Dollar Mystery at Box Office Mojo
- ^D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN9781423605874.
- ^Frankel, Mark. 'The Little Producer That Couldn't.' Spy (August 1989).
- ^Darnton, Nina. 'Million Dollar Mystery (1987): At the Movies.'New York Times (May 1, 1987).
- ^'Film flop a bonanza for girl, 14.' Chicago Sun-Times (April 7, 1988).
- ^BAKERSFIELD TEEN-AGER WINS MILLION DOLLARS IN MOVIE MYSTERY CONTEST, Associated Press, Apr. 6, 1988.
- ^http://articles.latimes.com/1988-04-06/entertainment/ca-395_1_sweepstakes Movies April 06, 1988, LA Times.
- ^'Million Dollar Mystery' movie review tvguide.com, accessed 9/4/15.
- ^https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1013919_million_dollar_mystery
External links[edit]
- Million Dollar Mystery on IMDb
- Million Dollar Mystery at the TCM Movie Database
- Million Dollar Mystery at AllMovie
- Million Dollar Mystery at Rotten Tomatoes
By Hashim Hathaway
[*Warning: Spoilers below for the film!]
Karen Gillan is going to be a star.
Unfortunately, you're going to have to wait until the release of Guardians of the Galaxy later this summer to see the former Doctor Who companion truly shine. It's a shame her first American film, WWE Studio's Oculus, comes up woefully short as the Scottish actress' coming out party.
Not even this half-baked and ultimately ruined concept can keep viewers from wanting to like Gillan as headstrong and determined Kaylie Russell, who tries to set right a horrible incident that tore her family apart. The film opens with the release of her brother, Tim — portrayed by Australian newcomer Brenton Thwaites (who will have his big budget debut later this year in Angelina Jolie's Malficent)—as he is released from a mental institution to a waiting Kaylie.
Ten years ago, the siblings witnessed the death of their parents (a tragically wasted Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane), which we soon learn the death of the father was at the hands of a young Tim, who, through therapy seems to have blocked out many of the sinister memories of that fateful evening, something Kaylie remembers all too vividly. In Tim's absence, Kaylie tried to move on with her life, becoming engaged to antiquities dealer Michael (James Lafferty), but all the while becoming more and more convinced that her parents' death was due to an evil entity possessing an antique mirror. The mirror itself has become an obsession for Kaylie, who's been tracing it from owner to owner, where she's able to catch it as it's auctioned through her fiancée's firm.
Kaylie's plan is simple enough: Take the mirror back to the home her parents died in and try to coax out the entity so that she may kill it once and for all. To do this, she tries to get the help of a very unwilling Tim, who'd rather put the entire ordeal behind him, with the hope that she would do the same. Because this is a horror movie, of course there's no earthly way that's going to happen.
Once Kaylie and Tim get to the house, she walks Tim (and the audience) through her plan to draw the spirit out and hopefully destroy it. It's here where director Mike Flanagan and screenwriter Jeff Howard makes an honest attempt to take yet another ghost story and make it into something compelling and very watchable.
I enjoyed the seemingly seamless flashbacks mixed with current events, as this has the viewer walking along side both the brother and sister as they question everything they see, as past and present begin to melt together until neither know what's real and what's memory. Ultimately, the thing I loved about the movie was the very thing that in the end frustrated me.
Because of the way in which the flashbacks are unfolded as memories, the viewer never really gets to know the parents, only what's happening to them and how it's affecting the younger Kaylie and Tim (Annalise Basso and Garrett Ryan). We're never given a chance to care about the family, so their gradual possession holds no real gravity and everything that comes after is delivered as matter-of-fact, with the viewer only being rewarded with the occasional jump-scare.
Also, the main conceit of the film, the idea that the entity in the mirror can fool its victim to the point where they lose complete track of time is almost completely stolen from Doctor Who villains the Silence. Seeing that, having Gillan as the protagonist almost makes you want to have her call out for the Doctor, who'd come and wave his Sonic at the mirror and we'd move on to the next episode.
Sadly, that's another, better franchise.
It seems that the writer was so drawn into his own concept here that he forgot to tack on an ending, so just as the tension takes viewers to a point where Oculus could become that rare spookhouse film that transcends the trappings of its genre, the rug is pulled out from under the viewer with a 'shock' ending that was clearly telegraphed throughout the film, making it not that shocking after all, just dumb.
On a personal level, I'm getting pretty sick of horror movies that opt to have no real shot at hope for any of it's characters. Some of the best horror movies and ghost stories give the viewer something to cheer for. Even with the open theft from Doctor Who, Oculus is a film that had a real chance at becoming worthwhile, with a character in Kaylie Russell who's absolutely worth cheering for, but instead gives viewers a mirror image of a movie that when viewed through the looking glass is nothing less than awful.
Crack In The Mirror Movie
Hashim R. Hathaway is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, airing four nights a week at www.blogtalkradio.com/NeverDaunted. You can reach him on Twitter at @NeverDauntedNet