TODAY 12/11 IS:

1. National have a bagel day.
   1. Best known in New York and Montreal for baking their bagels in wood instead of boiling them.

• Harry Lender was the first to use a commercial bagel machine and pioneered the production of frozen, pre-sliced bagels.

2. International Mountain Day
   1. Mountain Movies:
      1. The Crawling Eye
      2. Lord of the Rings

• Cliffhanger

1. Lost Horizon
2. 7 Years in Tibet
3. Abominable Showman in the Himalayas.

Famous People’s Birthdays:

1. Val Guest 1911 – 2005
   1. English film director and screen writer with over 45 films to his credit.

• As a “would-be” actor, he made money as a bookkeeper (have to be a waiter here)

1. Went on to direct 15 Hammer Horror Films after working as a writer for the London Hollywood Reporter.

• Movies:
  1. Quatermass Experiment
  2. Quatermass 2

• Abominable Showman of the Himalayas

1. When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.
   1. We believe that was the banner that fell during the climax of Jurassic Park.
   2. Spielberg vs. Malik
2. One of the 5 directors for the original “Casino Royal” in 1967. John Huston was another director.
3. The Day the Earth Caught Fire for which he also won the best screen play award at BAFTA.
   1. Janet Munroe
4. Vampira 1922-1008
   1. Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi

• I know I have mentioned her before as the first horror movie host who predated Svegoolie, Elvira, and Ghoulardi
  1. That as we talked about a few weeks ago as Paul Thomas Anderson’s father. And speaking of PTA; how about him in the rankings of the best living American director.
     1. My favorite: Inherent Vice
  2. I also remember telling you that while shopping with mommy and daddy at about 7 years old; I saw her shopping on Ventura Blvd. She was walking towards us and we went into a deli or something and I was petrified.

3. Vampira was a very close friend of James Dean and they were often spotted at Googie’s Coffee Shop on the corner of Crescent Hts. And Sunset. This probably while she was a hat-check girl on the Sunset Strip.
   1. She did modeling for Man Ray and “Bernard of Hollywood” known as the photographer of Marlin Monroe.
   2. Man Ray was not only an artist, but a photographer who used Solarization often, just like Cinemagic in “Angry Red Planet.”
   3. Before she was done, she ran for Night Mayer of Hollywood on a platform of Dead Issues.
   4. KABC, who we are on right now; had her cruse around Hollywood in a chauffeur driven 1932 Packard convertible dressed as Vampira carrying a black parasol
   5. Perhaps her most famous role was as herself in Ed Wood’s Classic: Plan 9 from Outer Space.
      1. Also featured Amazing Criswell who had his own show: Criswell Predicts.  Yes, I remember it.
      2. “Greetings my friends, we are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
   6. Honorable Mentions:
      1. Terry Garr – 1944

• Rita Moreno – 1931

1. Marie Windsor – 1919-2000
   1. Narrow Margin or the 3-D classic “Cat Women of the Moon”. We saw her in person at a Cinamatech festival were we met John Landis and Joe Dante.
   2. Music for Cat Women was written by Elmer Bernstein as he did for Robot Monster in 3-D. Not to be confused with Rita Moreno’s Bernstein.

• Gilbert Roland 1905-1994