THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Duke W.]

Okay. Okay. I figure I better end this now that most of you good little boys are in bed and before the DB Czar sends George and me off to detention with no DB priveleges for a week because we used up 20 percent of the Board on an "off-topic" subject. When I first saw this movie about four or five years after it was released I thought it was about the coolest movie ever, and it was the only thing that kept my mind off my seventh (or was it eighth) grade homeroom English teacher who had a GREAT set of legs. Because you got up and hour early this Saturday morning to see if THE ANSWER might be here, you've got time to call all over town to see if you can rent it, and then get a bottle of your significant other's favorite wine and tell her: "Honey, we're going to spend a nice quiet romantic evening at home watching this great old fifties flick. Yeah, right! Another car movie after spending most of the day in the garage or at the swap meet.

It was pretty neat for a budding teenager circa 1959, but from the jaded perspective of a Y2K middle-ager, all I can say is that, today, it shares a quality with many early to mid-fifties movies, which I charitably describe as "quaint".

The movie is named after the main character played by Curtis - "Johnny Dark". The object of his and his antagonist's affection (and whose character's name I cannot remember) was played by Piper Laurie. I can't remember the name of the supporting actor who played Johnny's antagonist, but his character's name was...

"DUKE".

[George Daina]

HEY.....I know Duke.....

oops, can't be our own Duke of Earl, so the only other Duke I know is John.

Oh well, that movie, never saw it, never heard of it. The Great Duke of Earl strikes again and stumps the panel. And your prize is....a brewsky....on me...when ever we meet.

[Wayne M.]

Re: THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Duke, George --- Using [imdb.com], allow me to fill in the blanks. Piper Laurie played Liz Fielding; and Don Taylor played "Duke Benson". Apparently the acting is mediocre but the film is noteworthy for showing a collection of extremely rare American sports cars (not Corvettes, but those of which only a few were ever built).

Has not been released to video.

[Duke W.]

The cars

Thanks for filling in the blanks, Wayne. In the early to mid fifties, about the time the first Corvettes were built, there were a number of other American sports car efforts, which were either one-off prototypes that never saw production or built in small quantities. About the only name I can remember off the top of my head is the Kaiser Darrin, but I think they got every prototype around to be in the movie. The racing scenes were not bad and were filmed on real roads, but they sometimes resorted to the hokey tactic of speeding up the film. Like I said earlier, it showed up on the AMC channel about two or three years ago and a friend of mine recorded it, so if you have AMC and see "Johnny Dark" pop up in the listings, you might want to check it out.

Duke

[Don O'Connell #33101]

Re: Those brewskies..

George,

Been working on some compression algorithms for work; maybe I could "tweak" one for your PC, so you could start "emailing" all those brewskies your having to deal out....

Don

[Loren L.]

Re: The cars

Woodhill Wildfires.

[Wayne M.]

Re: The cars

Loren --- The Woodhill Wildfire (Idaho Special in the film) was one of 7 built. Other rare cars filmed in Johnny Dark were Kurtis Sports Cars (about 12 made); The Granthom Stardust (several made); the Victress (one of 2); and the Glasspar G-2 (production not given, although it's rumored to be the 4th from last produced). [heh heh]