My first wife and I were dancers in the beach party scene with Marriane Gordon. I worked with George Ellis who played Bestoink Dooley at Dimension Incorporated in Atlanta, GA and he offered me and my wife the bit parts in the movie. The beach party scene which lasted just a few minutes took all night to film. BTW This movie was one of the top 10 grossing movies of 1965, by grossing over a Million dollars. I assume it played at a lot of drive-ins. I have a DVD copy of the movie that I have shown to my family until they were sick of it. George Ellis also starred in "Moonrunners" that movie was a prequel to "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show.
... View MoreBestoink Dooley (George Ellis) was the host of The Friday Night Big Movie Shocker! shown at 11:00 PM on the Atlanta area CBS Affiliate WAGA.Later it was also shown on Saturday mornings at the end of the "kiddie" line up. George and his brother later purchased and managed the Ansley Mall Film Forum in Atlanta. As bad as "Blood Mountain" might have been, his taste in films was excellent. I saw numerous cult films, such as "A Boy and His Dog", and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Forum, along with other great movies like Zefferelli's "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" and "Ballad of Narayama". I'd love to get a video of "Blood Mountain", are there any out there?
... View MoreI remember seeing this film in 1965, I was a young girl. I had nightmares for months from this film. I think this was the first horror film I ever saw. I grew up in GA near stone mountain. I have told my children of this movie for years. I would love to see it again. Funny thing I have turned into quite a horror movie watcher. Stephen King is my favorite author. Maybe this movie had a bigger impact than I thought.
... View MoreI was a student at Georgia Tech when a fellow Photography Club member told me that he had shot stills for this movie company. I went with him one day to see what goes into making a movie and started helping out with the filming chores on Stone Mountain (outside Atlanta, GA). Asked if I would like a job, I quickly accepted and spent all my spare time on the film for 6 months. I organized the rushes (16mm version of each roll of film shot with each frame numbered) and learned how to assemble the scenes into a rough cut movie. I also worked with the music library (350 hours of music themes) to add background music to the film (I had specialized in recorded sound during my high school years). After the film was roughed in, we went to Master Recording Studio for about a month to record the dialog for the film. Using the preliminary movie print and the tinny sound recorded on site as a guide, we had the original actors come into the recording studio to rerecord their voices to match the image. These rerecorded dialog tapes were synced to the movie print at this point. Later, when the first review print was ready, we viewed it at the Paramont (I think) studio in downtown Atlanta. This was a 30 seat theatre with a 35mm projector and communication with the projectionist so that we could tell him when to start, stop, rewind, etc the film as we made comments on continuity, color balance, voice, and music.This film was made to show in the Saturday morning movie circuit of about 450 "hardtop" theatres. Comedy/horror was a popular movie type at the time that almost guaranteed one showing in each theatre. As I recall the economics, the movie cost about $750,000 and would gross $1.25 million in one pass through the 450 theatres.Bestoink Dooley (played by Gregory Ellis) was a "character" that had a Saturday morning kids program in the Atlanta area. He brought the exact character to the film that he used on his weekly show.I would love to get a video of this film ... my four children have never see it (and wonder if Daddy really did this).
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