Missed Opportunities

Missed Opportunities:


starla:
He also directed the video for Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."
Grey Zone 1:
And another missed opportunity, that. I have a good source that tells me that the ever inventive Smithee, while toiling in the video fields, was still struck by that inspiration that is Smithee.

We are talking far beyond high concept here: it was Smithee's idea that, instead of the usual Houston vid connected with a scknooky film, he do something...special.

Mainly, he wanted to erase her voice, and dub it with Laura Branagin.And as if that wasn't inspiration enough, he then planned to intercut Whitney shots with stock footage of elephants in rut he'd used in 1963s MUDWOMEN OF ZIMBABWE.

Al Dekker:
Wow, GZ, I'd forgotten that one!
x.trapnel:
And who can forget the scene where Barbara Steele, as Magee's sex-starved young wife, falls under the influence of the sinister witch doctor (Eduardo Cianelli in blackface)? I always thought it was a shame that Smithee in his later years has tended toward impersonal studio projects like his remake of David Lynch's DUNE...
Al Dekker:
That was an embarrassment. I understand that Smithee was paid for the DUNE remake with stock shares in Spice Snak candies. We all remember what happened with that product tie-in...
plain scarf:
But the gummy sandworms could have succeeded, if only they were introduced earlier and used the now popular white sugar instead of brown.....


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