The film opens with a series of unsuccessful assassination attempts by an unknown organisation with their target being Melvin Byrd. Byrd is a janitor in a NASA laboratory headed by Major General Smithburn with his security officer being an inept bungler, Lt. Porter. Porter is captured and impersonated by an enemy double from the same organization attempting to kill Byrd.
The head scientist Professor Waid has employed Byrd due to his excellent janitorial skills as Waid blames American space program failures on dust that caused disasters. Byrd parodies the Ajax "stronger than dirt" white knight commercial when cleaning the base.
Waid's secret project is developing an ionisation process initially to be tested on a chimpanzee that would make the subject capable of anti-gravity with a side effect that not only gives him the ability to fly, but makes him "the most attractive man" on Earth. When General Smithburn leads a Congressional delegation who are in Florida due to European junkets being cancelled, Byrd hides in the ionization machine, causing him to be ionized. In addition to losing the ability to stay on the ground for longer than brief periods, Byrd finds himself forced to fight off the attentions of a Congresswoman and Waid's daughter Claudine as well as the assassins.
Sales was vocal in his dislike for the film, [citation needed]his only starring role. It was also the next-to-last film in Marton's long directing career.
In his memoirs Sales said the film "is now shown in six states as capital punishment." He claiemd to have rejected the script at first "and I rejected it at first, because God knows you have to protect yourself in this business — people only blame who they see on screen, not the writers or directors." Then he added "once it was rewritten, Birds Do It wasn’t such a terrible picture."[2]
The special effects of Byrd flying are in the style of the Hertz Rent-A-Car commercials of the time. One sequence featured Byrd being attacked by skydivers in a sequence reminiscent of the pre-credits sequence of Moonraker with Byrd's stunt double wearing a parachute under his sport coat.
A Soldier's Story is a 1984 American mystery drama film directed and produced by Norman Jewison, adapted by Charles Fuller from his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play. Fuller had said Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd inspired the play. It is a story about racism in a segregated regiment of the U.S Army commanded by White officers and training in the Jim Crow South, in a time and place where a Black officer is unprecedented and bitterly resented by nearly everyone, and follows an African-American JAG officer sent to investigate the murder of an African-American sergeant in Louisiana near the end of World War II.
The year 1965 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1965.
William Reginald Gardiner was an English actor on the stage, in films and on television.
Beverly Hills Cop is a 1984 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Martin Brest, with a screenplay by Daniel Petrie Jr., and story by Danilo Bach and Daniel Petrie Jr. It stars Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a street-smart Detroit detective who visits Beverly Hills, California, to solve the murder of his best friend. Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Lisa Eilbacher, Steven Berkoff, Paul Reiser, and Jonathan Banks appear in supporting roles.
Milton Supman, known professionally as Soupy Sales, was an American comedian, actor, radio-television personality, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television series, Lunch with Soupy Sales (1953–1966), a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark. From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s, he hosted his own show on WNBC in New York City.
55 Days at Peking is a 1963 American epic historical war film dramatizing the siege of the foreign legations' compounds in Peking during the Boxer Uprising, which took place in China in the summer of 1900. It was produced by Samuel Bronston for Allied Artists, with a screenplay by Philip Yordan and Bernard Gordon, and with uncredited contributions from Robert Hamer, Julian Halevy, and Ben Barzman. Noel Gerson wrote a screenplay novelization in 1963 under the pseudonym "Samuel Edwards".
Frederick Leonard Clark was an American film and television character actor, often cast in authoritative roles.
Melody Time is a 1948 American live-action and animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney. It was released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. Made up of seven segments set to popular music and folk music, the film is, like Make Mine Music before it, the popular music version of Fantasia. Melody Time, while not meeting the artistic accomplishments of Fantasia, was mildly successful.
Flipper is an American television program broadcast on NBC from September 19, 1964, until April 15, 1967. Flipper, a bottlenose dolphin, is the pet of Porter Ricks, chief warden at Coral Key Park and Marine Preserve, and his two young sons, Sandy and Bud. The show has been dubbed an "aquatic Lassie", and a considerable amount of children's merchandise inspired by the show was produced during its first run.
László Benedek was a Hungarian-born film director and cinematographer, most notable for directing The Wild One (1953).
Ivan Tors was a Hungarian playwright, film director, screenwriter, and film and television producer with an emphasis on non-violent but exciting science fiction, underwater sequences, and stories involving animals. He started a Miami-based film studio now known as Greenwich Studios, and later a music company.
Can-Can is a 1960 American musical film made by Suffolk-Cummings productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Walter Lang, produced by Jack Cummings and Saul Chaplin. The screenplay was written by Dorothy Kingsley and Charles Lederer, loosely based on the musical play by Abe Burrows. The music and lyrics were written by Cole Porter for the play, but for the film, some songs were replaced by those from earlier Porter musicals. Art direction was handled by Jack Martin Smith and Lyle R. Wheeler, costume design by Irene Sharaff and dance staging by Hermes Pan. The film was photographed in Todd-AO. Although performing well on initial release, it failed to recoup its production costs from its domestic receipts.
Darby's Rangers is a 1958 American war film starring James Garner as William Orlando Darby, who organizes and leads the first units of United States Army Rangers during World War II. Directed by William Wellman, the picture was shot by Warner Brothers Studios in black and white, to match wartime stock footage included in the production. It was inspired by the 1945 book Darby's Rangers: An Illustrated Portrayal of the Original Rangers, by Major James J. Altieri, himself a veteran of Darby's force.
Victor/Victoria is a musical with a book by Blake Edwards, music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and additional musical material by Frank Wildhorn. It is based on the 1982 film of the same name, which was a remake of the German film comedy Viktor und Viktoria shot by Reinhold Schünzel in 1933 from his own script.
The Loved One is a 1965 black-and-white black comedy film directed by British filmmaker Tony Richardson. A satirical look at the funeral business in Los Angeles, it is based on Evelyn Waugh's 1948 short novel The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy, though the screenplay by noted American satirical novelist Terry Southern and British author Christopher Isherwood also incorporates elements from Jessica Mitford's 1963 nonfiction book The American Way of Death. The film stars Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer, and Rod Steiger, with Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, James Coburn, John Gielgud, Tab Hunter, Margaret Leighton, Liberace, Roddy McDowall, Robert Morley, Barbara Nichols, and Lionel Stander credited as "cameo guest stars", and features the debut acting performance of songwriter Paul Williams.
Thunder Birds is a 1942 Technicolor film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton. It features aerial photography and location filming at an actual Arizona training base of the United States Army Air Forces named Thunderbird Field No. 1 during World War II.
Mommy is a 1995 American low budget thriller starring Patty McCormack as a mother who is psychotically obsessed with her 12-year-old daughter Jessica Ann.
Andrew Marton was a Hungarian-American film director. In his career, he directed 39 films and television programs, and worked on 16 as a second unit director, including the chariot race in Ben Hur (1959).
Kenneth Charles Swofford was an American film and television actor. With his burly build and distinctive red hair he was often cast in villain, police officer or 'everyman' roles.
Battle Taxi is a 1955 American aviation drama film directed by Herbert L. Strock and written by Malvin Wald. The film stars Sterling Hayden, Arthur Franz, Marshall Thompson, Leo Needham and Jay Barney. The film was released on January 26, 1955 by United Artists.
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