Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 July 9

= July 9 =

Name that film
Can anybody help me with this? I have seen this film years ago but can not remember what it was called. It was about people from an evil/opposite version of our universe coming into our universe through what I thought to be a wormhole type thing in a local towns lake and replacing their counterparts of that town by throwing them through the same lake anomoly. As I said it was years since I have seen it and can not remember how starred in it. But I think it was a made-for-TV film. Scotius (talk) 12:18, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds a little bit like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, er, except for the alternate universe, the wormhole in the lake, and being made for TV. (But I have no idea as to the right answer.)  --Anonymous, 16:25 UTC, July 9, 2010.


 * Seems to be the creatively-titled "The Lake". Adam Bishop (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that is the one, thanks. Scotius (talk) 13:14, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Using ancient filmed material for flashbacks in contemporary film productions (using the same actor in both cases)
I recently watched the Boston Legal episode "Son of the Defender". William Shatner's character Denny Crane is confronted with his past. For flashbacks, the series uses b&w scenes from a 1957 production starring a very young William Shatner. At the time it was filmed, he was playing a different character, of course, but now he is shown in scenes with spoken dialogue, back and forth between son (Shatner) and father(Ralph Bellamy) The dialogue fits the plot in the 2007 episode.

I was intrigued, and cannot recall having seen this "technique" before. Does anybody here know of other examples where old footage of the same actor in a completely different production is used for glimpses into his past, as a character in a newer production? (Sorry I'm having trouble phrasing this, but see also the middle paragraph under Westinghouse Studio One#Lost episode. (PS: I am aware that some of the newer Star Trek productions used material from The Original Series, but those are related, and I'm really interested in examples using the same actor, female or male). ---Sluzzelin talk  23:05, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, there's a similar (but not identical) use of older material. In the film, the villain is never seen, except for previously-recorded films of the villain. The footage used for these scenes is from an older, unrelated movie, and the actor was a young Sir Laurence Olivier, who had died several years before Sky Captain was produced. The filmmakers digitally altered some of the footage as needed, and Olivier is even credited as the character in the end credits of the film. --McDoobAU93 (talk) 01:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, McDoob. I can't recall having seen anything like that before either; what an homage to Sir Laurence! I'm still curious about other examples, of course. ---Sluzzelin talk  23:29, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In Sunset Boulevard Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) watches one of her films, which is actually Gloria Swanson in von Stroheim's Queen Kelly (1929). Pepso2 (talk) 03:22, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In Funny People, Leslie Mann's character, who is an actress, watches her character's old movies, which are actually just old movies Leslie Mann was in (one of them was Cosas que nunca te dije, which we don't even have an article for). Adam Bishop (talk) 04:34, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In 30 Rock, one character, an actress is thought to be dead. At an awards show, they show a special tribute to her, made of footage from commercials she shot in her childhood. The commercials are real ones, filmed by the real-life actress who plays that character, in the 1960s. And not quite in the same vein, but similarly -- Jack Donaghy decides that instead of creating a new series, he will just digitally insert stock footage of Jerry Seinfeld into existing series ("Seinfeldvision"). Some of these episodes are then shown, with stock footage of 1980s and 1990s Jerry Seinfeld inserted into Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Heroes and Law & Order. 202.10.92.35 (talk) 12:53, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In Castle, Castle's mother is played by Susan Sullivan, whose character is an actress. In one episode, she was watching a scene from one of her earlier movies, which was Sullivan appearing in The Incredible Hulk.  I know there was a TV episode of some series, which I cannot remember, in which several actors had acted together in some film noir and there were flashbacks of them interacting in that film, but I cannot remember what the movie was, or the series.  Everard Proudfoot (talk) 19:55, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Similarly Soderbergh's The Limey stars 60 year old Terrance Stamp, but features flashbacks of his character using footage of 24 year old Stamp in Ken Loach's 1967 film Poor Cow. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 09:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In a somewhat similar vein, Michael Bay's The Island features Scarlett Johansson as a model, and re-uses actual advertising Johansson had made for a Calvin Klein campaign the previous year. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 09:53, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * In 1975 the Columbo episode/TV-movie Forgotten Lady guest-starred Janet Leigh as a formerly successful actress. During the episode we see her watching one of her own old movies, such as Walking My Baby Back Home -- a real 1953 movie starring Janet Leigh. --Anonymous, 18:47 UTC, July 12, 2010.

Thanks, everyone! Some of the examples I must have seen, but couldn't recall the scenes in question. Excellent. ---Sluzzelin talk  05:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC)