What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Quote: Pacomartin

An affair from 4 decades ago is hardly hot news. Harrison Ford's marriage to Mary Marquardt broke up a few years later, so she probably knew about it.

Well, it made it into the Wednesday Tonight Show monologue.

Punchline was:

Jabba the Hutt: "You said you didn't date coworkers."

Watched "Dr. Strangelove" again - gotta watch that once in a while. Although to me Peter Sellers playing the three characters is maybe the most enjoyable thing to see again, I always also get struck by what seems to be a huge effort to 'get it right' about what it would be like to be in one of the bombers, the technical stuff. And the footage of the above-ground nuclear tests of the hydrogen bombs always leaves me in awe.

But what was I thinking about when I woke up this morning? The little scene where the George C. Scott character turns to someone and asks about Strangelove's original German name. The closed caption had it apparently correctly as Merkwurdichliebe , which google-translate has trouble with. I got it to say it meant "I would love", then later it would say it meant "I became aware of it", which is odd, doesn't seem to call for the word "liebe".

OK, I don't get it. It's supposed to be funny I guess, funny enough to bother putting it in the movie. If it is funny and it's just over my head, it's still remarkable that they included this in the movie. I think I can speak for 99.9999% of Americans at least by saying there was no hope of catching the German correctly on the fly - I couldn't and I took some German. The internet has been no help - many, many picked up on the name Merkwurdlichliebe but no one I have found has an explanation for it.

Here is more to ponder, assuming these Wikipedia-sourced things are correct:
It is probably not in there for the 'people who read the book' - the movie is loosely based on Peter George's thriller novel "Red Alert", and Strangelove is not in that book. There apparently is a similar "Groeteschele" character though, and perhaps if I had the book I'd see something about Merkwurdichliebe, but I doubt it.

To get google-translate to work with it, you have to change it to merk wurd ich liebe. The last 3 words by themselves also translate to "I would love" - according to the German I took, that would seem to be correct for sure. So "what's funny" or notable seems to revolve around "Merk", which doesn't seem to be a German word? "Merken" is a German verb though, google says meaning "notice", I assume that's "to notice", and this comes up below when you put it in:

Translations of merken

verb

remember: merken, bedenken, gedenken, behalten, wissen, sich erinnern an

notice:bemerken, beachten, merken, wahrnehmen, beobachten, zur Kenntnis nehmen

realize:realisieren, erkennen, verwirklichen, begreifen, wissen, merken

feel: [no alternates given]

So, to remember, notice, realize, or feel? Note sure where we are getting with that.

Clearly, this has sent me off the deep-end. Here is my last guess: there is President Merkin Muffley, played by Sellers, so maybe the joke is that Strangelove's German name ironically echoes his 'love' for Muffley; the US President for him is clearly a subsititute for a "Fuhrer" - he blurts that out in the movie.

Seems a stretch though.

Quote: odiousgambit

Clearly, this has sent me off the deep-end. Here is my last guess: there is President Merkin Muffley, played by Sellers.

PRESIDENT MERKIN MUFFLEY

A merkin is a wig for a pubic area. The word originally meant "female pudenda," in the 1530s. The meaning 'counterfeit hair for a woman's privy parts' " is attested from 1610s. According to "The Oxford Companion to the Body," the custom of wearing merkins dates from 1400's and was associated with prostitutes, and was to disguise a want of pubic hair, shaved off either to exterminate body lice or evidence of venereal disease.

A muff meaning "vulva and pubic hair" is from 1690s; muff-diver "one who performs cunnilingus" is from 1935.

The term "muff lover" is a more recent urban slang.

Cool. There is much in that movie that is basically 'jokes to be discovered' by those who would delve.

You inspired me to check out the names, see the link and go about half-way down:

http://www.filmsite.org/drst.html

That same link on further pages, and a wikipedia entry, indicate that Merkwurdichliebe just means Strange-love.

This has led me back to google-translate and to the word "Merkwurdige" which does mean 'strange'. So I think we might just have some bad German with 'Merkwurdichliebe' instead of 'Merkwurdigeliebe' - putting in the latter in google-translate and you do get 'strange love'

so I stand corrected on the notion that there is any hidden joke there - I will say they screwed up the German a bit

PS: just noticed that the Wikipedia entry says "Merkwurdige Liebe " is Strangelove's German name, no "ich" in there. That makes me think that corruption of the name occurred somewhere down the line - who knows where? The wikipedia writer may have taken it upon himself to do the correction?

Quote: Pacomartin

PRESIDENT MERKIN MUFFLEY

A merkin is a wig for a pubic area..

They were made of beaver hair, hence
the slang for that area of a woman's
body.

Quote: odiousgambit

You inspired me to check out the names, see the link and go about half-way down:

Your link referred to a later film by the same screenwriter and also starring Peter Sellers. Other stars include Ringo Star (written with him in mind) and a very impressive and lengthy cast.

Peter Sellers as Sir Guy Grand KG, KC, CBE
Ringo Starr as Youngman Grand, Esq.
Isabel Jeans as Dame Agnes Grand
Caroline Blakiston as Hon. Esther Grand
Spike Milligan as Traffic warden #27
Richard Attenborough as Oxford coach
Leonard Frey as Laurence Faggot (ship's psychiatrist)
John Cleese as Mr. Dugdale (director in Sotheby's)
Patrick Cargill as Auctioneer at Sotheby's
Joan Benham as Socialite in Sotheby's
Ferdy Mayne as Edouard (of Chez Edouard restaurant)
Graham Stark as Waiter at Chez Edouard Restaurant
Laurence Harvey as Hamlet
Dennis Price as Winthrop
Wilfrid Hyde-White as Capt. Reginald K. Klaus
Christopher Lee as Ship's vampire
Roman Polanski as Solitary drinker
Raquel Welch as Priestess of the Whip
Victor Maddern as Hot dog vendor
Terence Alexander as Mad Major
Peter Bayliss as Pompous Toff
Clive Dunn as Sommelier
Fred Emney as Fitzgibbon
David Hutcheson as Lord Barry
Hattie Jacques as Ginger Horton
Edward Underdown as Prince Henry
Jeremy Lloyd as Lord Hampton
Peter Myers as Lord Kilgallon
Roland Culver as Sir Herbert
Michael Trubshawe as Sir Lionel
David Lodge as Ship's guide
Peter Graves as Lord at ship's bar (uncredited)
Robert Raglan as Maltravers
Frank Thornton as Police Inspector (uncredited)
Michael Aspel as TV commentator (uncredited)
Michael Barratt as TV commentator (uncredited)
Harry Carpenter as TV commentator (uncredited)
John Snagge as TV commentator (uncredited)
Alan Whicker as TV commentator (uncredited)
Graham Chapman as Oxford crewman (uncredited)
James Laurenson as Oxford crewman (uncredited)
Yul Brynner as Transvestite cabaret singer (uncredited)
John Le Mesurier as Sir John (uncredited)
Guy Middleton as Duke of Mantisbriar (uncredited)
Nosher Powell as Ike Jones (uncredited)
Rita Webb as Woman in Park (uncredited)
Jimmy Clitheroe as Passenger on Ship (uncredited)
Sean Barry-Weske as John Lennon lookalike (uncredited)
Kimberley Chung as Yoko Ono lookalike (uncredited)
George Cooper as Losing Boxer's Second (uncredited)
Rosemarie Hillcrest as Topless Galley Slave (uncredited)
Edward Sinclair as Park attendant (uncredited)

The movie is often remembered for its song "Come and Get It" written and produced by Paul McCartney and performed by Badfinger, a Welsh rock band promoted by Apple Records.

I will have to find this film.

Tom Cruise is doing a mummy movie.

The ravages of time Rosemarie Hillcrest will be 74 on January 5th. Playboy Miss October 1964 A NATURAL beauty 41E-25-38

Another Star Wars movie coming out
this month? We just had one last year.