Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for April 02, 2022

Many years ago, I had a phone number that was very close to that of a local hotel. One night, hours after my wife and I had turned in for the night, the phone rang, and I answered it.

“This is Room 901. I want a wake-up call for 6:30.”

“Sir, this is not the front desk,” I sleepily told the obviously inebriated man. “Somehow you’re getting an outside line and dialing a private residence. You have dialing instructions somewhere near your phone.” With that, I hung up and rolled over.

However, before my wife and I could get back to sleep, the phone rang again. Same guy, same slurred shtory. “Listen, fella,” I growled, “This is NOT the hotel! Figure out your phone system and LEAVE US ALONE!!”

We were actually back to sleep when the phone rang for a third time. I picked it up, thought for a second or two, and then said, “Front desk…901? Six thirty? You GOT it, Sir!”

He didn’t call after that.

A change of pace.

A taxi passenger tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question.The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath, and stopped inches from a shop window.

For a second, everything was quiet in the cab. Then the driver said, “Look, mate, don’t ever do that again. You scared the living daylights out of me!”

The passenger apologized and said, “I didn’t realize that a little tap would scare you so much.”

The driver replied, “Sorry, it’s not really your fault. Today is my first day as a cab driver — I’ve been driving a hearse for the last 25 years.”

Until next time.

But back in Keaton’s day, how much money was that to make such a stunt?

I guess the eight cars were never recovered, were they?

CaliBurger that short of human staff to make that many burgers?

There’s a famous story that when audiences first saw a film of a train moving toward the camera, they screamed and ran for cover. This isn’t actually entirely true. They didn’t respond like that to the original, but one of the first ever 3D films was the same footage presented in 3D, almost 40 years later. This version of the film did seriously scare early viewers.

I have been saying for years that the “Bowling Green massacre” was real – at least this one!

2018 my surgeon used a robot to remove my prostate… I wonder whether they’re related…

Will Smith is obviously physically fit, and I’d bet a bunch he’s had some fight training. If he had wanted to do real injury he would have, because it isn’t that hard to do. Will did want to express his anger at this second time Rock publicly poked fun at his wife. He did it before, at the Oscars in 2016. This time Will gave him a sore jaw and some public embarrassment. I think Chris deserved both, but Will would have been smarter to do it in private. I believe there is more to this feud, and Chris dared Will with that joke, thinking Will wouldn’t do anything there. Real brave, Chris.

The scene is in “The General”, one of the great film comedies of all time. Strictly speaking, the bridge isn’t blown up. Keaton’s character sets it on fire to stop the enemy’s advance. The enemy general declares the bridge is still strong enough and orders his train to cross. It’s not. This is immediately followed by a full-fledged Civil War battle.

Imagine the look on their faces when they discovered the cameraman forgot to load film in his camera….CUT!!!

I’m sure the ending of “The Bridge on the River Kwai” wasn’t cheap either.

And that would be six dollars and sixty cents in today’s money.

Take care, may exaggerating college instructor Professor Thomas “We Had To Walk 10 Miles Uphill To School In My Day Both Ways” Flopord be with you, and gesundheit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moh2l7udjio

The entire cost of filming The General was $600,000. The train wreck was a mere $42,000. Because of the cost, they had to get it right the 1st time. But The General never made the cost back. It’s funnier than 95% of the crapola that Hollywood passes off as “comedy” today

Train wreck scene…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCH-tUmMl7Q

Sadly Caliburger only sells 40 burgers an hour.

An 80-year old man buys a Corvette.

He gets it out on the open highway and takes it to 80, then 100, then 120 before he knows it. He looks in his mirror to see flashing red lights so he pulls over.

The highway patrolman walks up and says, “You know how fast you were going and I know how fast you were going. I’ve heard every excuse in the book. If you give me one I haven’t heard, I’ll let you go.”

The 80-year old looks the trooper up and down and says, “My wife left me thirty years ago for a highway patrolman! I was afraid you were bringing her back!”

The trooper closes his book and sends the Corvette driver on his way.

The devil loves Corvettes

The corvette sinkhole was never fixed and is now a tourist attraction. The sinkhole is believed to be a part of the Mammoth Cave system.

“The General” great movie based on true story from Civil War

How did Buster Keaton get today’s dollars?

Deja Vu – Bridge on the River Kwia

It’s a good thing Buster Keaton didn’t decide to make The War Of The Worlds.

Sounds like my hometown where a sinkhole opened up under a vette parked at a restaurant. Wasn’t found for several years.

The scene in Buster Keaton’s movie cost $660,000 in today’s dollars.

In the movie Spectre, the Roman car chase, the film destroyed seven DB10 Automobiles. Each costing over 1-1/2 million dollars.

In the movie Superman Returns, Bryan Singer paid $10M USD for a 4 second scene of Superman’s home world of Krypton, then deleted the scene from the movie.

In the movie the Matrix Reloaded, the Wachowski’s paid $2.5M for the use of the Alameda Freeway had the top 20 stuntmen and 30 drivers on hand for the scene with Keanu Reeves, Carrie Ann-Moss, and Laurence Fishburn, so a significant part of their salaries was taken in during this one scene. The final cost was never revealed but they destroyed 14 18-wheelers, 44 cars, sixteen motorcycles during the filming.

Speaking of the Wachowski’s the Matrix climax scene with the many Smiths fighting NEO is considered the most expensive scene – coming in at a whopping $40 Million Dollars.

The D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan was filmed in Ireland, at a cost of $12M using 750 extras.

The junkyard scene in Transformers, The Last Knight cost $15 million for the raw footage, then CGI costs were added.

Ben Hur’s chariot scene cost $4M USD in 1959, in today’s dollars it would be $34Million

Much of this can be found in one article : https://www.looper.com/127429/the-most-expensive-movie-scenes-ever-filmed/

I dug a little deeper, I was actually looking for the scene in Cleopatra with the 10,000 extras. The scene cost $1 M USD when filmed. With calculated inflation @ 3.85% and cumulative @ 827.18% it would be just a tick under $10M ($9,271,764.71)

Oh, and the aforementioned Will Smith – the Bridge scene in I am Legend cost over $5M USD.

I’ll give you the most expensive of the Silent film era, but not of all time.

He said flip them, not cook them…

Flippy keeps forgetting the cheese.

Keaton had CARTE BLANCHE to do whatever he wanted at the time.When talkies came in,his career temporarilytanked.