This is the thirteenth in a new series of “Getting to Know”  Pages from Ultimate Movie Rankings.com.  Our interview this time around is with UMR Hall of Famer Dan.   Dan has been visiting UMR for many years.  He is a Top 5 Commentor.  He has provided thousands and thousands of Oracle connections.  He has listed Oscar-winning co-stars on almost every UMR subject.  He is a member of the UMR Hall of Fame Class of 2016.  So we figured it was time to learn a little more about Dan.

Cogerson –  It has always interested me in knowing which thespian made the first impact on a person. Who was the first actor or actress that you knew by their actual name?

Dan –   I’m going to say Laurel and Hardy or maybe Abbott and Costello. I liked slapstick comedy. My mother took me to Manhattan to see The Crazy World of Laurel and Hardy (maybe my first film in the city). Later we went to the Future Perils of Laurel and Hardy in the neighborhood. I was shocked how many kids from school went to it. But no, they came to see the other picture on the double bill, Planet of the Apes. I remember also watching a lot of Abbott and Costello films when I was like 10.

Cogerson – Interesting information.  I rated the movies I saw in the mid-1980s and put them in a red folder.  I still have that folder and look at it every once in awhile.

Cogerson – Is there a person in your life that pushed you down the path of liking movies?  For me, it was my parents and my grandmother.

Dan –  Sad to say no to this. I went to a revival film double feature at the end of 1978 for a lark, thinking it was strange for people to see old movies in theaters. I saw 2 MGM all-star musicals, Words and Music, and Ziegfeld Follies. Then I went to You Can’t Take it With You and Twentieth Century and I was hooked. I went to more old pictures say 1980 to 1982 than current. Then in December 1982 I bought my first VCR and the old films in cinemas dropped off and the currents overtook them.

Cogerson – Before running into your movie watching record-keeping skills, I thought I was doing a fantastic job of keeping track of the movies I watched.   When and why did you decide to keep such detailed records.

Dan –  I used to list everything I saw on index cards to prevent watching something twice I didn’t want to see again (not that successful). When I hit film 8,000 I started listing the older films (ones currently not in theaters) by date with the source.  Why, I don’t remember. I listed channels because I wanted to know which channels supplied the most films I watched, which is TCM, I didn’t get TCM till 1998. I used to list current films as either Bronx (where I lived at the time) or Manhattan where I worked. When I moved to Queens I started listing by theater for Queens but Manhattan and Bronx were still listed by borough. The films I see in Long Island I list by town (the towns usually only have 1 cinema). I’ve done tons of projects down the years, loads of music chart lists, and lots of baseball lists.

Cogerson –  Who are your favorite actors and actresses? How did they become such favorites?

Dan –  Don’t know if I have real favorites. When Bob requested that huge list I found people like Tom Hanks and Matt Damon led the list. Meryl Streep appeared in the most films I gave good ratings, but Meryl was really not a reason I watched them.  Other people I liked down the years include Clint Eastwood, Tom Cruise, Cary Grant, the Three Stooges, Buster Keaton (I like slapstick), Gene Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Sandra Bullock ( my wife calls Sondra my girlfriend), Amy Adams, Rosamund Pike, Felicity Jones, Will Ferrell, Bill Murray, Doris Day, Betty Hutton, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Randolph Scott, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I like action pictures, big westerns, swashbucklers, musicals and comedies. I think I just like genres and if you happen to appear in these type of flicks you got my vote.

Cogerson –  What are your Top 3 movies of all-time? Or share as many as you are willing to share.

Dan –  Raiders of the Lost Ark, Goodfellas, Field of Dreams. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Airplane, The Ten Commandments (1956 one), It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Casino, Safety Last, Laura, Black Widow (1947 serial), Chicago, Deadpool, E.T., The Four Feathers (1939), Die Hard, Gremlins, Hacksaw Ridge, How the West was Won, Hudsucker Proxy, Shawshank Redemption, lots of serials etc.

Cogerson – This one might be hard to answer….but going to give it a shot…..which movie character do you think best represents Dan? I would say my answer is Griffin Dunne’s character in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. The way he acts and reacts to things is exactly the way I think I do.

Dan–   Two film characters I thought were close to me were (and I had to look their names up) John Candy as officer Danny Muldoon in Only the Lonely with Maureen O’Hara as his mother who acted just like my mother. Also William Hurt as Macon Leary (again had to look character name up) in the Accidental Tourist. I did the same things he did while on vacation and his life changed for the better by things he had no control over. That came out in 1988 and a lot of those unexpected things for the better happened to me that year too,

Cogerson – I know it has been a while, but do you remember how you discovered UMR?

Dan –  I honestly have no clue. Obviously searching for something but I don’t know. I think it was an earlier version of the site.  I thought it was cool you had box office for numerous films there seemed to be no info on, like sabermetrics in baseball or adjusted goals in hockey.

Cogerson – So we will give Google the credit.  Google only provides about 85% of the traffic we get to the website.

Cogerson –  Tell me a few of your guilty pleasure movies.  Movies you know are bad, but you really like them anyway.  For me,  Armageddon would be on my list.

Dan –  Tough question. I don’t know, Head with the Monkees, Good Times with Sonny and Cher, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken with Don Knotts, beach party films, Carry On pictures, all those films with movie in the title that make the IMDB bottom 100 (Disaster, Superhero, Epic). And of course there’s Gus.

Cogerson – Gus is a classic!….lol.

Cogerson –  Do you have any memorable movie experiences in theaters?   I remember seeing Porky’s in theaters.  People were laughing so hard, I thought the walls might crumble.

Dan –  I think there were a few too many but I’ll give you just one. The year is 1982. The film is Butterfly starring that stellar actress Pia Zadora from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. The setting is a Manhattan theater. People are making tons of derogatory comments at the film. One brave soul stands up, turns around and tells the audience loudly to shut up, we’re watching art here. That got the biggest laugh of the night.  In general also seeing audiences applauding musical numbers in the middle of old films, you know cheering Judy Garland singing or some knockabout dance routine like the Nicholas Brothers.

Cogerson – And finally…..from your comments, I know you have had many celebrity encounters….can you share your Best Celebrity Encounter?