This is the 16th page in a series of “Getting to Know” interviews with UMR Hall of Famers. This time we interviewed Steve Lensman. I have been internet friends with Steve for over a decade. We first stumbled over each other back in our Hub Pages (our first version of this website) days in early 2011. Steve is one of few people that actually went to CogersonMovieScore.com (our second version of this website) on a regular basis. Steve was involved in the naming of Ultimate Movie Rankings.com (our third and current version of this website). So, we figured it was time to learn a little more about Steve Lensman.
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?
Steve Lensman– Watching old movies on TV with my parents I’d say actors like Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Grace Kelly, Liz Taylor, Alan Ladd, John Wayne, Jerry Lewis were known to me as a kid before I became familiar with Bogart, Hitchcock, Welles and Eastwood.
Cogerson – What was the first movie that you distinctly remember watching as a child?
Steve Lensman– That would be 1933’s King Kong. I remember seeing it as a child, way back on TV in the 1960s, and it gave me nightmares. I kept dreaming of the ape’s huge face peering thru my window!
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.
Steve Lensman – My father was a big movie fan luckily for me, and he tended to favour swashbucklers, westerns and war films over film noir, drama and musicals. His brother was an even bigger movie fan and I would listen to them talk about films all the time. If they had been chatting about soccer I probably wouldn’t be typing this now.
Cogerson – That is awesome! I suspect your father and my father would have agreed on the greatness of many movies.
Cogerson – When I was younger, I was convinced that Disney’s Gus was the greatest movie of all-time. Today, I realize, though it might be the best mule playing football movie, it is not very good. What movies did you think were awesome and now you question their greatness.
Steve Lensman- I watched a lot of horror films as a teen, some of them Italian, titles like Holocaust 2000, Cannibal Holocaust, Zombie Holocaust and the legendary Orgazmo Holocaust (okay I made that last one up), and others like Tentacles, Squirm and The Antichrist. At the time I probably thought those films were cool, but I’d be embarrassed to watch them now.
Cogerson – I bet those movies are just a bit more gorier than my Gus.
Cogerson – Besides Charlton Heston, who are your other favorite actors or actresses?
Steve Lensman – It’s almost a cliche to list the great mumbler Marlon Brando as a favourite but I liked him in films like Mutiny on the Bounty and On the Waterfront before finally seeing The Godfather on rented video during the 80s, it blew me away, great film. John Wayne is another big favourite, also Bogart, Cary Grant and James Stewart.
Steve Lensman – Judy Judy Judy! For some reason I always had a soft spot for Judy Garland, and I even found her sexy too. Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman were favourites too. As a teen I was a big Bruce Lee fan and Elvis Presley was my favourite singer, still is.
Cogerson – How about current day stars?
Steve Lensman – There are plenty of actors I like today – Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Nic Cage, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Tom Hardy, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Chris Bale etc but I won’t watch everything they appear in. Depends on the film.
Cogerson – What are your Top 3 movies of all-time? Or share as many as you are willing to share.
Steve Lensman- My top three films right now… let’s go with Lawrence of Arabia, 2001 A Space Odyssey and my no.1 favourite, Ben Hur (1959). Other top film favorites of mine would include, in no particular order – The Godfather, Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Enter the Dragon, Battle of Britain, The Great Escape, The Big Country, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Forbidden Planet, Night of the Demon (1958), Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera and more recently The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Comic Book movies are all the rage now and I’m enjoying them all, keep em coming.
Cogerson – I know you love science-fiction movies….which movies got you going down that sci-fi trail?
Steve Lensman – The first time I saw 2001 A Space Odyssey as a young teen it bored the heck out of me and I walked out of the cinema about two thirds in. But I watched it again and again in reruns during the late 70s and it quickly became a top favourite. I remember enjoying Forbidden Planet as a youngster, and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). On TV back then Star Trek was a huge favourite, and I was watching Doctor Who and Lost in Space too. I read a lot of sci-fi back then, Asimov and Clarke were my favourite authors.
Cogerson – Do you remember the first R rated movie you attended in which you were allowed to purchase the ticket on your own.
Steve Lensman – I think it was either Enter the Dragon or The Exorcist, let me check hang on…. it was The Exorcist. I was a young teen but tall for my age which came in handy. I had a cassette recorder hidden in a bag and recorded all the horrible bits.
Cogerson – Do you have any memorable movie experiences? I remember seeing Porky’s in theaters. People were laughing so hard, I thought the walls might crumble.
Steve Lensman – Cinema anecdotes… I remember seeing Young Frankenstein at a cinema in London’s West End, there was an old man a few seats in front of me and he was laughing like a hyena every couple of minutes, especially when there was a close up of Marty Feldman. Anyway his laugh was infectious and I was laughing with him even if the scene itself wasn’t that funny, that stuck in my mind for some reason.
I can’t remember which film but it was at a decrepit old cinema in the 1970s and rats were running rampant, they were chasing each other along the seats. I couldn’t concentrate on the movie. I had to lift my feet up when I saw them running towards me. Terrible.
My ex really hated people chatting when we went to the movies, often she would stand up, turn round and tell them to “shut the **** up!” and I’d sit there cringing trying to pull her down, hoping they didn’t empty their milkshakes on my head. My dear Sandra was a horror movie fan, The Shining was her favorite. We still chat.
Cogerson – This might be a tough question, at least that’s what other UMR Hall of Famers have told me, is there a movie character that best represents Steve Lensman?
Steve Lensman – Interesting question… as a teen, maybe Ferris Bueller. I was always skipping school, sometimes with friends and we’d end up at a museum or the London Zoo. No Ferrari though, we’d use the London Underground to travel and rarely paid for a ticket, so at the first sign of the train inspector we’d scarper. I remember escaping punishment from the school principal by jumping out of his ground floor window, which just made things worse. I had to invent all kinds of excuses for my odd behaviour. As an adult… I can’t think of a character… maybe.. Thor? (Stop it Steve!)
Cogerson – You could have dinner with one of the following people, Alfred Hitchcock, Ray Harryhausen or Charlton Heston….who do you pick and why?
Steve Lensman – Probably Hitchcock, he would have plenty of stories to tell and had a wicked sense of humour. All three were heroes of mine in my younger days.
Cogerson – Years ago, I was shocked to learn that you are not a fan of Forrest Gump. I had thought that it was a universally loved movie. Turns out many people, like Flora, agree with you. So, my question is….why do you not like it?
SteveLensman – I might have given the impression that I hated Forrest Gump, but I don’t. I just don’t love it as much as you and millions of others do. I have the film on DVD and Blu-ray. I wouldn’t own it if I disliked it. Okay it’s not a film I watch often and I’m a big Robert Zemeckis fan. It has a downbeat ending which kinda kills repeat viewings for me. And yes, I do prefer Tarantino’s best movie, Pulp Fiction.
Cogerson – We have spent many nights talking to each other during Oscar night. Last year you did not watch the show. Are the Oscars losing importance, or are there other reasons that staying up all night, to find the winners is no longer enjoyable?
Steve Lensman – It’s strange, something happened to the Oscars in the last decade or so, the magic has gone Bruce. Back in the 1990s it was more than just people walking up to the podium, collecting their awards and giving boring speeches. There was a variety of entertainment and it was hilarious too. Sad really. And the films that win now are the kind you’d rarely watch twice if at all. I did see snippets of last years show and this years Oscars were marred by Will Smith belting Chris Rock.
Cogerson – Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is considered by smarter and more movie knowledgeable people than us, to be the best movie ever made. It would not even make my Top 5 Hitchcock movies….being the huge Hitch fan you are, what do you think?
Steve Lensman – Whilst I am happy that a Hitchcock movie was voted best movie ever made (at least until the next poll is taken which I think is this year), it’s not my favorite film by Hitch. There are others I prefer like Psycho, Rear Window and North by Northwest. I’m also a big fan of Citizen Kane, so if that gets back on top again I won’t be heartbroken.
Cogerson – You have taken a break from producing YouTube videos. So, what are you doing with that extra time, and do you miss cranking out all those videos?
Steve Lensman – I find it hard to believe now that in the first few years I started on youtube I was producing 3 youtube videos every single week! Then I cut it down to 2 a week, then it was 3 videos every 2 weeks and eventually it became 0 videos a week. But I did manage to fill up that channel with over a thousand videos, he said proudly. I read a lot more now, catching up on books I’d put aside. Pay more attention to the missus. I’ve binged on TV shows I’ve missed and was hearing a lot about like Succession. I will start youtubing again probably in the autumn. I miss Bob and Flora’s reviews, not so much the videos themselves. 😉
Cogerson – Alright, to wrap up this interview, do you remember how we first met at Hubpages?
Steve Lensman – Yeah you commented on one of my hubs and then we started chatting about box office figures and the special year end Variety issues. I had a few saved from the 70s and 80s. I think you wanted box office info on some movies and were wondering if I could help. Now of course you have the ultimate box office web site with movie data and statistics no one else on the internet has. Kudos!
Cogerson – I still remember which Hub I commented on….it was your Hitchcock cameo video page.
In case you missed the first interviews.
- –UMR HoF Interviews–
- Bern1960 Class of 2014
- bob cox Class of 2017
- Bob Roy Class of 2015
- BryRog57 Class of 2014
- Dan Class of 2016
- Flora Class of 2014
- GeorgeV Class of 2018
- Helakoski Class of 2015
- Laurent Class of 2015
- PhilHoF17 Class of 2017
- Pierre Class of 2017
- Søren Class of 2014
- SteinHoF16 Class of 2016
- WoC Class of 2020
Only two more UMR Hall of Famers to interview…our latest honorees…Mike and Taylor.
Edit – I see my comment has returned! 🙂
Aloha from Manchester!
Happy to see these fading memories in print while I can still remember them, cheers Bruce!
Hi Flora, I’m back! 🙂 Bob and I were grumbling about Bruce being awol at the UMR and then I disappear for months, tsk tsk. I’ve gotten so used to not making youtube videos I started to enjoy it! But I will be back on there, if I can think of something interesting and worthwhile.
Hi Bob, enjoyed your posts. In a perverse way I miss the fights I had with Sandra, I used to refer to her as She-who-must-be-obeyed. She now lives in Germany and is happily married, but we still chat, unfortunately she has become a conspiracy theorist and doesn’t believe what she sees on the news, she keeps going on about ‘sheeple’ and having the ‘wool pulled over our eyes’.
HI STEVE:
Good to hear from you. Probably you are in the traditional position of the writer who feels a bit stale after so much output and gets writer’s block and after a while it lifts. So I am sure your ‘posters block’ will in due course lift and you will be churning out 1st class videos again with gusto.
Meanwhile as I was indicating in my posts you cracked along with very fluently answering Bruce’s questions in the interview revealing a lot of interesting stuff without padding or going on too long. As I mentioned my biggest surprises in what you said came from your disenchantment with the Oscars; and no mention of Jace among your faves.
By the way I found out from The Work Horse just recently that one of his grandparents was from Manchester – did YOU know that? Anyway keep safe and continue to enjoy yourself. Indeed I thought that most appropriate on a page all about you in the present situation is the tagline on the Ferris Bueller poster above: LEISURE RULES!
Hey Steve. Thanks for coming to UMR and checking out your interview. Glad we got those memories out before you lost them. Once again thanks for doing this interview.
The Work Horse says to Flora in his 8.01 am post today:
“I will be scaling down as school gets going again.”
This sounds to me suspiciously like Bruce’s ‘reverse’ push-back against Christopher Lee’s Fu Manchu when the supposedly-dead Fu threatens in voice-over at the end of each of Lee’s Fu movies-
“The world SHALL hear from me again!”
I can therefore only hope that Steve’s EX Sandra does get in touch with me !!!- see closing two paragraphs in 4 of 4 of my posts today.
Steve likening Ferris unto himself got me thinking: what great fictional character whom I liked in a movie do BOTH Steve and the Work Horse remind me of? I spent half the morning trying to work it out because both are – I was about to say strange but will use instead – unique or special guys.
Then it hit me: Charlie Bill Stuart’s Yancey Cravat in the 1960 screen adaptation of Edna Ferber’s Cimarron. Adventurer and frontiersman Yancey kept disappearing for long periods at a time to fight wars and crusades; would suddenly return to his wife out of the blue; and then be off again for further lengthy periods once more leaving her all on her own.
Anyway this has been such a splendid and far-reaching interview on the part of both participants, rattling along as it does at a brisk pace in neat proportions, that I will need to read it a few times and I am sure other significant points will occur to me in the fullness of time.
Unlike Joel I don’t have the capacity to grasp dozens of salient points in a short space of time without even thinking. I still after all these years haven’t been able to grasp what Joel immediately spotted: that Brando’s presence ruined those two massive hits Desiree and Guys n Dolls!
For now though I am left with the mystery of how after his experience with the rats Steve ever steeled himself to watch another horror film.
Speaking for myself I think that rather have those pests crawling around me I would prefer to take on that axe-wielding guy in the Santa suit who frequents chimneys every year in Steve’s Xmas video; and from now on when someone, allegedly inaccurately, quotes Cagney saying “You dirty rat!” I am liable to experience grisly shivers instead of just my normal annoyance with the apparent continued misquoting.
But I’ll leave the last word to Steve by highlighting that he says above “My dear Sandra was a horror movie fan, The Shining was her favorite. We still chat.”
Lucky Sandra – can I have her e-mail address? OLE BOB is looking for someone to chat to!!! Anyway as Steve himself would say: overall a big and most welcome “Vote Up!”
Hey Bob. I was talking with WoC and the Rat Theater is not one we would ever go to…at least after the first time we saw a rat. Good to know Steve is Thor Buehler. Now that is a great combo. Good feedback.
I greatly admire the actresses that Steve has singled-out as his favourites but although they always entertain me none is for me a Doris; none is a Joan; and none is a “warbling teenager”. Still I’ll quit while I am ahead on the subject as at least he didn’t drool over the Thin Woman.
I should though mention the Dan-like link that occurs to me here: Judy and The Great Warbler were fast friends and they met up on occasions even after DD retired from the entertainment business.
Judy did though recount how on one such visit to DD she told the possessor of the still-lovely warble about her, Judy’s, new entertainment project and DD upset her by saying “You’re not STILL in that s*** business are you?”!
Glad to see that among Steve’s favourite films are Godpop and Alan Ladd’s Citizen Kane – which is still not listed in the filmography on Laddie’s Cogerson page!!!
Another big coincidence is Steve likening Ferris Bueller onto himself because my son as a teen used to watch endless reruns of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – whilst poor me couldn’t get him to watch with me even once a Laddie film.
Dan with his slender links has a habit of creeping into my posts and this one is no exception and here are two more of them:
1/Matthew Broderick of course played Ferris Bueller and Matthew who appeared with Brando in 1990’s The Freshman was a big fan of The Great Mumbler one of Steve’s own fave actors.
2/Hitch’s Vertigo which is mentioned in the interview was the subject of a critical psychological analysis that my son wrote for one of his mock-examinations at university. Going deeply into the psychology of Stewart’s Scottie Ferguson, S of Bob got good marks for it – I am sure that if Hirsch were about today he would want to take notes!!
NOTE: Hitch is on record as saying that he regarded as the 3 best leading men of the 50s as my Jimmy, Archibald Alec Leach and [though they never worked together] The Great Mumbler.
Hey Bob…good breakdown on Steve’s answers. Not sure I knew he was such a big Judy Garland fan. I recently watched all three That’s Entertainment movies and she is heavily featured in all three movies. Good stuff.