Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Film Masters.

ROCKPORT, Mass. — May 17, 2024 — For Immediate Release — Film Masters, a leading vintage film restoration and distribution company, is excited to announce a theatrical partnership with the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA), the largest non-profit genre film archive and distributor in the world.

Working to bring new life to forgotten classic titles that have laid dormant for decades, Film Masters has released a notable and well-received slate of pristine prints during its inaugural year—primarily sourced from 35mm 4K scans that have been painstakingly restored for special collector’s editions on Blu-ray and DVD, as well as for streaming and broadcast—with original special features produced by a consortium of contributors. In recognition of its work, Film Masters has been nominated for several awards, including five Rondon Hatton categories and The Shelf Shock Rewind Awards for “Best New Label.”

AGFA will distribute Film Masters’ newly restored classic library theatrically. This is AGFA’s latest collaboration following distribution partnerships with Arrow Films (Donnie Darko), Multicom (Freeway), Severin Films (Santa Sangre), Shout! Factory (Black Christmas) and Something Weird (Zodiac Killer).

Film Masters’ movies are available on DCP for theatrical bookings from AGFA starting immediately. Newly restored titles to be distributed by AGFA include early efforts from the late Roger Corman’s Filmgroup, including Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961), in which Corman recently contributed to the commentary by Tom Weaver for the recent home video release by Film Masters. More Roger Corman titles available for booking from Film Masters include: Beast From Haunted Cave (1959), Ski Troop Attack (1960), Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Devil's Partner (1961) and The Terror (1963).

Other available theatrical bookings include: Battle of the Worlds (1961), Common Law Wife (1963), Crippled Masters (1979), Door to Door Maniac (1961), Right Hand of the Devil (1963), Redneck Miller (1976), The Scarlet Letter (1934), The Swiss Conspiracy (1976), and Tormented (1960). Additional titles from the Film Masters catalog will be announced later this year.

(Boris Karloff in "The Terror". Photo: Film Masters.)

Said Philip Hopkins, president of Film Masters, “AGFA’S commitment to the presentation and preservation of genre film has greatly enhanced the exposure for these important releases that the mainstream has mostly ignored. We’re delighted to be included in their impressive portfolio of studio partners and thrilled that our own preservation and restoration efforts will now have the opportunity to be seen on the big screen again as originally intended.”

Commented Jackson Cooper, executive director, AGFA, “AGFA is proud to be partnering with Film Masters on this endeavor to present and promote this library of classic genre films. The Film Masters team is a dedicated, passionate group that understands the power of genre film and the importance of experiencing these films in their restored, theatrical glory. We are thrilled about this partnership and look forward to using the power of moviegoing experiences to introduce new generations of film lovers to this important collection.”

Interested parties can book Film Master’s films theatrically by contacting bret.berg@americangenrefilm.com at AGFA.

(Roger Corman. Photo: Film Masters.)

About American Genre Film Archive:

Formed in 2009, the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit located in Austin, Texas. AGFA exists to preserve the legacy of genre movies through collection, conservation and distribution. Housing theatrical and home video distribution arms, a 4K film scanner and over 6,000  film prints, AGFA will never rest until genre movies rule the world. Visit us online at: https://www.AmericanGenreFilm.com

About Film Masters:

Film Masters is a consortium of historians and enthusiasts who seek to celebrate the preservation and restoration of films. We are archivists, committed to storing film elements for future generations and reviving films that have been sitting dormant for decades. By scanning in 2K and 4K, we give these lesser-known films the red-carpet treatment they deserve. Leveraging modern means of distribution to release forgotten films back into the world, we also produce original bonus materials, including feature-length documentaries, which aid audiences in contextualizing and celebrating these works of art as they were meant to be.  Visit us online at: www.FilmMasters.com

The success of Mad magazine inspired many blatant imitators including Sick magazine. None of them could equal the originality and talent found in Mad, but they each had their individual merits. In this 1963 issue of Sick magazine, you'll find a four page spoof of "The Longest Day" beginning on page 32. (Use the arrow in the right column to scroll down page-by-page.)

By Michael F. Blake

John Ford has always been my favorite director. Winning a record four Best Directing Oscars (a record yet to be beaten), his films continue to influence movie fans and filmmakers. My introduction to John Ford happened when my father, actor Larry J. Blake, took me to a roadshow matinee at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood to see Cheyenne Autumn. For a cowboy-crazy kid of seven, the action between the cavalry and the Indians kept my attention, but it was seeing Monument Valley for the first time that made the biggest impact on me. I had never seen such a place. After that matinee, when my friends and I played cowboys, every tree and bush in my neighborhood stood in for that amazing landscape.

By the time I was eleven, this budding film historian had managed to watch ten of Ford’s films on local television stations and John Ford was my master class in film history. Of course, it helped that my father, who had worked twice for Ford, would point out to me how Ford would frame a scene, or, as dad called them, his “Fordian touches” (i.e., humor, bits of business and the Irish sentimentality).

The mixing of John Ford and Monument Valley in the cinematic universe was a magical combination. Director John Milus once said that Ford had a romance with Monument Valley. He was right. While other filmmakers have filmed in Monument Valley, they never quite captured the beauty, mystique and grandeur of Ford’s work. He was an artist with a camera, creating an impressive image in every shot. This is especially true in the films he made in Monument Valley, from the lone stagecoach making its way past the buttes, to Henry Fonda bidding goodbye to Clementine as he rides down a lonely stretch of road, to the cavalry making their way during a thunderstorm.

In any of the films Ford shot in Monument Valley, the land became as much a character as any of the actors. In The Searchers (1956), the land presents the American West as an expansive and isolated country where only strong, resilient people could survive, be they white settlers or Indians. The towering buttes dwarf the human characters, not only creating an unforgettable backdrop, but also reinforcing the theme of the people struggling to endure in an unforgiving land. Ford’s placement of John Wayne in this immense landscape only further heightens the character’s isolation and his being forced to “wander between the winds.”

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) marked Ford’s first-time filming in his beloved valley in Technicolor. Before production began, Ford studied the paintings of Frederic Remington (notably his cavalry images) and Charles M. Russell. One can see Russell’s color palette reflected in the film, notably in one scene featuring a line of Indians riding along a ridge. It is a Russell painting come to life. Knowing every area of Monument Valley so well, the director picked certain locations to photograph at various times of the day to bring impressive images to the screen. A perfect example is the sequence of Ben Johnson being chased by Indians.

Monument Valley continues to attract hundreds of tourists from all over the world. For many of them, Monument Valley represents the American West ? thanks to John Ford’s movies.

(Photo: Michael F. Blake)

Which brings me to my book, The Cavalry Trilogy: John Ford, John Wayne and the Making of Three Classic Westerns. I have always been a fan of these films (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande), but was frustrated by the minimal coverage they received in any Ford biography. Unfortunately, word count and page length are always a writer’s greatest adversary.

Much like the cavalry coming to the rescue in his movies, I chose to give Ford’s wonderful trilogy the proper attention they so richly deserve. (Plus, it was a great excuse to make another visit to Monument Valley!) Writing about John Ford in The Cavalry Trilogy not only allowed me to shed light on these classic films, but also to uncover stories that hadn’t been published before. Kind of made me feel a bit like Indiana Jones – in Monument Valley.

(Michael F. Blake will be signing copies of the book at the John Wayne Birthplace festivities held in Winterset, Iowa on May 24-25 to commemorate Wayne's birthday.)

Click here to order from Amazon

By Hank Reineke

In early July of 1952, a 65-year old Boris Karloff returned to England for a four-month long stay. He and his wife, Evelyn “Evie” Hope, had arrived from America via transatlantic liner. The ship would dock at the quay in Plymouth, some two-hundred and forty miles south of London. The actor, who by his own calculation had been away from England for some sixteen years, was met at the port by a journalist from London’s Daily Mirror. Karloff would describe his touching down again in his native homeland, as the “Return of the Ghost.”

The Mirror writer made immediate comment on the unusual “grey, military moustache” Karloff was sporting. “This is for some TV pictures I hope to make for the American market while I’m in England,” the actor explained. “I expect to play the role of Colonel March, special investigator.” When asked if his role was the usual “sinister” one” for which he was accustomed, Karloff shrugged. “Oh, no. I shall be tackling many odd assignments in a rather light-hearted manner. In fact, the role might be a little too benign.”

American author John Dickson Carr (as “Carter Dickson”) was the creator of the irascible, but brilliant investigating Scotland Yard detective Colonel March. Dickson’s character first appeared in a series of short stories published by London’s Strand magazine 1938-1940. Dickson would pen nine Colonel March mysteries in total, seven of them collected and published as The Department of Queer Complaints (Dell Books, New York, 1940). The book’s odd title is a reference to department “D.3.,” a branch of Scotland Yard’s metropolitan police for which March works.

March is, for the most part, the only investigator of “The Department of Queer Complaints.” He’s assigned to those quirky cases appearing unsolvable: “locked room” mysteries that have baffled the investigations of the mainstream detectives. While many of the mysteries he’s called to solve appear occult or supernatural in appearance, March proves these enigmatic challenges to be nothing more than smokescreens for more routine crimes. Having now sat through the better part of this television series, I find the guilty parties can be readily identified easily and early. The real mystery lies in how the cerebrally deductive Colonel March manages to puzzle his way through the criminal fog to bring the guilty to justice.

The rights to Dickson’s The Department of Queer Complaints were optioned by Hannah Weinstein. Weinstein, an American publicist and former journalist for the New York Herald Tribune, was also a long-time left-wing activist. Choosing to leave behind the chilling political climate of encroaching McCarthyism, Weinstein fled the U.S. for Paris in 1950. Interested in getting involved in the film industry, Weinstein would form Panda Films. It was in partnership with England’s Fountain Films that the original trio of pilot episodes of Colonel March of the Scotland Yard were filmed at Nettleford Studios, Walton-on-Thames, England. But Weinstein’s ultimate intent was to launch Colonel March as a television property in America.

It’s of interest that prior to Colonel March of the Scotland Yard playing on U.S. television, a feature-length film, Colonel March Investigates, would play theatrically in second run cinemas of the United Kingdom from June through December 1953. In May of ’53 Variety reported that Panda had “packaged two trios of half-hour pix into features for theatrical release” - with the caveat the films could not play in the U.S. die to a “telepix” deal already struck with Official Films in the U.S. In any event, only the Colonel March Investigates feature was released in Great Britain through Criterion Films. More often than not, the film was paired in cinemas with the aged Bob Hope horror-comedy The Cat and the Canary (Paramount, 1939). Perhaps of more import was the fact that directorship of Colonel March Investigates was credited to another American expatriate Cyril (“Cy”) Endfield. Blacklisted from the United States film industry due to his own dabbles with leftist politics, Endfield moved to London in 1952 to seek employment opportunities overseas.

This feature-length version of Colonel March Investigates, described contemporaneously by a British critic as “a hotch-potch film,” was, in fact, just that: a stringing together of Endfield’s three pilots (“Hot Money,” “Death in the Dressing Room” and “The New Invisible Man”) portmanteau style. Endfield’s biographer, Brian Neve, suggests in his The Many Lives of Cyril Endfield: Film Noir, the Blacklist and Zulu, that once the series was broadcast in the U.S., many of the on-screen credits of the Colonel March television series were tweaked. Neve suggests that many of the scripts - credited to “Leslie Slote” or “Leo Davis” - were likely “front” credits. In this estimation, Neve was entirely correct.

The earliest original scenarios of Colonel March were written primarily by American writers living in Europe due to the McCarthyism at home: the screenwriter Harold Buchman possibly composed scripts, with the writing team of Walter Bernstein and Abraham Polonsky most definitely contributing. The latter two would use the nom de plume of “Leo Davis” (on Colonel March Investigates) and of “Leslie Slote” on the subsequent television series.

In Bernstein’s recollection, it was Weinstein who asked for his assistance in helpfully filling-out Dickson’s “thin” mystery stories. This would have been in April 1952. “She wanted to use blacklisted people to work on it,” Bernstein confided in his memoir Inside Out, “so Polonsky and I took on Colonel March.” Bernstein recalled his decision to collaborate with Polonsky as an entirely practical choice, “since writing dramatic puzzles seemed easier for two than one.”

I’ve not read any of Carter Dickson’s original mysteries, so I can’t determine if Bernstein and Polonsky significantly changed the tone of the original stories, nor can I judge the subsequent adaptations better or worse. I can say that the criminals introduced in the Colonel March TV series are rarely street-level thugs. There are a few toughs sprinkled here and there, but mostly they’re engaged as pawns in the employ of gentile professionals, respectable people who command power and prestige. Most of the crime-scenes in the series take place in high society settings: swanky cabarets, university libraries, art galleries, fashion shows, solicitor offices, private clubs and manor houses. Crimes of the suite, not of the street.

Weinstein’s employ of blacklisted writers and filmmakers would in time, of course, prove problematic when attempting to sell the series to U.S. distributors. When the original three pilot episodes of Colonel March Investigates were telecast in the U.S., Endfield’s credits are conveniently scrubbed, replaced with the name of Donald Ginsberg: Ginsberg now attributed as both producer and director. Of the Colonel’s twenty-six episodes, eighteen are credited to British directors Bernard Knowles and Arthur Crabtree; three to “Donald Ginsberg” (Endfield), three to Philip Brown (another blacklisted American actor recently re-settled in England), one to Paul Dickson (as “Paul Gherzo”) and even one to Terence Fisher, soon a celebrant of Hammer Films mythology.

It’s unlikely that Karloff was unaware he was working alongside a company of “radicals.” These were American citizens holding distinguished resumes now tainted due to their associations with WWII-era anti-fascist work. Karloff was a mild political progressive in comparison. But he was also the biggest star among the original twenty-one actors who incorporated the Screen Actors Guild in June of 1933. In the study Tender Comrades, contributing writer Glenn Lovell offered that Karloff too, as a “very early SAG activist,” was considered suspicious for his union-organizing work. The actor would choose “to park blocks away from Guild meetings to avoid surveillance.” But Karloff was simply a man of fair play and conscience. A former National Executive Secretary of the Guild explained to Karloff biographer Cynthia Lindsay, “Boris was a philosophical anarchist. Simply couldn’t tolerate injustice.”

In August of 1953, Official Films of W. 45^th Street, New York City, staged a special screening of pilot episodes of the Colonel March series to prospective regional U.S. television buyers. A writer from Billboard attended, perhaps puzzled of any distributor interest in the series. Detective and mystery programs were already glutting the schedules and evening time-slots of network television. But the reporter was impressed with Colonel March, acknowledging the program brimmed with “possibilities.” That same month, Official signed syndication deals with some twenty eastern U.S. television markets.

The reporter mused that producers were bravely trying something different, “striving after an off-beat quality that will set the show apart from the many other mystery shows already on TV.” Though Billboard thought the scripting was not up to scratch,” Karloff’s sparkling performance as Colonel March managed to rise above the otherwise mediocre scenarios. The chief inspector of the “Department of Queer Complaints” was, in the estimation of the trade, the “closest thing to Sherlock Holmes to be found in a regular series.”

Seeing there was U.S. television interest in the series, Panda farmed the production of all remaining episodes to Foundation Films. The company was tasked to hastily deliver all remaining episodes by May of 1954. Shooting of the series was set to re-commence on October 26, 1953. The monochrome series was a low-budget affair to be sure, but the episodes were generally well-written and performed.

By November of 1953, the producers already managed to collect some $75,000 into their coffers for television syndication rights privileges. Sales of Colonel March of the Scotland Yard were handily outpacing Official’s other television package offerings as the Robert Cumming’s comedy My Hero and a television version of the comic-strip adventure Terry and the Pirates. Currently in the works for Official were the adventure series Secret Files with Robert Alda and Arthur Dreyfus and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion featuring Buster Crabbe. But Colonel March had become, for a brief time anyway, the company’s standard bearer, a “fascinating, brand new half-hour film series of scientific crime fiction.”

The series was different from its counterparts. Karloff would muse he was “pleased” with “the absence of brutality in the stories.” These were thinking-man mysteries, cases solved through erudite deduction rather than fisticuffs. The promotional material of Official Films would highlight how March’s method of crime solving differed from that of the average gumshoe: “This witty gentleman is equally at home with Shakespeare and shakedowns, Heifitz and heisting. Don’t let his charm deceive you. Though he carries no gun, throws no punches, and kisses no blondes – he packs a wallop with his brain!”

By early December of ’53, Variety would report some forty U.S. television markets had already pre-purchased the full package of twenty-six episodes – the majority of which still had not yet been produced. These included markets in eleven western states, Hawaii, and Alaska. Variety opined that the Colonel March “series shapes as a good buy for beer and drug sponsors.” There was an acknowledgment this was adult entertainment, the program’s atmospheric mysteries – demonstrating “socko video potential” – were likely “best fitted for a late night slot.”

At least one suds manufacturer took their advice. Two weeks following Variety’s suggestion, the entire twenty-six episode series was sold for sponsorship by Chicago’s Atlantic Brewing Company, the series’ biggest urban market by far. The brewer was planning on going all-in with their investment, desiring to “shoot integrated commercials for Atlantic with Karloff starring.” The Colonel March series was eventually broadly syndicated in sixty U.S. markets.

Though public and market interest for Colonel March of Scotland Yard would gradually diminish following those earliest broadcasts in January of 1954, you could still find the series playing somewhere in America as late as 1959. The series would vanish almost completely from TV screens by 1960. Their disappearance was, perhaps not accidental: Karloff’s anthology series Thriller would make its television debut on NBC-TV in September of 1960.

This is the first time to my knowledge that the entire twenty-six episode of Colonel March of Scotland Yard has been made available on home video in the U.S. Alpha Video previously published a total of eight episodes of the series in two DVD sets as early as 2014. Other labels would include an episode or two on their various Detective or Mystery budget sets of public domain material. The series might be of some tangential interest to collectors due to some of the on-screen cameos and roles of folks on the cusp of achieving greater fame: Christopher Lee, Peter Asher (of the British pop-duo “Peter and Gordon”), composer Anthony Newley, John Schlesinger, and Zena Marshall (“Miss Taro” of the Bond film Dr. No).

One might question Film Chest’s decision to put out the set on DVD instead of Blu ray in 2024 as a curious one. The monochrome episodes look pretty good, all things considered, but the visual images are noticeably soft and would have certainly benefited from a loving high-def. treatment. Having said that, the set is eminently watchable, if not perfect… well, to my aging eyes at least. But obsessed techie-collectors will not likely greet this release with neither fanfare nor acclaim. For those of us more forgiving, it’s nice to have the series, at long last, complete.

Finally, a word of caution: though this set includes an eight-page booklet-episode guide, be wary of believing all that you read within. The booklet purportedly gives episode broadcast dates, but they are all well off the mark, at least as far as U.S. television debuts are concerned. Episode One is given a booklet broadcast date as October 1, 1955, but in reality the first episode of Colonel March of Scotland Yard was broadcast in the U.S. as early as January 27, 1954 on Pittsburgh’s WDTV. (In fairness, it could be that the dates given by Film Chest (a U.S. company based in Connecticut) have been sourced from the series’ belated 1955 appearance on Britain’s ITV television). A minor criticism, perhaps, but it’s the sort of erroneous information that’s assumed as gospel and repeated ad infinitum on internet sites.

The Film Chest Media Group, founded in 2000 or thereabouts, promises their engagement “in the acquisition, preservation, development, and distribution of film and television media. With an extensive archive and a state-of-the-art facility, we offer many essential services to the media and entertainment industry, including climate-controlled film storage, film scanning and restoration, content management and distribution, and so much more.” The company’s film library purportedly boasts “thousands of titles” which is said to include films in the public domain as well as “proprietary asset” titles.

The Film Chest catalog is diverse in its offerings: mostly DVD collections so far, but with a few Blu-ray titles mixed in as well: in the latter category you’ll find such pictures as The Red House (1947, with Edward G. Robinson) and Suddenly (1954, with Frank Sinatra). A good portion of their releases are complete series collections of mostly forgotten (or dimly recalled) television programs circa 1957-1961: Colonel March of the Scotland Yard, of course, but also Decoy (1957), The Invisible Man (1958-1960), Deadline (1959-1961) and One Step Beyond (1959-1961).

Releases of more recent television series from Film Chest runs the gamut from Stacy Keach’s Mike Hammer series (1997-1998) to The Lost World (1999-2002) and even to ABC-TV’s Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp (1970). Film Chest also offers generous DVD collections of public domain issues of Hollywood musicals, film noirs, and detective mysteries. It’s well worth a look through their catalog offerings.

It’s encouraging that, in this era of streaming, such niche interest films and aged television series are being made available for collectors of physical media. It must be said that Film Chest’s releases are also very economically priced for the amount of content offered in their multi-disc television sets. Fans of Boris Karloff and 1950’s television mystery and detective series now have, for the first time, the opportunity to pick up the entire series of Colonel March of Scotland Yard in one swoop. I know I’m certainly happy to showcase my copy of the Colonel March set alongside such other Karloff television collections as The Veil (1958) and Thriller (1960-1962). Recommended.

Click here to order from Amazon

Please note: original posting had the wrong date. 

On Friday, May 17, Turner Classic Movies (North America) will run numerous 1960s spy movies back-to-back. Things kick off at 7:45 A.M. (EST) with the Man from U.N.C.L.E. feature film "One of Our Spies is Missing" starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, followed by "Where the Spies Are" (David Niven); "The Prize" (Paul Newman, Elke Sommer), "The Venetian Affair" (Robert Vaughn, Elke Sommer), the U.N.C.L.E. feature film "How to Steal the World" and finally the WWII espionage flick "36 Hours" (James Garner, Eva Marie Saint.) 

By Lee Pfeiffer

In 1971, a well-connected Dutch prostitute named Xavier Hollander published her memoirs under the title of "The Happy Hooker". The book became an international bestseller with its lighthearted recollections of her adventures in "the world's oldest profession". "The Happy Hooker" delighted readers who were relishing the new-found sexual freedoms that came about in the 1960s. Women, who would have been chastised for reading such a book ten years earlier, could openly read it on buses and in subway cars because everyone else was reading it. The content was erotic enough to be titillating but humorous enough to give it enough cachet to not be labeled pornographic. How much of it was true? Who knows. bestselling author Robin Moore ("The Green Berets", "The French Connection"), who actually took down Hollander's recorded comments on her life, came up with the title and the book was likely ghostwritten by Yvonne Dunleavy. With the success of the book, it was no surprise that a few years later Hollywood brought Hollander's exploits to the screen the film version of "The Happy Hooker". Released in 1975, it starred Lynn Redgrave in the title role. Not wanting to alienate mainstream audiences, the film was made as a saucy comedy. It was followed two years later by "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington" with Joey Heatherton portraying Hollander. The third and final film in the official trilogy (we won't count an unauthorized hardcore production) was "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood", which was released in 1980 with Martine Beswick (billed here as "Beswicke") taking over the role.

"The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" follows the tradition of the previous two films in that it stresses zany comedy. However, there are some surprisingly steamy softcore sex scenes between some very recognizable actors that makes for a bizarre mixture of slapstick and eroticism. It also features an eclectic cast of first-rate second bananas who finally get some plum roles on the big screen, albeit in a Cannon Films production. Cannon, of course, was notorious for being a highly profitable "cheese factory", churning out many modestly-budgeted exploitation flicks for undiscriminating audiences. The film opens with a wheelchair-bound Phil Silvers (yes, that Phil Silvers!) as legendary studio mogul William Warkoff, an obnoxious one-time titan of the industry whose fortunes have been in decline. When he reads that Xavier Hollander intends to bring her bestselling book to the big screen, he dispatches his long-suffering right-hand men Joseph Rottman (Richard Deacon)and his son Robby (Chris Lemmon) as well as Lionel Lamely (Adam West), to secure the screen rights by whatever underhanded methods are necessary. Lionel arranges a meeting with Xavier, who is immediately attracted to him. (In fact, she finds most men irresistible and even seduces her chauffeur en route to the meeting.) Before long, Lionel and Xavier are engaging in steamy sex sessions. She falls for him and agrees to allow Warkoff Studios to produce her film- that is, until she learns that Lionel actually has a longtime girlfriend and has been misleading her. She then announces she will make the film herself and secure her own financing, which outrages Warkoff. In order to raise money, Xavier employs her ever-ready squad of equally happy hookers. She sets up an exotic bordello in which men can live out any fantasy, including having sex with a call girl dressed like Little Bo Peep. (Imagine "Westworld" for fetishists.) Warkoff strikes a more lucrative deal with Xavier but intends to deceive her and cheat her out of ownership rights to the film but she is savvy enough to turn the tables on him.

Directed by Alan Roberts, "Hollywood" has a goofy charm primarily because of the good-natured performances of the cast. It's nice to see Martine Beswick in a rare leading role and she plays the part with a deft combination of wicked wit and eroticism. (Beswick unabashedly appears topless numerous times in the course of the film). Adam West, who looks like he had barely aged a day since playing Batman two decades previously, also gets a chance to showcase his comedic abilities and admirable physique. The sex scene between Beswick and West's characters is a bit eye-opening because it's one of the few elements of the film that isn't played for laughs and there is some kind of pop culture appeal to watching the Uncaped Crusader getting it on with a two-time Bond girl. (Beswick would later recall that West felt very uncomfortable when he discovered how erotic the scene would be.)Phil Silvers overdoes the obnoxious aspect of his character but it's still enjoyable seeing him in a feature film this late in his career. Richard Deacon, who made a career of playing sycophantic "yes-men", is in top form and he and West share an amusing scene in which they are forced to dress in drag. Chris Lemmon is very appealing as a naive young man who gets caught up in Xavier's world with appreciable results. He exudes the same comic timing and mannerisms of his legendary father, Jack. One of the most unintentionally amusing aspects of the film is the virtual beatification of Xavier Hollander, whose approval of the movie must have been a prerequisite. In any event, she is referred to as a titan of business and a living legend, when, in fact, by 1980 her star had diminished appreciably. The whole plot climaxes (if you'll pardon the pun) at the "World Premiere" of the film...which is also unintentionally amusing because it is only a grand event by Cannon standards, though they did spring for getting a spotlight and a few dozen extras to act like a screaming mob as the stars arrive at a nondescript L.A. theater.

"The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" is symbolic of a long Hollywood tradition of glamorizing prostitution. Xavier and her stable of call girls are all seen as successful, independent businesswomen who have turned their love of sex into a profit-making operation. There's nary a hint that most women who practice the "profession" are actually forced to do so through human trafficking, exploitation, torture and threat of death. Instead, films like this prefer to concentrate on the relatively small percentage of women who do willingly and successfully work as prostitutes. In this respect, the movie has to be viewed as a product of the era in which it was made. Because of it's sheer unpretentious exploitation aspects, it can be enjoyed as a guilty pleasure.

The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Susan on the Martha's Vineyard set of "Jaws". (Photo: Universal.)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Susan Backlinie, who appeared in the opening scene of Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster "Jaws", has passed away at her California home at age 77. Backlinie was plucked from obscurity by the young director because she was an expert swimmer who had performed stunt work. In the film she played Chrissie, the ill-fated teenager whose decision to take a moonlight dip in the ocean led to her horrific death from a giant Great White Shark. Although her name would not be known by average movie-goers, it's safe to say that her appearance in the movie represented one of the most famous scenes in screen history. Backlinie's contribution to the film was recognized by legions of die-hard "Jaws" fans who considered her an important member of the production team.

Susan at "Jawsfest" in 2005. (Photo:Cinema Retro).

In 2005, she was an honored guest at Universal's "Jawsfest", which was held at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where filming took place. Here she was joined by Peter Benchley, author of the bestselling source novel and key members of the original production who were reunited over the celebratory weekend. Backlinie earned her pay on the film, as she recounted over the years. She was attached to a harness and violently pulled through the water to simulate the shark attack. Spielberg was impressed with her courage and hired her to recreate the scene for his 1979 WWII spoof "1941".

For more, click here.

Roger Corman and Vincent Price on the set of their 1963 production of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", one of  their numerous collaborations. (Photo: Cinema Retro Archive))

By Lee Pfeiffer

Roger Corman, an icon of the motion picture industry, has passed away at age 98. It's impossible to overstate his influence in modern moviemaking. The Detroit native had a colorful life as a young man, attending Oxford and spending time in Paris. He joined the U.S. Navy but after a three-year hitch ended up turning to the motion picture industry. His original career goal of becoming an engineer would not be revisited. He found success in Hollywood when he began to produce independent films on Poverty Row budgets, cranking them out sometimes in a manner of days. These exploitation movies were successful with undemanding audiences, often on the drive-in circuit. Corman, who sometimes collaborated with his younger brother Gene, eventually hit pay dirt when he signed a contract to make films for American-International Pictures, then headed by Samuel P. Arkoff. Corman proved to be a productive director, producer and screenwriter. He films for A.I.P. often dealt with horror and the supernatural. He adapted classic Edgar Allan Poe stories for the big screen and gave new life to the careers of aging stars such as Vincent Price, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. His other films for A.I.P. tapped into the youth revolution of the mid-to-late 1960s. His biker film "The Wild Angels" was made on a shoestring budget but made a fortune and predictably inspired countless copycat films. He also delved into the youth market's fixation with drugswith "The Trip". He would later raise eyebrows by distributing films by some of the most highly acclaimed international filmmakers including Kurosawa, Fellini and Truffaut.

In the film industry, Corman is remembered also for his early recognition of top talent. Among those actors and filmmakers whose early careers were enhanced by working with Corman were Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Ron Howard, James Cameron, Bruce Dern, Joe Dante, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola, Sylvester Stallone and Robert Vaughn. Fittingly, he received an honorary Oscar in 2009.The film industry is unlikely to see his kind again.

Click here for more.

Here's a great musical number: the only on-screen teaming of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby in the 1964 Warner Bros. film "Robin and the Seven Hoods", which boasts a terrific score by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen. In the film, Crosby plays a meek accountant for Sinatra's mob. Sinatra and Dino decide to show Crosby how to spice up his image by performing the marvelous musical number "Style". The film also features the classic song "My Kind of Town" and a show-stopping one-man number by Sammy Davis Jr. that tears up the screen.

By Hank Reineke

In early November of 1969 Box Office reported Robert M. Weitman, former first vice-president of studio productions for Columbia Pictures, was striking out on his own. In a sense, anyway. Weitman was to embark on his new career as “independent” producer, albeit one still tethered to Columbia, the company for which we worked for some four decades. For his first indie project, Weitman was interested in optioning novelist Lawrence Sanders’ crime-suspense thriller The Anderson Tapes.

Interestingly, Sanders’ The Anderson Tapes, though already hyped, was not yet formally published. Putnam & Sons of New York set publication for 27 February 1970. But with the forthcoming thriller already in industry preview, the all-important Book-of-the-Month-Club already selected Sander’s debut novel as an exciting, primary read. Dell Books too were excited over the book’s prospects, reportedly offering a figure of six-figures for paperback rights. On the film industry front, Box Office reported there had been “intensive bidding” for motion-picture rights to the novel, with Weitman’s offer managing to nudge out those of “several other major producers.”

It certainly didn’t hurt that best-selling author Mario Puzo, basking in the success of his mafia novel The Godfather, would bless Sanders’ novel with a generous plug. Puzo mused The Anderson Tapes was, “the best novel of its kind I’ve read since the early Graham Greene novels, a gripping story impossible to put down. The central character, Duke Anderson, is a classic character of tragic dimensions. Brilliant and unforgettable.” By April of 1970, the rave reviews of critics and literary peers would help push The Anderson Tapes to rest comfortably alongside The Godfather on Top Ten book lists for Fictional Works. The timing and stage was set for Weitman’s film version. The only question now was whom would be cast to effectively breathe life into the central character of Duke Anderson?

Following his completion of work on You Only Live Twice in 1967, Sean Connery – in his earnest (perhaps desperate) desire to break free of the typecast shackles of his James Bond image – chose to seek out a number of eccentric roles in modest continental productions. He was cast as a post-Civil War cavalry officer in the Edward Dmytryk’s western Shalako (1968), as a doomed Norwegian polar ice cap explorer (Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Red Tent, 1969) and as a radical coal miner in Martin Ritt’s The Molly Maguires (1970).

These were all very good films, without doubt. But none would affirm Connery’s status as a box-office magnet outside of his James Bond persona. Though he remained a celebrity of acclaim and international renown, Connery was acutely aware he needed a post-Bond movie to score big with the public-at-large. Much of his audience still mostly thought of him as the one-and-only James Bond. It was a time of transition. Connery was also in the midst of his transformation from actor to canny businessman. He was aware that to make any real money in the entertainment industry he needed to extend his business interests into producing and optioning rights to various creative properties.

With that intent in mind in the mid-summer of 1970 Connery and his publicist-management representative, Glenn Rose, announced the formation of Conn-Rose Productions. Their partnership was to shepherd and safeguard the business ends of such varied enterprises as feature film productions, television packages and theatrical events. The company had recently entered into the music business as well, choosing to publish several compositions by Richard Harris, Connery’s recent co-star of The Molly Maguires. Conn-Rose were also planning Harris to direct and assume the title role of Hamlet in a new staging of Shakespeare’s tragic play. Connery was hinting he might assume the role of Claudius, murderer of Hamlet’s father. But Connery’s revived interest in theatre was not confined to time-worn classics.

One of Conn-Rose’s first acquisitions was the stage production of Click by playwright Stan Hart. Hart’s one-act play was first staged in October 1968 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, one of several “experimental” theatre projects offered that autumn. Connery was intrigued by the original scenario and hoped to develop the property as a feature film. Connery explained his excitement to a correspondent of the San Francisco Examiner, “This story Click reads like it was written by Neil Simon and Edward Albee in collaboration.”

“It’s about a successful man so worried about his image he has even his friends ‘bugged’ and taped to find out what they really think of him,” Connery continued.. “He ruins his marriage, wrecks his world. This fellow is ridiculous and sad at the same time. I can hardly wait to get at him…” In September of 1970, Connery promised to another journalist that Click was next on his schedule. Click was to be filmed in New York City, he offered, cameras likely to roll on the picture in April of 1971. Sadly, that project would not be realized. The production of Click was derailed by a surprising and unexpected turn-of-events that would take place in March of 1971 – one in which we’ll get to in a moment. In the interim, there was another film project needing Connery’s attention.

In July of 1970 the trades were reporting that Connery had struck a deal with Columbia to appear as John “Duke” Anderson in The Anderson Tapes, Sidney Lumet already signed on to direct. Connery had worked with Lumet previously: he had appeared as a renegade British military officer in the 1965 prison drama The Hill. Connery regarded The Hill as the best motion-picture of his 1960s filmography and, as such, was happy to work with Lumet again. Shooting on The Anderson Tapes for Columbia was scheduled to commence on August 24, 1970, one day prior to Connery’s fortieth birthday, with production to wrap by October’s end.

That October, with The Anderson Tapes nearing completion, Connery’s enthusiasm for working in a theatrical setting seemed to have slackened a bit. The actor was cornered on set by journalist Bernard Drew. Drew asked of Connery’s ambition to re-engage in theater work. “You never like to close the door completely,” Connery answered non-committedly, “But I have no great desire, though I do like to direct in the theatre. What I really want is to direct a film, and I have a four-picture contract with Columbia. I’m going to direct one, produce one, and act in two, but nothing is set. These days, it’s awfully hard to set anything. There’s a crisis in films. All the companies are in trouble – except Columbia, but still…”

Only two of the prognostications Connery made to Drew that day would be realized, and even then only in part. If he had been extended a four-pic contract with Columbia, his second pic for the company, Robin and Marian, would not be released until 1976. Likewise, Connery would not get any chance to direct, but would serve as co-executive producer – and star - in still another Sidney Lumet helmed feature, The Offence (1973), which was released by United Artists. Regardless, The Anderson Tapes would serve as the undeniable kick-off to Connery’s second coming as a box-office figure of standing.

Screenwriter Frank R. Pierson (Cat Ballou, Cool Hand Luke) had been assigned to adapt and re-work Sanders’ eccentrically-composed novel as a motion picture. This would prove to be no easy task. Sanders’ novel was not written in a conventional narrative form: the book details the lineage of burglar Anderson’s prospective heist through a collection of police reports, court records, transcriptions and recordings made, illegally, through the use of governmental electronic surveillance methods: phone wire-taps, antennas, lip-reads, secreted 16mm film cartridge spools, reel-to-reel and video recordings. The reader is left, essentially, a voyeur, following the storyline through the reading of police procedurals and transcripts of wire-taps.

In crafting his screenplay, Pierson exchanges Sanders’ unorthodox and workmanlike gathering of documentary information for a more cinematic cops-vs-robbers scenario. His script also incorporates an uneasy measure of light-hearted humor among other scenario changes. One contemporary review acknowledged the resulting film offered “a dash of pretentious social significance” in its commentary. ‘Tis true both Sanders’ book and Lumet’s film somberly reflected a new encroaching era of real-life, secreted policing methods: FBI, Treasury Department, and police electronic surveillance techniques were now procedural – if technically illegal - norms.

The scenario of The Anderson Tapes - at its most basic: the safe-cracking burglar Duke Anderson is released from prison after serving a ten-year stretch. He’s hardly repentant and intends almost from his day-of-release to mastermind a grand burglary of a swanky East 91^st Street apartment house in Manhattan. What Anderson doesn’t understand is the world has changed during his decade of incarceration. There are now hidden cameras and recording devices monitoring his every move. Undeterred, he organizes a rag-tag team of ex-convicts, a mob boss who owes a favor, and various other ne’er-do-wells to assist in his grandiose scheme.

Among those co-conspirators is Martin Balsam who chews the scenery in an amusing, over-the-top performance as “Haskins,” a mincing, homosexual antiques dealer. (It’s a sort of pre-woke interpretation one would think twice about attempting today). The comedian/satirist Alan King appears in the role as “Pat Angelo,” the mobbed-up son of a syndicate figure whom owes Anderson a debt. King had recently appeared in another film of Lumet’s, the 1968 comedy Bye Bye Braverman and had previously co-starred with Connery in the pre-Bond British military comedy On the Fiddle (released in the U.S. during the Bond craze as Operation Snafu.). King is very good in these films, though he’d later jest he was offended by a good notice received from a critic for his “Pat Angelo” performance. The critic had mused King’s acting in The Anderson Tapes was “surprisingly good,” a comment the comedian couldn’t help but find at least partly insulting. “What’s surprising,” King asked, “about me being good?”

Sadly, Dylan Cannon, a good actress, isn’t really given much of a character role to play off as “Ingrid,” a sexy but extortion-prone kept mistress and an ex-paramour of Connery’s. The Anderson Tapes is also noteworthy as the first feature film of importance to introduce a tousled- haired twenty-seven year-old actor named Christopher Walken (“The Kid”) to the big screen. Walken isn’t given many lines of dialogue, but is quietly omnipresent throughout. (During the next fifteen-years, of course, Walken would not only win an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Deer Hunter, but also served as the last super-villain to be vanquished by Roger Moore’s James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985). One needn’t look too close to notice there are plenty of familiar faces mixed throughout the cast: Margaret Hamilton, pre-Saturday Night Live Garrett Morris, Conrad Bain and Ralph Meeker among them.

There’s little doubt that some of the surprisingly brisk, earliest box office earnings of The Anderson Tapes had been buoyed by the tsunami of press attention given to a tangential event. In early March 1971, it was announced that Connery, following a one film absence, agreed to return as James Bond in the seventh 007 thriller Diamonds are Forever. Shortly following the breaking of that big news, the gossips reported producer Weitman was soon to test-preview a rough cut of The Anderson Tapes at a cinema near Kings Point, not far from the Valley Stream, Long Island home of Alan King. King would later chuckle that Lumet took advantage of his kindness - and residential proximity to New York City. “They were so happy to have me in it,” he explained of his casting. “No wonder. I lent them my house, my car, my pool.”

Lumet, as was his style, took full advantage of the New York City locations, incorporating some twenty-three location shoots into his film. These would include the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, the prison on Riker’s Island, the Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Lower East Side, the 19^th Police Precinct Station House, Alan King’s home, the Supreme Macaroni Factory restaurant on Ninth Ave. and 38^th Street, at the Korvettes Department Store and even the steam room of Luxor Health Club on West 46th. In December of 1970, Weitman brought on Grammy-winning producer Quincy Jones to score the film. His soundtrack, which accentuates the film’s urban, hip-modern setting, features a lot of jazzy, electronic keyboard figures and twangy, stand-up bass slides.

The timing and success of The Anderson Tapes was fortuitous for Sean Connery. The general popcorn-chewing cinema audiences – to one degree or another – had largely ignored Connery’s three most recent film projects 1968-1970. It escaped no one’s notice that this odd trio of feature films were decidedly retro/historical in vision and scope: Shalako was set in the year 1880, The Red Tent in 1928 and The Molly Maguires in 1876. The Anderson Tapes, on the other hand, was a more accessible film for moviegoers to engage. The film was a very latter-day suspense-thriller, staged in modern times.

The result is that The Anderson Tapes, release in June of 1971, allowed fickle movie audiences the opportunity to preview what a circa 1971 Sean Connery James Bond might look like. The relationship between the actor and his audience was largely estranged following his four-year absence as Bond. To be sure, The Anderson Tapes made plain that Connery’s hair was thinner and graying. It was also obvious he was carrying a few more pounds on his frame. Regardless, most would agree Connery appears a bit more athletic and lean in The Anderson Tapes than he would even six-months later when Diamonds are Forever went into wide release.

For all of its intermittent charms, The Anderson Tapes is not director Lumet’s best film by any measure. The film is a slow burn and even the film’s climatic “action” scene offers little more than a weak pay-off in the waiting. On one hand Connery’s “Duke Anderson” captures the spirited zeitgeist of the early 1970s anti-hero. His racially intergraded criminal cabal of ex-convicts is a pre-Rainbow Coalition of sorts: an African-American driver who lives above a local Black Panther Party chapter (Dick Anthony), an elderly, institutionalized ex-con more-than-happy to return to prison (Stan Gottlieb), a young whipper-snapper (Walken), a psychotic mobster (Val Avery), and an alt-lifestyle burglar (Balsam): all working under the command of Connery who chatters throughout in an out-of-character Scots brogue.

To their credit, this unusual band of criminals collude to rip-off the jewelry, artwork treasures and pricey, swanky accoutrements of the snobbishly wealthy. Their victims would be the very folks that many resent: moneyed elites who inhabit the poshest apartment house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. So while Connery’s endgame is hardly Robin Hood in design, you’re sort of rooting for this motley band of bad guys to get away with their crazy caper, no matter how impractical and far-fetched the plan seems.

On the other hand, this is a suspense film sans any real suspense. Just as the film, at long last, begins to build a modicum of tension as the burglars take command of the apartment house, Lumet seemingly disrupts any sense of rising suspense with intercuts of what Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris lamented as “pointless flashforwards.” Sarris has a point. Perhaps the intent of such scenes were Lumet’s homages to the jigsaw-like time-jump constructions of Sanders’ original novel: but as such these interjected moments – almost all played lightly - don’t work and only diminish any sense of suspenseful tension.

Though flawed, The Anderson Tapes actually did very well in early release, opening as a limited showcase in only two New York City cinemas. The initial rush of mostly favorable reviews and impressive box office receipts caused Columbia Pictures to take out a celebratory full-page advertisement in the trades. The ad crowed that Lumet’s film had already taken in some $87, 476, the “Biggest 4-Day Gross for 2-Theatre Opening in Columbia History!” The film would gradually soften and lose some of its initial box-office momentum, but would nonetheless generate a healthful $5,000,000 in rentals through the end of 1975. I personally own copies of The Anderson Tapes in three different home video formats, including the beautifully packaged Laserdisc version of 1996 (featuring a mind-boggling forty-one chapter stops!). So, yeah, I guess I’m a fan.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray edition of The Anderson Tapes is presented in 1920 x 1080p, with a ratio of 1.85:1, dts sound and removable English sub-titles. Bonus features on the set include the film’s original theatrical trailer and a single TV spot. There are also an additional eight trailers offered in bonus, two of Connery’s (The Great Train Robbery and Cuba) along with six other crime-dramas offered by Kino.The Blu-ray comes with a slip case and the disc packaging has reversible sleeve artwork. There’s also an audio commentary courtesy of film critic and journalist Glenn Kenny. Kenny’s commentary is interesting and revealing in spots, often taking pains to explain the era of encroaching surveillance era in which the film is set. But I imagine Kenny is reading from notes rather than a proper script as his spoken-word commentary suffers a bit from an endless stream of inter-sentence pauses riddled with hesitant bridging “ums” and “ahs.” It gets to be a bit much at times, but Kenny’s commentary is still a worthwhile listen for those wishing to learn a bit about the film’s backstory.

Click here to order from Amazon

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Get ready to revisit some old haunts…

Paramount Home Entertainment is teaming up with FANGORIA to deliver classic thrills and chills to moviegoers across the country.  A new theatrical program called “PARAMOUNT SCARES and FANGORIA present SCREAM GREATS” will bring fan-favorite films back to the big screen for special limited engagements.

The program kicks off in select U.S. theatres this month in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the mesmerizing cult classic THE CROW.  Fans can visit www.thecrow1994.com for details and follow @ParamountScares on social for ongoing updates.

Additional films will be resurrected in the coming months and each theatrical presentation will include custom bonus content.  Titles returning to theatres this year include:

THE CROW 30th Anniversary—May 29 & May 30 (tickets on sale now)
FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER 40th Anniversary—September 8 & September 10
SLEEPY HOLLOW—October 13 & October 16
ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES—November 10 & November 13

Kirk Douglas wasn't known for his singing abilities but his rendering of "A Whale of a Tale" in Walt Disney's classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" proved to be a hit and one of the most memorable aspects of the timeless, beloved classic. Here is the original 78 RPM recording of the Douglas singing the song.

From the Cinema Retro archives: 1978 British movie magazine advertisement for Peter Sellers in "Revenge of the Pink Panther", his final appearance as Inspector Clouseau.

Here's the original trailer for the 1961 WWII classic "The Guns of Navarone" starring Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven along with a marvelous supporting cast.

If you're a long-time Cinema Retro reader, you know we love those old movie tie-in comic book from days of old, most of which were published in the U.S. by Gold Key and Dell comics. Here's an opportunity to scroll through every page of three of our favorite tie-ins from those days, namely "Hatari!", "The Sons of Katie Elder" and "The Hallelujah Trail". Enjoy your literary journey back in time!  Click here to access the issues.

In honor of International Star Wars Day, here's the original 1977 trailer for the very first film in the franchise. Little did we know that the movie would become one of the most iconic releases of all time and alter big screen entertainment forever.

By Hank Reineke

Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body would enjoy a very brief run – under a new title - on U.S. theatre screens in late summer of 1965. By spring of ‘66 the film was already popping up as a late-night programmer on U.S. television. I was belatedly introduced to the film via a Chiller Theatre telecast on New York’s WPIX-TV, circa 1971/72. I can no longer recall if I was impressed by this atmospheric, mostly monster-less mystery on that first viewing. I was only ten or eleven years of age. My hazy memories are further obscured by it having been broadcast under its U.S. theatrical re-title as What.

The name of now-legendary director Mario Bava wouldn’t have meant very much to me either at young age. Even if I had been familiar with Bava’s oeuvre – which I most certainly wasn’t at age ten – the directorial credit of What had been anglicized, ascribed to one “John M. Old.” The directorial fake wouldn’t have mattered much to me, really. All I knew was Christopher Lee was one of the film’s star players, and I was already a big fan of the actor’s horror pictures.

Regardless of the film title in which you accustomed - The Whip and the Body/ Night is the Phantom/What/The Whip and the Flesh/La frusta e il Corpo etc. etc. - this was the second of two Bava films to feature Christopher Lee. The first was Ercole al centro della terra (1961, aka Hercules in the Haunted World), an Italian peplum. That film pitted the heroic Hercules (Reg Park) against Lee’s villainous Lichas (or Lyco or Lico, depending on the release). Lichas is variously described as “Lord of the Hades Underworld” or “King of the Dead.”

The actor’s typecasting made sense, all things considered. Lee had once enjoyed playing a diverse number of character roles since his 1947 entry into the film business. But following the runaway success of Hammer’s Horror of Dracula (1958), the actor somewhat frustratingly found himself mostly employed as a heavy in an on-going string of horror films, fog-shrouded mysteries, and psychological-thrillers.

Lee would later generously deem Bava as “one of Italy’s greatest cameramen” and, true to form, both Hercules in the Haunted World and The Whip and the Body, are awash in the eerily brilliant and fluorescent colors for which the director is acclaimed. Technically, the cinematographer for the latter film is Ubaldo Terzano, but much of the photography is accepted as Bava’s own, albeit uncredited. Bava’s greatness partly lies in his painter’s eye for style: he combines color, shadows and shadings to create atmosphere and great imagery.

As director, Bava also employs innovative lighting and lots of blue-tinting to create his striking, imaginative visuals. On his wonderful commentary track, author Tim Lucas describes such eerie colorization as Bava’s moonlit “Blue of Night.” Throughout The Whip and the Body, Bava’s visual stylings perfectly reflect the film’s moody and atmospheric aura. His use of purposeful slow tracking shots and pan photography – abetted by composer Carlo Rustichelli’s evocative, mysterious score – masterfully evokes a sense of tangible, shadowy foreboding: who (or what?) lurks behind that candle-lit curtain or door?

The Whip and the Body concerns the unwelcome return of Kurt Menliff (Lee) to his ancestral home, a castle nestled on lonesome cliff side overlooking the sea. His own father, Count Vladimir (Jacques Herlin) is not pleased to see him nor is Giorgia (Harriet White), the Count’s servant. Years earlier, we learn, Kurt had seduced Giorgia’s daughter. His subsequent cruel rejection of the girl is believed to be the cause of her suicide. Although Kurt’s bother Christian (Tony Kendall) is welcoming of his brother’s return, he too will come to regret such forgiveness. His own wife Nevenka (Israeli actress Daliah Lavi) falls prey to Kurt’s Svengali-like attraction – who, true to form, abuses and degrades her with a fetishistic, sadomasochistic whipping. I can’t say much more than that plot-wise without risking spoilers. So I’ll just say that following Kurt’s attack on Nevenka, the film moves from straight-on melodrama to a mostly satisfying scenario combining elements of ghost story and mystery whodunit.

Budgeted at approx. $66, 500, The Whip and the Body began production in July of 1960. The film was slated for a seven-week schedule. Principal photography wrapped in six-weeks, the seventh to begin post-production work. The film was an Italian/French collaboration, a production of Cosmopolis Films and Les Films Marbeuf. Both companies had been involved in the exploitation of the then very-much-in-vogue “sword and sandal” pictures: strongman adventures loosely tethered to tales sourced from Greek and Roman mythologies. On his commentary track, Lucas describes the scenario of The Whip and the Body as essentially akin to “a Greek Tragedy” in its construction.

The film’s screenplay is credited to Ernesto Gastaldi, Ugo Guerra and Luciano Martino, with the film produced (without credit) to Federico Magnaghi. Upon the film’s release in English-speaking markets the writing credits for the original Italian trio were anglicized as “Julian Berry, Robert Hugo and Martin Hardy.” Bava too did not escape such name-change ignominy, his directorial credit ascribed to “John M. Old,” a pseudonym used on several of his films. The time-period and country in which this Gothic mystery is set is indeterminate. This was, according to scenarist Gastaldi, entirely intentional. Though the seaside locations were filmed in Italy near Anzio, the main characters are given Eastern European-sounding names and the set dressing peculiarly mixes period styles and time-dates.

A prolific screenwriter of horror, pirate and peplum films, Ernesto Gastaldi had already written scripts for such Italian melodramas as The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory (1961), and The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962). Following production on The Whip and the Body, producer Magnaghi would team with writers Guerra and Martino (in addition to writer-director Brunello Rondi) to bring Daliah Lavi back in the obscure but sultry exorcism flick II Demonio (1963).

(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)

The Whip and the Body was not a huge success. Lucas describes the film as Bava’s “biggest box-office flop,” the picture’s final tally generating back only half of its investment. Upon the film’s release, critics gave any number of reasons why the film’s box-office was disappointing. Variety was mildly impressed, describing the film as genuinely suspenseful if best suited for “sophisticated audiences.” But the trade also thought the film flawed in execution: “The Gothic-novel atmosphere and trappings of secret passages, muddy footprints from the crypt and ghost lover, probably will draw more laughs than gasps.”

London’s Monthly Film Bulletin was far more withering in its assessment of Night is the Phantom (the film’s British re-title). Their critic described it as “Another of Italy’s prankish simulations of a British horror movie, the film is slow, repetitive, verging on parody. Censor or distributor cuts have rendered much of the plot incomprehensible, though one doubts if it ever made sense entirely.” In fairness, the same critic conceded the film’s “weird and doom-laden claustrophobia” was, in retrospect, “unfailingly compulsive, mainly because of the redolent Freudian associations.”

The more uncomfortable Freudian moments of Menliff’s fetishistic abuse of Nevenka were cut from the film’s continental version. Christopher Lee only reminisced that he and Lavi shared “some very torrid love scenes” in the making of the film, but left it at that. Most of those scenes would not be made privy to either continental or western cinemagoers. Upon the film’s initial release in Italy, that country’s censors would come down hard on it, deeming several sequences obscene due to “degenerations and anomalies of sexual life.” There were demands that these moments be cut from the film. Though the filmmakers complied in making such trims, producer Magnaghi still found himself standing before a Rome court. He was subsequently acquitted of obscenity charges in January of 1964.

Though Lucas does bring up the censorship issues surrounding The Whip and the Body, he does not make the issue a centerpiece of his commentary. He does points out in his very informative analysis that the film was very much influenced by the earliest of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe productions for American-International. Which, in turn, had been very much styled after such continental productions as Bava’s Black Sunday (1960).

Though A.I.P. had distributed earlier works of Bava’s in the U.S., they balked on The Whip and the Body – likely due to the film’s sadomasochistic salaciousness. Though mild by today’s standards, the film was thought unsuitable for young and impressionable theatergoers. The film was eventually picked up for U.S. distribution in 1965 by Richard G. Yates’ Futuramic Releasing. The film, now curiously re-titled as What, was doomed to play the U.S. drive-in circuit in the summer of 1965. Accompanied by a rather gray and cheapish exploitation campaign, What was top-bill to a second Futuramic import from the continent, Isidore M. Ferry’s Face of Terror (Spain, 1964) (original title La cara del terror).

One needn’t be a particularly avid fan of Christopher Lee (or any of the others on screen) to notice that all dialogue is dubbed throughout. As with many of Bava’s films, his work was intended for wide international release. To that end, many of his films were shot sans sync-sound, with foreign-language market dubbing scheduled long after the original cast had moved on. Upon viewing The Whip and the Body, Lee was left aghast by his character’s misplaced American-affected voice-over dub. He would insist afterward that all of his foreign-language film contracts included the proviso he handle any necessary dubbing himself.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray issue of The Whip and the Body is the company’s second issue of this title, the first being released in 2013. The set features a 2023 4K scan and a 2K restoration by 88 Films from an HD master from an original 35mm print. The set includes both the original Italian and English dubs as audio options as well as optional English subtitles and the film’s theatrical trailer as well as trailers from other Bava films. As referenced above, Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog fame and author of the exhaustive one-thousand plus page tome Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark delivers a masterful commentary – though one familiar as it has been ported over from Kino’s 2013 Blu-ray release via VCI’s DVD issue of 2007. The new release is also fitted with the now inevitable cardboard sleeve protector, which apparently are prized by some collectors.. Without question, essential viewing for fans of Bava and Christopher Lee.

Click here to order from Amazon

Here's an original British broadcast promo for the 1983 TV movie "Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E." starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.

In 1961, Sean Connery was still a modest name in show business. He was recognized by audiences as a supporting actor and while his face may have been familiar, it's probable that most people couldn't place his name. That would all change the following year when Connery's first James Bond film, "Dr. No", was released, making him an instant superstar. Here is a 1961 reverent (if bare bones) televison production of "MacBeth" in which Connery played the titular character. Henceforth, he would never be drawn back to enacting the classics. Given the fact that he gives a fine performance here, it's more the pity that he was never tempted to return to the works of Shakepeare. The quality is sub-par but it doesn't negate the production's merits. (Lee Pfeiffer)

Published by Headpress

Publication date: March 2024

596 pages

450 B&W photos

ISBN: 978-1-909394-95-7

Paperback RRP: £25.99

Hardback RRP: £35.99

Review by Adrian Smith

We first had a VHS machine in our house in 1985. It was an exciting day, and to celebrate, my parents rented a cartoon for us all to enjoy. It turned out to be Watership Down (1978). I was nine years old, and its jarring combination of cute rabbits and graphic violence was a suitably scary introduction to the dangerous world of home video. Within a few months both horror films and illegally distributed pornography would be playing in my living room alongside the episodes of ThunderCats (1985-1989) I was taping on Saturday mornings. The video recorder really did change the landscape of the 1980s, and although I was not really old enough to fully appreciate what was going on, I did occasionally get glimpses of things that were not meant for me; whether it was seeing a man getting lowered into a mincing machine from behind the sofa at a babysitter’s house (a classic moment from The Exterminator (1980)), or being egged on to play one of my dad’s dodgy tapes by my mates when we were the only ones home (which very quickly caused a horrified reaction and a mad scramble for the eject button). So, although VHS had made a personal impact, I was unaware that my mind and soul had become a battleground for moral campaigners obsessed with the wild, wild world of unregulated videos in the early 1980s.

Davids Kerekes and Slater, who’s Cannibal Error is an updating of their in-depth study of the ‘video nasty’ panic See No Evil (2000), were the right age to be smack in the middle of the furore, where independent distributors were trying to make quick money selling imported horror films from Europe and the USA and collectors were suddenly turned into potential criminals thanks to the efforts of campaigners like Mary Whitehouse and Tory MP Graham Bright who managed to get the right-wing press whipped up into a frenzy which helped rush through the Video Recordings Act, granting legal powers to the British Board of Film Classification, amidst claims that children were in danger from films like SS Experiment Camp (1976), The Driller Killer (1979) and Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979). The press frequently connected real life crimes with films as if to suggest that access to violent videos were encouraging copycat behaviour, which came to a pinnacle in 1987 when Michael Ryan shot and killed sixteen people in Hungerford, Wiltshire, and the press tried to pin this on his being obsessed with the character of Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone in two films by then (1982 & 1985). It was never proved that he’d even seen the films, but that did not stop the press continuing to blame films for real-life tragedies such as this and many others.

(Cannibal Error teaser trailer from Headpress on Vimeo.)

The authors present a huge amount of research here into what was going on during the 1980s and into the 1990s, both from the legislative side to the effect it was having on film collectors. There are fascinating interviews with people whose homes were raided by police or Customs and Excise because they were suspected of owning pornography or copies of Cannibal Holocaust (1980), and the impact it made on their lives. Being collectors themselves, Cannibal Error is not a balanced, dispassionate view of the ‘video nasties’ debates and those concerned. This is worth bearing in mind when reading. Personally, having been a child exposed to things I shouldn’t have seen back in the 1980s, I have some sympathy with Mary Whitehouse and her fellow campaigners. I think there was merit in trying to ensure that films were not easily available to those who were underage, and that home video ought to be regulated and controlled in much the same way as films were for cinemas. However, as this book makes clear, things went much too far and so much police time was wasted rummaging through teenagers' bedrooms looking for third-generation copies of I Spit on Your Grave (1978). The great irony now is that many of these long-considered-dangerous films are now available restored and uncut with BBFC certificates on Blu-ray and UHD, and the whole idea of films being dangerous seems rather quaint.

This new expanded edition of their earlier work features a detailed examination and review of each film that was considered illegal according to the UK government, known as the DPP39, alongside lengthy interviews with film collectors and BBFC examiners, the latter providing some balance to the discussion. Covering European horror, pornography, film collecting, censorship, moral panics and the intersection between cinema and politics, Cannibal Error is an important contribution to our understanding of the ‘video nasty’ debacle.

Cannibal Error can be ordered direct from Headpress: https://headpress.com/product/cannibal-error/