By Hank Reineke

Though saddened by the passing of Sir Christopher Lee in early summer of 2015, few admirers could argue that the tall, aquiline and sepulcher-voiced actor had not lived out his ninety-three years to the fullest. His occasionally checkered feature -film legacy stands at well over two hundred motion pictures. I’ve no doubt statistics of his television appearance resume are only slightly less impressive. While I’m certain there are a few wonks out there that have had the time and pleasure of screening every frame of celluloid of the actor’s oeuvre that circulates… Well, for the rest of us there are still plenty of rare films out there to discover and enjoy on the backend.

Two of Lee’s less celebrated mid-60’s films for the sometimes notorious producer Harry Alan Towers, Circus of Fear (1966) and Five Golden Dragons (1967), have recently been brought together by Blue Underground on Blu-ray for this splendid double-feature disc. This release has been my pleasing introduction to Five Golden Dragons, a suspense-thriller I somehow missed all these years and would, happily and surprisingly, enjoy a lot more than first expected.

Five Golden Dragons is capably handled by Jeremy Summers whose earlier work would include directing stints for such British thriller melodramas as The Saint, Secret Agent, and International Detective. Five Golden Dragons was merely one of three low-budgeted Hong Kong based assignments the director would tackle for producer Harry Alan Towers in 1966/1967. He had earlier helmed The Vengeance of Fu Manchu, the third of Tower’s five film cycle of hit-and-miss thrillers starring an unlikely Christopher Lee as Sax Rohmer’s sadistic Asian villain. Summers would later satisfy his contract with Towers by introducing another horror-veteran, Vincent Price, as a white-slave trader in The House of 1,000 Dolls. The screenplays for both Circus of Fear and Five Golden Dragons are credited to “Peter Welbeck,” a regular pseudonym of Tower’s.

There are a lot of familiar faces on-screen, though Lee fans, in particular, should take caution. The actor doesn’t appear for sometime well into the film, and then is seen very sparingly. The uncontested star of the enterprise is Robert “Bob” Cummings, the celebrated leading man of such Alfred Hitchcock thrillers as Saboteur (1942) and Dial M for Murder (1954). Cummings would, much later on, serve as a recognizable 1950s and 1960s TV-personality with a gift for muggery and light-comedy. In Five Golden Dragons, Cummings plays the amiable Dr. Bob Mitchell, a Kansas-bred, Stanford University-educated playboy who is, ostensibly, in Hong Kong to shore up tar-gum deal for a confectionary conglomerate. In true Hitchcockian fashion, this playful, wise-cracking innocent is accidentally swept into a dangerous game of intrigue when a lawyer he met in passing while in Manila scrawls the curious designation “Five Golden Dragons” on a sheet of paper. The lawyer, who is soon thrown to his demise from a twelfth-floor balcony by a black-hooded assassin, had inexplicably earlier asked his cabbie to deliver the note to Mitchell at his temporary residence at the plush Bangkok Suite at the Hong Kong Hilton.

Not too surprisingly, Mitchell becomes a person of interest when the cabbie passes the dead man’s note to two Hong Kong police inspectors, played by the crusty and beloved Rupert Davies and Hong Kong’s own Roy Chiao. Davies, supposedly Chiao’s superior, is something of a Shakespeare buff, casually dropping fractured, dimly-remembered lines from the Bard’s pen to underscore the dramatic events unfolding before him. When the more pragmatic and sensible Inspector Chiao comes to call on Mitchell, incriminating note in hand, the playboy is relaxing poolside with two comely German sisters, Ingrid (Maria Rohm) and Margret (Maria Perschy). It’s through Margret that Mitchell eventually learns that the Golden Dragons are “five of the most evil men the world has ever known.” This five-man syndicate, ruthless business partners but strangers to one another, control Asia’s underground gold market through front-offices in Paris, Rome, Majorca, Bombay and Hong Kong.

With the Hong Kong police on alert and peering through binoculars, we learn that four of the feared Five Golden Dragons are to convene – for the very first time – to discuss the liquidation of their secret order and to divvy up their ill-gotten assets that total some 50 million dollars. That money has been sitting well hidden in a Swiss bank account, and will be dispensed when the syndicate turns over their smuggling operation to the Mafia – a deal that was to be brokered by the ill-fated lawyer at the film’s beginning. The identity of the fifth and most mysterious Golden Dragon is played out melodramatically in the film’s climax.

Though not a classic, the film is fun and colorful and has that delicious Playboy-era 60s-vibe. Summers certainly makes good use of Hong Kong’s exotic locations; it’s all sunshine, ports, poolside encounters, east meets west opulent hotels, colorful crowded streets, and visually stunning topography. The clothes and hairstyles are all straight from a trendy and glossy 60’s magazine - as are the requisite wood-paneled walls, go-go dancing, transistor radios, Yashica cameras, and boxes of Dutch Masters cigars. Malcolm Lockyer’s exotic score expertly mixes occidental eastern melodies with sweeping western orchestral arrangements ala John Barry; though some of his overly dramatic music cues underscoring several only mildly suspenseful moments might cause one to smile. The musical sequences at the shady, syndicate controlled Blue World nightclub featuring the vocal talents of the plotting Magda (Margaret Lee) and the Japanese pop-singer Yukari Ito are mostly superfluous to the plot but their songs are tuneful and catchy and will surely be welcomed by devotees of 1960s lounge music.

Summers provides no fewer than three elongated chase scenes that offers great glimpses of Hong Kong travelogue but, sadly, only an occasional thrill. These sequences tend to be remarkably slow-moving and stilted. This is unfortunate as tighter editing of these chase scenes would have plainly been more effective. There’s a wild pursuit of unsure footing on the city’s canals amidst the bobbing Saipan and Junks, a more comical rickshaw chase through the city’s market street and, lastly, a perhaps too-cartoonish battle on the balconies of the famed Tiger Pagoda. There’s the requisite ‘60s James Bond reference as well, when Cumming scolds his enemies for the delay in meeting the villain he describes as “Goldfinger no. 5.” This is the wise-cracking Bob Cummings show throughout, and it’s not too difficult to find him a likable if unusually unorthodox hero.

German actor Klaus Kinski is on hand as well, a sadistic minion of the Five Golden Dragons. Kinski’s “Gert” is a dour, serpentine figure, with sunken eyes and an expressionless face. He’ so primped and powdered in this film that he looks as if he might have once served as master of ceremonies at Cabaret’s Kit Kat Club of Berlin. The film’s heralded four “guest stars” (Christopher Lee, George Raft, Dan Duryea, and Brian Donlevy) mostly sit uneasily in the chairs of the Golden Dragons and, sadly, share little screen time or dialogue. Lee would later recall that the gathered actors “spent most of our time sitting around a table in bizarre clothes.” In Five Golden Dragons Lee’s appearance totals a few minutes at most, but he is at least allowed to deliver a few lines of stentorian dialogue. The same cannot be said for poor George Raft whose talents are almost entirely wasted here.

Christopher Lee figures more prominently as the mysterious lion tamer Gregor in Circus of Fear (issued in the U.S. under the more exploitative title Psycho-Circus). Sadly, Lee is somewhat hamstrung here as well as his menacing visage is mostly hidden beneath a black hood throughout. As far as John Moxey’s Circus of Fear is concerned… Well, I don’t wish to go into too much detail here. Last year I attended a “theatrical” screening of this film at a drive-in hosting a triple-bill of Christopher Lee films. That night moviegoers were treated to the gritty, black and white A.I.P. cut of the film intended for U.S. audiences (with a running time slashed by a near unforgivable twenty-two minutes), but my nonetheless favorable impression of the film itself can be found by clicking here.

Having said that, I’m happy to report that this new Blu-ray issue presents the film uncut in its complete international version form and in the brightest hues of Eastman Color – there’s nary a scratch or visual blemish to be found. This addition of a color palette is a true revelation, and effectively changes the entire tone of the gritty, monochrome noir I viewed in truncated form at the Drive-in into something quite different. Previously issued on DVD in 2003 as part of Blue Underground’s The Christopher Lee Collection, the Blu-ray of Circus of Fear contains all the bells and whistles of its earlier counterpart. Not to be missed is director John Moxey’s excellent supplemental commentary. Moxey (City of the Dead, The Night Stalker) reminisces about his long career in Britain and Hollywood, the making of Circus of Fear in particular, and the actors and technicians who brought this low budget but riveting mystery to the big screen.

Blue Underground’s Blu-ray of Circus of Fear features a 2K High Definition (1080 HD) transfer from the original British color negative. It’s presented in a widescreen 1:66:1 ratio in HD mono audio. Along with the wonderful Moxey commentary, the disc also features a scene selection menu and both the International and U.S. trailers in both Color and Black and White versions. There’s also a colorful poster and still gallery included. Five Golden Dragons makes its first appearance on any U.S. home video format, with the film newly re-mastered in High-Def from the original uncut negative, with a Widescreen 2:35:1 format and monaural HD sound. The set also includes the obligatory poster and still gallery and international theatrical trailer.

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“EVERYTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK”

By Raymond Benson

In the late 1950s, a film movement emerged in Britain known as “Free Cinema.” Some of the U.K.’s most celebrated filmmakers of the 1960s and 70s were among its practitioners—Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Lorenza Mazzetti, and Tony Richardson. The directors made low budget, short documentaries about the working class with an almost deliberate “non commercial” sensibility. It was radical and exciting, and it was a precursor to the British New Wave that dovetailed with the French New Wave that was so influential on filmmakers everywhere.

Many of the pictures of the British New Wave, released between 1959 and 1964, focused on characters described as “angry young men,” and the films themselves were referred to by critics and theorists as “kitchen sink dramas.” This was because the movies were presented in a harsh, realistic fashion and were indeed about the gritty, working class lives of “ordinary” (but actually, extraordinary) people. Some of the titles you’ll recognize—Look Back in Anger, Room at the Top, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, This Sporting Life, and others.

A Taste of Honey, released in 1961 and directed by Tony Richardson, was a product of the early Free Cinema Movement and the British New Wave. Based on a controversial but highly successful stage play by first-time dramatist (at age 19) Shelagh Delaney, Taste is remarkable for several reasons. For one, it is about an “angry young woman.” It is also shockingly frank for its time. The British Board of Censors approved the picture only for persons over the age of 16, for it deals with these then taboo subjects—female promiscuity, alcoholism, interracial sex, pregnancy out of wedlock, and homosexuality. There’s even a bit of nudity. (As a “kitchen sink drama,” it indeed has everything but!)

The story focuses on Jo (expertly played by newcomer Rita Tushingham), who lives with her tramp of a mother, Helen (Dora Bryan), in a Manchester ne’er-do-well working class environment. Helen seems to flit from man to man and doesn’t care all that much for her daughter, now 16. Jo, frustrated and dissatisfied with the status quo, has a relationship with a black sailor (Paul Danquah) who’s in town for a few days. Helen runs off with a new beau, Peter (Robert Stephens), and gets married, leaving Jo alone and pregnant. Jo then finds solace by befriending a gay man, Geoffrey (courageously portrayed by Murray Melvin), who moves in with her until Helen decides to leave her husband and return.

This was bold stuff in 1961. In fact, it was still against the law in England to be homosexual at the time. It is to Delaney’s credit to bring the Geoff character to life on the stage without saying he’s gay, but letting the audience know without a doubt that he is. The film version accomplishes the same thing (Melvin is the only cast member who was also in the original stage production), handling the subject matter with honesty, grace, and empathy.

Filmed entirely on location, the picture captures the grime and hardships of these people but also manages to be brilliantly entertaining. The acting is top-notch, and Richardson’s direction is flawless. The camerawork by Walter Lassally, often hand-held, provides a documentary feel to the proceedings that expound on the earlier stylistic traits of the Free Cinema Movement.

The Criterion Collection Blu-ray release features a new, restored 4K digital transfer with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack, and it looks marvelous. Supplements include: new interviews with Rita Tushingham and Murray Melvin (the latter’s is especially enlightening); an audio interview with Tony Richardson from 1962, accompanied by stills and clips; an excerpt from a 1960 television interview with Shelagh Delaney; a 1998 interview with DP Walter Lassally; a new piece with film scholar Kate Dorney about the film’s origins and the stage production’s director, Joan Littlewood; and Momma Don’t Allow, a 1956 Free Cinema documentary short co-directed by Richardson and Karel Reisz and shot by Lassally. The booklet contains an essay by film scholar Colin MacCabe.

While the storyline and subject matter might sound drab and dire, A Taste of Honey does have an under-flavor of sweetness that makes viewing the film a truly rewarding experience. Recommended.

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BY ROD BARNETT

The horror sub-genre generally known as 'Nature Attacks' blossomed in the 1970s and probably reached perfection with Jaws (1975). Certainly Jaws was not the first movie to put humans at the mercy of a relentless animal antagonist but it's success guaranteed that it would never be the last. Being very well respected and most profitable film of its type there was little doubt that more such movies would be made but while much fun can be had watching the various carbon copies with monsters of all types, it's the nature attacks tales that stretch outside the basic formula of Jaws that are the most interesting. That's not to say that most of these films are good but they are usually fascinating viewing just to see what threat from the animal kingdom can be blown up to epic proportions to frighten the public. I'm sure the producers of The Bees (1978) had Hitchcock's brilliant The Birds in mind as a template but that is a level of competence that this film could never reach.

Somewhere in South America a United Nations science outpost has Dr. Miller (Claudio Brook) running some tests and experiments on African killer bees. Miller is part of a team that is working to figure out a way to increase the production of honey and their plan is to crossbreed African killer bees with less deadly bees to create a new, less aggressive but highly industrious breed. Unfortunately, the lure of top grade honey is too enticing for a local villager who, along with his young son, sneaks into the killer bee compound at night. The pair of would-be thieves disturb the bees, resulting in the son’s death and the father's disfigurement. The nearby villagers blame the death on Dr. Miller so they storm the research compound, releasing the bees and killing Dr. Miller.

Dr. Miller’s wife Sandra (Angel Tompkins) smuggles some of the remaining bees back to America and takes them to Dr. Sigmund Hummel (John Carradine) who also happens to be her uncle. Siggy, as he is called, is the head man of this UN bee project in the States and has been working in the field for years. With the assistance of John Norman (John Saxon) and Sandra, Dr. Hummel tries to continue Dr. Miller’s research. While their work progresses, a group of greedy American businessmen try illegally importing some killer bees of their own into the United States. Their plan goes horribly wrong and their courier is killed in transit, thus releasing his bee stash into North America and off we go into disaster film territory. The bees set up shop in a cave near a public park (!), begin multiplying, building hives and occasionally stinging a person to death.

As the bees become a bigger and more deadly problem threatening to destroy the human race, the UN team begins to make some real progress and actually slow the insects' advance for a while. But at that point the bees evolve into a species smarter and more deadly than anyone could have imagined, leaving Dr. Norman,fighting to find a way to communicate with the creatures to stave off the end of humanity. I don't want to give away the completely mad ending so that the curious can marvel at it's unusual solution to the problem. I'll just say that finale is almost worth getting through the rest of the movie just to witness.

Let's be clear about this now - The Bees is a terrible film. It's inept in a dozen different ways with awful dialog, a ridiculous romance angle, ham-fisted villainy and generally wretched acting. The only two actors that make it out of this mess with their self-respect intact are Saxon and Carradine, even if that venerable actor is saddled with a truly stupid German accent. I love John Carradine and it was great to see him featured so prominently in a film this late in his career. He’s good in his role but I did find myself constantly distracted by the sight of his arthritic, crippled hands. I'm aware of Mr. Carradine's arthritis problems later in life but this was the first time I've seen a director choose not to hide this deformity onscreen. It drew my attention repeatedly and made me wince whenever I saw him holding things or picking up objects. Saxon is the only actor who seems to be rewriting his dialog on the fly, which is to say that his lines sound the least stilted and juvenile throughout. Saxon finds a way to seem naturalistic in his role even when he is being asked to do some pretty dumb things and, as a plus, he gets to have a gratuitous fist fight.

I wish The Bees was a better movie. I really enjoy the nature attacks sub-genre and the idea of swarms of malevolent insects engulfing people automatically gives me the chills, so I'm a fair mark for the story being told here. But this film is so poorly produced and badly written that it is impossible to ever take anything seriously. I can get behind the film's basic message of dialing back the harm we do to the environment before we damage something vital but the entire affair just seems like an under budgeted amateur mess. Most of the time it feels like a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon script that somehow got made into a feature film. On the plus side I do have to give the director credit for some creative use of (a lot) of stock footage to show the military's fight against the invading bee horde. This footage is well integrated and the scenes of the Rose Parade were very well done with a surprise appearance by President Gerald Ford before the bees descend.

Just one more note about the film that I can't ignore. The sort of jazzy score by Richard Gillis is pretty bad and entirely inappropriate to the events it is used under. It feels like music written for another story idea that got grafted onto this film out of necessity. It is almost always out of place and distracting especially after the seventh or eighth time the same few bars of music leap out of the soundtrack to emphasize whatever is happening. The music might work in another movie but here it's overused and its repetitive nature just grates on the viewer's nerves.

Luckily for fans of nature amok movies The Bees has been release on Blu-ray by the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome. The movie looks and sounds fantastic putting to shame the poor quality transfers from video sources I've seen in the past. In fact, I can't imagine a better looking presentation of the film and one might even say the excellence in evidence here is better than the film deserves. The only special features are the movie's trailer and a very nice ten minute interview with the film’s director Alfredo Zacarias. Zacarias speaks with a lot of passion about The Bees and it's clear he really felt he was doing something important. I certainly don't think this is a good movie but I can appreciate the work the director put into this project and hearing his story from his own lips might have been the best part of this Blu-ray.

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Cinema Retro has received the folllowing press release:  

For Immediate Release:

Be a part of motion picture history and meet legendary movie poster designer Bill Gold.

September 10^th – Sept 30th

Reception to meet Bill Gold:

Sunday, Sept 18^th 2pm – 4pm

What do Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, For Your Eyes Only have in common? It’s their movie poster designer, Bill Gold. It takes only a second to realize that most of the famous movie posters we know, love and collect were designed by legendary poster designer Bill Gold.

This remarkable exhibition at C. Parker Gallery will showcase many of Gold’s original photographs and original artwork by all the top movie poster illustrators, including Bob Peak, Richard Amsel, Victor Gadino, Bob McGinnis. Come see this once in a lifetime collection, have an opportunity to purchase a piece of motion picture history and meet the renowned Bill Gold himself at a special reception on September 18th.

If you have a favorite vintage movie poster the chances of Bill Gold being the designer/creative director are pretty high. C Parker Gallery will be honoring Bill Gold's legacy of original film poster work that spans over 70 years from Hollywood’s Golden Age through New Hollywood.  

Starting September 10, 2016 and running through September 31th with a special meet and greet reception on Sunday September 18^th at 2pm.

"Not bad, to be 21 and have a film starring Humphrey Bogart and another starring James Cagney drop into your lap." – Bill Gold describing his career.

C. Parker Gallery

17 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830

203-253-0934

info@cparkergallery.com

www.cparkergallery.com

Visit Bill Gold's official web site at www.billgold.net

BY TIM GREAVES

Writer Derek Pykett (whose excellent book " MGM British Studios: Hollywood in Borehamwood" was reviewed here earlier this year) has turned his hand to directing; setting up and playing host to a dozen intimate interviews with some of Britain's most respected and beloved thesps, the results are now available on DVD with "From Stage to Screen", a privately produced, limited edition 6-disc box set.

With each performer given their own ‘episode’ and a total running time of 15 hours, there's so much material here that it'll take the average viewer a number of sittings to get through it all. Beyond starting with disc one and working through methodically, where one begins is probably going to be proportionate to the level of esteem in which the viewer holds each particular actor or actress represented within the set; I confess that at the time of writing I still have a fair bit to get through. However, I've adopted the latter approach and, being a 007 fan, I zeroed in first on the hour devoted to Julian Glover (who played villain Ari Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only), following up with Where Eagles Dare's charmingly poisonous Major Von Hapen, Derren Nesbitt, and The Elephant Man's outright wicked showmaster Bytes, Freddie Jones.

Also included in this collection – which could potentially be the first of a series – are Michael Medwin, Shirley Ann Field, Michael Craig, Michael Jayston, Joss Ackland, Roy Dotrice, Vera Day, Lee Montague and Sarah Miles.

The episodes are supplemented with a selection of trailers representing each interviewee's most renowned films. All the participants regale the viewer with some marvellous and often amusing anecdotes, and it's pleasant to be reminded of just how much they have actually achieved over the decades, as well as some of the iconic figures they've worked with. Even though the interviews average out at a little over an hour apiece, so extensive are the careers under discussion that there's plenty of gold still to be mined and one is definitely left with a thirst for more (for example, the aforementioned Glover interview – disappointingly, given my passion for Bond – touches only very briefly on For Your Eyes Only).

Although, being as it’s a documentary, the set is exempt from classification, potential purchasers should be warned that there's a smattering of fruity language throughout.

Proceeds from the sales of "From Stage to Screen" will be divided between two charities, Alzheimer's Society and All Dogs Matter.

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BY HANK REINEKE

Though I’m generally not wishy-washy in my assessment of… well, practically anything, I admit to holding a decidedly middle-ground opinion on the work of Jesus “Jess” Franco.  There are some films by this controversial Spanish director that inspire me to become more intimate with his work.  Conversely, there are others that actually discourage me from seeking out additional titles. His films, particularly those from 1972-1973 following, have proven to be polarizing to cineastes. Though he attracted notice in the early 1960s with such more or less traditionally-mannered horror films as The Awful Dr. Orloff and The Diabolical Dr. Z (both shot in atmospheric black and white and both quite entertaining), Franco was a restless, creative soul eager to push the envelope.

By the mid-70s Franco had attained a reputation as a competent and bankable director of exploitation features. Even his detractors – and there are many – cannot argue that the director had an ability to bring a film to market both quickly and under-budget. Beginning in the early-1970s, he would controversially begin to introduce elements of soft-core pornography within the framework of otherwise more conventional horror or historical-period films. Some find these films artful and intriguing; others see them as sadistic, lurid celebrations of sexual violence. These controversial films would often be seen as pandering to an audience that four-time Franco collaborator Christopher Lee would later deride as the “raincoat crowd.” Whether you found Franco’s films as artful unabashed celebrations of the female form or as unrelentingly sordid cinema that’s unapologetically misogynistic in construction… Well, this would all depend on your own moral compass.

Blue Underground has just released two of Franco’s earliest, most notorious – and, to be fair, occasionally artful – films on Blu-ray. Both films originate from the era that historians perceive as the controversial director’s transitional period: Eugenie… the story of her journey into perversion (1970) and Justine (1969). Both films were inspired by the works of the notorious eighteenth century French novelist the Marquis de Sade, an author for whom Franco clearly shares an affinity.

Jesus Franco’s Eugenie… the story of her journey into perversion (1970) is tangentially based on de Sade’s notorious 1795 novel La philosophie dans le boudoir (“Philosophy in the Bedroom”). Franco describes de Sade as “an extraordinary writer” in one supplement, and offers Eugenie as “the story of a poor girl who drowns in a hemorrage of sin in the discovery of love.” If this is truly Franco’s perception, his interpretation is a bit at odds with de Sade’s own conception of the title character. In de Sade’s novel, Eugenie is a young girl already unredeemingly infused with decadent and depraved impulses. In Franco’s film, the young girl is portrayed as a victimized ingénue, an innocent misued and brutalized by elders and authority figures for their own lurid pleasures. In de Sade’s novel Eugenie is a willing participant in acts of near-unspeakable debauchery. In his own version of the wicked novel, Franco almost entirely removes this component from the scenario, portraying the young girl as an unfortunate hostage to predators who manipulate her through a combination of mind control and drugs.

Though his name is offered on publicity materials as one of the film’s two stars (the other being the gorgeous Swedish actress Marie Liljedahl), Christopher Lee recalls Eugenie as the only motion picture in his career that he was moved to ask his name being struck from advertising. The distinguished British actor has long told a tale that, a mere six months following his work on the film, a friend tipped him off that the final cut of Eugenie was not playing in the usual cinemas in and around London.  Quickly following up on his friend’s observation, Lee was reportedly horrified upon discovery the film had been relegated to the sordid “blue” cinemas of Compton Street in the city’s Soho district. He was especially troubled by a scene where a completely nude woman, surrounded by a gaggle of Sadists, was strapped to a table in the background of one of his shots. In the early 1980s, Lee dismissively told Robert W. Pohle Jr. and Douglas C. Hart, authors of The Films of Christopher Lee (Scarecrow Press, 1983), “that I was entirely ignorant of what was going to take place behind my back after I had finished the comparatively innocuous scenes I appeared in.”

In the eighteen-minute and informative supplement Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco (also included on this Blue Underground release) film historian Stephen Thrower suggests that Lee might have been somewhat disingenuous with his claim of being unaware of the debauch scene playing out behind him.  As Lee was a self-acknowledged worldly and literate man of the arts, the author suggests that it would be highly unlikely that the actor would have not been at least partly familiar with the writings of de Sade. Surely this cultured English gentleman would be well aware of what sort of film this was to be?  Having suggested this, Thrower nonetheless admits willingness to accept Lee’s victim-hood at face value; he acknowledges neither Franco nor producer Harry Alan Towers were the type to suffer moral ambiguities in the countenance of such deception.

In any event, and regardless of his excised headline billing, Lee is hardly a main player in the production. The actor recalls the “bits and pieces” in which he was involved were shot on a Barcelona sound-stage in all of two days. In his single primary scene, the actor was even made to supply his own wardrobe: a red velvet smoking jacket he had appropriated following the shooting of the East German-French-Italian co-production Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962). What is certain is that Lee would not work with the director again. Though belated release dates on the continent and in the U.S. might suggest otherwise, Lee collaborated on four films with Jesus Franco from late 1968 through mid-1969. Along with Eugenie, there were The Castle of Fu Manchu (1970), The Bloody Judge (1970), and Count Dracula (1972).

If Lee harbored any lasting hard feelings for Franco’s perceived betrayal of his trust, it apparently wasn’t long-lasting.  In one supplement Lee magnanimously describes the Spaniard as “a much better director than he’s given credit for.” He suggests the filmmaker was handicapped not by any lack of talent in his craft, but by tight schedules (most of Franco’s films were given three to four weeks of photography at a maximum) and shoestring budgets. If this is Lee’s genuine appraisal of Franco’s talents, it’s not one shared by the director himself. The filmmaker is surprisingly dismissive of his own work, only acknowledging with dispassion, “of all my films [Eugenie is] the one I hate the least.”

Though not a neat break from his past oeuvre, historians of continental film are of the mind that Eugenie was more-or-less a transitional movie for Franco, a pivotal catalyst for the director’s turn from more traditional movie-making forms to a more seamy and steamy catalog of cult-films. In the final analysis, Eugenie was a difficult film to market in 1970 as it had a cinematic foothold in two disparate worlds. U.S. distributor, Jerry Gross, didn’t even want the final product as he found the film too artsy and tame and wanted to see more flesh on-screen. Franco would defend the finished film as “erotic but not pornographic.” Depending on where one draws the line between art and pornography, I suppose this is a somewhat truthful self-assessment on Franco’s part. It took no fewer than three attempts to market the film in Germany due to censorship issues, and in the U.K. there was no general release.

Though no less exploitative than Eugenie, Franco’s Justine is actually a visually softer and more lavish production. It’s a moody costume-drama set in the time of de Sade’s world, a time replete with castles, and lush gardens, and baroque music. The film is also mounted in a more traditional format, the many sordid indignities suffered by the title character recounted in an unrelenting episodic style. Like Eugenie, Justine (the beautiful Romina Power, the eighteen-year old daughter of screen-legend Tyrone Power) is degraded in equal measure by religious figures, criminals, noblemen, and low caste boarding house tenants. Also as in Eugenie, the young girl is savaged with moral disregrad by both predatory men and women. The film voyeuristically drifts from episode to episode as Justine endures a series of humiliations. The film is unrelentingly grim, and the filmmaker’s almost casual depictions of sexual violence rarely pauses a moment so one can catch a breath.

BY RAYMOND BENSON

“SAND IN YOUR...”

By Raymond Benson

One of the hallmarks of 1960s art house cinema was Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Woman in the Dunes, adapted by Japanese author/playwright Kōbō Abe from his own 1962 novel. The picture won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1964 and was nominated that same year for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. The following year, Teshigahara was nominated for Best Director (but lost to Robert Wise for The Sound of Music).

This is avant-garde cinema at its finest—or perhaps its most tedious, depending on your taste.

The story is straight-forward. Niki (played by Eiji Okada, the male lead from Hiroshima mon amour), a schoolteacher and amateur entomologist (he studies bugs), has ventured to a desert-like area of Japan (does one exist?) near the sea to find specific species of insects. He is stranded and needs a place to stay overnight. The “villagers” (we never see a village) point to a dilapidated shack at the bottom of a deep sand pit where a young woman lives. They throw a rope ladder over the side of the pit so that he can meet the woman (Kyōko Kishida). She seems nice and welcoming enough, and she’s attractive, too. The next morning, the rope ladder is gone. Niki is stuck in the sand pit with the nameless woman, despite several attempts to leave.

It is the woman’s “job” to shovel sand from the pit, which is raised by the villagers to be used in concrete for sale. It also prevents the shack from sinking into the sand and being forever buried. Niki is forced to be her helper, whether he likes it or not. Weeks and months go by—eventually he becomes the woman’s lover. Even when Niki does manage to escape, he is caught and brought back to the pit. The sand becomes his lot in life (pun intended).

All this takes place over 2-1/2 hours. Is it entertaining? Yes and no.

The symbolism and metaphors may have been revelatory in 1964, and I always tell my film history students  to judge a film within the context of when it was released, not by whether it “holds up” today. In that perspective, Woman in the Dunes is fascinating. It’s obviously meant to be a modern-day take on the myth of Sisyphus, a Greek king who was punished by the gods to continually roll a heavy stone up a hill, only to have it roll down again. Niki and the woman toil with the sand, day after day, and yet there’s always more sand. The couple represent, of course, man and woman, the pit represents life, and the villagers are the “taskmasters” or perhaps the gods. It’s not a spoiler to say that Niki, in the end, accepts his fate.

As to whether or not a young audience today will find much to like about the picture is a matter of aesthetics. The film is beautifully shot in glorious black and white (but in the old Academy ratio, i.e. not widescreen, unusual for 1964) by Hiroshi Segawa. The shots of sand, in particular, are striking—sand slipping, sand falling, sand on skin, microscopic sand, sand everywhere. The arty love scenes (there is some nudity, but this was Japan, not America, in 1964) are notable because the sand coats the sweaty bodies, causing one to wonder where all that sand is going. Ouch.

The Criterion Collection released the film a few years ago on DVD as part of a set of Teshigahara’s pictures. Now comes a stand-alone Blu-ray edition with a new high-definition digital restoration, with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. The images are suitably grainy (sorry, couldn’t resist). Supplements are ported over from the earlier release: a 2007 video essay on the film by film scholar James Quandt; four short films by the director—Hokusai (1953), Ikebana (1956), Tokyo 1958 (1958), and Ako (1965); Teshigahara and Abe, a 2007 documentary about the collaboration between the director and writer; and the trailer. The booklet contains an essay by film scholar Audie Bock and a 1978 interview with Teshigahara.

Woman in the Dunes is an important work of international cinema from the 60s and will be appreciated by serious art house cinephiles; the rest of the audience might feel like taking a shower after a viewing.

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By Todd Garbarini

This weekend of August 12 through 14^th, the Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting a series of classic western films that will also feature special guests who are scheduled to come and speak about their work in the films. We strongly suggest checking with the theatre’s schedule to see which other guests are added.

From the press release:

Anniversary Classics Western Weekend

August 12-14 at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills

5 Classic Westerns with special guests throughout the weekend

Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics presents our tribute to the sagebrush genre with the Anniversary Classics Western Weekend, a five film round-up ​of some of the most celebrated westerns in movie history. The star-studded lineup features John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Kevin Costner, Montgomery Clift, Natalie Wood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef and others. The films include John Ford’s masterpiece THE SEARCHERS, popular Oscar winner DANCES WITH WOLVES, spaghetti western supreme THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, and rediscoveries of the irreverent THE PROFESSIONALS and the elegiac THE MISFITS. So saddle-up for a three day celebration August 12-14; the stagecoach stops at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. ​Each program will be introduced by Sheriff Stephen Farber.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY – 50th Anniversary

We open our sagebrush weekend with the “third and best of Sergio Leone’s ‘Dollars’ trilogy… the quintessential spaghetti Western,” according to Leonard Maltin. The trilogy became the most popular of the hundreds of European Westerns made in the 1960s and 70s. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, set during the Civil War in New Mexico, is actually a prequel to A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, all of which starred Clint Eastwood as Blondie, or the Man with No Name. Leone and his screenwriters considered the film a satire with its emphasis on violence and deconstruction of Old West romanticism. Made in 1966 and released in the U.S. at the end of 1967, the movie was propelled to big box office when composer Ennio Morricone’s main theme became a hit instrumental recording for Hugo Montenegro in 1968. The film had mixed critical reaction in its day but has been reevaluated and embraced through the decades, and is now considered one of the great Westerns. Also starring Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, with cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli. Screens in a 4K digital restoration on Friday, August 12, at 7:30 PM.

DANCES WITH WOLVES – 25th Anniversary

This film won seven Oscars in 1991, including Best Picture and Best Director Kevin Costner. (It was the first Western to be named Best Picture since Cimarron took the prize in 1931.) It remains one of the most popular Western films of all time, with one of the few positive and honest portrayals of Native American culture. And it is a genuine historical epic that deserves to be seen on the big screen, where its spectacular battle scenes and buffalo hunt can be fully appreciated. Time magazine’s Richard Schickel praised the film by saying, “As a director, Costner is alive to the sweep of the country and the expansive spirit of the western-movie tradition.” Special guest speakers at this showing will include actress Mary McDonnell, who was Oscar-nominated for her performance in the film and earned a second nomination for John Sayles’ Passion Fish two years later. Screens Saturday, August 13, at 2:15 PM.

THE PROFESSIONALS – 50th Anniversary

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards in 1966, including Best Director and Best Screenplay for Hollywood veteran (and past Oscar winner) Richard Brooks. This irreverent Western boasts plenty of sardonic humor and turns many of the values of the genre upside down, but it does not skimp on production values or striking cinematography (by Oscar winner Conrad Hall). “Taut excitement throughout” was the verdict of Leonard Maltin. The four “professionals” of the title are played by Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, and Woody Strode, with an outstanding supporting cast headed by Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, and Ralph Bellamy. And be sure to stay to savor the movie’s last line, drolly delivered by Lee Marvin, one of the great kickers in Western film history. Screens Saturday, August 13, at 7:15 PM.

THE SEARCHERS- 60th Anniversary

One of the finest collaborations of John Wayne and director John Ford is also one of the most influential and admired Westerns in history. At the time of its release, The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther called it “a ripsnorting Western,” but its reputation grew in later years. In 2008 the American Film Institute named it the greatest of all Westerns. Its story of obsession and revenge influenced many later directors, including Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader, and one of the most haunting scenes in the film was imitated in George Lucas’s Star Wars. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a bitter Civil War veteran who is determined to track down the Comanches who murdered his brother’s family and abducted his two nieces. The Monument Valley locations where the movie was filmed are now iconic, and Wayne’s portrayal of the relentless, bigoted Edwards is one of his richest performances. The supporting cast includes Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, and Natalie Wood. Special guest speaker will be Wood’s younger sister, Lana Wood, who plays little Debbie, the girl kidnapped by the Comanches in the film’s opening section. Wood’s other credits include many popular TV series and her role as a Bond girl in Diamonds Are Forever. Screens Sunday, August 14, at 2:15 PM.

THE MISFITS – 55th Anniversary

We close the weekend with a modern take on the oater genre. This 1961 film’s themes of outsiders and non-conformists misplaced in contemporary society, with no new undiscovered frontiers, provide a fitting elegy to the Western. Directed by John Huston from an original screenplay by playwright Arthur Miller, with apt black-and-white cinematography by Russell Metty, this drama took on a heightened valedictory tone when it became the final film for both co-stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe (married to Miller at the time). Monroe’s portrayal of a lonely divorcee is among her best roles, and Gable’s aging cowboy is considered the greatest performance of his career. He died 12 days after completing filming. A superb ensemble includes Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and Thelma Ritter. Although a box office failure at the time, the British Film Institute notes that The Misfits “scores…in the remarkable intensity of the performances and the delineation of the characters’ complex relationships. It remains one of the finest works of all involved.” Screens Sunday, August 14, at 5:30 PM.

For more information and to purchase tickets, click here. The theatre is located at 8556 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. The phone number is (310) 659 – 9171.

BY JOHN LEMAY

Often called the Spaghetti Western version of The Dirty Dozen, A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die! is out on Blu-Ray from Kino-Lorber. Despite a superstar trio of actors in the form of James Coburn, Bud Spencer, and Telly Savalas along with an established director Tonino Valerii (Day of Anger; My Name is Nobody) and gorgeous sets, the film is nonetheless something of a mixed bag that doesn’t take off until the third act.

The plot concerns Colonel Pembroke (Coburn), a Union officer out for revenge against Major Ward (Savalas), the Confederate officer in charge of Fort Holman who also killed Pembroke’s son. With the support of the Union Army, Pembroke and his second in command, Eli Sampson (Spencer), enlist several Union officers condemned to the hangman’s noose who can have their freedom if they help Pembroke overtake Fort Holman.

Most all fans and critics of the genre unanimously agree that the movie is tediously boring until Coburn and his men finally arrive at Fort Holman and the battle begins. And what a glorious battle it is with Gatling guns and exploding gun powder kegs galore (some sources claim this scene was shot in only five days). In essence, this scene manages to be the film’s saving grace. That being said, it is usually the teaming of the three leads that alerts many movie fans to the film’s existence. After all, any movie sporting James Coburn, Bud Spencer and Telly Savalas on the poster certainly catches the eye.

James Coburn had been to Almeria the previous year to film Sergio Leone’s somewhat divisive Duck You Sucker! in 1971. He plays a similarly laconic role in A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die! However, depending on what version of the film you are watching (and there are several) his character can come across as sadly underdeveloped and mysterious. According to Marco Giusti’s book Dizionario del western all'italiano Coburn and director Valerii did not gel well, and a bored Coburn spent most of his time between takes doing yoga. Telly Savalas is also curiously underdeveloped as the villain. His best moment probably comes when he executes a deserter during the final battle. As such, Bud Spencer actually comes out of this film as the one to watch, chewing the most scenery and receiving the majority of the screen time (ironically, this role was originally supposed to have gone to Eli Wallach). Firmly entrenched as a European superstar after the release of They Call Me Trinity (1970) and its sequel, Spencer plays his part in a fairly comical fashion. He manages to lighten the mood well—but not to the extent that it seems as though he walked on set from another movie—and the film would suffer greatly without him. Spencer is dubbed in this film by the same man who dubbed him on the Trinity films and several others. Sharp-eared viewers may notice Spencer interacting with another actor who is himself dubbed by the same man who later dubbed Spencer in his other films like Crime Busters (1977). The observation is made all the more amusing when this character tells Spencer, “You seem familiar.” This isn’t a joke though, but a set-up for something in the plot later on when he outs Spencer as a Union spy.

Despite the larger than life trio of super stars that headline the film, in some respects the sets still manage to be the real star of the show. In a word, Fort Holman is as gorgeous and grand as any movie set could hope to be. As eagle eyed movie fans will notice Fort Holman is actually the set built for El Condor (1970) the previous year which starred Lee Van Cleef and was directed by John Guillermin. And if my eyes don’t deceive me, the large ranch house that Coburn and the convicts visit is the McBain residence from Once Upon a Time in the West.

As to the Blu-Ray, don’t let the first grainy shot fool you, the picture quality is actually excellent. This is probably as good a place as any to mention this is the cut 92 minute American version, hence the grainy opening shot which is in fact taken from the film’s climax, not the uncut 112 minute version which has a different opening. The uncut version reportedly does a much better job of fleshing out the characters of Coburn and Spencer and their motivations are both clearer. This still isn’t as bad as a 79 minute German version though, which was cut with the intent of making it into a Bud Spencer comedy! All in all, though the first half drags on a bit, this film is still highly recommended for Spaghetti Western and Bud Spencer fans.

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John LeMay is the author of The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies Vol. 1: 1954-1980. (Click here to order from Amazon)

By Jeremy Carr

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) feels like a working man’s thriller. Its bad guys come from varying backgrounds—military, mafia, experience on just the type of train they are hijacking—but none of them are exceptionally slick or formidably imposing in a supervillain sort of way. There is no global catastrophe, no city under siege; there isn’t even a single building at risk of explosion or collapse. These men want $1 million. Period. Sure, they have kidnapped about two dozen hostages, but in an age now when cinematic baddies detain entire metropolitan regions, this arrangement seems almost quaint by comparison. Leading the attempt to thwart the four antagonists are a couple of guys just doing their job, as capably and confidently as they would any other day. Written by Peter Stone, based on John Godey’s (Morton Freedgood) novel, this model of 1970s American movie grit stands out in form and function for the way its unpretentious, low-key scheme is conceived of and enacted, and the systematic, procedural manner in which the plot is hindered by men with evident occupational know-how.

Starting with the motorman trainee who recites the stop-start routine for a train as it pulls in and out of a station, Pelham goes for realistic detail at most every turn, setting up how this operation works and economically dispersing the minutiae that will prove integral to the plot as the film moves along. Scarcely any nuance of character or indication of incident, from Green’s (Martin Balsam) sniffles to the description of the subway lines to hypothetical escape routes, is mentioned or shown without having some later relevance. Quirks and gradually revealed backstories imbue each of the four criminals with definable features that become resiliently realistic. The paunchy Green (code name for Harold Longman), adorned by craggy grey hair and thick glasses, is hardly the embodiment of a criminal mastermind, but he is experienced in the ways of the rails and that is what matters. Brown (AKA George Steever, played by Earl Hindman), the most irrelevant of the four, is marred by a stutter, while Grey (Giuseppe Benvenuto, played by Hector Elizondo) is a sleazy, pervy wildcard. The man in charge, Blue (Bernard Ryder - Robert Shaw), is introduced by a subtle shuffle on the station landing and later bides his time with crossword puzzles. These are like the bad guys next door.

On the other side of the plot are the protagonists, similarly presented as unassuming Average Joes. Transit Authority police lieutenant Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau), who unwittingly yet naturally becomes the key hero of the film, is first seen dozing off. He then spends the first part of his day escorting some visiting Japanese dignitaries, giving them a guided tour of the New York City subway system, reciting a numerical spiel composed of dry, textbook knowledge. Played by Matthau with delightful cynicism and weariness, a year after his excellent turn in Charley Varrick, Garber subsequently contends with the bureaucracy of city management while doing his blue-collar best to negotiate with the hijackers. It is, of course, a slow day to start (one of few clichés in the film), but in this initial downtime, Garber and his crew are presented in an engaging series of humorous openings. Believing they don’t understand English (the punchline being that they do), Garber calls the Japanese officials “dummies” and tells them friend and street-wise cohort police lieutenant Rico Patrone (Jerry Stiller) works for the mob on the weekend. Meanwhile, the foul-mouthed supervisor, Caz Dolowicz (Tom Pedi), blusters his way around, decrying a politically correct workplace where a man can’t swear in the presence of a lady. These salty-seasoned guys have been on the job for a long time; they banter with a grizzled, veteran expertise and a crass B.S. detector: “Who’s gonna steal a subway train?” exclaims Caz after hearing of the admittedly unorthodox crime.

The four criminals institute a time-limit in which to receive the required money and the necessary accommodations for escape, but the race-against-the-clock scenario that develops in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three takes its time increasing gears. Contrary to flash-pan hyper-stylized action vehicles that move along at an instantly expedient rate (like the late Tony Scott’s 1999 remake—still a decent film), Pelham gingerly amps up the velocity. There are brief moments of ruthless action, in which the crooks express their disciplined seriousness and potential for fatal violence, but generally, at least in the beginning, Blue and his associates are methodically efficient. “We’re in no hurry,” he says, testing the patience of Garber and his team while suggesting the potential of yet-to-be-revealed plans that give the film part of its sweeping suspense.

Then the train starts rolling. As a satisfying crescendo to the carefully orchestrated first two acts, the accelerating conclusion of Pelham gets everyone and everything in motion. The good and the bad spring into action, and in a fascinating display of proficiency and well-oiled coordination, Garber and the officers begin a rapid radio relay, going through the chain of command and hashing out the best way to proceed. The deadline nears, the sickly mayor agrees to pay the ransom, the money counting begins, and soon the transport of the fastidiously arranged cash is underway. (The mayor’s flu is another of those curious character traits that make these individuals more than just generic mechanisms.) As the situation underground grows hazy, and the placement of the criminal quartet and their prospective getaway becomes uncertain, David Shire’s tremendous score, a vital component of the film throughout, now becomes a driving composition, recalling a film noir or television police drama with its urban intensity and pounding pace. Combine this with the editing of Robert Q. Lovett and Gerald B. Greenberg, the latter having won an Oscar for his similarly dynamic cutting on The French Connection (1971), and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three barrels toward its exhilarating destination in both image and sound.

BY TIM GREAVES

When I hear the name Jack Hill the first thing that comes to mind is the roster of gritty exploitationers he shot with Pam Grier – Coffey, Foxy Brown, The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage – or perhaps the bizarre, comic horrors of Spider Baby. What my thinking seldom, if ever, gravitates towards is 1974's The Swinging Cheerleaders, one of Hill's last directorial spins and an altogether rather humdrum bag of tricks.

Preparing an article for the Mesa College newspaper on what she considers to be the demeaning nature of cheerleading, student Kate Cory (Jo Johnston, in her only film role) sets out to get herself selected as a member of the football team's resident cheerleading squad, alongside Andrea (Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith), Mary Ann (Colleen Camp) and Lisa (Rosanne Katon). When Mary Ann learns of Kate's true motives and, worse yet, that their new inductee is making a play for her boyfriend, ace footballer Buck (Ron Hajak), she's too distracted to notice her father, the college Dean (George Wallace), is masterminding a get-rich-quick gambling scheme; in cahoots with the team coach (Jack Denton) and the maths professor (Jason Sommers), he’s rigging football matches to line his pockets.

Co-written by Hill and Rape Squad scribe David Kidd (under the noms des plumes Jane Witherspoon and Betty Conklin) and shot in just 12 days, The Swinging Cheerleaders is a strange one; essentially suffering from a genre identity crisis, it's thematically all over the shop. Bearing in mind the title and the premise – not to mention the suggestive promotional poster art – one could be forgiven for expecting a saucy, gag-fuelled campus comedy in the vein of an Animal House or a Porky's, and in many respects that seems to be what Hill was striving for (in fact, he claims that he imagined it as a 'Disney Sex Comedy', whatever that concept might constitute!); there are a number of situations, some played out with jaunty musical accompaniment, that are clearly aiming for laughs. However, material that gives rise to chuckles is patchy at best and much of it frankly isn't funny at all. But then that's hardly surprising given that it’s sandwiched between sleaziness more suited to Hill's aforementioned exploitationers, for example brutish rogue cops force feeding a bottle of liquor to the hero, or (off screen) gang rape.

What the show cries out for but sorely fails to muster up is a hefty dose of genuine funnies; the core ingredients are all present and correct – a lecherous coach who leers at cheerleaders’ posteriors through his binoculars, randy male students eager to disrobe their female classmates, a Dean who’s far from the upstanding pillar his position commands – it's simply that the measures are all wrong and the resulting confection leaves a bitter taste on the palate. Thus, regardless of its pretensions as to otherwise, what The Swinging Cheerleaders ends up as is a lukewarm, borderline schmaltzy drama, with Kate finally realising that cheerleading isn't such a terrible thing after all and bagging the football team's star player into the bargain. One slapstick sequence does stand out, but for the wrong reasons: As a procession of characters file past a bad guy, each of them lands a punch on him whilst he just stands there taking it and going full pelt on theatrical mugging. The scene is so completely out of step with the rest of the picture that it feels as if it has snuck in from another film. This off kilter tone carries through to other aspects of the film too, notably the character of the dodgy Dean, who vacillates between being genuinely unpleasant (he slaps Mary Ann around when she foul mouths him) and slipping into moments of pantomime villainy. 

Speaking of characters, it doesn't help that some of them are plain objectionable. Actually, scratch that, all of them are objectionable. Which isn’t to say the performers aren’t easy on the eye – particularly Smith (who first caught this reviewer's attention in The Incredible Melting Man, in which she loses her shirt and stumbles over a headless corpse all in the space of a few seconds), Camp (still working today), future Playboy centrefold (September 1978) Katon, and (for the female audience) Hajak and Ric Carrott – even if they're prime examples of that cardinal college movie 'sin' of looking too old to convince as teen students.

Truthfully, were it not for Quentin Tarantino's enthusiastic flag-waving when he programmed The Swinging Cheerleaders as part of his first film festival back in the mid-90s, I suspect it's one that may have escaped my attention. And that would be a shame, because although it's hardly on a par with the cream of Hill’s c.v., despite the prevalent tang of negativity shrouding this piece, the man himself singles it out from his oeuvre as the one he most enjoyed working on, which alone makes it worthy of attention.

The Swinging Cheerleaders has been released on dual format Blu-ray and DVD in the UK from Arrow, its unwarranted 18-certificate playing guilty accomplice to the implication it’s something far more salacious than it actually is. The presentation itself is derived from a 2K restoration of the original film elements and on the Blu-Ray under review here the image is pleasingly bright and colourful with a moderate level of grain present throughout.  The highlight bonus is a feature-accompanying commentary with the eminently entertaining Hill (moderated by Ejijah Drenner, who works up a nice rapport with the director). Then, along with an on-camera interview with Hill and one with DoP Alfred Taylor, there's an old (poorly filmed) interview with Hill hosted by Johnny Legend, a 2012 Q&A with Hill, Camp and Katon (sadly it too was amateurishly shot), and some original release TV spots (the tone of which also misrepresent the film as a laughfest).

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BY JOHN LEMAY

Though it may be a little too campy for some, Captain Apache (1971) makes for one of the more wildly entertaining Spaghetti Westerns. Actually, some critics go so far as to group this film into a western subgenre called the “Acid Western” (the likes of which include El Topo and other surrealistic fare). The film was not an Italian project but was made by Benmar Productions out of Great Britain which produced A Town Called Hell the same year (as such, the fantastic church set from that film reappears in a redressed fashion for Captain Apache). Though initially Yul Brynner was announced as the star in April of 1970, Spaghetti superstar Lee Van Cleef eventually took the role (though Brynner certainly would have looked the part more than Van Cleef). Despite the declining state of European Westerns in 1971, this was one three that Van Cleef made that same year, the other two being The Return of Sabata and Bad Man’s River.

The story follows Van Cleef as an Apache US Army Captain, hence the title (his real name is never given throughout the film) at some point in the 1870s during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Captain Apache’s mission is to solve the murder of the Indian Commissioner, Harry Collier and decipher the meaning behind his cryptic dying words: “April Morning.” The investigation quickly leads Captain Apache to gunrunner Mr. Griffin (Stuart Whitman) and his amorous “fiancée” Maude (Carroll Baker). Much of the proceedings center on Captain Apache investigating various people with ties to the murder only to have them turn up dead as well. This all leads the Captain to a late night train ride with all of the principal characters. It is here where we finally learn that April Morning doesn’t refer to a time or date, but a train car carrying the President of the United States! The action is pretty atmospheric from there, though a surprise twist will either register as just that—or a big joke—depending on your opinion of it.

Though the film isn’t as surreal as other Acid Westerns, it does have quite a milieu of elements in play. Its main claim to fame is the fact that Lee Van Cleef sings the title song. Apparently Van Cleef had seen Lee Marvin singing in Paint Your Wagon (1969) and wanted to give it a try himself. The results aren’t as bad as one might expect, though the film’s composer revealed in an interview that Van Cleef was somewhat difficult to work with in the recording sessions. Van Cleef also notoriously appears in the film wearing a wig and is minus his mustache (as Native Americans don’t typically have facial hair). Then there is the near constant assault of gags and one liners to the extent that this almost seems to be a “beans western” like They Call Me Trinity. A witch and her hallucinogenic potion even adds a semi-supernatural element to the story. Most all Spaghettis have a sequence where the hero is captured and then tortured or beat up, in the case of this film Captain Apache is forced to ingest the witch’s potion and goes on a strange hallucinogenic journey to the underworld. But mostly the film plays like an Old West version of the James Bond series for many reasons. A bedroom scene where Van Cleef is romancing Carroll Baker is particularly Bond-like when she puts a knife to his neck and he coolly responds by putting a gun to hers. Van Cleef’s verbal duels with Stuart Whitman over dinner is another Bond-like element as are a pair of identical twin gunmen henchmen that menace Van Cleef on Whitman’s behalf.

In many respects, though produced in 1971, the film’s campy flavor is more in line with cinema of the late 1960s more so than the early 1970s—the music in particular. Many will no doubt be surprised to learn that the film’s composer Dolores Claman later wrote “The Hockey Theme” for Hockey Night in Canada—Canada’s most recognizable piece of music aside from their national anthem. Though the score is no Morricone level masterpiece, it is still enjoyable in its own zany way. The same can also be said of the direction by American Alexander Signer. This was one of few feature films he shot as he mostly stuck to directing episodes of TV series such as The Fugitive and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to name a few.

For Van Cleef completests and fans of off-beat Spaghettis Captain Apache is a worthwhile addition to their Blu-Ray library. Like other Kino Lorber releases, the picture is excellent (as is the sound) and the release also includes trailers for two other Van Cleef films: Sabata and Barquero. Otherwise there are no special features to speak of. 

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John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

Huddleston and John Wayne in Howard Hawks' 1970 Western "Rio Lobo".

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Like many character actors, David Huddleston's name may not be familiar to movie fans- but they certainly would recognize him, especially if they are retro film fans. Huddleston, who this week at age 85, was a star of stage and screen. He  began making feature films in the 1960s and became steadily employed in both low-budget and major Hollywood productions, generally playing  folksy, good old boy Southern characters, though he did snag the title role in the 1985 Salkind production of "Santa Claus" as well as the 1998 Coen Brothers cult classic "The Big Lebowski". He scored with audiences for his performance as the foul-mouthed town dignitary in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" and appeared in "Capricorn One", 'Smokey and the Bandit II", "Haunted Honeymoon" and two films with John Wayne: Howard Hawks' "Rio Lobo" and John Sturges' "McQ". In the first he played a small town dentist who humorously performs painful dental surgery on Wayne's character in order to deceive the villains. In the latter film, he played a private detective named Pinky who works with Wayne's maverick police detective in Seattle. Huddleston also worked up until recent years in many major TV series. He was especially proud of his acclaimed performance as Ben Franklin in the 1997 Broadway stage revival of "1776". For more click here. 

BY JOHN LEMAY

Dazed and Confused, the first major feature from director/writer Richard Linklater, was released in 1993. The story, set in 1976, concerned one day in the life of a group of Texas high school students on their last day of classes. The proceedings were so high on nostalgia the film could very nearly be mistaken for a documentary. The movie (which included the likes of Ben Affleck and Mathew McConaughey) was ignored in theaters, but soon began flying off of video rental store shelves. Quickly it achieved cult-hit status, and for the last twenty-some years fans have begged for a sequel. Though Linklater had no desire to revisit that film’s characters, he did occasionally remark about doing a quasi-follow-up set in college in the 1980s. Finally in 2015 the long gestating “sequel” began filming.

However, when Linklater shot Dazed and Confused he was in his early thirties, with high school still fresh in his memory. It could even be said he caught the perennial lightning in a bottle in capturing the film’s perfect atmosphere. In his mid-fifties by 2015 when filming on Everybody Wants Some!! commenced, could Linklater accomplish the same feat twice?

Surprisingly the answer is a resounding yes. However, to call Everybody Wants Some!! a sequel to Dazed and Confused isn’t 100% correct, as there are no continuity ties to that film—at least none that anyone has spotted yet—though it’s still reasonable to assume they take place in the same little world. And though some call this the “1980s Dazed and Confused,” it should be noted this movie only takes place in the late summer of 1980, well before the decade of excess had managed to establish itself, so really the period’s not too terribly different from the late 1970s. That being said, this film doesn’t attempt to imitate its predecessor as much as one would expect. For instance, in Dazed it’s difficult to say just who the main character really is due to its large ensemble, whereas Blake Jenner’s lead character Jake, a freshman college baseball player, is the singular point of view in Everybody Wants Some!! Nor does this story take place over the course of only one day, which would have been a disservice to the character’s relationships. In the case of Dazed, most of the characters had established friendships/relationships as they had several years of high school under their belt. But in Everybody Wants Some!! Jake has no prior existing relationships with any of his new roommates/teammates whom he is moving into a frat house with. As such the storyline more or less chronicles Jake adapting to living on his own and bonding with his new roommates over the course of one party-filled weekend, the film ending with him starting his first day of college classes.

As one can tell from the brief synopsis above, Everybody Wants Some!! is not a high-concept film by any means. Like Boyhood and other Linklater films, the focal point is human interaction itself, with a heavy dose of philosophizing—some of which is naturally fueled by marijuana. Actually, aside from the “getting high and having a strange conversation scene” Everybody Wants Some!! really isn’t too heavy on call-backs to Dazed and Confused. Other than the aforementioned scene, only the hazing of the new players on a baseball field and the climax involving an all-night party strongly harken back to Dazed. And like its predecessor, the final scenes don’t consist of the typical movie deaths, explosions, fist fights or first kisses. As a coming of age film, it naturally ends on the note of the lead character firmly realizing he has entered a new phase of his life. (Beware of spoilers) The final scene, where Jake attends his first class after having pulled off an all-nighter, sees him tiredly watching his history teacher writing “Frontiers are where you find them” on the chalkboard. Jake closes his eyes to sleep, and then smiles.

Naturally, the joy of the film is found in the nostalgia factor in remembering back to one’s college days and early youth. Much of this joy is found in the lengthy conversations/interactions as Linklater proves he still reigns supreme as the king of realistic movie dialogue. Ever watch a movie with bad dialogue? Of course you have, and there’s absolutely nothing more distracting than bad dialogue. Simply put, Linklater gets how people—specifically in this case college guys—actually interact with each other. Every scene felt completely natural, including Jake’s introduction to his roommates. For other writers/directors these scenes can often come across as clunky or heavy on exposition, but Linklater perfectly captured the awkward “first day of school” feeling for Jake walking into the frat house for the first time. Credit also goes to Jenner’s wide-eyed acting, taking in his new surroundings in believable fashion. Likewise, all of his roommates are well balanced in that they manage to entice plenty of laughter without losing their believability. The only exception is the character of Jay, an arrogant loud mouthed pitcher portrayed by Juston Street. While Street is hilarious in his part, his character is the only one that’s perhaps too much of a caricature and upsets the near perfect illusion of realism. Granted, wacky people like that do exist, but they’re fairly rare in the real world.

And speaking of humor, in a day and age where all the funniest bits are in the trailers more often than not, Everybody Wants Some!! is the exact opposite. There’s nothing particularly funny in the trailers (at least not as far as this writer is concerned) but in the context of the actual film the witty dialogue and gags are hilarious. Nor are they set-up to the point that they feel forced, and they come quickly enough that the viewer can’t see the punchline coming before it lands.

In summary, Everybody Wants Some!! may come from the same mold as Dazed and Confused but still manages to be its own film, and is far more than just “Dazed and Confused 2.” Its run in theaters is currently over, but it has just been released on DVD/Blu-ray and is available for digital download now.

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John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

Cinema Retro has received the following press announcement:

For the first time on DVD a brand new series of relaxed, intimate, face to face interviews with some of Britain’s finest, much loved actors, who share with us moments from their lives and work in theatre, television and films.

With careers that span over seven decades, we hear stories about the greatest theatres (The National; The Old Vic; The Royal Shakespeare Company); the theatrical knights (Olivier; Gielgud; Richardson); the bright lights of Broadway, and the most celebrated movie directors of the twentieth century (Spielberg; Fellini; Huston; Chaplin; Visconti; Lean).

Featuring an extensive archive of rare photographs and film trailers, it is a nostalgic trip down memory lane in the company of highly respected actors who have given us some unforgettable performances.

Joss Ackland, Michael Medwin, Vera Day, Julian Glover, Michael Craig, Roy Dotrice, Sarah Miles, Lee Montague, Michael Jayston, Derren Nesbitt, Freddie Jones, Shirley Anne Field

Directed By Derek Pykett

Running Time: 900 minutes

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

A specific type of film genre that has all but vanished is that of the circus movie. In decades past circuses provided the backdrop for spectacle (i.e. Demille's The Greatest Show on Earth), horror (Todd Browning's Freaks), uplifting musicals (MGM's Jumbo) and cheesy but fun thrillers (Berserk!).  Indeed, there is something very old fashioned and timeless about traditional circuses and that is part of their appeal. For a few thousand years circuses have entertained audiences with their combination of exotic animals and feats of derring do. Yet, while circuses still maintain their popular appeal they have been designated by studio executives as being too quaint for modern movie audiences. Thus we have to look into the past to relish them on film. One of the more prominent circus-related production was The Big Show, which was released in 1961 and for which Esther Williams stepped out of a swimming pool briefly in order to play a mature character in a mature drama. Despite receiving first billing, however, Williams is primarily relegated to serving as window dressing in this compelling, well-acted story that served as a career boost for Cliff Robertson and Robert Vaughn. The film was loosely based on a novel by Jerome Weidman titled I'll Never Go There Anymore that had been previously adapted into two other films, Broken Lance and House of Cards. 

Nehemiah Persoff plays Bruno Everard, the widowed head of a traveling German circus that he and his late wife built from humble beginnings. The circus now has a loyal following and is financially successful but Bruno wants it to expand even further. He runs the business with his eldest son Josef (Cliff Robertson) and his two other sons Hans (Kurt Pecher) and Fredrik (Franco Andrei).  Their 18 year-old sister Garda (Carol Christensen) joins her brothers in their responsibility to perform in the circus as trapeze artists but suffers from her father's patronizing and overly-protective oversight of every aspect of her life. Bruno's fourth son, Klaus (Robert Vaughn) is the black sheep of the family.  Due to a fear of heights, he cannot serve as a trapeze artist. Consequently, Bruno regards him as emasculated and weak. Klaus tries to contribute by performing a knife-throwing act and also acting as a bookkeeper behind the scenes yet he constantly receives humiliating insults from his father, who says the knife throwing act is too amateurish to be part of a major circus.Bruno is less a family patriarch than a tyrant. He exercise dictatorial control over the circus and only occasionally listens to Josef's advice and suggestions. He also has demanded that none of his children may ever date or marry anyone he has not approved of because he doesn't want an outsider to share in the fortunes of the circus that he has so painstakingly built. Bruno  feels the best way to expand the circus is by forging a partnership with a competitor, Pietro Vizzini (Peter Capell), an elderly man in frail health. Like Bruno, he is widowed and has a daughter, Teresa (Renate Mannhardt), a rather homely young woman who is primarily known for her dangerous circus act of taming and interacting with polar bears. The calculating Bruno feels that the business merger will only happen if one of his sons marries Teresa and he basically orders Josef to propose to her. Josef refuses. Turns out he's dating Hillary Allen (Esther Williams), a playgirl socialite who has been visiting the circus and making eyes at him while he performs his trapeze act. The handsome Klaus, in an attempt to please his father, courts Teresa and convinces her to marry him, which does cement the joint the venture between Bruno and her father. However, much to his distress, Bruno still can't say a kind word to Klaus and continues to publicly humiliate him, thus setting in motion events that will inevitably tragedy to both families. Meanwhile, Bruno- like the character of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof- finds that his children are resisting his dictatorial demands. Once Josef disobeys him to court Hillary, Garda does the same by dating a young American G.I., Eric Solden (David Nelson). When Bruno insists that they break up their relationship, Eric and Garda inform him that they intend to marry and move to America. Suddenly, Bruno's world begins to fall apart. A suicide and a tragic accident put the circus in jeopardy. When it appears that Bruno will be found guilty of negligence and jailed due to the accident that killed several of his people, Josef bravely accepts the blame and serves a five year jail sentence. When he returns to the circus from prison he finds Klaus has now manipulated his weak brothers into allowing him to take control, thus leading to a one-on-one deadly confrontation with Josef. 

The Big Show was filmed in Germany and utilized the performers from an actual circus. The film is essentially a soap opera centering of the challenges encountered by lovers and would-be lovers. There's a bit of tension in the relationship between Hillary and Josef after he proposes to her when she begins to speak of their lavish life on Park Avenue. Josef is dedicated to a life in the circus and this causes them to temporarily break up. Similarly, when Klaus informs his new bride Teresa that he only married her for business reasons, his cruel remarks lead to a predictable but dramatic outcome. Most of the drama, however, is related to Bruno's relationship with virtually everyone around him. He has the ability to turn on the charm when it's for his own gain but for the most part he is a humorless, dour man whose inability to compromise leads to his downfall. Nehemiah Persoff is outstanding in the role and dominates every scene he's in. His nuanced performance makes the character of Bruno less a villain than a well-intentioned but misguided man who simply wants to ensure the future of the business that he built from scratch. Persoff gets strong support from Robertson, who is handsome, dignified and understated in the manner in which he deals maturely with his father's bombastic demands. Josef respects and admires his father but has also earned his respect by standing up to him, whereas his weak brothers are used by Bruno as human door mats. All of the other actors are adequate enough in their roles with the exception of David Nelson, who was then starring in the popular Ozzie and Harriet TV series. He comes across as impossibly polite and is more virginal than the innocent girl he wants to marry.  Esther Williams goes against type by playing a woman who is, initially at least, self-centered and irresponsible. She does a fair enough job but the producers couldn't resist inserting a superfluous sequence in which she enters a swimming pool. Because Williams' character is the least interesting it's no surprise that the actress is routinely overshadowed by other cast members. The most complex character is Klaus and he is exceptionally well-played by Vaughn. Although he turns into an outright villain, we can see the reasons why. When he tries to do the right thing he is constantly rejected by his father. Thus, it's no surprise he develops serious "daddy issues". Interestingly, Vaughn made his mark with three major films in succession in which he played emotionally fragile young men. In his Oscar-nominated turn in "The Young Philadelphians" he was a young aristocrat who falls into alcoholism and finds himself framed for murder. In "The Magnificent Seven" he was the member of the macho group who had to cope with inherent cowardice and in "The Big Show" he plays a man driven to extremes by his failure to live up to his father's expectations. Ironically once he reached stardom a few years later he would generally known for playing self-assured men of action and confidence.

"The Big Show", ably directed by James B. Clark, is certainly not an underrated classic. However, it is consistently engrossing and highly entertaining with some wonderful footage of trapeze artists and tightrope walkers achieving feats that still seem impossible. The  good news is that the film has finally been released as a region-free DVD by Fox Cinema Archives , the studio's "Made-On-Demand"  service. The print utilized is adequate but not much more due to certain sequences that display a good deal of grain and/or artifacts but we won't gripe about that, given how long we waited for the DVD release.  The biggest complaint we have is that this is yet another Fox MOD title that was shot in widescreen and released in a matted format that approximates "pan-and-scan". What were they thinking? Whoever makes such decisions is living in a time warp from the 1990s when audiences were unfamiliar with widescreen video presentations. (Remember when TCM had to recruit world famous directors to explain to viewers that, despite the black bars on the screen, the audience was getting the full picture as opposed to a cropped version?) If Fox's MOD division thinks audiences are still reluctant to accept widescreen movies they are wrong. Years ago Wal-mart thought the same thing and demanded that widescreen DVD releases also have a pan-and-scan version released simultaneously. However, they soon learned that consumers overwhelmingly preferred the original widescreen version and the pan-and-scan option quickly vanished. Fox should understand that any consumer who has gone on-line to track down a movie such as "The Big Show" is a purist and would want to see the film its original format. The decision to bypass the widescreen process on "The Big Show" was not an error on someone's part.  The video opens with a notice that the movie has been intentionally "modified" from its original format. The opening titles are presented in their original glory but once the film proper starts, the pan-and-scan version kicks in and you feel your aggravation level rise. Perhaps the film should be re-titled "The Semi-Big Show". The studio has done a service to retro movie lovers by making so many obscure titles available. However it is ironic that Fox, which pioneered the widescreen process in the 1950s, is the last major studio to utilize its benefits when it comes to home video. Cinema Retro has long been championing the quality of MOD titles and trying to dispense with the unfounded notion that they are somehow inferior in quality to regular DVDs. However, we can't condone  altering a film's original format. Fox should realize that consumers who purchase MOD product are extremely sophisticated when it comes to reverence for film history.  C'mon guys, get on the ball  and we'll sing your praises- and while you're at it, please consider including at least a trailer or stills gallery on your bare-bones releases. These type of bonus features are readily available to you and add to the commercial appeal of the releases not to mention the enjoyment of the viewing experience.

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“BEAUTY, LOVE, MOTHER... AND AMERICA”

By Raymond Benson

Filmmaker Terrence Malick has perhaps out-mystique’d the great Stanley Kubrick in terms of his public perception. Famously reclusive, Malick never allows photographs of himself to be used, and he never appears in “making of” documentaries about his films. A Rhodes Scholar and a Harvard graduate, he is obviously a brilliant man. Once he got into the film business, he worked as a script doctor until he made his first feature, Badlands (1973). It was critically acclaimed and established Malick as a hot addition to the “New Hollywood” movement. Next came Days of Heaven in 1978, also critically lauded.

And then... he disappeared. For twenty years.

In 1998, he appeared on the scene again, and Hollywood was more than ready to open checkbooks and fund his third feature film, The Thin Red Line.

It takes a lot of mystique for that scenario to happen.

Malick’s fourth picture, The New World, continued the director’s journey in exploring what has become signature stylistic and thematic traits—to make movies in which the plot is secondary to image, sound, music, and emotion. Malick is more interested in inventing a different kind of cinema—one that is certainly not mainstream. Terrence Malick uses film to create visual and sonic poetry, expound philosophy and existentialism, and touch upon a very basic and primal chord in his audience. He wants us to feel as well as think, and to fill us with awe and wonder. But make no mistake—in a Malick film, the story is not essential to the journey.

The director’s work of late is even more elliptical, impressionistic, and free form. Beginning with The Tree of Life, the Oscar-nominated treatise on the creation of the world and how that spark is inside each and every human being, Malick threw down the gauntlet to audiences, asking, “Are you with me or not?” The believers will follow him wherever he goes. Most everyone else will scratch their heads and... walk out of the theater (which happened a lot when I first saw The Tree of Life!) For the record, I’m a follower.

The New World has more in common with The Thin Red Line than Malick’s more recent works. There is a story in The New World, it’s just told very unconventionally, the same way he freely adapted The Thin Red Line into a lyrical piece about war and nature. The New World is also about nature, and in fact, “Mother” is probably the central character.

The year is 1607, and English adventurers have just landed in Virginia. Among them is Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell). The “Naturals,” as Captain Newport (Christopher Plummer) calls the Native Americans, at first cautiously welcomes them. Smith meets the free-spirited Pocahontas (astonishingly well-portrayed by 14-year-old Q’orianka Kilcher) and they fall in love. Then things go sour between the two peoples. A little later, another Englander, John Rolfe (Christian Bale), enters Pocahontas’ life, and she accompanies him back to meet the King and Queen of the United Kingdom. That’s the story in a nutshell.

What Malick does with this is extraordinary. With the aid of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (the first of a collaboration that would continue for the remainder of Malick’s work), the director presents a collage of spectacularly beautiful images that emphasizes how fresh and virginal the land of this “new world” is. In addition, the depiction of the Powhatan people is arguably the most realistic and accurate portrayal of Native Americans in a Hollywood film, compounding the notion that they knew how to live with nature, whereas the newcomers fight “Mother” the entire way. The film is a meditation, like most of Malick’s work, on man’s relationship with the earth.

The Criterion Collection has pulled out all the stops with this new, lavish box set of three disks containing three different cuts of the film. The main attraction is a new 4K digital restoration of the “extended cut” (172 minutes), supervised by Lubezki and Malick. Also included are high-definition transfers of the original “first cut” (150 minutes, released for the first time on home video), which was the version that premiered in L.A. and New York in December 2005 and ran for a week in order to be considered for Academy Awards, and the “theatrical cut” (135 minutes), which was the version most audiences saw during the film’s wide release in early 2006.

Which version is better? Difficult to say. The extended cut is probably Malick’s preferred assembly, and if you’re a fan of the director’s work, then this is definitely the one to watch. The theatrical cut is much leaner, thereby making the storyline stronger. But the first cut, while only fifteen minutes longer than the theatrical one, fills out the gaps of the shorter version quite well with Malick’s elegiac, stylistic choices—it’s a nice compromise between the extended and theatrical editions.

A 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack accompanies all three cuts, and you can hear every cricket and bird chirp as if they’re in your living room.

Supplements include new interviews with Farrell and Kilcher, producer Sarah Green, production designer Jack Fisk, and costume designer Jacqueline West. There’s an informative piece on the differences between the three versions as told by co-editor Mark Yoshikawa, as well as new interviews with editors Yoshikawa, Hank Corwin, and Saar Klein. Making “The New World” is an approximately 90-minute documentary directed and edited by Austin Jack Lynch (David’s son), detailing the production in Virginia and England. The theatrical and teaser trailers are also included. The thick booklet contains an essay by film scholar Tom Gunning, a 2006 interview with Lubezki from American Cinematographer, and a selection of research materials that inspired the production.

The Criterion Collection always produces quality material—their release of The New World stands as one of the company’s most impressive packages.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

“That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you” - Andy Dufresne

On August 12^th, 2016, nearly 22 years after the film’s original theatrical release, SPACELAB9 is honored to present, for the first time ever on vinyl format, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION: ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK DOUBLE LP. The critically acclaimed soundtrack album includes the full 18-track score from award-winning composer Thomas Newman (The Green Mile, American Beauty, Spectre) as well as additional tracks by The Ink Spots and Hank Williams plus a stunning performance of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” by the Deutsche Opera Berlin, recalling one of the most memorable scenes from the film.

The deluxe 180 gram double LP package includes a gatefold jacket highlighted with sleek silver foil stamping and features several images from the iconic film as well as exclusive liner notes by composer Thomas Newman. A limited “Prison Blues” blue vinyl variant is available from Barnes & Noble, while the “Suds on the Roof” yellow vinyl variant will be made available for pre-order on August 2^nd, exclusively at SPACELAB9.com and will also be available in extremely limited quantities from the label’s booth at New York Comic Con in October.

The film adaption of the Steven King novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, renamed simply The Shawshank Redemption by screenwriter and director Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Walking Dead), although not a hit at the box office upon its 1994 theatrical release, gained traction the following year having been nominated for seven Academy Awards. Following the home video release in 1995, The Shawshank Redemption became the most rented film of the year and would continue to grow in popularity throughout the next two decades to become one of the most iconic, endearing and enduring films of all time. The Shawshank Redemption has sat at #1 on IMDB’s user-generated list of the 250 top rated films since 2008 and in 2015 the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

It's no secret to Cinema Retro readers that director John Landis has been a long-time contributor to the magazine. What they might know is that his wife, Deborah Nadoolman, has also gone above-and-beyond for us, as well. In 2012, we were shepherding members of one of our movie-themed tours around London film locations. Deborah, one of the most accomplished costume designers in the industry, was in the city for the opening of a major exhibition about famous costumes seen in cinema. The event was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum and there was overwhelming demand for tickets. We requested that perhaps she could give our members a private tour of the exhibition. Deborah readily agreed and she and her co-curator Sir Christopher Frayling arranged to have us gain entrance to the museum an hour before opening time for the public. Deborah regaled us with wonderful anecdotes about many of the costumes on display including those from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", as it was Deborah who created that iconic look for Harrison Ford. The Daily Beast's Joshua David Stein has written a very welcome article about Deborah and her achievements in the film industry. You're likely to find some interesting anecdotes relating to both "Raiders" and Michael Jackson's landmark music video for "Thriller" which John Landis directed and Deborah designed the costumes for. Click here to read.

BY JOHN LEMAY

Though this author has seen many Italian Westerns, for years I had avoided watching Navajo Joe because I had wrongly assumed it was an American Western due to its star: Burt Reynolds. Happily, I discovered that Navajo Joe is a solidly entertaining film. Reynolds stars as the title character, out for revenge after a gang of cutthroats massacres his tribe and scalps his wife. The rest of the film shows Reynolds hunting down the bandits and killing them one by one. Naturally, as this is a Spaghetti Western, Joe has a few anti-hero traits. When the same outlaw gang begins terrorizing the town of Esperanza, Joe dupes the townspeople into paying him to kill the gang, thus managing to profit from an act he was intending to carry out anyway (hence the film’s Italian title A Dollar a Head). Though a solid film produced by Dino de Laurentiis, directed by Sergio Corbucci (Django) and scored by Ennio Morricone, Burt Reynolds often puts the movie down, stating that it could only be shown in prisons and on airplanes to truly captive audiences that couldn’t escape. Supposedly the bad blood began when Reynolds misunderstood that he was to be working with Sergio Leone rather than Sergio Corbucci, and vice versa Corbucci initially hoped to cast Marlon Brando. Due to the mutual disappointment the director and his star didn’t get along terribly well. The film was shot between two of Corbucci’s other westerns, Johnny Oro (1966) and Hellbenders (1967). The camera work and direction for the action scenes are top notch and Reynolds himself was said to have done his own stunts, in addition to overseeing the stunt work on the entire film. Ennio Morricone (under the alias of Leo Nichols) composes another good score, with the main theme being the most memorable.

The picture quality on the Blu-ray, though not flawless, is good overall. Included in the special features is a commentary track by the Kino Lorber Senior Vice President of Theatrical Releasing, Gary Palmucci. In addition to the usual cast and crew backgrounds, Palmucci also offers up some interesting insights into running a company such as Kino Lorber and how they acquire their various titles. The Blu-ray also comes with a trailer for Navajo Joe and other Reynolds’ MGM/UA action films White Lightning, Gator and Malone.

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John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

BY TIM GREAVES

Anyone who enjoyed the family friendly spectral shenanigans of The Amazing Mr Blunden should find much to enjoy in mid-70s Brit TV series Nobody's House, out now on DVD in the UK from Network. Written by Michael Hall and Derrick Sherwin, and lensed by stalwart TV director Michael Ferguson, it was a self-contained tale spanning 7 episodes – with an open ending for a second series that never happened. And, as with many such shows, in a slightly pared-down format it would have made for a very workable movie.

The story revolves around the Sinclair family – Dad (William Gaunt), Mum (Wendy Gifford) and children (Stuart Wilde and Mandy Woodward) – who move into Cornerstones, a fixer-upper residence that a century earlier functioned as a workhouse for orphaned children. One of them, a nameless young boy (Kevin Moreton) died of the plague and his ghost continues to haunt the premises. The Sinclair children befriend him and name him Nobody.

The youngsters may be the focus of the series, but one of the major draws here for viewers of a certain age will be the eminently watchable William Gaunt, best remembered perhaps as one of the telepathic trio in ITC’s 60s supernatural-tinged tele-actioner The Champions. Although, in this writer’s opinion, he never really got the break he deserved, Gaunt continued to work steadily across the decades, recently showing up in impressive inde western The Timber. There are also guest appearances throughout the series – some as less than affable ghosts – from Flash Gordon’s Brian Blessed, Legend’s Annabelle Lanyon and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter’s John Cater (married to lead Wendy Gifford), as well as TV reliables Brian Wilde and Joe Gladwin.

Although the flavour is there, Nobody’s House admittedly doesn't share the emotional heft of the aforementioned Blunden – indeed, it's played more for light comedy – and it probably won't entice many folks unfamiliar with it. But those who recall it (and its infectious Anthony Isaac theme music) fondly from the original run between September and November 1976 won't be able to resist wallowing in the memories and perhaps even introducing it to the younger members of their own families.

The image and sound quality on Network’s DVD is about what you'd expect from a mid-70s TV show: acceptable, nothing more. Technically the only bonus feature is a short (but still worthwhile) gallery of production photos, but pleasingly several of the episodes are tail-ended by original previews for the following week’s story, and all of them open with the nostalgia-tweaking Tyne Tees television ident and finish with a plug for the tie-in novel penned by series co-scripter Michael Hall (which this writer recalls as vividly as the TV show itself).

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Spartacus

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program present Kirk Douglas: A Centennial Celebration, which will screen Saturday, July 30 - Friday, September 30 at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood Village.

This series celebrates the career of the legendary actor and producer, Kirk Douglas. Titles featured will include The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Young Man with a Horn (1950), and Spartacus (1960). Additionally UCLA Film & Television Archive restorations of Champion (1949) and Paths of Glory (1958) will be screened.

KIRK DOUGLAS: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

Saturday, July 30 – Friday, September 30

This year marks the centennial of one of Hollywood's most legendary figures: Kirk Douglas, who as both an actor and a producer, has enlivened American and world cinema with a body of work unparalleled in its appeals to human dignity, and to the highest ideals of popular entertainment. Born the child of Russian Jewish immigrants in the humblest circumstances, he has come to represent a vital, indispensable presence within American public life since the dawn of his career in the post-World War II era. His shaded portrayals of embattled individuals, striving for survival and transcendence, have enriched public discourse about manhood, citizenship and the human spirit. Rather than representing a single type, and certainly not an impervious masculine type, his characters variously shine with enthusiasm and mirth or brood with disillusionment or suffering, foregrounding not only personality but also the enormity of life's implacable forces, imbuing his work with authenticity, and making him a relatable figure for generations of filmgoers. His moral stands have been widely noted, most importantly his opposition to the Hollywood blacklist, championing Dalton Trumbo as the credited writer of Spartacus (1960) and striking a decisive blow for free speech and thought. For these contributions, and many others, the Archive is greatly pleased to celebrate Kirk Douglas' centennial year, and his lasting cinematic legacy.

BY MARK CERULLI

The series’ fifth installment explodes on the screen as Matt Damon returns to the role he originated way back in 2002.  The Bourne in this film is a bulked up, bare knuckle street brawler, earning money to support a humble off the grid existence. While never chatty and light, this Bourne incarnation is – if possible – even more grim and purposeful than before. (Supposedly Damon has only 25 lines of dialogue in the entire film!) His old CIA ally, Nicky Parsons (played by the wonderful Julia Stiles) tracks him down, offering freshly hacked information that will finally put the missing pieces in Bourne’s identity puzzle. When he learns that his own father was deeply involved then sacrificed, this chase becomes personal. Let’s just say you don’t want to get in Bourne’s way when it’s personal…

As important as Damon’s return to the franchise is, his reteaming with director Paul Greengrass is truly cause for celebration. Greengrass is undoubtedly one of the most gifted action filmmakers working today. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd’s constantly moving cameras keep the action going at a frenetic pace that never lets up. An early sequence set in the middle of a Greek anti-austerity riot is literally breathtaking as is the film’s ferocious Las Vegas climax. Jason Bourne features the best Vegas car chase since Diamonds Are Forever – except without the occasional one-liner to lighten things up. It is just a high-speed demolition derby that tears up the Strip.

Delicately beautiful Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander plays an ice-cool CIA tech officer trying to reel Bourne in to serve her own hidden agenda. Veteran actor Tommy Lee Jones is her CIA Director boss. Jones’ craggy face is almost a separate character in the film – when the camera lingers on it, the miles and battle scars show. Shadowing Bourne throughout is a brutally efficient CIA killer known only as “the Asset”, convincingly played by Vincent Cassel. Out of all the spooks Bourne has dispatched over the years, Cassel might actually cross him off the Company’s hit list.

The filmmakers cleverly wrap their story in the headline issues of today – web surveillance, civil unrest, and big government paranoia, making the entire plot totally and sadly believable. (There’s even a nod to Edward Snowden early on.) Damon was a svelte 32 when he first took on Bourne. Now 45, his Bourne is starting to age and you can see the toll his years on the lam have taken on his face and his soul – more proof, if needed, of what a spectacular actor Matt Damon really is.

BY TODD GARBARINI

Angst is a 1982-lensed horror thriller based upon the real-life case of Werner Kniesek, an Austrian loner who, in 1972, shot and killed a random woman and spent time behind bars until his release(!) in 1980 when he was set free on a three-day furlough to search for employment. Gotta love their judicial system. Unfortunately, his murderous urges came back to the forefront, and three other innocent people perished at his hands. It is this horrific event that Angst depicts to startling effect.

Angst is extremely effective in depicting The Psychopath, brilliantly played by Erwin Leder, on his first time out with a gun, ringing the bell of a random home and, without reason, murdering the elderly woman who answers the door, her husband falling by her side in shock (the camera is attached to The Psychopath’s body to enhance the sense of unease and make the audience play into his distorted mind). Captured and jailed, the problem that lies with him is his inability to control himself. Why does no one do anything about this?

Blowing off his freedom and knowing full well that he wants to murder again, he immediately sets out to find a female victim to hurt (when he was thirteen, he was seduced into sadomasochistic games by a woman in her forties, and this and similar scenarios are reveled to the audience through the creepy and effective use of his voiceover narration). An attempt to seduce two young and attractive female diner patrons stops before it can get started, and a taxi ride with a female driver ends abruptly before he can muster the guts to harm her. Stressed, he breaks into a house and finds a man in a wheelchair who can only recite the word “Pappa”. When the mother and her daughter return home, all hell breaks loose in real time as The Psychopath tortures and eventually murders the house dwellers. He takes their dog and feeds him well, but is eventually captured.

The most distressing parts of this film are, of course, the murders, carried out before the eyes of the family Dachshund who attempts to stop The Psychopath but ends up hiding under a blanket in one of the film’s most heartbreaking moments. Actor Erwin Leder throws himself into the role with such gusto and commitment it is almost unbearable to watch as he strangles the mother, drowns the paraplegic, and stabs the tied-up daughter to death, all for his own perverse reasons. We hear his thoughts through a perpetual voiceover that reveals why he is the way he is. We want to reach into the screen and scream at him to stop, though he is powerless to do so. Do we hate him? Do we feel sorry for him? In reality, Kniesek is still alive and in prison, a fact that will make even pacifists ponder whether his monstrous deeds should have seen him condemned to death.

As far as the film goes, I don’t recall ever hearing about it in the days of VHS rentals. The closest I ever came to seeing anything this disturbing was the well-known Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) on video in 1992. Henry was a composite of real-like serial killers, and even 2008’s The Strangers was based upon the brutal and grisly Keddie Murders which took place on April 11, 1981, a case which, 35 years later, has gone completely cold.

Angst had a tough time getting theatrical exhibition in 1983. Now, with the Internet and real images of people dying almost daily, the film has had a much easier time of being distributed as the public is probably almost numb to such imagery (sad to say). The film’s director, Gerald Kargl, made this one film and although it is expertly made, it is also highly disturbing and not for the faint of heart.

The Blu-ray of the film from Cult Epics contains the following extras:

A new high-definition Transfer
Optional playback with or without the prologue
New DTS HD MA 5.1 Surround
A 2015 introduction by Gaspar Noé, the director of the highly controversial Irreversible (2002)
Featurette: Erwin Leder in Fear (an alternate title for the film) (2015)
Interview with director Gerald Kargl by Jorg Buttgeriet (2003)
Interview with cinematographer Zbigniew Rybzcynski (2004)
Audio commentary by Gerald Kargl conducted by film critic Marcus Stiglegger
New HD Trailer
BD Exclusive perfect-bound 40 page booklet includes interviews with Gerald Kargl, Erwin Leder, Silvia Rabenreither, essay by Carl Andersen, illustrated with rare photos and Werner Kniesek original Kurier articles
– Collectible Blu-ray Slipcase and Sleeve

Is the film a masterpiece?  Perhaps.  It is a powerful work, with cinematography by Polish animator Zbig Rybczynski, and elegiac music by early Tangerine Dream member Klaus Schultze.  However, it is not the sort of film that I would want to watch again…

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BY TIM GREAVES

Between the early 1950s and mid 1980s the Children's Film Foundation was a non-profit making establishment behind dozens of films aimed at a young audience, most of them screening as programme constituents at Saturday morning 'Picture Shows'. I didn't catch many of these during my own childhood. But I do recall a couple of particularly enjoyable ones that I did get to see in the early 1970s: Cry Wolf (1969) and All at Sea (1970), both of which are conspicuously absent from the half dozen or so collections issued on DVD to date. Many of the CFF’s films had a run-time of around an hour, although there were also a number of serials in their catalogue. Masters of Venus was one such production. Comprising eight 15-minute instalments, it arrives on DVD in the UK in a restored release from BFI. 

On the day prior to mankind's first mission to Venus, chief scientist Dr Ballantyne (No Road Back's Norman Wooland) is being assisted with last minute preparations on the rocketship Astarte by his two intellectual children, Jim (Robin Stewart) and Pat (Amanda Coxell). When the base is infiltrated by a pair of sinister, ray-gun-toting saboteurs the siblings' only route of escape is the Astarte; it blasts off and catapults them, along with two technicians, into space. When it transpires the Chinese are on the verge of launching their own exploratory rocket ship, rather than guide his children home Ballantyne asks that they continue to Venus in order to secure Great Britain's place in history. Upon their arrival the team are made welcome by the planet’s inhabitants, but it soon becomes apparent that a plan to invade the Earth is underway.

Shot on sets at Pinewood Studios, this sub-Flash Gordon-esque serial was directed by Ernest Morris (as prolific a second unit director as he was an occupant of the centre seat) from an endearingly dumbed down Michael Barnes screenplay: "They'll be on the trip for several weeks, you know," remarks Ballantyne casually (Weeks?! More like months!). 

It takes a while to get to Venus – it's episode 4 before our heroes arrive – but curiously enough at this point, where the fun factor ought to escalate, things become less interesting and the plot meanders through a clichéd few episodes of political insurrection whilst the humans collaborate with friendly Venusians to bring down the rebel faction. 

Where most of the adult characters in CFF films are inept – or at best ineffectual to the point of comical – the very purpose of these movies was to allow the kids to shine. Both youngsters here are likeable enough and outsmart their elders regularly. Amanda Coxell (the nom de guerre adopted by Mandy Harper) had worked regularly as a child actor but as she got a little older her career wound down (Masters of Venus was in fact one of her last pieces of work). Robin Stewart on the other hand made that tricky transition from child to adult actor very successfully, carving out a career that found him lead roles in such films as The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires for Hammer and The Haunted House of Horror, as well as a lead role as Sid James' son in a 65-episode run of TV sitcom Bless This House. There’s worthy support from The Revenge of Frankenstein's Arnold Diamond, From Russia With Love's George Pastell, Where Eagles Dare's Ferdy Mayne and Zienia Merton (who later became a regular face on TV’s Space: 1999). The effects of pretty respectable given the shoestring budget – the Astarte itself is a nicely Gerry Anderson-esque hunk of space hardware – while Eric Rogers (best known for his whimsical scores on a couple of dozen Carry On entries) supplies suitably dramatic musical accompaniment to the action.

With a total running time of just over two hours, if you were to lose the “Our story so far…” and “See next week’s exciting episode to find out…” bookends and a little of the loquacious padding you're probably looking at a decent 90-minute adventure. In any event, it is what it is and Masters of Venus will certainly find an appreciative audience among those who remember it from their halcyon childhood days (which, to be fair, is a statement applicable nowadays to all the CFF's output). 

The BFI’s DVD presents the 8-part black-and-white serial in its original 1.66:1 ratio. Transferred from the best extant elements held at the BFI National Archive, there are occasionally patches of detritus accumulation in evidence and a couple of episodes bear some light vertical scratching, but overall picture quality is fine given the age of the material. The PCM 2.0 mono sound labours under varying degrees of crackle but seldom is it too intrusive. There are no additional features.

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BY DARREN ALLISON

Is Paris Burning? Composed by Maurice Jarre, The 50th Anniversary Recording of the Complete Score. A Special Collectors 2 CD Edition featuring a brand new recording by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Nic Raine. Released by Tadlow Music, Price: £16.95 TADLOW023, Date: August 25th 2016 Anniversary of the Liberation of Paris.

It’s always exciting to receive the latest release from Tadlow music. When award winning producer James Fitzpatrick and respected conductor Nic Raine join forces and combine their talents, you know the result is always going to be good. Maurice Jarre’s music is, of course, nothing new to the long standing partnership. Together in recent years, they have overseen triumphant new recordings of Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Villa Rides (1968).

Is Paris Burning? (1966) is their latest collaboration and features the complete 69 minute film score including previously unrecorded cues. A great deal of Jarre’s patriotic score is heavily militaristic, with defiant marches that reflect the repetitive beat of German foot soldiers. Jarre chose to use ascending pianos to achieve this ‘strange and disturbing sound’, twelve pianos in fact, and drew upon his childhood memories of living in Paris. It’s a very methodical score, almost industrial in its strokes and leaves very little room for lush or sweeping melodies. However, this wasn’t the case with Jarre’s original soundtrack album where the composer took a more logical musical approach as opposed to a filmic approach. Naturally perhaps, this is the more familiar arrangement that we have become more accustomed to, and where Tadlow again go the extra mile. Never a company to cut corners, Tadlow have also included a complete reworking of Jarre’s album version which was originally released over two suites. In fact, the second CD in this collection is a joyous collage of Jarre delights.

Aside from the original album version of Is Paris Burning? Tadlow’s second disc (running a generous 73 minutes) contains a wonderful selection of concert suites comprised of Jarre’s similar period assignments. Here you will find music from The Night of the Generals (1967), The Train (1964), Weekend at Dunkirk (1964) and The Damned (1969). As an extra bonus, Tadlow has also added two new vocal versions of “Paris En Colere” performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic chorus conducted by Miriam Nemcova and a solo vocal version by new French singing discovery, Melinda Million, both of which rounds off this collection rather nicely.

As with all of Tadlow’s releases, the audio (recorded in dynamic 24Bit/96kHz digital sound) is quite stunning and provides an entirely new clarity to such familiar themes. Nic Raine conducts the reconstructed score from the original orchestrations by Leo Arnauxd, and in return extracts a powerhouse performance from the acclaimed 100 piece City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Tadlow’s packaging includes a handsomely produced 24-page booklet with informative liner notes by Frank K DeWald and producer James Fitzpatrick.

At over 140 minutes of music, Tadlow always maintain the ability to deliver quantity as well as quality. Reliability is something of a rare factor in the soundtrack market. Fortunately, with the arrival of a Tadlow release, you can always guarantee it’s going to be right on the money, before you’ve even hit the play button. 

http://www.tadlowmusic.com/home/

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

SANTA MONICA, CA (June 13, 2016) – A powerful reimagining of the essential American story, HISTORY’s Roots arrives on Blu-ray (plus Digital HD) and DVD (plus Digital) August 23 from Lionsgate. Debuting on Memorial Day, the premiere episode of Roots was watched by 14.4 million total linear viewers over the course of all premiere week telecasts. Based on the Alex Haley novel and inspired by the wildly successful 1977 series about one family’s struggle to resist the institution of American slavery, Roots is the can’t-miss television event of the year.

“Nearly 40 years ago I had the privilege to be a part of an epic television event that started an important conversation in America,” said LeVar Burton, Co-Executive Producer and the original Kunta Kinte. “I am incredibly proud to be a part of this new retelling and start the dialogue again, at a time when it is needed more than ever." 

The 4-part miniseries is brought to life by an all-star cast including Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Anna Paquin (TV’s “True Blood”), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (TV’s “The Tudors”), Mekhi Phifer (The Divergent Series), Tip “T.I.” Harris (Ant-Man), Matthew Goode (TV’s “Downton Abbey”), alongside breakouts Regé-Jean Page and Malachi Kirby.

The classic American saga is reimagined for a whole new generation. This epic 4-part miniseries tells the story of Kunta Kinte, a West African youth sold into slavery. This time, we follow Kunta and his family through the generations, up to the Civil War.

The home entertainment release of Roots includes an in-depth behind-the-scene featurette and will be available on Blu-ray and DVD for the suggested retail price of $29.99 and $26.98, respectively.

BLU-RAY / DVD SPECIAL FEATURES*

· “Roots: A History Revealed” documentary

*Subject to change

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BY JOHN LEMAY

Over the years I’ve noticed an interesting phenomena among Star Trek fans which is that most of them love the television series but seem only to tolerate the films. Maybe my perception is off, seeing as how I fall into the category of a non-fan who greatly enjoys the films—namely the ones from the 1980s starring the original cast—but not the TV series from which they were based. For whatever reason, there seems to be a strange sort of disconnect between fans of the TV series and mainstream audiences. Take for example the films that deviated greatly from the series, such as the overly comical Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) which soared at the box office, while films that most resembled episodes of the TV series—namely the awful Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)—performed below expectations. The rebooted Star Trek of 2009 was also pretty far flung from the Original Series to a degree with its blaring of “Sabotage” on the soundtrack among other elements, but was a big hit with mainstream audiences. Now with this year’s Star Trek Beyond (which also blares the Beastie Boys on the soundtrack) many critics say this is finally the Star Trek film that fans of the TV series and mainstream audiences can finally mutually enjoy.

Unlike Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) which was perhaps too reverential of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek Beyond is a completely original tale that, if condensed, could almost seem like an episode from the Original Series. Perhaps this is why I didn’t enjoy this one as much as 2009’s reboot, but that being said, it’s still a highly enjoyable film with some excellent character moments and set-pieces. I can’t say much more without getting into SPOILERS, so if you prefer not to know about certain surprise elements (like the identity of the “new” ship seen in the trailers) quit reading now.

Overall, the biggest difference between this film and its two predecessors is the character dynamics. Mostly audiences had seen the crew together on the bridge of the Enterprise, while in this film the characters are spilt into pairs on an unexplored planet after the Enterprise gets destroyed by the new villain Krall (Idris Elba). Kirk and Chekov have an excellent action scene amidst the ruins of the Enterprise; Uhura and Sulu try to discover the villainous motivations behind Krall in captivity; Scotty teams with an intriguing new alien warrior named Jaylah, and McCoy must do his best to stabilize a wounded Spock. Not surprisingly, the McCoy/Spock pairing makes for the film’s best character moments and one-liners, with Scotty (Simon Pegg who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Jaylah’s scenes in a fairly close second. And while on the subject of Jaylah, portrayed by Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), the alien warrior makes for an excellent addition to the cast who will hopefully return for future installments.

That all being said, for me Star Trek Beyond didn’t really take off until the third act when the cast regroups on a long-lost federation ship that had crashed on the planet’s surface (this would be the “new” ship spotted by eagle-eyed fans in trailers). Those hoping that this ship is the NX-01 Enterprise from the 2001 prequel TV series Enterprise will be disappointed though. While the new creation is the same class of ship from the same era, it is a heretofore unknown ship called the Franklin. While it would have been fun to see the new cast commandeer the Enterprise from the 2001 TV series, from a writer’s standpoint the Franklin makes more sense for reasons I will soon reveal.

The climax, wherein the crew utilizes the Franklin to save a massive space station named Yorktown, actually reminded me of the climax for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Just like in that film, it’s great fun seeing the cast adapt to and use a rickety unfamiliar ship to save the day and then come crashing into the water with it. It was after said crash that the film had me fooled into thinking that it was headed towards the obligatory face-to-face showdown between Kirk and Krall. It instead took me by surprise when it is revealed after the watery crash that Krall isn’t actually an alien, but used to be a human—specifically the original captain of the Franklin. This slightly resolved one issue I had with Krall in that he seemed to be too much of a cookie-cutter alien menace. As to both his evil motivations and how he went from a human Federation Captain to an alien menace, the explanation relies perhaps a bit too much on last minute exposition but still works for the most part. On top of the surprise reveal, the hand to hand duel between Krall and Kirk—which I expected to be a boring paint-by-the-numbers fist fight—is made fresh and exciting due to the fact that it took place in a zero gravity atmosphere, allowing them both to the fly about the gigantic Yorktown space station as they trade blows.

One thing I found interesting in the marketing of the film was that the Limited Edition poster for Star Trek Beyond is a callback to the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture poster. That film finds Kirk now an Admiral and Spock having left Starfleet to return to Vulcan. Perhaps not coincidentally this film seems to be setting up the same story elements for the “future” film as Kirk is applying for an Admiral position and Spock is pondering leaving Star Fleet to better serve his race. For Kirk, life in space is becoming monotonous, and he laments that he is now older than his father ever lived to be over a birthday drink with McCoy. Spock is likewise saddened to hear of the loss of his future self, Ambassador Spock. This makes him question his relationship with Uhura, as any children he has with her will only be 1/4^th Vulcan leading him to the conclusion that he should procreate with a full Vulcan to better further his species. In the end both Kirk and Spock decide to stay with Star Fleet as they witness the building of a new Enterprise. Spock’s reason for staying is actually a touching tribute to Leonard Nimoy. The scene, and I would say this is a big spoiler, has Zachary Quinto’s Spock discovering a certain photograph amongst the deceased Ambassador Spock’s belongings. The photo is of Nimoy, William Shatner, and the rest of the original cast (which looks to have been taken for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) on the bridge of the Enterprise. The realization dawns upon Spock that he is meant to grow old with these people, and his place is on the bridge of the Enterprise. It’s also obvious that Kirk’s toast “to absent friends” during the end scene was initially meant as a nod to Nimoy, but sadly ended up encompassing the late Anton Yelchin as well. Yelchin, who played Chekov in the new series, was tragically killed in a car accident shortly before the film’s release.

Star Trek Beyond is projected by analysts to have healthy grosses at the box office, and a sequel (which will see Chris Hemsworth return as George Kirk) has already been announced.

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

By Raymond Benson

The original 1954 Japanese Kaiju (it means “strange beast”) film, Gojira, is not only a classic monster movie, it’s one of those significant game-changers that is important to pop culture and cinema history. Gojira, known as “Godzilla” in the west, was the first of an onslaught of “strange beasts,” spawning a Kaiju franchise that is still popular today. In fact, Hollywood is remaking Gojira as a reboot at the time of this writing.

The ’54 film, directed by Ishiro Honda and produced by Toho Studios (it’s ironic that it was being made at the same time as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai from the same studio), was little seen in the West until recent DVD releases appeared. Instead, for over fifty years we’ve had Godzilla, King of the Monsters, an abominably bastardized, re-edited import of Gojira. Joseph E. Levine had bought the rights but had additional footage shot in Hollywood featuring Raymond Burr as an American reporter caught in the Tokyo chaos—and throwing out much of Honda’s film except the Godzilla sequences—thus, creating an entirely different storyline and movie. It was released in 1956.

Why was this an egregious thing to do? Honda’s artistic statement was jettisoned. Gojira was a Japanese reaction to and a social comment about the atomic bomb. It’s quite obvious, actually, that Godzilla is a metaphor for nuclear destruction. Part of the plot also involves a scientist who has unwittingly invented a new weapon of mass destruction and threatens to destroy his research so that no country can get its hands on it. Of course, it’s the only thing that can stop Godzilla, so he has to use it once. In the end, he sacrifices himself, and the weapon, to do his duty for Japan; but the message is clear—get rid of the bombs.

On the other hand, the American version, directed by Terry Morse (and using Honda’s footage), is seen in the West as just another giant monster romp in a decade when Hollywood was churning out giant monster romps by the dozens. The cliché of giant beasts destroying Tokyo arose from this release. The real message behind the Gojira is totally lost.

Criterion has done a terrific job with its new high-definition digital restoration of both versions of the picture in this wonderful two-disk set. The commentary on the two pictures is by film historian David Kalat. You also get interviews with Akira Takarada and Haruo Nakajima, two of the stars, and several of the special effects team. Film critic Tadao Sato provides an insightful interview, as does one with composer Akira Ifukube. The clever packaging contains a pop-up of the “strange beast” in question along with an informative collector's booklet.

If you’ve never seen the original, it’s time to check it out. Sure, the monster scenes are crude—it is a guy inside a suit—but that’s part of the appeal.

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BY DAWN DABELL

A subject which seems to rear its head more and more in today’s society is paedophilia. It feels like every other week brings with it some story of a TV star, singer, film star or MP who has preyed upon young and vulnerable victims for their sexual gratification. That’s not counting the number of domestic cases or the growing problem of online abuse and degradation against minors. Thankfully the culprits are in a minority, but such stories - when they break - send ripples of shame and outrage throughout the journalistic world.

Film-makers have been tackling this most difficult of subjects for longer than people realise. One example is Hammer’s Never Take Sweets From A Stranger (1960), which was largely dismissed by critics when released, but is actually a very well-executed attempt which highlights the horrors of child molestation. If nothing else, it is worth watching just to see Hammer serving up a rare and stark ‘message’ picture. There were a number of other ‘60s and ‘70s films featuring adult males preying on young girls. David Greene’s I Start Counting (1969), Sidney Hayers’ Assault (1971) and Sidney Lumet’s The Offence (1973) spring to mind as front-runners in this once-taboo sub-genre. In 1971, Hayers directed another film featuring the theme of child molestation: Revenge, starring Joan Collins, James Booth and Kenneth Griffith. Like Lumet’s The Offence, Revenge doesn’t focus on the victims but instead on the suspected culprit and, more interestingly, the victims’ parents who turn to vigilantism to satisfy their thirst for revenge.

Following the release of suspected paedophile and murderer Seely (Kenneth Griffith) in a gritty north-of-England town, the relatives of his last two victims decide to take the law into their own hands. Pub landlord Jim Radford (James Booth), his son Lee (Tom Marshall) and friend Harry (Ray Barrett) plot to kidnap Seely and beat a confession out of him in the cellar of the pub. Later, when Jim’s wife Carol (Joan Collins) learns what they’re up to, she too joins in with the scheme.

The plan quickly spirals out of control and everyone realises three disturbing facts: first, they have committed a crime themselves and are therefore no better than the villain they aim to punish; second, they cannot be certain they have inflicted their revenge on the right man, as no confession is forthcoming; lastly, there is no way to undo what they have done. How can they ensure their target stays silent? The obvious way is to kill him – but none of the vigilantes is completely comfortable with carrying out the deed.

Anyone who has seen the film will be surprised to learn it was heavily promoted as a horror film during its theatrical run, especially outside the UK. Alternative titles in the US included Behind The Cellar Door, Inn Of The Terrified People and Terror From Under The House, all of which create an impression of terrifying and gruesome goings-on. Even those who realised they were going to see a vigilante movie probably expected the film to concentrate heavily on exploitation elements, but in reality such aspects are pretty tame. The only scene of real extended violence sees Jim furiously beating Seely but it is fairly restrained by genre standards, and as for sex and nudity there are just a couple of understated scenes which do little to get viewers feeling hot under the collar. The whole thing was rather misleadingly marketed: even the theatrical posters at the time trumped-up the non-existent horror elements, with one poster (for the Terror From Under The House edition) carrying a disclaimer which boldly declared: “Free with every admission! You must accept Free Screaming Teeth of Terror as a warning the TERROR FROM UNDER THE HOUSE might just SCARE YOU TO DEATH!” Additional taglines warned: “If you look in the basement… be ready to scream!” and “You may never dare go in the basement again!” Such statements don’t fit the flavour of the on-screen action. They are, frankly, complete lies. The film provides a few shocks for viewers but not in the horror sense - this is a melodrama with an ambiguous moral dilemma at its core, and its shocks are rooted in man’s cruelty to fellow man.

A possible explanation for the bizarre alternative titles bestowed on the film is that another 1971 movie called Revenge was made starring Shelley Winters, Stuart Whitman and Bradford Dillman. To further add to the confusion, the other film shares common threads with this one: a daughter dying under tragic circumstances while the man believed responsible is held captive in the cellar by her family. The American Revenge was a made-for-TV release.

The British Revenge works well because it takes primarily normal, upstanding characters and pushes them to moral and emotional limits. The man they believe is guilty of attacking their daughters is released by the police, leaving them with no sense of justice or catharsis over the crime inflicted against their beloved. Until one has experienced such heartbreak, one cannot say with certainty what extremes one would go to in order to get justice. Booth encapsulates this dilemma perfectly: first, we see him as a reluctant conspirator taking the law into his own hands; later, he becomes consumed with hatred, unleashing his fury by beating the suspect nearly to death. The distressed family members become as sadistic as the supposed child molester – a vicious cycle gathers momentum and cannot be stopped.

Kenneth Griffith is splendid as the suspected paedophile. After being captured by the vigilantes on suspicion of the rape and murder of an innocent young girl, we in the audience only begin to learn about him as a character after he has been beaten, so in many ways we view him as a victim. We witness his kidnapping, see him beaten and left for dead, watch his attackers treat him like dirt and discuss how to dispose of him – there is considerable doubt and ambiguity about whether he is guilty of the crime, and we are left to ponder if his captors have made a mistake. Credit to Griffith for playing the role with just enough bashful nervousness to create this doubt. Even his tormentors show uncertainty at times, slowly realising they might have vented their rage on the wrong man. The Radfields’ other daughter discovers what her family has done and becomes sympathetic towards Seely, showing that she thinks they have become monsters in their quest for justice. The sometimes hammy Collins gives a very decent, restrained performance as a woman who feels indirectly responsible for the murder of her step-daughter. There’s also an interesting subplot showing her rather sordid affair with her own step-son.

Hayers directs the film with a firm hand, keeping things interesting and engrossing without tipping into total sensationalism. He later reteamed with some of the crew, including writer John Kruse and cinematographer Ken Hodges, for the similarly confrontational Assault (aka In The Devil’s Garden), another overlooked but worthwhile film about an attack on a young girl. One mis-step in Revenge is the score by Eric Rogers which seems a trifle out of place. Rogers mainly scored comedy films, and doesn’t quite convey enough seriousness to complement the drama here.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Cinema Rediscovered | Great films back on big screens

Watershed and partners Independent Cinema Office (ICO), South West Silents and 20th Century Flicks announce the inaugural Cinema Rediscovered (28-31 July 2016) a new major international archive film event taking place in Bristol, UK and surrounding region supported by Film Hub South West & West Midlands, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from the National Lottery.

Taking inspiration from the pioneering Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy, Cinema Rediscovered celebrates cinema going as an event, giving audiences an opportunity to discover or indeed re-discover new digital restorations, film print rarities of early cinema and contemporary classics on the big screen in cinemas including Watershed (Bristol) and Curzon Clevedon Cinema & Arts, one of the oldest continuously-running cinemas in the UK. The South West may not have Bologna’s spectacular Piazza Maggiore or balmy weather, but we share a passion for great cinema, forward-thinking approach to the history of film and a taste for good local gastronomy.

Watershed’s Cinema Curator Mark Cosgrove said:

“Audiences have responded so positively to seeing classic films back on the cinema screen at Watershed that I thought it was about time that we had a major event dedicated to the history, preservation and presentation of this extraordinary art form.”

Il Cinema Ritrovato’s Director Gianluca Farinelli comments:

"We're delighted to hear about this new British offspring of Il Cinema Ritrovato, on our 30th anniversary. We're particularly happy this is happening in Bristol, a city which already has a strong reputation of presenting the history of film." 

Programme highlights include the world premiere of the new restoration of British historic drama The Lion in Winter (1968) courtesy of StudioCanal ahead of its release later this year and a special presentation of the 4K restoration of Japanese auteur Nagisa Ôshima's BAFTA winning English language debut Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) starring David Bowie in one of his finest acting roles.

The Lion in Winter forms the centerpiece of a tribute to the late cinematographer Douglas Slocombe running throughout the weekend. The screenings will be introduced by BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking and Sound of Cinema presenter Matthew Sweet, who comments:

"Earlier this year, cinema lost the world’s greatest Cinematographer, Douglas Slocombe, whose career spanned over 45 years, shooting some 80 films with a whole host of directors from Ken Russell to Steven Spielberg. Cinema Rediscovered is giving us an excellent opportunity to celebrate his work!"

Film restoration and preservation is a great challenge as highlighted in the BFI’s recent Film is Fragile campaign. As part of a World Cinema Perspectives strand, Cinema Rediscovered will present work from and about film archives across the globe including Pietra Brettkelly’s recent documentary A Flickering Truth (2015), which follows a group of dedicated Afghan cinephiles who struggle to protect and restore 8,000 hours of film.

Cinema Rediscovered is also delighted to welcome guests including a representative from Cineteca di Bologna to share insights into the World Cinema Project founded by Martin Scorsese to preserve and restore neglected films from around the world.

The Independent Cinema Office’s Archive Screening Day 2016 at Watershed on Thursday 28 July is designed for cinema professionals who work with, or want to begin working with, archive film. This one-day event will include exclusive previews plus the launch of the ICO's forthcoming touring programme of BFI’s Britain on Film restorations, keynote addresses and workshops from archivists plus case studies from cinemas with successful archive strands.

Catharine Des Forges, Director of the Independent Cinema Office, said:

"Showing archive film is a great opportunity for cinemas to share in their communities. There’s a real appetite for this material in cinemas, but more needs to be done to help understand how they can show this work regularly and market it effectively. Our tour of Britain on Film with the BFI later this year is going to be a great opportunity for a national event around our shared history.

Autograph ABP will partner with Cinema Rediscovered for a series of Black Atlantic Cinema Club screenings and discussions celebrating unseen contemporary films and archive classics including writer/curator Karen Alexander presenting Christopher Harris' dreamlike cine-poem on his hometown, St. Louis, still/here (2000).

Whether a seasoned cinephile or new to cinema, there'll be something for all audiences - from family friendly screenings and hands-on kids workshops, to a month long retrospective of influential Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, to experimental films exploring the Aesthetics of Cinema. The complete fifteen-hours of Mark Cousins' seminal The Story of Film: An Odyssey will screen over multiple days in an informal setting.

RELATED LINKS:

Cinema Rediscovered (28 - 31 July 2016) watershed.co.uk/cinema-rediscovered

Film Hub SWWM watershed.co.uk/filmhub

Curzon Clevedon Cinema & Arts curzon.org.uk

South West Silents southwestsilents.com

20^th Century Flicks 20thcenturyflicks.co.uk

Independent Cinema Office independentcinemaoffice.org.uk

Autograph ABP autograph-abp.co.uk

Il Cinema Ritrovato (25 June – 2 July 2016) festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Garry Marshall, the man who helped create iconic sitcoms such as "Happy Days", "Laverne & Shirley" and "Mork & Mindy", has died at age 81. Greatly beloved in the entertainment industry, Marshall helped kick many actors' careers into overdrive including Julia Roberts, Ron Howard, Henry Winkler and Robin Williams.  He also adapted Neil Simon's stage and screen hit "The Odd Couple" into a long-running TV series starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. He grew up in a modest home in the Bronx and never lost his almost stereotypical "New Yawk" accent. Marshall became a writer on some classic TV series of the 1960s including "The Dick Van Dyke Show", The Lucy Show" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". He even became a prolific actor graduating from an un-billed role in "Goldfinger" to some juicy character parts in major films. Marshall would go on to direct features himself including such smash hits as "Pretty Woman", "The Princess Diaries" and "Runaway Bride". He also directed Jackie Gleason in his last feature film "Nothing in Common" in 1986. For more click here. 

In 2003, the renowned American artist Jeff Marshall (known for his James Bond work) was commissioned to create a lithograph (officially sanctioned by Hammer themselves) featuring several famous Hammer actresses - Ingrid Pitt, Caroline Munro, Valerie Leon and Martine Beswick.

The first 100 of these limited edition lithographs were signed and numbered by Jeff himself and have never been available to buy....until now.

• We have 006 - 100 for sale, unfortunately we cannot accommodate requests for specific numbers.
• The lithograph measures 20" x 30" and is printed on museum quality acid-free paper.
• The lithograph will be shipped rolled in a sturdy poster tube.

For more info and to order, click here. 

Joe Sirola (left) and Robert Creighton at The Players club in New York City where Cagney was also a member. (Photo: Sam Hodgson for the New York Times).

If you haven't seen the smash hit musical "Cagney the Musical" starring Robert Creighton, currently playing to packed houses off-Broadway, then you're missing a sensational tribute to one of Hollywood's greatest legends. In a New York Times article, Creighton is interviewed along with actor (and Cinema Retro contributor) Joe Sirola about the Cagney legacy. Sirola, a Tony-award winner who is one of the producers of "Cagney the Musical",  can speak about Cagney through first-hand experience, as he co-starred with him in the last scene Cagney ever filmed in the 1984 television production "Terrible Joe Moran". Click here to read. Click here for the official "Cagney: The Musical" web site. 

Cinema Retro has received the following press release. 

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise will boldly go where they have never gone before when STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Director’s Edition arrives for the first time ever on Blu-ray June 7, 2016 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.  As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Star Trek franchise, this classic film has been digitally remastered in high definition with brilliant picture quality and will be presented in both Nicholas Meyer’s Director’s Edition and the original theatrical version.  The Blu-ray also includes a brand-new, nearly 30-minute documentary entitled “The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan,” which details the development and production of this fan-favorite film through archival footage, photos and new interviews.

In addition to the new documentary, the STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Director’s Edition Blu-ray is bursting with more than two hours of previously released special features including multiple commentaries, original interviews with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban and DeForest Kelley, explorations of the visual effects and musical score, a tribute to Ricardo Montalban, storyboards and much more.

Captain Kirk’s Starfleet career enters a new chapter as a result of his most vengeful nemesis: Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically enhanced conqueror from late 20th century Earth.  Escaping his forgotten prison, Khan sets his sights on both capturing Project Genesis, a device of god-like power, and the utter destruction of Kirk. 

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Director’s Edition Blu-ray

The Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English 7.1 Dolby TrueHD, French 2.0 Dolby Digital, Spanish Mono Dolby Digital and Portuguese Mono Dolby Digital with English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.  The disc includes the following:

Blu-ray

•

Director’s Edition in high definition

•

Theatrical Version in high definition

•

Commentary by director Nicholas Meyer (Director’s Edition & Theatrical Version)

•

Commentary by director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto (Theatrical Version)

•

Text Commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda (Director’s Edition)

•

Library Computer (Theatrical Version)

•

The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan—NEW!

•

Production

o

Captain’s Log

o

Designing Khan

o

Original interviews with DeForest Kelley, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban

o

Where No Man Has Gone Before: The Visual Effects of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

o

James Horner: Composing Genesis

•

The Star Trek Universe

o

Collecting Star Trek’s Movie Relics

o

A Novel Approach

o

Starfleet Academy: The Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI

•

Farewell

o

A Tribute to Ricardo Montalban

•

Storyboards 

•

Theatrical Trailer

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The Museum of the Moving Image will present its annual "See It Big!" 70mm film festival. The Museum is located in Astoria, Queens, only a short ride from Manhattan by subway or car. The titles being screened this year are:

• Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Spartacus" starring Kirk Douglas
• Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" starring Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson
• Robert Wise's "Star!" starring Julie Andrews
• Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine
• Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet"
• The Rolling Stones concert film "Let's Spend the Night Together"
• Director Basil Dearden's 1966 epic "Khartoum" starring Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier and Richard Johnson.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

By 1974 John Wayne was in the twilight of his long, distinguished film career that had spanned six decades. Although the genre that we associate him most with, the Western, was still in vogue, the trend among audience preferences had clearly shifted to urban crime dramas. Surprisingly, Wayne had never played a cop or detective - unless you want to count his role in the lamentable "Big Jim McLain", a 1952 Warner Brothers propaganda film that served as a love letter to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. In that turkey, Wayne played an investigator for HUAC, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee that served as McCarthy's private police force, presumably searching out commie infiltrators. All they ended up doing was ruining the lives of left-wing people in the arts and academia. Wayne, for his part, remained unapologetic for his support of HUAC even after McCarthy's popularity plummeted and he ended his career in shame and disgrace. However, Wayne might have been discouraged from sticking his on-screen persona into volatile contemporary situations. His next bout with controversy would not be until the release of his 1968 pro-Vietnam War film "The Green Berets", which outraged liberals but brought in considerable boxoffice receipts from Wayne's fan base. By the early 1970s, the success of the "dirty cop" genre led major stars to gravitate to these films in much the same way many actors had longed to play secret agents during the James Bond-inspired spy rage of the previous decade. William Friedkin's "The French Connection" (1971) is generally credited as being the influential film that launched this type of film but, in reality, one could argue that Steve McQueen's anti-Establishment cop in "Bullitt" (1968) paved the way. The late 1971 release of "Dirty Harry" sent the genre into overdrive and even John Wayne decided to get on board. In fact, Wayne had been offered the title role in "Dirty Harry" but had turned it down because he felt his fan base would not accept him in a film that had so much violence and profanity. His instincts were right: had Wayne played the role, the script would have had to have been altered and watered down to the point that all of its social impact would have been lost. Still, Wayne saw the monumental success of the Clint Eastwood crime classic and decided to play a rogue cop in the thriller "McQ". The project also marked the first and only time he would work with esteemed action director John Sturges. 

The film, which is refreshingly set in Seattle instead of the usual locales (New York, L.A., San Francisco) opens with Seattle Police Detective Stan Boyle (William Bryant) assassinating two uniformed fellow police officers before getting knocked off himself. When Boyle's partner, fellow Detective Lon McQ (John Wayne) gets word he has been killed, he becomes obsessed with finding the murderer, unaware that Boyle himself had carried out the killings. McQ's boss, Captain Ed Kosterman (Eddie Albert), who also does not know about Boyle's dark side,  feels that the murders are the work of local radicals. McQ disagrees and suspects that the killers were hired by Santiago (Al Lettieri), a local drug kingpin who hides behind the veil of being a respected businessman. Santiago has long had grudges against McQ and Boyle for times they've tried to bust him in the past.  When Kosternan discounts McQ's theory and refuses to assign him to the case, McQ abruptly resigns from the force in order to move more freely. Relying on his police informants and contacts, McQ signs up with his friend Pinky's (David Huddleston) private detective agency in order to be able to carry a firearm legally. (An amusing running gag in the film finds McQ constantly being relieved of his weapons.) McQ learns from a local pimp, Rosie (Roger E. Mosley), who he routinely bribes for information, that the murders may be tied to a major drug robbery that Santiago has hired an out-of-town heist team to carry out. McQ's belief that Santiago is behind the police killings is reinforced by the fact that that he narrowly escapes two assassination attempts carried out by professional killers. Meanwhile, McQ learns that the brazen plan involves snatching seized heroin from the police department before it can be burned and abscond with a couple of million dollars of the white powder. McQ doggedly carries out his investigation and charms Myra (Colleen Dewhurst), an aging cocktail waitress with a drug habit who used to be friendly with Boyle. From her, he learns that corrupt police officials are in on Santiago's scheme and are willing confederates, but he doesn't know exactly who they are. McQ attempts to thwart the heist at police headquarters but the brazen thieves manage to get away despite engaging in a shoot-out with McQ, who fails in his attempt to catch them in a wild car chase through the streets and highways of Seattle.

McQ's private investigation leads him to infiltrate Santiago's business office where Santiago and his men are anticipating his arrival. They get the drop on McQ but Santiago has a surprising confession for the ex-cop: he freely admits to orchestrating the drug heist from police HQ- but shows McQ the disappointing fruits of his labors: white powder that turns out to be sugar. Both McQ and Santiago can appreciate the irony: the real drugs had been stolen by police officials prior to the robbery and replaced with sugar. Crooked cops have succeeded in swindling the crook himself. McQ and Santiago part company, both knowing that the other man is intent on finding the location of the real drugs before they can be sold. The closer McQ gets to the answer, the more precarious his personal situation becomes as a close personal informant is murdered and McQ finds himself being framed for complicity in the drug heist. The script by Lawrence Roman builds in tension under John Sturges' assured direction and leads to some relatively surprising plot twist in a caper film packed with red herrings. Wayne was faulted by some critics for being miscast and because he was nearing seventy and had a noticeable paunch. However, Wayne's appearance actually works to his benefit. He doesn't look like some glam movie star and his real world appearance makes him convincing as an aging everyday cop. Additionally, he remains quite convincing in the action scenes even sans saddle and can engage in punch-ups and shoot-outs with as much conviction as ever. Most refreshingly, McQ isn't some "know-it-all" hero. He frequently makes wrong judgments and assumptions and pays a heavy price for these miscalculations. Wayne benefits from a fine supporting cast. In particular, his scenes with Eddie Albert and Colleen Dewhurst are especially strong and its regrettable that this is the first time he ever appeared on screen with either of them. (Dewhurst had a memorable role in Wayne's 1972 film "The Cowboys", but they never shared the screen together). Al Lettieri, in one of his final screen roles, proves again why he was one of the most reliable movie villains of the era. Other fine support comes from Clu Gulager and Jim Watkins (now acting under the name of Julian Christopher) as McQ's police cronies who may or may not be as loyal as they seem and Diana Muldaur, who gives a very effective performance as the grieving widow who seems a bit too flirty with McQ. Some lighthearted moments are effectively provided by David Huddleston and Roger E. Mosley, both of whom become exasperated by McQ but who can't resist assisting him. The movie features some very fine action set-pieces and climaxes with a superbly staged car chase along the Olympic Peninsula that finds McQ driving on the beach through the crashing surf with Santiago and a car full of armed goons in hot pursuit. 

Warner Home Video has released the film on Blu-ray land it looks terrific on all counts. Bonus extras are a vintage six-minute production short that includes brief interviews with Wayne and other cast members but which concentrates on filming the climactic car chase, which made screen history for the number of "roll-overs" a car did during a particularly dangerous stunt. An original trailer is also included.

I've always liked "McQ" and in our present era of dumbed-down cop flicks, it plays even better than it did at the time of its original release. It's one of the Duke's best latter career action movies and the new Blu-ray is a "must have" for Wayne fans.

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BY TIM GREAVES

The 1968 jungle-based adventure The Face of Eve has been released on DVD in the UK as a constituent of 'The British Film' collection from Network.

Hunting for treasure in the Amazon, Mike Yates (Easy Rider's Robert Walker Jr) encounters taciturn, scantily-clad jungle beauty Eve (The Velvet Vampire's Celeste Yarnall) when she rescues him from certain death at the hands of savages. Meanwhile in Spain, Yates's financier – the wheelchair-bound Colonel Stuart (Christopher Lee) – has knowledge of the location of a fabled stash of Incan riches, but he's unaware that his friend and business partner Diego (Herbert Lom) has been plotting to cheat him out of his fortune. Diego has coaxed his wife Conchita (Rosenda Monteros) into infiltrating the household in the guise of Eve, the ailing Stuart's long lost granddaughter and imminent sole heir. After Stuart divulges the treasure's believed location to Diego, the duplicitous pair take off to find it...with Yates, in the company of the real Eve, in hot pursuit.

Emerging from under the wing of legendary and prolific producer Harry Alan Towers – the man behind some marvellous exploitationers throughout the 60s, including a splendid run of Christopher Lee/Fu Manchu chillers, plus Shirley Eaton star vehicle The Million Eyes of Sumuru and its sequel The Girl from Rio – if nothing else The Face of Eve gives audiences an abundance of plot for their money. What it doesn’t deliver is anywhere near enough of its star attraction. The film was directed by Vengeance of Fu Manchu's Jeremy Summers, a jobbing director whose name will probably be most familiar in that capacity to fans of ITC TV shows of the 60s. Towers himself took on scripting duties under his oft-employed nom de plume Peter Welbeck. As such, its pedigree was certainly sound enough. It's just a shame that the resulting film falls short of expectation, largely because, as already touched upon, the pair failed to capitalise on their main asset: Celeste Yarnall.

Following a fistful of appearances in TV shows (among them The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Land of the Giants and Star Trek), as well as blink-and-you'll-miss-her walk-ons in films such as Around the World Under the Sea and The Nutty Professor, 1968 proved to be Yarnall's big screen breakout year when she secured a major role in Elvis starrer Live a Little, Love a Little and, perhaps a tad less prestigiously, the titular role here in The Face of Eve. The actress plays the ‘Sheena Queen of the Jungle’ bit to perfection, clad in an admirably-filled chamois leather bikini that gives the eye-catching attire of other jungle babes (such as Evelyne Kraft, Marion Michael and Tanya Roberts) more than a run for its money. Thus, unsurprisingly, whenever she's on screen she's very much the focal point, amusingly changing hairstyle as often as she does her outfit. The problem is that Eve is side-lined for the middle third of the picture, which relocates to Spain and gets a little bogged down in the despicable duplicities of the Diegos and their mission to separate Stuart from his wealth. So protracted is the business going on here that viewers could be forgiven for wondering if Summers is ever going to get back to the more interesting vicinage of the Amazon.

Beyond the obvious audience-bait of Yarnall (depicted on posters clinging to a jungle vine far more fetchingly than Tarzan ever did), Lee and Lom bring star name lustre to the aid of the party – though the former's age-augmenting makeup falls some distance shy of convincing – and wiry-framed Walker Jr makes for an unlikely but surprisingly affable hero. Fred Clark is good value too as a nightclub owner-cum-showman who smells $’s-to-be-mined by exploiting the newly discovered jungle nymphet, whilst Maria Rohm (Harry Alan Towers’ wife for 45 years up until his death in 2009) lip-syncs a smoochy musical number as a bar-room brawl gets into full swing around her.

Though it’s enjoyable enough for what it is, The Face of Eve is a criminally unremarkable film; one can’t help feeling that its premise should have birthed something with so much more pizazz. Case in point, it was shot in Spain and Brazil, exotic enough locales that regardless of anything else going on should have gifted the production with a ton of spectacle, yet Manuel Merino's resolutely uninspired cinematography renders most of the jungle sequences cheap-looking and dull.

In summation: a really wasted opportunity.

The colours on Network’s 1.66:1 ratio DVD transfer (sourced from the original film elements) are occasionally a little muted, but aside from a slightly ratty opening titles sequence it's a nice clean print. The only bonus feature is a gallery of posters, stills and lobby cards from around the globe.

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BY RAYMOND BENSON

“WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE”

By Raymond Benson

The Criterion Collection released Herk Harvey’s 1962 cult film classic, Carnival of Souls, sixteen years ago as a two-disk DVD set, but that edition has long been out of print. Now, a new Blu-ray restoration is available from the company, and it is worth upgrading even if you happen to own the original. Note that Carnival of Souls is a public domain film, so it is available on DVD from many inferior manufacturers in bad-to-okay quality versions, but the Criterion’s releases are the ones to grab.

Carnival is indeed an oddity. Harvey worked at Centron Corporation, a maker of educational and industrial short films based in Lawrence, Kansas. It was much like Calvin Films in Kansas City, where Robert Altman cut his teeth making shorts in the 1950s. Needless to say, Lawrence, Kansas is not Hollywood, and it was not a hotbed of feature filmmaking in 1961, when Carnival was shot.

Harvey had helmed many of Centron’s shorts and got the idea to make a horror feature when he was driving home from Salt Lake City, Utah. He noticed the ruins of the great Saltair, an entertainment complex that had been built by the Mormons on the edge of Salt Lake in 1893 as a family-oriented place for recreation. It was a sort of Coney Island for Utah residents. Designed in an incongruous Moorish style, the place looked like a palace for sultans. It was destroyed by fire in the 1920s and rebuilt, this time including a gigantic pavilion for dancing. Saltair burned down and was rebuilt again, but eventually by the 1950s it had become a derelict, spooky place due to the recession of the lake that left behind a dirty, polluted shore abutting the resort. After the film had been shot there, another attempt was made to restore the place, but that failed when the lake rose and demolished the resort for good. At any rate, in 1961, Herk Harvey thought Saltair would make a good location for a ghost story, and he was right.

Made for a final budget of only $33,000, Carnival of Souls looks and feels like it might have been a bad Ed Wood production—very cheap, with amateurish acting (all of the cast except the lead was pulled from local talent) and clumsy editing. But the black and white cinematography by Maurice Prather is actually quite striking, especially in Criterion’s new restored 4K digital transfer. The images are sharp and pristine, as if the movie had been shot yesterday. The all-organ score by Gene Moore adds another layer of originality to the proceedings, and it’s unsettling and eerie. Despite the cheesiness of the production, though, Harvey manages to evoke a genuinely creepy atmosphere throughout the picture. His multiple appearances as “The Man” (in ghoulish makeup) do provide some scares.

The story concerns Mary (played well enough by Candace Hilligoss, a newbie stage actress hired out of New York), who is in an automobile accident at the film’s beginning. She survives and is shell-shocked, but she manages to go on with her life as a church organist. However, she keeps seeing visions of “The Man,” a ghostly stalker who, of course, represents Death. At times she goes through mysterious fugues in which all sound drops out and no one around her can see or hear her. What’s going on? Well, it all becomes clear at the end, but most viewers should be able to figure out the Twilight Zone plot twist pretty quickly. In fact, the entire thing plays out like an extra long episode of that classic horror and science fiction television series.

Carnival of Dreams was not a success on its first release, but it gained a cult following in the 1980s and beyond, supposedly influencing the likes of David Lynch and George A. Romero. It is definitely an entertaining and somewhat scary picture, but personally I’m not convinced that it is the masterpiece some horror aficionados claim it to be.

The Criterion Collection’s new Blu-ray contains only the theatrical cut at 78 minutes. It has an uncompressed monaural soundtrack, as well as selected-scene audio commentary with director Harvey and screenwriter John Clifford. The original Criterion release featured the original director’s cut (84 minutes) as well, but apparently the elements of the edited scenes weren’t good enough for the new restoration, so they appear separately as supplements.

Some of the extras from the first release are ported over—The Movie That Wouldn’t Die, a 1989 documentary about the cast and crew reunion; The Carnival Tour, a 2000 update on the film’s locations; a history of the Saltair Resort; the theatrical trailer; and a selection of excerpts from shorts made by the Centron Corporation. There is also a long selection of silent outtakes, cut to Gene Moore’s eerie organ score. New supplements include an interview with comedian and writer Dana Gould on the influence and merits of the film, and an interesting new video essay by film critic David Cairns. The booklet contains an essay by writer and programmer Kier-La Janisse.

While the absence of the director’s cut is disappointing, the new Criterion Blu-ray is a welcome release mainly for its superb video quality. Carnival of Souls is worth a late-night viewing for its historical significance and moments of disturbing imagery, but I doubt it will give you nightmares.

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BY JOHN LEMAY

Of the hundreds of Italian Westerns produced, naturally many of them rate as only sub-par. A few of these sub-par entries have an interesting twist or stand-out sequence but are still only sub-par at the end of the day. Despite its all-star cast and dynamic poster, this is what I expected A Town Called Hell (1971) to be like. To the contrary, not only is the film something of an offbeat gothic-western similar to Django Kill! and High Plains Drifter, but it also has beautiful production values. The opening sequence, wherein a church is the site of a bloody massacre during the Mexican Revolution, is almost Hammer-like in some regards. Ten years later the very revolutionary (Robert Shaw) who killed the priest has now taken his place in the same church. And then comes to town a mysterious woman in black in a horse and carriage with a pale mute manservant. In the carriage is a black coffin that she intends to fill with the body of the man who killed her husband (whom she believes to be in the town) but until she does she sleeps in the coffin like a vampire (she’s not btw, it’s not that Gothic). Unlike many predictable Spaghettis, A Town Called Hell raises one intriguing question after another as the story progresses. That being said, the answers to said questions aren’t exactly mind-blowing and unfortunately overall the film is somewhat hard to follow at times. However, the direction by Robert Parish is so engrossing one is still able to be entertained even if they don’t fully understand everything. Parish had previously directed the sci-fi flick Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) and portions of the 1967 Casino Royale for some of Peter Sellers’s scenes. Robert Shaw is riveting in the lead as the revolutionary turned priest, though fans looking forward to a large dose of Telly Savalas, featured prominently on the poster, are in for a disappointment as he disappears (his fate is unclear) relatively early into the movie. The rest of the impressivecast, which includes such stalwarts as Stella Stevens, Martin Landau, Michael Craig, Al Lettieri, Aldo Sambrell and Fernando Rey, put in good performances as well, and the music score by Waldo de los Rios is excellent. If one didn’t know better they might think Rios scored westerns often, but in fact had scored only one other before this. The sets in particular are a stand-out aspect of the production, most of all the interior of the church where the massacre takes place, making this one of the more lavish Spaghetti Westerns.

To be accurate, the film isn’t actually a “pure-bred” Italian Western, but was financed by Benmar Films out of Britain. As to the Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, the transfer is gorgeous for the most part, but on the downside the spoken dialogue is difficult to hear in some spots, another reason the film is occasionally hard to follow. There are no special features aside from a trailer for another Kino Lorber release, Navajo Joe. Overall, though the story never quite lives up to the questions it raises or its intriguing Gothic trappings, A Town Called Hell is still highly recommended for Spaghetti Western buffs and completests.

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John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

BY TIM GREAVES

Director Daniel Birt's 1952 crime drama The Night Won't Talk arrives on DVD in the UK as an integrant of Network Distributing's impressive, ongoing 'The British Film' collection. 

In the wake of her murder via strangulation it transpires that artists' model Stella Smith was a serial gold-digger, the string of discarded and disgruntled dupes left in her avaricious wake constituting a healthy number of suspects. Stella's husband-to-be, artist Clayton Hawks (John Bailey), can't be certain that he himself isn't the murderer; given to outbursts of uncontrolled rage, he was in the throes of a stress-induced blackout at the time. With Inspector West (Ballard Berkeley) breathing down his neck, Clayton – assisted by two friends, model Hazel (Mary Germaine) and fellow artist Theo (Hy Hazell) – sets out to uncover the truth.

Daniel Birt lensed a number of serviceable potboilers throughout the 40s and early 50s, among them Third Party Risk, Three Weird Sisters and The Interrupted Journey. Running a couple of minutes short of an hour, The Night Won't Talk barely really qualifies as a feature film but back in the day it constituted solid and efficient A-feature support; it's a workmanlike and talky, yet never less than engaging serving of Brit noir whodunnit – even if the identity of the ‘who’ that ‘dunnit’ ultimately proves no great surprise.

John Bailey plays shifty convincingly enough (even though there's never any doubt he isn't the killer), whilst the resident feminine allure, in the shape of Hy Hazell and Hazel Germaine, proves to be more than just decorous; Hazell is particularly good. Law enforcement is represented by Ballard Berkeley (an actor for whom B-movie police inspectors were a stock in trade back in the 50s, even though he’s probably best remembered now for his latterday turn as the bumbling Major in TV comedy classic Fawlty Towers) and a perpetually pipe-nursing Duncan Lamont; the duo weed through the slew of suspects with such insouciance it's a miracle they actually solve the case at all, though naturally they come rushing in at the climax just in time to prevent another fatality.

Most of the characters, both male and female, speak in the clipped, dreadfully proper English of the "I say, old man" ilk, there's a memorably imaginative and effectively rendered moment involving the killer's shadow, and although much of the production is set-bound there's some atmospheric footage of period River Thames at twilight (Hazell's character resides on a houseboat).

Never threatening to reach the lofty heights of gripping, The Night Won't Talk still makes for a pretty decent hour's watch, and Network's 1.37:1 ratio DVD presentation delivers a clean and sharp transfer (taken from the original film elements) which only falters in one of two brief instances of missing frames. The sole supplement is a gallery of original release promotional materials.

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BY JOHN LEMAY

For many years Tarzan was a staple of cinema—in fact from its very onset. The first Tarzan feature, Tarzan of the Apes, came out in 1918 and was followed by close to 50 other adaptations in the last century. His star started to fade in the late 1960s and there were no Tarzan features in the 1970s save for one. The 1980s somewhat provided his last gasp on the big screen with movies like the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981) and- more impressively- the well-received Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.  The 1990s saw only 1998’s Tarzan and the Lost City and the 1999 Disney animated version. In fact, for all many “youngsters” know Tarzan may as well have originated with the Disney cartoon. For the first time in many years, we finally have a new big-budget live-action iteration of one of the screen’s oldest icons in The Legend of Tarzan from Warner Bros. Can it strike a balance between lovers of vintage cinema who grew up on Tarzan and the new “iPhone generation”? Or will it suffer the fate of that other recent Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation John Carter?

Naturally, there is a lot of CGI vine swinging which will put some viewers off, but I for one say it makes for very exciting action (and less risk for the stuntmen). And secondly, would Tarzan’s journey through cinematic history be complete without a little CGI? I think not. Though there is a lot of appreciation in watching well-done stunt work, the CGI enabled Tarzan could well be the “purist” representation of Burrough’s vision ever put on the screen. In fact, certain shots of Tarzan swinging through the jungle with the apes look like a Frank Frazetta painting come to life. A CGI-enable animal stampede unleashed during the climax is also a scene straight from classic Burroughs, and would have been impossible to pull off with real animals, as is Tarzan’s fight with a gorilla midway through the picture.

Though he’s probably a little too far on the blonde side for Burroughs purists, Alexander Skarsgard is pretty perfectly cast as Tarzan; and for more than just his lithe physique. Playing Tarzan was usually a tough act to balance for most actors. Mike Henry played him as though he were James Bond in Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), while Miles O’Keefe never even spoke in Tarzan, the Ape Man opposite Bo Derek. Perhaps this is why the writers chose to set this film ten years after he has left Africa for England, and Tarzan has become acclimated to modern society as Lord Greystoke, John Clayton. Naturally in this civilized period of his life the character is much easier to write and to portray for Skarsgard. Therefore, this is probably one of the more relatable on screen Tarzans, though I’d say Johnny Weissmuller is still safe as the all-time favorite.

As for the rest of the cast, Margot Robbie is a knockout and does great as Jane. However, it feels as though the production team felt a bit guilty about making her a damsel in distress for most of the film and it shows in some of her scenes in captivity. That being said, Jane’s kidnapping was a necessary plot-device for this film’s story, not to mention something of a Tarzan tradition, but perhaps in the future she can get a better subplot. As the heavy, Christoph Waltz is his usual very watchable self. Though the story sets up Waltz to look like a weakling in his first scene, he quickly proves to be anything but in a nice twist. He even comes complete with a unique way of killing his enemies that would be right at home in one of the older Bond pictures. Samuel L. Jackson portrays Tarzan’s ally from the civilized world who has to acclimate to the jungle, another Tarzan tradition of sorts. Rounding out the rest of the big name actors is Djimon Hounsou who plays the leader of a viscous tribe who has a vendetta with Tarzan, yet another series staple which makes the film round all the usual bases (and I mean this in a positive sense).

In some respects, were I to ignore the CGI, I almost felt as though I was watching some vintage cinema from a bygone era. Perhaps part of this feeling is due to the period setting, since there are so few period piece blockbusters these days. The film is also simply plotted, and is true to the Tarzan formula. An evil white man is out to get the lost diamonds of Opar, and Jane naturally gets kidnapped by him. Much like a Burroughs book, the action cuts back in forth between Tarzan’s trek through the jungle and Jane’s efforts to escape captivity from the villains. Coupled with this are flashback scenes to Tarzan’s origin and first meetings with Jane, as this is more of a “sequel” than an origin story. For purists who dislike CGI, have no fear at least when it comes to the on-location shots of Africa, which are beautiful up on the big screen. Naturally, there are of traces of the 21^st Century filmmaking trends too. In the wake of Marvel Studio’s success it seems every action film these days tries to be a comedian, so to speak. The Legend of Tarzan doesn’t try too hard, but I found most of its jokes fell flat enough they should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Though overall I wouldn’t call it a fantastic film, in this day and age of obligatory reboots I’d have to say The Legend of Tarzan has more merit than most. As to how the new generations just being introduced to Tarzan will react, who can say, but I have a feeling this film will end up being embraced more so by the older crowd than the younger. But just so long as it makes enough to produce a sequel, myself and many others will be happy.

BY DOUG OSWALD

R. Lee Ermey and Wings Hauser are Marines defending an American outpost in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in “The Siege of Firebase Gloria,” directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith and recently released on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber. The 1989 release was an independent production filmed on location in the Philippines which is a common stand-in for Vietnam. The movie opens as Marines come across a recent massacre in a South Vietnamese village. The destruction is horrific with decapitated heads and piles of bloody bodies killed by the enemy in order to send a message to others not to assist the Americans. The Marines make their way to helicopter transport after rescuing an American prisoner and fighting the Vietcong hiding in a fishing camp. The Marines’ destination is Firebase Gloria, a jungle outpost surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers and Vietcong.

Ermey, a Marine in real life, is very good as the tough Marine Sergeant Major Bill Haffner. He takes his Marines across hostile Vietnamese territory and leads them in reinforcing and defending the firebase against a continuous onslaught by the Vietcong. His second in command, Corporal Joseph L. DiNardo (Hauser), is younger and a bit more jaded than Haffner, but not about to take any chances with the enemy. Gloria is surrounded by Vietcong and its defenses offer little more than a series of buildings on a hill surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers in trenches. The men assigned to Gloria know the situation is bleak and spend their time indulging in getting high on drugs.

The drug-using commanding officer has gone crazy so Haffner and DiNardo arrange a fake attack that results in the commander being wounded and airlifted out of Gloria. Haffner takes command, removes the drugs and strengthens the base defenses in anticipation of the predictable attacks to come. After being informed by the First Sergeant of the presence of female medical staff on Firebase Gloria, Sergeant Major Haffner responds with one of the best of his many sarcastic lines of dialog, “The shit's gettin' pretty goddamned deep around here. Is there any nuns or Girl Scouts that I should know about on the firebase?” Margaret Gerard plays the head nurse, Captain Cathy Flanagan, the only major female character in the movie. She has a few good scenes mostly playing off Ermey’s sarcastic comments, but she has very little else to do in the movie.

The battle scenes are relentless and bloody with little time for a break. Scenes of the enemy assessing the situation at Firebase Gloria are dispersed between the series of attacks, but don’t really add much to the movie. It feels as though the filmmakers were attempting to humanize the Vietcong in these scenes, but it doesn’t quite work and only adds unnecessary sub-titled dialog between the Vietcong commander and his second in command as a sort of counterpoint to Haffner and DiNardo. There is a scene during the climactic battle where the Vietcong commander and Haffner are going at each other hand-to-hand just as the enemy over-runs the base, but the Vietcong commander retreats upon arrival of several Army Huey helicopters, thus ending their assault.

Ermey receives second billing to Wings Hauser, but Hauser is one of the weakest aspects of this movie. Watch “The Siege of Firebase Gloria” for colorful dialog by Ermey which adds the right touch of sarcastic counterpoint and humor,elevating the film away from the typical gung-ho action movie. This rarely seen gem has been missing in action on home video for years except for used VHS copies. MGM finally made it available as a burn to order DVD in 2012. I haven’t viewed that disc, but this Blu-ray looks and sounds pretty good, though there is an acceptable amount of grain in the picture. The only extra on this Kino Lorber release is the trailer. This movie is nowhere near the caliber of Vietnam War classics like “Apocalypse Now,” “The Deer Hunter” and “Full Metal Jacket,” but is recommended for fans of old fashioned military action B-movies and a memorable performance by the terrific R. Lee Ermey.

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BY JEREMY CARR

Based on Lillian Hellman’s 1934 play, “The Children’s Hour,” These Three strays from the source most notably in its cause for public outrage. While the earlier work took as its inciting gossip a suggestion of lesbianism between two female teachers, Hollywood’s production code dictates would not allow such an insinuation in a 1936 film (director William Wyler’s own 1961 remake, which retains the play’s title, was more effectively able to get away with it). Nevertheless, the rumor of unmarried sexuality, on school property no less, is damaging enough for its time and place, even if the film does lose some of the scandalous bite provoked by the original story.

As These Three starts, best friends Martha Dobie (Miriam Hopkins) and Karen Wright (Merle Oberon, fresh off an Oscar-nominated performance in 1935’s The Dark Angel) rush into their dream of opening a boarding school just minutes after they graduate from college. “Take a chance with me,” implores Karen, and with that, the two are off to a rural Massachusetts community. The area is charmingly rustic, but the actual site of their institution, Karen’s inherited farmhouse, is more than a little rickety. Though the poor condition of the structure is played for laughs, it is also the first signal that their goal will not be easily achieved.

Alleviating some of that hesitation is the appearance of Dr. Joseph Cardin (Joel McCrea, having also worked with Hopkins the year prior on Barbary Coast and Splendor), first presented here by the chunks of wood he comically heaves through a hole in the building’s bee-infested Swiss cheese roof. Once introduced to one another, the trio form a promptly congenial group, sitting together and jointly munching on Joseph’s lunch. There is some stated surprise at their immediate camaraderie, and there is a tinge of inevitable jealousy regarding whom Joseph favors most, but all in all, Martha and Karen have found a solid ally.

With the bucolic setting comes a cloistered small-town mentality and carefully arranged social structure. The two young women are instant outsiders, apparently despite Karen’s roots in the region, and in their naiveté, they also open themselves up to humiliation. Their first misstep is to procure the ire of the precocious Mary Tilford (Bonita Granville), who is set up to be their first pupil and the cause of their downfall. Furthermore, Joseph’s playfulness is regarded by some as impudence, and Karen and Martha are generally greeted with cautious skepticism. Before long, rumors and assumptions fly, deriving from Martha’s annoyingly obtrusive aunt Lily (Catherine Doucet) and Mary, who is a conniving troublemaker. When the girl is punished for lying, she retaliates by telling her grandmother (Alma Kruger), a wealthy town benefactor, about the supposed tryst between Joseph and Martha. A steady anxiety grows from the planted suspicions, and, more than that, there is genuine shock when Mary reveals a terrifyingly cruel violent streak. Confronted by accusations of illicit and harmful activity at the school, Karen, Martha, and Joseph are thus embroiled in a town-wide conspiracy. While they remain an unwavering team in the face of the fabricated outrage, going so far as to make their case in court, the entire scheme has been devastating enough to dismantle their idyllic institution and their relationships.

Even if the lesbianism in any overt sense has been left on the stage, there is still a notably familiar friendship between Karen and Martha. They frequently speak in the plural possessive and for much of the early portion of These Three, the two are framed closely together, stressing their physical proximity and their initial shared expressions and thoughts. This type of composition is gradually less frequent as Joseph comes between the women, but what seems to impede a full commitment to the neighborly doctor, as much as the townsfolk distrust, is the sincere, respectful bond between the two friends. Perhaps to limit the perceived possibility of just where the jealousy may actually be directed—Martha’s jealousness at Joseph choosing her friend instead of her rather than her being jealous of Karen finding another love—the women bear no great hostility toward one another as their work and lives are put to the test.

Produced by the prolific Samuel Goldwyn, who was working with Wyler on the first of what would be their eight films together, These Three moves along at a decent pace. Even at just 93 minutes, though, there are times when the developing drama is stretched a little thin in order to prolong the film’s third act, only to then have the conclusion itself somewhat hurried. The performances are generally good across the board, and Granville at just 14 would be nominated for an Academy Award. A major drawback concerning nearly all involved, however, is when the actors lose a considerable degree of empathy and effectiveness by breaking into shrieking emotional outbursts, which happens a lot. This type of fluctuating behavior is mirrored in the film’s tonal oscillation as well; what starts innocent enough grows simply sinister as hysterics set in amidst the close confines of the school. Adhering to the bound constraints of the stage play, Wyler and cinematographer Gregg Toland seldom venture outdoors, adding to the combustible claustrophobia (the restrictiveness is literally evident when McCrea has to duck through one particular doorway). Neither Wyler nor Toland were at their legendary status by this point, so though they do contribute to clean, clear, and precise visuals, the imagery is so restrained and unembellished that it scarcely suggests the pictorial brilliance both men would soon exhibit.

These Three is available now on a single-disc DVD from the Warner Brothers Archive Collection.

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Review by Todd Garbarini

Rush is a band that has never taken itself seriously. In the 33 years I have followed The Boys, I have come to regard them as musicians who have no trouble making fun of themselves and this is an aspect of their personalities that endears them to so many of us. The band’s use of the Three Stooges theme to open many of their concerts since the 1980’s and their amusing videos that open and close their later tours are proof that they don’t take themselves seriously.

In keeping in the spirit of such silliness, David Calcano’s 2015 book Rushtoons by Fantoons Vol. 2112 is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to our favorite band by some world-class artists who have created some beautiful cartoons that ape and good-naturedly poke fun at Rush’s famous album covers, making visual puns and humorous references to imagery that is as synonymous with Rush’s sound as hair is to Donald Trump. The 23 talented artists showcased are Mike Kazaleh, Chris Brubaker, Cristian Garcia, Raciel Avila Silva, Jose Rodriguez Mota, Samanta Erdini, Angie Pik, Armin Roshdi, Drew Krevi, Juan Riera, Tone Rodriguez, Camila Velarde, Min Jeong, Benny Jackson, Manuel Sarmiento, Igor Teran, Gina Rivas, Rene Cordova, Paul Badilla, Rafael Luna, Carlos Behrens, David Calcano, and Maryam Mahmodi Modhadam. Begun in April 2015 as a Kickstarter project, Rushtoons by Fantoons Vol. 2112 quickly raised enough capital in 24 hours to become a reality. The final result is well worth the wait.

The book is separated into seven chapters, beginning with a foreword by RIAB’s Ed Stenger. Chapter 1 (Roll the Ads) features one of my favorite mash-ups of Corporate America and Rush: Bill Gates sitting in a chair, pointing a remote control at a window for Microsoft Power Windows – clever! Chapter 2 (The Torontonian Cartoons) features artwork that is most closely related to newspaper comics as they are black and white with no color. The standout – Alex sitting on a couch in a psychiatrist’s office, upset because “Geddy started using keyboards!” Chapter 3 (Le Studio D’Art) brings us back to color with visual puns on the motifs from the albums, such as the Dalmatian running to a less-than-happy fire hydrant, and the same dog chasing Neil who is driving a Red Barchetta. My favorite is the “Live Long and Prosper” variant on Grace Under Pressure’s amazing cover. Chapter 4 (Rushtoons) features The Boys in comical variations on the Peanuts, Popeye, and even Eddie Trunk is featured. My favorite explains Alex’s closed eye on the cover of his 1994 solo album, Victor. Chapter 5 (In the Mood Pin-Ups) features a cute send-up of the Presto cover with a buxom beauty; “Permanent Weathergirls”; and a humorous parody of the Hold Your Fire cover as a nude woman attempts to cover herself (use your imaginations on fire). Chapter 6 (Moving Pictures) encompasses several nice Star Wars parodies, one with Paula Turnbull’s turn as Leia in full slave girl garb. The Twilight Zone, The Three Stooges (how can you not?), Raiders of the Lost Ark (Indy trying to outrace the Vapor Trails fireball), Miami Vice and The Terminator are all given the Rush treatment. Chapter 7 (Sugar Rush, The Cereals), the last section, incorporates cereal box covers: Caress of Milk, Toasted to the Heart, Permanent Flakes, Milk Under Pressure, Flakes for Echo…you get the idea!

BY TIM GREAVES

(The following reviews pertain to the UK Region 2 releases) 

When I'm in the right mood I adore bit of film noir. I admire the diversity of its storytelling, I love every facet, from the hardboiled private eyes, duplicitous dames and characters that seldom turn out to be what they first appear, to the alleyways bathed in inky shadows, ramshackle apartments and half-lit street corners they inhabit. How can you not get drawn in by the sheer delight of Edward G Robinson playing a second rate psychic trying to convince the authorities he can see the future in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes? Or amnesiac John Hodiak on a mission to discover his own identity, in the process getting embroiled in a 3-year-old murder case and the search for a missing $2 million in Somewhere in the Night? Yes, indeed, there's nothing quite like a hearty serving of film noir on a Sunday afternoon to soothe those end-of-the-weekend blues.

Newly released to dual format Blu-ray and DVD in the UK – carefully restored by UCLA Film and Television Archive following several years of sleuthing by the Film Noir Foundation – are a couple real crackers. I'd seen neither before but both have quickly found a spot among my favourites.

First up is 1949 United Artists picture Too Late for Tears (also known under the re-release moniker Killer Bait), directed by Byron Haskin from a Roy Huggins
story (first serialised in the 'Saturday Evening Post'). The plot hinges on a bag packed with an ill-gotten $60,000 worth of banknotes. Husband and wife Alan and Jane Palmer (Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott) are drawn into a deadly game when someone in a passing car hurls a briefcase full of cash into the back of their open top saloon – cash so hot it's "a bag o' dynamite", as Alan sagely recognises it. He’s insistent that they hand it over to the cops, but Jane is having none of it; their ship has come in and she intends to hop aboard. Initially she swings Alan round to her way of thinking but it's not long before the intended recipient of the money (Dan Duryea) shows up to claim it back. Jane, tougher than she at first seemed, is determined to keep it even if doing so means resorting to murder.

Despite striking support from the slinky Kristine Miller and an urbane Don DeFore, this is 100% Lizabeth Scott's parade. She's breathtaking as the ice cold blonde schemestress with a loaded shooter in one hand and a clutch bag full of seductive ploys in the other; as femme fatales go they don't come much wilier. Huggins' script is awash with mistrust and the razor sharp repartee born thereof: "Looking for something?"/"My lipstick"/"Colt or Smith & Wesson?". The twists come thick and fast as Jane's scruples, if ever she had any, are casually discarded as she calculatingly works to finagle the cash. With a sucker punch of a final twist that doles out the roughest of justice, Too Late for Tears is a little gem.

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Next up, a Universal Pictures release: Norman Foster's San Francisco based Woman on the Run, a tad lighter in tone but equally gripping. Out walking his dog one night, artist Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott) witnesses a murder – but the killer sees him too. With little faith in police witness protection, Johnson does a runner. Believing that he's really trying to escape their failing marriage, Frank's wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan) sets out to find him. Assisted by intrepid reporter Dan Legget (Dennis O'Keefe), eager to scoop a front page exclusive, Eleanor follows a trail of clues that reveal things about Frank she never knew, all the while dodging the police (who believe she'll lead them to her husband, the only person who can identify the killer), and blindly unaware she’s being watched by the killer himself, intent on eliminating the sole witness to his crime.

Working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Alan Campbell, Foster (who went on to direct episodes of Batman and The Green Hornet for television) keeps the action moving along at a fair old lick, never afraid to punctuate the mood with a splash of comic relief; the Johnson's dog is called Rembrandt, because "It's the nearest we’ll come to owning one". Although it initially feels like folly when the story’s ace twist is played midway point, it’s in fact a very shrewd move; arming the audience with such vital knowledge serves to ratchet up the suspense thereafter to almost unbearable levels. Boasting some fantastic San Francisco location work and climaxing amidst the after-dark amusement park thrills of Santa Monica's Ocean Park Pier (a finale which delivers squalling tension to rival the theme park located climax to Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train, released the following year), if you dip into only one noir thriller this year, be sure that it's 24-carat keeper Woman on the Run.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

By the early 1970s there had been a revival of interest in the format of anthology suspense/horror stories. This genre had been all the rage in the late 1950s and early 1960s with shows like "The Twilight Zone", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Thriller!" (hosted by Boris Karloff) attracting loyal audiences. "Twilight Zone" creator and host Rod Serling had two bites at the apple when he introduced "Night Gallery" as a TV movie in 1969 (giving young Steven Spielberg his first major directing gig) and then spun it off into a moderately successful weekly TV series. The early to mid-1970s also saw a major resurgence in horror-themed anthology feature films. The concept was hardly a new one for the big screen as the first major film of this type was "Dead of Night", released in 1945.  Roger Corman oversaw some similarly-themed big screen anthologies in the early to mid-1960s, many of which were inspired by classic horror stories based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Not to be outdone, Amicus Films, a rival of Hammer Studios, debuted their anthology concept with the 1965 release of "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors". By the early 1970s we had "Tales From the Crypt", "Vault of Horror", "The House That Dripped Blood" and many others.  All of the short stories were based on the same theme: a bunch of disparate characters encounter some supernatural occurrences with the less savory people ending up getting their just desserts through ironic circumstances. In 1983 producer Andrew Mirisch decided to give the anthology concept a try by teaming with producer/screenwriter Christopher Crowe and pitching the concept to Universal. Mirisch had found success in recent years with two popular TV series: "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Universal gave the green light for McCarthy's proposed series "Nightmares". The concept was to feature a self-contained horror tale within a half-hour format. For various reasons, including the possible demise of a similarly-themed show titled "Darkroom", the idea for a weekly series was nixed. However, Universal liked what they had seen and decided to morph the concept into a feature film, retaining the title "Nightmares". It consisted of four individual tales and the film was directed by the esteemed Joseph Sargent, who had some high profile TV series and feature films to his credit. The result was an unremarkable but consistently entertaining film that is not as sharp or memorable as some of the best anthology films but superior to some of the weaker ones. 

"Nightmares" dispenses with a gimmick used in many anthology films: having a creepy host reveal each of the stories. These just open "cold" without any attempt to link the plots or characters. First up is "Terror in Topanga" which finds Cristina Raines as a young mother who is hopelessly addicted to smoking. One evening she discovers she is out of cigarettes and decides to make a drive into town from her rural home in order to get a pack. Her husband admonishes her and insists that she stays home. Seems there is a manhunt on for a homicidal maniac who has butchered a police officer and who has been terrorizing other residents. Naturally, Raines ignores the advice and sneaks out of the house. The ride to town proves to be ominous with a few red herrings thrown in to mislead the audience, including her encounter with a hitchhiker on a lonely road. When she does make it to the store, it's manned by a wacko clerk (played the inimitable Anthony James) who is somehow more frightening than the maniac. By this point, Raines regrets her decision and is eager to race home. Despite the fact that there is a murderer on the loose, she refuses to lock the doors to her car, even when she leaves it to enter the store. This leads to a predictable development that comes about when she (in true horror movie crisis cliche mode) discovers she is coincidentally almost out of gas. Every major gas station is closed but she eventually finds a lone station on a foreboding mountain road. She has a tense encounter with the sole employee on duty who looks at her menacingly even as he pretends to pump gas. The payoff is based on one of the oldest urban horror legends but the tale is briskly paced and highly entertaining with Raines giving a fine performance as the increasingly nervous victim-to-be. 

"Bishop of Battle" goes in an entirely different direction. It eschews dark, foreboding places in favor of a bright suburban home and a crowded game center at a shopping mall. Emilo Estevez is J.J. , an obnoxious high school kid with a mad passion for playing the titular game. He becomes so obsessed with reaching the "13th level" (something few have supposedly ever been able to do) that he begins to withdraw from his parents and friends. His attempts to reach his goal become the stuff of local legend and big crowds gather to watch his attempts- but he always falls a bit short of his ultimate victory. Goaded on by the graphic of the Bishop of Battle, who constantly tempts him to keep trying, J.J. ends up defying his parents, who have ordered him to cease and desist from game-playing. One night he breaks into the arcade and begins his final battle with the Bishop. It leads to a disastrous but predictable conclusion. This segment is well-acted by Estevez and, despite the fact that we can predict the "shock" ending, it plays out well enough. Most of the enjoyment, however, comes from seeing how positively archaic "state-of-the-art" gaming was back in the early 1980s.  

"The Benediction" features Lance Henriksen as a priest serving in a tiny desert parish who undergoes a crisis of faith. Having witnessed so many terrible things happen to good people, he decides to hang up his frock and leave the priesthood. His fellow priest tries to talk him out of it, but he is determined to go his own way and start a new life. A big clue as to what awaits him comes with the rather awkward plot device of his being given a gift of holy water to keep him safe on his travels. This promising concept of a priest at odds with his faith is soon abandoned for a ludicrous scenario in which he becomes menaced by a black truck with an unseen driver that keeps appearing out of nowhere and smashing into his car, rendering it inoperable. The demonic vehicle then attempts to kill the priest in a series of spectacular attacks. One of the more ridiculous aspects of a tale that borrows shamelessly from the classic TV movie "Duel", the God-awful Universal cheese fest "The Car" and Stephen King's novel "Christina", is the fact that throughout this entire ordeal not a single other vehicle is anywhere to be seen. We know we are in a horror flick but there still has to be some semblance of reality. Henriksen gives a good performance but "The Benediction" is the weakest of the four stories in "Nightmare".

"Night of the Rat" is the best-remembered segment of the film because of its outrageous premise. Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur are a young couple with a cute little girl (Bridgette Andersen) who live a normal life in a suburban neighborhood. Mysterious sounds begin to occur and lead them to believe that rats are in the house. The headstrong husband insists he can handle the problem and indeed he does catch and kill the critter. However, this only leads to an escalation of terrors as inexplicable destruction begins to take place all over the house. Absurdly, the husband still insists he can solve everything but when cabinets start falling and dishes crashing, the wife calls in an exterminator who tells her that it appears the house is possessed by something of old German horror legend: a seemingly indestructible giant rat who is out to get revenge for the killing of her baby. The crazy premise actually works better than you might think thanks to the superior performances of the three leads who manage to keep straight faces even when confronted with a five foot rodent who invades their daughter's bed.  The special effects of the rat itself look a bit laughable by today's standards but are admirable if one considers the technology of the era and the limited budget. The segment is the most enjoyable of the four and does contain some genuine chills before it's over-the-top finale. As with "The Benediction", there is a gnawing lack in credibility in that, despite the virtual wholesale destruction of this neighborhood home in the dead of night, apparently not one neighbor is aware of the situation. 

Shout! Factory's horror label Scream! Factory has released "Nightmares" as a Blu-ray special edition. The main bonus feature is a highly enjoyable commentary track with Andrew Mirisch and Cristina Raines, who appears throughout the track even though she is only in the first segment. Seems she and Mirisch are old chums and had worked together on other projects. Their memories of this particular film get very spotty occasionally but the commentary rolls smoothly thanks to the moderator, film historian Shaun K. Chang, who runs the highly addictive retro film blog Hill Place (click here to access). Chang keeps the conversation light in tone and, not unusually for film historians, seems to have more facts about the making of the film than the people who actually made it. There is plenty of interesting discussion about the background of the movie as a TV project and some very amusing conversations with Mirisch about how "Nightmares" looks a lot richer in terms of production values than the notoriously cheap Universal productions of the era. (Mirisch notes that he was determined to avoid using the same staircase that appeared in seemingly every Universal TV show.)  Chang also brings up a more disturbing and poignant fact: that actress Bridgette Andersen, one of the most prolific child actors of the time, died in 1997. Although he doesn't discuss the cause of her death of out respect for her memory, research shows she died at age 17 due to a heroin overdose. In terms of other aspects of the commentary,  none of the three participants engage in pretentious analysis of the film and all seem content to regard it as a fun, if not overly significant entry in the horror film canon of the 1980s, though Mirisch concedes at the end of the commentary track that, having seen the film for the first time since 1983, it has aged better than he had expected. The special edition also contains a well-made original trailer and two ominous radio spots. (Remember when they advertised movies on the radio?) In all, a highly impressive Blu-ray release- but with one caveat. The packaging notes that there is a commentary track with Andrew Mirisch and Cristina Raines but doesn't even mention Shaun K. Chang, who does most of the heavy lifting in terms of setting the relaxed tone and getting Mirisch and Raines to reflect on long-forgotten aspects of the film. C'mon, Scream! Factory- how about giving credit where it is due?

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BY JEREMY CARR

“Do you like being filmed and talking about yourself,” director Agnès Varda asks star and subject Jane Birkin in the 1987 film Jane B. for Agnès V. “Yes and no,” comes the fittingly ambiguous answer. This fascinating film, recently released on a Cinelicious Pics Blu-ray alongside Kung-Fu Master! (1987), the purely fictional feature born from the quasidocumentary’s unique study of Birkin as an actress and the art of performance in general, is a movie made of memories, fantasies, and the hazy area where the two coalesce. Essentially derived from Birkin’s stated fear of turning 40, Jane B. for Agnès V. is a ruminative examination of Birkin’s life and work, but it is just as much a revealing look at Varda as an inventive filmmaker. “I'm filming your self-portrait,” Varda says to Birkin, setting up the blurring of authorial lines and not for the first time calling attention to the film’s self-conscious formation. Constructed from a series of explicitly stylized situations, direct to camera addresses, rigidly arranged tableaus, and further formal variations, Jane B. for Agnès V. is a cleverly affected film on the part of both Varda and Birkin. Complicating matters even more, when Birkin expresses trepidation about being chronicled, saying specifically she is reluctant to look at the camera, Varda tries to alleviate the discomfort by telling Birkin to think of the lens as if it were her (Varda) that she (Birkin) was looking at instead. Of course, by doing so, she is actually looking at us (the viewer), developing an additional layer of composed artificiality. Jane B. for Agnès V. is this kind of film.

There is sometimes purely sincere behavior from Birkin and those captured by Varda’s probing camera; other times, the action is clearly staged and simulated, to make and thematic point or strictly for aesthetic purposes. To Birkin’s credit, her capacity for naturalism is evident—she is a great actress—but just as the comfort of credibility begins to settle, Varda switches gears and creates painterly reproductions and stunningly synthetic set-pieces. There are about a dozen distinct segments through the course of Jane B. for Agnès V., and these brief skits span a variety of genres and stories, each enabling Birkin to approach an array of emotions and characterizations. The scene-by-scene randomness does eventually shape into a larger portrait of an actress and her art, though there is often no immediate connection between the scenarios—one may suggest a correlation to a prior scene or a comment Birkin makes, others arbitrarily stand alone.

Both Jane B. for Agnès V. and Kung-Fu Master! are visually heightened by the fabulous transfer for this Cinelicious Pics release (Varda herself supervised the restoration), but these enhancements are most evident with the former title. The film’s imagery is a layering of textures, colors, production design, and camera angles. Its patchwork portrait covers diverse narrative territory as well, from slapstick to historical drama. The string of fictitious scenes give Varda and Birkin the opportunity to realize a variety of genres, as a showcase for their complimentary directorial and acting skills. In an interview on the Jane B. for Agnès V. disc, Varda says as much, noting the film allowed Birkin to explore different aspects of her talent (though Varda also says, in the actual film, that the actress is the “queen of paradox,” with her desire to be a “famous nobody”).  

One is inclined to take the various documentary-type situations as truth, with no reason to assume they are otherwise. But therein lies another element of this byzantine film: the obfuscation of the line between fiction and reality. While some sections appear to be candidly caught on the fly, other sections are created by Varda explicitly egging them on. Deconstructing the illusion of filmmaking itself, Jane B. for Agnès V. is a behind-the-scenes reflection and literal depiction of the creative process. Near the end of the film, Birkin asks, “What now? Where do we go?” “We agreed the film would wander, we’d set off someplace and stop along the way,” replies Varda. “What if we lose our way?” questions the actress. “I like mazes,” says Varda. “I like finding out where I've been at the exit.” This awareness of the film’s development is followed by about 30 minutes of a fictional film being made with Birkin, one in which Varda’s son, Mathieu Demy, plays a part in the proposed story, which we see simultaneously realized before Jane B. for Agnès V. then veers off down another path.

This is the initial genesis that shaped Kung-Fu Master! Birkin gets story credit for the second film in this Blu-ray set, as it was from her suggestions during the making of Jane B. for Agnès V. that Kung-fu Master! was created. Just as the earlier film dealt with themes such as family, life, loss, and sexuality, so too is this complementary picture informed by these concerns.

With a cast consisting partially of members from both Varda and Birkin’s family—to the young Demy as Julien add Birkin’s daughters Charlotte Gainsbourg, as Lucy, and Lou Doillon, as Lou—Kung-Fu Master! gets off to an upbeat start, with a stuttering video game introduction to Julien. At a party for Lucy, where she and others of her age are drinking and smoking and generally acting older and wiser than they perhaps should, Birkin, as Lucy’s mother, Mary-Jane, first encounters Julien…as he drunkenly vomits into a toilet. Mary-Jane finds the boy “pathetic” yet “superb,” and wants to see him again, which she does when she literally runs into him in her car. To make amends, she treats Julien to a coke and a video game, the eponymous “Kung-Fu Master.” “Boys are curious and vulnerable,” says Mary-Jane. “I find it touching.”

This is the start of a fleeting romance that was taboo enough in 1987 to greatly limit the film’s international release. As the courtship progresses, Julien shows up with flowers and food for his friend’s mother, while Mary-Jane picks up the boy’s homework when he is home sick from school, just so she has an excuse to see him. Before long, they are setting dates for just the two of them alone, where she tries to connect to his youth by playing the video game and he tries to match her maturity by slipping his hand under her shirt. The uneasy physicality of the relationship, to say nothing of the moral quandary (Mary-Jane justifies it to Lucy by noting she herself was with a man 15-20 years older when she was her daughter’s age), produces an overwhelming guilt.

By Lee Pfeiffer

The Warner Archive has released director Lewis Gilbert's excellent WWII espionage thriller Operation Daybreak.The 1975 film is largely unknown despite the fact that it's one of Gilbert's most ambitious and artistically successful movies. The story is based on fact. Allied Intelligence convinced three Czechs serving in the British army to parachute into their occupied homeland to assassinate Reinhold Heydrich, one of Hitler's most trusted commanders and the man he cynically appointed "protector" of the conquered nations of Europe. Heydrich was considered even more brutal than Hitler and the Allies feared the worst if a scenario came about in which he would have been appointed fuerhrer. As Reinhold was heavily guarded at all times, the commandos were left to their own devices to concoct the assassination plan. After an initial attempt went awry, they opted to boldly approach his car in the middle of the street and spray it with machine gun fire. It will not spoil the film to relate the historical fact that the plan ultimately succeeded, but Operation Daybreak is as much about the aftermath of the incident as it is about the mission itself. 

Incredibly, the principal assassins and their network of partisans survived, at least initially. However, on the verge of rescue, elements of betrayal and carelessness led to tragedy. In reprisal for the assassinatin, Hitler ordered that the entire village of Lidice be razed to the ground and every citizen murdered or sent to concentration camps. Gilbert shot the film on location in (then) communist Czechoslovakia. The locales add immeasurably to the sense of authenticity. The film also boasts a sizable budget and there are impressive sequences featuring large numbers of German soldiers parading in the streets - a sight that must have been chilling for residences who lived through the actual occupation. Ronald Harwood's screenplay, based on the novel Seven Men at Daybreak by Alan Burgess, is consistently gripping- and the final battle between the conspirators and a large force of German troops takes place inside a magnificent church. Gilbert ensures this sequence is superbly staged on every level. 

If there is a weak link in the film it is the casting of Timothy Bottoms in the lead role. Bottoms is competent enough, but makes for a bland and colorless hero. He is out-shown by fellow cast members Anthony Andrews, Martin Shaw, Joss Ackland and Anton Diffring, who makes a coldly majestic Heydrich. Curiously, the film contains many extended sequences involving Heydrich in which German is spoken without the benefit of sub-titles. Whether this was the case in the original film, I can't say, but it does make for some irritation on the DVD version. Also, the Czech characters all speak English, but as they are portrayed by American and British actors without any attempt to form a common accent, it gives the film's dialogue a Tower of Babel effect. Nevertheless, Operation Daybreak is a memorable movie about real-life heroes that deserves to be seen by a wider audience. Hopefully, the Warner Archive release will achieve just that. 

(Lewis Gilbert discusses Operation Daybreak and his other war movies in an exclusive interview with Matthew Field in issue #18 of Cinema Retro) 

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release regarding the book “Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey” by Harlan Lebo (Thomas Dunne Books)

“This book is a gold mine for fans.”―Kirkus Reviews
It is the story of a film masterpiece―how it was created and how it was almost destroyed.

It is the celebration of brilliant achievement and a sinister tale of conspiracy, extortion, and Communist witch hunts.

It is the chronicle of a plot orchestrated in boardrooms and a mountaintop palace, as a media company that claimed to stand for “genuine democracy” defied the First Amendment and schemed to burn Hollywood’s greatest creation.

Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey is the extraordinary story of the production of Orson Welles’ classic film, using previously unpublished material from studio files and the Hearst organization, exclusive interviews with the last surviving members of the cast and crew, and what may be the only surviving copies of the “lost” final script.

Harlan Lebo charts the meteoric rise to stardom of the twenty-three-year-old Orson Welles, his defiance of the Hollywood system, and the unprecedented contract that gave him near-total creative control of his first film. Lebo recounts the clashes between Welles and studio executives eager to see him fail, the high-pressure production schedule, and the groundbreaking results. Lebo reveals the plot by the organization of publisher William Randolph Hearst to attack Hollywood, discredit Welles, and incinerate the film. And, at last, he follows the rise of Citizen Kane to its status as the greatest film ever made.

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