Cinema Retro
Entries from June 2008
The web site IGN has posted an in-depth review of the new comic book based on the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Man With No Name trilogy. The bottom line: mixed results. Reviewer Dan Phillips says it's an admirable attempt to capture the essence of the series but has doubts it can be sustained over numerous issues. To read the review click here
CINEMA RETRO'S EDITOR-IN-CHIEF BRAVELY GOES AGAINST THE GRAIN AND TAKES ON THE NEW HIT MOVIE VERSION OF GET SMART When I finally caught up with the new Get Smart feature film that is doing sensational business in its opening week, I couldn't help but think of Orson Welles and Citizen Kane. You read that right: Orson Welles and Citizen- FRICKIN'- Kane. I asked myself how Welles directed, wrote and starred in that masterpiece at age 23 while it took two screen writers and countless millions of dollars to turn out Get Smart - especially since the movie is so needlessly convoluted that within five minutes I couldn't even remember what the main aspect of the plot was about. First the good news: this isn't a disaster in the way that most other big screen adaptations of classic TV series generally turn out to be. That's about the only good news. Aside from some inspired casting choices, the film is a dud and will best be appreciated by young people with little knowledge or interest in the fact that it is based on a far superior TV series. The movie is clearly catering to the tween set, with plenty of gross-out jokes and sexual innuendos - but it only illustrates how low family film entertainment has gotten when such elements are the norm. Steve Carell plays the role of Agent 86, Maxwell Smart - a character immortalized by Don Adams. Carell is adequately cast. He looks square enough to have stepped out of a time warp but he plays the role in a deadpan, understated manner that contrasts with Adams' shrill, high profile style. The result is that Carell is overshadowed by virtually everyone else in the movie. Not helping matters is the fact that Smart is, well, too smart...There is precious little of the bumbling antics of the TV Maxwell Smart, who, in Clouseau-like manner, managed to crack every case by sheer happenstance. The TV Smart wasn't an idiot, just a klutz, but the Carell character is actually fairly competent, which deprives the film of many potential pratfalls and belly laughs. There are the cursory nods to the show's iconic images: the Cone of Silence (not nearly as funny as when utilized on the series), the telephone booth, the old shoe phone and the red Sunbeam convertible (creatively worked into the story as part of a museum exhibit). There are also several outright homages to James Bond films: a dress tearing tactic right out of Licence to Kill and an extended sky diving battle that emulates Moonraker to the point of including a villain with a remarkable resemblance to Richard Kiel's Jaws. The latter sequence is exravagant and ambitiious, but - God forgive me for actually saying these words - the scene in Moonraker was better! There is also a tasteless bathroom gag that is taken virtually verbatim from the first Austin Powers movie, but it barely works here because of the leaden direction of Peter Segal. His track record is pretty thin, but he direct the final Naked Gun film (though the weakest of the trio) and the very underrated comedy My Fellow Americans that paired Jack Lemmon and James Garner. However, he also directs Adam Sandler movies. 'Nuff said. The one element of the film I feared most was the casting of Agent 99, but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by Anne Hathaway's performance. She is not only sexy enough to make you (temporarily) forget the image of Barbara Feldon, but she also shows a deft ability to handle one-liners. Sadly, however, the script resorts to the oldest of cliches: it has Max and 99 meeting cute, her disdaining him then being reluctantly paired as his partner. You don't have to be Kreskin to predict what happens next: they learn to respect one another and fall in love. This concept more moss on it than a tree in a bayou swamp. 99 is presented as an Emma Peel- like heroine, adept at martial arts and a propensity for kicking guys in groin. I gave up counting after seeing this act take place five times. Memo to producers: it's time to retire the groin-kick scene. The old reliable only worked well the first time it was used - back in 1969 when Paul Newman's Butch Cassidy made history of Ted Cassidy's family jewels. Since then, it's been dragged out by every uncreative screenwriter who hopes to get a cheap reaction from guys in the audience who cringe at the sight. The cliche itself is more painful than any kick in the balls.
There are a few genuinely funny gags, thanks mostly to the
inspired casting of Alan Arkin as The Chief (though no one could replace the
inimitable Edward Platt, one of TV's most underrated comic actors.) Arkin is
quite funny with his slow-burn approach to every crisis, but the script can't
resist going over the top by having the Chief assault the vice-president.
Another welcome presence is James Caan, seen far too briefly as a Bush-like
American president. Having the character come across like a boob may be like
picking the low-hanging fruit, but Caan's few one-liners elicited some of the
biggest laughs from the audience at the screening I attended. Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) is cast as a CONTROL agent in conflict with Max and while Johnson proves to be an able comedic presence, his waxen appearance makes him look like an animated character from a Madame Tussaud's exhibit. There's also a potentially hilarious cameo by Bill Murray, but the scene falls entirely flat. Similarly, the producers must have felt that two CONTROL geeks, Bruce and Lloyd (played by Masi Oka and Nate Torrence) are so funny that they've received their own straight-to-video mini-movie. The actors themselves are good, but the characters are poorly developed and not very funny. It's wonderful to see old pro Terence Stamp cast as the villain Siegfried, but the role is so weakly written that he could have been playing any generic bad guy. Making matters worse, Bernie Koppel, who played the character in the original show, makes a cameo- and you feel like shouting at the screen, "Siegfried, come back!" a la Brandon de Wilde at the end of Shane.
One hates to be cranky about Get Smart - and it is better than the big screen versions of The Wild, Wild West and I Spy (faint praise, indeed). However, when it comes equally the original series, well, sorry about that, chief- they missed it by that much. - Lee Pfeiffer
I can easily name the worst movie villains in history: audience members who keep their mobile phones on in the theater. Let's face it: anyone can make a careless mistake and forget to turn their phone off. What makes my blood boil are the people who keep them on even after getting a cautionary warning, such as those given before every Broadway play. In one instance, Billy Crystal wished his audience a good night after a performance of his one-man show a few years ago. He then paused and made an exception for the audience member whose phone went off numerous times during the show, thereby disrupting his performance. Crystal embarrassed the unnamed audience member by referring to them as an expletive, to wild applause from audience members. Perhaps if everyone else treated these morons in the same manner, they will be shamed into amending their behavior - and the same goes for selfish people who decide that the movie theater is a perfect place to bring infants and toddlers, who then cry and throw tantrums while the parents sit shamelessly amidst the chaos, not caring about the dispruption they cause. There was a time this type of behavior was considered a minor irritant, but with ticket prices now costing slightly less than a fantasy vacation (in London, prices per ticket are about $20), you have to deal with these idiots in a more aggressive manner. Don't look for theater management to help out. There's no such thing as an usher and when I complained to management awhile back about a disruptive mother and child in the audience, I was told all they could do was give me my money back. Seems fear of litigation is now the driving philosophy - no matter who the management takes to task, they will inevitably say it is on the basis of some type of prejudice. As long as I'm auditioning for a Grumpy Old Men remake, let's also let loose on theaters who have cut corners by removing such unnecessary baggage as projectionists. I remember seeing a Gone With the Wind revival only to find a large hair had been stuck on the lens that protruded over the actor's faces. When a group of us marched to the theater manager like the peasants in Frankenstein, we were introduced to "the projectionist": a pimple-faced teenager who also ran the popcorn stand! He told us that was the way the movie was supposed to look because it was "real old"! Just recently, I read comments on a blog from someone who had attended a showing of Planet of the Apes at New York's Ziegeld Theatre, the last remaining single-screen cinema in the city. He reported that the audience had to watch every other reel out of focus because the management didn't know how to work the changeover projector. The bottom line, to quote Network's Howard Beale, we've got to shout out "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I'm not alone in my criticisms: film critic Michael Russnow has a similarly-themed article that stops just short of calling for the death penalty for mobile phone abusers. To read click here. - Lee Pfeiffer
New York Daily News TV critic David Hinckley has an excellent analysis of why Get Smart and other vintage shows have held up remarkably well over the decades. To read click here
We don't take sides politically on this site, but when there is an amusing media development in the world of politics that relates to classic cinema, we can't resist. One of our subscribers sent us this link to You Tube that shows an official campaign ad for Sen. John McCain that uses James Bond-type graphics and audio to denote Sen. Barack Obama as Dr. No. In the interest of fair play, if the Obama campaign wants to use a classic film to malign McCain, we'll be happy to run that as well. (Don't be surprised to find McCain as Dr. Strangelove coming to a web site near you!) Click here to view
Review: I Hear No Bugles By Robert Winston Mercy.
(Merriam Press, 2008)
By Wesley Britton
Even in the first
days of the silent movie era, film producers knew well the value of celluloid
stories as propaganda. Before World War I, those opposed to America’s involvement overseas
cranked out tragic tales designed to discourage any support for the then feared
“Merchants of Death.†Just as quickly, once war was declared, Hollywood shifted gears and found itself a
major contributor to recruitment drives. Scripts now starred small-town heroes including
little girls exposing saboteurs in Grandpa’s lab and high-flying aviators shooting
down fellow aces, all part of the vital effort to crush the Wiley “Huns†at
home and abroad.
From that point forward, war movies resonated
with the themes of valor, glory, and stoic self-sacrifice in which anyone
anywhere could find themselves elevated morally and spiritually by doing their
patriotic duty. Onscreen, whether battling Southern rebels, Indian tribes in
the Old West, or German U-Boats, a soldier’s life was something to aspire to,
yearn for, and a glorious death on the battlefield was preferable to returning
home to a devoted sweetheart without having come of age in the trenches. The
impact of so many films with these motifs is immeasurable, especially on the
“Greatest Generation†which was moved into action as much by the gallant epics they
saw in theatres as well as the newsreels shown after Pearl
Harbor.
One story from these times is unique. The
opening pages of a new memoir by Robert Winston Mercy, I Hear No Bugles, begins with scenes of a young American drawn into
a soldier’s life due to what he had seen in moviehouses. Then, we learn about
the life of a front-line infantryman in North Korea discovering just how
war was never what was shown in dark auditoriums. Then, bringing his story full
circle, Robert Winston Mercy came home to become first a stunt-man and then a
contract player at MGM playing the very roles he’d grown up watching, only this
time as military commanders in TV series like Combat!, Maverick, and Playhouse 90.
The first paragraph
of I Hear No Bugles makes Mercy’s
thesis clear:
“The effects of propaganda films cannot be
underestimated, particularly in this era of contending political and religious
dogmas that relentlessly threaten to make this century even more unimaginably
bloodier than the last. Indisputably, film is second to literacy in the
intellectual, philosophical and moral development of the human species. The
defunct uniformed `press-gangs’ of history that `Shanghaied’ young men into
military service have been supplanted by the more subtly hypnotic persuasion of
TV and the movies. Every image, symbol and mode of, each delivered word is
meticulously crafted to extract the desired emotional and moral support from
its national audience. Those ships, planes, submarines, helicopters, tanks and
the expended ammunitions of the armies of soldiers we see on the screen are
freely given to the studios for that explicit purpose.â€
Continue reading "REAL WAR VS. REEL WAR: WES BRITTON REVIEWS THE NEW BOOK "I HEAR NO BUGLES""
Mishima—A Life in Four Chapters (The Criterion Collection, 2008)
Paul Schrader has always opined that Mishima—A Life in Four Chapters was his best film as a director,
and I have to agree. Originally released
in 1985 (and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas), the
film is a fascinating bio-pic about controversial Japanese author/actor Yukio
Mishima. Schrader, a successful
screenwriter who has also had an interesting hit-and-miss career as a director,
co-wrote the film with his brother Leonard and filmed it in Japan with a
Japanese cast and crew. Ironically, the
film was banned in Japan
upon its release due to the controversial nature of Mishima’s infamously public
display of seppuku (suicide) in
1970. But despite Mishima’s questionable
act, there is no doubt that he was a formidable novelist, poet, and
artist—certainly one of his country’s greatest. Schrader’s film attempts to visualize Mishima’s life and work, and make
sense of his final days in different stylistic approaches that are beautiful to
behold and brilliant in conception. Philip Glass provides one of his best motion picture scores to date,
John Bailey’s cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and Eiko Ishioka’s
theatrical production designs are perfectly suited to Schrader’s
sensibilities. Whether or not you know
anything about Yukio Mishima, you will find the picture to be an extraordinary
cinematic experience.
Criterion Collection has done another outstanding job of
producing a new, restored high-definition digital transfer of the director’s
cut, which was supervised and approved by Schrader and Bailey. There are optional English and Japanese
voiceover narrations (by Roy Scheider and Ken Ogata, respectively—the U.S. theatrical
release only had the Scheider narration). There is also an audio commentary by Schrader and producer Alan
Poul. A second disk contains a wealth of
background and supplementary material, including the excellent 1985 BBC
documentary The Strange Case of Yuko
Mishima. There are vintage video
interviews with Mishima himself, new segments of Mishima’s biographers and
translators, Philip Glass, John Bailey, and other members of the film crew, and
more. Highly recommended—one of the best
DVD releases of the year so far.--Raymond Benson
CLICK HERE TO ORDER DVD FROM AMAZON
The UK-based web site MI6 is reporting that Leonardo DiCaprio is now involved as a producer of the long-planned Warner Brothers big screen biography of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. The script has already undergone rewrites and DiCaprio is said to be demanding another revision. For the record, DiCaprio is not playing Fleming, only producing. No casting or release date has been set. For more click here.
Every once in a while, a bold producer and film distribution company actually comes up with the financing for a film that top-lines a distinguished older actor. Such is the case with the acclaimed 2007 art house film Starting Out in the Evening which gives Frank Langella his highest profile role in years. Langella is Leonard Schiller, a staid, withdrawn author who had once written a few highly regarded novels before entering a decades-long period of writer's block, caused in part by the death of his wife and his subsequent responsibility to raise their young daughter on his own. In recent years, he putters about his Manhattan apartment attempting to finish his comeback novel, without much success. His life takes on a radical change with the unexpected arrival of a graduate student, Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) who is obsessed with his early work and who has based her master's thesis on his life and career. Schiller initially refuses her adultation, but eventually he forms a close friendship with the brilliant young woman and he grants a series of highly introspective interviews. Ultimatley, it becomes clear the pair have become smitten by each other, much to the annoyance of Schiller's daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), who finds herself at age 40 trying to cope with an on-again, off-again relationship with her boyfriend Casey (Adrian Lester of the hit TV series Hustle). The script traces the interactions between these disparate characters but manages to avoid virtually every cliche you think is about to materialize. The greatest joy is the literate script by Fred Parnes and Andrew Wagner (who also directed). It's rare to find a full length movie that celebrates the printed word, but Starting Out in the Evening is an ode to the art of writing. The character of Heather treats Schiller as though he was a rock star, and their conversations and debates are a delight to eavesdrop on. The script takes some surprising turns when Heather and Schiller discover truths about each other that diminishes their relationship to some degree. Equally mesmerizing is the love affair between Ariel and Casey, two good people who can't overcome the age-old conflict disagreement about whether to have children. (She's racing against her biological clock while he has no interest in starting a family). The film avoids a pat, predictable ending which makes the experience all the more rewarding. The acting is uniformly excellent, but it's clearly Langella's show with a great late-career performance that should have received an Oscar nomination. Start out you evening with Starting Out in the Evening, a low-key but excellent drama that is consistently engrossing.- Lee Pfeiffer
EXTRAS: The DVD from Lionsgate features director's commentary, TV spots and trailer Click here to order from Amazon
"Have you ever been collared, dragged out into the streets and thrashed by a naked woman?" Well, we certainly have, but that's for another time...For the moment, we'll stick with the topic at hand: a line of dialogue said by Elizabeth Taylor to hubby Marlon Brando in John Huston's bizarre and woefully underrated 1967 film Reflections in a Golden Eye (based on Carson McCuller's novel that may have been the inspiration for the name of Ian Fleming's Jamaican home). The film broke new barriers with sexuality, presenting Brando as a macho Army officer by day who maintains an S&M relationship with dominatrix wife Liz, who gets off on humiliating and berating him in public. 'lest you still think this is a Disney film, Brando is a closeted homosexual who pines away over a private, played by Robert Forster, who has a penchant for horseback riding while naked. Add to the mix the fact that Liz is having an affair with Brando's best friend Brian Keith, whose own wife has mutilated herself sexually. Something for the entire family! This strange, but hypnotic film was a box-office and critical dud, but remains well worth seeing.- Lee Pfeiffer Click here to view the trailer
Click here to buy from Amazon as part of the Marlon Brando boxed set that also includes DVDS of Mutiny on the Bounty, Teahouse of the August Moon, Julius Caesar. and The Formula. Only $24.95 (save $35!)
ALL TIME HIGH: BARRY STRIKES DUBLIN
LIKE THUNDERBALL!
RTÉ Summer Evening Concert Season: The Film Music of John
Barry
The National Concert Hall, Dublin, Friday 20 June, 2008
Report by John Exshaw – 22/6/08
To say that the John Barry concert in Dublin on Friday 20 June went over big would
be a gross understatement, if not an outright distortion. Giving the first-ever
concert of his film music in the capital, the multiple Oscar-winning composer
was cheered to the rafters by a packed house at the National Concert Hall – and
before a single note had even been played. By the end of the evening – and two
standing ovations later – it was clear that the 74-year-old veteran, who seemed
genuinely moved by the warmth of his reception, could consider his no-doubt arduous
six-hour flight from New York to have been very much worth the effort, a
sentiment heartily endorsed by his enthusiastic and appreciative audience.
The concert, part of the Summer Evening season arranged by
RTÉ, the national broadcaster, and featuring the RTÉ National Symphony
Orchestra, was presented by AedÃn Gormley, host of the station’s Movie &
Musicals programme on lyric fm, which was broadcasting the event
live, and it was a pleasant surprise to learn that Barry himself would take the
baton for the two opening pieces, Goldfinger (1964) and We Have All
the Time in the World (from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969),
as it had initially been thought that he would only be in attendance, rather
than participating.
When the applause that greeted these
two pieces had eventually subsided, Barry gave way on the podium to Nicholas
Dodd – orchestrator and conductor of, inter alia, the Bond movies The
World is Not Enough (1999), Die Another Day (2002) and Casino
Royale (2006) – who proceeded to send a shiver down the collective spine
with the ominous and threatening theme from Zulu (1964), followed by Somewhere
in Time (1980), Moviola (1993), and the main themes from The
Persuaders (1971-1972), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), and Midnight
Cowboy (1969, and featuring an excellent, mournful harmonica solo by John
Murray Ferguson), before taking us into the interval with a suite comprising
pieces from Dances with Wolves (1990).
The second part of the concert
included Born Free (1966), All Time High (from Octopussy,
1983), Out of Africa (1985, and a particular favourite of Gormley’s
listeners on RTÉ lyric fm), Body Heat (1981, featuring a
marvellously slinky sax solo by Fintan Sutton), the incidental piece Space
March from You Only Live Twice (1967), and the theme from The
Knack…and How to Get It (1965). The finale was provided by the James
Bond Suite, a suitably roof-raising crowd-pleaser comprised of 007, From
Russia with Love (both 1963), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live
Twice, Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and On
Her Majesty’s Secret Service as well.
During this amazing sequence, Dodd
not only got the best out of the orchestra (ably led by first violin, Alan
Smale), but provided a splendid spectacle himself – arms waving, hair flying
everywhere, hands thrusting out, cajoling and coaxing, his body swaying and
bouncing to the rhythm – at one point so wrapped up in the music that he had to
turn two pages of the score in immediate succession just to catch up with
himself (even though it was obvious he knows it all by heart).
John Barry then came onto the
podium for the first of his standing ovations, before removing himself to a
safe distance as Dodd tore into an encore of the full 007 piece. When
Barry rejoined him, Dodd proved himself as good at working an audience as he is
at working an orchestra, giving the crowd an exaggerated deaf ear gesture to
encourage even more applause for the beaming Barry, who closed proceedings with
a brief but heartfelt thank-you speech.
At the reception afterwards, and
spurred on by the stern maxim that ‘Cinema Retro always gets its man’, I
managed to ask Barry a few questions before being stampeded by a pack of
autograph hounds. What criteria, I enquired, does he apply when approached to
score a film? To which, in a voice still retaining traces of his native
Yorkshire, he replied, “I think the number one single thing is a great script –
that it’s a really great story, you know, with a beginning and a middle and an
end, and it’s almost like a piece of literature. And then the director, of
course. Meet with the director and see that he loves it and what he’s going to
do with it. And once you get a great script and a great director, you’re in
very good shape.â€
Remembering that Sergio Leone
would sometimes preface a question to Ennio Morricone by helpfully saying, “You
know, it’s the one which goes da-da-daâ€, I asked Barry what happens if the
director is a musical illiterate and says, I’d like a bit here that goes dum-dee-dum-dee-dum?
“Then fuck you!†Barry laughs. “ No, no, the good directors trust you, they
don’t start whistling things in your ear because, you know, they either hire
you because you know what the hell you’re doing – so don’t hire me and then
start telling me what to do! I mean, [with] a good director I say, what kind of
a mood do you want, what are we trying to say? Like Out of Africa,
Sydney Pollack talked what he wanted then I went away and wrote it. So
that kind of help – what the emotion is between the two main characters and all
that, that’s the kind of direction I like, and I can use.
Recalling also Morricone’s assertion that, unlike other
composers, a film composer must be familiar with the musical style of any era
in which a movie might be set, I asked Barry if, with a film like The Lion
in Winter (1968, set in medieval England), he had to research the musical
history of the period. “No,†he replied, “because I studied with Dr. Francis
Jackson, who was my first teacher and he was a Master of Music at York Minster,
so all that choral stuff in Latin, I knew all that. So although everybody
thought, oh this is new, it was actually sort of the first stuff I’d done, so
that’s why I loved doing that movie.â€
Soon after which the autograph hounds butted in, so I took
my leave and found refuge on a sofa next to Nicholas Dodd, still perspiring
happily following his tremendous exertions onstage. Seizing the moment, I asked
him how he came to be involved with tonight’s concert, and about his
association with John Barry. Pausing only to wipe his brow, he said, “Well, the
first time John saw me working was in Abbey
Road studios, on an album of The Ten Tenors. They
were taking his famous themes, like Out of Africa,
and [long-time Barry collaborator] Don Black put lyrics to them and I was the
orchestrator. And John had heard of me because I’ve been involved in the last
three James Bonds, orchestrating, conducting. I’d met him a couple of times,
but at that point it’s when he saw me – I think it was about three or four
years ago – and things sort of progressed from there . . .â€
Remarking on his obvious joy in conducting, I asked if there
was something particular in John Barry’s music to which he responded. “Damn
good themes!†he responded without hesitation. “And that’s it. Beautifully
orchestrated by Nic Raine and beautifully played this evening by the RTÉ
National. It’s absolutely marvelous the way they played. And they’re just good
themes and well-orchestrated – it’s just thoroughly good music.†From a
technical point of view, are some of them harder to get right in performance
than others? “Not really, no. All of John’s music and all of his themes – and
that’s why he is a legend and so well-known and loved – [succeed because] quite
simply he writes music that communicates very easily to most people. And it’s
very accessible music, so whilst a theme may be different, like Out of
Africa which seems to have just a little more coherency in the sense of
being such a strong theme – whereas others are not so well-known and not so
popular. But that doesn’t mean to say they’re any less of a theme. So, in a
technical sense, they’re all the same, to bring out the push-and-pull of the
phrase.â€
Before hitting the highway, I buttonholed Julie Knight,
press officer of RTÉ lyric fm, to discover if there were any plans for
further movie-related concerts. Nothing definite, she replied, though she
intended to pursue a suggestion put to her this evening that a certain
well-known Continental composer might be persuaded to do his thing at the NCH
in the near future – provided, of course, that the sky does not fall on his
aged head in the meantime and that Paris
is not burning . . .
Click here to listen to a podcast of the concert
George Carlin, who transformed himself from a mild-mannered stand up comic who entertained family audiences to an icon of the counter-culture, has died from heart failure at age 71. Carlin, who freely admitted abusing drugs and alcohol in his younger days, remained one of America's most popular comics and was working steadily in both live venues and on TV specials. Considered by many to be the natural heir to Lenny Bruce, Carlin entered headlines in the 1970s by pushing the envelope in terms of censorship and free speech. His "Seven Words" you can't say on TV or radio became a prime topic of conversation - especially after Carlin was arrested for saying them all in rapid succession at a live gig that saw him charged with "disturbing the peace." The charge was dropped, but it cemented Carlin's status as one of America's hippest social commentators. For this committed atheist, organized religion was also a favorite topic with routines aimed at mocking the every aspect of church dogma. Although his left-wing political views generally made conservative elected officials the target of his routines, Carlin also was noted for his non-controversial "slice-of-life" observations such as, "Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?Are they afraid
someone will clean them?" Carlin also dabbled in movie roles appearing in such films as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Car Wash and several films for director Kevin Smith, which kept his profile high among the college crowd. Ironically, he made his feature film debut opposite Doris Day in the 1968 comedy With Six You Get Eggroll. For more click here
Click here to watch George Carlin with Johnny Carson in 1972 Click here to watch Carlin's Seven Words rift
The superb web site www.potamediaarchive.com is a treasure trove of resources for Planet of the Apes fans, providing rare poster images and video clips pertaining to the series. These include The Simpsons spoof, an appearance by Roddy McDowall (in full Cornelius makeup) on The Carol Burnett Show and the original Fox production featurette from 1968. To view the latter click here
The world of video spoofs continues to thrive on YouTube...this one tells of how a blaxploitation movie might have inspired Barack Obama to enter the world of politics! Click here to watch Black Dynamite is a forthcoming new blaxploitation film done in the style of the cult classics from the 1970s. The trailer is superb, capturing the look and feel of the era with uncanny precision. It's all here: jive talk, kung fu fights, corrupt cops, and a seemingly endless supply of big busted chicks (white and black) who want to get it on with Mr. Dynamite. Click here to view trailer. Keep watching this site for info about the release date.
Hopping on the Get Smart bandwagon, Sony has released "the complete series" on DVD. You may be wondering why all the episodes appear on one disc: it's because this is the 1995 version of the show that lasted a whopping seven episodes before being cancelled. The classic 1960s series had a checkered history in terms of reunion movies. In 1980, Universal released the big screen feature film The Nude Bomb, which boasted only one saving grace: the fact that the movie starred Don Adams. Missing in action was Barbara Feldon (who must have actually read the script) and Edward Platt, who had already passed away. The film had a few laughs, but was done on the cheap and became reviled for using its extended climatic sequence as a thinly-veiled promotional film for Universal Studio tours. It also inexplicably didn't include Get Smart in the title, leading to dismal box-office results. In 1989, Adams reunited with Feldon for the TV movie Get Smart Again (aka The Return of Maxwell Smart). This film captured the charm and wit of the original series and is largely respected by fans. However, in 1995, the fledgling Fox network had the bright idea of bringing the show back on a weekly basis. From the start, however, virtually every possible miscalculation was made. Although the publicity played up the fact that Adams and Feldon would be reunited in the series, the old prejudice against actors over the age of 40 came into play. Adams' Maxwell Smart (now promoted to Chief of CONTROL) was relegated to brief scenes and Feldon (whose Agent 99 is now a congresswoman) had mostly blink-and-you'll-miss-her appearances. Adding to fan's frustrations was the fact that both of these legendary TV stars looked terrific and their timing and chemistry was as good as ever. Yet, in the relentless quest to appeal to a more youthful audience, the scripts largely centered on two characters who viewers had never met before: Max and 99's bumbling son Zach (Andy Dick) and his glamorous partner Agent 66 (Elaine Hendrix). The result was a disaster of Irwin Allen proportions. Without any affection or background given to these characters, audiences could not relate to them. The concept of believing that charisma is transferrable from one character to another simply because the audience is told they are related, has long been discredited. (Even Son of Kong couldn't approach the charisma of his old man.) Dick's Zachary Smart follows in the footsteps of his father, but the results are uniformly lame - though in fairness, the laughless scripts don't help much. Dick plays Zach in a flamboyant, prissy manner that might have had some value if the series had the courage to present him as the first openly gay action hero. Instead, the scriptwriters punt and actually present him as a ladies' man, the least convincing casting since Liberace was seen as a hearthrob in Sincerely Yours. Elaine Hendrix, cast as his partner Agent 66, is undeniably gorgeous, but the character is poorly written and presented as a self-obessed snob - the antithesis of Barbara Feldon's 99. In the first episode, the old plot device of the reluctant team mates is dragged out when Max pairs his son with Agent 66. To no one's surprise, they learn to like and respect each other, but the series enters the realm of science fiction when Agent 66 begins to find the foppish Zach an irresistable catch. This allows the scripts to introduce the kind of wince-inducing dirty jokes that the original series never had to rely on. The series also suffers from its ultra cheap production values beginning with the cheesy opening credits. (The entrance to CONTROL is through a car wash and the phone booth has been replaced by a soda machine!). There are no exteriors and the sets appear to have been imported from a local high school play. The show does benefit from its talented cast, though one can only be saddened by the demise of the once talented Andy Dick, who has spent the last decade living up to his surname through a series of endless personal scandals and boorish public behavior. Elaine Hendrix has looks and charisma, but her character is completely repellant. The brief pairings of Don Adams and Barbara Feldon only leaves viewers frustrated by what could have been. In the course of suffering through the seven episodes, I laughed precisely twice through two sequences that manage to recapture the spirit of the original show. In one episode, a Robert Goulet impersonator (played by Goulet himself) amends his song lyrics to warn Max of imminent danger. Max becomes charmed by the song and ends up tapping his feet, oblivious to the obvious warning. In another episode, the character of KAOS mastermind Siegfried (Bernie Koppel) is resurrected to match wits (!) with Max, and the result is the kind of wonderful banter that was a hallmark of the original series. Yet, for all of the above criticisms, this edition will be a "must have" for spy movie fans who will want to add this to their collections as a historical curiosity. There are no extras except for the inclusion of two "minisodes", which are five minute condensations of TV episodes (we're not joking). The first is an episode of NewsRadio and the other is (inexplicably) T.J. Hooker which recalls a time when William Shatner could still credibly fit into a police uniform. The shows are part of a web site that allows viewers to see a wealth of series episodes all reduced to five minutes - including complete opening and closing credits. Apparently, the intended market for these is an audience who finds Classic Comic adaptations and movie trailers too mentally taxing to understand. In any event, the way TV episodes are being routinely butchered in the syndication market, these might emerge as the most extensive representations of these shows on broadcast television- Lee Pfeiffer To order the Get Smart DVD from Amazon click here Click here to order The Nude Bomb DVD
When we think of the typical Star Wars geek, we generally envision some middle-aged, overweight guy in a three-sizes-too-small T shirt who still lives in his mother's basement. Well, if this is who he's hanging out with in mom's basement, we might be tempted to move back home ourselves! The good folks at www.themovieblog.com were kind enough to post this photo of unknown origin. Suffice it to say it gives a whole new meaning to the concept of "good head". Gentlemen, please tuck your light sabres away...
Cyd Charisse, the acclaimed actress and dancer who made movie history opposite Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, died Tuesday at age 86. Charisse was one of the major names from Hollywood's Golden Era, starring in such classics as Singin' in the Rain, The Bandwagon, Silk Stockings and It's Always Fair Weather. In recent years, Charisse also created her own fitness videos for senior citizens. Spy movie fans will always remember her memorable striptease to the opening credits of the Dean Martin Matt Helm movie The Silencers. For Variety's tribute to this legendary star, click here
By Tim McGlynn I hide it from my family, co-workers and friends, although
I’m sure they suspect. I indulge only in
secret within the confines of a darkened room late at night. The sleeplessness and bloodshot eyes in the
morning are the tell-tale signs that something is wrong. I am hopelessly hooked and there is no
possibility of recovery or reform. I am
a DVD pause-button junkie.
There are two kinds of pause-button addicts, each with their
own agenda and needs. The first is the
type who dissects action scenes in a movie looking for flaws. I know one of these geeks, Zippy the
Zit-Faced Kid. Zippy can’t wait to buy a
new DVD of a recent action film and freeze-frame his way through a car chase or
battle scene. He eagerly looks for
continuity mistakes he can report to the goofs section of the Internet Movie
Database.
Zippy, and those like him, may be the ones responsible for
the heavy reliance on CGI effects in films today. Directors and editors, sure
that their work will be put under the microscope by legions of fault finders
with their DVRs and DVD players, take the safe route with computer generated
perfection. Their efforts result in explosive
special effects that somehow don’t provide us with the “wow†factor the way the
old masters did in the Sixties and Seventies.
I, on the other hand, have purer intentions. I want to appreciate the artistic skills that
went into creating a set piece during an action-adventure film. I admire the craftsmanship of the model makers,
process photographers and stunt people involved in the production of a
science-fiction or action classic. In
other words, I just want to see that exploding head, bloody squib or bare
breast a little clearer. I pause to
enjoy, not to destroy.
Listed below, in no particular order, is a small sampling of
favorite freeze-frame moments from my personal DVD library. Zippy wouldn’t bother with any of these films;
they were all made before he was born.
The Thing From
Another World – 1951
As the vegetable-like alien, played by James Arness,
continues to threaten the scientists at the North Pole, Kenneth Tobey and his
crew decide to set the creature on fire.
The monster enters the room and is doused in kerosene and set
aflame. Slow-motion playback reveals a
terribly dangerous sequence as several stuntmen take turns throwing buckets of
fuel at the burning monster. One pail of
kerosene is hurled at the Thing as another cast member stands directly behind
it, seemingly in the path of the flaming liquid.
Common sense tells that me that this scene was thoroughly
planned and rehearsed with safety in mind.
But it still looks incredibly risky.
Dr. No. – 1962
Any James Bond movie will provide several pause-button
worthy moments in the flashy title sequences.
Those silhouetted models during Maurice Binder’s montages were barely
covered up by precise placement of the titles.
In this film, Sean Connery and Ursula Andress shower in a de-contamination
chamber after exposure to radiation.
After a towel is handed to Ms. Andress, it appears that we get a glimpse
of more than we should see. Closer
inspection with the pause feature reveals that, alas, it is merely a
skin-colored bikini top. Not to despair Bond fans.
A careful viewing of the love scene between Connery and Jill St. John in
Diamonds are Forever does provide a
fleeting glance of Ms. St. John in the altogether.
The Exorcist – 1974
William Freidkin’s tale of demonic possession includes
graphic scenes worthy of closer examination including the projectile vomiting
effect, Linda Blair’s rotating head and the infamous crucifix sequence. My favorite pause-button moments, however, are
the near-subliminal images inserted into key scenes involving Father Karras,
played by Jason Miller. In the theater
the viewers realize they have seen something hideous, but they are unable to
identify it. Freezing the film reveals a
truly terrifying shot of a demon. Friedkin
also used this technique in his 1980 thriller Cruising, and director David Fincher utilized flash images in
1999’s Fight Club.
The Gauntlet – 1977
As Clint Eastwood attempts to escort mob witness Sondra
Locke from Las Vegas to Phoenix, several attempts are made on their
lives. In one scene, an ambulance driver
jumps into a rented car to start it up for the fleeing pair. A loud explosion destroys the auto and the
helpless paramedic trapped inside. The
pause button reveals a realistic dummy in the driver seat that bounces around
from the force of the blast. Car bombs
in the movies always have a generic quality and this effect demonstrates how
truly violent they can be.
Papillion – 1973
While Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman are imprisoned at Devils Island,
a condemned man is led to the guillotine for execution. As the camera looks up at the giant blade,
the prisoner’s head is also visible. Movie
goers were probably thinking director Franklin J. Schaffner and editor Robert
Swink would cut away at the last second, before the falling blade struck the
man’s neck. In a beautiful example of
cinematic sleight of hand, the shot changes and a prosthetic head is
inserted. By keeping our attention
focused on that blade, the filmmakers startled audiences when the head was
chopped off and blood appeared to cover the lens.
As with all of the examples included in this list, the pause
button is used to admire the filmmakers’ technique, not to spoil the effect.
War of the Worlds –
1953
Byron Haskin’s version of The War of the Worlds, produced by George Pal, scared the daylights
out of me when I was young. After my
first viewing on television at the age of nine, I was under the sheets hiding
from those deadly Martian machines.
This film, along with The
Thing From Another World, was among the first to feature a full-body fire
stunt and the result was terrifying. As
troops come under fire from the deadly heat ray, stuntman Mushy Callahan dances
across the screen completely engulfed in flames. Standing right in front of him is another
soldier, totally oblivious, stomping out a burning piece of paper. Maybe it was
a classified document they wanted to keep away from the alien invaders.
As I overcame my fear of Martians and flaming stuntmen, The War of the Worlds became a
treasured classic in my DVD collection.
A Star is Born – 1976
In this remake of a remake, Barbra Streisand and Kris
Kristofferson, both playing pop singers, share a romantic interlude. As the camera gracefully circles the lovers,
Ms. Streisand’s blouse is lifted over her head and falls away. We are prevented from seeing any real nudity
by clever camera work, subdued lighting and the precise placement of the
actors’ arms. Undoubtedly this scene had
to be rehearsed several times to get the timing just right. In today’s films a little CGI airbrushing can
remove any unwanted body parts.
The Hunting Party –
1971
A violent western obviously influenced by the graphic
gunplay in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild
Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the
Kid. Don Medford’s film features a
nasty rancher, played by Gene Hackman, who tracks down and executes the kidnappers
who have taken his wife. In one of the
bloody ambush scenes we are not only treated to slow-motion squib hits, we see
a bare-chested cowboy take a high-powered rifle shot to the abdomen. Further review with the pause-button reveals
a chilling effect featuring prosthetics and make-up.
The Fury – 1977
And finally, we come to Brian DePalma’s psychic thriller, The Fury. John Cassavetes, as John Childress, is the
villain who plans to harvest the telekinetic powers of Andrew Stevens and Amy
Irving for military use. As with all
cinematic evil doers, he who lives by the sword must perish by it. Childress literally explodes in a tense confrontation
with Irving utilizing
slow-motion photography, multiple camera angles and flying body parts in an orgasmic
finale of total revenge. Rick Baker’s
prosthetic work is outstanding, as always, and the effect is startling. Some have criticized this scene as indulgent
overkill by De Palma, but I believe it is beautifully shot and edited. I have found myself uncontrollably pressing
the repeat button on my DVR to watch the scene over and over, mesmerized by this
Grand Guignol imagery.
While Zippy and his
legion of hypercritics might not agree, I find this old-fashioned style of
filmmaking more visceral and exciting.
Computer generated effects are nothing short of amazing when employed in
limited quantities -but when movies
become wall-to-wall digital tapestries, they lose the “wow†factor and we stop
wondering how they did it. (Tim McGlynn is the author of the recently published book Now Playing at a Theater Near Me.)
THE JIMMY STEWART TRIBUTE AT THE
MOTION PICTURE ACADEMYÂ
JUNE 12,
2008
by Mike Thomas
“When you get someone like Jimmy
Stewart, who’s a director’s dream, you don’t really direct an actor like Jimmy.
You just stand back and watch him do his thing.â€Â - Frank
Capra
The Academy of Motion Pictures is having a great
year celebrating anniversaries - the 100th birthday of Bette Davis, the 40th
anniversary of “2001†and last night, a centennial tribute to Jimmy Stewart, the
man Cary Grant once called the most influential actor of his
generation.
The first Academy Awards I ever attended was in
1985 and it was quite an event, one of the last hurrahs of the Golden Age of
Hollywood. Cary Grant, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, David Lean mingled
alongside such talented whippersnappers as Steven Spielberg, Jeff Bridges,
Jessica Lange and a hooded Prince, draped in purple, of course. That Oscarcast
is probably best remembered for Sally Field’s “You like me, you really like
me!,†acceptance speech but the thing that stands out in my mind was the
honorary Oscar awarded to Jimmy Stewart by Cary Grant.
Now, Cary Grant was one of the greatest stars in
Hollywood history, but one of the most underrated actors in history because he
made it look so easy. Yet, as one who attended several of his “An Evening with
Cary Grant,†one man shows, Grant confessed he worked like the devil to make all
his hard work seem effortless. He would talk about the myriad details that would
go into even the simplest shot - how an actor needed to focus on such things as
the camera’s placement in relation to the actors’ eyeline, for example, the
positioning of the actors, the physical blocking of a scene, making sure that
the actor is in focus within the frame while all the time trying to deliver the
lines naturally as if for the first time. Grant was a master at this, of course,
but that night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion he paid tribute to a man he
considered to be the defining actor of his generation - James
Stewart.
Grant recalled making “The Philadelphia Storyâ€
with Stewart and spoke of the legendary scene where the two of them discuss the
spoiled heiress Katharine Hepburn’s Tracy, the former wife of Grant and the
current heartthrob of Stewart. Stewart’s character was drunk in the scene, and I
can still recall Grant’s amazement at how inventive Jimmy Stewart was in the
scene. There is a moment when Stewart improvised a burp, and Grant, just as fast
as his fellow actor, ad-libbed the response, “Excuse me,†and then almost ruins
the take by laughing out loud at Stewart’s original ad-lib. He doesn’t, of
course, but when watching the clip at the Academy tribute, the joy of watching
those two in the scene was analogous to hearing two jazz greats riffing back and
forth - Stewart’s improvisations and Cary Grant, stifling a smile, in amazement
at his fellow actor’s improvisatory skills. Grant made the point that long
before Marlon Brando came along with his revolutionary “naturalism†Jimmy
Stewart had been there, done that. And as the masterfully chosen film clips
amply demonstrated, Jimmy Stewart was the master of his invisible craft, nobody
ever caught him acting, he simply was.
Long-time friend Robert Wagner smoothly emceed the
event and one of the most entertaining interviews he conducted was with Shirley
Jones, who did two westerns with Jimmy Stewart. She recounted an incident when
she forgot her lines and he said to her, “Wallll, now, uh, Shirley, you don’t
need to uh, worry about that. You just need to talk to me!†And perhaps,
in that simple, illuminating phrase, is the key to Jimmy Stewart’s genius. In
his movies, he was simply one human being talking to another and that’s why they
are so effective and timeless.
And a perfect example of that was to be found in
John Ford’s “Two Ride Together,†an uninspired re-working of Ford’s “The
Searchersâ€Â that contains one moment of pure transcendence. Sheriff Stewart and
Army captain Richard Widmark, in pursuit of Indians who have kidnapped some
white settlers pause at a river to have a moment that has nothing to do with
exposition but is the most memorable scene in the film. These two old pros, the
camera facing them head-on without a single cut during the duration of the
scene, simply talk to one another for five minutes. It was the kind of thing
that Orson Welles and Jean-Luc Godard were always being hailed for but there
were two old hands in a forgettable western doing that same kind of
revolutionary long take without fuss or bother, just trying to put some life
into a scene, as simple as that. The actors hardly even bother to look at each
other as Widmark unties his scarf and dips in the river while Stewart does some
funny business lighting a cigar as the two men talk about women problems, money
problems, with Widmark mooching a cigar from Stewart; and it is the most natural
and relaxed piece of acting you’ll ever see. As Miss Jones later confirmed, the
scene wasn’t improvised, it just seems that way on the screen.
And credit must be paid to Frank Capra, who saw
something in that lanky MGM contract player and gave him two of his greatest
early roles - the idealistic senator in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington†and the
suicidal George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.†What can one say about “Mr.
Smith� It is a film and a performance that is so much a part of the American
consciousness that it seems like it has existed from the very founding of the
country. And no less a critic than Orson Welles has praised Stewart’s
performance as being beyond praise. To see him alone on the Senate floor, his
voice gone, sleep deprived, beaten by the corrupt Taylor machine, is to have
your broken - no, shattered into a thousand piece - in a performance that Orson
Welles once said was beyond all praise.And in “It’s a Wonderful Life,†the most unlikely
Christmas perennial imaginable, the darkness of suicide that hangs over the film
allowed Stewart to tap uncharted emotions for the role of George Bailey. Only
Capra could have pulled off such an audacious film and yet even he wasn't sure
how he did it. “There’s something in that movie that I didn’t put in, it has a
life of it’s own.†I submit that the unexplained something of which Mr. Capra
spoke, was none other than the towering performance of James Maitland
Stewart.
The early clips of Jimmy Stewart in his salad days
show that his gift was there, even at the beginning, if not quite fully formed.
Although his warbling of “Easy to Love†might not hint at future greatness (“Why
did Cole Porter have to make it so damn high?†Stewart reputedly asked), in his
supporting role as the All-American boy who commits murder in “After the Thin
Man†we see hints of that dark side that Frank Capra, Anthony Mann and Alfred
Hitchcock would so successfully. Capra and Hitchcock were the first two
directors who understood that by having having Jimmy Stewart the Everyman crack
up, it was far more dramatic and terrifying. The crazed look in his eyes when he
contemplates suicide in “It’s a Wonderful Life,†or the obsessive gaze when Kim
Novak reveals herself transformed as his dead love in “Vertigo†are so
disturbing not just because of the brilliance of his acting but also because, if
Jimmy Stewart can go crazy, what hope is there for the rest of us? That dark
side was also put to great use by director Anthony Mann, who brought a
Shakespearean sensibility to his Westerns with Stewart which invariably centered
on obsessive vengeance.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Stewart in 1986
at the AFI Awards for Billy Wilder and we talked about what I consider his two
greatest performances, “Vertigo†and “It’s a Wonderful Life.†He pointed out
that the stories for both those films were, shall we say, a tad far-fetched, so
maybe he had to work a little harder to pull them off. While talking to the man,
listening to him analyze the seemingly disparate characters of George Bailey and
Scotty Ferguson I realized this was a man of this was a person with a razor
sharp intellect, the bumbling guy reciting poetry on “The Tonight Show†may have
been a part of him, too, but as he stood there on the floor of the Beverly
Hilton talking about Hitchcock and Capra, I nearly trembled in awe of his keen
insights and the revealing glimpses into his strategies as a performer. He may
have tried to pretend like acting was something he effortlessly pulled off but
there was far greater effort than he ever let on. But then the greats always
make it look easy.
Peter Bogdanovich, a fine director, pioneering
film historian and gifted mimic opened the evening with several spot on
impressions of Stewart and afterwards was overheard telling Jimmy’s daughter
Kelly that he’d seen her dad in London onstage in “Harvey†and it was one of the
greatest stage performances he’d ever seen. Apparently, Stewart felt his film
performance was lacking something and yet I’d be hard pressed to find anything
wrong with it. I always thought his Elwood P. Dowd was less a dipsomaniac than a
wonderful romantic, a dreamer of great things stuck in a small, petty town that
could not appreciate the grandeur of his visions. It was a role not unlike
George Bailey, another small-town dreamer of great things, and if “Harveyâ€
didn’t mine the tragic depths of “It’s a Wonderful Life,†it had its own gentle
charms  as well as an underlying sense of the quiet desperation that lies
beneath the surface of broken dreams.Â
On behalf of all of those whose reality may have
fallen short of their dreams, Jimmy Stewart took his dreams and made them ours
as well, that was his gift to the world, and in the process he became the finest
actor in the history of motion pictures.
                         Â
                Â
Legendary special effects genius Stan Winston, the man who brought dinosaurs to life in Jurassic Park, has died at age 62. Still very immersed in creating new state of the art imagery for motion pictures, Winston's death has shocked his friends and colleagues despite the fact that he had been fighting multiple myeloma. "The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends with the death Sunday night of Stan Winston," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
said in a statement. "Stan's work and four Oscars speak for themselves
and will live on forever. What will live forever in my heart is the way
that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were
family." Winston was also known for his special effects work on Terminator 2, Aliens, Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns. For more click here
Hollywood studios have come to the conclusion that Cinema Retro arrived at years ago: there are precious few stars left in the world who are worth their inflated salaries. Unlike the past, where audiences went to see a movie because Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne starred in it, today's hits are largely franchise-driven and are often derived from comic books and other pop culture sources. If a major star appears in them, that's well and good, but they are not generally the major reason for a film's success. There are still some actors (but no actresses, in our opinion) who can earn their keep but their ranks are rapidly dwindling. Thus, the studios are making stars share the risk on future projects. Jim Carrey had to defer his $25 million salary for his next picture, but will gain a large share of the revenue after the studio recoups its costs. Similarly, second-tier actors are seeing salaries cut from $1 million to $100,000. If actors fail to comply, they are finding their films cancelled as studios try to control soaring production budgets. To read Variety's full report, click here
Hundreds of fans attended last night's big screen showing of the 1968 sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes at the Loew's Theater in Jersey City, New Jersey, making for a memorable evening. The show was preceded by a wonderful recital on the theater's magnificent organ and there were displays of original Ape movie memorabilia and collectibles. Best of all, Twentieth Century Fox provided a superb archival print for the screening, making for an extraordinary evening of entertainment. Cinema Retro Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer introduced the film and gave some insights into its production. He also had Fox's permission to reveal a few details about a new DVD project that Cinema Retro is contributing to: a forthcoming 40th anniversary Blu-ray release of the Ape films that will included extensive extras (the details of which are not being revealed at this time). However, they will be of the "everything but the kitchen sink variety". Pfeiffer also informed the audience that he and co-publisher Dave Worrall are writing a hardcover book about the history of the series that will be included in the deluxe box set release. This is the second book Cinema Retro has worked with the studio on, the first being The Great Fox War Movies which covered the making of The Longest Day, Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora! Keep tuning in to the Cinema Retro web site for any official forthcoming press releases.
Entertainment Weekly writer Chris Nashawaty has an amusing- and sadly - all too accurate essay on how the deluge of codpiece-wearing superheroes has diluted the enjoyment of summer movie fun. There was a time when the occasional comic-based movie was a welcome respite from traditional screen fare. Now every studio is dusting off any possible comic book character to star in their own mega-budget action flick. Can Batman vs. Jughead be far behind? To read click here
John Wayne made several appearances on TV with Lucille Ball. There was the legendary episode of I Love Lucy in which the daffy redhead stole his footprint from Graumann's Chinese Theater, then there was a return guest-starring stint by the Duke in the mid-1960s on The Lucy Show in which he experiences a relaxing lunch that turns to distaster - courtesy of Miss Ball. To view click here.
Reels of home movies taken by an extra on the set of director John Huston's The Misfits has surfaced and will be up for auction. The color film footage is silent and shows the stars relaxing between scenes and chatting with other crew members. The films will be of priceless value to Monroe historians. The movie was the last film for both screen legends. Gable died right after filming was complete and Monroe committed suicide after being fired from her follow up production, Something's Got to Give. The footage will be auctioned by Julien's on June 21. To read more and view footage click here
In 1959, underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger blew the lid off the gossip industry with his book Hollywood Babylon. Not only did Anger tear off the veil covering the true stories behind celebrity scandals, he generously illustrated his book with rare photos of the crime scenes, showing celebs either in the process of being arrested or how they were discovered after committing suicide. The book rocked the film industry and all of a sudden a bad word in Walter Winchell's column no longer seemed scandalous. The book was reprinted many times over the years and remains a "must-have" in any film fan's library. Anger, whose gay-themed films caused scandals in their day, eventually wrote a sequel to the book in the 1970s and had planned to put out a third version of the book. He never got around to it and now authors Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince have decided to do it for him with a volume titled Hollywood Babylon: It's Back! which brings readers up to date on more recent scandals involving contemporary stars. Upon getting word of the new book, Kenneth Anger, who is terminally ill with cancer, was said to be so livid that he allegedly placed a curse on the authors. We'll take that one with a grain of salt, as it seems to be based on Anger's friendship with departed Satanic cult leader Anton LaVey. Nevertheless, the new book seems to carry on the spirit of Anger's original by giving the film industry the ultimate bitch-slap with stories that explore whether Lucille Ball was a hooker and alleging that Ava Gardner was addicted to visiting bordellos. (Lucky working girls!) The publishers say the book's 1000 photos don't stint on both full male and female nudity - so, hey, there's something for everyone in the family! Don't forget, Father's Day is almost here and ol' dad would surely like this book more than that case of oil you were going to get him to keep his chainsaw lubed. Click here for more Click here to order the new version of the book from Cinema Retro's Amazon store Click here to order Kenneth Anger's original book
Italian director Dino Risi died in Rome yesterday at age 91. One of the nation's most respected post-WWII directors, Risi made many popular films including the 1974 movie that was later remade in English as Scent of a Woman- for which Al Pacino won an Oscar. For more click here
Reporter Geoff Boucher has an extraordinary interview with Clint Eastwood in the Los Angeles Times in which the iconic star reminisces about Dirty Harry and reflects on how the character was received in the 1970s and how he would be received today. Seeming to put the nail in any remaining rumors he might revise the franchise, Eastwood jokes about the scenario saying, "Harry is retired.
He's standing in a stream, fly-fishing. He gets tired of using the pole
— and BA-BOOM! Or Harry is retired and he chases bad guys with his
walker? Maybe he owns a tavern. These guys come in and they won't pay
their tab, so Harry reaches below the bar. Hey, guys, the next shot's
on me ..." To read click here Click here for another extensive Eastwood interview in the Guardian newspaper of London in which Eastwood takes on Spike Lee and calls the rumors of his return as Dirty Harry the work of "some idiot".
For more on the new Dirty Harry DVD Collection click here
The U.S. Postal Service long ago eschewed honoring real American heroes in favor of "reel" heroes in order to sell more stamps. Thus, while it took decades of petitioning to get the most honored American soldier in history, Audie Murphy, his own second-rank stamp issued, it was smooth sailing for The Wolf Man, Dracula and Looney Toons characters. Not to be outdone, Britain's Royal Mail has gotten into the entertainment business. The service recently issued Ian Fleming/James Bond stamps and has now released commemorative editions of the Hammer horror and Carry On films. The shrewd idea is that many collectors will purchase the stamps but not use them. (Would grandma really like getting her Christmas card with a photo of Christopher Lee sucking a chick's neck?) For more info, visit the Royal Mail site by clicking here
The classic I Spy TV series starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby has been reissued as DVD sets with new extras. The landmark series ran between 1965-1968 and offered audiences Cosby as the first black hero on American TV. If you haven't seen the show recently, it has held up very well indeed. Writer Troy Patterson of Slate takes a look at the heritage of the show as well as the new video release. To read click here
To buy I Spy and other spy DVDs and books visit the Cinema Retro Amazon Spy Store by clicking here
Universal executives are trying to calm fears that the loss of a film storage facility at the studio during last Sunday's fire has not imperiled master prints of films or TV series. Some of the prints have been salvaged from the fire, but no inventory has yet been done to identify the titles. The studio says that master prints of all the titles are safe and sound, but admitted that much of their archival print library was destroyed. Although new prints can technically be struck from the existing masters, it requires a great deal of time and expense. Film preservationists and historians fear that the studio will only strike new prints of those titles they feel merit the investment. If their fears prove correct, it could result in a massive loss of available prints to revival cinemas. For more click here
EMPIRE ON-LINE HAS A FASCINATING PHOTO ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF INDIANA JONES COLLECTIBLES. WE CAN LIVE WITH THE INDY MR. POTATO HEAD AND MINI VINYL BLOW-UP DOLLS, BUT DID THEY REALLY MARKET A BULL WHIP TO KIDS??? WE'LL BET SALES FOR THAT SKYROCKETED IN GREENWICH VILLAGE, THOUGH IT'S DOUBTFUL MANY MADE IT INTO THE HANDS OF CHILDREN. TO READ CLICK HERE
For years, major studios virtually ingnored classic TV series, releasing only a handful on VHS and in the early days of DVD. Now, however, classic series are all the rage. Studios have released most of the major series as complete collections, or season-by-season on DVD. Now they are mining another way of milking profits from old shows by making thousands of episodes available for downloading on home computers. Viewers pay a small fee to watch each show. For a New York Times report on the new strategy, click here
Mel Ferrer, the multi-talented actor, producer and director who was once wed to Audrey Hepburn, has died at age 90. Ferrer directed Hepburn in Green Mansions and produced her 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark for which she received an Oscar nomination. Ferrer also starred in War and Peace, Lili, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, The Longest Day, The Fall of the Roman Empire and the John Wayne thriller Brannigan. Click here for more details.
For more about Mel Ferrer's career, visit his fan web site by clicking here
We recently received a review copy of a new book with a clever title that immediately caught our eye: Now Playing at a Theater Near Me. The book is author Tim McGlynn's debut effort and it's sure to have great appeal to anyone who loves movies of the 1970s. McGlynn has fashioned a fast-moving, witty work of fiction based on his upbringing in small town America and how the movies of this era influenced his life. The plot consists of all fact-based incidents with the names changed to protect the goofy. McGlynn recounts coming-of-age stories all tied in with film-related anecdotes including a real life debacle that occurred in high school when he and his friends attempted to film a tribute to Dog Day Afternoon that ends rather disastrously. Mixed into the yarn are insightful recollections and critiques of films ranging from The Laughing Policeman to The Exorcist. McGlynn also amusingly recalls the frustration of the pre-home video era in which long-suffering fans had to enure the cruel and often ridiculous censoring of their favorite films when they premiered on network TV. (He still carries an understandable grudge about how ABC butchered John Wayne's The Cowboys!). Best of all, however, McGlynn captures the charm of movie-going in a small town environment. Anyone with fond memories of such experiences should read this book. Hopefully, there's a sequel in the works. - Lee Pfeiffer
Click here to order this book from Amazon
London's Guardian web site has an interview with Nancy Sinatra in which she discusses Frank Sinatra, meeting Elvis Presley for the first time, riding motorcycles with veterans in the annual pilgrimage to Washington D.C. (and meeting President Bush), as well as her new album. The Guardian describes her as a sex kitten with claws. Who's to argue? To read click here
The famed Courthouse Square set seen in films as diverse as To Kill a Mockingbird, Back to the Future and Clint Eastwood's forthcoming film The Exchange (aka Changeling) was among the property destroyed in Sunday's fire at Universal Studios in Hollywood. A vault containing over 40,000 films and videos was also destroyed, but contrary to initial reports, the inventory consisted of back-up copies, not the originals. For latest updates click here
CINEMA RETRO COLUMNIST TOM LISANTI RELIVES THE MIXED PLEASURES OF ELVIS PRESLEY'S 1965 HIT GIRL HAPPY Elvis Presley (Rusty
Wells), Shelley Fabares (Valerie),
Harold J. Stone (Big Frank), Gary
Crosby (Andy), Joby Baker (Wilbur), Nita Talbot (Sunny Daze), Mary Ann Mobley (Deena), Fabrizio Mioni (Romano), Jimmy Hawkins (Doc), Jackie Coogan (Sergeant Benson), Peter Brooks (Brentwood Von Durgenfeld), John Fielder
(Mr. Penchill), Chris Noel (Betsy), Lyn Edgington (Laurie), Gail Gilmore (Nancy), Pamela Curran (Bobbie), Rusty Allen (Linda), George Cisar (Bartender at the Kit Kat Club), Nancy
Czar (Blonde on the Beach), Jim
Dawson (Muscle Boy), Mike De Anda (Burt), Darren Dublin (Driver), Tommy Farrell (Louie), Ted Fish (Garbage Man), Milton Frome (Police
Captain), Norman Grabowski (‘Wolf
Call’ O’Brien), Dan Haggerty (Charlie),
Alan Hanley (Waiter #1), Ralph Lee (Officer Jones), Richard Reeves (Officer Wilkins), Olan Soule (Waiter #2). Not credited: Lori Williams, Beverly Adams,
Theresa Cooper, Stasa Damascus, Hank Jones, Kent McCord, Julie Payne (College Boys and Girls).
Continuing with my Sixties Hollywood surf movie survey, it
seems everyone tried to cash in on AIP’s Beach
Party during 1964-1966 even Elvis Presley who starred in the Spring Break
musical, Girl Happy.
Produced by Joe Pasternak for MGM, Girl Happy was a combination of the studio’s Where the Boys Are and Beach
Party. Elvis along with his band
members Joby Baker, Gary Crosby, and Jimmy Hawkins are sent on spring break in Fort Lauderdale to
secretly chaperone coed Shelley Fabares, the daughter of tough club owner
Harold J. Stone, and other two nubile friends, Chris Noel and Lyn Edgington. Elvis thinks he hooks Fabares up with safe
bookworm Peter Brooks and can enjoy his time in the sun. But every time Elvis gets cozy with sultry
Mary Ann Mobley in a park or his hotel room, Fabares winds up in some sort of
predicament like getting drunk with amorous Italian playboy Fabrizio
Mioni. Elvis and his troupe have to abandon
their girls and rush to her rescue. Trying
not to make the trip a total disaster, Elvis volunteers to “court†Fabares to keep
her away from Mioni. Naturally, he falls
for Shelley but when she learns about his deal with her father, she gets plastered
again and does a striptease at a club, which leads to her arrest and a stint in
the big doll house. Elvis, of course,
comes to Shelley’s rescue and they both confess their love to each other. You didn’t expect it to end any other way now
did you?
Compared to the Frankie & Annette films of this genre, Girl Happy is severely landlocked. Despite the ad campaign, there aren’t many
scenes on the beach. In fact, Elvis is
seen on the seashore only briefly in a montage sequence and a nighttime
production number where he sings “Do the Clam†on a makeshift sand dune. On its own however Girl Happy is pleasant fare and one Elvis’ better post-Viva Las
Vegas movies despite its wafer-thin plot. Though filmed mainly on the back lot, the
colorful production is first rate, the action never lets up, and the film has
that glossy vibrant MGM sheen to it.
Director Boris Sagal keeps the story moving briskly and surrounds Elvis
with a perky, talented supporting cast including standouts Jimmy Hawkins as
naïve Doc and Mary Ann Mobley as a frustrated vixen. Presley seems comfortable with his role and
plays it breezily. He and Shelley
Fabares make a charming couple and have a few tender scenes together.
Though this is a supposed beach movie where the flesh should
be on display, Elvis, sporting a fit and trim physique, is never seen in shorts
or a bathing suit! The film features a
number of handsome actors all who remain covered up. Not so for the gals though as Girl Happy
lives up to its title. There is an array
of bikini-clad cuties on display from the leads Shelley Fabares and Mary Ann
Mobley to the featured performers Chris Noel and Lyn Edgington to bit players
Nancy Czar, a knockout in a leopard print bikini, and Gail Gilmore a.k.a Gail
Gerber.
The popular soundtrack is one of the King’s most varied and
best from this time period. From the
touching “Puppet on a String†to the swinging “Do the Clam†to the romantic “Do
Not Disturb†the songs help buoy the movie and make it fun for Elvis’ core
audience. But despite the enjoyable
soundtrack, Elvis at his mid-sixties peak, and a bevy of gorgeous bikini girls,
hardcore beach party fans may still want to skip this one. For everybody else, Girl Happy is available on DVD and can be ordered by clicking here.
-Tom Lisanti/www.sixtiescinema.com
Look for my new book Trippin’
with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember, A Memoir by Gail Gerber, with Tom Lisanti next spring
New York magazine film critic David Edelstein is the guest on Moviegeeks.com's one-hour discussion of the legend of Dirty Harry. The conversation offers some great memories and insights, though it takes a few minutes of listening before the main topic comes up - so stick with it. To listen, click here
Fox News has posted exclusive photos and video of the Universal Studios fire. Latest word is that a video vault has been destroyed, though the story does not specify exactly what materials may have been effected. Other sources say that up to 40,000 videos and reels have been lost. To view click here
Sir Roger Moore's highly anticipated autobiography, My Word is My Bond, is now available for pre-order from Amazon. The book will be released in IK in October and in the US in November. Here is the official description: "The quintessential suave hero, Roger Moore has had an extraordinary
career that has spanned seven decades, from early television to the
golden age of Hollywood and on to international superstardom. Dashing,
handsome and every inch the archetypal English gentleman, he is
unforgettable as The Saint, as Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders!
and, of course, as James Bond, making seven blockbusting films as
arguably the most debonair of the 007s. For the first time, Roger
shares his recollections of playing some of the world's most famous
roles alongside a host of legendary stars. With myriad stories from his
personal life - from his childhood in London and experiences during the
Second World War, to the happy and turbulent times in his later life.
Along with anecdotes about his encounters with the stars and his
wonderful memories from the heyday of Hollywood, "My Word is My Bond"
is as frank, funny and disarmingly charming as the legend himself." CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER FROM AMAZON UK AND SAVE OVER £6 CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER FROM AMAZON USA AND SAVE OVER $9 (Note: final cover art for the USA edition has not been finalized and may differ from image above)
Pardon the pun, but we're breaking "Wind" news. Frankly, my dears, the audience just didn't give a damn. As Cinema Retro predicted, director Trevor Nunn's musical stage version of Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone With the Wind will close June 14, the victim of weak ticket sales and reviews that were devastating. We never take pleasure in the failure of any production. It affects the lives and careers of many talented people who work hard to make a show succeed. But this one was a waste of time and money that could have been spent nurturing other shows, especially given the fact that a 1970s attempt to produce the novel as a big budget musical also flopped - in London, yet! So why would anyone think such a scenario would work this time? It's like launching a mega budget sequel to Howard the Duck. The producer, Aldo Scrofani said, "Plans for a New York production are currently on hold but in the
meantime we are pursuing various options that have been presented to us
from interested parties worldwide." Various options? Scrofani must be such a master of understatement and spin that he would describe General Sherman's march through Atlanta as a social call. He has a perfect future running the campaigns of presidential candidates. - Lee Pfeiffer For more click here
Here's a site you have to check out. Professional cartoonist and Disney artist Pete Emslie sent us a link to his wonderful tribute to two of the best second-bananas in show business: Harvey Korman and Dick Martin, both of whom passed away in recent weeks. The tribute includes videos of Korman's legendary dentist sketch with Tim Conway from The Carol Burnett Show, Korman and Slim Pickins in a clip from Blazing Saddles and Rowan and Martin Laugh-In segments that include appearances by Barbara Feldon, Milton Berle and 1968 presidential candidate Richard Nixon famously saying, "Sock it to me???" While you're on Pete's site, take a look through his amazing cartoons of show business legends. To view click here
|
|