Our London correspondent Adrian Smith meets film director and former Python Terry Gilliam. Gilliam was appearing at the BFI to discuss his career and his upcoming release The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus... Cinema Retro has seen footage and the film looks breath-taking. We can't say we're unhappy about the specific magazine that Terry chose to hold for the photo. He's obviously a man of good taste, as evidenced by his reading habits.
Cinema Retro London correspondent Adrian Smith gives us an advance view of the new Tarantino film.
By Adrian Smith
Back in 1995, I
thought Quentin Tarantino could do no wrong. After the quadruple whammy of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, True Romance
and Natural Born Killers, it seemed
as though he was just about the coolest man on the planet. He even polished the
Crimson Tide script, causing Denzel
Washington to wax lyrical about the Silver Surfer.
However, I managed
to miss Jackie Brown and had no
interest at all in the Kill Bills.
Earlier this year I finally tried Death
Proof, but gave up after half an hour out of sheer boredom. Perhaps I’d
outgrown Tarantino. His constant recycling of older, better movies and juvenile
glee in violence just weren’t for me any more.
Or so I thought.
This evening I
attended a preview of Inglourious
Basterds, as part of the Empire Movie-Con II, held at the BFI in London. No
doubt many of you are aware that there also exists an Italian war film from
1978 of the same name. QT has stated that he only used the title and basic idea
(essentially a re-working of The Dirty
Dozen), and the script was all original. The plot follows the exploits of a
group of American Jewish soldiers in Nazi-occupied France. As you are no doubt
expecting, in true QT style there is a lot of talk. A LOT of talk. The opening
scene is a conversation between two people which lasts twenty minutes. There is
a barroom scene featuring Nazi drinking games which easily lasts half an hour.
QT certainly likes his characters to chat. It was this propensity which I felt
killed Death Proof before it even got
going. Here however these scenes work brilliantly. This has to be down to the
fantastic performances, most notably from Brad Pitt as Lieutenant Aldo “the
Apache†Raine, and Christoph Waltz as his nemesis, the Colonel Hans Landa,
known as “The Jew Hunterâ€. Waltz in particular is a mesmerising actor. He
manages to turn what could have been a cardboard movie villain into a complex,
nuanced, basically human character, and also provides much of the film’s
humour. Did I mention it’s a comedy? There are scenes of action and violence,
but there is also a lot of comedy in this film. This is essentially an
irreverent take on the WWII film, and it is easy to see why it will upset many
people. It is another example of Hollywood
re-writing history to show that the American’s won the war. However I would
argue not to take it so seriously. The film begins with the caption “Once upon
a time…â€, and if you treat it as a fairy tale, albeit a gruesome, often
sadistic one, with more twists and turns than a roller coaster, you will find
yourself going with it.
Inglourious Basterds has certainly restored my faith in Tarantino as a
filmmaker. His personal video introduction this evening reminded me that he is
still quite twitchy and irritating, but he does deserve for this film to be a
success. In his version of events it is cinema itself that triumphs over evil,
and the closing line of the film is “I think this could be my masterpiece.†He
could be right.
In
1964 the BBC, as part of their regular “Wednesday Play†series, produced a 90-
minute drama based on the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944. John Carson
played Col. Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, now best known for being
played by Tom Cruise in Valkyrie. I’ve not seen that, so I can’t compare
them, although I imagine there are a vast number of differences. As a TV play,
as opposed to a filmed drama, this is quite stagey, with a limited number of
studio sets, and some filmed inserts. There is also an awful lot of talking.
However, it is still an excellent production, which benefitted not only from
some outstanding performances, but also a talented director in the German
Rudolph Cartier. He was incredibly experienced in British television, having shot
a number of well known shows including the original live The Quatermass
Experiment a decade earlier.
The
July Plot
is being screened at the BFI in two weeks as part of its “Missing, Believed
Wiped†segment. I was fortunate enough to be at a screening two weeks ago as
part of a John Carson tribute at the Cine Lumiere in London. John himself was
in attendance, and it was exciting to think that nobody, including him, had
seen it for over 40 years.
Rather
surprisingly, during the opening credits we follow von Stauffenberg and his
briefcase containing the bomb through the various levels of security until he
places it besides Hitler. We follow the action immediately afterwards, as his
co-conspirators wait for confirmation of Hitler’s death and begin to roll out
their plans for the takeover of the military and the police. It is tense stuff,
despite the fact that we know Hitler was no more than scratched, due to someone
else in the room moving the bomb behind a table leg. It is so frustrating to
think that this really happened. If this was a Hollywood movie the plot would
have worked and the war would have been over. The play rather poignantly
reminds the audience of how many more people died in that final year of the war
after von Stauffenberg and his comrades are caught and executed. It’s a
sobering thought, and leaves you feeling some of the frustration they no doubt
felt when they realised it was all over.
Cinema Retro London correspondent Adrian Smith with John Carson, star of The July Plot
You
can book tickets to see The July Plot
for yourself at the BFI Southbank in London on the 22nd August by clicking here.It’s highly recommended, and it can only be
hoped that following its rediscovery and restoration the BBC will make this
important piece of work available on DVD.
With the success of the Twilight books and movies and the hit HBO series True Blood,
vampires are all the rage these days. Former '60s actress, the still
beautiful Celeste Yarnall, will find time from promoting her new book Holistic Cat Care to be a special guest star at this year's Vampire's Confrom August 14-16th in Hollywood where they will screen her cult horror movie The Velvet Vampire
(1971). According to Celeste, the only known master print is part of
Quentin Tarantino's private collection and he is graciously lending it
for the occasion. Below Celeste remembers the making of the movie.
Â
In 1971's The Velvet Vampire (whose great tag line
proclaimed, "She’s waiting to love you--to death!") Celeste
plays the mysterious beauty Diana who after meeting married couple
Susan and Lee Ritter (Sherry Miles and Michael Blodgett) at an art
gallery lures them into staying the weekend at her Mojave Desert home.Â
Soon both husband and wife find themselves sexually drawn to their
mysterious host who suffers from a rare blood disease. Unlike vampires
of lore, Diana was able to journey out into the sunlight as long as she
is covered up. In the course of twenty-four hours, Diana feasts on a
mechanic, his girlfriend, and a servant. After making love with Diana,
Lee wants to depart but Susan is fascinated with the charming Diana and
wants to stay. Their delay in leaving costs Lee his life while Diana
meets her gruesome end at the hands of a cult hippie gang. "I dyed my
hair black for this role," says Celeste. "Though the part was a bit
corny, I got into playing a vampire. The film had an interesting
script by Charles S. Swartz, which explained Diana’s condition very
well. This was one of the first films released by Roger Corman’s new
production company [New World] and was more original than some of
Roger’s other films, which were rip-offs of other movies. I became
good friends with Roger and have a lot of respect for his talent."
Â
Celeste accepted the role of Diana despite the nude scenes ("I had
my daughter Cami to support.") after turning down previous parts that
required nudity including a role in Winning with Paul
Newman. "Though I was only semi-nude, it still bothered me, Charles
Swartz also produced the film and his wife Stephanie Rothman directed
it. They both were very nice and one of the ways that they persuaded
me into doing the nude scene with Michael Blodgett was by making it an
absolutely closed set. After it was lit, everyone left except the
cinematographer, Stephanie, and her husband. The cinematographer’s
name was Daniel Lacambre and he was brilliant. He lit and shot the
film beautifully."
Amongst the hoopla surrounding the recent passing of Michael
Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Karl Malden,and a few others, one
death sadly slipped under the radar. Actor Don Edmonds died on May 29,
2009 from cancer. I interviewed him for my book, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969.Â
He was a great guy and we stayed in email contact for awhile. I had
the pleasure to finally meet him in person at a Chiller Convention in
New Jersey. Don was very humble regarding his acting and directing
careers and enjoyed talking with fans. Below is my tribute to him from
the book:
Â
Actor Don Edmonds was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His father
relocated the family to Long Beach, California in the thirties and got
work as a timekeeper at the shipyards. Soon the elder Edmond’s
entrepreneurial son began offering to shine shoes for military men at
the Pike an amusement park in Long Beach earning more money than his
father. The cute-looking youngster also had a talent for singing and
appeared in local USO shows singing "Mammy" in black face.Â
Â
As a teenager Edmonds spent his time hanging out on the beach.Â
"The first surfboard I ever saw was in 1950 when my friend Terry
McGelrand who was this wild guy brought one back from Hawaii. This
board must have been fifty feet long and it had no fin on it. We
loaded it up on his Woodie and took it down to the beach. We had
always been belly floppers before that. He took it out into the water
and stood up on it. We gasped, ‘Whoa, check that out!’"
Â
“We all began surfing after that," continues Don. "A couple of
legends came from our group. Hobie Alter had this shack out there
where he was experimenting with different kinds of weights and woods.Â
He began designing surfboards. Later he was famous for the Hobie Cat.Â
The other guy who I really grew up with was about three or four years
younger than us and he'd plead, ‘Can I hang around with you guys?’Â
We'd say, ‘No, go away! We're going to look for girls.’ He was always
the kid we'd chase away. His name was Bruce Brown who went on to make The Endless Summer."
Â
After graduating high school, Don Edmonds joined the service and
became a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. While stationed at Fort
Bragg in North Carolina he joined the Spielhaus Players and appeared in
works by such renowned playwrights as Tennessee Williams and William
Inge. Returning to Long Beach, the lanky sandy-blonde hair surfer boy
was cast in several local theatrical productions before joining the
Estelle Harmon Actor’s Workshop where his classmates included BarBara
Luna, Bill Bixby, Millie Perkins and Ty Hardin. From there Edmonds was
able to finagle an agent to represent him and began landing work on
television most notably in five episodes of Playhouse 90.
Â
While working on Playhouse 90, Edmonds became fascinated
with directing. "I'd sit and just watch the director. I just knew I
wanted to direct. I never just hung out in my dressing room. Instead
I would come out on the set and observe gentlemen like Ralph Nelson and
John Frankenheimer work. They were young guys back then making their
bones too. This was the only schooling that I had. I was just so
interested in the directing process."