It’s
an angry time in America. Tea Partiers, Olbermann, Palin, Wall Street villains,
an endless war in Afghanistan, mercenaries in Congress, flying terrorists, high
unemployment and Twitter-addicted freaks.
So
it’s either a perfect time to bring out a remake of George Romero’s 1973 horror
classic The Crazies, or the timing is
really curious, if this mainstream horror reboot’s aim is to encourage viewers
to “enjoy some surprises and maybe forget their troubles for a couple hours,â€
says one of the producers, Rob Cowan. The movie opens in North America today.
The
dramatic irony floating over the film – in which a small, idyllic Midwestern
town descends into violence and mayhem when a water-born toxin infects half the
population – might be the question whether Americans even need the excuse of a crazy-making virus to descend into anarchy.
Aren’t we on the tipping point already?Â
I’ll
leave that for viewers to discuss. Meanwhile, this remake from Overture Films features
Timothy Olyphant (Live Free or Die Hard),
Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill) and is
directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara).
The writers, Scott Kosar and Ray Wright, have reportedly updated Romero’s
original concept from being told from the point of view of the townsfolk to the
husband and wife team of David and Judy (Olyphant and Mitchell).
It has been said that if you want action films, look no further than Asian and American cinema; and no one makes a mystery or a satire like the British.The same can be said about the French when it comes to love stories, and while our Seine-strutting amis can also whip up slapstick comedies like few can (think Louis De Funes donning a beard, black hat, and impersonating a rabbi), they rarely fail to deliver captivating examples of both of these beloved genres.
Patrice Leconte, best known to American audiences for Monsieur Hire (1989) and The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990), gives us The Perfume of Yvonne (1994), now available on DVD from Severin Films.Based on the 1975 novel Villa Triste by Patrick Modiano, the film introduces us to Victor Chmara (Hippolyte Girardot of Manon of the Spring among many others), who is recalling the events that transpired in his life during the summer of 1958 in Geneva.Casually avoiding taking up the cause in the Algerian War, he stops in his tracks while sitting in the lobby of his hotel when his eye catches Yvonne (former model Sandra Majani) for the first time.She is an actress and a vision to behold.Her under-confident manner is exuded by her slight lack of poise while sitting with her enormous dog, Oswald.She is also accompanied by her friend Dr. Rene Meinthe, played with exuberance and flamboyance by Jean-Pierre Marielle whom audiences will recall as Gianni Arrosio in Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet.After much conversation Yvonne and Victor enter into a relationship that quickly becomes sexual in nature.Leconte’s camera makes the ever so slight caress of Yvonne’s knee (a nice nod to Eric Rohmer), her back, her breast, or bare bottom intensely erotic.Underneath it all, Yvonne possesses an air of innocent hesitation, which I cannot discern to be attributed to Majani’s lack of experience as an actress, or if it is her interpretation of Yvonne.Majani she also appeared in Alberto Express (1990), Cold Moon (1991), and Leconte’s Tango (1993) under the name of Sandra Extercatte, so Yvonne is not her first film.
As time goes by, Victor somehow appears to feel that he is a stranger in Yvonne’s land, and suddenly suggests that they get married and move to America.This is a move that puzzles Yvonne, and Rene reminds Victor to keep an eye on her.The ending is intimated at from the very beginning, and when we are faced with it, we nod our heads in understanding.
Since its inception in 2006, Severin Films, the film and DVD company that is responsible for releasing special editions of many well-known films such as Roman Polanski’s What?, Gwendolin with Tawny Kitaen, Patrice Leconte’s The Hairdresser’s Husband and The Perfume Of Yvonne, Richard Stanley’s Hardware, and Enzo Castellari’s Inglorious Bastards to name a few, now adds Lucio Fulci’s directorial swan song to its roster. Fulci, who passed away in 1996, made Door into Silence (Le Porte del Silenzio) in 1991 (not to be confused with Dario Argento’s Door into Darkness, a series of four, one-hour episodes for Italian television in 1973). It stars - of all people - John Savage of The Deer Hunter and Do the Right Thing as a man who buries his father and takes a strange trip through Louisiana behind a hearse in a modern day variation of Steven Spielberg’s Duel, minus the suspense.
I’ve never been a card-carrying member of the Fucli cognoscenti, although Zombi (1979) and The House by the Cemetery (1981) are personal Fulci favorites. And how can you go wrong with The New York Ripper (1982), about a killer who quacks like a duck before he strikes? Argento and Mario Bava are closer to my tastes as I find their films to be intensely cinematic, sporting vertiginous camerawork and labyrinthine plots. Fulci’s work can sometimes come across as television movie-of-the-weekish, and Door into Silence is no exception. Distributed by our friends at Filmirage, a company that was responsible for Fabrizio Laurentis’ La Casa 4 (1988) with (yikes!) David Hasselholf and Linda Blair, and Aristide Massaccesi’s Anthropophagus (1980) with reliable Tisa Farrow, Door into Silence seems culled from better material, among them Rod Serling’s “The Hitchhiker†episode of The Twilight Zone (which itself was adapted from Lucille Fletcher’s story of the same name), and from Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,†which has provided the basis for innumerable supernatural stories.
In part two of Herb Shadrak's tribute to actor Richard Basehart, his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea co-star David Hedison reflects on working with Basehart on the popular Irwin Allen TV series.
By Herb Shadrak
Veteran actor David Hedisonis best known for three roles: the
ill-fated scientist Andre Delambre who switches heads with The Fly (1958), CIA
agent Felix Leiter in two James Bond films – Live and Let Die (1973) and
Licence to Kill(1989) [in which he
loses his leg to a shark] – and Captain Lee Crane, who, along with Admiral
Harriman Nelson (Richard Basehart), commanded the high-tech submarine Seaview
on the hit TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968), which the
Boston Globe’s TV critic said was “like
Star Trek with fish.†In this exclusive interview for Cinema Retro, Hedison
recalls his admiration for Basehart and the highlights of working with him on
the fondly remembered science-fiction action-adventure series.
Cinema Retro: Why did you want to work with
Richard Basehart?Â
David Hedison: I had admired his film work
for years. He was always so natural on camera and he had passion. You believed
in his very human characters.
CR: Which of his film performances
particularly impressed you?
DH: La Strada was heartbreaking. Moby Dick.
Fourteen Hours. Time Limit. Richard had fabulous range and was always worth
watching in anything he did.
CR: What transpired during your very first
encounter with Richard Basehart?Â
DH: I had asked him to invite me up to his
house. I wanted to meet him off the set, only the two of us and talk. I had
some ideas for the series. Richard graciously agreed. I went up there. We
talked. We hit it off, he had a lot of the same ideas I had and a similar
working style. Richard didn’t take to everyone, but he liked me; my enthusiasm,
I guess. I did want to work with him. He taught me so much during those four
years.
CR: Was Basehart aware of your admiration
for his work?
DH: Not at first, but we found we could
work together easily enough and then we did.
CR: What did you learn from Richard
Basehart in terms of acting technique?Â
DH: Richard had great concentration. At
first, noise, a wrong line, any background distraction would throw me off.
Nothing shook Richard. He was always camera-ready, knew his line reading.
I wanted to be able to do that and after a while, I got better at tuning out
the distractions. He made me work harder, like tennis with a much better
partner. Richard pushed me to be as good as he was and some days I almost was.
Over
the last thirty years Taschen have consistently produced some of the most
lavish and eye-catching photography books ever published. This latest book, Los Angeles: Portrait of a City by Jim Heimann and Kevin Starr,
covers the history of L.A in photos, from the first known picture taken
in 1862 through to the present day. Whilst those first few chapters of photos
and maps are interesting, particularly to historians, for movie fans the real
gold comes later on. There are photos reproduced here from a variety of
collections, from personal archives to news media. There are even pictures
taken by the actors themselves, such as this one that Dennis Hopper took in his
car in 1961.
L.A. from the vantage point of Dennis Hopper's lens.
In the
book you can see Edward G. Robinson in reflective mood as he sits surrounded by
memorabilia in his office, or a bikini-clad Jayne Mansfield reclining in a pool
with dozens of floating toy replicas. We can even be present at the first
Academy Award ceremony in 1929. Some photos depict film making in its early
silent days. It’s incredible to see the elaborate indoor/ outdoor sets built to
ensure they captured as much light as possible, and it demonstrates that even
then, like modern-day movie sets, there are always plenty of people standing
around with no evident job role. There are also on set photos from some Busby
Berkeley musicals, demonstrating the amazing set design and vast camera cranes
needed to capture the choreographed action.
I interviewed former 60s starlet Salli Sachse about 12 years ago for my first book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema.Â
Her name may not be familiar, but to fans of American International
Pictures’ series of beach movies her face is easily recognizable. With
her waist-long honey brown hair and adorable smile, Salli, literally
plucked off the beach in San Diego, appeared in almost every beach
party film beginning with Muscle Beach Party (1964) through The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) and everything else in between including Bikini Beach (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965).Â
Recalling her time with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, Salli
remarked, "Frankie and Annette were very easy going and a pleasure to
work with but they weren’t real beach people. Frankie was raised in
Philadelphia so I don’t think he ever saw a surfboard in his life! And
Annette refused to wear a bikini. She would only wear a one-piece but
I think that had something to do with her contract with Walt Disney.Â
Annette was such a straight girl—a good Italian Catholic. Because we
grew up on the beach, a lot of us thought we were so cool compared to
Frankie and Annette. I remember that on one movie we were filming some
beach scenes late in the afternoon. It was really chilly and we were
fighting the light. Wrapped in terry cloth robes, a group of us
huddled together to keep warm. Carl the prop man handed us a bottle of
brandy. We were surprised when Annette took a couple of swigs. She
got a bit tipsy and was clowning around. It was the only time I ever
saw her let herself go wild.â€
When the beach films became passe during the turbulent late sixties, Salli graduated to playing a drag strip groupie in Fireball 500 (1966) to a biker chick in Devil’s Angels (1967) to her most famous role as the LSD freak-out girl opposite Peter Fonda in The Trip (1967) to playing a hippie paramour of rock star Christopher Jones in Wild in the Streets
(1968). Unfortunately, along the way there was heartbreak when her
husband Peter Sachse tragically died in a plane crash in 1966 while
Salli was in Hong Kong filming The Million Eyes of Su-Muru.
Salli chucked her movie career in 1969 to concentrate on modeling
then photography then studying art in Europe during the seventies.Â
Returning to the U.S., she earned a Masters in Psychology and became a
counselor for "at risk" teens.
In August 2006 Salli was reunited with beach party regulars the
late Mary Hughes, Patti Chandler, and Linda Opie for a photo shoot
celebrating surf culture in the 1950s and 1960s for Vanity Fair. Below is a photo taken by Salli's friend while visiting the shoot. Pictured are Mary, Salli, Patti and Linda.Â
Today Salli Sachse has a new web sitewhere fans can peruse pictures of Salli from her Hollywood and
modeling days or purchase her beautiful art work. And she is currently
working on her memoir, which should prove to be a very interesting
read.
Click here to order Fantasy Femmes of 60s Cinema from Amazon
Richard Basehart may have been the greatest
American actor ever. Certainly he was
too accomplished a performer ever to be “just another movie star†– his unconventional
good looks and astonishing versatility allowed him to convincingly portray murderers,
heels and suicidal neurotics in a career that spanned 45 years, but he was
equally effective at playing gentle souls, men of action (such as the intrepid
U.S. intelligence agent in Decision
Before Dawn), cowboys and the heroic Admiral Harriman Nelson in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea science
fiction series on ABC.
“Even
today, Richard Basehart remains one of the great, unrecognized talents of
post-war American films,†writes Mark Gross in Films in Review. “Possibly this is because he is neither
conventionally handsome nor easily identifiable as a character type. Instead,
he seems to become lost in his performances, belied by a surface calmness, with
a subtlety underlined by a sense of abandon in his quest for realism.â€
After six years knocking about Broadway, Ohio-born Basehart's breakthrough came in 1945 in The Hasty Heart, in which he was cast as a proud, dying Scottish
soldier. Basehart won the 1945 New York Drama Critics
Award for his realistic performance and was named the most promising newcomer
of the season. Hollywood came calling, and Basehart was soon signed to a movie
contract. Thus began a globe-trotting screen career that lasted until his death
in 1984.
As his Hollywood career took off, Basehart made every effort
to avoid being typecast, although in his early noirs he seemed to favor parts
in which he was of a villainous or conflicted nature. In preparing for his roles, Basehart spent hours by himself trying
to shape the character. He would sit on the end of the couch in his living room
and be so engrossed in the roles that he was completely oblivious to what was
going on around him.