By Todd Garbarini

There are a handful of films that I hated the first time that I viewed them, but upon subsequent viewings have all come to be beloved favorites of mine. James Toback’s Fingers (1978) was an incoherent mess to my naïve, nineteen year-old eyes but was revealed to be one of the cinema’s greatest character studies years later; William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) seemed like a Miami Vice wanna-be, but is now one of the best police thrillers ever and gives the average person a hint of what it must be like to be a cop; and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) was…well…strange. The film was…confusing…boring…aimless…weird…My friends and I honestly didn’t know what to make of it after we stumbled out of the theater in October 1986 and pondered what we has just viewed for two hours. We were honestly at a loss. What I didn’t realize was that I had just seen David Lynch’s best film.

Filmed between February and April in 1986, Blue Velvet is about many things, and the main theme is set up beautifully in the first few minutes after the main title credits roll over a blue velvet robe. It deals with the ugliness and rage that lies beneath the surface of people’s faces and the beautiful sunny, white picket-fenced suburbs. The milieu doesn’t actually give us the impression that it takes place during the mid-Eighties; there are visual references that almost suggest a time and place thirty years earlier, but in keeping with the film’s themes it is very subtle. From a plot perspective, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home to handle things after his father has taken sick after suffering a stroke in a scene that recall Don Corleone’s death in The Godfather (1972). On his way home from seeing his father in the hospital, he walks through a wooded area and discovers a severed human ear, which he brings to Police Detective Williams (George Dickerson). His daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) is still in high school and knows details about the case since her room is above his office, which she imparts to Jeffery over lunch. The case involves a singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini in a wonderful and courageous performance), and her kidnapped husband and son. Jeffrey is intrigued to the point that he hatches a plan with Sandy to gain access to Dorothy’s apartment and spy on her from inside her closet. What follows is one of the most startling mysteries ever filmed filled with some truly strange characters. The film is bolstered by a brilliant performance by Dennis Hopper as Frank, one of cinema’s most frightening villains. I am willing to bet that Frank wasn’t much of a stretch for the late great actor to portray. The scene where Frank takes Dorothy and Jeffery on a joyride is very unnerving.

By John Exshaw

Anyone fortunate enough to be within a day’s ride of Dublin on Tuesday, 1 November, should saddle up bright and early to catch the Irish Film Institute’s 40th anniversary presentation of Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dynamite, to be introduced by Leone biographer and Spaghetti Western top-gun, Sir Christopher Frayling. Also participating in the event will be director John Boorman, who assisted Leone in finding the locations used in the film’s Irish flashback sequences, and Ireland’s top special-effects expert, Gerry Johnston, who worked on the action scenes shot in Toner’s pub in Dublin’s Baggot Street.

Frayling, whose last appearance at the IFI (introducing Once Upon a Time in the West) was the highpoint of the 2000 season, will use extracts from such films as John Ford’s The Informer (1935) and The Quiet Man (1952) to examine Leone’s response to Ford’s romantic vision of Ireland and Irish history, as well as casting an eye on the political Spaghetti Westerns of film-makers such as Damiano Damiani, Sergio Sollima, and Giulio Petroni. Also included will be rare footage of Leone directing the opening sequence of A Fistful of Dynamite.

For details of the event, which will also be the Irish première of the restored version of A Fistful of Dynamite, please see click on the following link to the IFI’s website: http://www.ifi.ie/cinema/dispfilm_07.asp?filmID=7649.

By Todd Garbarini

The Conversation (1974), the best film that Francis Ford Coppola has ever made, begins with a bird's-eye view of a crowd of people in San Francisco's Union Square. The camera slowly and decisively zeroes in on specific people moving about, such as a mime (Robert Shields of the “Shields and Yarnell” television show from 1977-1978 and one of the world's greatest mimes) and eventually rests on our protagonist, Harry Caul, a wire tapper and surveillance expert played by Gene Hackman in one of his best screen performances. From the film's very first frame, this is a movie about seeing and listening without being detected. It's also about deeper issues such as guilt, paranoia, responsibility, absolution and redemption, themes that were common to American cinema in the 1970's during the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam era. What is even more amazing is the fact that The Conversation is a film that most contemporary audiences have never even heard of.

Originally written in the 1960's, The Conversation was filmed in late 1972 and early 1973 in San Francisco when the city was gripped by the Zodiac murders. It was released in the spring of 1974. The complete flip side of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, another brilliant performance by Mr. Hackman in William Friedkin's Oscar-winning The French Connection (1971), Harry is a quiet, lonely, and deliberately withdrawn man with literally no friends, no attachments, and no hobbies to speak of, except playing his saxophone to his jazz records. His cinematic brethren would appear to be Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Jimmy Angelleli in James Toback's Fingers (1978), both masterful studies of troubled individuals. Many films during the 1970s dealt with withdrawn middle-aged men, but Harry wants to be alone. Even his brief interlude with his sometime girlfriend Amy, played wonderfully by Teri Garr, is awkward and sad. He pays her rent, lies to her about his age and what he does for a living, and is made uncomfortable when she asks him simple questions about his life. David Shire, Mr. Coppola’s former brother-in-law, provides a brilliantly quiet piano score that enunciates Harry’s aloof nature.

By Todd Garbarini

Richard Klemensen’s Little Shoppe of Horrors is one of the genre’s best publications. Like Gary Svehla’s beautiful Midnight Marquee, it is a labor of love for its publisher and it is currently up to issue twenty-six. Subtitled “The Journal of Classic British Horror Films” and brimming with images that you probably can’t easily find elsewhere, each issue runs nearly 100 pages in black and white. The front and rear covers consist of beautiful and original color artwork depicting such favorites as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and scenes from such films as Frankenstein Created Woman and Frankenstein Must be Destroyed. Sandwiched between these beautiful color images are enthusiastic letters to the editor, reviews of similar publications, and book reviews to name just a few goodies. Readers can also find in-depth interviews with actors such as Alan Wheatley (from 1981!), Jane Merrow, Freddie Jones, and the making of various Hammer Films. A look at past horror film fanzines such as Photon (remember that?!) provides a wonderful trip down Memory Lane topped off with personal photos of visits to DC World Con and the Famous Monsters film conventions.

Past issues contained an in-depth look at the making of THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW starring Linda Hayden and a look at the career of Terence Fisher.

Little Shoppe of Horrors has a beautifully designed and easily navigable website that permits readers to see what’s coming up in the next issue, in addition to ordering copies of back issues.

All in all, this is a terrific publication, published first and foremost by the only people who should be publishing it – die-hard fans with a true love for the subject matter.

An absolute must for horror fans.

By  David Savage

If someone had informed this obsessive fan of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, 40 years ago, that I could hold a real Wonka Golden Ticket in my hands, watch behind-the-scenes footage and read a book on the making of my favorite film, examine script correspondence, listen to cast commentaries and dive into all sort of Wonka memorabilia in one big box, I probably would not have come up for air for weeks. In fact my reaction would probably have been a lot like Charlie’s when he discovers the last Golden Ticket.

Fans of Willy Wonka – rejoice! Has Warner Bros. Home Video got a golden treat in store for you, just in time for the holidays. The 40^th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition has just been released in one, big, heavy purple box, the same color as Wonka’s waistcoat, full of the same goodies mentioned above, and more. The limited edition gift set indulges and answers every possible question a fan might have about the making of this extraordinary film forty years ago, even giving them a real sense of what it was like to be there on the set with the cast and crew.

The Scrumdidlyumptious, 3-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo contains over an hour of extras, including Mel Stuart’s Wonkavision, a brand new interview with the director; a new-to-DVD featurette on author Roald Dahl; a 144-page production book reprint filled with production photos and notes, and archival letters. Sweet premiums like a retro Wonka Bar-shaped tin box with scented pencils and eraser will have an infantilizing effect on “adult” fans such as myself who saw the movie first-run, so you might want to open it alone. (I made the mistake of opening it at the office, and practically scared away four co-workers who sit in my area.)

Cinema Retro, ill-advisedly perhaps, unleashed me on cast members and director Mel Stuart on October 17^th at a press conference at the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel in Manhattan, overlooking Central Park. With the exception of Michael Bollner (Augustus Gloop) who wasn’t able to be present, the Wonka “kids” were there still looking great, now in their early 50s. Peter Ostrum (Charlie Bucket), Julie Dawn Cole (Veruca Salt), Denise Nickerson (Violet Beauregard), and Paris Themmen (Mike Tee Vee) joined director Mel Stuart, now 83, and the “lead” Oompa-Loompa, veteran actor Rusty Goffe, for a delightful conversation and personal memories that have not dimmed with time. If they get tired of telling the same old stories, you’d never know it.

I started with director, Mel Stuart, and Oompa-Loompa No. 1, Rusty Goffe, who has quite an impressive resume to his credit, post-Wonka, including the first Star Wars (1977) and two films in the Harry Potter franchise. Mel is a gruff but warm-hearted New York native of the old school. And, I discovered, a great raconteur.

Mel Stuart (pointing to Rusty Goffe): He was the number one Oompa-Loompa. Tell ‘em why.

Rusty Goffe: Tell them why? I was the youngest, I was the only agile one, I could speak English --

Mel Stuart: -- He did Shakespeare. If you do Shakespeare, you’re number one in my book. See, you always have to cast people for bit parts. You know, four lines, two lines. And I ask “Have you ever done Shakespeare.” If it’s between him and the other one, I’ll take the one who’s done Shakespeare. Right now I’m working on a picture, a documentary -- Shakespeare in Watts.

By David Savage

In Vito, a new documentary examining the life of Vito Russo, the pioneering AIDS activist and author of the landmark book The Celluloid Closet (published in 1981, updated in 1987), director Jeffrey Schwarz pays tribute to a man whom he credits with being the first to break down the long history of Hollywood’s defamation against gay people in the movies, and in so doing, advanced the cause of gay rights on a crucial front. The documentary premiered at the 49^th New York Film Festival on last Friday, October 14^th, and is being distributed by HBO Films. (The cable network will air the doc sometime next year, an employee confirmed.)

“Movies caused great damage to gay people’s psyches,” said Jeffrey Schwarz recently in an interview with Cinema Retro, “and he was able to tie in his burgeoning gay activism with movies by showing films at the Gay Activist Alliance, which he founded [in 1970], and that had the effect of creating community through film. There really was no community before. Getting gay people in a room together to discuss films had never happened before, and he was the first person to make these connections.”

The documentary is the most personal yet for Schwarz, founder of Automat Pictures, a production house in Los Angeles which, in between their bread-and-butter work producing EPKs (Electronic Press Kits), behind-the-scenes shorts and making-of featurettes for DVDs and Blu-Ray releases, has been cranking out some of the best documentaries in recent memory on the outsiders of American cinema, like William Castle, Tab Hunter and drag superstar Divine (more on the last, below).

By Todd Garbarini

When Steven Spielberg's Jaws burst onto movie theatre screens on Wednesday, June 20, 1975 (during a time when movies opened on a Wednesday), few were prepared for the impact it would have upon the movie-going public and the American cinema in particular. Moderately budgeted and given a standard shooting schedule, the film notoriously took nearly five months of grueling work to get usable footage. The story behind the making of one of Hollywood's most successful and greatest motion pictures is also one of the most interesting in the annals of cinema history. While books have been written about the subject of the making of Jaws, no one has really addressed the making of the film in an in-depth, substantial way through the use of rare photographs. All of that has changed now, thanks to Matt Taylor, a writer/historian of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, the location where the film was shot, and Jim Beller, a Jaws fan and the owner of the Jawscollector.com website, both of whom worked tirelessly talking to the people who lived on the island and took part in the making of this Hollywood classic.

Racking the brains of Islanders, the name given to people who were born on Martha’s Vineyard, and collecting thousands of photographs, many of them cleaned and restored to beautiful and pristine condition, they have assembled a nearly 300-page book appropriately titled Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard, which has recently been released in both a limited edition hardcover printing and in paperback format. The book is indubitably the final word on the making of this spectacular masterpiece. Anyone who is a Jaws fanatic needs to own it. Nearly 1,000 never-before-published photographs populate the book which is accompanied by a beautifully written text by Mr. Taylor on just about every conceivable behind-the-scenes-facet on the making of this film, presented in chronological order. It encompasses the film’s beginnings in December of 1973 when Production Designer Joe Alves made his initial trek to Martha’s Vineyard to search for a suitable shooting location, up to and including the film's release in June 1975. Few if any of the Islanders, as well as the actors and producers, could have imagined the impact that Jaws would have on fans over thirty years later. The little shark movie that was originally regarded by Universal Pictures as a low-budget production not only became an action adventure masterpiece but also put Steven Spielberg on the map to become one of the world's greatest film producers and directors. Jaws is, bar none, the Quint-essential (pun most definitely intended) summer movie, and should be re-released theatrically every five years or so to give young audiences the opportunity to experience its brilliance on a major motion picture screen where it was meant to be seen.

Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard tells you more than you've ever wanted to know and then some about the making of this great film. The amount of time, energy and research shows on every single page. The book is lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs and storyboards, in addition to newspaper clippings from the island’s local newspaper, the Vineyard Gazette, which gave virtually daily updates about the making of the film. The limited hardcover edition contains:

1″x1″ piece of the fiberglass hull of the Orca II (a.k.a., sinking Orca) used in Jaws with a note of authenticity from owners Lynn and Susan Murphy.

A DVD containing nine minutes of 8mm behind-the-scenes footage of the Jaws production shot and narrated by Islander Carol Fligor.

Hardcover and portfolio packaged in a unique special edition case.

Limited to a series of 1000 numbered copies.

12″ x 10.5″, 296 pages.

More than 1,000 full color and b/w images.

Jaws is one of those rare films that I can watch over and over again. I’ve been known to watch it more than once in one day. Likewise, Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard is the kind of book that keeps pulling me back to it, to pore over the photos and interviews, over and over again. You can’t just pick it up for a few minutes and then put it down. Like the water of Amity Long Island, the book draws you in, and if you’re not careful you will realize that the few minutes you intended to read through it suddenly extends to several hours. If this book is not the greatest book ever published about the making of a motion picture, I simply don't know what is. It should set the standard for future publications on similar classics. It stands as a testament to not only a great motion picture, but as an authenticated record of what it truly takes to make a film and realize that film through a camera lens and most importantly, to be able to solve seemingly insurmountable odds and problems that inevitably beset a film crew. After all, time is money.

The book can be ordered at the book’s official site and will also be available in bookstores nationwide at the end of September 2011.

Read on for Cinema Retro’s interview with the gentlemen who created this astonishingly beautiful book.

By Todd Garbarini

Dario Argento's Deep Red (1975), the best movie he has ever made (Tenebre is a close second), has been known under many titles such as Profondo Rosso, Deep Red The Hatchet Murders and Les Frissons de l'Angoisse. The film astonished audiences with its breathtaking cinematic style, unparalleled marriage of quasi-jazz/rock that inspired John Carpenter’s Halloween theme, and extensive use of a huge old house as the scene of a crime that has remained secret for years until a chance meeting with a psychic threatens to bring the murder out into the open.

Coming on the heels of Mr. Argento’s phenomenal debut film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), his interesting The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971), the overlong and meandering Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972) and his comedic The Five Days of Milan (1975), Deep Red announced the arrival of what most of us think of as a Dario Argento film. While his first three “fauna”–titled films all employed a regular Everyman as its protagonist-turned-amateur sleuth attempting to solve the puzzle of a murder victim’s death, Deep Red raised the bar by showcasing a series of firsts for the director: it was the first time that he utilized the considerable talents of Goblin, the Italian rock group whose musical score elevates the film into the stratosphere, and Daria Nicolodi, Mr. Argento’s long-time girlfriend, appeared in her first role for him. She was also a story and script collaborator on his films until 1987. Ms. Nicolodi’s performance as news reporter Gianni Brezzi and her ability to bounce off of David Hemmings’s Marcus Daly is one of the film's greatest assets. Their comedic banter is a pleasant counterpoint to the macabre mayhem at hand. While the Italian cut contains additional, non-essential exposition of this same nature, the American version is the preferable cut as it is more polished.