Columnists
Entries from March 2012
Audrey
Hepburn: Photographs 1953 – 1966
Bob
Willoughby
Published
by Taschen
Hardcover, 11.2 x
14.1 in., 280 pages, £ 44.99
ISBN 978-3-8365-2737-8
Multilingual Edition: English, French,
German
By Adrian Smith
Audrey Hepburn is iconic. Her image has
perhaps eclipsed her performances in the many movies she starred in before her
early retirement to focus on UNICEF. This new collection from Taschen
(previously available only in a limited art edition) demonstrates just why this
happened. The camera simply loved Audrey Hepburn. These photographs, taken by
Hollywood photographer Bob Willoughby, show that whether she was relaxing at
home, posing for stills or working on set, she was a radiant, mesmerising
presence. After first meeting at Paramount Studios in 1953 to promote Roman
Holiday, Willoughby and Hepburn became close friends. The way she was able
to relax in his presence clearly comes through in so many of these fabulous
photos.
Although the book does serve to reinforce Hepburn's visual impact, it
also reminds one that first and foremost she was an actress. Plenty of
commentary is provided on the films covered here; Green Mansions, The
Children's Hour, Paris When It Sizzles, My Fair Lady and Two
For the Road. One fascinating collection of pictures shows how Hepburn
developed a close relationship with Ip, a fawn that was to co-star with her in Green
Mansions. Ip lived with her for three months before shooting started. Mel
Ferrer, Hepburn's husband and director of Green Mansions, commented that
Ip treated her like it's mother, and professional animal trainers were amazed
at how it followed her around, even going shopping!
Some of the best photos show Audrey off
guard, showing her true character rather than posing for a publicity still. She
plays with her children, she exercises, in one touching photo she appears to be
upset and is being calmed down by Anthony Perkins. This is another beautifully
high-quality book from Taschen and any reader will want to spend hours
examining the detail in these photos before seeking out all of these movies
again.
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Eureka
Video: The Masters of Cinema Series
USA | 111 min.
1.37:1 + 1.85:1 ratios
By Adrian Smith
Orson Welles liked to relate the tale
of how one evening he headed home after a long day directing Touch of Evil,
whilst also playing corrupt cop Hank Quinlan, to find his wife was throwing a
dinner party. Still in his full costume and make-up, looking bloated, haggard
and on the point of collapse, guests who had not seen Welles for some time
remarked, “Orson, it's great to see you looking so well!†Hank Quinlan does not look like a
well man. He's an American trying to solve a bombing in a small Mexican border
town. He seems to be tired of police work. He just wants to get the job done,
and he is not above manipulating the truth or faking evidence. After all, the
guy is probably guilty anyway. Reluctantly he is aided in his investigation by
Mexican super-cop Mike Vargas, played by Charlton Heston, who knows that even
the police aren't above the law. He's taken down some of the worst gangsters
and mobsters in town, and now he has Quinlan firmly set in his sights. Throw in
a new bride (Janet Leigh) and a mysterious gypsy woman (the enigmatic Marlene
Deitrich), and you have the makings of one of the best thrillers ever made.
This is arguably Welles' finest film since Citizen Kane, and it was also
the last he made in Hollywood. He was cast as Quinlan before Charlton Heston
suggested to the studio that he ought to direct the picture too. Welles cast
aside the potboiler crime plot and focused on the corruption of the man at the
centre of the film. Who committed the bombing is not interesting or important.
The heart of the story is one style of policing against another, old versus
new, corrupt versus clean, and perhaps most shockingly for its time, American
versus Mexican.
The treatment of the film by a
confused Universal Studios is now legendary. Unhappy with the way Welles edited
the film they waited until he was out of the country (raising funds for his
next project, the unfilmed Don Quixote) before re-cutting and
re-shooting whole sections of the movie. In their eyes they made it easier for audiences to
understand. Universal wanted a simple crime story, not a treatise on the fall
of man. When Welles finally saw this new version, he was distraught. He
produced a lengthy memo detailing everything that needed to be changed, which
was duly ignored. When the film was released in 1958 it was a huge hit despite
Universal's butchery, and Welles went to Europe, unhappy but unable to do
anything about it. Sadly he died before the film was revisited with more
sympathetic eyes. In 1998 his memo was studied and followed as closely as possible
with the remaining film elements. The result was a film far closer to his
original vision and proved that he had been right all along. This new version
was a truly great experience, confirming Welles' status as one of the best
directors of all time.
This new Blu-ray release from Eureka
gives audiences the opportunity to see the film in its 1958 version, the 1998
“restoration†edit and a 1957 preview version, which is longer and contains
some differences from both other versions. The picture quality for each is
stunning. The option is also available to watch the film in either 1.85:1 or 1.37.1.
There is still some debate, as explained in the fifty-six page booklet, as to
which was Welles' preferred aspect ratio. Each version is accompanied by a
separate commentary track, featuring Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, a collection
of Welles scholars and the producer of the restoration edit. Also available are
documentaries on the making of the film and the restoration, which shed some
light on how Welles worked, and how challenging it was bringing the film back
to his vision (these documentaries have previously been screened on television,
and are not new productions). The booklet contains essays from Welles alongside
Francoise Truffaut and film theorist Andre Bazin. The most fascinating extra of
all is available to
download from Eureka's website: a
full copy of Welles' 1957 memo itself. http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/welles-memo.pdf
Touch of Evil deserves its
reputation as perhaps the last real film noir, and certainly one of the best.
This high definition release is a must have for anyone with an interest in
classic cinema.
On Blu-ray and DVD
4-Disk Box Set
By Raymond Benson
Any fan of British cinema must celebrate Criterion’s deluxe
packaging of David Lean’s first four films as a director. These collaborations
with writer, performer, and “personality†Noël Coward are exemplary examples of
the fine work made by the Two Cities Unit production house, which was formed
during the Second World War. In each case, the films are presented in beautiful
new high-definition digital transfers from the 2008 BFI National Archive’s
restorations. And, as this is a review for Cinema
Retro, the readers of which include many 007 fans, it must be pointed out
that there is indeed a connection between the films (three of them, anyway) and
Bond. Actress Celia Johnson was Ian Fleming’s sister-in-law (her husband was
Ian’s older brother, Peter Fleming), and her daughters Kate Grimond and Lucy
Fleming are currently on the Board of Directors of Ian Fleming Publications
Ltd., which of course guides the Bond literary franchise. And if you’ve never
seen Celia Johnson perform, you’ve been missing something. She is arguably one
of the greatest actresses the UK
has ever given us.
In Which We Serve,
co-directed by Coward and Lean, and starring Coward as a naval captain (not his
usual persona), John Mills, Bernard Miles, and Celia Johnson, is pure war
propaganda stuff, but it’s well done and compelling. The 1942 picture was made
when Britain
was fighting for her life, and it was the year it seemed the Axis might win.
Lean was plucked from the ranks of clever film editors to handle the technical
aspects of the production whilst Coward concentrated on acting. According to all
accounts, Lean ended up actually directing most of it because Coward grew bored
with the process. It’s a surprisingly good picture, despite its sentimentality.
Look for a very young Richard Attenborough in his first film role—he’s just a
kid!
This Happy Breed,
1944, stars Robert Newton,
Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh, and John Mills, and it’s a poignant drama about a
working-class family’s life between the two world wars. Coward rarely wrote
about anyone that wasn’t upper-class, so in many ways the film is a novelty.
Like How Green Was My Valley, it is
an honest and wonderfully-acted ensemble piece about a people, based on Coward’s stage play of the same name. It’s the
second-best picture in the set.
Blithe Spirit,
1944, stars Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, and Kay Hammond, but the film is
stolen by Margaret Rutherford, who displays so much verve and energy as the
medium Madame Arcati that the rest of the cast seems asleep. Based on Coward’s
hugely popular stage play, the film won an Oscar for Visual Effects (namely creating
Hammond’s ghostly
apparition). It’s pure fluff, but it’s entertaining and whimsical in a way Lean
never explored again.
Brief Encounter,
1945, is the jewel in the crown here. Based on Coward’s short play, Still Life, the picture features the
performance for which Celia Johnson is primarily known (she was nominated for a
Best Actress Oscar). Paired with Trevor Howard, she displays a truthfulness and
believability not often found in 1940s cinema. Brief Encounter is the often sentimental yet profoundly effective
tale of two would-be adulterers who take an affair to the line—but do not cross
it. The picture deservedly provided Lean with his first Oscar nomination for
Best Director.
Extras abound. Each disk includes a video interview with Coward
scholar Barry Day about each respective film; an episode of The Southbank Show from 1992 examines
the life and career of Coward; and a couple of vintage documentaries on Lean
are among the more interesting features. A booklet of essays rounds out the
handsome package.
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By Todd Garbarini
New Zealand film director Peter Jackson is a favorite among
genre fans most notably for his early, off-the-wall gross-out comedy/horror
films. Anyone who has seen Mr. Jackson's
early work – specifically Bad Taste
(1987), Meet the Feebles (1989), and Dead Alive (1992) – cannot help but
wonder how in the world he managed to score the director’s chair for the film
versions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive epic about hobbits and Middle Earth. These three films, while highly entertaining,
are exercises in excess and were not embraced by the masses, although they have
all since developed cult followings. Bad Taste, about aliens who invade a
fictitious village in New Zealand in order to harvest human beings for their
outer space franchise of fast food, took four years to make on weekends and was
a gross-out success. It permitted Mr.
Jackson to secure financing for Meet the
Feebles in 1989, a black comedy about the entertainment industry, akin to The Muppets on acid. Like Bad
Taste, Meet the Feebles was shot
on 16mm. The film is comprised of
puppets and adults in oversized puppet suits and details a troupe of performers
called The Feebles, the antithesis of Jim Henson’s lovable group of which
Kermit and Ms. Piggy are the most recognizable members. The Feebles is a vulgar group of two-timing,
backstabbing performers who are caricatures of the worst people the business
world has to offer. A hilarious satire
with terrific music by Peter Dasent, the film is woefully in need of a deluxe
Blu-ray release.
His next film, Dead
Alive, was his first 35mm outing and is an over-the-top, cartoonish
gorefest that needs to be seen to be believed, and is now available on Blu-ray
from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. The
plot involves a creature known as the Sumatran Rat-Monkey who goes nuts and
bites people, spreading disease and contagion, resulting in one of the goriest
and messiest endings in film history involving limbs and a lawnmower. The style of the film is that of an
uproarious horror comedy and is by no means meant to be taken seriously, much
like Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator
(1985), and once again Peter Dasent is on board to provide a wonderful film score.
Timothy Balme and Diana Peñalver are
wonderful as Lionel and Paquita, respectively, two lonely souls who find one
another in a New Zealand town. Lionel
lives with his overbearing mother, brilliantly played by Elizabeth Moody. She is bitten by the rat monkey and the
contagion begins to spread. Despite his
best efforts, Lionel is unable to stop the spread of the virus and his house
becomes a battle ground of blood and guts as the townspeople turn into ravenous
zombies.
The late publisher Forrest J. Ackerman
makes a funny cameo and there is enough comedy and gore to go around to satisfy
the appetites of the genre’s most discriminating followers. The Blu-ray is a significant improvement over
the film’s previous home video appearances on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD and is a
worthy upgrade. The de rigueur trailer constitutes the disc’s sole extra; English and
Spanish subtitles are a welcome addition, too.
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By Todd Garbarini
Filmed in 2009 in San Juan and Vega
Baja, Puerto Rico, The Rum Diary
(2011) feels much the way that Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) felt in that it seems like two movies in
one. In Mr. Kubrick’s Vietnam War film, the
opening boot camp scenes took the audience through the Marine Corps Recruit
Depot on Parris Island, SC to see the demoralization process in action that
makes killing machines out of the marines. The combat scenes, which were shot
before the aforementioned training sequence, takes the audience out of the boot
camp and puts them into the heart of the action. In the The
Rum Diary, the first half of the film follows an alcoholic, Kemp (Johnny Depp), through his exploits in
Puerto Rico after he lands a job as a journalist for a dying newspaper in the
years prior to the Kennedy assassination; the second half almost feels like the
hangover and the after effects of too much self-indulgence. This is not a swing at the film, which is an
accomplished cinematic work and not the desultory meanderings of an idealistic
writer that the film’s detractors have intimated. Rather, it is a regard for
the differences in tone and style the film takes as the protagonist makes his
way through the underbelly of society which is bifurcated into the incredibly
wealthy and the outright dirt poor, with crooked politicians and corrupt police
officers galore.
Based upon the
novel by Mr. Depp’s longtime friend Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote the novel in
the 1961 and had it published in 1998 after Mr. Depp’s urging, The Rum Diary
depicts Kemp, writing
BS-stories and horoscope for a newspaper that is on the verge of failing. Lotterman
(Richard Jenkins), the paper’s Editor-in-Chief, knows the end is near and hires
Kemp, knowing full well of his romance with the bottle and; Sala (Michael
Rispoli), a staff photographer who runs cock fights on the side, philosophizes
about life in Puerto Rico and lands in deep dung with Kemp and what passes off
as The Law. The perpetually inebriated Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi in arguably the
film’s best performance), who mouths off to Lotterman, is another of the
paper’s staff members – he gives Kemp and Sala a drug that causes trips they
won’t soon forget. Hal Sanderson (Aaron
Eckhart, in a two-faced role not nearly as nefarious as his turn in Neil
LaBute’s In the Company of Men (1997)
but still crooked nonetheless) is a wealthy local aristocrat who takes Kemp
under his wing and asks him to write about a proposed hotel that he is involved
with. Kemp’s assignment is to paint Sanderson and his business partners in a
positive light even though the beautiful landscape would be severely
compromised by the deal. Sanderson's fiancé Chenault (Amber Heard) catches Kemp’s
eye, and before long she is out of Sanderson’s arms and into Kemp’s bed. Ms. Heard plays Chenault with the same aplomb
she has brought to her previous onscreen characterizations, most notably as the
AIDS-infected Christie in Gregor Jordan’s underappreciated The Informers (2009).
The critical
reaction to The Rum Diary reminds me of another of Mr. Depp’s films, Blow
(2000), which was unfairly overlooked upon its initial release, as it drew
comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s admittedly superior Goodfellas (1990),
with the former somehow being the bastard stepchild of the latter. Blow was as entertaining as is The
Rum Diary, and who better than Mr. Depp to bring it to the screen after his
collaboration with Mr. Thompson on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in
1998?
The Blu-ray looks terrific, with
minimal film grain and manages to capture the dark and light aspects of Puerto
Rico quite nicely. Extras-wise, the disc
contains: A Voice Made of Ink and Rage:
Inside The Rum Diary in high definition, which runs about twelve minutes. Mr. Depp talks about his friendship with Mr. Thompson,
while other members of the cast and crew discuss the story in general and
working on the film. The Rum Diary Back-Story is in standard
definition and runs about 45 minutes, discussing how the film got made.
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By Todd Garbarini
Sergio Martino’s Torso (1973) was originally recommended to me on VHS at a Chiller
Theatre horror film convention in 1999. I caught up with it later when DVD supplanted the inferior videocassette
format as the primary method of home video viewing and while that transfer was
a considerable step up, it was nothing compared to the new Blu-ray from Blue
Underground, which is absolutely gorgeous. The image is pristine and bright. Derived from the original camera negative, Torso, succinctly and mercifully truncated from the jaw-breaking I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza
Carnale (Italian for The Bodies Show
Signs of Carnal Violence), falls into the category of the Italian giallo thriller. The word giallo
(pronounced gee-AL-oh), like the term splatter
films which is used for the brutally violent American horror thrillers released
in the 1970’s and 1980’s in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), describe an Italian genre of film and literature
which possess elements of both mystery and crime fiction. Giallo
in Italian translates into the word “yellow†in English and refers to the series
of paperback novels, better known as “penny dreadfuls,†which had yellow
covers. Gialli (plural) generally refer to films directed by Mario Bava and
Dario Argento, and these two gentlemen are certainly responsible for some of
the genre’s best outings. However, there
are other Italian directors who have produced such work and based upon Torso, this is a genre that horror fans should
familiarize themselves with if they have not already done so.
Shot primarily in the Perugia section
of Italy in the spring of 1972, Torso
is a tale of sexual violence seen in unusually graphic detail. A spate of brutal murders occurs in this
university town and young women are the target. The only clue appears to be a red and black
scarf used by the killer to off his victims, and just about every man in town
is a potential suspect. A quartet of
young female friends, one of whom is played by Suzy Kendall who previously
appeared in Dario Argento’s stunning debut film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), leave town and stay at a
mountaintop retreat until the killer is caught. Naturally, instead of fleeing from the killer, they unexpectedly lure
him right to their front door.
Torso is by no means original in terms of
plot or narrative structure, but it is head and shoulders above similar yarns from
a cinematic standpoint. The final reel
of the film is masterfully photographed and edited, literally with no dialog,
and really keeps the audience on the edge of their seat. As director Eli Roth quite correctly states
in his introduction to the film, this sequence is pure cinema. The films falters slightly during its denouement, as it contains a scene where
the killer reveals the reasons for killing, a device derided in many movies,
even Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960). However, don’t rob yourself of
the experience of viewing this nifty thriller due to this minor quibble.
The disc extras consist of:
- · Murders in Perugia – an interview with Sergio Martino
- · Poster
and Still Gallery
- · Viewer’s
Choice of Watching the Uncensored English Version or the Full-Length Italian
Director’s Cut
Hopefully, we will soon get to see a
Blu-ray of Giuliano Carnimeo’s Perché
Quelle Strane Gocce di Sangue sul Corpo di Jennifer? (What Are Those Strange Drops
of Blood Doing on Jennifer’s Body?), better known as The Case of the Bloody Iris, starring French actress Edwige
Fenech.
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