(The following review refers to the UK region 2 release)
When
I was young I was given a local newspaper that had been printed the day I was
born. I grew up in Wolverhampton, and the big newsa decade earlier had been the trial of Donald
Neilson, the self-styled Black Panther. He was a local who had had graduated
from house break-ins, through armed robbery and finally to kidnap and
multiple-murder. He was obsessed with the military (he had fought in Kenya as
part of the British suppression of the Mau-Mau uprising), and made his wife and
daughter act out scenes of warfare whilst he took photos. He was already a
wanted man following some botched post office robberies, but it was the
kidnapping of Lesley Whittle, a seventeen year old heiress, and the subsequent
ransom demands that really propelled him into the public eye. The Britain of
the 1970s was one of strikes, cutbacks and unemployment. Prospects were bleak,
and here was one man who had taken matters into his own hands. He was a meticulous
planner and he truly believed himself to be a master criminal. The reality was
very different. He was an inept bungler, incapable of making anything more than
a meagre haul from his robberies. If there hadn't been so much death at his
hands he would almost be a comic figure, more Pink Panther than Black Panther.
It was a devastating combination of Neilson's mishandling of events, press
interference and a West Midlands police force ill-equipped to deal with the
situation that culminated in his murdering the girl he had kidnapped and locked
up in a storm drain. Neilson was only caught two months later by coincidence
rather than a concerted effort on the part of the police.
These
tragic events were still very fresh in the public memory when Ian Merrick's film
The Black Panther was released in 1977. With a script by Michael
Armstrong (a director in his own right) based solely on police reports, written
statements, trial transcripts and other direct source material, the film sticks
to the facts of the case. It was shot in many of the actual locations used,
including Dudley Zoo and Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove, Stoke on Trent. This gives
the film a documentary feel, that it truly was ripped from the headlines.
Neilson was played by Donald Sumpter, known mainly for his TV work, but seen
most recently in the remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Long
sections of The Black Panther have no dialogue and it plays like a
silent film, with Sumpter communicating Neilson's emotions purely visually. It
is an incredible performance in what must have been a difficult role to embody
given his notoriety at that time. Sadly for those concerned, the public did not
take to the film. It's release was controversial and many cinemas around the UK
refused to screen it. Given the film's implicit accusation that the press were
partly to blame for Whittle's tragic death, it is perhaps unsurprising that
they took a particular dislike to it as well.
Thankfully,
due to the continuing efforts of the British Film Institute to rescue films from
obscurity, The Black Panther has been restored and made available on
both DVD and Blu- ray for a new audience to appraise. The picture and sound are
excellent, although the package is a little light on extras. The only feature
of note is Recluse (1978), a thirty minute film also based on a true
life murder case. It stars Maurice Denham and is accompanied by some location
scouting footage. As usual with these Flipside releases, the main information
comes in a booklet crammed with essays and notes from both Ian Merrick and
Michael Armstrong amongst others.
The Black Panther is another release
from the BFI Flipside Range that comes highly recommended, and demonstrates
once again that the label is currently one of the most interesting and eclectic
today and fully deserve your support!
Ever
since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre, the world, and
Americans in particular, have had a fascination with conspiracy theories. One
of the earliest conspiracy films was The Man in the Barn by Jacques
Tourneur in 1937, which explores the possibility that John Wilkes Booth was not
working alone on that fateful night in 1865. The Lincoln Conspiracy from
1977 also explores similar plot lines, suggesting that Booth was not killed in
a barn ten days later but escaped, in part aided by certain men on Capitol
Hill. Some of the most explored and widely accepted conspiracy theories are
those surrounding the assassination of President John Kennedy in 1963. Most
people now accept the idea that there was no lone gunman, but theories vary
widely as to what exactly did happen on that November afternoon. The official
version of events were challenged almost immediately by horror schlock-meister
Larry Buchanan in 1964 with The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. Burt
Lancaster starred in Executive Action in 1973, a film which suggests
that the killing was planned by the CIA and big industry, and most famously of
all, Oliver Stone became forever associated with conspiracies and paranoia when
he directed JFK in 1991, a film which ensured that nobody knew who they
could trust any more.
'Conspiracy
Cinema' does not merely focus its attention on Hollywood, however. David Ray
Carter has spent literally hundreds of hours scouring the internet for the best
and the worst conspiracy films available. There are a lot of filmmakers out
there using the web to distribute their films and promulgate their theories on
dozens of fascinating subjects, such as alien abductions, the moon landings and
assassinations, including those mentioned and Martin Luther King Jr, Robert
Kennedy and (allegedly) Princess Diana. There are many fascinating films out
there dedicated to the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001,
with proposals ranging from the plausible to the preposterous. However, these
subjects are relatively small fry when compared with those films that deal with
the bigger picture: The New World Order and The Illuminati. Do you think you
are in control of your own life? If these guys are to be believed, think again.
Carter
presents the films in themed chapters with a summary and some information on
the filmmakers concerned. He also summarises the “official†version of events
alongside the main conspiracies before going into the films themselves. This
means you get a great overview of all the main ideas, and the book makes an
excellent reference to this unknown cinematic corner of the internet. Most of
the films he refers to can be found online for free, although be warned: some
of them can be up to four hours in length. Filmmaking skills vary also, with
some being little more than someone talking to the camera from the comfort of
their front room (or bunker). As professional equipment has become more
affordable some of the films have become sophisticated, using all the latest
tools available to get their messages across.
'Conspiracy
Cinema' is a fascinating read, even if you remain sceptical as to the beliefs
presented. Carter himself is sceptical of a great deal of the films he's seen.
As such he makes an entertaining and authoritative guide through the murky and
contradictory world of the conspiracy theory.
Note: this review pertains to the British Region 2 DVD edition
By Adrian Smith
Although
best known for his work as both a writer, director and producer with Hammer
Films, Jimmy Sangster actually relocated to Hollywood during the early 1970s,
where he worked very successfully in both film and television. Whilst there he
wrote a supernatural script set in a run- down hospital in downtown Detroit.
Much to his chagrin, the script was altered to more closely resemble the Hammer
movies that were, to him at least, ancient history. Although keeping the
American protagonists, events were manipulated to allow the story instead to
take place in an English country estate featuring a collection of stereotypical
butlers, chauffeurs and curtseying maids. The film is essentially Agatha
Christie meets Dennis Wheatley through the filter of Dario Argento.
Katharine
Ross is Maggie, a successful American designer who receives a mysterious
invitation to work in England. Accompanied by her handsome lover Pete (a
youthful and impressively moustachioed Sam Elliott), they jet off to a grey,
dull English world of narrow country lanes and chirpy market stall holders.
Following a minor motorcycle accident they find themselves guests of the
aristocratic Jason Mountolive, who conveniently lives in the kind of stately
home that Americans seem to think all the English live in. What they don't
realise until it becomes too late is that their arrival there was no accident.
When other guests begin to arrive, all successful in their respective fields,
it becomes clear that diabolical dealings are underway, and they may be lucky
to escape with their lives, or their souls.
The Legacy is perhaps best remembered now for
being the film that Ross and Elliott first met on, and subsequently married. It
is a peculiar film, mixing cosy drawing room talk with spectacularly violent
and gory deaths. Richard Marquand had to be influenced by Argento's Suspiria,
released just one year before. Maggie suspects she is descending into madness,
feeling that she is losing her grip on reality. And when people like The Who's
Roger Daltry and former Bond villain Charles Gray turn up only to suffer
spectacularly, she realises that she may be to blame. Could it be something to
do with a sixteenth-century witch, with whose portrait she bears an uncanny
resemblance?
Although
the plot makes very little sense, The Legacy is a very entertaining film.
Ross and Elliott show genuine chemistry (perhaps unsurprisingly) as the
innocent couple around whom the sinister events unfold. The house becomes a
character itself as the camera glides around its oak-panelled hallways,
revealing hidden doors, tapestries, archaic ornaments and an increasingly
anachronistic collection of 1970s furniture. Although mostly shot on location
at Loseley Park House in Surrey, parts of it were also shot at Bray Studios,
the spiritual home of Hammer films.
The Legacy in some ways represents the end of
an era. By the tail end of the 1970s the money to make films in Britain was
running out, and companies like Hammer had gasped their last breath, and
Marquand was courted by George Lucas to direct the last part of his Star
Wars trilogy. It is well worth taking a look at, and this new DVD from
Odeon Entertainment presents an excellent widescreen print. A booklet with background information is the only
significant extra, which is a pity. It would be good to hear how Katharine Ross
and Sam Elliott look back on the film now, and perhaps a word or two from Roger
Daltrey on his dramatic, fish-based demise.
Halloween
III: Season of the Witch
is a strange concoction that never seemed to get a fair shake at the box office
during its original release. It's kind
of like the unwanted offspring of the Halloween
films and was originally projected to be the first in a series of yearly horror
yarns released every October that dealt with different stories surrounding the
titular holiday. The film is among the
least successful of the series, so any future franchise plans were abandoned,
which is a shame because Halloween III
is a fun little movie in its own right. In addition to being marketed
incorrectly, it has not been represented properly even on home video. DVD certainly hasn't been kind to it, having
seen no less than three incarnations in “movie only†editions released in 1998
by Good Times Home Video, and in 2003 and 2007 by Universal Home Video. This is
about to change, however, thanks to the fine folks at Shout! Factory. Their new “Scream Factory†line is releasing
a widescreen, feature-rich DVD in September (along with Halloween II from 1981) that should satisfy any passing or diehard
fan of this film. Having been erroneously
promoted as the third installment of the popular horror series at the time, it
is the only film having absolutely nothing to do with the manifestation of pure
evil, Michael Myers. Halloween III is more of a science
fiction/horror film in the tradition of Invasion
of the Body Snatchers (1956), the film the director obviously admires
greatly.
Released on Friday, October 22, 1982, Halloween III was co-written and
directed by Tommy Lee Wallace whose future credits would go on to
include episodes of the of the mid-1980's revival TV series The Twilight Zone and the 1990
made-for-TV movie adaptation of It by
Stephen King. Halloween
IIIfeatures
Tom Atkins, who worked with John Carpenter on The Fog (1980) and Escape
From New York (1981) and with George A. Romero in Creepshow (1982). He is also
known for Fred Dekker's Night of the
Creeps (1986) and Richard Donner's Lethal
Weapon (1987). Mr. Atkins always
delivers a terrific performance regardless of the subject matter of the films
that he appears in, and Halloween IIIis
no exception. Here he plays Dr. Dan
Challis, who looks no more like a doctor than yours truly, and ends up playing
doctor with Ellie Grimbridge
(Stacey Nelkin), the twenty-two year-old grand-daughter of a man who died in
his care (actress Nelkin is reportedly the woman Woody Allen had an affair with
in the mid-1970s and inspired Mariel Hemingway’s character of Tracy in his 1979
film Manhattan). It turns out that a company producing
Halloween masks (courtesy of Don Post Studios) is actually a front for an evil
man named Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) who has produced a legion of androids
in the form of well-dressed men, and is the monster behind the television
commercials for Silver Shamrock Novelties which are geared towards children. Cochran’s plan is to kill children who wear
his masks on Halloween night by activating a microchip in their masks which
contain a fragment of Stonehenge. He wants to resurrect the festival of Samhain
which he relates to witchcraft.
The story has elements of science fiction and reminds one of the
aforementioned granddaddy of social paranoia flicks. The well-dressed men remind me of the
soulless crew members of the Cygnus in The
Black Hole (1979). Some critics even
claimed that the film is a social commentary about the pitfalls of consumerism
and the power of large corporations. To
paraphrase Sigmund, sometimes a thriller is just a thriller!
Halloween
III has become one of those films rescued from obscurity
thanks to the availability of home video. Were it not for the ancillary markets of cable television and video
playback devices, it is highly unlikely that so many genre gems would have ever
retained any sense of life and made it into the homes of fans around the world.
While obviously it is better to see such films on the big screen, particularly
movies such as Halloween IIIwhich
was shot in the 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio, for many of us, this was the
only way to see these films at all. Network
TV airings were hit or miss.
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth provide a nifty synthesizer-driven film
score which aids in giving the film a spooky and alien feel to it. The Silver Shamrock theme is a variation of
the public domain children’s song “London Bridge is Falling Down.â€
I love going to the locations where
movies are shot, and Sean Clark of Horror's Hallowed Grounds does another
excellent job of taking us on a tour of the locations for Halloween III. However, I
must say that this is about as close as you would want to get to the town of
Loleta, CA where the bulk of the film takes place. While it looks industrial and low-key in the
film, 30 years have not been kind to this location. The motel where the aforementioned tryst
occurs is dilapidated and home to people you don’t want to know.
If you're going to own Halloween III, this is the
edition to get. This special DVD comes with the following extras:
-Audio
commentary with director Tommy Lee Wallace, Sean Clark of Horror's Hallowed
Grounds and Rob Galluzzo of Icons of Fright
-Audio
commentary with actor Tom Atkins
-Stand
Alone: The Making of Halloween III:
Season of the Witch featuring Tommy Lee Wallace, Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin,
Dick Warlock, Dean Cundey and more...
-Horror's
Hallowed Grounds - Revisiting the original shooting locations
Poor
Pretty Eddie is
a bizarre concoction, the sort of movie that they just don't make anymore, and
certainly not in the way in which this politically incorrect creation from 1974
was made. Released on DVD in 2006 with a fairly lousy and dark transfer, the
film has been issued in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack by the fine folks at HD
Cinema Classics. Remastered in high definition by Film Chest, Inc. from a 35mm
theatrical print, Poor Pretty Eddie concerns
an African-American singer, Liz Weatherly (Leslie Uggams), who ends up stranded
in the woods after her car breaks down and encounters a bizarre group of
characters. Where is a cell phone when
you need one? Due to the presence of the
newly-built interstate (have you ever noticed how all of these characters’ ills
are attributed to government highways?), the remote southern town that she
stumbles across is on its last legs. It would be impossible to discuss this
film without making a mention of John Boorman’s Deliverance made two years prior to it, and all of the backwoods
redneck jokes that probably popped into the audiences’ minds while viewing the
film.
Weatherly takes a room at an inn that
is home to a group of show business wannabes, most notably Bertha (the always
reliable nutcase Shelley Winters, fresh from her turns as Mrs. Armstrong, Auntie
Roo and Helen Hill), Bertha’s lover Eddie (Michael Christian) who has patterned
himself after Elvis and sees Bertha as his ticket to fame, Keno (Ted Cassidy)
the handyman, and Sheriff Orville (Slim Pickens). Dub Taylor even shows up! The Charlie Williams Pinecrest Lodge in
Athens, GA doubles as the inn (it was closed in early 2004) where 90% of the
action was filmed. The film appears to
have a look and feel that seems to almost be drug-induced, with a strange array
of characters and big colors as part of the set design. It is an unpredictable hodgepodge of weirdness
and must be seen to be believed.
Cinematographer David Worth provides a
very interesting and entertaining commentary along with cult film historian Joe
Rubin. Mr. Worth’s loquacity is matched
only by his erudition of the film business, and for a film made nearly 40 years
ago he speaks with tremendous flair and great recollection, despite his claims
to the contrary. In the early 1970s,
aspiring editors and directors generally cut their teeth in what was then known
as the porn industry (now called the “adult film industry†– it has become more
respectable I suppose!). They rarely had
their names appear in the credits of such fair. Poor Pretty Eddie was no
stranger to controversy, as it contains a rape scene involving Eddie and Liz;
the scene juxtaposes images of dogs mating in slow motion. Make of that what you will!
The transfer is in high definition,
although the print is not completely free of lines and scratches, particularly just
after the head of the reel changes. This
is a minor complaint, however.
In addition to the feature audio
commentary, the package contains the following extras:
-Theatrical
Trailer
-Production
Stills
-A
historical essay
-A
neat postcard featuring the original poster art
-A restoration
demonstration
I personally love HD Cinema
Classics. They package their films with
both a DVD and a Blu-ray, which gives the viewer the opportunity to see that
Blu-ray is definitely the way to go.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER POOR PRETTY EDDIE FROM AMAZON.COM
Abbott
and Costello Meet Frankenstein
is one of the funniest movies ever made.
It's listed at number 56 on the American Film Institute's list of top
100 comedies. I personally feel that this
ranking is unfair, as it should instead be in the top ten. No matter how many times I've seen it, it
never fails to make me laugh out loud. Jerry
Garcia of the band The Grateful Dead declared it as his favorite movie and it
is held equally in high regard among Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's most
die-hard fans. Filmed in February and March of 1948, the film was
released on Tuesday, June 15, 1948. They
really banged out films quickly in those days.
The budget was just under $800,000.
Even though it stars one of Hollywood's greatest comedy duos who succeeded
in just about every entertainment arena there was at the time - on stage, on
radio, on motion picture theater screens, and on television - there are moments
in the film that can be very frightening to young children who are unaware of
the film’s satirical tone. I was roughly
six years-old when I first saw it and it gave me nightmares. As I got older and realized that it was just
a movie, I really grew to love it. Sunday mornings were a struggle for me as my
family dragged us off to church and I would nervously check my wristwatch during
the sermon in the hopes that we would get home in time for me to see the Sunday
Morning Movie at 11:30 AM on WPIX-TV Channel 11 in New York City. They showed one of eighteen Abbott and
Costello films that they made for Universal International in the 1940s and 1950s
in constant rotation. Some were terrific and some weren't, but Sunday mornings
weren't the same without Abbott and Costello when they followed F-Troop.
The premise of the film works perfectly
because the duo and the monsters play the material straight. Lon Chaney, Jr.
sells the movie in his portrayal of Larry Talbot, a man who knows all about the
Frankenstein monster and Dracula since he himself is the Wolf Man. He attempts to stop the shipment of the
exhibits of Dracula and Frankenstein's monster to McDougal's House of Horrors fully
knowing them to be real monsters. Naturally, his attempts to convince Chick
Young (Bud Abbott) do not go according to plan. However, Wilbur Grey (Lou
Costello) begins to believe him. Wilbur's girlfriend Sandra (Lenore Aubert) initially appears innocent,
though she proves to be in on the plot to replace the Frankenstein's monster's
brain with a dim-witted one, namely Wilbur's. This sets into motion some of the
funniest antics that Abbott and Costello have ever performed on screen.
When reading about the history of the
making of this film, one comes to learn that the original script was entitled The Brain of Frankenstein. Lou Costello
was not a fan of this script, and even commented that his five-year-old
daughter could have written better. Learning this fact later on truly astonished me. The title of the film
was also changed to avoid confusion to the audience who might have assumed that
was a legitimate Universal monster movie.
Boris Karloff was approached to play
the monster but declined, his reasoning being that he didn’t feel that the
monsters should be mocked. He
reluctantly agreed to be featured in a promotional ad campaign for the film as
long as he didn't actually have to see the film!
The opening credits, created by
animator Walter Lantz of Woody Woodpecker fame, are among the film's
highlights.
The film has been released on home
video many times: multiple times on VHS, three times on laserdisc, and three
times thus far on DVD. Now, as part of
Universal Films' 100th anniversary, there is a new Blu-ray edition which comes
with a DVD which replicates the 2000 DVD release, and a digital copy of the
film. If you're wondering about the
presence of the Realart Pictures logo title card that found its way onto the second
DVD release (the film was re-released in 1956 by Realart on a double bill with
1949’s Abbott and Costello Meet the
Killer, Boris Karloff), the answer is no. These discs contain the Universal International title cards, and I can
honestly say that the Blu-ray is definitely worth the upgrade. The picture is much clearer and sharper as
one would expect from such an upgrade. The
extras from the previous editions have been ported over to the Blu-ray and give
insight into the making of this classic film.
A huge highlight of the movie is Frank
Skinner's brilliant and sinister score, which is rumored to be up for a re-recording
and released as an upcoming soundtrack CD.
There are two new and interesting bonus
features available on the Blu-ray include two short promos. The first is called
100 Years of Universal: The Lot which
features sound bites from Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, Ron Howard, John
Landis, Dan Aykroyd and others talking about their love of making films at
Universal on the famed back lot. This
promo runs just under ten minutes. The
second is called 100 Years of Universal: Unforgettable Characters that covers the
gamut of the classic monsters, Al Pacino's turn as SCARFACE, and BACK TO THE
FUTURE to name just a few. This runs
just over eight minutes.
Jo Shisido
stars as Tajima, a resourceful private eye who owns the Detective Bureau 2-3 of
the title. For reasons never clearly explained, he manifests a deep-seated and
simmering hate for the yakuza, an emotion that primes his motivational pump
throughout the film. Following a munitions theft from an American military base,
Tajima convinces the police to let him infiltrate one of two yakuza gangs
battling for control of the local gun-running trade. Posing as an ex-con, he
befriends a mid-level criminal named Manabe and gets close enough to the
underworld hierarchy to identify the major players and the location of the
guns. Even when his cover is blown, the quick-thinking detective improvises
schemes to remain useful to the competing gangs—that is, until the bad guys
lock him in an underground garage, pump gallons of motor oil into it and set it
on fire. Tajima escapes the inferno with the aid of what has to be the world’s
most powerful machinegun, then lights the fuse that ignites a battle royal
between the rival gangs—a ferocious encounter fought with guns and samurai swords—that
brings the film to a spectacularly convulsive conclusion.
Ever
since I saw Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II
(1981) on home video in 1983 I cannot help but associate it with The Chordette’s
1954 hit “Mr. Sandman†which plays briefly during the opening and over the end
credits. Stanley Kubrick managed to
completely alter our images and impressions of Singin’ in the Rain with A
Clockwork Orange. What use of
pre-existing music!
Halloween II is one of my favorite horror film
sequels, which is saying a lot as most of them are silly or unnecessary. It was one of the earliest movies that I ever
owned on home video on the RCA Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) system which
was an analog video disc unit in which video and audio was played back using a
stylus cartridge and a high-density groove system similar to phonograph
records. Unlike DVD or Blu-ray today,
CED presented viewers only the movie. There were no special editions, no
running commentaries, no trailers, and no additional interviews. If you were
looking for added value, you had to go to the far more expensive laser disc format
that was in full swing some ten years later which usually included a
letterboxed version of the film in addition to the aforementioned goodies. This double-disc standard DVD set will make a terrific addition to
your collection as the transfer is very crisp and clear; plus, there are a
multitude of extras that puts the original Halloween
II DVDs from Goodtimes Home Video in 1998 and Universal Home Video in 2001
to shame. Those versions provided no
extras and somewhat noisy transfers.
Lance
Guest, who played the lead in 1984’s The
Last Starfighter, is very likeable as an EMT who looks after Laurie. Leo Rossi is his usual sleazy self as his
partner. Comedian Dana Carvey is seen
briefly and is listed in the credits as "Assistant." He appears
twenty-two minutes into the film wearing a blue sleeveless jacket and a blue
cap. He is pointed out on the commentary
by director Rosenthal.
Michael
Myers was primarily portrayed by Nick Castle in the original, and close-ups
were done by Tony Moran. Here, he is
portrayed by Dick Warlock, and his gait is obviously different, slightly less
menacing than the previous actors.
The
extras that appear on this set consist of the following bonus features:
The
theatrical version and the television cut with added footage not seen in the
theatrical version
Audio
commentary with director Rick Rosenthal and actor Leo Rossi
Audio
commentary with stunt co-ordinator/actor Dick Warlock
The Nightmare Isn't Over: The Making Of
Halloween II featuring
interviews with director Rick Rosenthal, actor & stunt coordinator Dick
Warlock, actors Lance Guest, Leo Rossi, Nancy Stephens, Ana Alicia, Tawny
Moyer, executive producer Irwin Yablans, director of photography Dean Cundey,
co-composer Alan Howarth, costume supervisor Jane Ruhm, co-editor Skip
Schoolnik, and filmmaker Tommy Lee Wallace
Horror's Hallowed Grounds: The Locations
of Halloween II – Host
Sean Clark revisits the original shooting locations of the film
Deleted
scenes with optional audio commentary from director Rick Rosenthal
Alternate
ending with optional audio commentary from director Rick Rosenthal
Theatrical
trailer
TV
and radio spots
Stills
gallery
All
in all, this is the version of Halloween
II to own. Released by Shout!
Factory under their Scream Factory line, they are proving themselves as a force
to be reckoned with, releasing genre favorites in deluxe special editions with
lots of lavished extras, including new cover artwork, with the original artwork
viewable in the form of a reversible sleeve.