Columnists
Entries from November 2012
By Todd Garbarini
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial:
From Concept to Classic is a 30th anniversary paperback reprint of the
book that was originally published in hardcover for the film’s 20th
anniversary in 2002 that accompanied the special edition DVD Ultimate Gift Set of
Steven Spielberg’s classic story of a young boy, the product of a divorced
home, who befriends an extra-terrestrial who is mistakenly left behind by his spaceship
following a hasty exit from earth. If
you own the 2002 edition, the new book is identical except for the fact that it
is paperback and its dimensions measure 9†x 0.4†x 10.8â€, a little larger than
its predecessor. The introduction to the
new printing by Steven Spielberg is also updated and does not retain his
introduction to the 2002 edition.
The
book is essentially separated into three sections. Section one covers the origins and the
overall development of the film from concept (as a story called Night Skies which was originally very
malevolent in tone) to the first draft which was penned by Melissa Mathison,
whose work on Carroll Ballard’s 1979 film The
Black Stallion impressed Mr. Spielberg so much that he hand-picked her to
write the script. Mr. Spielberg’s idea
for E.T., which originated while on
location in the summer of 1980 during the shooting of Raiders of the Lost Ark, came from his thoughts about the alien at
the end of his own Close Encounters of
the Third Kind (1977) and what it would be like for him if he were to be
inadvertently stranded on earth. There
are also comments from producer Kathleen Kennedy (now the president of
Lucasfilm), E.T. designer and creator Carlo Rambaldi, actor Henry Thomas, actress
Drew Barrymore, actor Robert MacNaughton, actor Peter Coyote, actress Dee
Wallace-Stone, composer John Williams, cinematographer Allen Daviau, editor
Carol Littleton, sound designer Ben Burtt, visual effects supervisor Dennis
Muren, and production designer James D. Bissell.
Section
two contains the film’s complete screenplay, which was the first draft that
Mrs. Mathison wrote and was so good that the director decided to shoot it as-is
with very little, if any, changes. The
screenplay is complemented by illustrations by Ed Verraux and production notes the
give further insight into the original ideas that the crew had in mind but had
to be abandoned or altered due to time constraints or logistics. It also includes the sequence with the school
principal (played by Harrison Ford) that was cut from the film, in addition to
other shots/scenes that were cut.
Section
three concerns itself with the film’s post-production (the models of the
children on their bikes, E.T.’s spaceship) and its impact on the movie-going
public (the E.T. phenomenon and merchandising), and the 2002 restoration.
It
is interesting to note that E.T.,
which was originally entitled A Boy’s
Life, was conceived of as a small, personal film. Although the director was by this time a
household name due to the success of Jaws
and the aforementioned Close Encounters
and Raiders, no one could have
expected the film to do the sort of business that it ended up doing, easily
propelling it to the top spot as the year’s most financially successful
film. This book does an excellent job of
giving the reader great insight into not only the making of the film but into
the thoughts of those involved in its creation. What is most evident is that everyone on the set (cast and crew alike) treated
the creature of E.T. with dignity and respect as if he was a real, live
creature. Itself the brainchild of designer
and creator Carlo Rambaldi, who also created the aliens in Close Encounters,
the mechanical head effects of the alien in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), and the entacled creature in Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession (1981) to name a few, E.T.
rarely looks like an animatronic puppet even in the behind-the-scenes shots. You would really swear that he was a real
creature. Mr. Rambaldi passed away in
August of this year at the age of 86, and E.T. stands as one of his greatest
(and certainly most emotional) achievements.
For
fans of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, this
book is a must-have.
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By Todd Garbarini
One of the strangest G-rated “family
films†that I have ever seen is Al Adamson’s 1982 effort Carnival Magic, released by HD Cinema Classics by way of Film Chest
Media Group. As a fan of the best genre efforts
that were afforded by what is arguably the last truly great summer for movies
in the United States, 1982 gave us Conan
the Barbarian, Star Trek II: The
Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Blade Runner, The Thing, The Beastmaster and The Road Warrior. I must
admit that I was stunned to learn of this film as I had not heard of it prior
to its 2010 release on home video.
Filmed over three weeks in Gaffney,
South Carolina and Shelby, North Carolina, Carnival
Magic is, in the words of producer Elvin Feltner, “the story of a magician
and a traveling carnival and his pet monkey, who just happens to be a talking
monkey.†It is also a film that cannot
make up its mind if it wants to be a slapstick comedy or a family film with
dramatic adult themes. Starring a cluster of soap opera actors and actresses,
producer Feltner does what any good producer does when faced with the rising
costs of a film budget. He thinks
outside the box and delivers a film that can easily be categorized as a cult
favorite.
The
carnival’s magician, Markov (played nicely by Don Stewart), can read people’s
thoughts and levitate objects. Armed
with his talking chimp Alex, they are the top crowd pleaser, easily making the
wild animal trainer second banana and very jealous in the process. Hoping to regain his former glory, the
trainer attempts to kidnap the chimp and give him to a medical laboratory for
experimentation in the hopes of displacing his competition and making a good
deal of money. Among this plot are a
bevy of carnival beauties who dance, and a young adult romance that blossoms
innocently.
I couldn’t help but think of Tobe Hooper’s
The Funhouse (1981) while watching
this film, as the carnival atmosphere always intrigued me since I saw the
“Levitation†episode of Tales from the
Darkside in May 1985.
The video transfer of the film is done
from a recently unearthed 35mm theatrical print discovered lying in a warehouse
(the original negative apparently was not among the finds unfortunately), but HD
Cinema, a terrific company in their own right, has done a wonderful job of cleaning
up the print with their restoration transfer. I honestly cannot wait to see what this company has up its sleeve in the
months to come. If they can get their
hands on low-budget, independently made films and do high definition transfers
of them for new audiences, their future is surely bright.
There are a host of extras in this
collection. A running audio commentary with cult film historian Joel Rubin and
producer Feltner reveals a great deal of information regarding the making of
the film. Although Carnival Magic was
copyrighted in 1982, most people did not see the film until roughly a year
later in select screenings, as it was difficult to find theaters willing to
book the film. Mr. Feltner makes mention that the film was shot in 1981 in the
video interview introduction, however historian Reuben points out that according
to lab documents it was filmed in the previous year. When Mr. Feltner mentions that it was shot in
1982 on the audio commentary and become fairly adamant, it leads the audience to
wondering why the discussion is up for debate when such information is easily
verifiable. The subject is eventually
put to bed when the outtakes that appear in the supplementary section clearly
reveal the date of July 1980 on the film slate.
The remaining extras consist of twenty
minutes of outtakes sans audio and a
short “ before†and “after†restoration demo. What is most interesting is the
inclusion of both the original television trailer and the theatrical trailer,
wherein the former presents the film as a non-stop riot and the latter gives
one the impression that they should expect something along the lines of Smokey and the Bandit. Rounding out the extras
is an interesting slideshow which consists of newspaper clippings illustrating
when the movie came to the respective filming locations, looking for extras to
appear in the carnival scenes.
Regardless of one's opinion of the
film's narrative, the movie stands as a time capsule of a more innocent era in
American life, of small-town folks enjoying the summer with family and friends. The carnival sequences almost serve as a
documentary of what life was like in 1980 for these people.
HD Cinema Classics gets it right by
releasing this as a DVD and Blu-ray combo package, something that too few
companies are doing even now. They are
to be commended for offering the film in both formats, though Blu-ray is really
the way to go due to the increased sharpness and definition. The colors really pop out in this
format.
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By Adrian Smith
Valentina
(Isabelle De Funès) is a
marxist fashion photographer in Milan. She is intelligent, talented and sexy,
so it's no wonder that the leftist intellectuals all want to sleep with her. On
her way home from a totally swinging party, the kind where alcohol and topless
chicks are readily available, Valentina is almost run down by a car. Whilst sitting
dazed at the side of the road, the driver emerges to check if she is okay. This
is none other than the bizarrely-named Baba Yaga (former Hollywood sex symbol
Carroll Baker). She tells Valentina that fate has brought them together. Baba
Yaga gives her a lift home and explains that they will become firm friends. To
ensure this she steals a clip from the top of one of Valentina's stockings and
touches it to her lips suggestively. Baba Yaga is a witch, and clearly has
sapphic feelings towards her. Valentina, who as far as we know is not a
lesbian, does not seem to mind this unwarranted attention. Later that night she
dreams about stripping naked in front of Nazi guards. When she visits Baba
Yaga's house, Valentina gets horny and touches herself in the spare room. Is
she already under the lesbian witch's spell?
Baba
Yaga owns an unnervingly realistic doll which is dressed as some sort of
bondage queen. Valentina accepts this doll as a gift, with murderous
consequences. Luckily Valentina has a boyfriend (played by genre favourite
George Eastman, star of the notorious Anthropophagus, 1981). He may not
believe that Baba Yaga really is a witch, but he's so desperate to get
Valentina in the sack that he'll go along with it.
This
is a very weird movie. Everything described here occurs quite early in the
film, and it makes less and less sense as it goes on. Based on the black and
white Italian erotic fumetti (comics) of Guido Crepax, this Italian/ French
co-production is a mixture of pop art, eroticism, dazzling colour,
psycho-analysis, dreams and the supernatural. Other fumetti had been
successfully adapted into movies previous to this one, including Danger:
Diabolik and Barbarella, (both 1968), but in Baba Yaga
director Corrada Farina specifically tries to mimic the comic style, using
panels and black and white still photography to replicate Crepax's stark line
drawings. It is very effective and adds to the “arthouse meets Eurotrash†feel
of the movie. This is certainly no Danger: Diabolik though. The pace is
slow and ponderous to the point of irritation at times, but you soon forgive
it. Valentina likes to do semi-naked photo shoots in her flat, which she
somehow hopes will influence the forthcoming left-wing revolution. She also
discovers that her unsettling bondage doll comes to life, in the shapely,
almost naked form of Ely Galleani, who was an Italian actress and Playboy
centrefold. Galleani has no dialogue in this movie but leaves a lasting
impression, particularly when wielding a whip in a lesbian S & M torture
dungeon.
Carroll
Baker was an unusual choice for the movie, and in his interview on the blu ray
Farina explains that she was a last minute replacement for his original Baba
Yaga, the British actress Anne Heywood. Three days before shooting was to begin
Heywood left to star in the Rod Taylor adventure film Trader Horn
(1973), a move which lead to her being sued by the studio. Baker was in Italy
working on the giallo thriller The Flower With Petals of Steel (1973),
and had a name which would look good on the posters. Farina was disappointed
that she had a face “like she had been raised on a farm on a diet of popcorn,â€
rather than the pinched, angular face of Baba Yaga in Crepax's drawings.
Carroll was willing to do the film, and with such a tight schedule he was left
with no other choice. In the end Farina was very pleased with her performance.
Legendarily she appeared completely naked (a moment that was cut by censors and
is missing from the restored print on this Blu-ray, but is available in the
extras). This was a bold move for a mainstream Hollywood actress in 1973 and
Farina insists that it was not in the script but was all her own idea.
Incidentally the only other moment of full frontal nudity was courtesy of Isabelle De Funès, a scene that
was also cut by the censors but is also available in the extra scenes here.
In
some ways Baba Yaga feels like Quentin Tarantino has had a pass at the
script. Early in the film various characters discuss the problems of getting
political messages into movies, and Valentina remarks that influential French
director Jean Luc Godard's last good film was Pierrot le Fou (1965). Another
character is an underground comic book artist, and is often talking about the
art form and his concerns about becoming commercially successful. Baba Yaga
is almost post-modern before the term was invented.
If
your main experience of Italian 1970s movies is the “gialloâ€, you will enjoy
most of what this film has to offer. It does have longueurs, some of which can
lead you to look impatiently at your watch, wondering when anything is going to
happen again. Stick with it and Baba Yaga is a rewarding viewing
experience. The far out and groovy soundtrack is supplied by composer Piero
Umilani, who is perhaps best known for creating 'Mah Na Mah Na', the song
covered by The Muppets! There is no original soundtrack of Baba Yaga
available, but the attention-grabbing theme song is available on his 1971
lounge album 'To-Day's Sound'.
This
Blu-ray from Blue Underground features the same extras as their DVD release
from 2003. The print, howeve,r is a massive improvement from the earlier
release. The most interesting bonus feature is the in-depth interview with the
director, where he discusses the problems he had with the producers, who made
changes in the edit against his wishes. It is also worth sitting through the
deleted scenes, if only to catch a glimpse of Carroll Baker as you have never
seen her before. There is also a short documentary in Italian about the artist
Guido Crepax. Sadly many of his graphic novels have not yet been translated
into English, but after watching this film you will want to try and track them
all down.
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EPIC GRANDEUR
CAPTURED IN BLU-RAY GIFT SET
By Raymond Benson
It’s
probably the quintessential motion picture epic. If you’re looking for an intimate story told
on a grand scale, an adventure set in an exotic location and against the
backdrop of significant historical events, and an engrossing portrait of an
important First World War figure… seek no further. Lawrence
of Arabia has it all. This 1962
roadshow attraction from arguably Britain’s greatest director, David Lean, Lawrence is simply a magnificent
achievement—both technically and artistically. With star power such as Peter O’Toole (in his first major role), Omar
Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, Jack Hawkins, and Jose
Ferrer, and a master cinematographer such as Freddie Young, Lawrence of Arabia is not only gorgeous
to look at, it is dramatically compelling.
O’Toole
states that on the first day of shooting, Lean told him, “We’re off on a great
adventure, Pete!†Indeed. With a director like Lean, an actor had to
trust the helmsman and follow him, whether it was to the universe of Charles
Dickens, war torn Southeast Asia, Russia at the time of the Revolution,
Colonial India, or the deserts of the Middle East. Lean tackled big subjects with equally large productions. In this case the
director took on the life of T. E. Lawrence, the famed British army officer who
acted as a liaison to the Arabs during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the
revolt against the Turks during World War I. In O’Toole, Lean found his Lawrence, the role the actor was born to
play, and the picture exhibits the man’s greatness as well as his
vulnerabilities and enigmas. This is
fabulous stuff.
Seeing
a David Lean picture was always an event. You knew you were going to step back into another time and place, and
learn a little something about the historical events surrounding the
story. You knew you would examine in
great detail the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people. For three to four hours, you would live in a
world only the magic of the movies could reproduce. Columbia/Sony’s new limited collectors
Blu-ray gift set replicates the epic grandeur of the film with a lavish,
handsomely-packaged treasure trove of material that will enhance your immersion
experience.
The
film itself, on disc 1, is an all-new 4K restoration, along with an optional
picture-in-graphics track, exclusive to the Blu-ray. Two additional Blu-ray discs are loaded with
extra features, providing hours of in-depth coverage of the making of the film
and retrospective interviews and analyses. The most complete reconstruction of the deleted “balcony scene†between
O’Toole and Jack Hawkins, never-before-released, appears on the third disc. A fourth disc, a CD, contains the soundtrack
by Maurice Jarre with two unreleased tracks. If that wasn’t enough, a terrific hardbound coffee-table style book, informatively
written by Jeremy Arnold and with a Preface by Leonard Maltin, is full of
photographs surrounding the production and insight into the challenges the
filmmakers faced. Finally, an
individually-numbered, mounted 70mm frame of the film completes the
enthusiast’s collection.
Just
in time for Christmas, this collector’s gift set is a movie buff’s dream.
Note: the following is a press release sent by Sony UK pertaining to this major restoration:
“Lawrence of Arabia is universally
considered to be one of the greatest epic films of all time and is certainly
the crown jewel in the Columbia Pictures library,†noted David Bishop,
President of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “Finally, the long anticipated
and much in-demand release of David Lean’s masterpiece will be available on
Blu-ray, which will provide consumers the chance to experience the sheer
spectacle and beauty of this movie with the finest image and sound available.
Additionally, in honor of Lawrence of
Arabia’s
50th Anniversary, we have created a special gift set composed of a coffee table
book and soundtrack, which will add further dimension to the enjoyment of this
film.â€
Never-before-seen
bonus content included in both the four-disc Gift Set and the two-disc release
include the “Secrets of Arabia: Picture-in-Graphics Track,†which allows the
viewer to become immersed in the world of Lawrence of Arabia and
learn about the customs and rituals of desert existence. The set also comes with the “Peter
O’Toole Revisits Lawrence of Arabiaâ€
featurette, as well as the previously released, hour-long behind-the-scenes
documentary “The Making of Lawrence of
Arabia,†and the featurettes “The Camels are Cast (Maan Jordan),†“In
Search of Lawrence,†“Romance of Arabia,†and the 1970 version of “Wind, Sand
and Star: The Making of a Classic.†Both sets include newsreel footage of the
New York premiere and advertising campaigns. Exclusive to the Gift
Set are featurettes including “In Love with the Desert,†“King Hussein Visits Lawrence of Arabia Scene,†the original
1963 35mm version of “Wind, Sand and Star,†and conversations with Steven Spielberg and Martin
Scorsese. Also included is a never-before-released deleted scene complete with
an introduction by Lawrence of Arabia’s
Oscar® winning film editor Anne V. Coates, A.C.E.
Bonus Features:
DISC 1:
Feature
Film, including overture, intermission, entr’acte and exit music
Newly
re-mastered 5.1 English audio
“Secrets
of Arabia: A Picture-in-Graphics Track
DISC 2:
§ Featurettes:
- “Peter
O’Toole Revisits Lawrence of Arabia†-
All-New Interview
- The
Making of Lawrence of Arabia†documentary
- “A
Conversation with Steven Spielbergâ€
- “The
Camels Are Castâ€
- “In
Search of Lawrenceâ€
- “"Wind,
Sand and Star: The Making of a Classic†(1970 version)
- Newsreel
Footage of the New York Premiere
DISC 3 (Gift Set Exclusive Disc):
Never-Before-Released
Deleted Scene with Introduction by Anne Coates
“The
Lure of the Desert: Martin Scorsese on Lawrence of Arabia†All-New Interview
with Martin Scorsese Featurettes:
- "“In
Love with the Desertâ€
- “Lawrence
at 50: A Classic Restoredâ€
- King Hussein Visits Lawrence of Arabia
Sceneâ€
- “Wind,
Sand and Star†(original version, 1963)
- Archival
Interviews with William Friedkin, Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese and Steven
Spielberg
Trailers/TV
Spots:
- 70mm
Restoration Trailer (1989 Release)
DISC 4 (Gift Set Exclusive Disc):
Exclusive Lawrence of Arabia Soundtrack CD
including original score and two previously unreleased tracks
Lawrence of Arabia has a running time
of 227 minutes and is rated 12.
Click here to order from Amazon
For an interview with Grover Crisp, the man who spearheaded the restoration for Sony, see forthcoming issue #25 of Cinema Retro.
By Todd Garbarini
The
Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass production team are best known to millions of
television audiences as Rankin & Bass for their unforgettable holiday-themed,
stop-motion animation outings such as Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Santa
Claus is Coming to Town (1970), Here
Comes Peter Cottontail (1971), and The
Year Without a Santa Claus (1974). Christmas
and Easter would not be the same without a viewing of these specials on either
television or home video. Though the
bulk of their work is comprised of television movies and specials, they also collaborated
on theatrically-released films like The
Daydreamer (1966), Mad Monster Party?
(1967), Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967),
and The Last Unicorn (1982). This prolific producing and directing team
assembled a crew of talented sculptors, writers, editors, photographers and
musicians to create some of the most memorable family entertainment.
Warner
Archive is continuing their extraordinary work in bringing more of the Rankin
& Bass catalog to their burn-on-demand library. Thus far they have released a double feature
of Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
(1977) & The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985) and the long-desired,
beloved made-for-TV movie The Bermuda
Depths (1978). Just prior to the
latter, Rankin & Bass made The Last
Dinosaur (1977), a low-budget film that was originally intended for
theatrical release, but was shortened by eleven minutes to a 95-minute running
time and aired on ABC television instead on February 11, 1977, which is good
because the film has a TV-movie feel to it. Warner Archive has recently released the full, uncut 106-minute theatrical
cut on DVD-R. Written by William
Overgard, scored by Maury Laws, and directed by Tsugunobu Kotani (listed in the
credits as Tom Kotani) who all repeated their roles for The Bermuda Depths (also released theatrically in Europe), The Last Dinosaur is a fun movie for the
twelve year-old set and under, though I am sure that Rankin and Bass
completists will find much to enjoy here. Mason Thrust, Jr. (Richard Boone) is a cantankerous and misogynistic safarist
who meets the sole survivor of an expedition who witnessed the existence of a
Tyrannosaurus Rex. Intrigued, Thrust puts
together a team that includes the sole survivor, some experts, and, against his
wishes, photographer Francesca Banks (Joan Van Ark), just because she’s a woman. They travel to the jungle locale and have a
few close encounters with beasts that should have been dead millions of years
ago, one of which is the T-Rex who roars a little like Godzilla. Along the way, they run into some Neanderthal
dwellers, one of whom resembles Nova from Planet
of the Apes (1968) who runs off with Francesca’s purse. It’s a fairly straightforward tale involving
the usual Rankin & Bass special effects which, at times, look just like
that. The cheesiness is part of the
film’s charm, though it is slow-moving by today’s standards. The
nighttime scenes are all shot day-for-night, and the film begins and ends with
the Nancy Wilson tune “The Last Dinosaur.â€
Previous
Warner Archive titles featured non-descript DVD covers that were comprised of a
publicity shot from a particular film superimposed over a blue background. The company’s subsequent success has allowed
Warner Archive to invest in providing a film’s original artwork on the DVD-R
cover, and The Last Dinosaur boasts
the exciting painting that was originally intended for the film’s theatrical one-sheet;
this image also appeared on the French poster when the film was distributed
theatrically as Le Derniere Dinosaure.
Click here to order from Warner Archive
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