Cinema Retro
Entries from July 2014
Dick Smith, widely regarded as one of the all-time great Hollywood makeup artists, has passed away at age 92. Among his crowning achievements: designing the makeup for Marlon Brando in "The Godfather", Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" , an ancient Dustin Hoffman in "Little Big Man" and F. Murray Abraham as the aging Salieri in "Amadeus". Smith also designed the makeup for young Hal Holbrook in his landmark 1967 TV special "Mark Twain Tonight". Smith was still being accorded honors as recently as this year. Smith's other films include "The Godfather Part II", "Marathon Man" and "The Deer Hunter". For more click here
In an amusing interview with Marlow Stern of the Daily Beast, Woody Allen plugs his latest romantic comedy, Magic in the Moonlight but also addresses any number of other issues ranging from his friendship with Diane Keaton and the reason they no longer make films together to the endless strife in the Middle East to the reason why he rarely appears as an actor in anyone else's films ("Nobody offers me anything!). The Woodman used to avoid interviews like the plague but in recent years he's become more receptive about doing them and in this case, he actually seems to enjoy the experience. Click here to read.
Actor James Shigeta has died at age 81. Born in Honolulu, Shigeta became a singing star in Japan- despite not knowing how to speak the language. In the 1950s and 1960s, he- along with actress Nancy Kwan- broke racial barriers in Hollywood. It was traditional for caucasian actors to play Asian leading characters. However, the handsome Shigeta landed a lead role in the film version of the Broadway hit musical Flower Drum Song, starring alongside Kwan. The film was significant in that all the leading roles were played by Asian actors. Shigeta, riding high from good reviews, carved a successful career in television and theatrical feature films. Among his credits were the Elvis Presley film Paradise, Hawaiian Style, Bridge to the Sun, Midway, the ill-fated 1973 musical remake of Lost Horizon and the blockbuster 1988 action film Die Hard. For more click here .
(Nancy Kwan discusses her friendship with James Shigeta and the breaking of racial stereotypes in the latest issue of Cinema Retro, #29)
Ron Howard has announced he is working on a major documentary tracing the live performances given by the Beatles up to their final concert in San Francisco at Candlestick Park in 1966. Howard is doing the film in cooperation with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono and Apple Corps will be producing. The relationships between the Beatles had been famously fractured throughout the decades. After John Lennon's assassination, Ringo, Paul and George Harrison did team for a tribute song to him titled "All Those Years Ago". The three were also interviewed separately for "The Beatles Anthology" video and music project. The tensions between McCartney on Ono ultimately led to the breakup up the band but apparently in their golden years, their relationship seems to have improved, as evidenced by their mutual cooperation on the Howard film. The movie is set for release next year and Howard is said to have tracked down enough footage to make the project viable.
BY FRED BLOSSER
George Pal’s “The Time Machine†(1960) is an iconic
science-fiction movie. For more than a
half-century, from the big screen to perennial TV broadcasts to a wide range of
home-video formats, it has rarely been out of sight or beyond reach. On the other hand, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s
“Dune†is famous among SF and cinema aficionados precisely because it is
unobtainable. It was conceptualized but
never produced.
Both films, the real and the phantom, are highlighted
in new Blu-ray products released coincidentally this month on the same day,
July 8.
Pal’s movie, adapted from the classic 1895 H.G. Wells
novel, is nostalgically remembered by us “monster kids†of the Space Age
generation. My formative viewing was my
first, as a 10-year-old watching the film in a theater on its initial
release. The new Blu-ray edition from
Warner Home Video offered the chance to sit down and give the movie careful
attention again, not simply snatch glimpses of favorite scenes in occasional
cable broadcasts.
I was particularly curious to see if Pal’s vision held
up against criticisms that the film is too old-fashioned for today’s younger
audiences yet too much of a kiddie movie for adults, that it plays too fast and
loose with the revered novel, that the technical effects are hopelessly
antiquated in today’s CGI world. I’m
happy to say with benefit of grown-up critical acumen that the movie didn’t
disappoint. The visual elements and
production values were as polished and engaging as I remembered them, the
script by David Duncan was thoughtful, inventive, and fundamentally respectful
to Wells, and the actors hit all the right notes in their performances with
old-school professionalism and charm.
Among Wells purists, it’s widely asserted that Pal’s
“The Time Machine†betrays the novel because it deviates from Wells’ basic,
thought-provoking speculation about humanity’s evolutionary destiny and
simplifies his conception of the far-future world of 802,701 to which the Time
Machine travels. The protagonist of the
novel, referred to only as the Time Traveler, finds that our distant
descendants have separated into two new species. The indolent, physically childlike Eloi live
in leisure aboveground in a communal society, apparently without industry or
government. The brutish Morlocks lurk
underground, able to come out only in dusk or darkness.
The Time Traveler theorizes that the two species are
the evolutionary outcome of social divisions that began in his own time, when
the idle rich and the miserable urban poor began to draw further and further
apart. He comes to realize that the Eloi
are no more than “mere fatted cattle†whose clothes and food are provided by
the Morlocks. The underground people
sustain the Eloi for the ultimate purpose of eating them.
In the movie, the dynamic between the two species, the
eater and the eaten, remains the same. However, in the movie’s version of 802,701, the Time Traveler, George
(Rod Taylor), discovers that the Eloi and Morlocks divided as the result of war
and devastation over eons, not class differences. As repeated attacks and reprisals with
nuclear and chemical weapons poisoned the surface of the earth, societies fled
underground to survive. One branch of
humanity eventually returned to the surface after nature recovered, and the
other remained below. George learns this
history from recordings on “talking rings†that he finds in a ruined museum to
which the Eloi guide him.
Given that the social concerns of 1895 were unlikely to
pull American audiences of 1960 into their local movie houses, it’s difficult
to fault Pal and Duncan for updating the story to reflect the more compelling
contemporary fear of A-bomb and H-bomb annihilation. Pausing in the year 1966, George barely
escapes the strike of an “atomic satellite†that destroys London, a frightening
image then and still a disturbing one now. In hindsight, this apocalyptic vision gives the movie its own flavor as
social documentary that tells today’s youngsters more about the mindset of the
Cold War than any dry textbook. And it
also provides a framework for the overall story that, arguably, tightens its
dramatic structure for the screen.
Where Wells’ Time Traveler was motivated by scientific
curiosity, Taylor’s character wants to escape his own era. Scanning headlines of military mobilization
for the Boer War, he says, “I don’t much care for the time I was born
into. People aren’t dying fast enough
these days. They call upon science to
invent a new, more efficient weapon to depopulate the earth.†He sets off from 1899 to find a more
congenial future, but in visiting 1917, 1940, and 1966, he discovers that
societies will only continue to seek “more effective means of destroying each
other.†The Eloi and the Morlocks are
the logical outcome. In 802,701, he
watches as the Eloi dazedly march to their doom in the Morlock underworld
through the open door of a sinister Great Sphinx (splendid visualization of a
key image from the novel). They are hypnotically lured by the same wail of sirens
that herded Londoners into their bomb shelters in 1966.
Whether Duncan wandered too far from Wells’ model is
mostly a matter of personal taste (and in the novel, Wells’ narrative leaves
open the possibility that the Time Traveler’s class theory is the likely
explanation but not necessarily the right one). As an artistic question, credit Duncan and Pal for incorporating their
changes skillfully and thoughtfully. For
that matter, Wells himself may have approved had he lived long enough to
consult with the moviemakers: in later years, he increasingly brooded on the
threat of humanity destroying itself in global war, as dramatized in his own
script for the venerable 1936 movie “Things to Come,†directed by William Cameron
Menzies.
Fortunately, the movie’s prediction of atomic wipeout
in 1966 was never realized, but its anticipation of the Eloi society as
mop-haired, passive blond teens (another modification from Wells’ conception,
but not completely different, if you read the book closely) seems
inspired. By the end of the decade,
Pal’s Eloi had arrived in the form of the Boomers’ hippie, surfer, and stoner
cultures.
Should you invest in the new Blu-ray edition? That may depend on whether or not you’re a
completest who wants “The Time Machine†in every available
video format. By and large, the color
and clarity of the image appears to be incrementally better than the earlier
DVD, released by Warner in 2000 -- I’ll leave that judgment to consumers with a
sharper eye and higher-end equipment than mine -- but the package doesn’t
expand on the earlier DVD extras of the movie’s theatrical trailer and a
featurette.
The latter, “The Time Machine: The Journey Back,â€
originally produced for TV in 1993, features then-new interviews with Taylor,
co-star Alan Young, and the movie’s creative FX technicians, and a skit with
Taylor, Young, and supporting actor Whit Bissell. The skit apparently incorporated material
that Pal developed for a never-produced sequel. The veteran technicians’ remarks about the
movie’s stop-motion, time-lapse, matte, and other pre-CGI effects are
fascinating, and it’s heartening to see talented movie people enthusiastically
describe their creative work and speak fondly of their colleagues, but if you have
the DVD, you have the featurette.
Click here to order the Warner Home Video Blu-ray from
Amazon.
Continue reading "REVIEWS: “THE TIME MACHINE†(1960) AND “JODOROWSKY’S DUNE†(2014) BLU-RAY RELEASES"
To celebrate the UK Blu-ray release of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, food artist Carl Warner has fashioned a unique tribute to the film made entirely from pasta! We'll admit it looks magnificent, Carl-- but we're still waiting for that King Kong tribute made from bananas. Here is the official press release:
World renowned food artist Carl Warner has produced
his culinary interpretation of the classic ‘Spaghetti Western’ film trilogy,
made entirely from spaghetti and other Italian ingredients.
In his film foodscape debut, Warner has brought
Sergio Leone’s masterpiece The Good, The Bad and The Ugly to
life using traditional Italian ingredients from pasta to pancetta, to celebrate
the re-mastered Blu-ray release of the and to mark the 90th
Anniversary of the studio MGM.
Warner, who was born in Liverpool, produced the
foodscape in his studio down the road from Borough market, where he sourced a
lot of the authentic Italian ingredients.
“Over my 25 year career this is the first time I
have brought a film scene to life,†said Warner. “Having grown up with the Spaghetti Western
trilogy, the imagery and music from those films are indelibly printed in my
childhood memories and lent themselves so perfectly to my style that it was the
perfect canvas for my film foodscape debut.â€
“The term Spaghetti Western was coined because of
the films’ Italian origins, and I have been inspired by Italian ingredients
throughout my career, but was surprised how well they lent themselves to Sergio
Leone’s stunning vistas and the central figure of The Man With No Name,
portrayed so brilliantly by Clint Eastwood.â€
Warner produced the foodscape following a trip to
Turin, where he sourced a lot of the ingredients and found much inspiration. The iconic scene in which the mysterious
figure of The Man With No Name stands among a bleak graveyard in the dessert
was created using over twenty different Italian ingredients, including gnocchi,
various pastas, risotto, dried herbs, parma ham, bresaola beef, parmesan,
polenta, olives, Italian breads and, of course, spaghetti.
“Pasta is very much the Lego of the food world and
I find these fantastic Italian ingredients really lend themselves to natural
looking desert and Mediterranean landscapes,†added Warner. “There is a real organic element to the
compositional values of the food – from pasta shells forming rocks to dried
spaghetti making perfect tumbleweed, through to the swirling layers of white
cooked spaghetti bringing the skies to life, partly inspired by Van Gogh’s work.â€
“These films were very off the wall and really
broke the mould for westerns, so this slightly surreal nature really
compliments the surreal nature of my art. To bring to life this trilogy as part of my ongoing Foodscape is not
only a great privilege but has been such a joy to create.â€
The image took weeks of planning and was created by
Carl in his Borough studio over two days.
(The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Re-mastered
Edition is available on Blu-ray now from MGM and Twentieth Century Fox Home
Entertainment.)
Rolling Stone presents an interesting slide show photo presentation of 8 notorious porn stars whose careers were affected for better or worse by some scandal that made national news. Click here to read.
By Lee Pfeiffer
It may come as news that Samuel Fuller, the macho director of such films as The Naked Kiss, Shock Corridor, Pickup on South Street, The Steel Helmet and The Big Red One, had a second career as a novelist. Fuller, whose films were largely under-appreciated in America during his lifetime, went into self-imposed exile in France, where his work was exalted. He was nursing some hurt feelings over Paramount refusing a theatrical release for his final film "White Dog", a 1982 drama that dealt with sensitive racial issues that frightened the marketing team at the studio. In France, Fuller's literary endeavors also found a receptive audience there. His final novel before his death in 1997 was titled Brainquake. Written in the early 1990s, it centers on a bag man for the mob who suffers from periodic seizures, the result of a bullet wound to the brain. He ends up falling for a fellow mobster's widow and absconds with $10 million in mob money, an act that leads to a contract being placed on him. The book was published in France but never in the English language. Now, the Hard Case Crime publishing group will debut the novel in August to celebrate Fuller's birthday. It marks the first time the novel will be available in English. The book boasts an appropriately impressive noirish cover painting by Glen Orbik that harkens back to the golden age of pulp fiction. There is also an afterword by publisher Charles Ardai, who provides an interesting an informative overview of Fuller's life and career as well as the background story on the writing of this book. Highly recommended.
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THE ULTIMATE
SLUMBER PARTY
By
Raymond Benson
There
are certain films that capture the zeitgeist of an era, and The Big Chill is definitely one of them.
If a movie like, say, Annie Hall,
hits the nail on the head of urban relationships in the late 70s, then Chill embraces the Baby Boomers’ angst
of adulthood in the early 80s—a time when the partying and discoing Carter
years were undoubtedly over and we, in the USA, were solidly entrenched in
Reagan’s world of hippies-turned-yuppies. The
Big Chill is a love letter to the Baby Boomers, as it explores themes of
regret over wasted opportunities, friendship and camaraderie, nostalgia, and the
eternal question of what-happens-next.
Director
and co-writer Kasdan, in a recent video interview (included as an extra on the
disk), states that one of his influences for the picture was Jean Renoir’s 1939
classic, The Rules of the Game, which
also dealt with an ensemble of characters coming together for a reunion at a
country house. While the former film is bigger, more populated, and infinitely
more complex than The Big Chill, one
can definitely see the similarities. So-and-so has a history with whozit, but
whozit is now married to you-know-who; whereas, you-know-who is really in love
with so-and-so... and, well, you get the idea.
In
The Big Chill, a group of close-knit
friends from college reunite for the funeral of one of their own. Alex (who was played by Kevin Costner in
flashback sequences that were ultimately edited out of the picture), was
staying in Harold (Kevin Kline) and Sarah’s (Glenn Close) country home in South
Carolina and committed suicide there. Alex apparently had an affair with Sarah
(who is married to Harold). Vietnam vet and druggie Nick (William Hurt) once
had a thing with hot-stuff but now-married Karen (JoBeth Williams), but Karen
was really in love with hunky, now-TV-star Sam (Tom Berenger). Nerdy-and-socially-inept
Michael (Jeff Goldblum) and smart-but-bitter Meg (Mary Kay Place) got it on in
the past, but today Meg just wants to have a baby as a single mom and Michael
is just, well, horny. But really, none of these histories make much difference
on the story or unfolding of events during the weekend at the house. Over the
course of the film’s 105 minutes, the characters laugh, fight, dance, expound
philosophy, laugh some more, reflect on their lives, have sex (some of them
do), and bond again with their “family.†Anyone who has gone to college can
most likely relate.
The
intelligent script by Kasdan and Barbara Benedek was nominated for an Original
Screenplay Oscar, and the film was nominated for Best Picture of ’83. Oddly,
Glenn Close received the only acting nomination (Supporting Actress), whereas
Goldblum, Place, and especially Hurt probably deserved nods as well (Goldblum
certainly has the best lines!).
Then
there’s the soundtrack, which is the ultimate Baby Boomer collection of rock
and soul gems from the late 60s and early 70s—the period in which the
characters were in college in Michigan. Isn’t it true that our favorite music
is still what we heard in high school
and college? In this case, there’s a lot of Motown, sprinkled with some Rolling
Stones, Three Dog Night, Procol Harum, and other iconic pieces from the era.
The music is as much a part of the film as is the characters. Perhaps it is a character.
The
new, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by DP John Bailey and
approved by Kasdan, looks terrific on Blu-ray. There’s an alternate remastered
5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray disc.
Extras include the aforementioned interview with Kasdan, a reunion roundtable
discussion with the cast and some crew in 2013 (it’s interesting to note that
none of the women in the cast bought into the plotline in which Sarah lets her
husband Harold sleep with Meg as a favor), a documentary from 1998 on the
making of the picture, deleted scenes (unfortunately, though, none with Costner),
and the usual excellent essays in the enclosed booklet (one by Lena Dunham).
If
you’ve never seen The Big Chill,
now’s the time to do it. And if you have, maybe it’s time for a reunion with
old friends.
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Film historian Max Tohline provides a fascinating 13 minute video essay that delves into insights about the editing process used in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Even if you've seen the film countless times (as we have!), this is sure to give you a renewed appreciation for the work of director Sergio Leone and his editors. Click here to view. (Thanks to reader Vip Patel for the head's up on this.)
BY ADRIAN SMITH
Have
you ever wondered what M*A*S*H would have been like if, instead of
rebelling in a Korean field hospital and taking a satirical swipe at the
Vietnam war, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland had actually been CIA
operatives in contemporary Paris? Probably not, but somebody in 1974 did and commissioned
a film that would be marketed solely on the chemistry of its two leads. Sadly
no one else involved with movie seemed to think it worthwhile to write a decent
script or throw any money into the project. This film looks so cheap that,
during a scene where Sutherland is washing up, you suspect that he was doing
this between takes as well.
Gould
and Sutherland play agents Griff and Bruland, who are both working separately
in Paris until an accidental assassination attempt by their own agency brings them
together. Incidentally this bombing takes place in a pissoire (urinal), which
gives an early indication of how grubby this film will get. Martinson, played
by British actor Joss Ackland, is the Chief of the Paris branch of the CIA, and
to make amends for nearly killing them, he puts them together on a new case.
Their task is to smuggle a defector from the Russian Olympic team back to New
York. However, when rival British agents get involved, it all goes horribly
wrong, and once again Griff and Bruland narrowly escape a CIA bomb. So now they
are rogue ex-agents out to survive attempts on their lives whilst earning money
through shady deals involving French revolutionaries, the Russian ambassador
and the Chinese secret service. Much farce ensues.
The
film, shot in the UK and on location in Paris, plays more like a Bob Hope and
Bing Crosby Road to... movie, or, with the heavy British influence, the
Morecambe and Wise film The Magnificent Two. Ackland is like a poor
man's Herbert Lom from the Pink Panther films, and Sutherland and Gould
play the film like they used to have fun together a few years ago, but not so
much any more. A lot of the film feels like the director is time filling. A
return trip from Paris to London serves no other purpose than to allow for
stock travel footage. This is perhaps a surprise when you learn that the
director is none other than Irvin Kershner, who started out in film noir but is
best known for saving the Star Wars
franchise with The Empire Strikes Back. S*P*Y*S represents
something of a low in his CV.
For
reasons most likely forgotten, the film had a score by Jerry Goldsmith on its
US release, but in Europe a new score was recorded by John Scott, a jazz
musician whose career now spans more than fifty years, covering everything from
horror and sexploitation to TV themes and epics. His score for S*P*Y*S,
found on this new DVD release, is fairly conventional, and in all likelihood
the audience will be too busy straining to hear anything funny from the cast to
notice it.
One
point of interest here is that the film offers an appearance of Zouzou, who
plays a sexy revolutionary. In the 1960s, through her involvement with Brian
Jones of The Rolling Stones, she became a celebrity and French icon before
trying singing and acting. Addicted to heroin she dropped out of acting shortly
after S*P*Y*S, presumably because she watched it.
Fans
of Elliott Gould or Donald Sutherland will no doubt want to pick this up, but
for everyone else it is a less than essential release. With a plot that can be
found in countless Euro-spy and Bond rip-offs, and unable to compensate for
this with sparkling wit or charm, S*P*Y*S has little to offer. Watch M*A*S*H
again instead.
This
new DVD release from Network Releasing features a decent print. The colours are
rather drab, but one suspects that is how the film has always looked. As
mentioned, the soundtrack features the European rather than the original Jerry
Goldsmith score. The only extras are a rather brief stills gallery and the
original theatrical trailer, which really hammers home just how great it will
be to see Gould and Sutherland do their thing again. If only it proved to be true...
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(This film is out of print on American DVD)
By Brian Hannan
All you need is top stars and top directors and
making movies is easy. Surely you couldn’t miss with a line-up that included
Sean Connery, Steve McQueen, Michael Caine, Dustin Hoffman, Lee Marvin, Omar
Sharif, and directors of the calibre of Robert Aldrich (hot after The Dirty Dozen), John Boorman (Point Blank) and Woody Allen. Or so ABC
must have thought when it set up a movie division in the late 1960s. Delving
into the archives recently, I discovered that Sam Peckinpah’s rodeo picture Junior Bonner (1972) starring Steve
McQueen was a box office stinkeroo. The picture lost $2.8m (about $15m in
today’s money). Not just on domestic release, but worldwide.
The movie was made by ABC in a disastrous five-year
foray into the movie business and McQueen was not alone in being on the
receiving end of a lot of red ink. The Sean Connery-Brigitte Bardot western Shalako (1968) directed by the veteran
Edward Dymytryk (The Carpetbaggers, The
Young Lions) was another loser - $1.25m
down the drain. At least Peckinpah redeemed himself with Straw Dogs (1973) starring Hoffman which ponied up $1.45m in
profits. Lee Marvin in John Boorman’s war film Hell in the Pacific (1968) dug a box office foxhole so deep it
buried a loss of $4.1m. But the biggest loser was Michael Caine. War picture Too Late the Hero (1970), directed by
Robert Aldrich and equally set in the Pacific, kissed goodbye to a colossal
$6.7m. And that was not the worst of it for Caine. The Last
Valley (1971), a historical drama set in the One Hundred Years War in
medieval Europe, written and directed by James Clavell (writer of Tai Pan and director of To Sir with Love) and co-starring Omar
Sharif, tanked to the tune of $7.1. Aldrich had little luck with ABC – his
lesbian drama The Killing of Sister
George (1968) starring Susannah York lost $750,000 and kidnap thriller The Grissom Gang (1971) another $3m.
The Oscar-nominated They Shoot Horses, Don’t They that restored Jane Fonda’s acting
credibility was $1.2m shy of break-even. Even Woody Allen’s magic touch
deserted him – Take the Money and Run
(1969) in the hole for $610,000. Check out the resume of Exorcist author and Exorcist
III director William Peter Blatty and you won’t find mention of Mastermind, starring Zero Mostel. At one
point it was set for a May 1970 release, but never saw the light of day. All
told ABC lost $47m before it threw in the towel.
Brian Hannan is the author of The Making of the Guns of Navarone (Baroliant Press).
UPDATE: The information contained in this article was derived from a 1973 article in Variety. It should be pointed out that the grosses cited for Shalako were U.S. only. Producer Euan Lloyd had different film companies buy the rights to release the film in various countries. ABC controlled the American rights. Also, funding for the film would not have come strictly from ABC. Lloyd would finance his productions by pre-selling them to various international territories, so ABC would not have funded the entire cost of the film. As the production was said to have done considerable business in the international market, it may well be that it was a profitable venture.
By Lee Pfeiffer
Hollywood lost another member of its rapidly diminishing roster of stars who can truly be called legends. James Garner has passed away from natural causes following years of battling severe health issues that kept him out of the public eye. He was 86 years old. Like many actors of his generation, he drifted into the profession as an unlikely candidate for stardom. Garner served in the Korean War and was awarded two Purple Hearts, a fact he was characteristically humble about discussing. He landed some parts in "A" list feature films in the late 1950s before starring as Bret Maverick in the smash hit TV series "Maverick". His popularity exploded in the 1960s when he became part of a select number of TV stars to successfully transfer their popularity to the big screen. Garner made a major impression as a charismatic con/man grifter in John Sturges' star-packed 1963 classic "The Great Escape". This was followed by a truly inspired performance as a coward who is "chosen" by cynical Naval brass to be the first American serviceman killed at D-Day in the controversial hit comedy "The Americanization of Emily". His ability to alternate between dramatic roles and light comedy saw him star opposite Doris Day in the hit comedies "Move Over, Darling" and "The Thrill of It All". An avid and respected race car driver in real life, Garner also top-lined director John Frankenheimer's big budget 1966 Cinerama film "Grand Prix". Like Cary Grant, Garner's winning personality often made people overlook his acting skills with the notion among critics that he was just playing himself. He did receive a Best Actor nomination late in his career for the 1985 film "Murphy's Romance", a gentle comedy/drama in which he starred with Sally Field. In the 1970s, Garner returned to TV and had a smash hit series with "The Rockford Files", a lighthearted detective show that saw him nominated for numerous Emmys and winning one. He would revive the role again in TV movies in the 1990s. In the 1980s, a series of amusing Polaroid commercials cast him as the husband of actress Marietta Hartley. The spots became so popular that many people thought they were married in real life. In more recent years, Garner won acclaim for starring in dramatic TV movies. He had a co-starring role with Mel Gibson in the hit 1994 big screen version of "Maverick" and another major success co-starring with Clint Eastwood in "Space Cowboys" in the year 2000.
Garner is survived by his wife Lois, to whom he was married for 56 years.
For more, click here
By Don L. Stradley
Arbor's life is rough. He's 13, he's on medication to
control his mood swings, his brother is a drug addict, and his mother owes
money to everybody in the neighborhood. But as bad as Arbor's home life may be,
his friend Swifty's life is worse. At Swifty's, the family's furniture has been
repossessed. There's no place to sit but on the floor. He spends most of his
nights at Arbor's, where there are chairs.
During the day, Swifty and Arbor endure classes they
have no use for. They wander around town. They get into fights. The town they
live in seems bereft of life. The only sound one hears at night is the humming
of nearby power lines. You might call it 'working class,' but no one is
working. This is the world of The Selfish
Giant, a stirring new film from UK writer/director Clio Barnard.
Arbor and Swifty are the type of inseparable mates that
are only seen in childhood. They need each other, if only because no one else
wants them. Arbor, a terror who loses his temper often, mouths off to teachers
and other adults, feeling there is nothing they can do to him that is any worse
than the poverty he lives in. He seems unlikable at first, the sort of kid you
don't know what to do with, but over time he reveals a strangely adult side. When his older brother and stressed mother seem
too incapacitated to look after themselves, Ardor practically assumes the
"man of the house" role.
Arbor's loyalty
to Swifty is also admirable. One afternoon, when he sees Swifty being picked
on, Arbor boldly leaves his classroom and assaults the bully. The resulting
fight sees Arbor and Swifty being kicked out of school. This is ok with them,
for they've discovered a way to make money by collecting roadside junk for a
local scrap dealer, a foul-mouthed lug named Kitten (Sean Gilder). Kitten seems
like a character out of Dickens, putting kids to work for him in what is
obviously an illegal operation. Kitten isn't impressed with the boys, until he
learns that Swifty has a way with horses. Kitten owns a trotting horse that he
hopes to enter in local contests, and he needs Swifty to work with him. As
Swifty becomes Kitten's favorite, Arbor finds himself being pushed aside.
Connor Chapman is brilliant as Arbor, and ultimately
won me over. He's resourceful when he's out on the road scrapping, and isn't
afraid of trying for things beyond his reach, including cable from the always
menacing power lines. He's as world-weary as a 13-year-old can be; he's never
been a child. He seems to have born angry, and ready to fight. Shaun Thomas is
also very fine as Swifty, a sensitive boy who is big enough to throw a punch,
but needs a little coaxing from Arbor, and would probably rather be in a barn
with the horses, anyway.
The Selfish Giant isn't an easy movie. The squalor is
unsettling. The northern England accents are so thick that the movie has
subtitles. The characters aren't always likable. The climax is upsetting, the
ending a little vague. Still, it's a
strong film, and I felt affection for the two boys. There's a scene where they
receive their first pay from the scrap dealer. Arbor asks Swifty if he can now
buy back some of the furniture his family had to give up. When Swifty nods yes, Arbor's smile lights up the screen.
He couldn't have been any happier if he'd won the lottery. The film says
otherwise, but Arbor's smile almost makes you think that something as simple as
friendship can conquer any hardship.
On a side note, there's been a persistent meme that the
movie is based on an Oscar Wilde story of the same name. Trust me, it’s not “a modern reworking†of
anything, as several reviewers have tried to say. The Wilde story is about a
literal giant who finds a child in his garden who turns out to be Christ. While Bernard acknowledges that her movie is a
fable, the influence of Wilde’s story is very loose. Bernard, who is interested
in stories from the area where the movie was made, described her Selfish Giant
as a “re-telling of a fairy tale based on fact.†Maybe Wilde’s influence is in there, but
there’s also a bit of The Bicycle Thieves
and The 400 Blows. (For those
curious about Wilde’s story, there was an animated version that aired on
Canadian television in 1972.)
Bernard’s movie was nominated for a BAFTA Award this
year for Best British Film. It lost to Gravity. I would've voted for The Selfish Giant.
Now on DVD from MPI Home Video, the extra features
include interviews with the director and cast, plus deleted scenes.
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BY FRED BLOSSER
A
particular kind of film was popular in, and almost unique to, the 1970s. I would call them “A-minus†movies. Not quite “A†because they didn’t feature
trendy mega-stars like Newman, Redford, McQueen, Eastwood, Streisand, or
Beatty, but not quite “B†either. Typically, they were international packages that starred a mix of
American actors who, although past the peak of their popularity, still retained
some marquee appeal for older moviegoers, and European actors who would draw
overseas audiences. They usually were
built around B-movie crime, spy, and thriller stories, but bigger-budgeted and
more sophisticated than the standard “B,†and filmed on European locations, not
a studio backlot in Culver City.
Henri
Verneuil’s “Le Casse†(1971),†released in the States by Columbia Pictures in
1972 as “The Burglars,†exemplifies the genre -- French director; on-location
filming in Greece; score by Ennio Morricone; the names of Jean-Paul Belmondo,
Omar Sharif, and Dyan Cannon above the title; an able supporting cast of Robert
Hossein (“Les Uns et Les Autresâ€), Renato Salvatori (“Lunaâ€), and Nicole Calfan
(“Borsalinoâ€); and a script by Verneuil and Vahé Katcha based on David
Goodis’ 1953 paperback crime noir, “The Burglar.â€
Verneuil
had recently aced a big hit in Europe and a modest hit in the U.S. with “Le
Clan des Siciliens†(1969), also known as “The Sicilian Clan.†“The Sicilian Clan†is relatively easy to
find in a sharp print on home video and TV (there was a 2007 Region 2 DVD, a
2014 Region 2 Blu-ray, and periodic airings on Fox Movie Channel). Unfortunately for A-minus aficionados, “The
Burglars†is more elusive in a really good, English-language video print.
Professional
thief Azad (Belmondo) and his partners (Hossein, Salvatori, and Calfan) have
cased a villa in Athens whose jet-setting owners are away on vacation. A safe in the house holds a million dollars
in emeralds. The thieves break into the
house, crack the safe, and make off with the jewels, but two glitches
arise. First, a police detective,
Zacharias (Sharif), spots the burglars’ car in front of the villa. Azad chats with the detective and spins a
cover story of being a salesman with engine trouble. Zacharias leaves, but it seems like too easy
an out for the thieves.
Next,
the plan to flee Greece immediately on a merchant ship falls through. The gang arrives at the dock and finds the
ship undergoing repairs: “Storm damage. It will be ready to sail in five days.†They stash the money, split up, and agree to
wait out the delay. Zacharias reappears,
playing cat-and-mouse with the burglars. He’s found the opportunity to cash out big. Offered a meager reward by the billionaire
owner of the jewels and “10 percent of the value†by the insurance company, he
decides he’ll do better by finding and keeping the emeralds himself. In the meantime, Azad meets and romances
Lena, a vacationing centerfold model (Cannon), whose role in the story turns
out to be more relevant than it first seems.
Goodis’
novel was filmed once before as “The Burglar†(1957), a modestly budgeted,
black-and-white programmer with Dan Duryea, Jayne Mansfield, and Martha
Vickers, directed by Paul Wendkos. The
script by Goodis himself, the photography in gritty Philadelphia and Atlantic
City, Duryea’s hangdog performance, and Mansfield’s surprisingly vulnerable
acting faithfully captured the bleak spirit of the novel.
Retooling
the story as a shinier A-minus, Verneuil made significant changes. Duryea’s character, Nat Harbin, runs ragged
trying to keep his fractious gang together and protect his ward Gladden, the
young female member of the team, whose father had been Harbin’s own
mentor. Verneuil tailors the
corresponding character Azad to Belmondo’s exuberant, athletic personality and
changes the dynamic between Azad and Helene, Calfan’s character. Where Gladden is brooding and troubled,
Helene seems to be well-adjusted if somewhat flighty. When Nat realizes that he loves Gladden, it
comes too late to save their doomed relationship. Azad and Helene find a happier
resolution. The opportunistic cop in the
novel and earlier movie, Charley, has little interaction with Harbin, but
Belmondo and Sharif share ample screen time and charm as the two equally wily
antagonists. Their final showdown in a
grain-storage warehouse brings to mind, of all classic movie references, the
climactic scene in Carl Dreyer’s “Vampyr†(1932).
Updating
the technical details of the story, Verneuil turns the safecracking into a
lengthy scene in which Azad uses a high-tech, punch-card gizmo to visually scan
the scan the safe’s inner workings and manufacture a key that will open
it. Roger Greenspun’s June 15, 1972,
review in “The New York Times†took a dim view of Verneuil’s meticulous,
step-by-step depiction: “Such a machine might excite the envy of James Bond's
armorer, or the delight of Rube Goldberg. But what it does for Henri Verneuil is to fill up a great deal of film
time with a device rather than with an action.†In fact, Verneuil was simply paying homage to similar, documentarian
scenes in John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle†(1949) and Jules Dassin’s “Rififiâ€
(1955) -- incidentally, one of Robert Hossein’s early films -- and at the same
time avoiding repetition by employing the kind of Space Age gadget that
fascinated 007 fans in the early ‘70s.
Greenspun
also objected to “an endless (and pointless) car chase,†but the chase,
choreographed by Rémy Julienne, isn’t exactly pointless: it adds an overlay of
menace to the second, verbally cordial meeting of Azad and Zacharias. Besides, in the era of “Bullitt†(1968) and “The French Connectionâ€
(1971), a car chase in a crime film was good box office, as Verneuil certainly
knew. The chase isn’t shot and edited as
electrically as the ones staged by Bill Hickman for Peter Yates and William
Friedkin, but it’s easily as entertaining as Julienne’s stunts for the Bond
films.
Ennio
Morricone’s eclectic score includes a jazzy, Europop-inflected title tune;
dreamy easy-listening background music in the hotel cafe where Azad and Lena
meet cute; sultry music in a sex club where Morricone seems to be channeling
Mancini and Bachrach; and airy, Manos Hatzidakis-style string music in a Greek
restaurant where Azad and Zacharias meet. It’s an inventive score, but not as well known as some of Morricone’s
others, perhaps because it borrows so freely (with an affectionate wink and a
nod) from his contemporaries.
There
are a couple of versions of “The Burglars†as the French-language “Le Casse†on
YouTube, only one of them letterboxed, and neither with English subtitles. Web sources indicate that Sony released the
German-language version of the film, “Der Coup,†for the German DVD market in
2011; some say it includes English subtitles, others say it doesn’t. There was a letterboxed Alfa Digital edition
of “The Burglars†in 2007 for the collectors’ market, and a letterboxed print
occasionally runs on Turner Classic Movies. Those are probably the best bets for an English-track, properly
widescreen (2:35-1) print, although in both cases the colors are muddy, dulling
the bright cinematography by Claude Renoir that I remember seeing on the big
screen in 1972.
Belmondo,
Sharif, and Cannon probably have little name recognition among younger viewers
today, and a scene in which Azad slaps Lena around, activating a clapper that
cuts the lights in Lena’s apartment and then turns them back on with each slap,
would never be included in a modern film. On the other hand, the mixture of crime, car chase, and romance might
pique the interest of today’s “Fast & Furious†fans. In fact, with some rewriting (and further
separation from Goodis’ noir universe), it could easily be remade as a future
installment in the franchise, with Belmondo’s Azad repositioned as Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto, and Sharif’s
Zacharias rewritten and softened as Dwayne Johnson’s Agent Luke Hobbs.
It’s
heartening that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has begun to move older
Columbia genre releases from its vaults to DVD and cable TV, often in
first-rate condition. For example, a
pristine print of “Thunder on the Border†(1966) ran recently on GetTV, Sony’s
cable outlet for the Columbia vault. As
another example, “Hurricane Island†(1951) has aired on Turner Classic Movies
in perfectly transferred or restored Supercinecolor. It would be nice to see Sony offer a
comparably refurbished print of “The Burglars†on American Blu-ray. If nothing else, the movie’s 45th Anniversary
is only a year and a half away.
Warner Home Video, in association with Paramount Pictures, is commemorating the 50th anniversary of Jerry Lewis' "The Nutty Professor" with the release of a deluxe Blu-ray gift set. The film is understandably Lewis' personal favorite- and with good reason. His clever comedic take on the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde legend remains a remarkably inventive and funny film, with Lewis not only in the director's chair, but also giving a tour-de-force performance as the nerdy academic who manages to transform himself into a different kind of "monster"- a suave lady's man with a huge ego and no regard for the people in his life. In a personal letter included in the set, Lewis states: "This is a very special film with a lot of heart and soul. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing, directing, acting, editing, scoring and extensive promotion of the film. It is what I always dreamed of doing when I was growing up, watching Charlie Chaplin on the big screen. I am so happy to offer the unique elements of this collection for the first time, and I'm thankful to Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures for the opportunity to collaborate on this great release of 'The Nutty Professor', my very special child."
Warner Home Video has packed the set with many impressive bonus extras, some of which have been released previously and some of which are new to this set. They include:
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
NETWORK
has released its brand new trailer for the upcoming documentary Filmed In Supermarionation, featuring
digitally remastered clips from the iconic 1960s shows. The film will be out in
October 2014.
Directed
and produced by Stephen La Riviere (The Story Of Upstairs
Downstairs, We Were ‘The Champions’), Filmed In Supermarionation is the
definitive documentary on the work of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and the iconic
puppetry and animation technique they developed through the 1960s including Stingray, Captain Scarlet, and most famously, Thunderbirds.
The world premiere of Filmed In Supermarionation will take place on 30 September 2014 at the BFI Southbank.
Trailer link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLM-EZzPJOM
www.networkonair.com
www.facebook.com/NetworkDistributing
@networktweets #FiS
By Lee Pfeiffer
Netflix seems to be King of the Hill lately. The company has redefined how the public watches television and has pioneered the "on demand" format into an international habit. It has produced Emmy-winning hit series and has a fanatically loyal customer base. However, Netflix is also embroiled in a bitter battle with cable companies that provide the vital streaming services needed to access its programming. The cable companies are complaining that Netflix eats up so much bandwith, they should share in the cost of providing the technology. Netflix argues that it bares no such responsibility. Consequently, some cable companies have been stifling Netflix' ability to provide adequate speed for its service, leaving some customers frustrated when their favorite Netflix shows encounter slow download speeds. Netflix has responded by posting snarky comments on screens blaming the cable companies. All of this in an indication that cable companies feel threatened by the Netflix surge. They fear that cable customer's habits are radically being driven toward "on demand" entertainment and could threaten the basic cable business plan of selling programs in expensive "bundles" to customers who have to purchase many channels they don't want in order to access the few they do want. For a Washington Post story about this war of titans, click here.
In one of the craziest legal brawls over trademark protection we've ever heard of, Duke University is attempting to prevent the estate of John Wayne from marketing a new bourbon under the title "Duke". As any movie lover knows, that was Wayne's nickname since childhood and stemmed from a dog who used to follow him around. Locals referred to them as "Big Duke" and "Little Duke". The name Duke has been synonymous with Wayne throughout the decades. The university argues that it is merely ensuring that they are protecting their own use of the name as a famed institution of learning. The Wayne estate says that is pure bunk and that no one could logically confuse a John Wayne bourbon with anything having to do with Duke University. We somehow doubt those university officials would have taken on this case if the Duke himself were still around to oppose them. Click here for more.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Shout! Factory:
A visionary creator unlike any other, with
a passion for unveiling truths about nature and existence by blurring the line
between reality and fiction, Werner Herzog is undoubtedly one of cinema’s most controversial
and enigmatic figures. Audiences the world over have marveled at his uniquely
moving, often disturbing, but always awe-inspiring stories, and his ever-growing
body of work has inspired an untold number of filmmakers. He is, and continues
to be, the most daring filmmaker of our time.
In celebration of this cinematic
vanguard, Shout! Factory will release Herzog: The Collection on July 29th,
2014. Limited to 5,000 copies, the 13-disc box set features 16
acclaimed films and documentaries, 15 of which are making their Blu-ray debuts.
Herzog: The Collection also features
a 40 page booklet that includes photos, an essay by award-winning author
Stephen J. Smith, and in-depth film synopses by Herzog scholars Brad Prager and
Chris Wahl. Bonus features include English and German audio commentaries, the
documentaries Herzog in Africa and Portrait: Werner Herzog, interviews and
original theatrical trailers.
The first 100 fans to order their copies from ShoutFactory.com will
receive a copy autographed by Werner Herzog himself. As an addition
bonus, box sets ordered directly through ShoutFactory.com will be shipped three
weeks before street date. Collectors can place their orders now by visiting https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/herzog-collection-limited-edition . Herzog
has taken his camera to parts of the world no other director would dare go, and
told stories in ways previously unconsidered. These sixteen masterpieces, which
blur the line between "fiction" and "documentary,"
illustrate why Werner Herzog is the most intrepid, creative, and dangerous
filmmaker of our lifetime.
Herzog:
The Collection includes:
Even Dwarfs Started
Small
Land of Silence and
Darkness
Fata Morgana
Aguirre, the Wrath
of God
The Enigma of
Kaspar Hauser
Heart of Glass
Stroszek
Woyzeck
Nosferatu the
Vampyre
Fitzcarraldo
Ballad of the Little
Soldier
Where the Green
Ants Dream
Cobra Verde
Lessons of Darkness
Little Dieter Needs
to Fly
My Best Fiend
Special Features:
- English
Audio Commentaries: Even Dwarfs
Started Small, Fata Morgana, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Strozek and Cobra Verde.
- German
Audio commentaries: Nosferatu the
Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo, Where the Green Ants Dream.
- In
Conversation
- Werner Herzog and Laurens Straub (in German with English Subtitles)
- The
Making of Nosferatu The Vampyre
- Portrait:
Werner Herzog documentary
- Herzog In
Africa documentary
- Theatrical
Trailers
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We've seen some pretty weird record albums tied in with celebrities. If you thought William Shatner's "Transformed Man" is the gold standard of bizarro ventures by actors into the realm of 331/3 records, Cinema Retro contributor Doug Gerbino spotted this gem that seems to beg for further investigation into its origins. Whatever possessed James Mason, one of Hollywood's most notorious cads both on screen and off, to delve into the world of Alvin and the Chipmunks, is a mystery destined to rank with debates about the origins of the pyramids. We also love the fact that Mason is seen on this children's album sleeve holding his omnipresent cigarette. This must have been a compromise on the part of Capitol Records in terms of Mason's presumed insistence that he be photographed swilling down a Martini! After all, the album does possess the highly-cherished Bozo Seal of Approval. We personally can't wait to locate a copy of this record so we can indulge in that snappy, toe-tapper "Backwards From 100" with James "Snoop Daddy" Mason on the lead.
By Lee Pfeiffer
This summer, in between watching Godzilla and the Transformers wreaking havoc on the earth, you might pause and remind yourself that every now and then a worthwhile movie is released that deals with real people and real-life situations. Granted, it's hard to find such fare in theaters- at least until Oscar season- but there is an abundance of fine, largely undiscovered films available on-demand and on home video. Sony Pictures Choice Collection has re-released one such title as a burn-to-order DVD. "Owning Mahowny" is a 2003 Canadian film that won plenty of praise and awards "North O' the Border" when it was nominated for numerous Genies (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars.) Based on a true story that was evidently a bit of a sensation in the early 1980s, the story centers of Dan Mawhowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a relatively nondescript mid manager at a Toronto bank. Mahowny is respected for his dedication to the bank, his reliability and his talent for putting together important bank loans in a charming, low-key manner that gains the trust of high profile clients. For his efforts Mahowny is promoted and given oversight of the bank's largest loans. He does a good job, too, impressing the top brass by continuing to convince well-heeled people in the business community to take out large loans through his bank branch. Mahowny's personal life is equally nondescript. He lives modestly, drives an old clunker of a car and has a devoted girlfriend, Belinda (Minnie Driver), who he is about to move in with. All seems well- except Mahowny is harboring a troubling secret. He is addicted to illegal sports betting and has run up sizable debts with the local bookie, a sleazy character named Frank Perlin (Maury Chaykin). In desperation, Mahowny falls into the inevitable trap of all gambling addicts: in order to pay off the debt, he borrows even more and takes riskier bets hoping to strike it big. Meanwhile, he has to maintain a normal life at work and with Belinda. Soon, however, he crosses an ethical line when, by virtue of his new powers at the bank, he finds he can manipulate customer loan accounts and take large sums for himself. Like all gambling addicts, he justifies his actions by convincing himself that he is only "borrowing" the funds and will repay them before anyone notices. However, Mahowny hits a major losing streak that causes him such emotional distress that even Belinda begins to suspect the real truth. He becomes evasive and inattentive, consumed by the daily challenge of covering up his crimes even as he diverts more and more money into his own accounts. In desperation, he makes trips to Atlantic City, where his sizable losings gain him the personal attention of the casino manager, a manipulative, greedy man named Victor Foss (John Hurt). Foss recognizes a sucker when he sees one and lavishes high roller perks on Mahowny to ensure he continues to to lose his money at Foss's casino. Mahowny does stray one time: on a trip to Las Vegas, where he ends up with the potential to walk away with $9 million in winnings. However, like everything in Mahowny's life, he seizes defeat from the jaws of victory.
"Owning Mahowny" came and went at the American boxoffice with a barely noticeable blip. However, it is a highly engrossing film and is brilliantly enacted by Hoffman and the supporting cast. Had the film received more exposure in America, he would certainly have nailed down an Oscar nomination. Director Richard Kwietnioski builds almost unbearable suspense as we watch Mahowny having to deftly avoid being discovered by bank auditors, his own bosses and law enforcement, as his "borrowings" run into millions. The film is also impressive for the fact that the story remains set in the early 1980s and the production team does a fine job of recreating this long-gone, pre-internet era. The supporting cast impresses throughout with Driver doing fine work as the long-suffering girlfriend who won't give up on Mahowny. Hurt is a villain in the classic movie style, all charm and graciousness on the exterior, but with a Machiavellian nature underneath. Maury Chaykin, looking as scruffy and repugnant as porn star Ron Jeremy, is particularly good in this film, as the man who holds the key to Mahowny's fate.
This is first-rate movie making. You probably missed the film in theaters, but don't fail to view it on the Sony DVD. The only gripe is that the film calls out for bonus extras, especially when it comes to delving into the real James Mahowny, who became quite prominent in gambling circles after his case made the press. However, the DVD is sans any bonus extras at all.
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By Lee Pfeiffer
Twilight Time has released the Fox WWI epic The Blue Max as a limited edition (3,000 units) Blu-ray. The studio had excelled in producing excellent war movies during the 1960s and early 1970s including The Longest Day, The Sand Pebbles, Tora! Tora! Tora! and Patton. The Blue Max has not remained as revered as those films but in many ways it is no less impressive. By 1966, the year the film was released, WWI had been largely ignored by Hollywood in favor WWII films. Not only was that conflict far more recent, unlike the complex issues that made "The War to End All Wars" a reality, the forces of good and evil were much easier to define in WWII. Prior to The Blue Max, the most ambitious relatively recent WWI film had been Kubrick's Paths of Glory, released almost a decade before. The Blue Max was based on the bestselling novel by Jack Hunter, who felt there were still shards of chivalry during the WWI era that would ultimately be replaced by the sheer barbarism of the second world war. The protagonist of the story is Lt. Bruno Stachel, a lowly infantryman who decides to rise above the horrors of trench warfare in favor of the German air corps. He arrives at his barracks and immediately isolates his fellow squadron mates with his arrogant and conceited nature. Stachel has a chip on his shoulder: unlike most of the other pilots, he is not a dilettante and comes from a very modest social background. The squadron's hero is Willi von Klugerman (Jeremy Kemp), who is acknowledged as their flying ace. Willi is also the recipient of the coveted Blue Max, Germany's highest decoration for courage in combat. In order to earn the medal, a pilot must have twenty verifiable "kills" of enemy aircraft. Although Stachel and Willi form a friendship, it has shaky foundations. Willi knows that Stachel's obsession is to outperform him and also be awarded the Blue Max. The rivalry between the two men extends to their personal lives: they are both bedding Countess Kaeti von Klugerman (Ursula Andress), the vivacious wife of Willi's uncle, the influential General General Count von Klugerman (superbly played by James Mason). Willi enjoys making humorous references to his lover as "my aunt". With Stachel's appearance, however, things become complicated, as Kaeti, who enjoys an open marriage with her husband, is free to indulge in her fantasies of bedding air aces and turning them into rivals. Stachel's valor in the skies earns him the respect, if not affection, of his comrades and General von Klugerman engages in a campaign of deception in order to build up morale by making Stachel a "working class hero" for propaganda purposes. In doing so, both men cross ethical lines by awarding Stachel "kills" he did not earn, much to the disgust of Stachel's commanding officer (Karl Michael Vogler), a man who represents old world military honor and integrity.
While the bedroom aspects of The Blue Max are compelling, it is the aerial sequences that dominate the film. They are brilliantly photographed by Douglas Slocombe and are set to Jerry Goldsmith's impressive and atmospheric musical score. The film, shot in Ireland (doubling for France) features several incredible dogfights and stunt flying sequences that are never less than thrilling. With America's late entry into the war, German fortunes diminish and the ragtag squadron's attack on advancing Allied infantry forces is epic in scope. Director John Guillerman, long underrated by the way, deftly weaves the action on the battlefield with the action in the boudoir and is helped significantly by the intelligent screenplay which has a highly creative and satisfying climax that improves upon the ending of the book and calls to mind the old adage from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
If there is a flaw in the film it is that there is no one other than Karl Michael Vogler's supporting character to cheer for. Stachler is a shameless opportunist without respect for anyone around him. George Peppard fulfills the basic requirements of the role: he's handsome and cocky, but the character is underwritten. If you are going to have a heel as the central protagonist, he must be embellished with some likable qualities aside from hunky good looks. Consider Paul Newman in Hud and The Hustler: two equally selfish characters, but both of whom had enough redeeming values to make you at least occasionally like them. Similarly, the sexual predator played by Andress is also a despicable person on a moral basis, as she enjoys playing her lovers against each other and reducing her husband to the role of cuckolded spouse. As for the General, he, too, is an opportunist who willingly trashes military protocol to create a national hero based on exaggerations and lies. As for Kemp's character, Willi, he is a genuine hero, but also an elitist snob with a superiority complex who will go to any length to retain his status of golden boy of his squadron. With this pack of knaves and rogues dominating the screen, it's hard to feel empathy for any of them.
Guillerman provides some haunting clues regarding the consequences of Germany's fortunes, as it becomes obvious to the main characters that the war is lost. In a sequence set in Berlin, the military brass and their wives continue to live and dine in opulence, oblivious to the fact that the citizenry is forming soup kitchens and engaging in bread riots. The General's babble about retaining the integrity of the military in order to prevent revolution is filled with hypocrisy because he is deceiving the German people through his phony propaganda campaigns. Similar tactics, of course, would be key to the rise of National Socialism in the 1930s.
Unlike the other Fox war movies mentioned previously, the film's cachet among retro movie lovers seems to have diminished over the years. It deserves to be re-evaluated and enjoyed by anyone who respects the kind of old fashioned, roadshow epics they just don't make any more. The Blue Max is superb on many levels and had a great impression on future directors George Lucas and Peter Jackson (who salvaged and restored Peppard's plane from the film!).
The Twilight Time release is one of the most impressive we've seen from this company, with a flawless transfer that does justice to this rich-looking film. The set includes the usual, informative liner notes by Julie Kirgo, an isolated audio track of Goldsmith's score and a second track with alternative music and commentary by Kirgo and fellow film historians Nick Redman and Jon Burligame. A theatrical trailer is also included.
Click here to order from Screen Archives.
Click here to order limited edition 2 disc CD original soundtrack
By Matthew Field
On Sunday 6th July BondStars held their
annual summer barbeque at Pinewood Studios. This year the event was themed
around Timothy Dalton’s debut as 007 in The Living Daylights (1987). Making his first
BondStars appearance was Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé
who played KGB baddie General
Georgi Koskov. He was joined by fellow
cast members Maryam d’Abo, Thomas Wheatley and Caroline Bliss.
The day kicked off with a screening of The Living Daylights
in Pinewood’s theatre, which has recently been re-named The John Barry Theatre.
Director John Glen and members of cast and crew were on hand to introduce the
film.
Following the screening, guests signed autographs and
chatted with fans. Cinematographer Alec Mills launched and signed copies of
his new autobiography ‘Shooting 007 and other Celluloid Adventures.’
Also returning to Pinewood for the first time in 27
years was the soft-top Aston Martin as
driven by Bond in the early scenes of the movie. Displayed on the lawn in front
of the manor house, the Aston became the centre of a fun re-union photograph
with John Glen at the wheel. Cinema Retro’s Dave Worrall led visitors on his
“traditional†tour of the studios, before the special guests took to the stage
for a series of lighthearted interviews, in which they regaled the audience
with their memories of making the film.
Another enjoyable and memorable event. BondStars promise
to return with another great lineup next year.
(Click here to the Bondstars web site)
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Los Angeles - July 7, 2014 - Exuberant Pop culture phenomenon A HARD DAY'S NIGHT successfully opened nationwide and exceeded estimated this July 4th in a 50th Anniversary Re-Release, with multiple sellout screenings and high demand among fans across generations, with a cume of $220,542.
Playing in over 100 venues across the nation, the unique theatrical event includes full week runs in NYC at Film Forum and in LA at The Cinefamily, and over 100 special event, single screenings, and weekend screenings. In addition to Janus Films' theatrical re-release, the restored film is available now on Blu-ray and DVD through Criterion Collection.
For a list of American theaters showing the film, click here
HOTTER THAN GEORGIA
ASPHALT
By Raymond Benson
One
critic described it as a “kinky fairy tale,†which is quite apt. It’s also a
love story, a crime thriller, a road movie, and one of director Lynch’s
signature works. Made at a time when the public and critical acclaim of Lynch’s
innovative and striking television series, Twin
Peaks (co-created by Mark Frost), was at its peak, Wild at Heart represents some of the director’s most bravura
filmmaking. In other words, he was on a roll during this period, only to hit an
unfortunate snag when the Twin Peaks movie,
Fire Walk With Me, was released in
1992 to public and critical derision. (However, that particular film will be reassessed
and discussed further in the coming weeks with the release of the entire Twin Peaks saga on Blu-ray, along with
ninety minutes of footage deleted from Fire
Walk With Me. This material is the “holy grail†for Peaks fanatics.)
Based
on a novel by Barry Gifford, Wild at
Heart follows the story of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lulu (Laura Dern)—their
passionate and rock ‘n’ roll love for each other, and their pursuit across a
surreal America by Lulu’s mother and her various henchmen. The movie is
violent, colorful, sexy, loud, tender, and a hell of a lot of fun. This might
be the closest thing Lynch ever got to making a comedy, but there are a lot of laughs in Wild at Heart, as well as a number of disturbing and shocking bits
that are the director’s trademarks. In many ways, Lynch is an American heir to
Luis Buñuel, the master of surrealism in cinema.
Lynch loves the dream world, and this obsession is reflected in all of his
important works. One fine example is the scene in which Sailor and Lulu stop in
the middle of a highway at night because an isolated, recent car accident blocks
the way. There, they meet a survivor, played by Peaks alumnus Sherilyn Fenn, whose dazed and confused monologue
makes the sequence one of the director’s most haunting.
Both
Cage and Dern are terrific. Dern especially sells the movie with her sensuality
and wild-child persona. Dern’s real-life mother, Diane Ladd, was nominated for
a Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Lulu’s evil mom, portrayed in the
film as something akin to the Wicked Witch of the West. In fact, references to The Wizard of Oz abound, as do nods to
Elvis Presley, personified by Sailor’s fascination and mimicry of the singer.
Other Lynch regulars show up—Harry Dean Stanton, Jack Nance, Grace Zabriskie,
Isabella Rossellini, Crispin Glover, Sheryl Lee—but the scariest guy in the
picture is Willem Dafoe as “Bobby Peru,†a truly creepy hit man.
Twilight
Time has released a limited Blu-ray edition (3,000 units) which appears to be a port over
from the U.S. MGM/UA (Fox Home Video) edition. The transfer looks good, but it
doesn’t appear to have undergone a restoration. All the extras are the same—a
thirty minute documentary on the making of the film, deleted scenes,
interviews, a vintage making-of film, two short pieces with Lynch, a number of
TV spots, and trailer. New for the Blu-ray is an isolated music track, so you
can just listen to Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting score, along with the bounty
of rock ‘n’ roll numbers like Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,†if you want.
At
any rate, David Lynch’s take on the classic “lovers on the run†theme is well
worth the ride. As Dern’s Lulu proudly announces, it’s “hotter than Georgia
asphalt.†Just be careful—you might get blisters.
(This title has sold out at the distributor, Screen Archives. Click here for availability on Amazon)
By Don L. Stradley
I remember a kid in my old neighborhood who owned a Ken
doll. Ken, you may remember, was the sexually ambiguous boyfriend of the
infinitely more famous Barbie. If that wasn’t weird enough, this kid kept his
Ken doll in a state of near nudity, stripping off his safari gear until poor
Ken was down to a pair of bright red swimming trunks. The kid would walk around
the neighborhood with his near naked Ken doll tucked under his arm, and
occasionally visit my yard, where I and my Neanderthal pals were having fun
with our far more manly “action figures,†which included the likes of GI Joe,
and Stretch Armstrong. Ken wasn’t a
natural fit – he was too small, his hair too perfect, and he was always
smiling. The kid claimed that if you left Ken in the sun for a while, he’d
actually get a tan. We eventually let the boy join us because we didn’t figure
Ken would last long, not with the way we brutalized our toys. Yet, as we
dragged our guys through the mud and hurled them from rooftops, Ken showed
surprising durability. Barbie hadn’t totally emasculated him, after all. Then, a fat kid named Bobby Harris showed up
with an Evel Knievel doll, perhaps the toughest damned toy in the history of mankind,
and all bets were off. Ken joined GI Joe
and the others in immediate obsolescence.
I thought of that kid and his Ken doll while watching A
Brony Tale, a cute, good-hearted documentary about the surprising male
fandom surrounding ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.’ The Pony program is made for young girls, but
apparently attracts everyone from military men to bikers. “Don’t underestimate the things that make you
happy,†says one of the movie’s more emotionally fragile fellows. He’d returned from military duty a depressed
wreck but was rejuvenated by his love of the animated show. His comment is
perhaps the most useful of the 97 minute feature, and he’s certainly more to
the point than the various grown men who drone about their right to enter a toy
store and buy something in the Pony aisle.
One practicing psychologist suggests the phenomenon of
“Bronies,†as the male fans are called, is a reaction to the post 9/11 decade,
and proposes these burly misfits are just trying to get away from the violence
and uncertainties of the past 10 years. Ok, maybe. No one understands better than me that pop
culture can help shield a person from what ails him. Yet, the spectacle of 200 Bronies gathering for a group hug strikes me as less about the alleged magical
elements of the show and more about lonely people trying something, anything,
to find a connection.
The movie loses steam in its middle, as director Brent
Hodge focuses on younger Bronies. Neither the junior high school fans nor the
older, college age fans add much to the story. When you’ve heard one melancholy loner tell
about the redemptive qualities of My Little Pony, you’ve heard them all.
The meat of the film involves Ashleigh Ball, the young
Canadian woman who provides the voices of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, two of My
Little Pony’s most beloved characters. Ball is slightly bewildered by the
show’s swelling fandom, and after attending a Brony convention in Manhattan,
she’s still slightly bewildered. She’s
involved in something with a power she hadn’t imagined – Ball was a voice over
artist who played in a band and took the Pony gig because it offered a
paycheck. Now, to her surprise (and discomfort?), Ball may end up as the
William Shatner of Brony world.
It’s disappointing that Hodge misses out on the most
obvious question: What do little girls think of these much older men who watch
the show? How do they feel when they go into a toy store only to learn that the
last available book of Rainbow Dash decals has been scooped up by some
38-year-old loser? I found it unfortunate that the Manhattan convention was
devoid of the show’s real target audience, and that Ball didn’t get to mingle
with some of the very young girls who would’ve loved meeting her. Instead,
she’s on a podium fielding questions from a bunch of depressed types who should
really be trying to bust out of their arrested puberty.
It’s also odd that no mention is made of the show’s
creators, illustrators, or producers, as if the program simply exists in a
vacuum. It’s impossible to imagine a
documentary about Star Wars fans that
didn’t mention George Lucas, but not a single Brony interviewed gives credit to
any creative types. Apparently, all that goes on in a Brony’s mind is his own
love for the show, his own needs, and his own impossibly sad depths that can
only be eased by a girly cartoon.
To Hodge’s credit, he doesn’t dwell on what could be
construed as the more prurient aspects of the story. He lets us think what we will of grown men who
are strangely attached to images of sweet little horses made to sound like
young girls. Is watching the show merely a safe way to stare at little girls,
to enter their innocent fantasies? I can’t say for certain. The old ‘Davey and
Goliath’ series offered positive messages, too, but I don’t recall a lot of
middle-aged guys being into it.
I’d never heard of ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.’
From the clips in the documentary, it appears to be a friendly program about
girl ponies learning life lessons. It’s
a safe place to be, this world of pretty ponies, probably much nicer than a
muddy backyard in the suburbs, where an afternoon with your buddies might be
interrupted by a half-naked Ken doll.
*
A BRONY
TALE is the first title in the new
"Morgan Spurlock Presents†line of documentaries to be released by Virgil
Films in conjunction with Morgan Spurlock's Warrior Poets and theatrical
distributor Abramorama. It opens in select theaters on July 8 and will debut on Video on
Demand July 15.
MERYL’S MASTERPIECE
By Raymond Benson
In
1982, Meryl Streep had already made a big splash in the motion picture
industry, having won a Supporting Actress Oscar for 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer, and securing a Supporting Actress nomination
prior to that for 1978’s The Deer Hunter and
a Best Actress nomination for 1981’s The
French Lieutenant’s Woman. With Sophie’s
Choice, the actress snapped up the Best Actress Oscar pretty much without a
contest—everyone knew that if she didn’t win, then a terrible crime had been
committed by the Academy. In short, in this reviewer’s opinion, Streep’s
performance in Sophie’s Choice is one
of the greatest pieces of acting ever presented on the silver screen. Period. Since
then, Streep has gone on to prove, over and over, that she is arguably the most
talented actress in the history of cinema, but Sophie remains her masterpiece.
It’s
a damned good movie, too, and it should have at the very least secured
nominations that year for Best Picture and Best Director. It’s faithfully
adapted from William Styron’s best-selling novel and it’s beautifully made. And
while Streep dominates the film with her bravura characterization of a tortured
Polish Holocaust survivor, her two co-stars, Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol,
are also very good (in fact it was Kline’s film debut as Nathan, Sophie’s
bi-polar lover). Pakula’s direction is sensitive and intimate, although it’s a big story that encompasses three
distinct personalities amidst a backdrop of post-war ennui.
If
you’ve never seen it, you’re probably thinking, Oh, a Holocaust movie, what a downer, who wants to see that? Well,
there are Holocaust films and then there is Sophie’s
Choice (actually only a small portion of the film reveals Holocaust scenes
in flashback). Primarily it’s a love story, albeit a tragic one. It will move
you and shake you, and you will come away from the experience a different
person. Seriously. This is Alan J. Pakula’s best motion picture, All the President’s Men notwithstanding.
The
best thing about the new Shout Factory Blu-ray release of the film is the fact
that it’s anamorphic widescreen—which the only other U.S. DVD edition wasn’t.
The disc is worth buying for that alone; however, the 1080p high-definition
presentation looks very good. The soft focus used throughout the picture by DP
Nestor Almendros is perhaps a detriment to the overall appearance of the image,
but still—it’s much better than what we had before. The audio commentary is by
the late director himself.
The
only extra is a long, recent roundtable discussion between Streep, Kline,
Pakula’s widow, William Styron’s widow, and two of Pakula’s colleagues. The
group goes through the film’s casting and production, revealing many
interesting gems about the business.
Sophie’s
Choice is one of the best films of
the 80s. Experience it on Blu-ray today
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It's not a common thing to see an article refer to Dame Helen Mirren as a "babe" but Buzzfeed utilizes that word to flatter one of the reigning queens of British cinema in a photo essay that shows the Oscar winner as a young actress. We have to agree, she is quite the "babe" and we know she's been acting in films since the 1960s...but do they have to say she's been around since "the dawn of time?". Click here to view
Paul Mazursky, one of the most acclaimed and prolific filmmakers to come of age in the 1960s, has died from cardiac arrest. He was 84 years old. Mazursky originally worked as an actor in films, appearing in such movies as "The Blackboard Jungle". However, with the revolutionary freedoms that came into movie-making in the mid-1960s, Mazursky turned to screenwriting and directing. His first screenplay was for the Peter Sellers hippie comedy "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!". He made his directorial debut with "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" in 1969. The film starred Natalie Wood and Robert Culp as a hip, privileged couple who contemplate wife swapping with their best friends, played by Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon, both of whom rose to stardom because of the film. Like most of Mazursky's films, the movie viewed social significant issues- in this case, the sexual revoluiton- through a satirical lens. He did the same with "Blume in Love" and "An Unmarried Woman", both of which examined the pains of ending romantic relationships. The latter film, which cast Jill Clayburgh as a woman whose husband abandons her for a younger lover, was embraced by the burgeoning women's rights movements at the time because it depicted a middle-aged woman who finds happiness and success through her independence. Mazursky's other films include "Next Stop, Greenwich Village", "Down and Out in Beverly Hills", "Enemies, a Love Story" and "Harry and Tonto", a bittersweet look at one's man's aging process that won a Best Actor Oscar for Art Carney in 1975. Mazursky himself was nominated for five Oscars but never won. He continued to work as a director and actor until recently and appeared occasionally on the hit sitcom "Curb Your Enthusiasm". His contributions to the renaissance of American filmmaking in the 1960s and 1970s can't be overstated. - Lee Pfeiffer
For more click here
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
The year is
1964 and Beatlemania is in full
swing. The biggest band on the planet are about to make their big screen debut.
The film is A Hard Day’s Night, a seminal piece of filmmaking that shows The Beatles as they’ve never been seen before.
To celebrate its 50th Anniversary the film will be presented in a new 4k digital
restoration approved by director Richard
Lester, with three audio options - a
monoaural soundtrack in addition to newly created stereo and 5.1 surround mixes
supervised by sound producer Giles
Martin and engineer Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios. The film will be in
cinemas, on-demand
and available to download from 4 July, followed by a special edition Blu-ray and
two-disc DVD release on 21 July 2014, courtesy of Second Sight Films.
A Hard Day’s Night will have an Extended
Run at BFI Southbank from 4 July
2014, with a special preview and talk with Richard
Lester on 3 July 2014. The UK theatrical release will be handled by
Metrodome Distribution.
Director Richard Lester used
his experience of working on television adverts combined with slapstick comedy,
a nod to the French ‘New Wave’ movement and a documentary style, and alongside
screenwriter Alun Owen created a
unique and innovative film that went on to influence a whole generation of music
videos and films.
A Hard Day’s Night follows a ‘typical’ day in the life of the Fab Four as they
try to make it to their big show. As the title track roles we see John,
Paul, George and Ringo mobbed by a group of
fervent fans as they catch a train to London along with their manager
Norm (Norman Rossington – The Longest Day), his assistant Shake (John Junkin – Hooray For Laughter) and Paul’s troublesome Grandfather (Wilfred Bramble – Steptoe and Son).
A series of hilarious
escapades follow, with Grandfather bribing a butler for his clothes to go to a
casino, Ringo leaving the band to go solo and ending up in a police station and
John’s disagreements with a disgruntled TV producer (Victor Spinetti – Help).
Will the boy’s make it in time for their big concert?
This is all set to a
brilliant soundtrack of classic Beatles tracks including I Should
Have Known Better, And I Love Her, Tell Me Why,
If I Fell and Can't Buy Me Love, and features a stand out supporting cast
including comedienne Anna Quayle, cartoonist
Bob Godfrey, TV host Robin Ray, dancer Lionel Blair, Harrison's future wife Patti Boyd, and director Lester himself.
Bonus features include:
- ‘In
Their Own Voices’ - a new piece combining 1964 interviews with The Beatles
with behind-the-scenes footage and photos
- ‘You
Can’t Do That’: The Making of A Hard Day’s Night, a documentary by
producer Walter Shenson including an outtake performance by The Beatles
- ‘Things
They Said Today’, a documentary about the film featuring director Richard
Lester, music producer George Martin, screenwriter Alun Owen and
cinematographer Gilbert Taylor
- ‘Picturewise’
- a new piece about Richard Lester‘s early work featuring a new audio
interview with the director.
- ‘Anatomy
of a Style’ - a new piece on
Richard Lester‘s methods
- New
interview with author Mark Lewisohn
- Audio
commentary featuring cast and crew
CLICK HERE TO ORDER BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON UK
CLICK HERE TO ORDER DVD SET FROM AMAZON UK
(This review pertains to the BFI UK Blu-ray release on Region 2 format)
By Paul Risker
When François Truffaut ordained Werner Herzog, “The most
important filmmaker alive†wisdom would have suggested that there was not one film
within his body of work to stand out as his most important. Only a body of work
threaded together with consistency; a combination of great filmic works would
warrant such a claim.
Following
the infliction of National Socialism on the German artistic tradition and
consciousness, Nosferatu the Vampyre is Werner Herzog reaching into the past to
reconnect with his true cinematic roots. The film that he looked to was not
only a masterpiece of German Expressionism, but more broadly of cinema – F.W.
Murnau’s Nosferatu. If Truffaut ordained Werner Herzog to be “The most
important filmmaker alive†then Nosferatu the Vampyre is the arguably the
filmmaker’s most important for this single reason.
In
1979, on the Herzogian moors a strange creature was sighted - a genre picture
in the shadow of the vampyre. As recently as 2009 another similar breed of
creature was spotted - Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The latter has
struggled to escape the shadow of Herzog’s earlier genre masterpiece, which
remains masterful example of a director turning his hand to genre. Alongside
Bad Lieutenant, Nosferatu establishes him as a filmmaker with multiple creative
identities, mining art house, documentary and genre to carve out his cinematic
landscape.
Herzog
opens his vampyre tale to a series of haunting pictorial and musical beats. It
is difficult to imagine the pan of mummies as existing separate of the music -
the two fused together in a dance of death. The music echoes like the tragic
voices of the living that are in a state of desperation and terror, before
their cries are interrupted by the bat riding the evocative musical waves. But
the terror is not death; rather it is the living dead – a frightening version
of a mongrel creature trapped between life and death.
Klaus
Kinski, along with the other cast of actors to walk in the shadow of the
undead, highlights the Shakespearean shades of Stoker’s Dracula that is open to
interpretation. Herzog’s film possesses a sensuality that, aside from Murnau’s
Nosferatu, is perhaps absent in the others. Alongside Schreck’s creature of the
night, Kinski creates a monstrous incarnation that is surreal and sensual when
compared to the sexual predators of later years. The journey of Dracula on
screen is a journey of sensuality versus sexuality and the sensual ode to life
versus the emphasis on sexual seduction.
Seven
years on from Aguirre, Wrath of God, Nosferatu finds Herzog working within a
more rigid narrative structure, and yet his attention appears to still be drawn
to the experience. He continues to create a distinct sense of feeling that has
become a trademark of his cinema - an aura that surrounds his films that
resemble the medieval spires of a cathedral that reach into the sky, and which
are hard to miss on the cinematic horizon. The narrative unfolds slowly in
moments, affording itself the opportunity to appreciate the landscape,
especially in those scenes where Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) makes his way
through the hills and mountains to Count Orlok’s (Klaus Kinski’s) residence.
Shot
to the operatic sound of Wagner, the landscape becomes a character that recalls
the importance of space in Herzog’s cinema. Yet more significantly, this
spatial aesthetic contributes to a meditation of man versus nature, and which
depicts man and the vampyre as a mere extension. Perhaps Herzog’s Nosferatu
unearths the idea of the cyclic nature of life, death and rebirth, where the
grandiose images of the landscape form the backdrop of a journey that sets us
the protagonists against our supernatural antagonists. The urban wilderness and
the expansive waters that link continents are a backdrop we pale in comparison
to, yet we define the narratives that exist in the foreground of the image.
Bruno Ganz matches Kinski’s physical onscreen presence in a
performance that begins with a sprightly step before spiralling into
deterioration and rebirth. Meanwhile Isabelle Adjani as the pale lady is almost
responsible for a collision between the telepathically connected vampire and
spectre. As in Possession only two years later, Adjani shows a propensity to
walk out to the edge of the cliff and hold herself on the brink between life
and death, the emotions of the performance teetering on a knife edge between
outpouring and restraint. Three celebrated actors who each possess a
transformative quality that imbues the film with a surreal, sensual and
evocative identity that comes directly from the beating or silent hearts of its
characters, and radiates outward to infect sound and image.
Nosferatu remains only second to Murnau's earlier masterpiece, but it's patient and sensual feel betray its European roots. Compared to the extras that made the Aguirre, Wrath of God disc shine, the BFI have struggled to make this package as in-depth. However, Herzog's commentary (moderated by Norman Hill) restores faith in the reason for audio commentaries in general, as he once again takes you into the human experience of the making of the film. The original 1979 on-set promotional film offers anecdotes and insights that are missing from the audio commentary, with candid footage in which both writer-director Herzog and star Klaus Kinski take centre stage. If Herzog's words take you behind the film, this supplementary additional feature offers some fascinating visuals as well. Inevitably there are the standard features such as original theatrical trailer and stills gallery but the illustrated booklet comes with a thoughtful newly written essay by acclaimed composer Laurie Johnson that offers an interesting perspective on this classic European genre picture. Most ironic, perhaps, is the white design of the limited edition Steelbook, when one considers that Nosferatu is a tale of darkness that is centred on a creature that lurks in the shadows.
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Regular readers of Cinema Retro know that the Loew's Jersey City Theatre is not only an American landmark but it also hosts classic movie screenings throughout the year. The magnificent structure was saved from the wrecking ball by a dedicated group of volunteers known as Friends of the Loews. They have gone to Herculean efforts over the years to painstakingly restore much of the theatre to its original glory, though there is still much work to be done. Now the Friends of the Loews claims that the new city administration is attempting to sideline them and give massive tax breaks to a "for profit" group from outside the city to come in and take over the venue. The Friends have started a grass roots campaign to prevent this from happening. Click here for the full story and a petition you can sign to help their efforts.
By Mark Cerulli
After
a meticulous 4K restoration by none other than the Criterion Collection, the
Beatles’ first film, A Hard Days Night, was unveiled at LA’s Raleigh
Studios. Yes, the image was crisp and
clean, not a smudge or scratch in sight. (No surprise there as the film’s
director Richard Lester personally approved the restoration.) And yes, the
music sounded glorious in a new 5.1 mix. In fact, George Harrison’s iconic opening
riff on the title track just about knocked this Cinema Retro scribe off his
seat! But what was really special about this whimsical film was watching it
through the prism of fifty years. From
frame 1, we know how we lost both John Lennon and George Harrison. We are living with climate change, al-Qaeda,
overpopulation and deforestation, so this movie is a welcome relief, capturing
a simpler time in a quainter London which was then still throwing off the
shadows of WW II. Most importantly, the
film delivers The Beatles in close-up after close-up – all are young, strong
and so full of life. To say they “stole
the show†doesn’t apply, they ARE the show. The plot, about the trials and tribulations of getting the white-hot
group to a live performance is basically filler between musical set pieces, but
it earned writer Alun Owen a 1965 Oscar nomination. George Martin’s thumping
score also landed an Oscar nod.
Along
for the ride is Paul’s cranky grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) who keeps the band
and their managers (dour Norman Rossington and goofy John Junkin) on their toes.
Odd looking and angular, Brambell, a major UK TV star at the time, was a
sneering contrast to the Fab Four’s glowing charisma.
The
film is as much about movement as it is music. The band is always on the move, -
on foot, in trains, cars and a helicopter. Richard Lester’s cameras are on the
move as well, with numerous hand-held shots and a beautiful aerial sequence
where the band escapes a stuffy rehearsal to mess about in a playing field accompanied
by Can’t Buy Me Love. With much of the
dialogue improvised on the spot, A Hard Day’s Night has a breezy, cinéma vérité
feel that obviously worked for its stars as they seem to be having a blast from
start to finish.
When
The Beatles finally go “liveâ€, the climactic concert delivers vintage “Beatlemaniaâ€
in all its screaming glory. The lads blast out Tell Me Why, If I Fell, I Should Have Known Better and She Loves You, intercut with an audience
full of hysterical teens and the show’s harried director (Vincent Spinelli) having
a meltdown in the control booth. It’s
all innocent, upbeat and just simply, fun. Are there plot holes you could drive a
double-decker bus through? Sure. But who cares? For a brief shining moment the Beatles are
together again and all is well with the world.
On
July 4th, Janus Films will re-release this restored version of A
Hard Days Night in more than 50 cities across America.
(Cinema Retro's next issue (#30) presents a 50th anniversary tribute to the film.)
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