The 1963 romantic comedy Come Fly With Me has been released by the Warner Archive. The film is a breezy, if dated, homage to an era when flying on a commercial airliner was actually deemed to be an exotic experience. The movie chronicles the love lives of three stewardesses (remember that quaint term?)- Donna Stewart (Dolores Hart) and Hilde Bergstrom (Lois Nettleton) are mature, self-determined young women and the newbie to their flight crew, Carol Brewster (Pamela Tiffin) is a bumbling but irresistible airhead. All of them have one common trait, keeping in the era in which the film was made: they are all drop dead gorgeous. This is one instance in which a profession has not been Hollywood-ized to make it appear glamorous. Back in the day stewardesses were considered to be highly desirable jobs, as they allowed young women the opportunity to not only earn a good living but also see the world during their down time. At the time, few women had opportunities to exert their talents as business executives, so working for an airline was one way out of a humdrum lifestyle. However, there were plenty of misogynist males who controlled the rules that deemed whether a young woman was worthy of being a stewardess. For one, they had to be unmarried. They had to be attractive and had to agree to Draconian terms that could see them fired if they gained too much weight. Adding insult to injury, they would sometimes even have to provide their measurements as part of the employment process. Fortunately, we live in a world today where such practices are not only unthinkable but also illegal. However, we also live in a world today in which travel has become an ordeal rather than a pleasure. Customers must endure skyrocketing prices, petty additional charges and the discomfort of being squeezed like cattle into the tiny confines of their seats. Thus, Come Fly With Me does provide a journey into the past, for both better and worse, when it comes to reliving the glory days of airline travel.
The plot finds our three heroines on an exotic flight that will take them first to Paris, then on to Austria. From the get-go we see how stewardesses were considered to be human prey by lecherous male customers who paw at them and make awkward attempts to get dates. In the film, the women are also targeted by flight crew members. Each of the women ends up meeting their own prospective lover. Naturally, each of them initially spawns the advances. Donna has a chance encounter with a charismatic but egotistical Austrian baron, Franz von Elzinger (Karl Boehm) whose attempts to woo her backfire. Hilde is courted by a older, polite customer, Walter Lucas (Karl Malden) while Carol meets cute with the First Officer of the flight, handsome Ray Winsley (Hugh O'Brian). It will not be giving away any spoilers to reveal that each of the women ends up agreeing to date their individual suitor. Donna is swept off her feet by the lavish favors bestowed on her by Franz. However, in a rather engrossing plot twist, it is revealed that he is actually using her as an unwitting "mule" to smuggle diamonds into Austria on her future visits. Hilde finds herself smitten by the earnest and gentlemanly Walter, but turns sour on the relationship when she learns he has been recently widowed and suspects he only likes her because she resembles his deceased wife. Carol finds a willing boyfriend in Ray but is alarmed to find out he has been having a long-term affair with a predatory married woman in Paris. Worse, the woman's husband has filed a formal complaint with the airline, which has punished him by refusing to promote him to captain.
The film was designed primarily as a chick flick in an era that began a few years earlier with Three Coins in the Fountain, which depicted for the first time the notion that young women should travel the world together on exotic vacations. This was followed by Where the Boys Are, a movie that had an even greater impact in encouraging single women to indulge themselves in travel and partying. (Coincidentally, it starred Dolores Hart). Come Fly With Me sends out mixed messages in terms of women's liberation. On the one hand, the three main female characters are headstrong and think nothing of making demands of their suitors that ensure they are treated with respect. (For all the romantic scenes in the film, it's implied that these ladies are distinctly virginal despite a few frank references to sex.) On the other hand, each of them seemingly only wants to find that special guy and settle down, presumably willing to sacrifice their careers in the process. In the movie's favor is the fact that it was actually filmed on location in Paris and Vienna, which adds a luster that many films of the era lacked. (The studio sequences were shot at MGM's now defunct UK-based studios.) Consequently, the movie has a rich, classy feel to it. The cast is also impressive with each of the stars delivering an amusing performance, even if Tiffin does overdo the lovable goofball routine. The location scenery in these gorgeous European locales still impresses and the movie benefits from the title song by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, which was a big hit for Frank Sinatra in 1957, though it's sung here over the credits by Frankie Avalon. The proceedings move along at a brisk pace thanks to the efficiency of Henry Levin's direction and the impressive cinematography by the legendary Oswald Morris. The screenplay was written by the esteemed William Roberts (The Magnificent Seven, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm). The film ultimately builds to a somewhat suspenseful conclusion via the diamond smuggling plot before it tapers off to a contrived finale in which each of the ladies resolves their romantic issues and finds fulfillment with their flawed, but still admirable beau.
I enjoyed Come Fly With Me despite its predictable story line, largely because of the charismatic cast and the presentation of a bygone era that is somewhat fascinating from a sociological perspective. The Warner Archive DVD transfer is hit-and-miss. At times the film looks gorgeous but at some points (especially in sequences using second unit footage) there is a yellowish hue. There are no extras.
(Trivia notes: This was Dolores Hart's final film. She was a hot property with the studios but decided to leave acting to become a nun. Today she is a respected abbess of a monastery and a documentary about her life was nominated for an Oscar in 2012. Actress Lois Maxwell appears in the movie in an inexplicably wordless role despite having many high profile film credits including two James Bond movies as Miss Moneypenny and the horror classic The Haunting, which was released the same year as Come Fly With Me. It would appear as though much of her footage may have ended up on the cutting room floor.)
Kino Lorber is releasing a five film collection of British film noir gems on August 25. See details below from press release.
BRITISH NOIR: Five Film Collection (The Assassin / The
Golden Salamander / The OctoberMan / They Met in the Dark / Snowbound) (DVD only)
Directors: Ralph Thomas, Ronald Neame, Roy Ward Baker,
Carl Lamac, David MacDonald
Cast: James Mason, John Mills, Trevor Howard, Herbert
Lom, Richard Todd, Anouk Aimee, Robert Newton
Film Noir/1943-1952/NR/470 minutes
Synopsis: While the film noir movement may seem like a distinctly
American phenomenon, British studios embarked on their own shadowy thrillers,
laced with postwar cynicism. This five-DVD collection assembles some of the lesser-known
Brit noir titles from the Rank Studios, featuring such major talents as actors
James Mason, Trevor Howard, and John Mills; and directors Ronald Neame and Roy
Ward Baker.
THEY MET IN THE DARK (1943): Discharged for treason, a former Navy Commander
(James Mason) sets out to expose the espionage ring that destroyed his career -
Directed by Carl Lamac.
THE OCTOBER MAN (1947): After a traumatic brain injury, a young engineer
(John Mills) tries to repair his life. But his recovery is thwarted when a
woman (Kay Walsh) is found strangled-and he becomes the prime suspect -
Directed by Roy Ward Baker.
SNOWBOUND (1948): A British Army vet (Dennis Price) exposes a plot by
ex-Nazis to reclaim a stash of gold bullion hidden at a ski resort. This
edition was derived from a master suffering from moderate deterioration and is
presented in a less-than-ideal condition - the stellar cast included Robert
Newton, Herbert Lom and Stanley Holloway - Directed by David MacDonald.
THE ASSASSIN (aka Venetian Bird) (1952): A private eye (Richard Todd)
arrives in Venice in search of a fugitive, but soon discovers that the city's
winding waterways hold dark secrets - Directed by Ralph Thomas.
One of Mel Brooks' least-discussed films, the 1991 comedy "Life Stinks", is also one of his most accomplished works. The film didn't click with Brooks's usual audience at the time, perhaps because the film is laced with social commentary. Brooks obviously ignored the old Hollywood advice to "Leave the messages to Western Union". Nonetheless, it's precisely because of this departure from his usual productions that gives "Life Stinks" a certain poignancy that isn't found in his earlier works. Granted, Brooks always included some sentiment in his films (even Zero Mostel's Max Byalystock in "The Producers" is con man with some admirable traits.) However, "Life Stinks" makes a plea for compassion toward society's most vulnerable people, even as it concentrates on the primary purpose of any Brooks film: to make the audience laugh.
The movie opens with a very amusing scene in which we are introduced to the central character, billionaire business magnate Goddard Bolt (Brooks) who calls a conference meeting with his team of corporate "yes" men and sniveling team of lawyers. Like Auric Goldfinger unveiling his plan to rob Fort Knox, Bolt uses a large scale model of the worst section of Los Angeles to announce his plans to buy up this property and turn it into a spectacular business compound that resembles a vacation resort. Naturally, it will bear his name and he is unconcerned about the fact that it will displace legions of homeless people who have erected a makeshift "city" on this property. As portrayed by Brooks, Bolt is an intentionally over-the-top egotist who never stops bragging about his accomplishments and who is clearly involved with in a passionate love affair -with himself. (If the film were made today, critics would immediately suspect that the character was based on Donald Trump.) Bolt's plans hit a snafu with the arrival of his arch business nemesis Vance Crasswell (Jeffrey Tambor) who announces that he has managed to already buy up the remaining half of the land that Bolt needs to carry out his dream. Neither man will budge in terms of selling his half of the land to the other so they decide to engage in a bizarre bet. The wager is that Bolt must forego his identity and all of his money and credit cards and attempt to survive as a homeless person within the confines of the geographic boundaries of the disputed land. If he can last 30 days living off his wits, he gets Crasswell's half of the land. If he fails, he cedes his half of the land to Crasswell. The movie chronicles the predictably rude awakening that Bolt gets from the first minute he enters the world of these hopeless souls. This is where the human side of the script kicks in. Bolt, a man who has commanded countless minions as the head of business empire, can't figure out how to even earn enough money to rent a $2.50 a night flop house hotel room. Nor can he come up with a plan for how to get a meal. Alone and destitute, he ultimately befriends some long time street people who pity him and take him under their wings. These include Sailor (Brooks' frequent co-star Howard Morris), a jovial but mentally unbalanced man who knows the ropes when it comes to surviving on the mean streets of L.A. Bolt also encounters Molly (Lesley Ann Warren), a former dancer who has hit on hard times. The fiery-tempered young woman has learned to get by the on streets by using physical violence to protect her "home", which is in reality a motley collection of discarded items gathered in a back alley.
The film is basically geared for humor and it delivers in spades. There are some laugh-out-loud sequences depicting Bolt and his friends contending with some local bullies. However, Brooks the director scores even more impressively with poignant sequences in which Bolt learns the value of the people around him. He may have billions in the bank but he finds that a free meal in a soup kitchen is worth his fortune. He begins to see the people around him in a different light. When Molly's "home" is destroyed by vandals, it becomes clear that to a homeless person this loss is as devastating as it would be for the average person to lose their house. The film points out how transient people who live in over-sized boxes can have their world demolished by a pounding rainstorm that washes away their shelter. Every day is a battle to survive on the street. Predictably, Bolt and Molly reawaken human elements in each other and a romance blossoms. In one lovely sequence, Bolt and Molly find shelter in a costume warehouse where he convinces her to dress up regally and dance with him. It's a charming scene, the likes of which no other contemporary movie would show for fear of it appearing to corny. The movie is enhanced by composer John Morris's wonderful score. By this point, Morris had composed the music for most of Brooks's films and his contributions are essential elements of each of them. The supporting cast is also terrific with Howard Morris scoring very well as the sympathetic street person who doesn't realize how desperate his plight is. Warren gives a knockout performance that hits all the right notes in terms of pathos and belly laughs. Jeffrey Tambor steals his every scene as a hilarious villain- and the scene in which he and Bolt square off using bulldozers in a monster-like battle is genuinely hilarious. Even famed character actor Billy Barty makes a brief appearance in a scene that is extremely amusing.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray features a commentary track by Brooks and screewriters Rudy De Luca and Steve Hoberman. The three also appear in a short 2003 documentary about the making of the film. De Luca is another frequent collaborator of Brooks, having not only written scripts for him but also played supporting roles in the films. In "Life Stinks" De Luca appears as a demented man who thinks he is J. Paul Getty. Brooks, who doesn't get overly political in the film itself, uses his interview to say he was inspired to make the movie by dramatic cuts to social services and clinics that had been made by the Reagan administration, to which he attributes the explosive growth of the homeless population in the years that followed. While Brooks and De Luca's hearts are clearly in the right place, they make a politically incorrect faux pas by referring to the homeless people as "bums", which, to a certain generation was regarded as almost a term of endearment, along with "hobo". Nevertheless, for viewers of a younger generation, the it probably sounds harsh. The Blu-ray release also includes the theatrical trailer.
"Life Stinks" can be criticized for being predictable and occasionally overly sentimental. It's Brooks' version of a Frank Capra tale. In fact, Capra himself was not immune to criticism about the sentimental nature of his films, with some critics deriding them as "Capra Corn". However, this film represents the kind of comedy studios don't make today in this era of gross-out jokes. It is a celebration of kindness and generosity over greed. It has well-defined characters and a terrific cast. This "Life" doesn't stink. In fact, it's very much worth living.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of the Cinema Retro experience is that we continue to get inundated with review copies of niche market DVD and Blu-ray titles pertaining to films we've never heard of. Many of these come from Vinegar Syndrome (so-called for the nefarious affliction that attaches itself to old reels of film if they are not stored correctly.) The company has earned kudos for not only rescuing obscure titles from oblivion but releasing them in remastered versions that often include bonus extras. Much of the company's product line consists of vintage hardcore porn from the 1960s-1980s but Vinegar Syndrome also releases bizarre exploitation films from this era as well. Case in point: "The Cut-Throats", a 1969 WWII opus that is aptly described on the DVD sleeve as a cross between Nazisloitation and sexploitation genres. What is Nazisploitation? Well, it's a sordid sub-genre of low-budget film-making that took off in the 1970s and had a limited, but profitable run over the next decade. The subject matter was particularly distasteful: it involved the sexual torture and exploitation of female prisoners and concentration camp inmates as a device for stimulation. (Think "The Night Porter" without the redeeming factors.) Perhaps the most notorious of the Nazisploitation films was the infamous "Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S." , a twisted and sickening exercise in cinematic offensiveness that should result in your crossing anyone you know who enjoyed it off your list of house guests (click here for review). "The Cut-Throats" is not a Nazisploitation film in that regard. Yes, there are women who are constantly groped but in this case the females are willing and mostly prone to doing some groping themselves. The movie was directed by one John Hayes, who apparently has a cult following for his Ed Wood-like ability to see his dream projects through despite a lack of funding or resources. This admirable quality is on display in "The Cut-Throats" from the very first frames.
The film opens on a bizarre note: a painted backdrop of a cowboy over which we hear someone warbling an old-fashioned western song. (The score is by Jamie Mendoza-Nava, who went on to compose music for other more notable "B" movies.) At first I thought I had accidentally put on some old John Ford film with the Sons of the Pioneers singing over the opening credits. Hayes's decision to open the movie with this song never makes sense in the course of what follows beyond a brief opening scene of a G.I. using a lasso. We are then introduced to the no-name cast as we see an American colonel recruit a handful of men to accompany him on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a remote German outpost and capture important documents and battle plans. What the G.I.s don't realize is that they are being duped into helping him secure possession of a chest of priceless jewels that is being hidden inside the German HQ. When the men infiltrate the compound, they quickly dispatch the German soldiers, only to find that the place is actually a bordello. The sexy females on site quickly switch allegiance and put on a bizarre stage performance consisting of singing and dancing in costume(!) Things heat up pretty quickly from that point with the G.I.s understandably lowering their resistance and bedding the young women. In one of the film's few attempts to provide some outright humor, one G.I. of German ancestry finds he is sexually stimulated by making love on a bed draped in Swastika sheets while listening to records of Hitler's speeches. Once the corrupt colonel intimidates a prostitute into showing him the hidden treasure, he considers his own men to be expendable. He uses a skirmish with a passing German motorcade as a cover to murder his own men. The film's climax finds him going mano-a-mano with a surviving German colonel as they duel over who gets possession of the jewels. (Ironically, the plot device of corrupt Americans and corrupt German soldiers vying for a fortune in stolen treasure bares a similarity to the finale of "Kelly's Heroes", which was produced the same year.)
"The Cut-Throats" is such a mess that it boggles the mind to imagine that even drive-ins or grindhouse cinemas would have shown it back in the day. However, the sexual revolution in film was a new phenomenon so any outlet horny male viewers had to ogle naked women on screen was probably assured of some financial success. The movie was clearly not made for the Noel Coward crowd. The film has an abundance of guilty pleasures, not the least of which is the fact that the film is set in "Germany". I use quotation marks because it appears this is a Germany from an alternate dimension, unless in my travels I somehow missed the nation's desert areas, where the action takes place. Then we have the main location, the German military compound which is clearly a modern housing unit that is either being constructed or deconstructed. With the house boasting a modern American facade and an empty in-ground swimming pool, one is tempted to suspect that director Hayes simply appropriated an abandoned property for the few days it probably took to film this epic. The premise is like staging a WWII action film on the same sets where "Leave It To Beaver" was shot. The editing process looks like it was achieved with a chainsaw, with abrupt cuts in abundance. There is virtually no character development beyond the most simplistic characteristics afforded the principals. Hayes did manage to find the budget for some period G.I. uniforms and weapons, as well as few German WWII-era vehicles (though one of them seems to be adorned with the Afrika Corps symbol even though the fighting is supposed to be taking place in Germany.) For cult movie purists, about the only recognizable face....well, not exactly face....I became aware of is that of Uschi Digard, whose legendary assets figure into a ludicrous sequence in which she plays the secretary to the German colonel. Upon hearing that the war is officially over, she doffs her uniform and seduces the German's young adjutant by going starkers and serving him a bottle of wine in a unique manner- by first pouring it over her trademark natural assets. The scene is representative of the entire goofy atmosphere of the production. The sex scenes feature full female nudity but never go into hardcore territory. A somewhat kinky aspect involves a scene in which two G.I's are engaging in a threesome with one of the prostitutes. One of the G.I.'s gets so carried away that he begins to caress his friend. Seeing gay sex on screen, even if played for laughs, was rather groundbreaking for 1969. Another amusing aspect of the film is the fact that some of the G.I.s and German soldiers sport hair styles that make them look like they were auditioning for The Grateful Dead.
"The Cut-Throats" will appeal only to those dedicated retro movie lovers who revel in "D" level (or in this case "double D" level) obscurities such as this. I personally enjoyed watching this train wreck of an indie film and have some grudging respect for the people involved. Back in the pre-video camera era, it was an expensive and cumbersome task to bring even a slight venture like this to reality. The Vinegar Syndrome transfer is excellent on all levels. The packaging features what I presume is the original one-sheet movie poster art which is appropriately awful. There is also an original trailer that features a narrator who seems to be doing a poor Orson Welles imitation in relating the action as though he were the voice of God. A selection of still photos are also included but they are censored with bikini tops drawn on the women so that they could be displayed in neighborhood theaters.
"The Cut-Throats" DVD is limited to only 1,500 copies.
(The following review refers to the UK release on
Region B/2 formats)
New from Arrow Films in the
UK is Fernando Di Leo’s ‘Milano Calibro 9’ (‘Milan Calibre 9’), a crime classic
from 1972 and one of the best examples of the poliziottesco (‘Italian crime
movie’) genre. Jailbird Ugo Piazza (Gastone Moschin) is released from San
Vittorio prison in Milan
after three years behind bars. He’s out for good behaviour, but what follows
his release is anything but. Money-laundering Godfather ‘The Mikado’ (Lionel
Stander) is convinced Ugo has hidden $300,000 he has stolen from the mob, but
despite beatings and harassment, Ugo remains silent. The hoods on his trail –
waiting for him to make a mistake and trip up – include greasy, sadistic
blabbermouth Rocco Musco (Mario Adorf). As Ugo runs afoul of the mob and the
police, he ends up on the Mikado’s payroll again, but eventually finds out that
you can’t trust anyone – not even those closest to you.
Fernando Di Leo’s crime
thriller masterpiece arrives on Blu-ray and DVD in great shape, with superb
colour and sound, and a wealth of extras. Also included in the package is a
fully illustrated collector’s booklet, featuring an insightful essay ‘Film Noir, Italian-Style: Giorgio Scerbanenco,
Fernando Di Leo and Milano Calibro 9’ by Roberto Curti, the author of ‘Italian
Crime Filmography, 1968-80’. Arrow Films’ edition contains the English language
track most fans of the film will be familiar with (with Lionel Stander dubbing
himself and Mario Adorf dubbed with a squeaky, helium whine) and the original
Italian edition (with Stander’s crime kingpin called ‘The Americano’, not the
Mikado).
‘Calibro
9’ is, with Enzo G. Castellari’s ‘The Marseilles Connection’ (1973 – aka ‘High
Crime’), my favourite 1970s Italian crime movie. Both films pack a considerable
punch, emotionally and physically, and also have an underlying socio-political
agenda amid the action. In Di Leo’s film, which adapted the work of Italian
noir novelist Giorgio Scerbanenco, two police commissioners – one from the
north of Italy, one from the south – discuss and argue over the
north-south/rich-poor divide. The pair is played by actors well known to
connoisseurs of Italian genre cinema – Frank Wolff and Luigi Pistilli– and
while the scenes don’t drag, their authenticity, especially in the English
language dub, is occasionally questionable. For example, would a Milanese
commissioner of police ever use a phrase like ‘dangling dingleberries’? The
film could do without these scenes, Di Leo reckons in retrospect, but they
remained in the original cut of the film. With actors of the calibre of Wolff
and Pistilli is supporting roles, writer-director Di Leo obviously fields a
very strong cast. Gastone Moschin, the fascist agent from Bertolucci’s ‘The
Conformist’ (1970), is superb as the stoic, tough nut Ugo Piazza, an immovable
object who the Mikado’s ruffians just can’t break. Ugo ‘had it made’ but
couldn’t resist biting the hand that fed him. Now that hand pummels him, in an
attempt to find the whereabouts of the missing $300,000.
Compared to taciturn Ugo (an
indeed everyone else in the film) Mario Adorf’s performance as Rocco is like a
whirlwind. Smashing his way through life with zero regard for the pain, suffering
and hatred he generates, he dominates the film. Adorf is one of the great
European actors of his generation and the more films of his I watch, the more
impressed I am by his skill. He was great in westerns – the crazy bandido in ‘Last
Ride to Santa Cruz’ (1964), landgrabbing villain Santer in ‘Winnetou the
Warrior’ (1963 – ‘Apache Gold’) and the bandit with a spur instead of an arm in
Sergio Corbucci’s ‘The Specialists’ (1969 – ‘Drop Them of I’ll Shoot’) – but was
equally at home in comedies, such as the caper ‘The Treasure of San Gennaro’
(1966) or the Oscar-winning drama ‘The Tin Drum’ (1979). Rocco’s two humourless
henchmen, Pasquale and Nicola, were played by Mario Novelli and Giuseppe
Castellano. Barbara Bouchet was Ugo’s go-go dancing girlfriend Nelly. Bouchet’s
psychedelic dance routine (in a nightclub of the type that only ever appear in
Italian crime movies) wearing a beaded bikini, is a visual highlight. Philippe
Leroy gave a commanding performance as Ugo’s ally Chino, who’s a tough as they come, and Ivo
Garrani played aged crime kingpin, Don Vincenzo, a once-important man, now
blind and consumed by loneliness. Even the characters at the corners of Di
Leo’s drama are given life, through professional performances from familiar
faces.
The powerful score was
composed by Luis Enriquez Bacalov. It’s partly traditional orchestral
arrangements, but Bacalov also collaborated with Italian prog-rock band Osanna
on the soundtrack. Bacalov had worked with the band The New Trolls to great
success on Maurizio Lucidi’s thriller ‘The Designated Victim’ (1971) and in
fact the song ‘My Shadow in the Dark’ from Lucidi’s film accompanies a scene
between Ugo and Nelly in ‘Calibro 9’. ‘Milano Calibro 9’ was photographed by
Franco Villa in an autumnal, inhospitable Milan, with interiors at DEAR
Studios. Di Leo shot on the streets of Milan and also in such authentic
locations as the Milano Centrale railway station on Piazza Duca d’Aosta and on
the canals and bridges of the Navigli district (both of which have now been
renovated since the film was made). The pre-titles sequence, the greatest
opening scene of any Italian crime movie, introduces twitchy hood Omero Cappana
walking through SempionePark in Milan, towards a cash drop-off. The hood is
revealed in the opening shot of the film, as the camera pans down Torre Branca
(BrancaTower), an iron panoramic tower in SempionePark. The top of the tower is a viewing
point – did De Leo film some of the title sequence’s cityscape panoramas across
Milan from the
top of here? The scene is accompanied by a mellow flute motif, not unlike one
deployed by Bacalov in Sergio Corbucci’s ‘Django’ (1966) where it too is a
prelude to a savage burst of violence. The action then proceeds to Piazza Del
Duomo (Duomo Square)
in Milan where
the cash handover, a strange game of pass-the-parcel, begins. The music
develops from the flute melody, to staccato piano, relentless strings and
eventually explodes into a full-throttle prog-rock jam, as violence explodes on
the screen. When the hoods find out they have been duped in this cash exchange,
they take horrific revenge on the double-crossers. Be aware, Di Leo’s film is
very violent, and just as it begins with an act of extreme savagery, it ends
with one too, in a scene that’ll pin you back in your chair.
In viewing Warner Brothers' DVD edition of the 1972 film Skykacked, I was totally prepared for another cheesy Seventies disaster film - an Airport Lite, if you will. Initially, my premonitions were shaping up to come true. The script follows the tradition of presenting the quasi-all-star cast by rote, with each actor given a few precious seconds to establish their personality quirks and telegraph what their dilemma will be once the inevitable crisis unfolds. In this case, the plot is simple enough to make The Poseidon Adventure look like The Big Sleep. Rock-jawed Charlton Heston is the pilot of a commercial airliner on which the head flight attendant (or "stewardess" in the vernacular of the day) is former lover Yvette Yvette Mimieux. Shortly after the flight takes off, a message is discovered written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. There is someone aboard who claims to have a bomb they will detonate if the plane isn't diverted to Anchorage, Alaska. It isn't giving the store away to inform you that the mad bomber is James Brolin. Not only is this revealed very shortly into the film, but you'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb to not realize he is the bad guy - especially when the other passengers consist of pregnant Mariette Hartley, folksy musician Rosie Grier and crusty U.S. Senator Walter Pidgeon. Besides, the brainiac who designed the menu for the DVD eliminates any doubt of the culprit's identity because the still photo they used on the main menu shows Brolin holding a gun on the cockpit crew.
Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale The Hound of the Baskervilles is a thrilling
story that has stood the test of time. Featuring London’s super sleuth Sherlock
Holmes, this adventure sees him travel to Dartmoor’s Baskerville Hall where Charles
Baskerville has been found dead and under mysterious circumstances. As cinema’s
most filmed character of all time - Sherlock Holmes movies have acquired
something of a unique place in history. One might perhaps think back to the
days of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in order to recapture their first
encounter of this classic filmed adventure. Hammer Studios had begun to revisit
these classic horrors and thrillers throughout the mid to late Fifties, with
filmed projects such as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. So it was
perhaps no surprise that the studio picked up The Hound of the Baskervilles and
splashed it with their own distinctive and original blend of Hammer style.
There
is a wonderful, vintage feel about the film, it not only bubbles away with
Hammer’s unique sense of atmosphere, but it benefits from an ‘old time’ pacey
narrative. Director Terence Fisher never seems to let the film fall short; he
keeps it tight without ever letting momentum wain. There is a healthy vitality
about Hammer’s remake, helped undoubtedly by composer James Bernard's energetic
score which bristles along nicely. Despite the diversions away from Conan
Doyle's original novel, the story is respectfully handled and works
exceptionally well. It has certainly withstood the test of time andl remains a
hugely enjoyable piece of entertainment. Is it as good as Rathbone’s 1939
version? That’s a tough question, and for me, the jury is still out. I would
certainly sleep easier placing them side by side and treating them with the
equal respect they both deserve.
Hammer’s
The Hound of the Baskervilles was the first filmed version to be shot in vivid
colour. Everything is bathed with sumptuous textures from hunting red riding
costumes to splendid tweed suits and rich wooden panelling. So with all things
considered, there was perhaps an overall expectancy that this should look
positively beautiful after being afforded the Blu-ray treatment. Well, in some
ways the upgrade works, but not without some minor troubles.
Arrow’s
Blu-ray is still probably the best I have seen on any home video format, but
that shouldn’t really surprise anybody. However, like a lot of recent Hammer
films to emerge on the Blu-ray format, the image does remain a little on the soft
side, not perhaps as soft as The Curse of Frankenstein but nowhere near as
crisp or sharp as say Quatermass and the Pit. Whilst a great deal of the movie
takes place at night, even interior lit scenes also tend to be a little on the
dark side and lack any real vitality. Viewers may well be left questioning why
this couldn’t have been corrected or improved during the mastering process, but
it simply remains a little too bland and muted on the eye. Added to this problem
was a fairly large amount of white speckle which seemed to haunt the picture
throughout.
This
is an area that I still find generally unacceptable, especially in consideration
of today’s technology; the process of eliminating such flecks and particles is
a fairly easy (albeit) time consuming element of restoration. Today, with any
Blu-ray purchase, there is arguably a degree of basic requirements that one
would like to expect, including a fairly good, cleaned up picture. With The
Hound of the Baskervilles, it became something more than just a minor
distraction and instead fell into the category of unavoidable hindrance, and that
is a genuine shame. If a company can produce for example, a near spotless print
of Frankenstein (1931) is there any reason why a 1959 movie shouldn’t look just
as clean? I don’t believe that’s too much to ask.
Thankfully,
the bonus features on this disc appear to balance out and make up for the
film’s minor quality issues. Firstly there is a super new audio commentary featuring
the always reliable Hammer experts Marcus Hearn along with Jonathan Rigby. For
the purist of Hammer fans, there is also an Isolated Music and Effects track.
Listen carefully to this during the opening scenes and your ears will certainly
reveal how background conversation tracks are most definitely looped…
Release
the Hound! Is a brand new 30 minute documentary looking at the genesis and
making of the Hammer classic, featuring interviews with hound mask creator
Margaret Robinson, film historian Kim Newman and actor/documentarian and
co-creator of BBC’s Sherlock Mark Gatiss.
The
Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes is a 1986 documentary looking at the many
incarnations of Conan Doyle’s celebrated character and is narrated and
presented by Christopher Lee. It does have a typical television look about it
and clearly shows the limitations of video tape, on which it was clearly shot.
Nevertheless, it’s fairly enjoyable in its own right.
Actor’s
Notebook: Christopher Lee – an archive interview in which the actor looks back
on his role as Sir Henry Baskerville. This is a nice little piece dating back
to around 2003, wherein Christopher Lee also speaks fondly and movingly about
his friendship with Peter Cushing.
The
Hounds of the Baskervilles excerpts read by Christopher Lee. A couple of
passages are included in this section. Plus there is also an original theatrical
trailer (b/w) and an extensive gallery featuring over 140 images including
photos, posters and lobby cards.
The
packaging includes a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly
commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper and a collector’s booklet featuring new
writing on the film by former Hammer archivist Robert J.E. Simpson and
illustrated with original archive stills and posters.
If
you are prepared to be tolerant of the films minor imperfections – you will no
doubt be happy with the overall package. Frankly, it still remains the best
version currently open to the market.
Until the sexual revolution of the mid-to-late 1960s was embraced by the film industry, the subject of homosexuality was dealt with in schizophrenic manner by studios. There were some bold attempts to address the subject in a serious and sympathetic manner, but fine movies like The Trials of Oscar Wilde and Victim were relegated to art-house hell and never enjoyed a wide audience. Indeed, it was the complete financial failure of the former film that motivated, in desperation, producer Cubby Broccoli to dust off the idea of adapting the James Bond novels for the screen. In other cases, the movies were more high profile (i.e Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Children's Hour) but studios forced the directors to substantially water down overt references to homosexuality. Within a few short years, however, the situation had changed dramatically. While many characters were often presented as comical stereotypes, there were other bold attempts to address more realistic approaches to the traumas faced by gays and lesbians. Going one rung further, a few films actually took on such issues as cross-dressing and transsexuals. One of the more notable films of the era was The Christine Jorgensen Story, released in 1970. However, as well-meaning as the movie was, it was generally regarded as an exploitation movie with a good dose of shlock and some unintended laughs. (Click here for review)
Far more impressive was the 1972 British film I Want What I Want...To Be a Woman starring Anne Heywood in a daring performance as an effeminate young man who secretly desires to be a woman. Unlike the real-life Christine Jorgensen, this story is not based on fact, but a novel by writer Geoff Brown. Roy is a sensitive twenty-something man who is living a nightmarish life. He's the son of a macho, ex-army officer (the always brilliant Harry Andrews) who spends most of his time drinking with high society types while he seduces their women. Roy and his father have a fractious relationship as the old man refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that his son looks more like the daughter he never had. He tries to force Roy into macho behavior by having him escort women on fraudulent dates and making him sit with other men in drawing rooms to argue politics over cigars and brandy. Meanwhile, all Roy wants to do is explore his feminine side. Eventually he can't resist the urge to dress as a woman and is caught in the act by his appalled father, who slaps him around and humiliates him. Distraught, Roy leaves his home to establish a new life in a far away town. This represents his first public appearance as a woman and the film conveys the anxiety cross dressers must feel when they make such a "debut". Although Heywood makes a head-turning woman, we have to remember she's supposed to be a man. As such, she gives a riveting performance and demonstrates the inevitable paranoia that might accompany such a bold lifestyle decision. Roy is convinced that everyone he passes on the street knows his secret.
A
wonderful, eclectic hodgepodge collection of vintage 3-D, tests, shorts,
animation and trailers has been released on Blu Ray recently by Flicker
Alley. 3-D Rarities, released on the Flicker Alley label, is for film and nostalgia buffs, alike. This is a wonderful snapshot of 3-D motion
picture photography from early tests in the 1920’s up through 1962, and arrives
in time to honor the 100-year anniversary of the exhibition of 3D films.
3-D
wasn’t just a brief fad in the 50’s but was found in sporadic use for specialized
presentations up through then. Early
surviving shorts show us wonderful glimpses of Washington DC and New York City,
with wonderful perspective. Two company
films follow, Thrills For You and New Dimensions.Thrills
for You was produced by The Pennsylvania Railroad for exhibition at the
Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940 in San Francisco. This B&W wonder gives a viewer an all too
brief look at railroading in its heyday from GG1 electrics, steam engines and
the lounge cars (although why an East Coast Railroad would promote itself on
the West Coast and not in its own territory is beyond me). New
Dimensions is an eye popping Technicolor feast of animation, produced for exhibition
at the 1940 Worlds Fair. Perfectly
synchronized with music and effects, a Chrysler is assembled one piece at a
time.
As
the collection moves into the 50’s, the disc contains 3-D trailers for: It Came From Outer Space; Hannah Lee; The
Maze and Miss Sadie Thompson. Shorts include special intros for the
first 3-D film, Bwana Devil, hosted
by Lloyd Nolan (with a guest appearance by Beany & Cecil); Stardust in Your Eyes, which played
with Robot Monster and features
comic Slick Slaven, doing impressions, telling some jokes and singing a tune or
two.
Doom Town is a very odd take
on the Atom Bomb and tests that were being done at Yucca Flats. Somewhat flippant in its tone and very
critical of this new super weapon, it only played a few bookings and
disappeared from view. Another great
short is the Casper cartoon Boo Moon,
another Technicolor visual feast.
What
is most noteworthy (and appreciated) is the restoration/cleanup work that has
been done on these films. Many were
transferred from the only surviving elements and had properties such as color
fade, shrinkage and other damage. The
bane of 3-D presentations was always the potential of a technical foul-up that
even one frame could produce. The images
here are extremely clean and have been color corrected and registered in place
to be able to deliver a comfortable 3-D viewing experience (and will always be
in sync when viewed from this Blu-Ray). Kudos to Bob Furmanek at the 3-D Archive for
finding these gems as well as Greg Kintz for the digital restoration. They both
deserve a big hand for their efforts.
An
abbreviated version of the contents have just completed a successful run at New
York’s Museum of Modern Art and will be showing up in special engagements
across the country this summer.Please
check http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/3-d-rarities
for further information about this project and others.
Bonus Materials Include:
- Introductions by Leonard Maltin and Trustin Howard.
- Essays by Julian Antos, Hillary Hess, Thad Komorowski, Donald McWilliams, Ted
Okuda, Mary Ann Sell and Jack Theakston.
- 3-D photo galleries - Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), New York World's Fair
(1939), Sam Sawyer View-Master reels (1950) and 3-D Comic Books (1953).
- 3-D footage directed by Francis Ford Coppola from The Bellboy and the
Playgirls (1962).
- Commentary tracks by Thad Komorowski and Jack Theakston.
TO WATCH THE 3-D VERSIONS OF THESE FILMS, YOU NEED:
- 3D HDTV
- COMPATIBLE 3D GLASSES
- BLU-RAY 3DTM PLAYER OR PLAYSTATION 3 SYSTEM*
- HIGH-SPEED HDMI CABLE
For those of us who are hopelessly addicted to spy movies of the 1960s, the Warner Archive provides a gift: the first DVD release of "The Scorpio Letters", one of the more obscure 007-inspired espionage films of the era. Produced by MGM, the movie was shown on American TV in early 1967 before enjoying a theatrical release in Europe. It seems the studio was trying to emulate the strategy that it was employing at the time for its phenomenally popular "Man From U.N.C.L.E." TV series. That show had proven to be such a hit with international audiences that MGM strung together two-part episodes and released them theatrically. (Three films were released in America but a total of eight were shown in international markets.) As "The Scorpio Letters" was produced with a theatrical run in mind, it has a bit more gloss than the average TV movie, which was then a genre in its infancy. Nevertheless, it still has all the earmarks of a production with a limited budget. Although set in London and France, you'd have to be pretty naive to believe any of the cast and crew ever got out of southern California. Grainy stock footage is used to simulate those locations and there is ample use of the very distinctive MGM back lot, which at times makes the film resemble an episode of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." What the movie does provide is some nice chemistry between its two lead actors, Alex Cord, who had recently acquitted himself quite well in the underrated 1966 big screen remake of John Ford's "Stagecoach" and Shirley Eaton, then still riding the wave of popularity she enjoyed as the iconic "golden girl" from the Bond blockbuster "Goldfinger". The two play rival spies in London, both working for different British intelligence agencies, though whether it is MI5 or MI is never made clear.
The film is based on a novel by Victor Caning that had been adapted for the screen by the ironically named Adrian Spies, who had a long career working primarily in television. (Curiously, his one credited feature film was for the superb 1968 adventure "Dark of the Sun" (aka "The Mercenaries".) There is nothing remarkable about his work on "The Scorpio Letters". In fact, Spies provides a rather confusing plot. The film opens on a jarring note with a man taking a suicidal plunge from his apartment window in London. Turns out he was a British intelligence agent and the reasons for his suicide are of great interest to the higher ups in the spy business. Alex Cord plays Joe Christopher, an American ex-cop who now does work for one of the intelligence agencies run by Burr (the ever-reliable Laurence Naismith). Burr orders him to get to the bottom of the suicide case and in doing so, Joe gains access to the dead man's apartment just in time to encounter a mysterious man stealing a letter addressed to the dead agent. A foot chase ensues that ends with both men getting struck by a London double decker bus (yes, MGM had one of those laying around the back lot.) Still, Joe manages to steal back the letter the man had swiped and finds it is obviously a blackmail attempt made against the dead agent by a mystery person who goes by the name of Scorpio. From there the plot gets rather confusing and becomes one of those thrillers that is best enjoyed if you stop trying to figure out who is who and just sit back and enjoy the ride. Joe flirts with Phoebe Stewart (Shirley Eaton), who works in another intelligence agency. It appears her boss and Joe's boss are constantly trying to undermine each other in the attempt to solve major cases. Phoebe makes an attempt to seduce Joe, but he correctly suspects that she is trying to compromise him for information he knows about the case. Inevitably, a real romance blossoms but the love scenes are pretty mild, perhaps due to the fact that this film was made with a television broadcast in mind. (The plot invokes the old joke of having the would-be lovers get interrupted every time they attempt to get it on.)
Joe gets a lead that takes him to Paris where he discovers that Scorpio is the man behind a shadowy spy network that uses agents employed as waiters in an upscale restaurant. I imagine the reason for this is explained somewhere along the line but it's just one more confusing element to the script. Joe infiltrates the spies/waiters gang in the hopes of finding out who Scorpio is. Meanwhile, in the film's best scene, he is exposed, captured and tortured. There is even a modicum of suspense as there appears to be no logical way he will get out of this particular death trap. Refreshingly, Joe is no 007. He makes miscalculations, gets bruised and beaten and often has to rely on the intervention of others to save him. (In the film's climax, finding himself outmanned and outgunned, he actually does the logical thing and asks someone to call the local police for help.) Ultimately, Scorpio is revealed to be one of those standard, aristocratic spy villains of Sixties cinema. In this case he is played by the very able Oscar Beregi Jr. If you don't know the name, you'll know his face, as he excelled in playing urbane bad guys in countless TV shows and feature films of the era. There are numerous kidnappings, shootouts, double crosses and red herrings and one bizarre sequence that is ostensibly set in a French ski resort in which the ski lift is inexplicably in operation even though it's summer. Additionally, the California mountains look as much like France as Jersey City does.
Despite all of the gripes, I enjoyed watching "The Scorpio Letters". It's an entertaining, fast-moving diversion, directed with unremarkable efficiency by Richard Thorpe (his second-to-last film). Cord makes for a very capable leading man, tossing off the requisite wisecracks even while undergoing torture. Eaton possesses the kind of old world glamour you rarely see on screen nowadays. Together, they make an otherwise mediocre movie play out better than it probably should. (A minor trivia note: this represents the first film score of composer Dave Grusin, who would go on to become an Oscar winner.)
The Warner Archive DVD transfer is very impressive and the film contains an original trailer, which presumably was used in non-U.S. markets.
"Signpost to Murder", which has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive, is the kind of modest production that major studios used to routinely produce in the hopes of generating some equally modest profits in quick playoff situations. The MGM production was made in 1964 and ostensibly takes place in England. However, the British countryside is represented by small village set shot on a Hollywood back lot, along with one of the most unconvincing matte paintings ever created. Fortunately the film is a claustrophobic affair that all too obviously betrays its origins as a stage play, thus relegating most of the action to an elegant country home that adjoins a giant water mill wheel. The film opens in an asylum for the insane where we find the protagonist, Alex Forrester (Stuart Whitman), as a reformed inmate who had been incarcerated for the murder of his wife. His progressive psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Fleming (Edward Mulhare), makes a plea for his patient's release back into general society but the request is refused. Driven to severe despair, Alex clunks the doctor over the head and uses his clothing as a disguise to escape the prison. With a manhunt under way, he makes tracks for the mill house residence, which he has long admired from years of gazing out of his cell window. Once there, he secretly enters the home just in time to see it's sole resident, Molly Thomas (Joanne Woodward), sauntering around the home modeling bathing suits for a forthcoming village fashion show. (Who said timing isn't everything?) Alex gets a hold of a shotgun and forces Molly to tell visiting police detectives that all is well. In reality, she is awaiting the return of her husband from a business trip to Amsterdam- a fact that unnerves Alex. Because of the film's abbreviated running time (a scant 78 minutes), events move along at an improbably fast pace. In the course of the evening, Molly ends up using Alex as her own de facto shrink and confides that she isn't overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her husband. Turns out he's been cold and inattentive. For his part, Alex confides that he isn't even sure that he ever murdered his wife due to the shock of seeing her body in a bathtub. From that point, his memory of the evening in question blanked out. Before long, these two lonely people are making goo-goo eyes at each other and there is an implication things go even further. Molly believes in the innocence of her "house guest" and continues to hide his presence from all visitors, of which there are quite a few. In fact, for a remote country house, the place seems to have more people ambling about than Victoria Station. Events go into overdrive, however, when Alex believes he sees the body of Molly's husband revolving on the giant water wheel. Naturally, when she goes to look, the body isn't there. She assures him that it was all in his imagination, but Alex begins to doubt his own sanity and wonders if he may have murdered yet again. When Molly's husband does turn up dead, the story becomes one of those typical British drawing room mysteries in which all the principals gather in the living room while some red herrings are dismissed and some astonishing facts are revealed.
Although the production boasts some genuine and fine British character actors (Mulhare and Alan Napier among them), the film has an odd feel to it because the two leads are so obviously American. Whitman initially injects his manner of speech with a half-hearted attempt at a British accent, but it inexplicably disappears. Woodward doesn't even go that far. A simple line of dialogue explaining that she is an American would have helped, but lacking that, one can't help but be distracted by her "California Girl" mannerisms and speech. Woodward's presence in this low budget black and white production is a bigger mystery than the murder plot, given the fact that she was already a major star and an Oscar winner by this point in her career. Yet, she and Whitman do have considerable chemistry together- and if the prospect of a woman falling for a presumably psychopathic killer sounds far-fetched, just consider that major jail break in New York state in which a female prison employee helped two murderers escape because she thought they were in love with her. Under the capable direction of George Englund, the film moves at a brisk pace and is a pleasing time-killer. I suspected one major plot device from the beginning but I do admit that a second one came as a bit of a surprise. As a trivia note, fans of 1960s spy movies will probably recognize the mill house set as the exact location of the opening sequence of the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." feature film "To Trap a Spy".
The Warner Archive DVD features an original trailer in which the narrator refers to the star as "Joan" Woodward!
The Warner Archive has released the 1964 Bob Hope comedy "A Global Affair". On the surface, it's standard Hope fare from this era but there are some interesting, if bizarre, aspects to the production. Most notably, the film was done with the cooperation of the United Nations and plays at times like a promotional feature for the perpetually beleaguered institution. Hope plays Frank Larrimore, a swinging New York City bachelor who works for the U.N. He is also a passionate advocate for children and has been unsuccessfully trying to get the U.N. to adopt a program that will grant certain basic international rights to minors. When an unseen mother leaves her baby at the U.N. before a holiday weekend, the Undersecretary General (Nehemiah Persoff) orders Larrimore to act as the child's guardian for a few days. This results in certain predictable gags as Larrimore fumbles his way through the daily basics of caring for the kid. He totes her around in a pet carrier, powders her with sugar and uses kitchen towels as diapers. When word leaks out about the U.N.'s "orphan", every country makes demands that the child be brought up as a citizen of that nation. The debate escalates to an international story and Larrimore finds himself saddled with the tyke for an extended period. He is given the unenviable task of judging which nation would be best-suited for the adoption. To help him cope with the pressure, he is assigned another U.N. employee, Lisette (Michele Mercier), a lovely French girl who immediately locks horns with Larrimore about his inabilities and his hedonistic lifestyle. This is exacerbated by the frequent presence of his upstairs neighbor Randy (Robert Sterling in the kind of role usually played by Tony Randall or Gig Young), who uses the baby as a lure to bring gorgeous single women to Larrimore's apartment for wild parties. As you might imagine, Larrimore and Lisette gradually fall in love even as they seek out the right parentage for the baby. Things get complicated when female representatives of various nations attempt to seduce him in order to influence his decision. For a swinging bachelor, Larrimore seems curiously immune to feminine charms. He deftly avoids one seduction attempt after another and even calls the police to remove one such lovely, a bustier-clad Yvette (Elga Andersen) from his bed. In terms of his love life, Larrimore seems less into the world of Hugh Hefner than the domain of the Boys in the Band, given the lengths he goes to in avoiding intimacy with women. This includes cougar Yvonne De Carlo, who smokes up the screen with an impressive Flamenco dance number. Ultimately, the movie breezes to a conclusion that is telegraphed in the first five minutes of the story.
The film plays out in predictable style and, like most Hope vehicles, keeps a brisk pace this time under the direction of veteran helmer Jack Arnold. It took four writers (including Charles Lederer and Arthur Marx) to develop this sitcom-like script that relies entirely on Hope's standard shtick. Fortunately, he's up to the task. Hope's genius is that he knew his limitations and never went beyond them. He played essentially the same character in every movie he made and his ability to toss off a wisecrack was rivaled only by Groucho Marx. (When queried by a U.N. delegate about what he knows about Turkey, he quips "I know the white meat is tender!"). The film provides some mildly amusing scenarios, some concerning Larrimore's fussy landlord played by the inimitable John McGiver. The equally impressive character actress Reta Shaw has a brief bit and Barbara Bouchet has a small role as well. There are some unintentional laughs whenever Larrimore is required to remind the audience of all the good works the U.N. does for the world, which was obviously a quid pro quo for being allowed to film on the premises. This dialogue has all the natural flow of someone in a hostage video. There are also some dated jokes involving U Thant, Soviet gulags and the Cuban Missile Crisis. (There is even a cameo by Adlai Stevenson!)
In al, "A Global Affair" is much ado about nothing- but the irresistible lure of Bob Hope and the sheer number of glamorous young actresses make this black and white production a pleasant way to spend 84 minutes.
World
War II vet Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) awakens in a Navy hospital bed after
languishing in a coma for two years. He
learns that he’s despised by other patients and hospital staff as a traitor,
but he has no idea what he’s supposed to have done wrong. Amnesia has erased that portion of his
memory. Overhearing that he’s going to
be court-martialed, Jim escapes from the hospital and seeks help from his buddy
Mark Gregory. But he learns from a
newspaper headline that Mark is dead, and that he is blamed for the “torture
killing.â€
Initially
at gunpoint, and then willingly when she begins to realize that Jim is
innocent, Mark’s widow Martha (Barbara Hale) helps the fugitive hunt for
another friend, Ted Niles (Richard Quine). Jim, Ted, and Mark were fellow prisoners in a Japanese POW camp, Jim’s
last memory before his coma. He hopes
that Niles can help him piece together what happened, and why he’s being chased
by Naval Intelligence and two mysterious killers. The mystery is compounded when Jim and Martha
grab dinner at a restaurant in Los Angeles’ Chinatown and Jim spots an Asian man whom he recognizes as Tokoyama (Richard Loo), the sadistic prison-camp guard
who haunts him in PTSD mental flashbacks.
“The
Clay Pigeon†(1949) is an efficient little B-movie, what studios called a
“programmer†in the old days to fill the bottom half of a theatrical double bill. A trim 63 minutes long, it’s typical of the
modestly budgeted, black-and-white crime dramas cranked out by Hollywood during
and after WWII. Like TV series dramas a
decade later, these unassuming pictures provided on-the-job experience for
up-and-coming young talent who would go on to write, direct, and produce more
prestigious works. In this case, the
young talents were 35-year-old scriptwriter Carl Foreman and 33-year-old
director Richard Fleischer, here billed as “Richard O. Fleischer.†Fans of classic Hollywood spectacle fondly
remember Fleischer for “20,000 Leagues under the Sea†(1954), “The Vikings†(1958), and “Tora! Tora! Tora!â€
(1970). Just as readily, Cinema Retro fans are likely to associate him
with cult favorites like “The Don Is Dead†(1973), “Soylent Green†(1973),
“Mandingo†(1975), and “Mr. Majestyk†(1975).
Fleischer’s
direction in “The Clay Pigeon†includes some compelling Noir visuals and
situations. In the opening scene of
Fletcher in close-up in his hospital bed, two anonymous hands enter the frame,
feel along the unconscious man’s face, then suddenly close on his throat. Later, Jim is chased through anonymous big
city (L.A.) streets by two menacing characters in fedoras. In their initial meeting, Martha apparently
welcomes Jim and says she’s glad to see her husband’s friend. Then, realizing that Martha has gone into the
next room not to fix coffee but to call the police, Jim lunges in and grabs the
phone. The two engage in a believably
frantic scuffle. Jim clinches with
Martha and covers her mouth, she struggles and bites his hand, and Jim knocks
her out.
After
this first, tense half-hour, the movie loses some of its momentum as Martha
becomes Jim’s ally and the couple take time out from their flight to picnic on
the beach and engage in some silly banter. But the final scenes pick up stride again as Fletcher is trapped by his
enemies on a speeding train -- a foreshadowing of Fleischer’s claustrophobic,
train-bound thriller a year later, “The Narrow Margin†(1950). One sequence reflects screenwriter Foreman’s
interest in social issues, as another war widow, played by Marya Marco, hides
Fletcher from Tokoyama and his gunmen. The widow is Japanese-American, and Fletcher notices that one of the
items in her apartment is a commendation to her late husband, also
Japanese-American, who was killed in action against the Nazis in Europe. It’s nice to see that the studio cast
Asian-American actors Loo and Marco in prominent speaking roles in an era in
which white actors were cast all too often as Asians. As old-movie and classic-TV enthusiasts know,
stars Williams and Hale were married in real life. Two other familiar faces in early stages of
their careers, Martha Hyer and Robert Bray, have bit roles.
The
Warner Archive Collection release of “The Clay Pigeon†is a
manufactured-on-demand DVD-R. The 1.37:1
image, pillarboxed for widescreen TVs, is sharp and clean, so sharp in fact
that the grainy stock footage used in the train sequence is distractingly
apparent. There are no extras, chapter
stops, or subtitles on the disc.
When
it opened in theaters some 55 years ago, on July 13, 1960, producer/director
Irwin Allen’s “The Lost World†promised 96 minutes of exotic, CinemaScope,
Color by DeLuxe fantasy adventure about dinosaurs and modern-day explorers in a
remote corner of the world. As difficult
as it may be for older filmgoers to remember today, and for younger ones to
even imagine, widescreen cinematography and sumptuous color were powerful draws
in that era before home theater, 500 cable channels, and streaming video. The TV set in your living room would only
pick up three or four stations at best on a small black-and-white screen. A night out at the movies in CinemaScope and
air conditioning was a big treat for most families. Talk about a lost world. Ten-year-olds were further primed by a Dell
movie-tie-in comic book with its cover photo of a fearsome giant reptile
emerging from a sinister fog: “Fantastic
adventures of an expedition to a lost land of prehistoric animals and fierce
headhunters!â€
The
enticements worked and Allen’s movie did good business, but its reviews failed
to match its commercial success. The
critics, who had little use for science fiction anyway in that era before the
genre became big entertainment business, derided nearly every aspect of the
film. Some of their points were
valid. By filming on studio backlots and
using stock footage to cut costs, Allen compromised the classy value of Winton
Hoch’s expansive widescreen cinematography. The script by Allen and his frequent collaborator, one-time Alfred Hitchcock
scenarist Charles Bennett, leaned heavily on conventional Hollywood plot
elements to pad out Conan Doyle’s rousing but rather dramatically thin source
material. Those might not have been
serious liabilities five or ten years earlier, but Hollywood was already moving
in the direction of greater realism, at least in terms of filming in authentic
exotic locations rather than a sound stage. Most small-town audiences probably didn’t care, but their comments
didn’t enter the permanent record. The
newspaper and magazine reviews did. Today, compared with the level of lifelike detail that modern CGI can
produce, the sets look even cruder in the jungle scenes.
Worse
for special effects purists, Allen dashed hopes that the movie would employ the
magic of stop-motion animation that had distinguished First National Pictures’
original, silent-screen version of “The Lost World†in 1925. Instead, as another way to save money and
time, the production substituted tricked-out lizards for the ingenious,
articulated model dinosaurs that Willis O’Brien had built and animated for the
1925 film. O’Brien was credited as a
“technical expert†for the 1960 film, but the work really was done by Fox’s
in-house team of L.B. Abbott, James B. Gordon, and Emil Kosa Jr. When “The Lost World†ran on TV from the
late 1960s through the ‘80s, it suffered even further: pan-and-scan conversion
ruined Hoch’s cinematography and made the artificiality of the sets even more
apparent. It didn’t help that Allen
recycled footage from the movie for his TV series “Voyage to the Bottom of the
Sea†(1964-68) and “The Time Tunnel†(1966-67). The practice confirmed Allen’s critical reputation as a crass
penny-pincher and may have conflated the movie with those childish TV shows in
viewers’ memories.
In
the film, scientist George Edward Challenger (Claude Rains) returns from an
expedition to the wilds of the upper Amazon, where he claims to have found an
isolated plateau on which dinosaurs have survived into the present. Not having any physical or photographic proof
(his photos were lost when his canoe overturned on the return trip), and
already regarded by his staid colleagues as an egotistical gadfly, he is met
with disbelief. He proposes to launch a
return expedition, joined by his skeptical rival Professor Summerlee (Richard Haydn)
and globe-trotting sportsman Lord John Roxton (Michael Rennie). As a condition for financing the quest,
newspaper magnate Stuart Holmes (John Graham) coerces Challenger into taking
star reporter Ed Malone (David Hedison) along. Malone will file breaking-news dispatches on the way to the Amazon and
beyond -- a prescient 1960 version of today’s reality TV and real-time internet
coverage of sensational “infotainment.â€
Flying
to South America, as represented by the actors in close-up looking out of airplane
windows at spectacular stock aerial footage of lush jungles and cascading
waterfalls, the expedition reaches an outpost where they are met by guide Costa
(Jay Novello) and helicopter pilot Gomez (Fernando Lamas). They also have two unwelcome additions. Holmes’ daughter Jennifer (Jill St. John),
has impulsively jetted over without parental knowledge to join her boyfriend
Roxton, accompanied by her brother David (Ray Stricklyn). From the outpost, Gomez’ chopper ferries the
explorers to the lost plateau. There, a
dinosaur wrecks the helicopter, stranding them. After adventures with other dinos, giant spiders, and man-eating venus
fly-traps and voracious creeper vines, they are captured by a tribe of
cannibals. A gorgeous native girl
(Vitina Marcus) helps them escape through the perils of the Graveyard of the
Damned and the Lake of Fire (did Lucas and Spielberg see this movie as teens
and take notes?). There’s a subplot
about a dark secret in Roxton’s recent past and a hunt for diamonds, leading to
a confrontation with one of his fellow travelers in a grotto where a gunshot
rouses another dinosaur, which eats the most expendable character in the
cast. Getting rid of the monster by
dumping a cascade of lava on it, the survivors flee the plateau just before the
magma sets off a volcanic explosion.
The
novel and the 1925 movie ended with Challenger taking a dinosaur back to
London, where the creature escapes and causes panic (in the book, a
pterodactyl, in the silent film, a Willis O’Brien T-Rex). Allen, in another cost-conscious move (or did
he have thoughts about a sequel?), ends with a baby T-Rex, actually a gecko,
hatching from an egg, and Challenger jovially promising to take it back as
proof for skeptics.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Shout! Factory:
Modern-day
Robin Hood. Wealthy man of mystery.
Debonair rogue. Call Simon Templar what you will, but never cross The Saint.
A timeless figure of adventure since his creation by Leslie Charteris in 1928, The
Saint has thrilled adventure aficionados with his exploits in a variety of
media, including novels, movies, and radio—but nowhere was the dashing Mr.
Templar more indelibly realized than in his 1960s television series, presented
here in one outstanding collection: The Saint: The Complete Series. Fans of the dashing spy will finally be able to
revisit his adventures with the release of The
Saint: The Complete Series on DVD from Timeless Media Group, a division of
Shout! Factory, LLC.
Available for
the first time as a complete series, the 33-DVD box set features all 118
episodes of the classic espionage show, including first 71 episodes of the
series in black & white and the subsequent 47 episodes in their original
full color presentation. The Saint: The Complete Series also comes loaded with bonus features
previously unavailable in North American releases, including the featurette Behind the
Scenes with Sir Roger Moore as Director as well as audio commentaries on
select episodes with members of the cast and crew, including Sir Roger Moore,
Executive Producer Robert S. Baker, Associate Producer Johnny Goodman and more!
Starring the
perfectly-cast Roger Mooreas Simon Templar, The Saint was not
only a benchmark in the lifespan of the character, but a stepping stone to
Moore taking on the role of an even more well-known man of action later in his
career. The Saint: The Complete Series
features superb guest stars including Oliver Reed (Tommy, Gladiator), Academy
Award-winning actress Julie Christie (Darling, Doctor Zhivago), Donald
Sutherland (The Dirty Dozen), Edward Woodward (“The Equalizerâ€) a bevy
of Bondian beauties (Goldfinger’s Honor Blackman and Shirley Eaton, as
well as Lois “Miss Moneypenny†Maxwell), and many more.
The Saint: The Complete Series Bonus
Features
·Audio commentary on select episodes:
o“The Talented Husband†– Roger Moore,
Robert S. Baker (Executive Producer) and Johnny Goodman (Associate Producer)
o“The Saint Plays With Fire†– Roger
Moore, Robert S. Baker (Executive Producer) and Johnny Goodman (Associate Producer)
o“Luella†– Director Roy Ward Backer and
guest star Sue Lloyd
o“The Saint Bids Diamonds†- Roger
Moore, Robert S. Baker (Executive Producer) and guest star Eunice Gayson
o“The Happy Suicide†– Jane Merrow
(Guest Star)
o“Escape Route†- Roger Moore, Robert S.
Baker (Executive Producer) and Peter Manley (Production Supervisor)
o“The House on Dragon’s Rock†– guest
star Annette Andre
o“The Ex-King Of Diamonds†- Roger
Moore, Robert S. Baker (Executive Producer)
o“Vendetta For The Saint†- Roger Moore,
Robert S. Baker (Executive Producer), and Johnny Goodman (Associate Producer)
·Behind the Scenes with Sir Roger Moore as Director featurette
About Timeless Media Group
Timeless
Media Group, a division of Shout! Factory, LLC, produces and distributes a
variety of home entertainment products, including classic television
programming, first run movies and its own award-winning military history
documentaries, along with an extensive offering of special interest DVD and
Blu-rayâ„¢ collections. Visit timelessvideo.com.
Vinegar Syndrome continues to unearth obscure erotic movies from decades past and manages to infuse new life to them. That may not make the people who participated in them very happy but for the sizable audience devoted to retro erotica, this is manna from Heaven. One of the recent releases is also one of the strangest. Billed on the DVD sleeve as "The Flying Acquaintances", this 1973 bares the title of "The Acquaintances" on the print that the DVD was mastered from. A perusal of the bonus publicity materials indicates it was also marketed as "The Sensuous Stewardesses." Bizarrely, the film opens with a syrupy love song crooned by a Jack Jones wanna be. How this pertains to the scenario of the film itself remains a mystery. The nominal plot (such as it is) concerns a bank teller, Max (future porn superstar Jamie Gillis) who makes ends meet by moonlighting as a taxi driver in New York City. In reality, he has other reasons for this secondary job. Seems Max has an enviable ability to get female passengers in bed. All the while, he assures his wife that he is remaining faithful. In the first scene, Max picks up a stewardess at the airport and drives her home. She invites him in and tells him she doesn't have enough money for the fare but she will be happy to work it off in "trade". Max accepts, thereby leading to one of the longest and most boring sex scenes ever filmed. Not helping matters is the fact that the movie is softcore. There is plenty of female full frontal nudity but the film still balks when it comes to having the guys go Full Monty. While the stewardess is screaming in passion, the scene cuts to the apartment next door where a sexually frustrated wife is trying unsuccessfully to arouse her construction worker husband. (We know he's a construction worker because he wears his hard hat at home.) Turned on by the shrieks of joy coming from the next apartment, the wife strips naked but all her hubby wants to do is drink beer, eat chicken and watch some mindless action movie on TV. Whatever amusement this scenario might have provided is not only beaten to death, it's then disinterred, abused and buried again. The seemingly endless sequence will have your mind drifting to more erotic thoughts such as what groceries you need to add to your shopping list. Another scenario finds a young Frenchman in New York who is seduced by a comely young woman. In yet another vignette, a young male virgin is seduced by a cougar who gets it on with her girlfriend to ensure he enjoys the experience. A common theme throughout centers on frustrated women trying to entice largely passive males.
What is remarkable about this film is that it seems dated even for 1973. By then, softcore was out and hardcore was in. The film seems to be from an era where people had to get watching those old "nudist" documentaries. It is as close to hardcore as you can get, but even by porn standards, the production lacks imagination or skill in terms of execution. There are redeeming factors, however. For one, the Vinegar Syndrome restoration is highly impressive. Second, the film has a great deal of on location scenery. If you enjoy seeing New York during this time frame, the film offers a cornucopia of great images including Columbus Circle and Times Square. For those of you who like to spot retro movie marquees, it's probably buying the DVD for that purpose alone. In slowing down the frames, I spotted some great ones: "Prime Cut" playing side by side with "The Godfather" at the old Loews State in Times Square; "The Sorry and the Pity" at the Paris Theatre and other 42nd Street marquees featuring "Hannie Caulder", "The Legend of Nigger Charlie", "The Possession of Joel Delaney" and many more.
The movie includes some photos in a still gallery and the original trailer.
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of Harry in Your Pocket, a largely unheralded 1973 comedy/drama that finds James Coburn well-cast as a debonair "king of the pickpockets". Along with his partner, the elderly but equally charismatic Casey (Walter Pidgeon), Harry is intent on recruiting a couple of newcomers to train as part of an ambitious pickpocket team. He settles on Ray (Michael Sarrazin) and his new girlfriend Sandy (comely Trish Van Devere), a destitute couple that is eager to learn from the master. After some rough edges in the "training", Ray and Sandy earn their keep by helping Harry set up the sting operations. Casey decides who will be the victim, Sandy distracts that person while Harry robs his wallet, then quickly passes it off to Ray. Harry's golden rule is "Harry doesn't hold", meaning he is never in possession of the incriminating loot for more than the few seconds it takes to pass it off to his accomplice.Life with Harry is good. The team travels extensively and everything is first class. However, it isn't long before Ray suspects that his real value to the team is the fact that he is accompanied by Sandy, who Harry clearly has eyes for. Soon, sexual tension threatens to disrupt the profitable partnership.
It may seem that a film about pick-pocketing might be a complete yawn. Indeed, there isn't much that happens in terms of plot and the movie relies almost entirely on the chemistry between cast members. Fortunately, everyone is at the top of their game. Coburn is charismatic and charming, but has a hard, threatening edge that makes it clear Harry is man who is used to getting things his way. It's top flight Coburn, in terms of performance and he's well-matched by Sarrazin and Van Devere, who gets to wear some eye-popping mini-skirts to distract the potential victims. The most kudos, however, go to Pidgeon in a wonderful late career performance. As the erudite, dapper and coke-sniffing thief, he dominates every sequence- especially when he opines about the lack of a code of honor that used to be prevalent among people of his peculiar trade.
This is the only feature film ever directed by Bruce Geller, best known as the creator and chief writer for the Mission: Impossible TV series. He handles the action well and capitalizes on lush location shooting in Seattle, Victoria, BC and Salt Lake City, all set to a funky Lalo Schifrin score. If there is one dismaying aspect to the movie, it's the fact that, unlike most films and TV series about charismatic con-men from The Sting to Hustle, the victims here are not corrupt executives and politicians, but everyday working people. It's hard to cheer on the protagonists when they are depriving the guy next door of his week's wages. Nevertheless, Harry in Your Pocket is a forgotten gem of film and well worth catching up with.
