Columnists
Entries from October 2015
We hate to brag but sometimes we just have to. Our own intrepid columnist, Raymond Benson, is enjoying some very exciting news. His acclaimed series of books based on The Black Stiletto character has been optioned by actress Mila Kunis's production company which is developing the property as a TV series for ABC. Kunis will executive produce the series, which centers on a female hero who, in the tried-and-true tradition, keeps her real identity a secret. Raymond has been a contributor to Cinema Retro since issue #1, way back in '05. His column of "Top Ten Films" of specific years has already covered the entire 1960s and 1970s and is now focused on films of the 1950s. (If he doesn't slow down, we'll soon be covering the greatest hits of Wallace Beery as fodder for his column.) Raymond also writes reviews of the latest DVD and Blu-ray releases, many of which can be found in his own column on this page and in the Criterion Corner section. His contributions to the success of Cinema Retro have been immeasurable so we take great pleasure in congratulating him on this major achievement.
Click here for more.
Click here to view promotional videos for The Black Stiletto novels.
BY ADRIAN SMITH
In
1960 a young Michael Winner began a collaboration with the British producer and
distributor E.J. Fancey which would enable him to break into the world of
feature films. Fancey had been in the industry for over twenty years, and
specialised in "quota quickies": cheap, forgettable films which could
play as supporting features and qualify for government tax breaks. The average
Fancey production usually combined low-rent comedians, stock footage, long
tedious amounts of travelling and a confused crossover between documentary and
narrative film. As a distributor of European exploitation cinema he was
prolific, being responsible for bringing thousands of equally cheap and forgettable
films into British cinemas in the hope of making a fast buck. Into this
cut-throat world stepped Michael Winner, who prior to directing had been
working in some of the smaller film studios around London as well as at the
BBC. The film in question is Climb Up the Wall, a piece of entertainment
so peculiar and grating it has even been missed off Winner's filmography on
Wikipedia.
Climb Up the Wall begins with
typically cheap hand-drawn title cards and some jazzy music before introducing
us to our host Jack Johnson, a popular cardigan-wearing comedian of the day.
Speaking to camera he explains his latest invention, which is basically a large
computer with a television screen. In 1960 this was still somewhat fantastical,
but which now looks laughable. Along with his amiable son Malcolm we are
bombarded with sketches and music, held together with the vague storyline of
Jack Johnson showing us what his computer can do. We are treated to footage of
Elvis as a GI, comedians, popular singer Mike Preston, clips from the Goon
Show film Down Among the Z Men (1952, also produced by E.J. Fancey)
and even footage from old westerns. Before long Jack and Malcolm get bored of
this, like the audience, and head into London for a night out. This is an
excuse to show us some naked models and exotic nightclub dancing, as well as
more singing and an odd sequence in a kitchen where they all decide to do some
cooking. The film feels like it was being made up as they went along, which
perhaps it was.
Clearly
Winner was told to make something out of a load of old stock footage, including
some of the Fancey back-catalogue, with the specific mention of making it
appeal to the rock and roll crowd. Fancey had recently made one of Britain's
first rock and roll films (Rock You Sinners, 1958) so clearly felt like
he had his finger on the pulse. For a sixty-three minute film Climb Up the
Wall packs in a lot of music by long-forgotten singers and groups, and even
manages to reference Cliff Richard. They seem to be targeting a younger audience,
yet the focus on an older generation of comedians suggests they did not really
know what teenagers would be into in 1960. Climb Up the Wall is
something of a curiosity, and is well worth seeking out, not because it is a
good film, which it isn't, but because of its authentic shots of London life.
It was also an important milestone in the development of one of the most
prolific and influential directors to come out of Britain in the 1960s.
Accompanying
the film on this DVD are two other E.J. Fancey productions. The first, London
Entertains (1951) tries to pass itself off as a documentary, although it is
effectively a feature film. Popular television presenter Eamonn Andrews tells
us the story of a group of girls from a Swiss Finishing School who come to
London to start their own escort agency. The girls, who all look around
twenty-five, believe that visiting tourists and dignitaries will want to be
escorted around the Festival of Britain, as well as the nightclubs of London.
This allows Fancey, who directed it himself, to cram in loads of stock footage,
including skiing, synchronised swimming and film star Gloria Swanson inspecting
the Festival of Britain building site. We are also treated to the attractions
of London, including the Windmill Theatre and an open-air performance at
Battersea of Canadian former child-star Bobby Breen. Meanwhile Eamonn has
fallen in love with one of the girls, whilst they have to fight off the
attentions of a brash American, played by character actor Joe Baker. One of the
highlights of the film is the visit to the BBC Radio Theatre for a recording of
The Goon Show. This is rare early footage when Michael Bentine was still
performing alongside Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, and we
even get to meet producer Dennis Main-Wilson and original presenter Andrew
Timothy. Moments like this make London Entertains worth seeing for
anyone with an interest in the history of comedy.
The
final film on the DVD is Calling All Cars (1954), another combination of
stock footage and low-rent comedy. Cardew Robinson, better known in those days
as Cardew the Cad, plays a hopeless romantic in love with the unattainable
blonde across the road. When he finds out she is planning to drive to the
continent he conspires with a friend to buy a car and follow them as they head
off to the newly-built Dover car terminal. This means we are treated to stock
footage of how the terminal was built, accompanied by a relatively unfunny
commentary. Cardew's comedy has sadly dated, along with his car. The film
mainly consists of shots of driving, and for some bizarre reason Fancey decided
to give Cardew's car an internal monologue, voiced by Spike Milligan. The
highlight of Calling All Cars is when
Cardew pulls into a service station for petrol. The attendant claps his hands
and before he knows it they are surrounded by beautiful women in short skirts
and stockings who give the car a quick once-over.
This
DVD is a reminder that everyone back then smoked, and if you have recently quit
it may be a struggle to get through all three movies in one sitting. Renown
Pictures have found good quality prints and the sound is clear, given that
these films would have looked and sounded cheap back then and were never
intended to be seen sixty years later. Whilst worth picking up for Climb Up
the Wall alone, the fact that there are three films here makes this disc a
must-have for anyone interested in the forgotten corners of British film
history.
Renown
have also recently launched a free TV channel in the UK called Talking
Pictures, where more obscure British films from the 1930s through to the 1970s
can be found and enjoyed. You can find more information at
www.talkingpicturestv.co.uk.
London
Entertains/ Climb Up the Wall/ Calling All Cars is released by Renown Pictures
on R0 DVD. CLICK HERE TO ORDER
BY ADRIAN SMITH
Ursula
(Barbara Magnolfi) and Dagmar (Stefania D'Amario) are sisters looking for their
mother, a once successful actress who left them in a boarding school when they
were children and disappeared. Their father has recently died, leaving them a
substantial sum that they feel duty-bound to share with the absent mother.
Their search leads them to a hotel on the outstanding Amalfi Coast near Naples
where they meet a motley collection of people who have secrets to hide: Filippo
(Marc Porel) is a heroin addict, Roberto (Vanni Materassi), the hotel manager,
is having an affair with the resident singer, the amusingly-monikered Stella
Shining (Yvonne Harlow, who claimed to be the great grand-daughter of Jean
Harlow), who is herself smuggling drugs in lipstick tubes, and Roberto's wife
Vanessa (Anna Zinnemann), a lesbian who is having a passionate affair with one
of the hotel guests.
If
things weren't already complicated enough Ursula has psychic abilities that
allow her to see the future. As explained by a conveniently-placed psychiatrist
in the hotel, these powers could have been induced by some unexplained
childhood trauma. Ursula is plagued by bad dreams of gruesome murders, and
visions of her recently-deceased father in bed with other women. Dagmar may be
falling in love with Filippo, who Ursula claims will be responsible for her own
death, but Filippo is obsessed with Stella Shining. Into this already
convoluted setup stalks a black-gloved murderer, a familiar figure from Italian
giallo movies, who watches people have sex and then kills them with a
giant phallus. This provides director Enzo Miloni with endless opportunities to
show as much nudity as he could get away with, which was quite a lot.
Apparently when The Sister of Ursula was released, it was shown in some
cinemas with hardcore inserts. Even with those removed it is still quite strong
stuff.
With
a title that makes one expect a film about nuns, this was Enzo Miloni's
directorial debut. Primarily known as a writer, he made this film at the
request of the producer in order to get his own pet project, which was to start
Dirk Bogarde, off the ground. Despite all the sleaze and murder, the film is
mainly a melodrama and feels like something you would find when flicking
through the channels one morning on your hotel TV whilst on holiday. It is shot
with very little verve or creativity. The camera was mainly set on a tripod and
then just left at that height for the rest of the movie. Occasionally we see
close-ups of a sinister pair of eyes in the shadows, but otherwise there is
very little distinctiveness visually. The plots and sub-plots become confusing,
with enough to provide narrative ideas for at least three movies. This is
perhaps a symptom of Miloni's first love of writing for the theatre.
Anyone
familiar with the Italian giallo will have seen most of what is here in other,
better movies. What perhaps sets this one apart is the stronger focus on sex,
with Shameless selling it as a "proto porno giallo". The image
quality is what one would expect from a film shot on location using cheap film
stock, that is to say flat and not particularly sharp. The blood still looks
bright red however. The DVD features a half-hour interview with the director
from 2008, and watching it may make you feel warmer towards the film than you
did before. He clearly enjoyed the experience and remained friends with the
cast, and expresses his intentions and frustrations with the project well. He
reveals that Marc Porel was a drug addict in real life, and explains how they
dealt with this this during the shoot. The star of one of Italy's greatest
crime thrillers, Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976, Ruggero
Deodato), Porel sadly died at the age of just 34 from a drug overdose whilst
shooting commercials in Morocco.
Shameless
have released this DVD in a limited edition of just 2000 numbered copies.
Featuring new artwork from genre specialist Graham Humphries (with a reversible
sleeve featuring the original Italian artwork), the aforementioned interview,
the theatrical trailer (revealing that some scenes were shot for an alternate
version where clothes remained on) and lots of trailers for other Shameless DVD
releases. Shameless are specialists when it comes to releasing trashy European
cinema that other companies would steer well clear of, and for that they are to
be congratulated.
Previously
only available on a R1 DVD from Serverin Films, you can now buy The Sister of
Ursula on Amazon UK by clicking here.
BY MARK CERULLI
Full disclosure: I’m a Mac evangelist and have been since the
1980s. (The boxy Macintosh Plus was the
first model I used.) I idolized Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and this brilliant
movie from director Danny Boyle doesn’t change that. What it does do is explain Jobs as much as a
force of nature like Steve Jobs can be explained. The film, written by Aaron Sorkin, tells
Jobs’ story through three pivotal product launches –1984’s Macintosh, the
ill-fated Next in 1988 and his triumphant 1998 return with the revolutionary
iMac. Most of the action takes place in
the tension-filled backstage crucible before each event, where Jobs terrorizes
staffers and programmers and deals with the inconvenient truth of a very
dependent ex-girlfriend (played by Sam Waterston’s daughter, Katherine) who is
also the mother of his child. A child he
refuses to acknowledge, conclusive paternity test or no.
Michael Fassbender is
nothing short of amazing as Jobs, a man so convinced of his own rightness that
he can’t acknowledge a shred of humanity or empathy. Although Fassbender doesn’t look like the
mercurial tech rockstar, he’s able to channel him. Kate Winslett turns in another stellar
performance as Jobs’ harried marketing chief, the one woman he does confide in
– as much as Jobs was capable of confiding. Seth Rogan puts his usual stoner persona aside
as the real brains behind Apple, co-founder Steve Wozniak. “Woz†is seemingly Jobs only friend but his
relentless perfectionism pushes their relationship to the limit.
Flashbacks illustrate
major points in Jobs’ career –the birth of Apple in a silicon valley garage, wooing
Pepsi head John Scully (Jeff Daniels) to be Apple’s CEO, and the crushing
boardroom battle where the indispensible Jobs suddenly found out that he was
totally dispensable. Along the way Jobs
hints at the reasons behind his iron will and propensity to lash out at anyone
who doesn’t live up to his impossible standards – rejection by his first set of
adoptive parents who literally gave him back. Instead of coming to grips with it through therapy or discussion, he
walled it off, along with most human emotions.
Cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler’s
tight camerawork is centered on the actors moving through various backstage
settings as the product launch tensions ramp up and ever so slightly, Jobs
acknowledges the fatherhood he’s denied. Sorkin’s Oscar-bait dialogue crackles throughout. For example…
Jobs
to a stressed-out engineer: “You had three weeks, the universe was
created in a third of that.â€
The
stressed-out engineer: “Well, someday you’ll have to tell us how
you did it.â€
Because Apple products are
so ubiquitous and four years after his death, Jobs has passed into legend; we
think we know him. We think he’s
ours. But behind the iconic products,
there was an intense, ruthless and occasionally cruel man. This film helps explain why and does what
Jobs himself never could – it helps humanize him.
Steve Jobs opens October 9th
from Universal Pictures.
By
Adrian Smith
Just
one night after the world had enjoyed the astronomical spectacle of a real
Blood Moon, Cinema Retro were invited to attend the cast and crew screening of
a new British-made western about the mythical Skinwalkers, native Americans
with the power to shape-shift during this rare lunar activity. A stagecoach
full of passengers, a mysterious gunslinger and two outlaw brothers find
themselves trapped in a ghost town and under attack from an eight feet tall
werewolf. The screening, held at the glorious Genesis Cinema in Whitechapel,
was packed out and everyone was having a great time. It was, of course, the
first time this writer has seen an entire audience stay in their seats until
the end of the credits.
Blood Moon is set in Colorado, but was
actually shot in the "real" western town of Laredo, built by western
enthusiasts in a field in Kent, England, and has the muddy, lived-in look of
spaghetti-westerns like Django (1966). This is the director Jeremy
Wooding's third feature film, and he has years of experience in television
comedy and drama. The screenplay was written by Alan Wightman, who we've been told is a regular Cinema Retro reader, which explains his affection for classic film genres. His affection for Hammer horror and
westerns is very clear, with the lead character Calhoun, played brilliantly by
Shaun Dooley, coming across as a hybrid of Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name
and Horst Janson's Captain Kronos.
The
film has now been released on DVD and digital download by Studio Canal, and is
available in the United States and the UK with loads of extra features. Blood
Moon is a loud and joyous celebration of the western genre, and one can
only hope that we get to see the further adventures of Calhoun as he heads west
in search of demons, vampires and other beasts to vanquish.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON USA
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON UK
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