Columnists
Entries from July 2018
“BEAUTY AND BRAINSâ€
By Raymond Benson
One
of the unsung heroines of the 20th Century—her fame as a Hollywood
star notwithstanding—is actress and inventor
Hedy Lamarr. Few have known about her extraordinary proclivity to invent stuff,
and even less are aware that she came up with a patent (in collaboration with a
musical composer, no less) during World War II for a communications system that
was later adopted and is still used today.
Bombshell: The Hedy
Lamarr Story,
a wonderful documentary on the woman’s life and career, deliberately emphasizes
that Lamarr’s scientific knowledge and technical imagination takes precedence
over her Hollywood legacy. And while Lamarr appears to have maintained an
upbeat attitude throughout the decades, the motion picture reveals that her
struggles were many. Lamarr was troubled, misunderstood, and too many times
ignored for her efforts beyond being a “pretty face.â€
Pretty
she was indeed. Lamarr was one of those Hollywood beauties who turned heads and
dropped jaws. She was talented, too—a competent leading lady with on-screen
charisma and a chemistry with (most) of her co-stars. Unfortunately, the
Hollywood moguls, namely Louis B. Mayer at MGM, refused to cast her out of the
pigeon-holed slot of “glamour girl.†Only after she broke away from the studio
and took better control of the kinds of roles she played did she begin to
display a wider range. Perhaps her most well-received role was that of Delilah
in Samson and Delilah (1949), for
which she campaigned in person to director Cecil B. DeMille. “I am Delilah,†she told him. He believed
her.
Lamarr,
who was from Austria, had made a controversial picture there in 1933 entitled Ecstasy, in which she frolicked about in
the nude. A love scene focused on her face, which portrayed, well, an orgasm. Looking
at these clips today, they all seem tame; but then—they were extremely potent. This “scandal†followed her to
Hollywood and seemed to forever taint her career in a hypocritical business
that exploited young starlets all the time. Nevertheless, she persevered and
made a name for herself, becoming one of Tinsel Town’s biggest stars of the
1940s.
More
significant, Bombshell contends, is
that Lamarr should have been more appreciated for her brainpower. In the early
days of the war, prior to the U.S. involvement, Lamarr teamed up with
avant-garde composer George Antheil to come up with a way for battleships to communicate with torpedoes and guide
them to their targets. The system was called “frequency hopping,†and was based
on the way player piano rolls were constructed. If radio signals to a torpedo
jumped around in frequency, the Germans would be unable to block the
transmissions. The couple received a patent for the idea. Unfortunately, the
Navy poo-pooed the notion and shelved it. It was discovered later, after the
patent had expired, that the system was indeed developed and put into use.
Lamarr and Antheil never profited from their invention, but apparently the
system became the basis for much of today’s communications technology in GPS
and WiFi.
Writer/Director
Alexandra Dean assembles a fascinating portrait of Lamarr in a lean 88-minute
feature that relies on vintage footage, film clips, and interviews with family
members (Lamarr had a tumultuous love life—she was married six times),
filmmakers and film people (Mel Brooks, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Osborne,
Diane Kruger, Gillian Jacobs), and the scientific community. Dean doesn’t pull
punches when it comes to some of Lamarr’s more problematic history—her
studio-inflicted addiction to drugs, an arrest, the abandonment of an adopted
child, and her rejection of her Jewish past. Mostly, though, the film is a
celebration of a remarkable woman with an astonishing sense of self, curiosity,
and innovation.
Kino
Lorber’s 1920x1080p Blu-ray looks marvelous, and the vintage film clips are
especially sharp and clear. The soundtrack is 5.1 Surround with optional
English SDH subtitles. Special Features include an interview with director
Dean, outtakes of interviews with Brooks, Jacobs, and Osborne, and trailers.
For
anyone interested in Hollywood and/or World War II history, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story provides
worthwhile, revelatory viewing.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
BY TODD GARBARINI
Alfred
Sole is a production designer who has carved out a nice career for himself in
Hollywood, most notably on the television shows Veronica Mars (2004-7), Castle
(2009-16), and the reboot of MacGyver
(2017-18). Long before he chose that line of work however, he dabbled in the
world of film directing. His first film, the 1972 hardcore sex “comedy†Deep Sleep, must be seen to be believed
because despite a few flourishes of cinematic style and several humorous
sequences involving dialogue, it’s just a hardcore sex romp featuring folks no
one in their right mind would want to see naked let alone copulating. There is
absolutely nothing in this film to suggest that he would next direct one of the
greatest and most thematically disturbing thrillers of our time, 1976’s Communion, not to be confused with the
Christopher Walken/alien-probe-up-the-old-dirt-road 1989 outing based on Whitley
Strieber’s 1987 “non-fiction†book of the same name. His subsequent films,
1980’s Tanya’s Island with the late
and impossibly gorgeous Denise Matthews (credited as “D.D. Wintersâ€) and 1982’s
star-studded comedy Pandemonium both
fared poorly at the box office, hence his career change. Thankfully Communion, with its high cinematic style
and deceptively low production budget, refused to die.
In
her screen debut, Brooke Shields plays Karen Spages (rhymes with “pagesâ€), the
younger sister of Alice Spages, the latter brilliantly portrayed by New
Jersey-born actress Paula Sheppard. Karen is favored by everyone around her and
can do no wrong, mostly because Alice is a, forgive the pun, holy terror. Alice
teases Karen, locks her in a building to scare her, and mistreats her communion
veil. Why the horseplay? Alice was conceived out of wedlock and is not entitled
to receive the Holy Eucharist. As if this is her fault.
On
the day of her first communion Karen is brutally murdered right in the church
and all suspicion points to her sister after she finds the discarded veil and
wears it to the altar. This sets in motion some truly well-acted scenes wherein
the identity of the killer is constantly in question. Everyone suspects Alice,
even her neighbor Mr. Alphonse (Alphonse DeNoble), an obese monstrosity you
must see to believe. Karen and Alice’s mother Catherine (Linda Miller) is
grief-stricken and meets her ex-husband Dom (Niles McMaster) at the funeral. Afterwards,
there are suspicions about Alice’s whereabouts during Karen’s murder and Alice
submits to a polygraph which she mischievously pushes on to the floor. Her Aunt
Annie (Jane Lowry) battles with her sister and the latter accuses her of hating
Alice because of her sinful status. Annie refutes this until she herself is
attacked in a shockingly bloody sequence and fully believes that Alice is the
killer.
Alice takes place circa 1961 as evinced by the production design,
the old-style cars, the calendar on the wall, and the prevalence of a poster of
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) that
can be seen if one really looks for it. Originally reviled amid concerns that
it’s an attack against the Catholic Church (how can it not be?), the film was
met with lukewarm box office. Director Sole was rumored to have stated that the
church was simply the milieu he wanted to set the story against, but the
commentary infers otherwise. It’s one of the most Catholic-themed films I’ve
ever seen, even more so than William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). It has a look, a feel, and an atmosphere all
its own. This film is quite simply one of the best low-budget American horror
films ever made. It boasts a superbly eerie score by Stephen Lawrence who scored
a handful of other films. Yours Truly has been wishing for a soundtrack album
of this music for years, however one has yet to surface. Great editing,
wonderful set design, and excellent music all come together to make Alice an enjoyable shocker that can
easily be viewed more than several times.
This
film has had a strange history. Filmed in Mr. Sole’s hometown of Paterson, NJ
in the summer of 1975, Alice
premiered in Paterson (Lou Costello’s old stomping grounds) under its original
title Communion on Saturday, November
13, 1976 at the Fabian Theater (now the Fabian Building). The event was met
with much fanfare, however a subsequent theatrical release failed to stir much
interest. Communion was dropped by
the original distributor, picked up by another, retitled Alice, Sweet Alice, re-cut and
redistributed in 1981 as Holy Terror
and played up Ms. Shields’s participation in response to the success of the
previous year’s The Blue Lagoon. It
then made its way to cable television and local independent stations where the
bulk of us caught up with it. Later on it was relegated to VHS collecting dust
in discount bins beginning in 1985 with Goodtimes Home Video, seemingly forever
to be lost within the public domain due to a legal snafu. I bought it for ten
dollars, which was unheard of in an era when the MSRP on a VHS tape was roughly
eighty dollars. In 1998, the film received a laserdisc release from the Roan
Group which sported a highly entertaining audio commentary from director Sole
and the film’s editor, Edward
Salier. The film was given two DVD releases later on, which ported over the
commentary. Even without the benefit of Sole's discussion, one can
easily see the influence that Nicolas Roeg's astonishing Don’t Look Now (1973) has on this
film.
Continue reading "REVIEW: "ALICE, SWEET ALICE" (AKA "COMMUNION") (1976) STARRING BROOKE SHIELDS; BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION"
BY TODD GARBARINI
Movie-going
audience members under the age of forty will not recall motion picture
theatrical exhibition in the 1970s. It was a most interesting time when
drive-ins and even first-run movie theaters would pair up an older feature
film, generally one that was one to two years-old, with the main feature on a
double-bill. A handful of theaters in my area used to engage in midnight showings
of older films, too. One theater exclusively ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) for years while another
alternated between Stanley Kubrick's 2001:
A Space Odyssey (1968), Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards
(1971), Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains
the Same (1976), David Lynch's art-house favorite Eraserhead (1977) and Alan Parker's Pink Floyd The Wall (1982). Other showcases included uncensored
bloopers featuring Carol Burnett, the Three Stooges, and Abbott and Costello.
In
October 1978, Attack of the Killer
Tomatoes was unleashed upon the moviegoing public (filming had begun in
early 1977). The film is an effort to poke fun at the Japanese disaster and monster
invasion films of the 1950’s and 1960’s, movies that, according to director
John DeBello, were mostly unfamiliar to the moviegoing public. Billing itself
as a comedy, to today's eyes, it's really anything but that. Despite a few
laugh out-loud sequences the film, which runs nearly 90 minutes, feels nearly twice that length. There are many films that came
out during this era that are disjointed and suffer from ineffective editing like
Attack. Black Socks (aka Video Vixens)
(1974) was an effort to introduce hardcore sex into a comedy and failed
miserably. The Groove Tube (1974) and
Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979) are two
other inane attempts at hilarity. However, there are some truly funny films in
this vein, as 1977’s Kentucky Fried Movie
and Airplane! in 1980, can attest to.
In Attack, there is a humorous scene
wherein military officials all cram into a small room for an impromptu meeting
to discuss the best course of action against the tomato attack; a sequence
involving a blind traffic cop; a badly dubbed Japanese official; and the
requisite Jaws parody – bested by the
aforementioned Airplane!
Attack recalls the similar premise of George
A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead
(1968) wherein dead bodies inexplicably are reanimated and begin feeding on
human flesh. The one major difference here is that the unsuspecting American
public is under attack by giant, killer tomatoes. The plot is almost too
convoluted to be believed for a send-up, but the basic premise involves the
government attempting to keep the seriousness of the tomato attacks under wraps
so as not to give way to mass hysteria and have to call in the military.
What
makes people laugh today is apparently different from what made people laugh forty
years ago. However, there are certain comedies that are timeless. No matter how
old I get, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges never
fail to make me laugh. There aren't too many films made in the last thirty to
forty years I can claim are able to do that. Even It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), with its television viewings
and innumerable home video releases, is still to this day laugh out-loud
hilarious. The interaction between all the characters is truly astonishing.
There is no such chemistry between anybody in Attack. I’ll admit it’s unfair to compare Stanley Kramer’s epic
comedy filled to the brim with comic geniuses who honed their talents for years
with a film put together by a group of movie fans who wanted to make a film. To
be fair, Attack probably was designed
to play at drive-ins where people had other things on their mind besides a
movie. And who can blame them? If you had to watch this film, you would do
better off filing your nails.
I
won't hold it against you if you're a fan of this film as I have my share of
guilty pleasures, and if you are a
fan then this DVD/Blu-ray is an absolute must-have. The restored, 4K transfer
is very colorful and the film has never looked batter. The 2003 DVD release had
several extras that have been ported over to this new release, and I will also
list the extras that for some reason fell by the wayside. I would love to see
half the number of extras lavished upon this film bestowed upon some of my
favorite and lesser-known films that I grew up watching. For a film of this
kind, the new DVD/Blu-ray combo set from MVD is jam-packed. It would have been nice if
they included a hilarious cut of the film itself!
Continue reading "REVIEW: "ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES" 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION FROM MVD"
BY TODD GARBARINI
This
has been a good year for fans of model and actress Laura Gemser. Recently, Severin
Films released a deluxe Blu-ray package of two of her films, a soundtrack CD, a
really cool t-shirt and an enamel pin, the last item appearing to be something
that is new and all the rage nowadays. We’ll take a look at the two films
featured in this collection.
Emanuelle
and the Last Cannibals
(1977)
Laura
Gemser, the high cheekbone-chiseled, dark-skinned Indonesian goddess born
Laurette Marcia Gemser who appeared opposite Jack Palance in Emmanuelle
and the Deadly Black Cobra
(1975), returns in Emanuelle and the Last
Cannibals as Emanuelle. Here she’s a photojournalist who goes undercover at
a mental hospital with a 35mm camera hidden within a creepy children’s doll
that takes photos when the eyes open and close. She’s looking to expose the
hospital’s treatment of the infirmed and witnesses a horrific event wherein a
patient tries to eat one of the nurses. Yes, you read that right. A tattoo on
the patient’s torso of a cannibal tribe’s logo stuns Emanuelle. She comes to
find out that the woman was raised by a tribe of cannibals called the Apiaca. Eager
to pursue this story, she consults with her newspaper editor, an older man who
is looped so poorly you practically never see his mouth move. In fact, the
whole movie is looped with foley effects and dialogue that all sound so
unnatural but hey, that’s part of the fun of these movies. The story compels
Emanuelle to seek out Dr. Mark Lester (Ms. Gemser’s late real-life husband,
Gabriele Tinti) who agrees to accompany her on a journey to investigate the
Apiaca. Before she leaves on her trip, however, she decides to make love to her
boyfriend in full view of the New York skyline, but this is the last we see of
him as she appears to be smitten with the older Dr. Lester. Mechanical and
joyless softcore sex scenes proliferate, even after the point following their
arrival in the jungle to pursue the tribe. They are offered assistance by a
group of others who go with them: Reverend Wilkes (Geoffrey Copleston),
Isabelle (Mónica Zanchi), an overly emotional Sister Angela (Annamaria
Clementi), Donald Mackenzie (Donald O’Brien), and his wife Maggie (Nieves
Navarro). They are on a mission to locate Father Morales who is supposedly the
only person not from the Amazon who has ever had any contact with the tribe. Unfortunately,
they only discover his remains, which sets poor Sister Angela into a terrible
emotional state.
Poor
Donald can’t seem to satisfy Maggie anymore, so when they stop to make camp she
elects to get it on with natives in the jungle. As one would expect from director
Aristide Massaccesi, better known as Joe D’Amato, the sex scenes are overdone,
artificial and completely lacking in passion. Even Emanuelle’s multiple romps
do little to exult in the wonder of her lithe figure. If ever there was an
award for Best Mechanical and Robotic Sex Scene, director D’Amato would surely
win every time.
Naturally,
the more the group hikes further into the jungle the more they expose
themselves to potentially being captured and eaten. This horrific fate befalls several
of the party, but Emanuelle thinks of an ingenious way to escape once they are surrounded.
The ending is silly and predictable, but you pretty much know what you’re
getting with this acting troupe.
As
difficult as it may seem to believe, cannibal films enjoyed a high level of
popularity back in the 1970s and 1980s, so it was inevitable that they would
make their way into other genres. If the title is unfamiliar to U.S. audiences,
it should be. Though shot in the summer of 1977, Last Cannibals didn’t make its way to American shores until 1984
when it was dumped on VHS under the title of Trap Them and Kill Them. Like most exploitation films of the
period, some of the action is shot in the streets of New York City and it’s a
real hoot to see what Manhattan looked like 41 years ago. One shot has the
comedy Kentucky Fried Movie displayed
prominently on the marquee of the long-gone Rivoli Theatre which was known for
its extended showcases of 2001: A Space
Odyssey (1968) and Jaws (1975).
The film has just made its way to Blu-ray via
of Severin Films and the results are so far above what we’re used to from VHS
bootlegs that it looks like a different movie. Presented
in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and given a 2K transfer from a good
print that significantly brightens up the image, Last Cannibals looks good enough to make one dump the inferior and
murky VHS bootlegs of over thirty years ago.
This
disc has an unusual amount of extras for this sort of title. Up first is The World of Nico Fidenco which runs
twenty-seven minutes. Signor Fidenco is the film’s composer and he has written
an upbeat score for the film. He’s very interesting to listen to and describes
how his stint in the military got in the way of his original ambition which was
to be a film director. After he was discharged, he learned the guitar and
studied singing and this led him to composing music for film. He collaborated
multiple times with director D’Amato. (Note:
if you’re a fan of the score, the first 3000 Blu-ray pressings in a special
edition contain a separate compact disc of the score. The end of this review
will fill you in on how to order it).
A Nun Among the Cannibals: An Interview with Actress Annamaria
Clementi (twenty-three minutes). While watching the interview, I couldn’t
believe that the woman speaking to the camera was the same woman who played Sister
Angela in the film. She was roughly twenty-three when she shot the film, and is
now sixty-five(?!) in the on-screen interview. This bespectacled beauty could
easily pass for thirty-eight. Perhaps the interview was shot years ago? It
looks new to me. She talks about how shy and aloof she was with lead actress
Gemser, and how director D’Amato wanted to put her in his next seven films which
she declined(!), as well as a chance encounter with Robert DeNiro when shooting
in New York City. She also explains that she was approached by Pino Pellegrino,
the man who would become her agent, casually on the street and he asked her if
she wanted to become an actress. Remarkably, she trusted him and they had a
good working relationship.
Dr. O’Brien MD: This eighteen-minute interview with Donald
O’Brien who played Donald Mackenzie reveals how he got his start in acting,
like most performers do, in the theatre. I was amazed at how much he had aged
whereas the aforementioned Annamaria Clementi looked so much younger.
From Switzerland to the Mato Grosso runs nearly nineteen minutes and
features Monika Zanchi whom genre fans will remember from the nutso 1977 outing
Hitch Hike with Franco Nero and the
incomparable David Hess. She also appeared in the ridiculous Spielberg spoof Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind
(1978).
The
last featurette is called I Am Your Black
Queen which runs just over eleven minutes and is a poorly-recorded
audio interview with Laura Gemser which is subtitled. She talks about how she
began, like most attractive young actresses do, by modelling. This is how genre
favorite Caroline Munro got her start. Her first film, Free Love, was released in 1974. Perhaps not so surprisingly, she
refers to her embarrassment over her nude scenes. Of the few movies that I have
seen of her, she rarely if ever looks comfortable in her own skin, almost as if
disrobing is a chore.
Last
of all is the requisite theatrical trailer.
As
I mentioned earlier, the first 3000 copies of this Blu-ray also include a
soundtrack CD of the film’s score. The running time on the 31-track CD is one
hour. It can be ordered here as part of The Laura Gemser Deluxe Bundle which includes a second film, Violence in a Women’s Prison.
Continue reading "REVIEW: "THE LAURA GEMSER DELUXE BLU-RAY BUNDLE" FROM SEVERIN FILMS"
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