Columnists
Entries from August 2018
“KUBRICK’S RIGHT-HAND
MAN…AND LEGS, SHOULDERS, OTHER HAND, ETC.â€
By Raymond Benson
Tony
Zierra’s fascinating documentary that premiered at Cannes in 2017 (and was released
theatrically in 2018) is about an unsung hero in the lore of legendary
filmmaker Stanley Kubrick—Leon Vitali, who describes himself not as an
“assistant,†but as a “filmworker.â€
Vitali,
now 70 years old, began his career as an actor in the 1960s, appearing in
various British films and television programs. After being impressed with
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, Vitali told a
friend, “I want to work for that guy.†He managed to get an audition for
Kubrick’s next picture, Barry Lyndon,
and landed the key role of Lord Bullingdon, the main antagonist of the film.
Vitali received much praise for his performance, but instead of continuing an
acting career, he made an extraordinary left turn. He asked Kubrick if he could
work behind the camera from then on.
Kubrick
grilled Vitali on his sincerity, and then he hired the actor as an additional
casting director for The Shining. Vitali’s
task was to go to America and find a little boy to play Danny in the classic
horror movie. (The young actor turned out to be Danny Lloyd, who, as an adult,
appears in Filmworker as a talking
head.)
Throughout
the making of The Shining, Vitali
served as little Danny’s handler and guardian, and ultimately began to perform
more tasks for the demanding filmmaker. For the next twenty-plus years, Vitali
learned every aspect of the filmmaking business, especially the color
correction processes for film that led to his overseeing the restoration of Kubrick’s
pictures, and many other jobs. In short, he became an indispensable ally and
assistant. As one interviewee put it, Vitali became Kubrick’s “right-hand man,
along with the other hand, the legs, the shoulders, body…†(He also played the
mysterious, masked “Red Cloak†leader of the orgy sequence in Eyes Wide Shut.)
Filmworker takes the viewer
through Vitali’s years with Kubrick, commented upon by the likes of Ryan
O’Neal, Matthew Modine, Danny Lloyd, Lee Ermey, Marie Richardson, Stellan
Skarsgård, and others, plus film executives Julian
Senior, Brian Jamieson, the late Steve Southgate, and Vitali’s family. We learn
a lot about Kubrick’s process, as well as what kind of person he was. While it’s well-known that the filmmaker was a
perfectionist, few realize that he was a genuinely warm, soft-spoken,
animal-loving man.
Kino
Lorber’s new DVD comes with 5.1 Surround sound, the theatrical trailer, and a
supplement Q&A with Vitali and director Zierra.
Filmworker is a must for the
Stanley Kubrick fan, and, in general, for students and devotees of filmmaking.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
BY TODD GARBARINI
Plagiarism,
if done willingly and poorly, generally does not go unnoticed and one cannot
help but see certain similarities in various works be it literature, art, or
cinema. In listening to the audio commentary with author Jonathan Rigby and director Alvin Rakoff on
the new, limited edition Blu-ray of 1980’s Death
Ship, a horror oddity about an abandoned old ship inhabited by the ghosts
of members of the Third Reich(!), a remark is made that the poster for 2002's Ghost Ship was remarkably similar to the poster art for Death Ship, and it’s true that the
similarities are uncanny. I can't help but wonder who came up with the idea for
the poster for Ghost Ship,
as Death Ship was well over twenty-five
years-old and seemed to be relegated to the land of forgotten cinema.
Captain Ashland (George
Kennedy) is at the helm of a cruise ship, about to turn over the reins to Captain Trevor Marshall (Richard Crenna) and he's
not happy about it. He seems perturbed by this changing of the guard,
commenting in no uncertain terms that his place as captain should be regarded
as more than something of a novelty to tourists. Unfortunately for him and his
guests, the unmanned and haunted titular ship that steers ahead, powered by the
blood of its most recent victims, is on a crash course to meet with his. Using
footage borrowed from Andrew L. Stone's The Last Voyage (1960) and Ronald Neame’s The Poseidon Adventure (1972), the two vessels collide and Ashland’s ship begins to fill with water and
quickly sinks (too bad The Concorde:
Airport ’79 didn't sink with it!)
Kennedy,
Crenna, Nick Mancuso (who provided the bulk of the horrifying phone calls in
Bob Clark's 1974 film Black Christmas),
Sally Ann Howes of Dead of Night
(1945) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1968) and a few other characters manage to be the only survivors in a lifeboat
and make their way aboard the decrepit ship that put them in their predicament.
Once on board, they find the ship bereft of passengers and crew, and slowly
become victims of the supernatural games that ensue.
As
the plot unfolds, it becomes apparent that the ship in question was once used
as a Nazi torture chamber, as evidence of teeth, clothing and medical devices
start to turn up in explored rooms. The worst of these rooms houses a group of
cobweb-infested corpses, presumably the long-dead Jews whom the Nazis tortured.
One might wonder about the boundaries of bad taste pushed in a film that seems to
make light of one of humanity's most horrendous and egregious atrocities.
The
director employs some nifty scare tactics, such as a projector that runs
itself; a shower that turns blood red; and a crazed George Kennedy, apparently
possessed by the long-dead Nazis, going on a rampage. One must wonder why
distress signals are not sent, and why help is not forthcoming, given the radio
rules in place since the downing of the Titanic in 1912. However, this is a
B-movie shot in five weeks and done on a shoestring and asking too many
questions is not suggested. The ship in this film is supposed to be steering
itself with a life of its own, however one never really gets the feeling that
it’s actually alive, that it’s a merchant of evil like the house in Burnt Offerings (1976) or the hotel in The Shining (1980). The film ends the
way one assumes with will, but it’s not bad for what it is.
Originally
released on DVD in England in 2007, Death
Ship had at the time had been transferred from a print that was not perfect
and contained a few sporadic imperfections but was believed to be the best
surviving source material. That disc had included a disclaimer citing the film
lab that housed the original camera negative closed in the late 1980's and the
aforementioned resources were "lost" as a result. I would be curious
as to how this sort of thing happens as this is certainly not the first time it
has occurred, nor will it be the last. I'm always reading of an original
negative somehow getting "lost". Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, the TV-movie that Crenna made the
year prior to Death Ship, was
released on DVD at roughly the same time and that movie looks like it was just
made yesterday. Honestly, Devil Dog’s
transfer could not be more beautiful. Yet a theatrical film's negative gets
"lost"? Insert quizzical expression here.
Continue reading "REVIEW: "DEATH SHIP" (1980) STARRING GEORGE KENNEDY AND RICHARD CRENNA; BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION"
University Press of Kentucky
464 pages
Published 15 December 2017
ISDN: 978-0-8131-7425-9
REVIEW BY ADRIAN SMITH
Born in 1896, as a teenager Barbara La
Marr, then Reatha Watson, lead something of an adventurous life. Her father
worked in the newspaper business, and the family moved home constantly, almost
inevitably contributing towards the turbulence and seeming inability to settle
down that plagued her life. At the age of sixteen, now living in California,
her elder sister and her husband kidnapped Reatha, causing a minor scandal,
with some accounts stating that Reatha had helped plot the kidnaping herself in
a desire to flee her oppressive parents. Reatha was already an incredibly
luminous and attractive young woman, and she was regularly spotted in the
nightclubs of Los Angeles dancing, drinking, and generally behaving in such a
way that soon brought the wrong kind of attention. For her own protection a
court declared that she was “too beautiful†to be on her own in the city and
was ordered to leave Los Angeles.
This did nothing to assuage her
ambitions however, and she attempted to turn this publicity into a Hollywood
career. Having had stage experience as a child, she appeared as an extra in
several films within the still developing Hollywood studio system. Being
somewhat disappointed by her perceived lack of success, she went on to develop
a career as a dancer, and performed in nightclubs around the country, attracting
men wherever she went, until the strain on her health proved too great and she
headed back home to California. Reatha Watson was incessantly creative and
decided to try her hand as a writer. Her first attempt at a novel found its way
into the right hands, and in 1920 the Fox Film Corporation produced The Mother of His Children (Edward J. Le
Saint), the success of which lead to her becoming a staff writer for Fox.
Aware of the negative publicity
attached to Reatha Watson, it was around this time that she changed her name to
Barbara La Marr, and she was overjoyed to back in Hollywood, even if it was on
the other side of the camera. However, that state of affairs did not last long,
and she was soon invited to screen test and began appearing in small roles again.
Her friendships with A-list stars soon lead to bigger roles, and within just
three years she was playing major roles in The
Three Musketeers (1921, Fred Niblo) alongside Douglas Fairbanks, in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922, Rex Ingram)
with her good friend Ramon Novarro, and in Hollywood satire Souls for Sale (1923, Rupert Hughes),
the cast-list of which reads like a Who’s
Who of the silent era. La Marr often found herself cast as a ‘vamp,’ a Hollywood
type popular in the pre-code films, and as such she was often dressed in
amazing jewelled costumes and over-the-top headwear whilst tempting men to
their fate, often being punished for such licentiousness by the end of the
film. Despite being kind, overly generous and unselfish towards everyone she
knew in her real life, this Hollywood ‘vamp’ image began to follow her wherever
she went, and the Hollywood gossip press loved to tell tales of her somewhat
scandalous personal life, the truth of which is laid out in this meticulously
researched biography by Sherri Snyder.
Continue reading "BOOK REVIEW: "BARBARA LA MARR: THE GIRL WHO WAS TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR HOLLYWOOD" BY SHERRI SNYDER"
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