“It’s
the desert.It gives people wonderful
ideas.â€John Agar, as town doctor Matt
Hastings in Desert Rock, AZ, makes this remark after returning from delivering
twin babies at the home of one of his patients.Another one of those wonderful ideas results in a 100-foot tall spider
that terrorizes the small community.
Scream
Factory, the horror arm of Shout Factory, has released the 1955 Universal
science fiction classic Tarantula on Blu-ray for the first time.Universal, the leading producer of monster
classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein, turned to atomic age terror during
the 1950s with a multitude of creatures and humans adversely affected by radiation.Along with Warner Bros’ Them, Tarantula was
one of the best giant bug features of this era.While not directly a result of atomic bomb testing, the spider running
loose in Desert Rock was no less horrifying.What made this movie work, aside from strong direction and a good
script, was the fact that just about everyone could relate to a fear of normal,
everyday spiders.A giant arachnid the
size of a house might be too much for many audience members to endure.
Leo
G. Carroll, playing Dr. Gerald Deemer, has the best of intentions when attempting
to increase the world’s food supply by developing growth hormones.He has hopes of raising crops and cattle in a
matter of days rather than months.After
his assistant is found dead in the desert, Dr. Hastings determines the cause of
death as a rare disease that normally takes years to advance.This affliction turns out to be a side effect
of the growth formula.After a fire at
Dr. Deemer’s lab allows a tarantula injected with the experimental serum to
escape, people and livestock start turning up dead with only their skeletons
remaining.Dr. Hastings and Deemer’s
pretty new assistant Stevie, played by Mara Corday, soon determine that a
humongous spider is the cause and that everyone in town is in danger.
Leo
G. Carroll was well known for his portrayal of Topper in the American sitcom,
but the kids from my era identified him as Mr. Waverly, the head of the secret
spy organization U.N.C.L.E. in the popular NBC series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with
Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.Carroll even gets a mention in the Science Fiction Double Feature song
from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Director
Jack Arnold, Universal’s go-to director for science fiction, keeps the tension
high by not giving the audience many glimpses of the tarantula until the latter
part of the film. The first half is more
of police procedural as clues are gathered as to the cause of all the
killings.When the spider finally
appears, there are no miniatures, puppets or stop motion models.Special effects technician Clifford Stein
makes use of a real spider, matte photography and forced perspective to create
the monster.While a couple of errors
with the matte effects are visible, this technique is quite effective.A mechanical claw is used in two scenes
featuring close-up attacks and a large model spider was used for the final
scenes.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Kino Lorber:
Playfully exploring the outer reaches of cult film
fandom, Sex Madness Revealed is both an ingenious twist on the audio commentary
and a satire of the wisecrack track (featuring the voice of MST3K regular Patton
Oswalt).
Using as it foundation a low-budget sex hygiene picture from 1938 (Sex Madness,
aka Human Wreckage), we listen in as Jimmy Morris (Oswalt), of the popular
“Film Dick†podcast, hosts an irreverent conversation with the filmmaker’s
grandson, the eerily emotionless Chester Holloway (Rob Zabrecky) while the film
streams behind them. But as the on-screen plot unfolds, a much darker story
unravels within the recording booth, about the sinister mastermind behind the
film, and the unorthodox methods he employed.
The daffy 1969 British spy comedy "Otley" features Tom Courtenay in an amusing performance as a young slacker in mod London who gets caught up in a Kafkaesque espionage adventure. He's a homeless drifter and grifter who makes the rounds looking for a place to spend the night after the landlady evicts him for not paying the rent. (But she does so only after they have a night in bed.) Otley attends a party where he meets Imogen (Romy Schneider), a beautiful but mysterious young woman. He also runs into an old friend, Lambert (Edward Hardwicke), who owes Otley a favor. He reluctantly allows him to spend the night on his couch. However, while Otley is blissfully sleeping, Lambert is assassinated in his kitchen. Otley then inexplicably wakes up in a field adjacent to Gatwick Airport, his mind numb and devoid of any idea about what happened or how he got there. This is the beginning of his bizarre odyssey that sees him kidnapped by various spies on both sides but he's never sure who is really working for who. All of them are convinced that he is a spy himself and that he has information about the murder of Lambert. The witty screenplay by director Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, based on a novel by Martin Waddell, takes the old Hitchcock concept of presenting a protagonist who is an everyday man swept up in deadly events that he can't convince anyone that he knows nothing about. You can also add a healthy dose of Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" in that he is never sure which side is holding him captive at any given time and he is constantly being pressed to provide information. The character of Imogene keeps appearing and disappearing with no indication as to whether she is friend or foe.
The film becomes so mind-boggling and confusing that at a certain point it's best to just go with the joke and sit back and enjoy this madcap romp, deftly enacted by Courtenay as a bewildered man who simply wants someone to explain who is who and what is going on. Ultimately, he ends up getting drafted into an MI5 mission- but are his bosses really with MI5? There are some wonderful location shots of London and its surroundings including a rather eerie scene in Notthing Hill Gate tube station that is inexplicably vacant and adorned with posters of movies from the era ("Romeo and Juliet", "Thoroughly Modern Millie", "The Charge of the Light Brigade"). The cast is peppered with marvelous character actors including Leonard Rossiter as a benign and comforting cold-blooded killer, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Fiona Lewis, Freddie Jones, Ronald Lacey and Geoffrey Blaydon. There's also a wacky score by Stanley Myers and impressive cinematography by Austin Dempster. In all, "Otley" is one of the better spy spoofs of the 1960s.
Mill Creek Entertainment has included "Otley" with five other Cold War films
in a collection that features "Man on a String", "The Deadly Affair", "Hammerhead",
"The Executioner" and "A Dandy in Aspic". The DVD transfer is excellent
but unfortunately there are no bonus features.
The 1970s was a good time period for Richard Dreyfuss. He made a splash early impression in the decade with "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz", which begat a leading role in "American Graffiti", which begat "Jaws" and then an Oscar-winning turn in "The Goodbye Girl" and then "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Dreyfuss was so popular that no one even noticed his off-beat, X-rated flop "Inserts". He gave another good turn in "The Big Fix", a 1978 updating of the traditional film noir detective movie set in contemporary times. The lighthearted thriller finds Dreyfuss cast as private dick Moses Wine (we love the name!). He's a modern day variation of the loner private eye: he's divorced and has a fractious relationship with his ex (Bonnie Bedelia), whose new live-in lover enjoys humiliating Moses by reminding him he's his former wife's new bed mate. He has two young sons who he spends as much time with as possible and to increase efficiency, he often takes them on his assignments. Despite this modern spin on an old style of hero, Moses has something in common with his predecessors: he's flat broke and living on the razor's edge in an economic sense. One day, a former lover, Lila (Susan Anspach), appears out of nowhere and entices him to take on a case with political overtones. She persuades him by reminding him of his one-time late 1960s roots as a liberal activist- and by appealing to his reawakened sexual interest in her. Lila is associated with the campaign of a progressive gubernatorial candidate named Hawthorne, who is being victimized by bogus flyers and posters being circulated that show Hawthorne embracing Howard Eppis (F. Murray Abraham), a notorious fugitive from justice who is wanted for high profile crimes in the late 1960s. (The character is obviously based on real-life radical Abbie Hoffman.) Lila and Hawthorne's campaign manager, the high strung Sam Sebastian (John Lithgow), maintain that the photo has been doctored and that Hawthorne never met or posed with Eppis. They suspect the forgers are with the campaign of Hawthorne's rival and they hire Moses to help prove it. In order to do so, he must track down Eppis to get the real story. It's a quest that has some deadly surprises associated with it.
Like many a good private eye mystery, "The Big Fix" is complicated and confusing- not "The Big Sleep" extreme of confusing- but confusing enough to make you wonder at times how all the disparate collection of characters might be interconnected. Dreyfuss shines in the role, dispensing the requisite gumshoe wisecracks and proving to be something less than the perfect hero as the plot turns to murder and a major potential terrorist bombing of the L.A. freeway system. Moses is an interesting character especially when his reunion with Lila reawakens his interest in political activism. There is a poignant moment in which he becomes teary-eyed while watching news footage of the protest era. The late 1970s was a sobering time for liberals. President Jimmy Carter's popularity was foundering and the soon-to-be elected Ronald Reagan would usher in a sweeping era of conservative political power. The film was obviously in production before any of this happened but the left wing could see the writing on the wall and their diminishing clout is evident in the frustration of Moses and Lila, who is going through the motions of backing an anemic candidate because he is the lesser of two evils.
The film boasts a witty screenplay by Roger L. Simon, based on one of his own Moses Wine detective novels and the direction by Jeremy Kagan is also spot-on, with Kagan using the L.A. locations to good effect. Neither Kagan or his cinematographer Frank Stanley attempts to provide an innovative look to the film, which is visually unremarkable in contrast to the (then) recently-released film noir homage "Farewell My Lovely". Stanley does, however, manage some impressive aerial shots in the climatic scenes on the L.A. freeway system. There is an interesting supporting cast with John Lithgow especially good in a dramatic role, Fritz Weaver as an eccentric millionaire, Rita Karin in a funny turn as Moses' obnoxious aunt and F. Murray Abraham as Eppis, who turns out to have been living the good life under an assumed name, having foresaken his political ideals of years past. Look out for Mandy Patinkin in his big screen debut as a kooky delivery man in a tiny but amusing role.
The Twilight Time Blu-ray has an excellent transfer and is limited to 3,000 units. The region-free disc provides an isolated track for Bill Conti's jaunty score, a collector's booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo and the original trailer. If you like Richard Dreyfuss, this one is a must as it showcases the actor at his best.
When one thinks of the canon of films made by John Ford, it becomes apparent that he made very few overt comedies. To be sure, Ford always included plenty of humorous vignettes even in his most dramatic films but he rarely made movies that were played entirely for laughs. It's also true that most cinephiles tend to ignore Ford's work in the years prior to his groundbreaking 1939 Western classic "Stagecoach" despite the fact that he made very worthy films during his early days in the industry. Such a movie is "The Whole Town's Talking', released in 1935 and which is rarely discussed or screened today. It's a pity because the film is a delight from start to finish and features Edward G. Robinson in one of the best performances of his career. He plays Arthur Ferguson Jones, a meek office worker in a big city news organization that treats employees like necessary evils rather than valuable assets. Arthur's mundane existence is thrown into chaos when he is mistaken for the notorious criminal Killer Manion. The cops have been on a nationwide hunt for Manion and his gang and they are convinced they've nailed him when they come across Arthur, who is a dead ringer for the wanted man (and with good reason, as Robinson plays him in a dual role.) The cops have a grandiose press conference at which they parade the hapless Arthur as a killer now in custody- but when he is able to prove his real identity, they are forced to release him and give him a letter from the police commissioner attesting to his real identity just in case he gets arrested again. Among those monitoring the developments is Manion, who surprises Arthur by breaking into his modest apartment and informing him that he intends to take advantage of their resemblance. Manion tells Arthur that he can continue to go to work every day but when he comes home, he is to turn the passport letter over to him so he can go about his criminal activities with impunity by claiming he is really Arthur.
The film affords Robinson the opportunity to give a tour de force performance, deftly switching from milquetoast to killer with impressive skill. It must be said that, given the crude technologies of the era, the scenes in which both Arthur and Manion share the same film frame are skillfully accomplished. Adding to the fun is the casting of Jean Arthur as Arthur's co-worker Wilhelmina, a vivacious blonde who is his antithesis in terms of Arthur's personality. She is the ultimate liberated woman who talks back to her bosses and dispenses wisecracks and sarcasm with equal abandon. Arthur is madly in love with her but she treats him more like a brother, offering friendship and protection against office bullies. The plot heats up when Arthur's opportunistic boss suspects that Arthur has a secret source who informs him of Manion's activities without realizing that Arthur is literally living with Manion. He cajoles Arthur into allowing the newspaper to print sensational and fictional personality profiles of Manion under Arthur's by-line even though the articles are being ghost-written by staffers. Soon, the circulation of the paper soars and Arthur is rewarded by joining snooty corporate executives in enjoying expensive booze and fine cigars. But Manion doesn't like the stories one bit and plans to do away with Arthur.
Ford's direction in the crime comedy genre is spot-on and he gets top notch performances from all involved. He also presents the urban office environment as an Orwellian nightmare and the city landscape as beset by teeming crowds and humorously preposterous caravans of speeding vehicles. It's no wonder he would seek make so many of his films in the expanse of the wild West. The film's climax is both satisfying and cynical and the movie is a delight throughout.
Twilight Time has released "The Whole Town's Talking" on Blu-ray with a very fine transfer. The region-free disc has no extras but it does have the usual informative liner notes from Julie Kirgo. The sleeve art features the original poster which curiously-and absurdly- tries to market the film as a serious crime drama with nary a hint that it is a broad comedy. The release is limited to 3,000 units. Click here to order.
The 1965 adventure film "Sands of the Kalahari" was the follow-up project for star Stanley Baker and writer/director Cy Endfield, who had triumphed the year before with Zulu. The plot centers on a small group of strangers in a South African airport who are frustrated when their plane is delayed for mechanical reasons. They opt to charter their own flight to Johannesburg, which mandates that they fly over the vast Kalahari Desert. A swarm of locusts disables the engine and the plane ditches in a remote area, far from civilization. The survivors are a diverse lot. There's Stanley Baker as an alcoholic who suffers a severe leg injury. Stuart Whitman is a macho All American with a passion for rifles, hunting and making sure he gets the advantage in every situation. Theodore Bikel is a timid, kindly doctor. Harry Andrews is an aging German with knowledge of the terrain and Nigel Davenport is the pilot. The lone female is (naturally) a stunner with strong sexual desires. She's played by Susannah York, one of the most beautiful British actresses to emerge during the 60s.
The survivors find shelter in a cave and, using their ingenuity and
Whitman's rifle, manage to sustain themselves. However, they are in
midst of a band of savage baboons who pose a constant threat. It doesn't
take long before the small group devolves into petty feuds and sexual
jealousy, with Whitman emerging as a self-centered villain intent on
keeping the food supplies and the woman for himself. The film, which is
similar in content to Flight of the Phoenix, boasts an impressive
screenplay by Endfield, who does yeoman work as director. He presents
the landscape in such a harsh manner that you'll run for a cold glass of
water the second the film ends. The performances are all excellent,
with Whitman particularly good as the charismatic villain. His last
scene in the movie is one that will haunt you. There are many memorable
sequences in the film but to divulge them would spoil the fun of
watching this superior, testosterone-driven adventure. Make this one
another "must" for your video library.
Although Olive Films has done justice to this magnificent looking
film with a fine Blu-ray presentation, there are no bonus extras
included.
In between filming the James Bond blockbusters The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, Roger Moore starred in a largely unheralded action adventure film that afforded him one of the best roles of his career. The movie was released internationally as North Sea Hijack but was retitled "ffolkes" in the all-important U.S. market. The title referred to the character Moore played, an eccentric crank who operates a Navy Seal-like team of daredevils who are periodically enlisted by the British government to combat terrorists. ffolkes may be a cute title for a movie hero but it lead to disappointing boxoffice returns in America, where audiences found it to be rather confusing: "What the hell is a ffolkes?" Nevertheless, this is a crackling good action flick, deftly directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, who was on a roll at the time with The Wild Geese, The Sea Wolves and this film, all of which, not coincidentally, starred Roger Moore.
The film opens with ffolkes drilling his team of men in a relentless scuba-diving training sessions and casually tossing live grenades into the water as an incentive for them to complete their task within the allotted time. ffolkes is perpetually grouchy. He hates women (the result of growing up in an all-female household), a clever nod to show us that this character may be a man of action, but he's the antithesis of 007. (The script also makes a fleeting mention of the fact that ffolkes' disdain for the fairer sex is also partly due to a failed marriage, 'lest any of Moore's fans might suspect he's playing a gay man of action.) ffolkes also enjoys a more-than-occasional drink and is perpetually in the presence of a bottle of Scotch that he totes everywhere. He also hates smoking (another inside joke, as Moore was an obsessive cigar smoker at the time in real life) but has an obsession with cats. He lives in an old but imposing home on a lake, presumably in northern England or Scotland (though these scenes were actually filmed in Ireland, with interiors filmed at Pinewood Studios in Britain.), where he is comfortable eschewing the company of anyone but his team and his kitties. Topping off his eccentricities, ffolkes does his deep thinking while engaged in the art of crocheting. He's an interesting character and Moore has a field day playing him in some delightfully funny scenes in which he lambastes his men, traveling companions on a train, and lastly, top MPs and British naval brass.
Moore rehearsing a scene on location in Ireland.
The story quickly kicks into gear when a team of sophisticated criminals hijack a cargo ship that is en route to bring supplies to the two biggest oil rigs in the North Sea. The group is led by the mastermind Kramer (Anthony Perkins), who orders his men to attach mines to both of the oil rigs before taking control of the larger of the two complexes. The gang demands that a 25 million pound ransom be paid to them by the British government or they will blow up both rigs, causing incalculable damage to the world economy, not to mention the environmental disaster that would ensue. The British Prime Minister (Faith Brook, exploiting the new era of Thatcher quite amusingly) reluctantly follows the advise of her military command to use ffolkes and his small team to outwit the bad guys. ffolkes accepts the mission on the proviso that he gives all the orders. He enlists a British admiral (very well played by James Mason) and an oil company executive (Moore's old real life pal and former Felix Leiter, David Hedison) as part of the high risk plot to be held hostage on the oil rig while ffolkes and his men engineer an ingenious plot to save the day. To say any more would spoil the fun. Suffice it to say that the screenplay refreshingly makes the seemingly superhuman ffolkes all-to-human by showing him making some mistakes in judgment that have costly consequences. Most of the laughs comes from Moore verbally sparring with the female PM and anyone else who might foolishly think they can contribute in any meaningful way to his master plan. The supporting cast is very good with Perkins' sarcastic and ruthless villain a scene-stealer, Michael Parks as his top henchman and old stalwart Jack Watson, virtually unrecognizable as the Norwegian sea captain whose vessel is hijacked. It all moves at a brisk pace by director McLaglen and the flick's old style editing and cinematography is downright refreshing in this era of overblown action movies.
The DVD is devoid of extras and has plenty of grain indicating that this fine, but overlooked movie is deserving of a Blu-ray upgrade. (Reader Gerhard Gallian advises that a no-frills Blu-ray is currently available in Germany.)
As
a new Arrow Films Blu-ray edition of his 1972 Italian Western “The Grand Duelâ€
reminds us, Lee Van Cleef was once a familiar screen presence.In the 1950s you could hardly watch TV or go
to the movies without seeing his hawkish face, usually peering out venomously
from under a stetson as a Western heavy.Following personal setbacks and changes in industry trends, Van Cleef’s
roles became fewer, slighter, and harder to land in the early 1960s.And then Sergio Leone came calling.Leone wanted to pair Clint Eastwood’s Man
with No Name with a second American actor in “For a Few Dollars More†as a
rival bounty hunter named Colonel Mortimer.Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, and Lee Marvin all turned down the role.By default, Leone approached Van Cleef. It
was a providential choice for both men.“For a Few Dollars More†was a smash hit in Europe on its December 1965
release, and Italian producers quickly queued up to offer Van Cleef starring
roles in other Spaghetti Westerns while Leone brought him back for another
high-profile part as Angel Eyes, the “Bad†one in “The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly.â€
After
the Leone films opened with stunning success in the U.S. in 1967 and the other
Spaghettis followed on the lucrative drive-in circuit a few months later, Van
Cleef was a highly bankable star and American producers made their own
overtures.For a time, Van Cleef pursued
a transatlantic career in Westerns, starring in further Italian pictures like
“Sabata†(1969) and “Return of Sabata†(1971) and international co-productions
like “Bad Man’s River†(1971) and “The Stranger and the Gunfighter†(1974),
while filming three American movies: “Barquero†(1970), “El Condor†(1971), and
“The Magnificent Seven Ride!†(1972).The American pictures were dull and talky, and even though they gave Van
Cleef star billing, shared with Jim Brown in “El Condor,†the roles were
lackluster.In “The Magnificent Seven
Ride!â€, he’s stuck with a bad toupee and looks so disinterested that you expect
him to fall off his horse from boredom any minute.
Ironically,
through big studio backing, the dismal American productions received healthy
advertising play, while “The Grand Duel†from the same period barely registered
in the U.S., although it was greatly superior.Directed by Giancarlo Santi and scripted by the prolific Ernesto
Gastaldi, it passed quickly through drive-ins and second-run theaters in 1974.Theoretically “The Grand Duel†wasn’t a bad
handle as a literal translation from the Italian title, “Il grande
duello.â€The phrase suggests both the
battle of wills between the good guys and the bad guys that drives the plot.
and in a literal sense the shootout that decides the contest in the end.Still, the picture might have had more
attention here under a catchier, more clearly Western title.With the advent of VCRs a decade later, its
home-video visibility was a little more robust if comparably
underwhelming.The movie appeared on the
collectors‘ market and budget VHS shelves under several titles: “The Grand
Duel,†“The Big Showdown,†and “Storm Rider.â€
Santi
had worked as Leone’s assistant director on two films, and like most of Leone’s
other Italian successors and emulators, he had absorbed a lesson from “For a
Few Dollars More†that the American filmmakers apparently failed to
recognize.The ideal starring role for
Van Cleef was the “man in black†template embodied in Colonel Mortimer, that of
an aging, almost superhumanly proficient gunman, usually dressed in formal,
funereal attire.The character is
defined by steely authority, a mysterious history, an elusive sense of sadness,
and an air of menace.Circumstances
throw the character into partnership or rivalry with a younger, more impetuous
man who may become either his protege or his prey -- the outcome hangs in the
balance until the final reel.The
contrast with the headstrong, less seasoned younger partner underscores the
wisdom, experience, and patient cunning of the Van Cleef character.
Cinema Retro has received the following press announcement from the BFI relating to this UK video release :
A
mature treatment of sex and class, Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top is a landmark
of the British New Wave. Winner of two Academy Awards®, from six nominations,
including Best Actress for Simone Signoret and Best Adapted Screenplay (from
John Braine’s novel), this kitchen-sink classic is made available on Blu-ray
for the first time in the UK to mark the film’s 60th anniversary this year. Released
by the BFI in a Dual Format Edition (Blu-ray & DVD) and on iTunes on 20 May
2019, it is packaged with numerous extras including a new feature commentary
and a selection of archive films of West Riding, Yorkshire, where the film is
set.
In
1950s industrial Yorkshire, social climber Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) woos
the boss’s daughter as he sets out to reach the top of his profession. But when
his working-class background hampers his efforts, Joe seeks solace with the
unhappily married Alice (Simone Signoret) – an affair that will have dire
consequences.
Special
features
Presented
in High Definition and Standard Definition
The
Visit (1959, 35 mins): Jack Gold’s quietly devastating drama portraying the
everyday life of a working-class single woman
The
West Riding in Archive Film: Bradford Town Hall Square (1896, 2 mins); Bailey's
Royal Buxton Punch and Judy Show in Halifax (1901, 3 mins); Tram Ride into
Halifax (1902, 4 mins); Halifax Day by Day (1910, 2 mins); We of the West Riding
(1945, 22 mins); This Town (1969, 8 mins): everyday Yorkshire life captured
across a century of dramatic change
Original
trailer
Feature
commentary by Neil Sinyard (2009)
Feature
commentary by Dr Josephine Botting (2019)
Image
galleries
Product
details
RRP:
£19.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1343 / 12
UK
/ 1959 / black and white / 117 mins / English language, with optional
hard-of-hearing subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.66:1 // BD50: 1080p, 24fps,
1.0 PCM mono audio (48kHz/24-bit) / DVD9: PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital 1.0 mono
audio (48kHz/16-bit)
The 1965 WWII espionage thriller "Morituri" starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner is yet another worthy film in the Brando canon that was woefully underrated upon its initial release. One of the tail end of major studio B&W releases, the film is now available for order from Twilight Time as a Blu-ray limited edition of 3,000 units. It contains an isolated Jerry Goldsmith score track, a collector's booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo and trailers for the film. Twilight Time's Mike Finnegan provides an interesting analysis of the film titled "A Grand Hotel on a Cargo Ship". Click here to read.
"Morituri" will ship on May 21 but you can pre-order from Twilight Time as of today by clicking here.
I
saw many, many Italian-made sword-and-toga movies as a kid in the early 1960s
at the Kayton, my neighborhood movie house, where they usually played on
mismatched double-bills with B-Westerns, British “Carry On†comedies,
low-budget noir dramas, and fourth-run Elvis movies.Many of these Italian epics were simplistic
and formulaic, as if the producers figured that people had come to see
spectacle, sex, and sword-fights, and never mind anything else.Regardless, more ambitious productions
occasionally surfaced with slightly more dramatic substance and marginally
higher production values.One such entry
was “The Colossus of Rhodes†(1961), Sergio Leone’s first acknowledged
directorial credit preceding his breakthrough success with “A Fistful of
Dollars†in 1964.The Warner Archive
Collection has released the 1961 movie on Blu-ray with audio commentary by Sir
Christopher Frayling, Leone’s biographer and longtime critical champion.
The
script co-written by Leone has plenty of plot -- almost too much, when one
development begins to get in the way of another.As the film opens, an aristocratic Athenian
war hero, Dario (Rory Calhoun), comes to Rhodes to kick back on vacation and
ogle the ladies.Meanwhile, rebellion is
brewing against tyrannical King Serses, who secretly schemes with Phoenicia to
use Rhodes as a base for piratical raids against their mutual rival,
Greece.As part of the deal, Phoenicia
has agreed to provide Serses with a huge contingent of slaves to complete the
300-foot Colossus of Rhodes that straddles the harbor.The king needs the free labor to finish the
construction after losing many of his initial workers -- starved and beaten
political prisoners -- in a mass escape.The imposing statue of Apollo symbolically honors “the strength and
power of our King Serses,†says the unctuous prime minister, Thar, but the two
men also plan to use it to pour burning oil and molten lead on unsuspecting
Greek warships when the enemy attacks in reprisal for Serses’ piracy.In the meantime, Thar schemes to depose
Serses and make himself ruler.With the
connivance of the Russian – oops, Phoenician – ambassador, the “slavesâ€
imported to work on the Colossus are actually foreign mercenaries in disguise,
sneaked in to support Thar’s coup.Got
that?I haven’t even mentioned that Carete,
the elderly, idealistic engineer who designed the monument, is unaware that the
king is reconfiguring it as a war machine.Mirte, the sister of one of the freedom fighters opposing Serses and
Thar, hopes to sway Dario over to the side of the rebels, while Thar’s mistress
Diala (Lea Massari), who also happens to be Carete’s niece, welcomes the
Athenian’s romantic advances for her own purposes.The royalists suspect Dario of being a rebel
sympathizer.The insurrectionists eye
him as a spy for Serses as he cozies up to Diala.
Cineasts
today will recognize several familiar faces in the cast, including the
wistfully beautiful Lea Massari from “L’avventura†and “Murmurs of the Heart,â€
and several actors who would later become Spaghetti Western regulars, including
Roberto Camardiel (Serses), Antonio Casas (the Phoenician ambassador), and
Nello Pazzafini (uncredited as a soldier in one fleeting scene).Back in 1961 on a Saturday night at the
Kayton, Rory Calhoun’s would have been the only familiar face on the screen.The movie’s vintage trailer added as a
supplement to the Blu-ray identifies Calhoun as “the star of ‘The Texan’,†as
if audiences might be slow to remember that they had seen Calhoun on TV as “The
Texan†the night before.As Leone’s
token American star, Calhoun is dark, good-looking, and up to the physical
demands of the chase and swordplay scenes, but his character is more passive
than the usual toga heroes played by Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott.Where Hercules and Goliath usually led the
revolts against evil kings in their movies, Dario is swept up in a plot hatched
by others.Frayling says that Leone
modeled the character on Cary Grant’s urbane Roger Thornhill in “North by
Northwest,†to tease the usual conventions of the genre.Just as Grant’s accidental spy was trapped on
the giant Presidential heads of Mt. Rushmore, Dario scrambles around on the
Colossus to evade pursuing enemies, in what appears to be an impressive matte
effect.The 220 B.C. costuming requires
Calhoun to wear a short skirt and white sandals that Frayling likens to “Go-Go
socks.â€In fairness to the actor, he
doesn’t look much sillier than Brad Pitt or Colin Farrell in similar garb in
the more recent epics “Troy†and “Alexanderâ€(both from 2004).There’s plenty
of wrestling and hand-to-hand fighting in the story, with choreography only a little
phonier than the average WWE smackdown, but except for one prolonged scuffle,
it’s mostly executed by the Italian actors and stunt men who play the rebels
and not by Calhoun.
James
Garner is an American Army intelligence officer who is one of the men behind
the planning of D-Day when he’s kidnapped by the Germans in neutral Portugal just
days prior to the invasion of Normandy in “36 Hours,†released on Blu-ray as
part of the Warner Archive Collection. Major Jefferson Pike (Garner) is sent on
a routine intelligence gathering mission to Lisbon, but it turns out to be a
ruse by the Germans to kidnap Pike in order to get him to reveal the invasion
plans. They drug him and transport him to Germany where Pike wakes up six years
later in a U.S. Army hospital suffering from amnesia. It’s 15 May 1950 and the
war has been over for several years, but Pike can’t remember anything after his
night in Lisbon.
In
reality, it’s still a few days before D-Day and the Germans have created an
elaborate deception in order to convince Pike he’s receiving treatment at a
military hospital in American occupied Germany. The Allied invasion was
victorious and the war is over. Pike’s doctor, Major Walter Gerber (Rod
Taylor), is in reality a German psychiatrist who developed the elaborate plan
in order to gather the invasion plan date and location for Nazi Germany. A base
camp filled with fake Americans and German nationals are roaming the grounds to
set Pike at ease and disorient him at the same time, but also to convince him
he is indeed located at an American military hospital in Germany. The Germans
have gone to elaborate steps to make the trap work by dying the edges of his
hair gray and putting drops in his eyes to trick him into believing he needs prescription
glasses in order for Pike to accept he has aged six years. There are fake
newspapers in his room, pictures of his parents, American books and a fake
radio station plays American “oldies†from the 1930s and early 40s. He also
learns he’s married to Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint), his nurse for all these
years and a Jewish concentration camp survivor. Gerber has 36 hours to complete
his plan, but he is under extreme pressure from Gestapo agent Werner Peters
(Otto Shack) to use torture in order to retrieve the information in Pike’s
head.
The
movie plays like an episode of the television series “Mission: Impossibleâ€
which started production two years later in 1966. The switch here is the bad
guys perform a sting operation on the good guy. Things begin to unravel after Pike
discovers an important detail the Germans overlooked in the charade.
Character actor John Banner, a familiar face from television’s “Hogan’s
Heroes,†appears as a local German border patrol agent who plays a key role in the finale.
I
remember my first viewing of this WWII mystery classic on television in the
late 1970s, before cable, satellite dish and home video. I love how the movie
creates tension with knowledge of history ever on our mind and knowing this is
a mystery rather than science fiction for we know the Nazi mission will fail.
Or will it? Maybe Pike will reveal the D-Day invasion plans. Or maybe he will
reveal too much and the German’s will not believe his statements. Either way, the
viewer is like a fly on the wall - a voyeur of sorts following the action in
secret as everything sorts itself out. There’s tension because we care about the
protagonists and want them to succeed.. The film is directed by George Seaton,
who also wrote the screenplay based on a story by Carl K. Hittleman and Luis H.
Vance. Unknown to the production team, the plot for “36 Hours†was similar the
short story “Beware the Dog†by Roald Dahl. As a result the production had to
pay Dahl to avoid a lawsuit. As previously stated, the movie itself can be
seen, in hindsight, as an influence on the style of “Mission: Impossible†with
elaborate deceptions, disguises and triple crosses.
Garner
is terrific as always. He had the ability to play likeable Jim Garner with his
everyman masculinity while giving a believable and sympathetic portrayal to
each unique character. Rod Taylor is equally likeable, even when playing a Nazi
doctor. It’s hard not to root for him just a little despite the fact that his plan, incredible as
it is, is so ingenious. Eva Marie Saint is an actress who appeared in a variety
of movie roles through the 50s and 60s and an Academy Award winner as Best
Actress for “On the Waterfront.†She’s always believable and understated with
her natural acting style if not a little too glamorous in the role of a Nazi concentration
camp survivor in this movie. She would team with Garner again in the 1966
classic racing movie “Grand Prix.†Otto Shack is terrific as the obligatory
Nazi Gestapo agent ready to use torture to get the D-Day information. The
supporting cast and sets work well enough to make the viewer believe that Pike would be convinced he was behind enemy
lines.
Released
in 26 November 1964 by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer in the UK (27 January 1965 in the
US), the movie features an outstanding score by Dimitri Tiomkin and terrific widescreen
black and white photography by Philip H. Lathrop. The light, dark and shadows give
the movie a dream-like feeling as we join Pike in his nightmarish vision and possible
alternate version of history. Yosemeti National Forest in central California
stands in nicely for the Bavarian forest on the Swiss border. The production
company had to remove any evidence they were in the park or that they transformed
the Wawona Hotel into the military hospital in order to secure permission to
film on location in Yosemeti. Certainly this was a cost saving measure, as
filming on location in Bavaria may have been a budget issue. The movie clocks
in at tight 115 minutes. The only extra on the disc is the trailer. This is a
great addition on Blu-ray for James Garner fans and anyone looking for a well
told mystery.
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