Carl Reiner has passed away at age 98. The New York native who served in WWII and then went on to become a comedy icon, had a varied career and many achievements that were often behind the cameras. He gained fame as a member of Sid Caesar's ensemble on his legendary 1950s TV series "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". Reiner was usually happy to play the straight man in skits that help revolutionize the world of comedy. With his good friend Mel Brooks, who wrote for Caesar's shows, he created the concept of the 2,000 Year-Old Man, which found Reiner interviewing the elderly Jewish guy, played by Brooks. The concept started informally when the duo would improvise acts at social gatherings, but when they finally released the 2,000 Year-Old Man as a comedy album, it sold over a million copies and institutionalized Jewish humor for a generation of American comedians. In the 1960s, Reiner turned the concept for a failed TV sitcom in which he starred into a major hit as "The Dick Van Dyke Show". The series made Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore beloved TV icons. The show ran from 1961 to 1966 and was still a top-ratings earner when Van Dyke chose to quit in order to pursue a career in feature films.
Reiner began to find success as a movie director, a career he began in 1967 with his semi-autobiographical film "Enter Laughing". His 1969 film "The Comic" about the rise and fall of an obnoxious silent screen icon starred Dick Van Dyke. The ambitious film has built a cult following but was a flop upon its release because of its downbeat premise. His 1970 comedy "Where's Poppa?" was controversial because of its cynical content but "Oh, God!" starring George Burns was a major hit, as was "The Jerk", a concept of producer David V. Picker's that launched Steve Martin's career as a leading man.
Reiner had a rare leading man role in a feature film with the smash hit "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!" in 1966 but, in general, he was satisfied playing supporting roles in movies and TV programs. He played key roles in the "Oceans Eleven" films starring George Clooney, which were derived from the original 1960 Rat Pack classic.
Reiner, the father of acclaimed actor and director Rob Reiner, was married for 65 years to his wife Estelle Lebost, who passed away in 2008. He remained close friends with fellow comedy icons Mel Brooks and Norman Lear.
Ray
Bradbury’s excellent 1951 short story anthology, The Illustrated Man, is
one of the author’s most revered works. It contains eighteen tales loosely
framed by a narrator who meets a carnival sideshow freak covered in tattoos
that “tell storiesâ€â€”and each entry in the book illustrates one of the tattoos.
“Don’t
you call them tattoos!†Rod Steiger belligerently yells at the
protagonist of the 1969 film adaptation. “They are skin ill-us-tra-TIONS!†Steiger
emotes in his inimitable scenery-chewing way.
And
there is the crux of why The Illustrated Man, which was adapted by
co-producer Howard B. Kreitsek, doesn’t work too well. Steiger, who plays
“Carl,†the illustrated man, had a checkered career marked by many brilliant
performances… but also, perhaps, more eccentric and over-the-top ones. His good
screen appearances (On the Waterfront, Oklahoma!, The Pawnbroker,
Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, among others) are truly
excellent, and Heat of the Night earned him an Oscar for Best Actor. But
then there is No Way to Treat a Lady, Waterloo, and Lolly-Madonna
XXX. Steiger’s performance in The Illustrated Man probably falls
into the latter category, although he has his moments.
The
time is the 1930s (judging from the automobile seen at the beginning). Willie
(Robert Drivas) is hitchhiking his way west and stops at a lake for a swim and
campout. Carl, the illustrated man, happens to be doing the same. The pair
meet, and Carl is unreasonably confrontational and unfriendly, and yet the two
men settle down to share coffee (actually, Carl takes it without asking). Then
Carl reveals his illustrated body to the shocked Willie and begins to tell his
story of how a witch from the future named Felicia (Claire Bloom, Steiger’s
wife at the time) entranced him and proceeded to tattoo his entire body (sorry,
illustrate his body). Three tales from Bradbury’s anthology are then
enacted. “The Veldt†is in the future, and it features both Steiger and Bloom
as a married couple with two children who play in a virtual reality “nurseryâ€
that reproduces realistic places… in this case an African veldt occupied by
hungry lions. “The Long Rain†features Steiger with three other astronauts on
Venus, where it’s constantly raining. They’re lost and attempting to find a
“sun dome†for shelter, but the men begin to go nuts. “The Last Night of the
World†again presents Steiger and Bloom as a married couple who learn that the
world will end overnight, so the population has decided to end the lives of
their children so that they won’t suffer. There are, of course, twists in all
three tales.
There
is much to admire about the film. Steiger’s “illustrationsâ€â€”the makeup and
design—are truly magnificent, and kudos should be awarded to the technicians
responsible. Jerry Goldsmith’s eerily beautiful score creates a melancholic
mood that is quite effective. Bloom is good, charismatic, believable, and
gorgeous. Where the movie falls short is in the inelegant writing, clumsy direction,
and in Steiger’s odd performance. Sometimes his line readings are just… strange.
Maybe that was intentional, but instead of coming off “other worldly,†it’s
more like campy bad acting.
This
viewer remembers seeing the film in 1969 as a young teen and being taken with
the storytelling and mood. It also seemed to be very “adult†(there are flashes
of nudity) and was rated “M†at the time (for Mature audiences), a designation
later replaced by PG. In those days, the “M†could often lie somewhere between
today’s PG and R in terms of sex and violence. Ah, the good old days.
Warner
Archive’s new Blu-ray (produced on demand when ordered) looks sharp and clear
in its widescreen glory. A short featurette on the creation of Steiger’s makeup
and illustrations, and the theatrical trailer, are included as supplements.
The
Illustrated Man may
not be a perfect Ray Bradbury adaptation, but any Bradbury on screen is better
than none.
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Way back in the 1970s while in college, I took a course dedicated to classic films. The teacher was Herbert J. Leder, an affable, if eccentric, professor who also had the distinction of having directed some films for major studios. They were all "B" movies, but they did get wide release. One of them was titled "The Frozen Dead", a 1967 Hammer horror wanna be with Dana Andrews as a mad Nazi doctor who plans to use cloning to revive the Third Reich in modern day England. As a joke, Herb showed the film one day in his "Classics of the Cinema" class. It was mildly diverting fare, no better or worse than much of what Hammer itself was releasing during this time period. A couple of years later, Fox released "The Boys From Brazil", a major adaptation of Ira Levin's bestselling thriller. The plot centered on a mad Nazi doctor who was using cloning to revive the Third Reich in modern society. I was rather shocked at the similarity of the story lines and discussed it with Herb Leder, who was dismissive of pursuing any possibility that Levin's novel might have been influenced by his "B" movie. Today, of course, the mindset would probably be different and a lawsuit, frivolous or not, would probably have been brought against all parties concerned with "The Boys From Brazil". The film version of Levin's novel was greeted with mixed reviews. I recall arguing the movie's merits (or lack thereof) with my mentor, Playboy film critic Bruce Williamson. I found the movie to be highly enjoyable and I was particularly impressed by Gregory Peck's refreshing change of pace, playing an outright villain, the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. Williamson said he felt that Peck reminded him of a drunk at a party who puts a lampshade on his head in an attempt to bring attention to himself. Nevertheless, upon seeing the film again through the Blu-ray release from Shout! Factory, my admiration for the movie remains undiminished.
The film begins with a series of suspenseful sequences in which a determined young American, Barry Kohler, (Steve Guttenberg) in South America doggedly and surreptitiously tracks and photographs the activities of suspected former Nazis.He becomes increasingly audacious and manages to bug one of their meetings. He is shocked to learn that they have launched a plan to revive the Third Reich through the efforts of the world's most wanted man, the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, who oversaw barbaric "medical experiments" at Auschwitz. Kohler makes contact with the legendary Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), who runs a drastically underfunded operation with his sister (Lili Palmer) that attempts to bring war criminals to justice. Lieberman is sarcastic to the young man and dismisses his information- until he suspects that he has been murdered. Lieberman then launches his own investigation, traveling internationally to interview parties who might shed light on the conspiracy. He finds that the ex-Nazis have ordered the murder of 94 civil servants around the globe who are all in their mid-60s. As the investigation continues, he suspects that Mengele has cloned DNA from Adolf Hitler and that there are now teenage boys coming of age as sons of the men who have been marked for murder. Mengele needs to replicate the exact occurrences in the life of Hitler, including the death of his father when he was a teenager. By doing so, he hopes that at least one of the 94 boys will become a leader for the revived Reich.
The premise of the plot is an unlikely one to involve the talents of Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier and James Mason, who plays another ex-Nazi who pulls the plug on Mengele's plans, thus forcing the arch villain to act independently to see his scheme through to fruition. Indeed, there are times the film seems like a dusted off vehicle for old time character actor George Zucco, who reveled in playing mad doctors. However, under the direction of Franklin J. Schaffner, the pace is brisk, the story involving and the performances are compelling. Add to all this a superb musical score by Jerry Goldsmith and it's hard to resist the movie, despite its abundance of guilty pleasures. The finale is a bizarre doozy in which Mengele and Lieberman (who is obviously supposed to be real life Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal) end up in a wrestling match in the presence of bloodthirsty hounds! Olivier overdoes the feeble old Jewish guy routine (a performance he would recreate practically verbatim as Neil Diamond's cantor father in "The Jazz Singer" a couple of years later). Nevertheless, he's fun to watch. An irony is that, although Gregory Peck gives the superior performance, it was Olivier who got a Best Actor nomination. Adding to the irony, Olivier had been nominated for Best Supporting Actor two years before for playing a thinly-veiled Mengele in "Marathon Man". There are plenty of fine supporting performances including Anne Meara in a rare dramatic role, Bond baddie Walter Gotell, John Dehner, Rosemary Harris, Uta Hagen, Denholm Elliott, Bruno Ganz and Linda Hayden. Young Jeremy Black is especially creepy as the teenage boy who doesn't realize he is carrying Hitler's DNA.
The Shout! Factory Blu-ray does justice to this opulent production that is dripping in atmosphere. An original trailer is also included.
In “My Gun Is Quick†(1957), Mickey Spillane’s famous private
detective Mike Hammer (Robert Bray) meets a sad young hooker named “Redâ€
(Patricia Donahue) in a greasy spoon and rescues her from a goon trying to put
the muscle on her. Hammer slaps him around and kicks him out the door and gives
her bus fare plus change to go back home and start over. He’s a hardnose but he’s got a tender spot
somewhere under that tough exterior. He writes down his name and number on a
slip of paper and tell her to call him to let him know she made it okay. Before
they part he notices a very ornate ring on the third finger of her right hand. Hammer
has been up for 52 hours and just wants to go home and get some sleep, but
police detective Pat Chambers’ (Booth Colman) sends a patrolman to bring him
downtown. The sad young hooker was found dead—broken neck from a hit and run
“accidentâ€â€”with Hammer’s name in her purse.
Hammer explodes in anger. “She was a nice kid,†he tells
Chambers, who pours out the contents of the girl’s purse on his desk. “Where’s
the ring?†Hammer asks. He describes it to Chambers, the silver letter “V†in a
black antique setting. Chambers pulls a file out of a drawer and shows him
pictures of some jewelry. “It’s the Venacci Collection,†Chambers says. The
jewelry was stolen in Italy during the war by a Colonel Holloway, who was
caught and served 10 years in prison. The jewels were never found, but Holloway
was just released. Hammer says he doesn’t give a damn about the jewels, he just
wants to find the girl’s killer. He goes back to the diner and slaps around the
ex-con who works behind the counter until he coughs up a lead on the girl. He
tells Mike to check out the Blue Bell Strip Club and ask for Maria (Gina Core),
one of the dancers there. She and Red were pals.
What follows next is a very long stretch of film showing
Hammer tailing a goon from LA to Long Beach. You might find such a sequence
kind of dull, despite the jazzy music on the soundtrack. But I found it
fascinating. Seeing the freeway as it was in 1957, with that Fairlane 500
cruising down the highway with the oil derricks on the left side of the road
and the beach rolling in on the right. Seeing the cars moving so freely, with
lots of space for everybody, the houses along the way with plenty of room
between them, well, it was fascinating. It gave me a nostalgic feeling, a
memory of a time when the air was still clean and there weren’t any killer
viruses taking people out by the thousands. I almost hoped the ride wouldn’t
end. But it does end- albeit, not before Hammer gets involved with another
sensuous dame, Nancy Williams (Whitney Blake) and some exotic heavies. I won’t
reveal any more of the plot. It doesn’t matter anyway. Plots are not what
private eye stories are all about. They’re about the confrontations between one
incorruptible man and a world of complicity.
The
actors do a fairly good job in their roles. Bray fills up the scenery adequately
with his size and broad shoulders, although there isn’t much fire in his
performance. Mike Hammer in the novels is a primal force. He galvanizes the
books with his anger and hatred for punks, rats, and commies. Bray and Whitney
Blake (best remembered for playing the Mom on the “Hazel†TV series), just seem
to coast through the film on roller skates. Still there’s enough tension in the
plot to hold your interest and co-directors Victor Saville as Phil Victor) and George White
make good use of the LA locales. Harry Newman’s noir photography makes the
movie visually interesting, especially the climax filmed at night on the docks
at Long Beach.
Kino Lorber has done a nice job transferring “My Gun Is
Quick†to Blu-ray in a brand new 2K transfer with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
Picture and mono sound are excellent. One of the surprising treats is checking
out the jazz background score provided by Marlin Skiles, which features a combo
of unnamed west coast players. They do a little tune called “The Blue Bells,â€
which is played during Gina Core’s strip number and reprised in several other
scenes. It’s a dumb little tune, but once you hear it, you can’t get it out of
your head. Kino has included the trailer for “My Gun Is Quick†on the disc. It
shows a six-foot model of the paperback version of the book that opens, then
has Whitney, Gina, and a couple of the other good-looking babes from the movie come
crashing out through the pages. There are a half-dozen trailers for other crime
films in KL’s vaults as well.
To sum it up “My Gun Is Quick†is not the best Mike
Hammer film ever made (that would obviously be Robert Aldrich’s “Kiss Me
Deadlyâ€) but it’s cool watching Hammer driving that Fairlane on the mean
streets of LA. Recommended.
The
1948 courtroom drama, I, Jane Doe, directed by John H. Auer and starring
the inimitable Ruth Hussey as a defense attorney who displays feminist
tendencies before that word was in the public vernacular, is a well-acted,
twisty-plotted, and entertaining B-movie flick from second-string studio
Republic Pictures—except for one thing… the trial and all the aspects
associated with it (legalities, procedures, and “how a criminal case worksâ€) is
absolute nonsense.
It’s
as if screenwriter Lawrence Kimble made up a courtroom drama based on what he’d
seen from other movies of that ilk without ever studying the law as it applies
to a trial. In no way would our heroine, Eve Meredith Curtis (Hussey), be able
to insist on a retrial of a convicted murderer (in this case, “Jane Doe,â€
played by Vera Ralston) on the basis that Ms. Doe had refused to reveal her
real name or present a defense for herself in the first trial. Secondly, the
second trial is presented with the defense leading off the process and calling
witnesses before the State does. What? All the prosecutor (Gene Langston) can
do throughout it is to object, only to have the objections mostly overruled by
an unbelievably sympathetic judge (James Bell).
“Jane
Doe†shot Stephen Curtis (Eve’s husband, played by John Carroll) one day in his
New York apartment. The evidence is clear. She did it. She is tried and
sentenced to the electric chair. However, it is then revealed that she is
pregnant with Curtis’ child. Jane delivers the baby while in prison, and the
execution is rescheduled. Before that can happen, though, Eve (who had retired
from law practice to become Mrs. Curtis years before) decides to talk to Jane
and find out the real story behind it all…and then re-enters her practice to
get a re-trial for Jane. As if it were that easy. Of course, as the second
trial progresses, we learn Stephen Curtis’ secrets, the truth behind Jane Doe and
her identity, and that Eve has secrets of her own.
Despite
the ridiculousness of the legalities in the story, I, Jane Doe does
manage to be an engaging near-90-minutes of cinema. Hussey carries the picture
with aplomb. Ralston is also effective as the accused, and Carroll is suitably
caddish for his role.
Kino
Lorber’s new high definition restoration looks quite good. Unfortunately, there
are no supplements other than trailers for other Kino Lorber releases.
I,
Jane Doe may
have courtroom hijinks in the plot, but it’s still an appealing melodrama,
thanks to Hussey and the basic story twists that keep us guessing.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Virgil Films concerning the outstanding documentary 40 YEARS OF ROCKY: THE BIRTH OF A
CLASSIC
From
Virgil Films & Entertainment comes Director Derek Wayne Johnson’s new
documentary film 40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic. The
film – narrated by ‘Rocky’ star and creator Sylvester Stallone, who shares
insights from his battle to get the story of a down-on-his-luck boxer greenlit
and onto the big screen – will premiere on digital HD June 9th.
In
1976, a low budget movie written by an unknown actor was released, inspiring audiences
around the world to go the distance. Rocky became the ultimate underdog film.
Over forty years later, Sylvester Stallone recounts the making of the beloved classic
through rare home movies provided by Director John G. Avildsen and Production Manager
Lloyd Kaufman.
Sylvester
Stallone pitched the idea of this film to director Derek Wayne Johnson and
producer Chris May after a private screening of their documentary ‘John G.
Avildsen: King of the Underdogs,’ in which Stallone is also featured. This new
documentary features behind-the-scenes footage that Oscar-winning director John
G. Avildsen shot as well as footage never-before-seen found in ‘Rocky’
Production Manager and Troma Entertainment President Lloyd Kaufman’s basement
nearly forty years after it was filmed.
(The film is now available for streaming. Click here to access streaming options.)
About Virgil Films –
Virgil
Films & Entertainment is an independent distribution company that was
founded in 2003 by Joe Amodei to acquire, market and distribute feature films
and episodic television programming into the digital, TV and DVD/Blu-ray market
on a worldwide basis. Over the years the company has enjoyed relationships with
Sundance Channel Home Entertainment, National Geographic Cinema Ventures, Pure
Flix Entertainment, Sight & Sound Theatres, Network Entertainment, PCH
Films, Warrior Poets and other high-profile entertainment companies. Releases
from Virgil Films include the Oscar-nominated documentary Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me and the critically acclaimed, timeless,
best-selling Forks Over Knives. They
have also released the award-winning documentary Miss
Representation; the critically acclaimed, timeless, best-selling Forks Over Knives; and the
Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo,its
sequel Korengal, I Am Chris Farley and the recent We Are Columbine. Follow them on twitter: @virgilfilms www.VirgilFilms.com
Nowadays,
for those of us in comfortable circumstances, traveling to remote, exotic
shores is no big deal.All you need are
a credit card and a reservation at Sandals.If you’re especially eager to shed the daily grind, you’ll even take the
chance of sitting in planes and terminals for hours among scores of strangers,
any of whom may be carrying the COVID-19 virus.(Rest assured, they’ll be equally wary of you.)If you prefer to ride out the pandemic,
Tahiti and Waikiki will still be waiting.In the 1930s and early ‘40s, such luxury was beyond the reach of the
average wage-earner.They had to make do
with a night at the local movie house, where they could vicariously spend time
in Polynesia -- or at least Hollywood’s version, sometimes in Technicolor --
for the price of admission.Usually,
these films were built around stories on the pulp-fiction level of beautiful
Island princesses in sarongs, tribal revolts, volcanic eruptions, and seafaring
heroes, but a few sneaked in more subversive, troubling themes of tropical
paradises despoiled by western greed and disease.One such was Paramount Pictures‘ 1937
production, “Ebb Tide,â€based on a novel
by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson, Lloyd Osborne.Never released by Paramount on home video,
“Ebb Tide†used to appear occasionally on local TV stations before Late Shows
were edged out by Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and their successors, but it’s been
largely missing in action in the decades since then. Most people now will identify “Ebb
Tide,†if at all, with the dramatic ballad of the same name, best-remembered
from the 1965 recording by the Righteous Brothers.Ironically, the song was written in 1953 and
has nothing to do with the movie.
In
the Paramount film, Herrick (Ray Milland), Therbecke (Oscar Homolka), and Huish
(Barry Fitzgerald) are three jailbirds in 1890s Tahiti.Herrick is cultured but chronically down on
his luck, Therbecke a disgraced ship’s captain, and Huish a jovial but devious
alcoholic.Stevenson modeled the
characters on real-life drifters and outcasts whom he encountered in the
Pacific islands in the final, far-traveled years of his life.The trio’s aimless existence is disrupted
when a schooner comes into port from San Francisco, bound for Australia with a
cargo of champagne.The captain and the
first mate have died from smallpox, leaving the ship stranded.The authorities try to recruit a captain to
deliver the vessel to its ultimate destination, but fearing that the ship
remains infected, the reputable skippers in town decline to sign on.As a last resort, Therbecke is offered the
job and accepts, appointing Herrick as first mate and Huish as ship’s
steward.Neither man has any maritime
experience, but that doesn’t matter to Therbecke, who doesn’t intend to
complete the assignment anyway.Given an
unexpected opportunity to profit from others’ misfortune, he plans to divert
the ship to Peru, sell its cargo, and pocket the money.
Once
at sea, he makes two unwelcome discoveries.The first is the late captain’s daughter, Faith (Francis Farmer), who
comes out of hiding and insists that Herbecke fulfill her late father’s
obligation.The second discovery is that
the cargo is much less valuable than it appeared to be.Most of the champagne bottles are filled with
water.The late captain, as unscrupulous
as Herbecke, had secretly planned to sink the schooner at sea and collect the
insurance on the invoiced cases of “champagne.â€After a storm blows the ship off course, the three partners come across
an island controlled by an American expatriate, Attwater (Lloyd Nolan), who
lives in an elegant bungalow.In short
course, they discover that Attwater is a soft-spoken but trigger-happy
religious zealot who used slave labor to illegally harvest pearls, which now
fill his storehouse.The theme of
epidemic disease reenters, one with its own resonance today.Smallpox has swept through the island and
most of the native laborers have died, leaving only Attwater and three
household servants.“That’s why the
house is empty and the graveyard is full,†he says matter-of-factly.Herrick’s conscience reawakens, and he wants
to get Faith off the island and home to safety.Herbecke and Huish meanwhile conspire to dispose of Attwater and steal
his pearls.Homolka, Nolan, and
especially Fitzgerald are excellent in dark roles that cast all three veteran
actors against type.
The
screenplay makes one concession to formula by adding a new, pivotal character
to Stevenson’s original, all-male story, Francis Farmer’s Faith.Faith provides a conventional love interest
(and eventually, redemption) for Ray Milland’s Herrick.Otherwise, the script follows the bleak novel
almost scene for scene and line for line.This alone should encourage fans of classic fiction and literate scripts
to give “Ebb Tide†a respectful look, not to mention film noir enthusiasts who
will embrace the movie’s morally bankrupt characters, inescapable reversals of
fortune, and pervasive deceptions and betrayals.Unfortunately, mainstream critics and
prospective audiences are unlikely to check out the film since a good, officially
authorized edition doesn’t exist on home video, Netflix, or Amazon.The chances of Paramount stepping up seem
remote to none, given the studio’s apparent indifference to releasing or
licensing the bulk of its older catalog on DVD and Blu-ray.For that matter, has the studio even preserved
the needed elements from which a hi-def print could be digitized, restoring the
“breath-taking Technicolor†promised in Paramount’s 1937 ads and press
book?In the meantime, for the curious,
copies are available on the collector’s market and You Tube.
Apparently
several generations removed from the original prints, they’re watchable but
less than optimal.But they’re what we
have.The YouTube print is posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk6icHLkzl0.
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)
If
you’ve never seen Waiting for Guffman, you owe it to yourself to grab
this wonderful motion picture (now available as a Warner Archive Blu-ray
release) or find it streaming somewhere, for it is such a laugh-a-minute
extravaganza that truly set in motion the so-called “mockumentaries†made by
Christopher Guest and his revolving stock company of comic actors.
It
all started, of course, with This is Spinal Tap (1984), in which Guest,
Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer (among others) presented a pseudo-documentary
about a wacky rock band. This picture was directed by Rob Reiner. It was so
well done that some people wondered why Reiner had chosen a band “no one had
heard of†to make a documentary about. The film skewered the rock world, band
politics and antics, and gave us highly quotable lines of dialogue and
memorable sequences, as well as actual songs ultimately released as a real
album.
A
decade later, Guest took the mockumentary concept and made it his own beginning
with Waiting for Guffman, which premiered at the Boston Film Festival in
1996 and was released to U.S. cinemas in early 1997. His stock company in this
case included Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Bob
Balaban, Michael Hitchcock, Larry Miller, and others. Even Michael McKean and
Harry Shearer show up in the credits—as co-composers with Guest of the original
songs performed in the picture (so, in effect, one could say that Spinal Tap
wrote the score for Waiting for Guffman).
Guffman
uses
the documentary approach to what it’s like to be in a small-town community
theatre. The 150th-anniversary celebration of Blaine, Missouri is approaching,
and Corky St. Clair (Guest) is in charge of putting on the live show that will
tell the story of the town’s history. Corky used to work in New York theatre
(so he says), so the townspeople consider him to be an “expert†(his previous
production of Barefoot in the Park was apparently a smash). Ron and
Sheila Albertson (Willard and O’Hara) are travel agents who believe they have
talent and have experience acting in the community productions, so they’re a
shoo-in to be cast. Town dentist Dr. Allan Pearl (Levy) has never acted but has
the bug, so he auditions. Libby Mae Brown (Posey) works at the Dairy Queen and
aspires to make it big. Corky brings in music teacher Lloyd Miller (Balaban) to
handle the musical direction. Unfortunately, Corky has no budget to speak of
and must make lemonade out of, well, a lot of bad lemons. The town council,
after first refusing Corky’s request for $100,000 (!) to do the show, they
encourage him to “make magic†the way he’s done before. Indeed, Corky’s magic
ultimately gets the show up and running.
The
humor comes in the improvised characterizations the brilliant cast brings to
the table. For example, Guest plays Corky as a closeted gay man with every
stereotypical mannerism in the book, even down to speaking of a wife that no
one ever sees. Anyone who has worked in community theatre (or high school or
college theatre, for that matter) must know someone exactly like Corky
St. Clair. The late Fred Willard is hilarious as the wannabe movie star, and
O’Hara is a perfect foil for him. Posey is very winning; the actress was just
beginning her career when the picture was made, and she almost steals the
movie. Balaban plays his part as a frustrated perfectionist who would rather be
the boss of the production instead of following Corky’s orders.
Guest
would go on to make other classic mockumentaries (Best in Show, A
Mighty Wind), but they don’t get much better than Waiting for Guffman,
the title of which refers to the famous Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for
Godot. In this case, Guffman is the New York critic who Corky promises will
come to see the show and possibly take the company to Broadway.
Warner
Archive’s Blu-ray (produced on demand) looks sharp and colorful, and it is a
high definition transfer of the previously released DVD from years ago. It
comes with an audio commentary by Guest and Levy that is as entertaining as the
film itself. For supplements, there are many deleted/additional scenes that are
just as fun, including two musical numbers from the “show†that were cut for the
theatrical release. These scenes also come with optional commentary by Guest
and Levy. The theatrical trailer rounds out the package.
Waiting
for Guffman stands
as one of the great comedies of the last 25 years, and it’s a testament to the
tremendous talent of many alumni of National Lampoon’s Radio Hour, Second
City, SCTV, Saturday Night Live, and other breeding grounds
of some of our most treasured funny people. Highly recommended.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Entertainment:
A masterpiece of off-the-wall comedy, AIRPLANE! celebrates its 40th
anniversary in 2020 with a brand-new Blu-ray in the Paramount Presents line, as
well as a limited edition Blu-ray Steelbook. Originally released in July
of 1980, AIRPLANE! was a major hit and become a pop culture touchstone.
Voted “one of the 10 funniest movies ever made†by the American Film Institute,
the film continues to be widely referenced and quoted 40 years after its
theatrical debut.
The Paramount Presents Blu-ray and limited edition
Steelbook each includes the newly remastered film from a 4K transfer supervised
by writers/directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, a new
Filmmaker Focus on the directors, a new Q&A with the directors recorded at
the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood in January 2020, and an isolated music score
by Elmer Bernstein. The discs also include previously released audio
commentary with the directors and producer Jon Davison.
Robert Hays stars as an ex-ï¬ghter pilot forced to take
over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food
poisoning. The all-star cast also includes Julie Hagerty, Robert Stack,
Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The
outrageous comedy spoof skewers airplane disaster flicks, religious zealots,
television commercials…and everything else in its path.
The Mary Millington Movie Collection Limited Edition
Blu-Ray Box-Set (UK, Region 2 release).
An interview with
historian and documentary filmmaker Simon Sheridan
BY ADRIAN SMITH
In
June 2020 Screenbound are releasing a limited edition Blu-ray box set in the
U.K. dedicated to the films of one of Britain’s most celebrated and tragic erotic
film stars, Mary Millington. Historian Simon Sheridan has spent years
researching her life (his book Come Play with
Me: The Life and Films of Mary Millington was published in 1999) and has
overseen this new collection.
Cinema Retro: How did you begin this lifelong quest to tell Mary Millington’s
story? When did you first discover her?
Simon Sheridan: I’m not sure I can tell you this story! I was a curious
schoolboy. I happened upon some porn mags when I was a young boy. It wasn’t in
a bush, but someone I knew had these porn mags. I’m not going to reveal who!
She was in copies of Playbirds and Whitehouse throughout the
1980s so I saw this beautiful woman, but they were talking about her in the
past tense, and the articles next to these very explicit photographs said she
had died at the age of 33. These kind of things just stayed with me throughout
my life, that this woman who posed in the post explicit manner and was prepared
to pretty much do anything on camera had died so young. She has always
fascinated me, and the more I research and learn about her life, I just think,
“What a great human being she was.†She really fought for people’s rights to
enjoy pornography. People ask me what Mary was like: she was this 4’11"
ex-veterinary nurse from Surrey who took on the force of the Establishment at a
time when society was not mature enough to believe that people could be happy and work in the sex industry. What a
brave woman she was. She was a pioneer, there was nobody like her at the time.
When I went to university I wrote my dissertation on her, and then I wrote my
book, then I worked on her film releases, then made my movie, and now this box
set. So this was how I came upon Mary, so to speak.
CR:
Could you tell us more about what the boxed set features? Is it every film she
ever appeared in?
SS:It is all the films she made for publisher David
Sullivan. When Come Play with Me came out in April 1977 it was promoted
as Mary Millington’s first film, but of course it wasn’t her first. She had
made quite a few before she went on to become a big star through Come Play with
Me (1977). The other films
are The Playbirds (1978), Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair
(1979), Queen of the Blues (1979), Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions
(1980) and Mary Millington’s World
Striptease Extravaganza (1981), along with my feature documentary Respectable: The Mary Millington Story
(2015).
CR:True Blue Confessions is such an
interesting and unusual film.
SS:I’ve known David Sullivan for over twenty years, and
when I first met him one of the films I really wanted to talk about was True
Blue Confessions. I was astonished when I first saw it. It’s so visceral.
It’s so brutal. In 1980 you didn’t really know what went on in celebrities’
lives. When Mary died it was in the newspapers, but all the stuff about drugs
and prostitution wasn’t really reported, but it’s all in True Blue
Confessions. It’s a very honest look at her life, quite unlike anything
else that had been made in this country, or anything to do with the porn world.
It probably shocked a lot of people, but it was a huge hit. It played for weeks
and weeks. People were fascinated to see what the truth was behind Mary,
although of course most of that film isn’t true! There’s a lot of elaboration,
but at the heart of it there is some truth to her story. It’s always fascinated
me. I’ve probably watched that one more than any of her other films. David will
argue until the end of time that that was not an exploitation film. It was not
there to make money. When Mary died it was completely sudden, the general
public had no idea this was going to happen. She was the sex superstar who was
going to go on and on. David was inundated with tens of thousands of letters. She
was like the pornographic Princess Diana. Fans were just bereft and couldn’t
believe it, so he brought out these tribute magazines which had her
autobiography in it. She wrote an autobiography in 1978 that is half true, half
faked, which was written with her probation officer, and those tribute
magazines sold by the shedload. I think David did about thirteen or fourteen
different ones. They kept being reprinted, so David felt compelled to also do
something for the cinema about her life. He always says he was trying to make
Mary more famous in death than when she was alive.
CR:
How has it been possible for these films to be restored? Where were the
original elements all these years?
SS:I had been nagging David for ages about where the
original film negatives and reels were, and he had a warehouse in Barking,
where he stored all the products for his U.K. sex shops. I went there with him
and it was filled with racks of magazines and boxes of sex toys. There in the
corner of this warehouse were these wooden pallets piled high with these huge
tin reels with scrappy labels. They were rusting on these pallets. It was very
exciting for me to see them. I said he should have them stored somewhere
better, instead of in the corner of a warehouse full of rubber sex toys. These were
worth preserving. He said, “Are they really, Simon?†Yes they are! A deal was
done with the BFI and they took them and stored them in their archive in
Berkhamsted, where they were frozen at a certain temperature. They’ve been there
for about ten years. They were used to make DVDs, and it’s now taken a long
time to make the Blu-rays. Initially, I was told British sex films would not
sell on Blu-ray, but then a couple of years ago Screenbound told me they wanted
to bring the Mary Millington films out on Blu-ray. I was beside myself with
joy! This was the dream project. We got them restored in London by Final Frame.
Come Play with Me and The Playbirds were not shot on the best
film stock. These were David’s first films, and they were using little scraps
of films, offcuts, to shoot these things. The later films were shot on much
better quality film. But I’ve seen them now and they do look really good.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Universal Horror Collection Vol. 5 will scream to life on Blu-ray on June 16 from Scream Factory.
The
collection includes four tales of terror from the archives of Universal
Pictures, the true home of classic horror. A mobster's brain is transplanted
into an ape who carries out his revenge in The Monster And The Girl. A
mad scientist turns an ape into a beautiful, but deadly woman in Captive
Wild Woman. Jungle Woman, the sequel to Captive Wild Woman,
is an eerie thriller with all the danger of wild animals on the loose and a
sexy killer on the prowl! And in The Jungle Captive, a scientist has
experimented on re-animating animals ... but now he has decided to go one step
further and re-animate a human!
Universal
Horror Collection Vol. 5 Includes:
THE
MONSTER AND THE GIRL
Special
Features:
NEW 2K scan of a
fine grain film element
NEW Audio
Commentary with film historians Tom Weaver and Steve Kronenberg
CAPTIVE
WILD WOMAN
Special
Features:
NEW Audio Commentary
with film historian/author Tom Weaver
Theatrical
Trailer
Still Gallery
JUNGLE
WOMAN
Special
Features:
NEW 2K scan
of a fine grain film element
NEW Audio Commentary
with film historian Gregory William Mank
Still Gallery
THE
JUNGLE CAPTIVE
Special
Features:
NEW 2K scan of a
fine grain film element
NEW Audio Commentary
by film historian Scott Gallinghouse
The
winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival was a
thoroughly “mod,†Swinging London-set comedy directed by rising star filmmaker Richard
Lester, who was just coming off the huge success of helming the Beatles in A
Hard Day’s Night.
Adapted
by Charles Wood from a stage play by Ann Jellicoe, The Knack is a
loosely-constructed stream of consciousness tale of Colin (Michael Crawford), a
shy young man who is inexperienced with women and greatly desires “the knackâ€
of seducing them the way his friend Tolen (Ray Brooks) can. Tolen is a handsome
drummer and seems to have women (who all look like the type of model in the
Twiggy years—mid-60s hip, mod, sexy) all around him. He’s a bit of a cad,
though, and not a particularly nice guy. Colin and Tolen live with Tom (Donal
Donnelly) in a London flat that serves as a grand central station for all these
women. Meanwhile, Nancy (Rita Tushingham), an innocent newcomer to London, meets
the trio. Colin sets his sights on her, but Tolen muscles in and attempts to
exercise his alpha male prowess. What happens next is a cockeyed treatise on
relationships in the context of this swinging lifestyle, all examined through
the gaze of an op art lens. There is a combination of slapstick, pratfalls,
wordplay, titillation, and, toward the end, a disturbing sequence (for today,
that is) in which Nancy falsely—but symbolically—accuses Tolen of rape.
It’s
a strange piece of work, something that is decidedly dated, but it’s important
to judge cinema within the context of when it was released. At the time, The
Knack was edgy, out of the box moviemaking. One will have to decide whether
it works for today’s audience or not.
The
one thing that does work—spectacularly—is John Barry’s jazzy score, one
of his landmark 1960s efforts. There are a few dreamy pieces with strings and
vibraphone that foreshadow his underwater scenes music in Thunderball,
which was due to be released at the end of ’65.
And
look for the faces of Charlotte Rampling, Jacqueline Bisset, and Jane Birkin
among the extras of beautiful “birds,†as the English lads called them back in
the day.
Kino
Lorber’s new high definition restoration looks and sounds fine in all its
widescreen, black and white glory (and this is a picture that is filmed in stark
contrasting black and white!). Supplements include two “Trailers from Hellâ€â€”one
on the film with Allan Arkush, and one on Lester’s 1969 picture, The Bed
Sitting Room analyzed by fellow director John Landis, plus theatrical trailers for this and other
Kino Lorber releases.
The
Knack…and How to Get It is a relic of its time, a snapshot of a pop culture in
flux during a significant period of innovation and experimentation.
The
Bing Crosby and Bob Hope “Road to…†series began in 1940 with this landmark
musical-comedy that teamed the dueling popular radio personalities for the
silver screen. Each of them had already been featured alone in Hollywood
pictures prior to this, but Hope, especially, had not yet become the huge star
that he would be over the ensuing years. At the time, Crosby was the bigger celebrity,
and, in fact, so was Dorothy Lamour, who served as the duo’s female foil for
the series (except the seventh and last title); hence, Bob Hope received third
billing for the only time on Road to Singapore.
Singapore
sets
up the formula that would be repeated for the remainder of the series. Two
playboys (Crosby and Hope, whose character names change with each movie,
although their “characters†are always the same) find themselves traveling to
some exotic locale in order to either escape a woman, gangsters, or pursue some
con job, only to get mixed up in a farcical plot with an equally exotic woman
(always Lamour, in her “sarong†era). There are a few songs performed by both
men or solo or with Lamour, comic hijinks (especially from Hope), and even some
action and adventure. A running gag throughout the series was a bit that Crosby
and Hope did—playing “Patty-Cake, Patty-Cake,†reciting the verse and slapping
their hands in front of adversaries as a distraction—and then surprising the
bad guys with sudden punches, thereby starting a fight and the means to escape.
Another familiar face in some—not all—of the “Road†movies is that of big-eyed,
big-mustached Jerry Colonna, whose mugging and bigger-than-life voice provides
much merriment.
The
picture is usually cited as one of the best of the “Road†pictures. There are
indeed some wonderful moments. The chemistry between the two leads is palpable,
the musical numbers are a lot of fun, and the comedy produces many laughs. Some
elements might seem embarrassingly dated to today’s audiences—such as a
prolonged sequence in which Crosby and Hope don dark makeup in order to
impersonate island natives—but one must place the movie within the context of
when the picture was released, and 1940 was a very different societal time. It
should also be noted that the film was not shot on location in Singapore—it was
made in Hollywood. Once you’re past the eye-rolling at some of the sexist and
racist attitudes that are present, Road to Singapore can be a nostalgic
and entertaining evening at the home video theater.
Kino
Lorber’s new Blu-ray release looks fine and sounds great. It comes with English
subtitles for the hearing-impaired. Three previously issued supplements
accompany the film: a short documentary on Hope and the Road pictures, with appearances
by Phyllis Diller, Randall G. Mielke (author of The Road to Success),
and Richard Grudens (author of The Spirit of Bob Hope); a short
featurette on Hope entertaining the troops over the years; and a musical
excerpt from the film presented as a “sing-along†with lyrics to follow.
If
you’re a fan of Crosby and Hope, the Road pictures, and Hollywood pre-World War
II entertainment, then Road to Singapore is for you!
Without question, this brand new Blu-ray edition of
director Michael Curtiz’s The Mystery of
the Wax Museum will be heralded as one of the Crown Jewels of Warner Bros. Archive
Collection series.This creaky but historically
significant 1933 classic – once believed to be a “lost film†– has been
painstakingly restored to its original two-color Technicolor glory.Such restoration was made possible through
the financial resources of the George Lucas Family Foundation and the combined
technical and artistic interventions of the UCLA Film & Television Archive
and Warner Bros. entertainment.
The
Mystery of the Wax Museum was not the studio’s first foray into
what is now revered as the Golden Age of horror films.One year earlier, Warner Bros. had released Dr. X (1932), another atmospheric horror
vehicle co-starring the villainous Lionel Atwill and 1930’s Scream Queen Fay
Wray.Like its predecessor, The Mystery of the Wax Museum was
green-lit by studio brass to syphon off at least some of the box-office energy
of several contemporary blockbusters: Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein
and Paramount’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
(all three having been released in 1931). Indeed, Glenda Farrell’s character in
Wax Museum makes a no-so-oblique
comparative reference to the competition when she describes the mysterious
caped and scarred figure in Wax Museum
as a fiend that makes “Frankenstein look like a lily.â€It was, perhaps, the first popular culture
reference to confuse the monster with the monster’s maker.
For several decades the original Curtiz cut of The Mystery of the Wax Museum, the first
horror film to feature the revolutionary, but only briefly in vogue, two-color
Technicolor treatment, was believed lost.In his authoritative tome “Classics of the Horror Film†(Citadel Press,
1974), cinema historian William K. Everson suggested that a damaged and
deteriorating print of Wax Museum was
still making the rounds of cinemas in war-torn London of the 1940s.In any event, with the exception of a few
surviving dupey and tattered black and white television prints, the original
film as envisioned by Curtiz was considered lost.
The situation may have remained that way had it not been
for the success of the studio’s celebrated 3D remake of the original, House of Wax.This more familiar version, directed by Andre
DeToth and famously featuring Vincent Price as the mad and scarred wax-figure
artisan, would prove to be one of the biggest blockbuster scores of 1953.The film’s popularity would summarily – at
least among horror aficionados and film historians – reignite interest in the
1933 version.Indeed, as in the case of
many “lost†films, the reputation of the original – stoked by the hazy memories
of those who had actually had the opportunity to see the film two decades
earlier – was, perhaps, slightly over-praised and over-cherished.
It hardly mattered as the original Curtiz version would remain
a stubbornly elusive treasure.It wasn’t
until the late 1960s that a serviceable, though far from perfect, copy of a
nitrate original – apparently cobbled together from several different prints –
was found in the collection of studio boss Jack Warner’s personal library.It’s from this print that the reconstruction
team could use as their primary source in the film’s restoration.A secondary source was an inferior and later
surfacing French work print that helped fill-in the gaps where frames or lines
of dialogue from the Warner print were determined to be missing or damaged
beyond repair.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Entertainment:
Relive
all the incredible drama, passion and music of the hugely influential hit URBAN
COWBOY, arriving on Blu-ray for the first time ever June 2, 2020 from Paramount
Home Entertainment.
Originally
released on June 6, 1980, URBAN COWBOY celebrates its 40th anniversary this
year.Starring John Travolta and Debra
Winger, the movie chronicles the rocky love story of Bud and Sissy, set against
the backdrop of Houston’s famous honky-tonk bar, Gilley’s.Based on a 1979 Esquire Magazine story and
brought to the big screen by writer/director James Bridges, URBAN COWBOY kicked off a Western fashion and country music craze.The hit soundtrack spawned multiple Top 10
hits, including “Looking for Love†by Johnny Lee, “Stand by Me†by Mickey
Gilley, and “Look What You’ve Done to Me†by Boz Skaggs, and the album was
ultimately certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
The
URBAN COWBOY Blu-ray features new bonus content, including a retrospective piece
called “Good Times with Gilley: Looking Back at Urban Cowboy†featuring a new
interview with Mickey Gilley, and multiple deleted scenes.The Blu-ray also includes outtakes and
rehearsal footage previously released on DVD, as well as access to a digital
copy of the film.
The
late actor Kirk Douglas has often cited that one of his favorite pictures he
ever made was Lonely are the Brave, a “western†set in its contemporary
year of release (1962).
Based
on Edward Abbey’s 1956 novel, The Brave Cowboy, the picture was shot on
location in New Mexico and directed by David Miller, a craftsman who worked
with a variety of genres and subjects (he gave us the 1952 film noir Sudden
Fear and the 1941 Billy the Kid). Most significantly, the screenplay
is by Dalton Trumbo, whom Douglas “rescued†from blacklist hell two years
earlier by giving the writer screen credit for his work on Spartacus
(and effectively ending the blacklist). It is indeed Trumbo’s script—and
Douglas’ fine performance—that makes Lonely are the Brave a quality
movie.
Jack
Burns is a cowboy, a loner, a drifter, a man without a real home or job—it
seems his only possessions are the clothes he wears and the horse he rides. He
grabs cowhand work where and when he can get it. He hates having to deal with
the modern world, automobiles, fences, borders, the law, and bureaucracy. One
day he returns to a small border town to visit his best friend, Paul (Michael
Kane) and learns that Paul is in jail for assisting illegal immigrants. Paul’s
wife, Jerry (Gena Rowlands, in one of her early screen appearances) obviously
has some affection for Jack and hosts him and his horse. Jack finally decides
he’s going to do something about Paul being in jail, and the only way to do it
is to get himself arrested in order to break Paul out from the inside. The
sheriff (Walter Matthau) and his sadistic deputy (George Kennedy) set out to
pursue Jack before he rides across the border to safety. And then there’s a
truck driver (Carroll O’Connor) innocently driving along, to whom the movie
cuts periodically throughout the story—and we wonder why… until we do know.
That’s
it in a nutshell, but the power of the movie comes in its melancholy that
exudes from Jack’s character and the widescreen western vistas (albeit in
glorious black and white) that are as much a supporting role as the living
actors. Jerry Goldsmith’s wistful score also contributes a great deal to the
success of the film. This is all good stuff, making Lonely are the Brave indeed
one of Kirk Douglas’ more memorable appearances.
Kino
Lorber’s new high definition restoration looks terrific and comes with an audio
commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell. Supplements
include a tribute to the film featuring interviews with Douglas, Rowlands,
Michael Douglas, and Steven Spielberg, and a featurette on Jerry Goldsmith’s
score. The theatrical trailer for this and other Kino Lorber releases round out
the package.
Lonely
are the Brave is
too-often overlooked gem from the early 1960s.
The western "Cattle Annie and Little Britches" wasn't released, it escaped, as the old Hollywood joke goes. The film was unceremoniously dumped at a smattering of theaters by Universal in 1981 and then largely faded into obscurity. The general implication of such treatment is that the movie was a dog. In fact, it's a charming, well-made (if traditional) lighthearted adventure with much to recommend about it. Universal's disdain for the title is rather inexplicable especially since the movie represented Burt Lancaster's first starring role since his triumphant, Oscar-nominated performance in Louis Malle's "Atlantic City" (although he made the movie before shooting the Malle production). Lancaster, in a marvelously wry peformance, stars as legendary outlaw Bill Doolin in a tale that is loosely based on actual people and events. Doolin ran the infamous Doolin-Dalton gang with his late partner Bill Dalton but when we first see the notorious outlaw band, they are a mere shadow of their former selves. Most of the gang has either been arrested or killed (including Dalton himself) and the remnants are desperately trying to survive by outwitting Sheriff Tilghman (Rod Steiger), the lawman who relentlessly pursues them. The focus of the script, however, is the journey of two plucky runaway teenage girls, Annie (Amanda Plummer) and her younger friend Jenny (Diane Lane). The two free spirits have been drawn to Oklahoma from the east, having been weened on largely exaggerated tales by Ned Buntline about the exploits of famed outlaws. The girls are determined to meet these legendary figures in the flesh and join a gang. A chance meeting with Doolin and his dwindling fellow misfits allows them to do just that. Doolin admires their courage, especially when they help the gang escape a bloody ambush by Tilghman. They earn the nicknames Cattle Annie and Little Britches. The script follows their adventures as their ingratiate themselves into the gang. Both girls are virgins but the feisty and fearless tomboy Annie is determined to fix that and manages to do so when she catches the eye of Bittercreek (John Savage), a hunky gang member who is part Indian and whose indulgence in mysticism and love of nature appeals to her. (The family-friendly nature of the movie ensures that all sex occurs off screen.) Ultimately, the impressionable Jenny develops a crush on Bill Doolin, but fortunately he recognizes she simply yearns for a father figure and gently finds a way to rebuff her advances while leaving her with her dignity intact.
The movie, ably directed by Lamont Johnson, is a leisurely-paced tale with a fine script by David Eyre and Robert Ward, based on the latter's novel. Apparently, the book was based on two real life young women who did travel with the gang. The performances are uniformly marvelous, with Lancaster giving a charming performance as the world-weary outlaw who finds new inspiration from his young female admirers. Rod Steiger, who was often guilty of chewing the scenery, gives an unusually understated performance, and it's all for the better. I loved the byplay between Lancaster and Steiger's characters. They are old warriors, determined to take each other down but they've also grown to admire each other in the process. Even when Tilghman finally captures his man and prepares him for his execution, he seems genuinely depressed by the prospect of losing an adversary who has become almost a friend. The most impressive performance is by Amanda Plummer, who made her screen debut with this film. She's pure dynamite as the fearless young female who refuses to be intimidated by any man. Had the film been more widely seen, she might have been a contender for an Oscar nomination. In a rave review for the film, New York Times critic Vincent Canby called Plummer's performance "smashing". Another hard-to-please critic, Pauline Kael of the New Yorker, was also charmed by the movie and Plummer's performance. Plummer may have emerged as the only winner from the film, though it has developed an appreciation among retro movie lovers who will be delighted by the fact that Kino Lorber has released the film on Blu-ray. The quality is very good indeed, although the bonus extras are confined to a trailer gallery and a short interview with producer Rupert Hitzig, who defends his movie and still bemoans the fact that Universal simply tossed it into the celluloid trash bin. We share his frustrations, as "Cattle Annie and Little Britches" is a highly enjoyable western that will hopefully find a wider audience through this Blu-ray release. Recommended.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Mill Creek Entertainment:
Exclusive Release For Ultraman Day Featuring Cover Art By
Alex Ross!
Minneapolis, MN (June 17, 2020) Mill Creek Entertainment
is pleased to announce, “The Birth of Ultraman Collectionâ€, a Blu-ray set
containing some of the best episodes of the original ULTRAMAN series with both
the original Japanese language and the classic English dub audio tracks plus
THE BIRTH OF ULTRAMAN – ULTRAMAN Pre-Premiere Special, the very first
appearance of the hero that would become famous across the world as Ultraman.
This exclusive Blu-ray release also features art created
by Alex Ross which is also featured on THE RISE OF ULTRAMAN cover for Marvel
Comics and Tsuburaya Production’s recent collaboration with the debut issue
releasing September 2020.
This exciting, special-edition comes off the back of Mill
Creek Entertainment’s license of the entire available Ultraman back-catalog via
international distribution company Indigo Entertainment, from the revolutionary
team at Tsuburaya Productions Co., Ltd.
Mill Creek Entertainment now brings a selection of
ULTRAMAN episodes in high definition video with DTS-HD Master Audio of the
original Japanese soundtrack plus the uncut United Artists English dubs. Each
episode will also come with two English subtitle options; one for the Japanese
audio and a second matching the English audio track. “The Birth of Ultraman
Collection" will include the following episodes...
Episode 1 – ULTRA OPERATION NO. 1 – The story begins as
the heroic alien Ultraman pursues the space monster Bemular to Earth, leading
to a fateful encounter with Shin Hayata, an agent of the SSSP.
Episode 2 – SHOOT THE INVADER – Ultraman’s iconic foe,
Alien Baltan, makes its first appearance in a tale narrated by Ide, the SSSP's
genius inventor.
Episode 19 – DEMONS RISE AGAIN – An ancient time capsule
unleashes the red-skinned monster Banila and its blue-skinned rival Aboras, who
wage a titanic battle in the National Stadium.
Episodes 26 & 27 – THE MONSTER HIGHNESS Parts 1 &
2 – The only 2-part ULTRAMAN story features the Ancient Monster Gomora, who
escapes captivity and overwhelms Ultraman as it rampages towards Osaka.
Episode 33 – THE FORBIDDEN WORDS – When Alien Mefilas
tries to convince a boy to give him the Earth, even Ultraman may not be able to
stop him.
Episode 37 – A LITTLE HERO – Ide suffers a crisis of
faith as the Friendly Monster Pigmon warns that the evil creature Geronimon is
reviving an army of monsters to destroy Ultraman and the SSSP!
Also included is THE BIRTH OF ULTRAMAN – ULTRAMAN
Pre-Premiere Special. Airing in Japan on July 10, 1966, one week before the
series premiere, this stage show was filmed before a live studio audience and
introduced viewers to the story, cast and characters of ULTRAMAN. This July 10
debut of ULTRAMAN on television is now celebrated annually and known throughout
the world as “Ultraman Day.†Never before released in America, this special is
presented in black & white (as originally broadcast) in standard definition
with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
ULTRAMAN premiered on Japanese television on July 17,
1966 and was an immediate ratings smash. While the series was still in
production, the North American rights were licensed to United Artists, who
in-turn commissioned voice director Peter Fernandez (Speed Racer) to supervise
the English dubbing of the show. The English language version was syndicated to
American television in 1967 and went on to air in various markets across the
country into the early 1980s.
"The Birth of Ultraman Collection" Blu-ray will
be exclusively sold on DeepDiscount as part of the launch of a dedicated
Ultraman storefront that will offer up all of Mill Creek Entertainment's
current Blu-ray/SteelBook® releases in addition to other Ultraman related
merchandise and product. Available July 10, 2020, the set retails for
$25.99. Pre-order today: https://bit.ly/DDUltraman
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Entertainment:
Originally
released in 2000, director Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR
celebrates its 20th anniversary. Winner of five Academy Awards®,
including Best Picture, the film is an unparalleled combination of vivid action
and extraordinary storytelling. Russell Crowe won the Oscar® for Best
Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of a Roman general who is betrayed by
a corrupt prince (Joaquin Phoenix) and comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek
revenge.
The 4K
Steelbook includes access to a digital copy of the film and both theatrical and
extended versions of the feature on 4K Ultra HD, along with two separate commentaries.
The two Blu-ray Discs included in the set boast over four hours of previously
released bonus content, including commentaries on both versions of the film, a
comprehensive documentary about the making of the movie, featurettes, deleted
scenes, and more.
Here
we go again! Another entry in the “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the
Exploitation Picture†series, this time it’s Volume 5. Presented by Kino Lorber
in association with Something Weird Video, we have for your viewing pleasure
the double-bill of Tomorrow’s Children, released in 1934 and directed by
Crane Wilbur, who went on to do an impressive amount of writing and directing
for (mostly) B-movies, and Child Bride, released in 1938 and directed by
the notorious Harry J. Revier, a practitioner in cinema sensationalism dating
back to the silent era. Note: Some online sources such as Wikipedia incorrectly
state that the running time of Tomorrow’s Children is 70 minutes (here
it’s 56 minutes and there doesn’t seem to be anything missing), and that Child
Bride was released in 1943 (nope, it was 1938).
First
up—Tomorrow’s Children, the subject matter of which is eugenics and
sterilization. Believe it or not, there was quite the movement in those days
that perpetuated the sick belief that people who might be alcoholics or have
disabilities or be criminally inclined should not be allowed to procreate. You
know, it’s what Hitler and the Nazis actually practiced. The picture,
surprisingly, settles on the side of “it’s wrong,†but it goes about portraying
the unfortunates who do become sterilized as stereotypical miscreants and
misfits. Diane Sinclair plays Alice, who is the daughter of alcoholics and
sister to siblings who are either physically or mentally impaired. Thus, when
she desires to marry her sweetheart, Jim (Carlyle Moore), the court deems that
she must undergo sterilization to prevent the further breeding of undesirables.
Enter the honorable Dr. Brooks (Donald Douglas), who fights to help Alice and
stop the surgery from taking place.
The
picture must have been somewhere in the realm of a respectable B-picture
production, albeit produced independently of Hollywood, for none other than
acclaimed actor Stanley Holloway appears as comic relief as one of the doctors
at the hospital. Douglas was also a hard-working actor who appeared in over 100
films. Director Wilbur at least knows how to put a movie together, and the
acting isn’t terrible (but certainly not award-worthy). That said, the picture
indeed has a creepiness factor that justifies its inclusion in the exploitation
film genre.
On
the other hand, Child Bride is exceptionally creepy and wince inducing. It
is presented as an “educational†treatise on the horrors of child marriage,
which the movie postulates as common in such American backwater areas as the
Arkansas Ozarks, where the story takes place. Twelve-year-old Jennie (Shirley
Mills, who went on to play one of Henry Fonda’s kids in The Grapes of Wrath),
is innocent and just entering puberty. Her best friend (and boyfriend) is young
Freddie (Bob Bollinger), and their relationship is wholesome. However, there
are men in her little mountain community who take “young’uns†as brides. When
Jennie’s father is murdered, the heavy of the movie, Jake (Warner Richmond),
threatens her mother (Dorothy Carrol) with blackmail unless she allows Jennie
to be forcibly married to him. Meanwhile, the schoolteacher, Miss Carol (Diana
Durrell) is advocating against child marriage in the village, which attracts the
wrath of the menfolk. Child Bride is as salacious as it sounds,
especially today. The picture became infamously banned for its brief,
gratuitous nude swimming scene featuring the star. Sure, the film’s message is
“child marriage is bad,†but director Revier isn’t above throwing some red meat
to the perverts in the audience. Child Bride is a shocking—yet
fascinating—piece of cinema history that shines a light on moral (and immoral)
attitudes of the late 30s. Of note is the inclusion of dwarf actor Angelo
Rossitto (credited here as Don Barrett; he was prominent in Tod Browning’s Freaks)
as one of the heroes of the picture.
Kino
Lorber does the best they can in restoring the films in high definition
considering the poor source material. Tomorrow’s Children looks the
best, despite a brief courtroom sequence that appears as if it is fifth
generation YouTube video. Child Bride is choppy and full of scratches,
but we’re to expect this coming in. The first feature has an audio commentary
by Eric Schaefer, author of Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of
Exploitation Films, and the second has a highly informative feminist take audio
commentary by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Unfortunately, there
are no supplements other than the trailers for this and other Kino Lorber
releases.
For
those interested in the history of exploitation films and fans of the other
titles in the Forbidden Fruit series, then Tomorrow’s Children/Child
Bride is for you. Just be sure to take a shower after viewing.
The films
of John Cassavetes are an acquired taste. Long considered to be the father of
the modern independent film movement, his unorthodox style to acting and
filmmaking notoriously drove some of his performers crazy while also receiving kudos
and accolades from others. Like most filmmakers of his ilk, his work was best seen
in independently owned movie theaters in New York City where films generally
played for weeks or even months on end to a combination of both rave reviews
and decent box office, two ingredients necessary to ensure securing funding for
future projects. His directorial debut, Shadows (1958), depicted a
romantic relationship between a white man and an African-American woman and the
tumult that their relationship brought to their families. The film was
unorthodox not only in its subject matter but in its approach to filmmaking. The
film possesses a unique style and an immediacy that audiences of the time were
not used to seeing in polished Hollywood productions. Following Too Late
Blues (1961) he made A Child is Waiting (1963), which starred Burt
Lancaster, Judy Garland, John Marley, and Mr. Cassavetes’s wife Gena Rowlands. The latter
two would go on to appear in his financially successful and acclaimed Faces
(1968) which would provide the financing for his controversial Husbands
(1970), a searing portrait of middle-aged men, their relationships with women,
with each other, and most of all, with themselves.
Gus (John Cassavetes), Harry (Ben Gazzara), Archie (Peter
Falk) and Stuart (David Rowlands) all appear to be
successful businessmen. They are in their early forties, they are married and
have children, and as the movie opens to snapshots depicting them all at family
picnics, family outings, and general overall goofiness, it becomes apparent to
the audience that these four men are best friends and are for all intents and
purposes inseparable – until Stuart suddenly dies of a heart attack and leaves
his friends behind as a solemn triumvirate questioning their lives and their
places in the world. We never see or meet Stuart outside of the still photos,
but his presence hangs over Gus, Harry, and Archie in everything they say and
do and more importantly what they do not say or do. Following Stuart’s
funeral, the men all decide not to go home, instead electing to set out on a
series of adventures: taking a subway ride; playfully fighting in the streets; playing
basketball at a local gym; swimming; encouraging a woman to sing them a song at
a local bar; getting sick in a men’s room, etc. Harry’s family is the only one we
are privy to when he returns home and has a physical fight with his wife and
her mother. They all make half-hearted efforts to return to their jobs until
the futility of life sparks a decision to travel to London. Harry intimates
that he wants no part of the middle-class life that he has built in his suburban
house.
Arriving across
the pond, they play craps and encounter varying degrees of difficulty picking
up three women (Jenny Runacre, Jenny Lee Wright and Noelle Kao). What
transpires in their hotel rooms may on the surface seem ridiculous and silly, however
something remarkable occurs as the three men are forced to reckon with Stuart’s
death and ultimately, their own mortality. The film is ultimately about
absence: Stuart is gone from their lives, and aside from Harry’s fight with his
wife, the wives are absent from Gus and Archie’s lives, except from the opening
stills. Their behavior with the women they have picked up is far more complex than
their dialog lets on, which anticipates the film’s unexpected yet deeply
poignant denouement. It may be impossible to understand the meanings of the
scenes upon one viewing of the film, but Mr. Cassavetes was a rogue filmmaker
with an originality and honesty to be reckoned with. Some accused him of being
self-indulgent. For the adventurous and curious cineaste who prefers a cerebral
cinematic experience bereft of Marvel superheroes and the requisite explosions,
the rewards in Husbands are plentiful.
Husbands opened in New York City on Wednesday, December 9, 1970, but the
film was shot in the early months of 1969. It was featured on the cover of Life
Magazine in May 1969 but by the time the film was released, the cover story
became a distant memory for readers. The
director’s unorthodox method to shooting provided challenges to those he worked
with, especially Peter Falk who struggled at first with what the director
wanted. Initial rough cuts favored different points-of-view: one favored Gus,
then another favored Archie, and yet another favored Harry. The director shot
roughly 1,300,00 feet of film, which translates to about 240 hours of raw
footage. That is almost an unconscionable amount of takes to sift through to
yield a finished film, the sheer volume taking months simply to view it prior
to attempting to cut it all together.
The new Criterion Collection Blu-ray runs 142 minutes and the film already feels
long, however Ben Gazzara preferred the 240-minute cut, which I would have
loved to have seen as an additional disc. Obviously that cut was answer-printed
and locked, so it must exist in some form, perhaps in either Gena Rowland’s or
Nick Cassavetes’s basements? If the film’s trailer touts it as a comedy, it is
due to the fact that the director took the version well-received by the
audience and recut it into the version that he wanted, to the dismay of
the suits at Columbia Pictures.
John
Wayne is Joe January, an American living in late 19th century Timbuktu, in “Legend
of the Lost,†released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. We first meet Dita (Sophia
Loren) when she attempts to steal a watch from Paul Bonnard (Rosano Brazzi) who
is speaking with the local magistrate, Prefect Dukas (Kurt Kaznar). She is
chased and soon surrenders to Dukas’s men. Paul drops all charges and pays her
fine which pleases the greedy Dukas. He also gives Dita the watch. How can one
resist? This is Sophia Loren after all. Meanwhile, we meet Joe making himself
at home in an open jail cell in order to pay off a fine, presumably for public
drunkenness. Paul Bonnard agrees to pay his debt as well, but in return for Joe
agreeing to guide him through the Sahara Desert to an as yet unknown
destination. Dita asks to join them, but is turned away by Joe and he departs
with Paul with six supply laden mules.
Shortly
after setting off, Joe and Paul encounter a group of nomads who depart as
quickly as they arrived. Except they leave someone behind. It’s Dita, who has followed
them to join Paul. The three of them survive a desert sand storm followed by
thirst as their water runs low. Along their journey, Joe begins to fall for
Dita, who spurns him, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to offer her a
drink. As their water runs even lower, Joe is ready to return to Timbuktu, but
Dita empties their canteens and Paul reveals he is looking for the Holy City of
Opher, which his father discovered when Paul was a boy. His father told Paul
stories of riches, but his father never returned. Paul has been obsessed with
finding the lost city and solving the mystery of his father’s disappearance.
They find an oasis with help from one of their remaining mules and they can
rest and refresh themselves.
Paul
comes to them saying he found the city. It turns out to be the ruins of an ancient
Roman city, but it’s actually much more than that. They make another discovery
which has devastating results for Joe, Dita and Paul. Rosano Brazzi gives a
credible performance as Paul, the man both obsessed with and haunted by the
answer to the secret of his long lost father. Sophia Loren is beautiful and
gives a stoic performance as a former prostitute and lost soul in search of a
way out of her existence in Timbuktu. The Duke rounds out this trio as Joe, another
lost soul, presumably a former member of the French Foreign Legion. Three lost
souls in search of a lost city.
According
to IMDb, director of photography Jack Cardiff states in his autobiography he
thought the Duke was playing a former Foreign Legionnaire, but the Duke arrived
on set wearing western gear and a cowboy hat. Cardiff asked director Henry Hathaway,
who responded to Cardiff with the obvious response, “He always wears the cowboy
outfit!" Cowboy or French Legionnaire? It matters very little either way.
Maybe he’s a cowboy who joined the Foreign Legion.
Directed
by Henry Hathaway, who directed the Duke in six movies starting with “The
Shepherd of the Hils†(1941), “North to Alaska†(1960), “Circus World†(1964),
“The Suns of Katie Elder†(1965) and finally “True Grit†(1969), for which the
Duke won his Best Actor Oscar. He also directed three of the five segments in
“How the West Was Won†(1962), but the Duke appears as General Sherman in the
Civil War segment which was directed by John Ford. Hathaway is a greatly
under-appreciated director, but his collaborations with the Duke alone are worthy
of repeat viewing and are very entertaining. “Legend of the Lost†is no
exception. The screenplay is by Robert Presnell, Jr. and Hollywood legend Ben
Hecht. Hecht collaborated with Hathaway on three movies featuring the Duke.
Jack
Cardff filmed on location in Libya at the Roman city Leptis Magna, Zliten
(Timbuktu) and in the Libyan Desert. The scenes filmed in the Roman ruins of
Leptis Magna have a dream like quality and the desert locations are beautifully
photographed which up the ante on the production value.
Released
by United Artists in December 1957, the Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks and sounds
terrific and clocks in at 109 minutes. The only extras on the disc are the
trailer for this and other Kino Lorber releases. The movie is a leisurely
adventure outing for the Duke, unique in his canon of films, and he’s teamed
with two titans of Italian cinema, Brazzi and Loren. The Duke is as stoic as
ever and gives a fine performance.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Entertaiment:
Originally released in 1980, FRIDAY
THE 13TH captured audiences’ imaginations and permeated our
collective psyche. The film spawned one of the longest-running and most
successful horror franchises in film history with 11 subsequent movies and, 40
years later, the iconic machete-wielding killer continues to haunt, fascinate
and terrify new generations.
FRIDAY THE 13TH follows a group of young counselors
preparing for the reopening of Camp Crystal Lake, where a boy drowned years
earlier. One by one, the counselors are stalked by a mysterious and
violent killer. The film stars Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, and Kevin
Bacon.
The FRIDAY THE 13TH Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook
features artwork from the original movie poster and includes the uncut, unrated
version of the film, as well as access to a digital copy of the original
theatrical version. Plus, plunge deeper into the film with previously
released bonus content including commentary, interviews with cast and crew, and
behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Perhaps
what might have been an unexpected Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 1965 was A
Thousand Clowns, an adaptation of the Broadway play written by Herb Gardner
(who also penned the screenplay and was nominated for his work). Fred Coe had
directed the stage production, which garnered Tony nominations for Best Play,
Best Featured Actor (Barry Gordon, who was around 14 at the time), and awarded
Sandy Dennis a trophy for Featured Actress. Just about everyone involved in the
Broadway production went on to make the film, also directed by Coe, except,
oddly enough, Dennis (who was replaced by Barbara Harris, who is quite
wonderful in the part). Martin Balsam is also new to the film, replacing Larry
Haines, and Balsam walked away with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his
role as Jason Robards’ savvy brother and manager.
While
Jason Robards (Jr.) as Murray Burns is the tale’s protagonist, it is indeed
young Barry Gordon as Murray’s nephew, Nick, who steals the movie. Gordon went
on to star in a few other films, several television series episodes and
programs, and eventually served the longest as a president of the Screen Actors
Guild.
The
year is 1965. Murray is a comedy writer who used to work for a Soupy Sales-type
children’s comic, Leo “Chuckles the Chipmunk†Herman (Gene Saks), but he quit
in frustration and is enjoying life as an unemployed bum. His nephew Nick lives
with him in a cluttered studio apartment in the city (Murray’s sister left Nick
with Murray six years earlier and disappeared). The pair have lived together
comfortably and have become a sort of adult-with-sidekick team. One day, the
State Child Welfare board becomes concerned by Nick’s unusual intellectualism
at school, so they send two social workers, Sandra Markowitz and Albert
Amundsen (Barbara Harris and William Daniels) to investigate Nick’s living
situation and interview his guardian. It does not go well. While stuffy and
self-righteous Albert wants to take Nick away from Murray, Sandra sympathizes
with what she views as a healthy relationship between the uncle and nephew—and
she also begins a relationship with Murray. The expected crisis does come,
though—and either Murray must get a job or Nick will indeed be removed.
While
A Thousand Clowns is 75% comedy, there is a serious through-line about
responsibility, conformity, and what it means to be “family†that elevates the
picture to more meaningful fare. Coe directs the picture in the style of the
French New Wave (e.g., radical editing and jump cuts), which was hot at the
time but had not yet been fully embraced by Hollywood as a way to make
mainstream pictures. This could be one reason why the movie was honored by the
Academy at Oscar time.
Another
plus with the film is the “opening up†of the play’s one-room setting by taking
the characters onto the streets of mid-sixties Manhattan. This is a joy,
especially for anyone who knows the city. At one point, Murray and Nick are
strolling past Lincoln Center—and it’s under construction! The
Metropolitan Opera building can be seen in the background covered by
scaffolding and machinery. Amazing.
Kino
Lorber’s new high definition restoration looks remarkably good and clear in its
widescreen black and white glory. Of note is the supplemental video interview
with today’s Barry Gordon, who is still recognizable as Nick, 55 years later.
He provides some wonderful insights into his career as a child actor and the
making of the film. The disk also includes the trailer for this and other Kino
Lorber releases.
A
Thousand Clowns is
a slice of life, a piece of history, and a good time for anyone interested in excellent
stage-to-film adaptations, fine acting, and a New York City milieu.
Set in the Bronx in 1993, Lee claims the film
is "inspired by a true story." If I tell you the details here, it may
give away the ending. He makes a few mistakes in regard to his directing. How
many dialogue-free, musical montages can you stand? Not unlike that 500 word
essay we all wrote back in high school stating the same thing in as many
different ways to reach the magic number, Lee turns what could have been an 84-minute film into a 96- minute one. That being said, it's a good movie and it
marks an admirable feature film debut for him. He certainly has excelled in his
casting choices. Destiny Frasqueri, a.k.a. the rapper Princess Nokia, is
transcendent. Luminescent. She plays the emotionally torn Eva with sympathy
that's palpable, having to make life-altering choices regarding career, a lover
and her family. I hope we'll get to see more of her on the silver screen. Jimi Stanton plays the responsible Brendan, a
young man, wise and controlled beyond his years, who feels the weight of the
world crashing down upon his shoulders. His only peaceful moments come with
Eva. The chemistry between Stanton and Frasqueri is something to see.
I look forward to Peter Lee's next film. He
shows the ability here to add the tiny touches that let you see interesting
insights into a character's personality, as evidenced in a scene in which Eva
purchases a phone card for her mom. The best line in the film is delivered by one
of Eva's friends, Ricky (a twitchy and funny Sebastian Chacon) to the three girls
he hangs with all the time: "It doesn't make sense, waiting to do
something that's going to make you happy." If only the majority of us
could live our lives following that advice.
"Angelfish" is now streaming on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Entertainment:
Produced and written by John Hughes and directed by
Howard Deutch, the beloved teen classic PRETTY IN PINK is the latest addition
to the Paramount Presents line. Newly remastered from a 4K transfer
supervised by Deutch, the film arrives on Blu-ray for the first time ever June
16, 2020.
Designed for collectors and fans, the Paramount Presents
Blu-ray Disc™ line showcases the studio’s renowned library, from film-lover
favorites to celebrated classics. Presented in collectible packaging that
includes a foldout image of the original theatrical poster, and an interior
spread with key movie moments, the PRETTY IN PINK Blu-ray also includes a new
Filmmaker Focus with director Howard Deutch and, for the first time, the film’s
isolated score track from composer Michael Gore. Also included is the
previously released featurette “THE LOST DANCE: The Original Ending.â€
Teen sensations Molly Ringwald (Sixteen Candles, The
Breakfast Club) and Andrew McCarthy (St. Elmo’s Fire) drew rave reviews for
their starring performances in this timeless love story. Andie (Ringwald) is a
high school girl from the other side of town. Blane (McCarthy) is the wealthy
heartthrob who asks her to the prom. But as fast as their romance builds, it’s
threatened by the painful reality of peer pressure. The film also stars
Jon Cryer, James Spader, Harry Dean Stanton, and Annie Potts and features a
phenomenal new wave soundtrack, including the title track by the Psychedelic
Furs.
Additional titles available in the Paramount Presents
collection on Blu-ray include: Fatal Attraction, King Creole, To Catch a Thief,
Flashdance and Days of Thunder.
This Ealing Studios thriller was a total
surprise to this viewer. It’s always a joy to discover a picture from
yesteryear that one hasn’t seen, and The Night My Number Came Up happens
to be a solid, riveting piece of work.
The movie is based on a real incident
experienced by British Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard, and it was adapted to
the screen by R. C. Sheriff. Competently directed by Leslie Norman, Number is
a taut aeronautical near-disaster flick about a small Royal Air Force plane
that carries thirteen people (eight passengers and five crew) from Hong Kong to
Tokyo on a harrowing journey.
One could say that the movie has much in
common with an episode of The Twilight Zone due to a somewhat
supernatural slant. One day at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport, Air Marshal Hardie
(Michael Redgrave), civilian Owen Robertson (Alexander Knox), Secretary Mary
Campbell (Sheila Sim), Officer Mackenzie (a young Denholm Elliott), and others
board a Dakota to fly to Japan. Unfortunately, weather is poor (“clouds… dark…
snow†are the recurring images and dialogue that describe the danger). The
plane gets lost and is in danger of crashing. Back at the airport, Commander
Lindsay (Michael Hordern) seems to know what has happened. He’d had a dream 48
hours before that illustrated every event leading up to the plane’s take-off,
and he believes he knows where the aircraft has gone down. It is up to him to
convince the air traffic control officers in Hong Kong to direct their search
in the right place—which is WAY off the Tokyo route. The thing is—Lindsay had
related his dream to many of the plane’s passengers the night before their
departure, so the events that occur do not feel coincidental to them.
The suspense is palpable. At no time does one
question the eye-rolling premise of the man who has dreams that pre-determine
destiny; the whole thing is played straight, and it works. All the actors are quite
good, especially Knox as the superstitious and frankly somewhat cowardly friend
of Air Marshal Hardie’s who unwittingly comes along on the flight.
Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray restoration (from
StudioCanal) looks and sounds quite good. It comes with English subtitles for
the hearing impaired, plus an audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan. The
trailer for this and other Kino Lorber titles are also included.
The Night My Number Came Up belongs in the genre
that would later spawn such more extreme supernatural fare as Final
Destination… and Number was made 45 years earlier! Check it out for
a fast-paced armrest clutcher.
Here's a marvelous and cleverly-edited segment on Gerry Anderson's TV adventure series "The Protectors", which debuted in 1972 and ran for two seasons consisting of 52 episodes. Most people don't associate the show with Anderson, the king of TV animated series. The series starred Robert Vaughn and Nyree Dawn Porter as mysterious, rich adventurers who take on international criminals. "The Protectors" was clearly inspired by "The Avengers" but boasted a larger budget that allowed for filming in exotic locations worldwide. It must be said that Vaughn never cared for the show and bad-mouthed it in a New York Times interview even before it debuted, claiming that the half-hour format didn't allow for compelling plots. Nonetheless, the series was a success and has developed a cult following. Even the end title song, "Avenues and Alleyways" by Tony Christie remains a pop culture favorite in the UK.
“PORTRAIT
OF AN EMERGING ARTIST AS A YOUNG MANâ€
By
Raymond Benson
It
is always fascinating to examine early works by a renowned filmmaker. Do we see
stylistic and thematic elements that crop up more dynamically in the later, more
well-known, popular pictures? Did the artist hit the ground running with a
solid handle on the craft? How did the director evolve?
The
Criterion Collection has released a compilation of five early shorts by Martin
Scorsese that were made in the 1960s and 70s. All of them are 4K digital
restorations with uncompressed monaural soundtracks, and they are a joy.
Two
of them date from when Scorsese was at NYU film school. What’s a Nice Girl
Doing in a Place Like This? was made in 1963. It’s not quite ten minutes
long, is a comedy, and consists of a multimedia approach containing film, still
shots, animations, and is obviously influenced by French New Wave traits of
radical editing and jump cuts. It’s about Harry (Zeph Michaelis), who is
obsessed with a picture of a boat on the water. He meets a woman at a party
(Mimi Stark), they fall in love, and get married. Harry soon becomes obsessed
with a different picture of the sea sans a boat. That doesn’t sound like
much of a plot, but the presentation is funny and engaging. What we see in this
little ditty is Scorsese’s flair for quick editing and unexpected
characterizations.
It’s
Not Just You, Murray!
was made in 1964 and is around fifteen minutes in length. This one assuredly
points to Scorsese’s later works (especially GoodFellas) in that it
takes a humorous— black comedy, really—approach to mobsters. Murray (Ira Rubin)
is a middle-aged criminal who relates his “life story†with flashbacks to
Prohibition bootlegging with his partner and best friend, Joe (Sam De Fazio).
Murray is constantly lying, deluding himself about the wonderful things that
are happening to him—but what we see on the screen is a direct dichotomy. For
example, it’s obvious that Joe is backstabbing him with Murray’s own wife (and
fathers her children). Scorsese pays homage to Fellini at the end with a direct
reproduction of the finale of 8-1/2, in which Marcello Mastroianni
oversees an outdoors circus-like parade with the entire cast. The film is a
step up from Nice Girl in that the characterizations are more developed,
and Scorsese seems to be having more fun with the camera and what he’s
attempting to say.
Next
up is perhaps the most striking and controversial of his early shorts. The
Big Shave (1967) was made after Scorsese’s graduation from college in 1965,
was entered into an important avant-garde film festival and, according to its
programmer, elicited quite a reaction: “People were angry. People were
laughing, and I think laughing out of the horror of it, maybe.†The Big
Shave is only around six minutes, but it packs a punch because it is
Scorsese’s comment on the Vietnam War at the time. In it, a young, good-looking
man (Peter Bernuth) steps into his bathroom, removes his shirt, applies shaving
cream to his face, and begins to shave with a razor. As he does so, he
continually cuts himself and bleeds profusely, although he doesn’t seem to
notice. By the end, his torso and the very white sink are covered in red. It
doesn’t take much analysis to see that this was a metaphor for America’s
involvement in the war. There is no doubt that The Big Shave is a Martin
Scorsese picture.
Moving
up to the 1970s, the collection presents one landmark short that was produced
for television and another one that holds cult status in that it has been
little seen. Italianamerican (1974) was made for a series about
immigrants in the U.S., and here Scorsese interviews his parents, Catherine and
Charles Scorsese, in their apartment on Elizabeth Street in New York City, a
stone’s throw from Little Italy. Catherine, of course, is known to Scorsese
fans, for he has used her as an extra in several of his feature films (e.g., she’s
Joe Pesci’s mother in GoodFellas). The couple relate stories about their
respective families, how they came over from Italy, and what it was like to
assimilate in New York. Italianamerican runs about 50 minutes and is
engaging, funny, and sweet. Scorsese himself appears as an interviewer, and one
can see how amused he is by some of his parents’ answers and actions.
American
Boy (a Profile of Steven Prince) was made in 1978 during troubling times in
Scorsese’s life. You may remember the character of “Easy Andy†in Taxi
Driver? He was the smart-talking, hilarious guy who is an arms and drugs
dealer—he takes De Niro’s character into a shabby hotel room and lays out
various weapons for De Niro to purchase. (“Isn’t that a honey?â€) The actor was
Steven Prince, a fringe fellow who was a friend of Scorsese. Prince had worked
as a rock group road manager (particularly Neil Diamond), an actor, and in other
assorted odd jobs. For a while he was a heroin addict. In American Boy,
which runs around 55 minutes, Scorsese and his crew are at the L.A. home of
actor George Memmoli, and he films Prince telling stories. Movie fans might
recognize one of his tales as the scene in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, in
which John Travolta stabs a hypodermic of adrenaline into Uma Thurman’s heart.
Apparently, this was a true event that Prince performed, and Tarantino had
borrowed it. This was a period when Scorsese was heavily involved with cocaine
and was eventually hospitalized. Watching the filmmaker in this piece, we see that
he is maybe hopped up on something. The behavior of everyone in the room
is erratic, to say the least. Again, a fascinating documentary, but for this
reviewer, the weakest entry in the collection.
Supplements
include an outstanding new interview with Scorsese with film critic Farran
Smith Nehme, in which the filmmaker discusses his film school years and how all
the foreign films were such an influence in the early sixties. (“And Bergman…
every two months he’d come out with another masterpiece. It was annoying!â€) There
is also a fun discussion of Scorsese’s works by filmmakers Josh and Benny
Safdie (Uncut Gems) and Ari Aster (Hereditary), and a public
radio (audio only) interview with Scorsese in 1970. The booklet features an
essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri, plus storyboards, treatments, and bits of
correspondence from Scorsese’s archives.
For
any fan of Martin Scorsese, Scorsese Shorts is a must-have.
One of the great strategic blunders of the Cold War was the Western powers' decision to not militarily challenge the building of the Berlin Wall. Under the post-WWII treaty, Berlin was divided into four sectors with each one governed by a different nation : the Soviet Union, America, England and France. The terms of the treaty called for the former Allies to have free and unfettered access to each other's section of the city. Although Berlin was located inside Communist East Germany, it remained a symbol of freedom and liberty. This was a poke in the eye to the Soviets, who were determined to resolve the situation by simply building an imposing wall that blocked off East Berlin from the other sectors controlled by Western democracies. The world was outraged but in the end, no action was taken beyond exchanging some heated telegrams and phone calls. Thus, in a matter of days, Khrushchev's gamble had paid off. He would later confess in his memoirs that even he was skeptical he would get away with it. Suddenly, the entire population of East Germany was sealed off from other parts of the city. In many cases, families were now divided and would not see relatives for decades until the Wall finally fell in 1989. The building of the Wall was a particular blow to the new American president, John F. Kennedy, who was widely seen as having mishandled the situation. With the additional bungling of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba that failed to topple Castro, JFK was increasingly being seen by the Soviets as a push-over, which is probably why Kennedy was willing to risk nuclear war to prevent a third Soviet triumph by not allowing their missiles to be based in Cuba. The Berlin Wall did backfire in one sense, however. It came to symbolize the repressive nature of the Soviet regime that was being imposed even on their puppet states. No amount of propaganda could negate what people could see with their own eyes: valiant and desperate East Berliners risking their lives to find ways to get past the heavily fortified wall into the safety of West Berlin. Countless people lost their lives in the process but many others managed to escape. Occasionally, an East Berlin border guard would defect in plain sight. The Wall also provided a backdrop for countless Cold War novels and movies, most notably John Le Carre's classic "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold". Most famously, the Wall allowed another American President to win some propaganda points for the West when Ronald Reagan stood atop it and demanded, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!".
The first film to deal with the Berlin Wall crisis was "Escape From East Berlin" (aka "Tunnel 28"), an MGM production that was rushed into production to take advantage of a story that had made international headlines: the escape of 28 people who dug a tunnel directly underneath the Wall. The effort was led by a daring young man whose effort resulted in freedom for his family and friends. Although this clearly is an exploitation movie in one sense, we should not diminish its considerable merits. The film is tightly scripted and, considering its limited budget, highly engaging and suspenseful, thanks in no small part to the admirable direction of Robert Siodmak, who had brought to the screen two suspense classics: the original versions of "The Killers" and "The Spiral Staircase". Shot in B&W in West Berlin, the only "big budget" aspect to the production was the construction of a section of the Wall that plays such a pivotal role in the story.
Erika and Kurt pose as lovers to deceive border guards who are hunting for her.
The movie opens with a harrowing scene of a young man who tries to drive a truck through a barrier at the Wall in a desperate attempt to get to West Berlin. His effort almost succeeds but he dies in a hail of bullets. The next day, his concerned sister Erika (Christina Kaufmann) searches for him near the Wall. She assumes his quest has been successful and begins an attempt to cross over. She is stopped by Kurt (Don Murray), a young man who lives with his mother, younger brother and uncle in the shadow of the Wall itself. Kurt, who worked with Erika's brother, tries to inform her that he has been killed but he cannot bring himself to do so. She is deluded by the notion that he has escaped and is determined to join him. Meanwhile, border guards are relentlessly searching for Erika because of her attempt to get into West Berlin. She is now confined to hiding in Kurt's home indefinitely, with the family living in fear that the next house check might result in them all being arrested. Kurt's family is also routinely visited by a young mother with a baby who relentlessly tries to convince the family to attempt to escape. Her motive is understandable: when the Wall went up, she was isolated from her husband, who is in West Berlin. Reluctantly, Kurt agrees to begin an escape attempt by tunneling underneath the wall, which is only a few dozen yards from the family basement. In doing so, the family must cope with the logistical problem of finding supplies as well as storing the immense amount of dirt from the digging operation. Additionally, there is the constant presence of border guards outside their window, snooping neighbors who might inform and the unexpected arrival of another man, Brunner (Werner Klemperer) who claims to be a participant in the dig but who may have other motives. The film does manage to present how an authoritarian regime can affect even the most mundane of daily activities, as people must consider the consequences of everything they do and say.
"Escape From East Berlin" is a consistently suspenseful tale that is extremely well-acted, with Murray particularly good in the kind of role that somehow eluded Horst Bucholz, who seemed to have a lock on every part that required a handsome young German back in the day. Murray even provides a convincing accent. Christine Kaufmann is largely wasted, however, in a part that is pure window dressing. Fortunately, the screenplay doesn't saddle her character with having the anticipated romance with Kurt, although they do pose as lovers to escape the scrutiny of border guards. Even the smallest roles are expertly filled with Werner Klemperer as impressive as always as the mystery man. The film builds to a nail-biting conclusion as the plot is revealed by an informer and there is a race against time to get across the border as authorities break into Kurt's family home.
The region-free Warner Archive release boasts a fine transfer and an original trailer that is played for pure sensationalism. Highly recommended.
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On the surface it appeared somewhat brave of Kino Lorber
to greenlight a Blu-ray edition of Peter Hunt’s 1974 conspiracy-thriller Gold.It’s not that the film isn’tt deserving of such treatment, in this case
an almost flawless restoration from original elements courtesy of Pinewood
Studios.It’s only that this film has
already been exhaustively exploited
on peddled by every budget VHS and DVD label over the last several decades.So fans of the film would surely have this
title – perhaps in multiple editions and action-film multi-packs – already
sitting on their collection shelves.If
so, I can promise your copy is a greatly inferior version to what we’ve been happily
provided with here.
The back story of this film’s production, as so often the
case, is nearly as interesting as the film itself.Michael Klinger, the British film producer
who had given us the great Michael Caine spy thriller Get Carter in 1971, had previously optioned the film rights to such
novels as Gold Mine (1970) and Shout at the Devil (1968).Both of these adventure-thrillers had been
authored by the Rhodesian novelist Wilbur Smith.Smith would, alongside co-writers, later
share screenwriting credit for both films.Klinger was able to raise funds for the film’s production through South
African investments and a promise – soon to be controversial - to shoot both of
his films in Johannesburg and neighboring communities.
Klinger brought on Peter Hunt to direct the film – whose
working title of Gold Mine was soon
shortened to Gold.In doing so, Klinger would not-so-coincidentally
rescue Hunt’s career as a director of big-screen adventures.Following production of the Hunt helmed sixth
James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret
Service (1969), the former editor was sadly offered only two subsequent
directorial assignments, both far more modest efforts for British television.In what everyone hoped would be his deserved
return to big screen respectability, Hunt would bring on a number of veterans
from the James Bond series to assist him on his return to big feature
filmmaking:editor John Glen, sound
recordist Gordon K. McCallum, camera operator Alec Mills, title artist Maurice
Binder and production designer Syd Cain amongst them.
It was likely a Godsend to Cain that he wasn’t tasked to
replicate an actual working mine in full scale.Klinger had been able to secure the full cooperation of South Africa’s
General Mining Corporation for the film’s production.The British souvenir program for Gold, later sold at cinemas in the UK, boasted
that the GMC was “one of the great mining and finance houses in the world,â€
adding the production team was given unfettered use of their mines at West Rand
and Bufflesfontein.It was at the latter
location that most of the surface photography was shot, with filming having
commenced “beneath the 160-foot high shafthead and above the 500 miles of
tunnels which twist 9,000 feet below and from which are torn 5,000 metric tons
of rock every month.†Cain did impressively replicate portions of the gold mine to film interior action scenes at Pinewood Studios.
Tapped to portray Rod Slater, was another – if more
recent – member of the James Bond film family:Roger Moore.Moore’s character in
the film was recently promoted – or perhaps one should say “set up†– from
“Underground Manger†to General Manager of Sonderditch GMC Ltd. It’s a South
African mining company that will soon fall victim to a nefarious plot hatched in
London by a board room of ruthless financial investors led by Sir John
Gielgud.Their plan is to covertly flood
the mine to manipulate prices on the gold market in an effort to increase their
own fortunes… even if their windfall would come at the at the expense of the
miner’s lives. I’m not giving away anything here, this film is by no means a
mystery; the protagonists are identified nearly from the film’s very beginning.Gielgud has many accomplices in his plot
including the mine’s very own Managing Director Manfred Steyner (Bradford
Dillman).
There was little doubt that the producers of Gold hoped their film might ride the
coattails of Moore’s surprising international success as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973). The lobby cards
for Gold, one guesses not
unintentionally, would boast “Everything They Touch Turns to Excitement!â€Which may have been a great line of ballyhoo,
but one whose promotional zing would seem awfully familiar to the one found on the
Goldfinger (1964) one sheet: “Everything
He Touches Turns to Excitement!†I
suppose it can also be argued that Gielgud’s intention to create a crisis to
manipulate gold prices and increase his fortune by “five thousand million
dollars†(whatever amount that is) is essentially an idea torn from Auric
Goldfinger’s playbook.Interestingly, Gold would later be paired in the UK as
a double-feature with Diamonds Are
Forever (1971).The very collectible
British Quad poster assembled for this odd cross-studio pairing would trumpet
“At last! Moore and Connery Together in One Terrific All-Action Programme!â€
Moore wasn’t the only actor on hand to bring a little
star power to the marquee.Actress
Susannah York was cast to play Terry Steyner, the Cessna piloting wife of
conspirator Dillman, and Slater’s immediate boss.If Dillman’s Steyner is a complete tool, Moore’s
Slater is, to be honest, a bit of an anti-hero himself: he’s a philandering
rapscallion, who carries a checkered past of broken marriages, debt and
high-living tastes that he can ill afford.Moore easily seduces York and their ill-advised affair begins... though,
to be fair, she was desperately unhappy in her marriage to begin with.Ray Milland, who plays York’s father, is also
on hand as the curmudgeonly but amiable CEO of Sonderditch. Also working on the
film was famed composer Elmer Bernstein, whose emotive score would earn him (and
lyricist Don Black) an Academy Award nomination in the Best Music, Original
Song for “Wherever Love Takes Meâ€â€¦ but they would lose out to “We May Never
Love Like This Again†from The Towering
Inferno.
So the film certainly doesn’t lack for talent. The problem with Gold is that the story is a maddeningly meandering slow burn.Every stage of the nefarious plan and every criminal
and marital double-cross is dutifully documented at length… at the expense of
the film’s action which is relegated to the film’s final fifteen minutes.Hunt’s best and most dramatic moments are captured
in scenes involving the dangers of the dank, claustrophobic mines, all groaning
beams of lumber, dynamite fuses, trapped miners and unsettling cave-in catastrophes
(one which includes a grim on-site medical amputation).
As already mentioned, there were a lot of film
technicians associated with the James Bond franchise who would work on Gold.The most notable, perhaps, was this film’s Editor and Second Unit
director John Glen.There’s little doubt
that this film would later prove influential to Glen when chosen to direct the fourteenth
Bond film A View to a Kill
(1985).Much of the visual mayhem on
display in Max Zorin’s soundstage mine was eerily similar to those in Hunt’s Gold.Glen would go on to direct Moore in three James Bond adventures from
1981-1985.Hunt, on the other hand, had
previously worked with Moore on a single episode of The Persuaders (“Chain of Events,†1971), but would work again with
the actor on Gold and Shout at the Devil (1976).Despite their friendship, Hunt would confess
in a fascinating interview with the short-lived sci-fi magazine Retro Vision, “I love Roger, he’s a
lovely man and I’ve done three films with him.But he was never my idea of James Bond.â€
The World Charity Premiere (“In Aid of the Star
Organisation for Spasticsâ€) of Gold
was held on the evening of Thursday, September 5, 1974 at the Odeon Leicester
Square.On Friday, September 6th,
the film was to set to enjoy a limited roll out to just short of two-dozen
theaters across the UK.Hemdale, the corporation
set to distribute the film in the UK afterwards took out a full-page ad in the
trades trumpeting “Gold is proving to
be 24 carat – 1st Week Box-Office Total in 23 Cinemas: 81, 660
GBP.Every situation held over.Mr. Exhibitor Make Sure You Get Your Share of
Gold.â€The film would make less of a splash in the
U.S.Though the US would not see a
version of the colorful souvenir program brochure that British audiences were
offered, Pyramid Books would publish a paperback movie tie-in with a promise
their pulp edition would include “an 8-page photo insert from the film.â€
Unfortunately for the producers, critical reaction to the
film in the U.S. was less enthusiastic, with many newspapers writing off Gold as one more run-of-the-mill
“disaster films.†There was some morsel of truth in that.The success of The Poseidon Adventure (1972) had kicked-off in its wake a rash of
box-office and pop-culture disaster-film successes as The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake!
(1974).One critic would, incorrectly,
but understandably, describe Hunt’s adaptation of Gold “as one of the cataclysm of disaster movies that have lately
been making cinemas look like Red Cross centers.â€
Most
of the available home video options for the works of Buster Keaton consist of
his classic—and brilliant—independent films of the 1920s… movies like Our Hospitality,
Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, The General, Steamboat
Bill Jr., among other features and many shorts. These have separately been
repackaged and restored recently by companies like Kino Video and Cohen Media
Group.
Now
The Criterion Collection is grabbing a corner of the Buster Keaton market with
the release of two of his pictures from the late 1920s, after the
actor/director was forced to close his indie studio and sign a contract with
MGM in order to survive. That’s right, Criterion’s new Blu-ray release of The
Cameraman is a double feature! You get not only The Cameraman, Keaton’s
1928 first feature with MGM, but also the second title made with the studio, Spite
Marriage (1929). Both pictures are silent, and, in fact, they are the last
two silent movies Keaton made. For the remainder of his brief—and
unhappy—contract with MGM, he made sound pictures. Unlike many silent era
stars, Keaton adapted smoothly to talkies… however, talkies did not adapt
easily to Keaton.
The
supplements on this superb release emphasize repeatedly how Keaton was
mistreated, unable to exert his way of working on the films, and having to bow
to the studio’s demands for an “assembly-line†product, i.e., adhering to an
approved script before production began, working with an assigned director, and
being prohibited from performing most of the hair-raising stunts for which
Keaton was known. The comic’s tenure with MGM ended in 1933 with an
unceremonious firing, which catapulted Keaton’s stock into a tragic decline. It
was only later, in the 1950s, that his work was re-assessed, and he suddenly
found himself the object of deserved adoration (for example, Keaton received an
honorary Oscar in 1959).
That
said, one might not know any of this when viewing The Cameraman, which
in this viewer’s opinion, is on par with most of Keaton’s independent features.
It’s genuinely funny, with some remarkable set pieces in which Keaton does do
his own stunts. The movie was considered lost for many years, with the only
print destroyed in the MGM vault fire of 1965. Luckily, a partial print was
found overseas in 1968 and another in 1991—and these two treasures were both
used to create the version we have today.
It’s
the story of Buster, a tintype photographer who attempts to make a living on
the streets of L.A. He meets and falls in love with Sally (Marceline Day), a
secretary who works at the MGM Newsreels division. Buster applies for a job,
but he needs a new camera. He picks up an old, painfully out of date silent
film camera from a pawn shop, and proceeds to shoot various assigned
subjects—which he totally muffs (hilariously). Sally takes pity on him, though,
and keeps helping Buster out. Harold (Harold Goodwin), another newsreel
cameraman, is Buster’s rival for Sally’s affections, and soon the conflict
between them increases. Finally, in a spectacular and belly-laugh-producing
third act, Buster teams up with a hurdy gurdy monkey (played by the amazingly
talented Josephine the Monkey, who also worked with Chaplin and Harold Lloyd at
various times), and eventually saves the day, Sally, and his job.
Criterion’s
new 4K digital restoration looks fantastic—it’s as if the film might have been
made yesterday. It comes with a new score composed and conducted by Timothy
Brock and is presented in uncompressed stereo. There’s also an audio commentary
from 2004 featuring Glenn Mitchell, author of A-Z of Silent Film Comedy.
Contained
within the supplements is the complete feature Spite Marriage, which may
not be as top-notch as The Cameraman, but it still contains an abundance
of laughs and clever set pieces. Here, Keaton is Elmer, a pants-presser, who
has a crush on a stage actress, Trilby (Dorothy Sebastian) and he goes to see
her perform at every performance. His rival this time is Lionel (Edward Earle),
an actor who stars with Trilby. Hilarity ensues when Elmer finds himself
backstage before a performance and is quickly inducted to be a soldier extra
when the original actor must flee the cops. When Lionel marries another woman,
Trilby is so angry that she picks the first man available—who happens to be
Elmer—to marry out of “spite†to Lionel. Things obviously do not go well. The
last act is reminiscent of Keaton’s The Navigator (1924), that finds the
two un-lovebirds alone on a boat cast adrift on the sea.
Spite
Marriage is
a 2K restoration with its original soundtrack (music plus sound effects, but no
spoken dialogue). There is an audio commentary by film historians John Bengtson
and Jeffrey Vance.
The
rest of the supplements include the excellent 2004 TCM documentary, So Funny
It Hurt: Buster Keaton & MGM; Time Travelers, a new documentary by
Daniel Raim that features interviews with Bengtson and film historian Marc Wanamaker
as they explore sites around Los Angeles where The Cameraman was filmed;
new interviews with James L. Neibaur, author of The Fall of Buster Keaton;
and a 1979 documentary about the history of the motion picture camera from the early
silent days through the first few decades. The package booklet contains an
essay by film critic Imogen Sara Smith and a chapter from Keaton’s 1960
autobiography (co-written by Charles Samuels).
Buster
Keaton fans should rejoice. The Criterion Collection’s The Cameraman is
cause for celebration indeed. Both titles contained within display a cinematic
genius still at the full height of his powers. Highly recommended.
Most urban crime thrillers made today are indistinguishable blood baths that consist of mindless car chases and pretentiously tough characters. Every now and then, however, a real unsuspected gem surfaces. Such is the case with the 2015 film "Criminal Activities". Despite its generic, computer-generated title that sounds like it was created to emulate one of the endless CBS crime series, the film is expertly made and superbly acted. It also has some very clever plot twists and turns that play out logically and very surprisingly. Most impressive is that this marks the directorial debut of character actor Jackie Earl Haley, who has been kicking around the industry for decades mostly in minor roles. Now in his fifties, he's made a dynamic impression both on-screen and behind the camera with "Criminal Activities". One must proceed gingerly in reviewing a film like this, 'lest some of the spoilers be divulged.
The film opens with the death of a seemingly troubled young man who is killed by a bus in front of horrified on-lookers. It's presumed to have been a suicide. After his funeral, some of his friends gather to discuss the tragic event. They are Warren (Christopher Abbott), Bryce (Rob Brown) and Zach (Michael Pitt). They are unexpectedly joined by Noah (Dan Stevens) , a nerdy financial investment analyst who was the butt of jokes in high school among some of his friends. He's still very much a nerd but is reluctantly accepted into the group's social orbit partly out of compassion for the way he was treated by them so many years ago. Over drinks the group analyzes why their friend might have ended his life. It's revealed that the dearly departed had been complaining about being followed by some unknown person or persons in recent days...something that unnerved him. Is it possible this stalker might have actually been responsible for his death? The conversation soon turns to money...and the common goal of everyone in the group to attain a successful life style. Bryce says he has a sure-fire investment scheme based on insider trading. There is a stock that is about to skyrocket but they would need to come up with $200,000 to get in on the deal. Collectively they don't have anywhere near that amount. However, Noah advises that he can definitely front the money, as long as they all share the risk as well as the profit. Assuming Noah is putting up his own savings, the young men readily agree. Weeks later, the "sure-fire" investment goes to hell when the company involved is raided by the feds and its CEO is arrested, causing the stock value to plunge to virtually zero. The panicked group gets together and learns more bad news: Noah didn't put up his own money. Instead, he borrowed it from a local crime kingpin, Eddie (John Travolta) who now expects to be repaid. He meets with the terrified men and they find him to be a smooth operator. He's quiet, calm and witty- but alerts them that the "interest" on the loan is another $200,000. The men advise him that they can't possibly come up with $400,000. He then makes them an offer they literally can't refuse - or they will pay with their lives. Eddie explains that a local rival crime boss has kidnapped his young niece and he's desperate to get her back. He advises them that he will forgive their entire debt if they successfully kidnap his rival's nephew. Eddie will then ensure the release of his niece by arranging a trade of hostages. The four men are understandably frightened by the proposition. After all, they are every day guys with no experience in criminal activities. Nevertheless, Eddie leaves them no choice. He makes it abundantly clear that failure is not an option-at least if they value their lives. The men concoct a scenario to kidnap the nephew, Marques (Edi Gathegi) from a local sleazy nightclub he hangs out in. The men bungle key aspects of the plan but, against all odds, succeed in capturing Marques and bringing him to a vacant apartment they have access to. They advise Eddie that the plan was a success and he tells them everything is looking good- just keep Marques on ice until he gets his niece back. Marques proves to be a handful. He speaks in street jive that is a far cry from the vernacular used by his Gen X white captors. Although tied to a chair, he exudes significant enough charisma to possibly talk his kidnappers into releasing him on the basis that they can still get away with no criminal charges. From this point on, it would be a disservice to detail more of the plot except to say that things wrap up in a startling manner that this viewer didn't see coming.
Director Jackie Earl Haley, who wrote the screenplay based on a script by the late Robert Lowell that had been gathering dust since 1977, provides himself with a plum supporting role as the most memorable of a two-man team of hit men who are in Eddie's employ. The concept of two eccentric hit men had moss on it even before Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson played such roles so memorably in "Pulp Fiction". In fact, Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager were terrific in similar parts way back in Don Siegel's 1964 remake of "The Killers"- and Robert Webber and Gig Young were also quite good in Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia". However, Haley is superb in his brief scenes on screen as a chatty, seemingly friendly street guy who can jump from making quips to blowing someone's head off in a nanosecond. The entire cast is superb, with Dan Stevens particularly memorable as the hapless Noah and Edi Gathegi almost stealing the entire show with an extremely good performance. Travolta, who also served as Executive Producer, seems to be having a blast as the villain. His screen time is limited but he makes the most of it, appearing at key points in the plot. In essence, he's playing a low-end version of a Bond villain. He lives in comparative wealth, has adoring women around him and sucks down dreadful kale-based milk shakes as part of a bizarre diet. He never loses his temper and becomes even scarier the more friendly he acts. As director, Haley keeps the action flowing at a swift pace and credible reactions by the "kidnappers" that evoke the way most of us would feel if we found ourselves caught up in such extraordinary circumstances. However, Haley-who is too obsessed with Tarantino-izing his film- puts style over substance during the movie's surprising final sequence. It proves to be a near fatal error. When the surprises are revealed, Haley does so in a lightning-fast sequence that is almost impossible to comprehend. Worse, he jumps back and forth in time and introduces a key character we haven't seen before. I had to revisit the ending several times in order to comprehend exactly what was being unveiled. Once I understood the plot development, I found it highly satisfying- but no viewer should have to rely on taking such measures just to figure out what is going on. "Criminal Activities" was denied a theatrical release and went straight to home video. Perhaps the incomprehensible nature of the ending was a factor in this. Nevertheless, if you are willing to stick with it (and possibly re-review scenes on the Blu-ray), you might well agree that this is a highly entertaining film and that Haley shows considerable promise as a director.
The Blu-ray from RLJ Entertainment features some deleted scenes and an all-too-brief joint interview with Haley and Travolta. The film should have included a commentary track, as Haley's late break into directing and his nurturing of an almost ancient un-filmed screenplay would have made some interesting points for discussion.
While
we in the United States think of the “gangster film†as something that is
perhaps distinctly American, it can be forgotten that other countries have had
their fair share of mobsters, too. The U.K. is a typical specimen. There have
been some very bad hombres in movies like Sexy Beast and The Long
Good Friday, whichare classic examples of British gangster cinema.
It
was a pleasant surprise to discover Brighton Rock, obviously a beloved crime
movie in Britain, but not as well known in the States. In fact, the movie was
released in America as Young Scarface.This thriller, made in
1947 and released very early in 1948, is a product by the Boulting Brothers
(identical twins!), who were a sort of British Coen Brothers at the time. They
produced numerous quality movies from the late 1930s to the 1970s, usually
directing separately, or maybe one would produce while the other directed, and
so forth. In this case, Roy Boulting was the producer, and John Boulting was
the director.
The
screenplay for Brighton Rock was written by the acclaimed Graham Greene
and Terence Rattigan, based on Greene’s 1938 novel. The book had already been
adapted into a West End stage play prior to the Boulting Brothers’ further
turning it into celluloid.
A
very young Richard Attenborough made his acting breakthrough as the star of the
picture, playing a truly psychotic sociopath, Pinkie Brown, a role for which he
had received praise in the stage play. The character is only seventeen, but he
is a ruthless, cruel, cold killer who is handy with a knife—and he becomes the
leader of his gang after the boss is murdered.
As
the movie’s title crawl tells us, Brighton as a beach resort was a hotbed of
criminal activity between the world wars. The story takes place in the late
1930s, when rival gangs were vying for territory and commerce in the community.
Pinkie blames a journalist for the boss’s death because of an article the
writer penned about the rival gangs. Pinkie then stalks and kills the
journalist. Enter amateur sleuth Ida Arnold (Hermione Baddeley… wait, Hermione
Baddeley??), who is an entertainer on the Brighton pier. She is convinced
that Pinkie and his gang were responsible for the journalist’s death (she knew
him personally), but the local police don’t buy it and have closed the case.
Meanwhile, Pinkie meets an innocent and pretty waitress named Rose (Carol
Marsh). Pinkie woos her in his creepy, icy way, and astonishingly, this strict
Catholic girl with no street smarts falls in love with him (this is perhaps the
only element of the story which is a bit difficult to swallow).
Things
get more complicated as Pinkie sets out to destroy anyone who might have the
goods on him, and he also wants to strike at—or maybe join—the rival gang,
which is gaining more power in the territory.
Allegedly
Greene was not happy with the film’s ending, because the Boultings changed it
slightly from the novel. In truth, the filmmakers presented a more ironic,
albeit happier, conclusion to the story, which works very well. It can be
argued that the movie’s ending is actually more cynical than the book’s finale.
Brighton
Rock is
Attenborough’s movie. His performance is chilling; it’s a measured, quiet, intelligent
portrayal of a psychopath that gives Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death a
run for his money. Baddeley is also winning as the bubbly and stubborn
extrovert who insists on solving the crime when she has no reason to do so.
Kino
Lorber’s new high definition restoration (from StudioCanal) looks and sounds
terrific, and there is an accompanying audio commentary by film historian Tim
Lucas. There are no other supplements aside from the trailers for this and
other Kino Lorber releases.
Brighton
Rock is
recommended for fans of British cinema, gangster movies, and crazy criminals.
Brian VanHooker, writing for the website MEL, takes an in-depth look at the direct-to-video VHS sequels to Disney hits that became all the rage in the 1990s and expanded into the DVD era. They were brought about by the failure of the theatrical sequel "The Rescuers Down Under" and would go on to become an important source of profits for the company. Click here to read.
There
have always been what have been termed in the motion picture industry
“exploitation films,†even back in the silent days. The late 1930s and much of
the 1940s, however, saw a deluge of cheap, not-even-“B†pictures made, usually
independently of Hollywood and marketed in guerilla fashion as “educationalâ€
adult fare. You know the type. Reefer Madness. Child Bride. Mom
and Dad.
Dwain
Esper was one of the most notorious directors who made these types of pictures
in the 1930s. He was assuredly the Ed Wood of that decade. He purposely chose
sensational subjects—drug use, sexuality—and produced them independently of
Hollywood. The Production Code was in full force during most of his working
years, so distribution had to be done in creative ways—renting theaters and
advertising locally that the films were for adults but contained valuable
lessons in morality. Maybe in the 1930s, viewers bought that line, but face
it—these movies appealed to prurient interests. When viewing these two titles
in restored, uncut form, one wonders how Esper got away with it. Interestingly,
his wife Hildegarde Stadie (credited as “Hildagarde†Stadie) wrote the
screenplays and often acted as producer.
Kino
Classics, in association with Something Weird Video, has released a “Forbidden
Fruit†series of exploitation films (this is Volume 4). Here we have a double
feature by Esper, along with some eye-opening shorts as extras.
First
up—Marihuana (sic) (1936), a “cautionary tale,†ha ha, along the lines
of the hilariously similar feature Reefer Madness, in which two sleazy
drug dealers (Pat Carlyle and Paul Ellis) corrupt the youth of a small town
with the evils of marijuana and other drugs. An innocent but slightly
rebellious teenager, Burma (Harley Wood) and her boyfriend (Hugh McArthur)
attend a party thrown by the dealers. After ingesting the devil weed, Burma has
sex with her boyfriend, all the girls go skinny dipping on the beach at night
(yes, there is full nudity), and one girl drowns. The dealers force the teens
to cover up the crime, but Burma is now “hooked.†She has become pregnant,
leaves home, and starts working for the dealers. Of course, all this leads to
ruin and tragedy. The whole thing is jaw-droppingly ridiculous, but it is anthropologically
captivating.
Narcotic
(1933)
shows what a difference three years can make in production quality back in the
30s. This feature is decidedly lower in technical values (the print is also
choppy and full of scratches—but the restoration is surprisingly better than
one might think). Narcotic is allegedly based on the true story of a
promising young doctor, William Davis (played astonishingly well by Harry
Cording), who gets involved with opium, heroin, and other “hard†drugs.
Eventually, they destroy his career. He instead becomes a snake oil salesman of
a miracle cure that he concocts, works in a circus sideshow, and deals dope on
the side. The centerpiece of the movie is a drug party with Dr. Davis and his
friends, male and female, who spend the evening shooting up, snorting cocaine, and
smoking pot. We get to see how these drugs affect the users—and, again, the results
are unintentionally mirthful. Especially egregious is the inclusion of a
Chinese character, Gee Wu, who is played (in bad makeup and with an atrocious,
exaggerated accent) by a white actor, J. Stuart Blackton, Jr., who happens to
be the son of cinema pioneer J. Stuart Blackton, the head of Vitagraph Studios
in the early days of silent film. Once again, though, Narcotic is short
enough to be luridly entertaining.
Picture
quality in Marihuana is pretty good; in Narcotic,not so
much. The same is true for the sound quality, although there is a lot of static
and background noise in both features. Nevertheless, these are probably the
best presentations of these pictures you’ll ever see.
Both
Marihuana and Narcotic come with an audio commentary by Bret
Wood, co-author of Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film.
Much interesting trivia is imparted, and it is well worth the listen. Marihuana
also features a second audio commentary from 2000 by David F. Friedman and
Something Weird founder Mike Vraney.
Of
special interest in the supplements are two versions of Dwain Esper’s short, How
to Undress (also known as How to Undress in Front of Your Husband).
This is intended to be a piece of comedy in which wives are instructed by a
male narrator on the “proper†way to remove clothing at the end of a day, i.e.,
they are to do it in a slow, calculated, sensuous way—in other words, a strip
tease. None other than John Barrymore’s wife at the time, Elaine Barrie Barrymore,
stars as the spouse who follows the directions well. Older and overweight vaudeville
star Trixie Friganza contrasts Elaine in another bedroom by undressing the
“wrong†way. It’s really an excuse to denigrate her looks. Incongruously,
there’s a subplot involving a peeping tom. The long version is around 15
minutes. A shorter version, that cuts out Trixie’s scenes altogether, runs
around 9 minutes.
Another
short, How to Take a Bath, is another comic bit involving two different
pairs of husbands and wives. In one, the couple is happily married, flirt with
each other after an evening out, and the wife takes a bath that the husband has
run for her. Wedded bliss does not exist for the other couple, however. This
wife is depicted as a shrew, nagging at her sheepish husband the entire time.
Nevertheless, the viewer gets to see both wives, well, take baths.
Pure
exploitation. One wonders what kind of relationship Dwaine Esper had with his writer/producer
wife.
Another
throw-away supplement are three very brief excerpts from Esper’s lost 1932
film, The Seventh Commandment, and these are hardly worth the inclusion.
Trailers for this and other Kino Classics releases round out the package.
All
in all, the Marihuana/Narcotic double Blu-ray disk is a lot of fun,
despite its politically incorrect content. After all, both pictures are
preserved by the Library of Congress, so they must be “culturally and
significantly important.†These films do serve to act as a time travel device
for audiences today to look back at American values and customs in those years.
Fascinating stuff.
