I’m
a sucker for black and white horror films and thrillers. Hold That Ghost!
(1941) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) are the closest
I ever got to an actual horror film when I was a child. The latter actually
frightened me and gave me more than a handful of nightmares while in kindergarten.
As I got older, I thrilled to the suspense-filled Psycho (1960) by
Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), and George A.
Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) on network television viewings.
I picked up a VHS copy of John Llewelyn Moxey’s masterful The City of the
Dead under the insipid title of Horror Hotel and discovered a
classic that I love to this day. There is an overall spookiness that I
associate with black and white that I wish contemporary horror film directors
would go back to. It’s not all blood and guts – mood and atmosphere go a very long
way.
Following
my discovery of Dario Argento’s work after a theatrical screening of Creepers
in 1985, I began to read about Mario Bava’s work and how it influenced Signor
Argento’s style. Black Sunday, alternately known as The Mask of Satan
and Revenge of the Vampire, is a highly stylized gothic horror film that
is considered to be Mario Bava’s directorial debut despite him having come in
at the eleventh hour to finish up several films in the late 1950’s credited to
other directors: I Vampiri (1957), The Day the Sky Exploded (1958),
Caltiki – The Immortal Monster (1959) and The Giant of Marathon
(1959). Shot in 1960 and released on Thursday, March 9, 1961 in New York City, Black
Sunday is a creepy tale starring the luminous Barbara Steele in dual roles
as both a condemned witch in 17th Century Moldavia named Asa Vajda
and as a melancholic townswoman named Katja Vajda some 200 years later – quite
a coincidence! Asa condemns her persecutors to death for her fate which finds
her body placed into a mausoleum and found by chance two centuries later by a
doctor (Andrea Checci) and his assistant (John Richardson) who are enroot to a convention
and accidentally free Asa from her eternal sleep, giving her the opportunity to
enact evil upon the heads of those unlucky enough to be related to those
responsible for her death. While the plot is similar in theme to Mr. Moxey’s
classic The City of the Dead – I could hear the immortal words of the
villagers “Bring me Elizabeth Selwyn†in that film as I watched Black Sunday
– the time and place is much different and the film benefits enormously from
Signor Bava’s experience as a cinematographer even from the film’s opening
frames. The imagery that permeates much of Black Sunday are the stuff of
childhood nightmares: cobwebs, creepy cemeteries, eerie sounds in the
night…there is even a scene wherein a character fights off a vampire bat in a
fashion that obviously provided the inspiration for Jessica Harper’s Suzy Bannion
to do the same in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), albeit in dazzling
Technicolor.
Howard
Hawks’ biopic of American war hero Alvin C. York, Sergeant York, was the
highest grossing film of 1941. It received many accolades, including a Best
Actor Oscar for star Gary Cooper and a trophy for Film Editing. It was also nominated
for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (John Huston was one of four
writers involved), Supporting Actor (Walter Brennan), Supporting Actress (Margaret
Wycherly), Cinematography, Art Direction, Music Score (by Max Steiner), and
Sound Recording. The film was released in the summer of ’41 and did very well
at the box office. By the time it was playing in rural America later in the
year, though, the attack on Pearl Harbor had occurred. The mobilization to
prepare for war helped give Sergeant York a second wave of financial
success and it continued to play on U.S. screens into 1942.
“Biopicâ€
may be too broad of a description of the movie because it covers only two years
of York’s life. The year is 1916 and York is already a grown man. York (Cooper)
lives in an extremely rural area of Tennessee, near the Kentucky border (one of
the bars he frequents with his best friends, played by Ward Bond and Noah
Beery, Jr., is divided by the state line on the floor—and Tennessee residents
must go to the Kentucky side of the place to purchase their liquor, and then
walk back across the room to the Tennessee side to sit and drink it). York is an
uneducated farmer (he can read, but an entire book is daunting for him) and
poor. He lives with his wise but stern mother (Wycherly) and two younger
siblings (the sister is played by a teen June Lockhart). The town—such as it
is—has an unofficial patriarch in the form of the pastor and general store
proprietor, Rosier Pile (Brennan). York is sweet on Gracie (Joan Leslie), and
she has reciprocal feelings for him, but he worries that he has no land of his
own or anything else he can offer.
One
stormy night, York is on his way on horseback to perhaps kill a man whom he
feels stole a land purchase from him. York is struck by lightning and he
survives. He suddenly finds religion after the incident. This dovetails with
America’s entering World War I, and York is drafted. He enters the army but
insists that he is a conscientious objector. The last act of the film becomes
an engaging war movie in Europe, and it depicts how York overcomes his
objection to perform a significant heroic act that solidifies his place in
American history.
While
Sergeant York is perhaps a little lengthy at 134 minutes, under the
direction of Howard Hawks it moves from one entertaining set piece to the next.
The characterizations are expertly rendered by the entire cast. Brennan is
always good during this period of his career (he won three Supporting Actor
Oscars between 1936 and 1940), and George Tobias, as a fellow soldier from New
York who teaches York about “subways,†is also winning. The movie, however,
belongs to Cooper, who displays charm, humility, and integrity throughout the
picture.
(Note from the Warner Archive: Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging (MPI) presents a "Before & After" video comparing the previous master of Sergeant York (1941) with our brand-new master featured on our new Warner Archive Blu-ray.)
Warner
Archive’s Blu-ray is a port-over from Warner’s original DVD release. The
restored transfer is gorgeous and clean, and it comes with an audio commentary by film
historian Jeanine Basinger. Supplements include a “night at the moviesâ€
selection of shorts (a semi-comic documentary called Lions for Sale, and
a Porky Pig cartoon). Of special interest is the 38-minute making-of
featurette, Sergeant York: Of God and Country.
For
fans of Sergeant York, Gary Cooper, Howard Hawks, or depictions of Americana,
the new Warner Archive edition of the picture is worth the upgrade.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
With
the publication of Jeremy Arnold’s new lavishly illustrated and intelligently
written TCM (Turner Classic Movies) coffee-table paperback, The Essentials,
Volume 2: 52 More Must-See Movies and Why They Matter, I find myself going
back to my review of the original Volume 1 of The Essentials and am
tempted to repeat much of what was said there.
“The
Essentials†is a weekly Saturday night event on TCM in which a guest host
introduces a picture he or she believes is an Essential, i.e., a title “film
lovers need to know,†as film historian Ben Mankiewicz explains in the forward.
The number 52 is used because there are 52 weeks in a year. Unlike in Volume
One, the new book contains an Appendix listing all the Essentials that
TCM has aired, indicating the ones chosen for both Volumes 1 and 2 (and there
are still plenty left over, leaving open the possibility of a Volume 3 and 4!).
It must be stated that TCM’s choice of movies depend entirely on what is
available to the network to broadcast. For example, The Godfather,
surely an “Essential,†is not on the list because TCM has never had the rights
to show it. The Wizard of Oz is not there, either. Therefore, TCM’s list
of Essentials, while containing all fabulous, important, and indeed must-see
titles, does unfortunately omit some obvious pictures, albeit through no
fault of their own.
That
said, the new Volume 2 handsomely complements Volume 1 design-wise and sits
neatly on the shelf beside its older brother. Author Jeremy Arnold does a
superb job presenting the reasons why a particular film matters and provides
interesting sidebar trivia for each entry. The book is gorgeously illustrated
with many stills, both color and black-and-white.
The
new tome includes such classics as Sunrise, Freaks, Top Hat,
Stagecoach, Sullivan’s Travels, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Notorious,
Rashomon, High Noon, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The
Apartment, Psycho, The Producers, Hannah and Her Sisters,
and I was particularly pleased to see 2001: A Space Odyssey (an omission
I noted from Volume 1!).
It
is always too easy when judging a book of “bests†to complain about what’s
missing. That won’t happen here except to say that it’s unfortunate that TCM
does not incorporate more foreign-language titles that are indeed must-see
“essentialsâ€â€”for example, there’s not a single film by Ingmar Bergman, Federico
Fellini, or Francois Truffaut on the full list. While there are a few, such as
Godard’s Breathless (included in Volume 1) and Ray’s Pather Panchali
(here in Volume 2), so many are missing. One must conclude that this is because
TCM concentrates more on purely American/Hollywood fare.
But
this is quibbling. All told, like Volume 1 before it, The Essentials Volume
2 is another good starting point “bucket list†of must-see movies, especially
for younger aficionados who might want to get a jump start on their film
history class.
(RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST ARTICLES FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVE.)
BY TODD GARBARINI
I’m a sucker for car chases. Not the
perfunctory, last-minute “Hey, this movie needs a car chase!†variety, but the
kind that comes as a result of a particular plot point wherein someone or some group has to get away from some other
group. While most new car chases such as TheFast and the Furious sort are usually
accomplished through CGI, I find that this sleight-of-hand fakery virtually
abolishes all tension. The best ones that I have seen all did it for real
through innovative and unprecedented filming techniques and excellent editing: Grand Prix (1966), Vanishing Point (1967), Bullitt
(1968), The Seven-Ups (1973), The Blues Brothers (1980), The Road Warrior (1981), The Terminator (1984), F/X (1986), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), and The Town (2010) all have action sequences that put the full wonder
of film editing on display.
There are two major car chases in the
late John Frankenheimer’s Ronin, which opened on Friday, September 25, 1998, and
it’s the second and longer one that ranks up there in the pantheon of The Greatest
Car Chases Ever Filmed. The French
Connection (1971) and To Live and Die
in L.A. (1985) are the granddaddies of car chases in my humble opinion and Ronin’s is certainly in the top ten,
with a stupendous wrong-way-driving-against-incoming-traffic sequence through a
tunnel in France to composer Elia
Cmiral’s exciting score.
The title of “Ronin†is originally a
reference to the feudal period of Japan relating to a samurai who has become
masterless following his master’s death as a result of the samurai’s failure to
protect him. To earn a living, the samurai wanders from place to place
attempting to gain work from others. For the uninitiated, title cards prior to
the film’s opening credits inform us of this. This name relates to the film as
several mercenaries meet for the purpose of stealing an important silver case.
Sam (Robert DeNiro), Vincent (Jean Reno), Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard), and Spence
(Sean Bean) and several others are the persons for hire. Deirdre (Natascha
McElhorne) is the one who called them all together but she offers little in the
way of an explanation as to what the contents are. Like in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), they don’t know
one another and work under the assumption that all involved are trustworthy
which eventually will be their undoing. Now ya see, if they has listened to the
James Poe episode “Blood Bath†on the old time radio show Escape!, none of this would have ever happened! Yeah…
Sam used to work for the CIA, Vincent
is a “fixerâ€, Spence is a former Special Air Service expert in weaponry, Gregor
is an expert in electronics, and Larry (Skipp
Sudduth) is one of the drivers. Sam is the most inquisitive and probably has
the most to lose. They don’t discuss their past and are eager to get paid. Sam almost
acts like the ringleader, but he has some serious competition after they secure
their objective and are double-crossed. It then becomes a game of who can trust
who (naturally, the answer is no one). There are some really good supporting
performances by Michael Lonsdale (I hadn’t seen him in a theater since Moonraker!) and Jonathan Pryce and the
action always keeps moving forward but unlike today’s films, the action
sequences are well-staged and edited and have depth to them. A terrific
addition to Mr. Frankenheimer’s filmography.
In
1943, Hollywood churned out dozens of war films in support of the U.S.
involvement in the global conflict raging at the time. Many were cheaply made
rush jobs, others were good “B†pictures, and a select group were “A†level, excellent
pieces of celluloid that are now classics. All were essentially propaganda
pictures made to lift the spirits of the American people and the troops who
were able to see them. Rah Rah, Let’s Go Get ‘Em!
Billy
Wilder, an Austrian Jew who had fled Germany as the Nazis gained power, settled
in Hollywood in 1933 after a brief stint in France. He immediately found work
as a talented screenwriter, ultimately earning his first Oscar nomination for
co-writing Ninotchka (1939). As war heated up in the 1940s, Wilder then
became, after the likes of Preston Sturges, a rare Hollywood double threat—a
writer/director. Five Graves to Cairo is only his second picture as a
director, and it’s one of those propaganda war films that could be classified
as an “A†classic.
In
the flavor of Casablanca, Five Graves is also a spy movie in a
way. The plot involves British tank corporal John Bramble (Franchot Tone), who,
after his crew is wiped out in the North African desert, makes his way to Sidi
Halfaya in a delirium. He stumbles into a hotel, the “Empress of Britain,†run
by an Egyptian, Farid (Akim Tamiroff). Also present in the desolated hotel is
the French maid, Mouche (Anne Baxter). The Germans, led by Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel (Erich von Stroheim, of course) are on their way to town, and they’ll be
staying at the hotel. The British had recently been run out of town and are
regrouping at El Alamein. Lieutenant Schwegler (Peter van Eyck) arrives with
men ahead of Rommel to fix up security and make arrangements for his commanding
officer. In a pinch, Bramble must impersonate the dead “waiter,†of the hotel,
a man called Davos. It turns out that Davos, who had a peg leg, was a German
spy who had made regular reports on British movements before he was killed.
This gives Bramble the opportunity to play double agent and ferret out Rommel’s
secret of hidden supply dumps in Egypt known as the “five graves to Cairo.†Throw
in a love/hate conflict between Bramble and Mouche, and you’ve got the makings
of a terrific war thriller.
Five
Graves to Cairo is
well-made, tightly written (by Wilder, with longtime scribe partner Charles
Brackett), and superbly acted. Tone, while not being an A-level star per se,
carries the movie well. Baxter, speaking with a European accent that isn’t quite
French, is suitable enough and certainly exudes screen chemistry. Erich von
Stroheim almost steals the picture as Rommel, doing his typical German officer
routine we’ve seen before; he makes a terrific heavy for the tale. Tamiroff’s
purpose is primarily comic relief, and he always fulfills that duty with skill.
Kino
Lorber’s impressive high definition restoration looks sharp and clear. It comes
with an audio commentary by film historian Joseph McBride, as well as the
theatrical trailer for this and other Billy Wilder releases by Kino.
Five
Graves to Cairo is
a time capsule of its day, a potent look at a filmmaker early in his
extraordinary career, and a marvelous entertainment.
Vinegar
Syndrome is the name of a phenomenon that occurs in motion picture film when
reels of film are poorly stored in hot and humid conditions. The hallmarks of
this unfortunate and inevitable fate to motion picture film consist of physical
degradation of celluloid precipitated by the film development process and
indifferent/poor film storage – such as film stored on rusted metal reels – all
resulting in film bearing the faint or strong smell of vinegar. The film can
become very brittle, suffer from shrinkage and/or take on a contorted shape
making it nearly impossible to run through a projector. In short, the only way
to arrest the process is to make pristine duplicates of the film’s original
camera negative following the developing stage and store them in
climate-controlled conditions. As one can well imagine, however, this type of
care was rarely if ever instituted by low budget movie studios who saw their
assets (i.e. a finished motion picture feature film) as having a limited shelf
life apart from ancillary markets that rarely included life beyond cable and television
broadcasts and foreign cinema exhibition Alternately, they simply didn’t have
the money or space to store the negatives.
Vinegar
Syndrome is also the name of one of the best film preservation companies
working today, located in Connecticut. Their enormous efforts have rescued many
foreign films and drive-in fan favorites from certain death, offering up a
smorgasbord of primarily obscure titles long forgotten from the age of home
video when feature films were released as-is on videocassette (VHS/Beta) and
videodisc (RCA Capacitance Electronic Disc and Pioneer LaserDisc). With
advances made in digital video restoration, films that have never even seen the
light of day outside of a grindhouse theater on 42nd Street in New
York City or a drive-in theater are now available on DVD/Blu-ray/4K Ultra High
Definition Blu-ray thanks to this amazing company.
Zombie
5: Killing Birds,
originally given the equally strange title of Killing Birds: Raptors, begins
promisingly enough before it slows to a craw (sorry, crawl) and interminably
meanders to a sudden and abrupt ending. Filmed in Thibodaux, LA in August 1987,
the plot is schematic and uninspired, light years from the best examples offered
from other Italian thrillers, most notably the giallo genre which the
film seems to be influenced by: Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal
Plumage (1970), Profondo Rosso (1975) and Tenebre (1982) are
among the finest examples to date. However, Killing Birds is by no means
a giallo thriller, and its lack of an interesting cinematic visual style
makes it suffer in the end. Birds concerns a cuckolded Vietnam veteran (Robert
Vaughn, if you can believe it) who murders his wife and her lover upon
returning from the war in 1967, and spares his infant son only to be blinded by
one of the property’s birds. Twenty years later, a group of college students
who study rare birds aim to put another feather in their cap so-to-speak by studying
the rare birds on display in the vast home. It’s the perfect set up for some
crazy though uninspired mayhem. The best thing about Birds is Lara
Wendel, an actress genre fans will recall as the ill-fated Maria who
unwittingly roams into the killer’s house following an attack by a Doberman
pinscher in Tenebre, among many other Italian thrillers. In actuality,
the film is directed by longtime genre favorite Aristide Massaccesi, known
alternately by the much easier-to-pronounce pseudonym of Joe D’Amato (I love
that name), who had his name removed as he had made multiple films in a short
period of time, a maneuver instituted by industry rules. The new Blu-ray from
Vinegar Syndrome includes the following extras:
The
transfer is done in 2K from the film’s original 35mm negative and looks
beautiful.
The
audio includes both the English language track and the Italian dubbed track.
Talons is the name of the video interview with
director Claudio Lattanzi. In December 1985 he began working with Michele Soavi
on the documentary Dario Argento’s World of Horror which is still, as of
this writing, the best documentary on him yet made. In 1986 he also worked with
director Soavi on StageFright and was introduced to Aristide Massaccesi,
aka Joe D’Amato, and the company of Filmirage. He then discusses the writing
process of the film. This is an unusually in-depth interview which runs nearly
50 minutes.
There is a video interview with sound man
Larry Revene who also has worked as a director of photography that runs about
15 minutes and he provides some interesting tidbits on the making of the film
and how the Italian crew was very particular and had their own food catered.
The
real reason to buy this disc is for the package’s standout audio commentary
with film historian and author Samm Deighan who provides a wealth of knowledge and
information on not just the film but the genre and the people involved in the
making of the film. She knows what she’s talking about and she speaks slowly,
authoritatively and is fascinating to listen to. I have heard some other
commentaries with lots of information that the speakers blow through very
quickly, so it was a pleasure to listen to this commentary which is done at a
much slower pace. Ms. Deighan also provides the commentary to the upcoming
Vinegar Syndrome title I Start Counting – I would recommend buying that
Blu-ray sight-unseen just for her commentary alone. I cannot wait to listen to
that one and I haven’t even seen the movie yet!
There
is also reversible cover artwork and newly translated English subtitles.
There
are also the English and Italian trailers included.
If
you’re a fan of Zombie 5: Killing Birds, this is the edition to own. If
you haven’t seen it and are a fan of the horror genre, pick up this disc for
Samm Deighan’s commentary alone. It’s chock full of great info.
By
the time he directed Breezy in November and December 1972, Clint
Eastwood had already proven himself a capable actor with fifteen years of
experience under his belt. He took up the role of director with his debut 1971 film
Play Misty for Me and his follow up, 1973’s High Plains Drifter,
both titles in which he also starred. His third outing is different in that he
set aside his acting hat this time to reside firmly behind the camera of what
is more or less the unlikely tale of a May/December romance between Frank
Harmon (William Holden), a cynical and divorced 54 year-old Los Angeles realtor
and a free spirited teen-aged hippy (Kay Lenz in a wonderful performance) whose
itinerant lifestyle, clearly leftover from the Sixties, lands her in his car one
morning prior to driving to work. Her method of dress, carefree ideals and circle
of friends go against everything he has known and stands for. Breezy (her
nickname suits her as she tends to breeze into and out of Frank’s house) is
imbued with charm, innocence and some worldly experience following a failed
relationship. Frank, conversely, is older – much older – and is tired.
He has achieved success and lives alone in a very nice abode in a respectable
neighborhood overlooking the City of Angels and is unwilling to play the field,
or the fool if you will, when it comes to matters of the heart. Breezy
champions the notion of living life to the fullest and spends a lot of time
lecturing Frank on a variety of subjects. Frank half listens while attempting
to concentrate on his work and their platonic friendship begins to deepen when
Breezy confesses her love for him.
Things come to a head when Breezy is mistaken for Frank’s daughter and the
behind-the-back comments and the looks askance from peers at a High Plains
Drifter (a nice shoutout!) screening prove to be more than Frank can handle
and Breezy is forced to leave in tears.
Onscreen
romances between an older man and a significantly younger woman are nothing new
in cinema. Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962) was controversial for its
time and Woody Allen has made a career out of casting attractive young females
opposite himself (as in 1979’s Manhattan) many times to initially
comedic effect, though now in the midst of the #MeToo Movement it’s downright unnerving,
especially in light of the controversies that have ensued in his personal life.
Richard Burton, of all people, gave this storyline a whirl at the age of 60 and
raised the ick factor up to eleven in Jules Dassin’s final film Circle
of Two (1980) where he gets with a 16-year-old Tatum O’Neal who was fresh
off of Little Darlings. Then again, American Beauty (1999) won
the Best Picture Oscar, so who knows what audiences will accept? As William
Goldman famously wrote, “Nobody knows anything.†What sets Breezy, which
opened in New York City on Sunday, November 18, 1973 at the Columbia II, apart
is that it was written by a woman, the late Jo Heims who tragically succumbed
to breast cancer in 1978. The brief nudity is handled matter-of-factly without
licentiousness and as the film progresses Frank begins to open up to Breezy,
though there is a bit of reluctance that is detectable.
The
late Mr. Holden gives his customary excellent performance. Frank is nuanced and
deliberate. His face speaks volumes with no dialog. He is a man weathered and
battered by life. We have an idea of what sort of person Frank is and even he
slowly begins to acknowledge that Breezy has impacted his life in a positive
way. A decrepit dog lying in the street would have gone unnoticed by Frank in
the past; Breezy’s influence compels him to transport the pooch to a
veterinarian and thus save his life. Ms. Lenz, who got her start at the
Pasadena Playhouse at age 13 and also appeared as a student in George Lucas’s American
Graffiti (1973) around the same time, is always appealing and by the end of
the film we really feel for her, though the uncharacteristically “happy†ending
during a decade mired in Vietnam, Watergate and general overall disillusionment
with the country may seem trite and even perfunctory today. (Recall the unusual
freeze-frame ending of Tony Richardson’s
The
Border (1982) with Jack Nicholson), it almost screams “TV
movie-of-the-weekâ€, but ultimately, I was happy to see them end up together –
for how long, who knows?
The
supporting cast is also quite good. The late Marj Dusay co-stars as someone
Frank could easily see himself with, Joan Hotchkis is notable as Paula, Frank’s
bitter ex-wife who regards Breezy with disdain, and the late Roger C. Carmel is
comical as a friend of Frank’s who bickers with his wife at parties. It also
has a score by the late Michael Legrand who won the Oscar for his lush theme to
Robert Mulligan’s Summer of ’42 (1971). There is a romantic interlude
with a song just like in Play Misty for Me, that film’s sole glaring
misstep.
Kino
Lorber presents Breezy with a beautiful high definition transfer. There
is also a spirited feature-length audio commentary by film historian Howard S.
Berger and author/screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner who discuss the making of the
film and where it fits into the director’s career. It also includes the theatrical
trailer for the film.
Look
fast for Mr. Eastwood in a white jacket and blue pants looking over a metal
fence as Frank and Breezy pass him while walking the dog.
Here
we go again! Another entry in the “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the
Exploitation Picture†series, this time it’s Volume 7. Presented by Kino Lorber
in association with Something Weird Video, we have for your shocking pleasure
the double-bill of Test Tube Babies (1948) and Guilty Parents (1934),
and what a hoot these pictures are.
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.
Kino
Lorber and Something Weird have been doing a bang-up job on releasing a series
of some of the best (i.e., infamous) of these jaw-dropping pieces of celluloid.
One wonders how the movies ever got distributed. They’re so bad that they’re
hilariously entertaining, and they especially elicit eye-rolling because they
often portend to be “instructive†in nature.
Test
Tube Babies was
produced by the notorious George Weiss, who was responsible for many
exploitation pictures of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, including Ed Wood’s Glen or
Glenda. Featuring a slate of no-name actors in an amateurishly put-together
film (it feels like a student project), the movie ironically has a sound
message behind all the sensationalism. Artificial insemination was just
becoming a “thing†in the late 1940s, and the movie attempts to convince an
audience that, if the male partner of a marital union is sterile, then it’s
perfectly acceptable for the wife to undergo artificial insemination by a sperm
donor. Cathy and George (Dorothy Duke and William Thomason) are an attractive
newlywed couple who want to start a family. When, after a year, Cathy is unable
to become pregnant, a doctor (played by Weiss film stalwart Timothy Farrell,
usually always in the role of a physician) tests George and delivers the bad
news. He then proceeds to sell the couple on raising a “test tube baby.†The
exploitation aspect of the movie is the lead-up to all this, as the couple
experiments with swinger parties among their friends. Thus, much of the movie
consists of tawdry softcore skin flashes, frank talk, and even a girl-fight on
the floor of a living room. It’s all designed to titillate. Naturally, Test
Tube Babies would never have passed the Production Code’s guidelines, and it
was thus released independently for adults only.
Guilty
Parents
is surprisingly the better film, albeit much more primitive in production
values. Jean Lacy plays innocent Helen Mason, whose mother (Isabel La Mal) is
frighteningly puritanical and protective of her daughter, refusing to teach
Helen any of the rudiments of the facts of life. Of course, Helen meets a young
man who corrupts her, and the couple commits a robbery. The boyfriend dies from
a gunshot wound, so Helen goes on the run, changes her name, and falls deeper
into a hole of depravity and prostitution. She eventually kills the pimp who is
exploiting her, and she goes to trial. Her defense attorney makes the argument
that it’s all her mother’s fault—that she’s the guilty one—for not
educating Helen in the ways of the world. Oh, and there’s a surprise ending.
Also known as Hitch Hike to Hell, the pre-Code Guilty Parents features
a silhouetted nude sequence and a lot of scantily-clad ladies, gangster-type
men, and material that would never pass the Hays Office once the Code kicked in
later in 1934. Sure, it’s a terrible movie, really, but it’s entertaining in
its time capsule, exploitative way, and Jean Lacy is actually quite winning in
the lead role.
The
high definition restorations look as well as they can, considering the
sources—certainly better than the cheap public domain DVDs and VHS copies of
these films from yesteryear. Supplements include an audio commentary on Test
Tube Babies by Eric Schaefer, author of Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A
History of Exploitation Films; a 1951 “marital education†short, Sex and
Romance; an alternate title sequence for Guilty Parents (with the Hitch
Hike to Hell title); and a collection of other exploitation film trailers.
For
cinephiles interested in this wacky genre of so-bad-it’s-good Forbidden Fruit,
the double bill of Test Tube Babies and Guilty Parents will,
oddly, scandalize you and make you laugh at the same time.
“DANGER,
DARKNESS, AND DAMES IN HIGH DEFINTIONâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Ding
ding ding! Attention all lovers of film noir! The Warner Archive has released
an outstanding 4-film Blu-ray collection of some of the best titles in
this cinematic movement that ran from (approximately) 1941 to 1958. While
author James Ellroy states in the included supplemental documentary, Film
Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light, that noir began in “1945,†this is
obviously incorrect. It would leave out such classics as one of the titles in
the collection (Murder, My Sweet), as well as Double Indemnity
and Laura. Film noir is generally accepted by most film scholars as
beginning in 1941 with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon.
Much
debate and discussion proliferate among film historians and scholars about what
film noir is. Foremost, it is NOT a genre! It is mostly a style,
along with thematic elements that define a group of American motion pictures
that were made throughout the 1940s and 50s that share these qualities. They
are most always crime movies, although there are some instances of other
genres—westerns, science fiction, horror—that were made in a style associated
with film noir.
Generally,
these crime pictures are in black and white, shot in a style akin to German
Expressionism (highly contrasting dark and light, with lots of shadows); are
usually told from the point of view of the criminals; feature cynical,
hard-boiled protagonists; include the presence of a femme fatale (a bad
woman who causes the downfall of “good†man); and are shot in urban locations,
among them seedy bars, shabby motels and hotels, alleys, and streets. There may
be many scenes at night and/or in the rain. Characters smoke and drink as if their
lives depend on it. There are betrayals and double-crosses, and a heavy focus
on past events (lots of flashbacks). Voiceover narration is a common attribute.
Because the plots often deal with taboo subjects (according to the Production
Code), the filmmakers had to be clever with the dialogue—thus, the movies
contain witty, crisp dialogue with innuendoes and quotable one-liners. A “pureâ€
film noir has no happy ending. There is more, but you get the idea.
The
Warner Archive’s new collection combines four titles that are also available
separately. In chronological order (according to when they were originally
released), these gems are in the package.
Murder,
My Sweet
(1944) is based on Raymond Chandler’s 1940 novel, Farewell, My Lovely
and is the first appearance of the Philip Marlowe character. Here, though, he’s
not portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, but is embodied by Dick Powell. This casting
was controversial at the time because Powell was known mostly as a
singer/dancer in musicals. Powell surprised everyone with his tough, sardonic
performance. He’s terrific and certainly gives Bogart a run for his money in
the part. The plot is confusing and all over the place, which is typical of
most of the films adapted from Chandler, but it’s still entertaining to boot.
Claire Trevor is the femme fatale of the piece and delivers a fine, heightened
characterization. It’s violent (for the era), tough, and hard-boiled. It’s a
worthy example of film noir. The high definition transfer is gorgeous with its
natural grain appearance—assuredly a step up from Warner’s original DVD
release. There are no supplements on the disk aside from an audio commentary by
author and film noir expert Alain Silver. Oddly, there is no mention of
Silver’s name on the packaging or the disk menu!
Out
of the Past (1947)
is easily one of the better film noir entries and is often cited as a favorite
among aficionados. Based on the novel Raise My Gallows High by Daniel
Mainwaring, the picture features Robert Mitchum as a man who is haunted by his
past, of course, and beautiful femme fatale Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas
(as the villain!) are instruments of his affliction. Beautifully shot by
Nicholas Musaraca, and moodily directed by Jacques Tourneur (Cat People),
Past also has a complex plot, but it is much easier to follow than the
previous title’s tale. It’s a landmark picture that probably could be dropped
in a bucket containing the “five most important films noir.†The high
definition transfer is breathtakingly good. Again, there are no supplements
except for an audio commentary, this time by author and film noir authority
James Ursini. Yet again, the Warner Archive dropped the ball and does not list
Ursini’s name on the packaging or on the Blu-ray disk menu.
The
Set-Up (1949)
is directed by the versatile Robert Wise, who was a master craftsman in every
genre. Another milestone in the film noir catalog, the movie is based on a poem
by Joseph M. March. It stars Robert Ryan as Stoker, a washed-up boxer who is
hoping to win big in one last fight. His wife, played by Audrey Totter, has
wanted him to give it up for a long time. However, the boxer’s crooked manager
has arranged a “dive†with the mob without Stoker knowing it. Surprising the
manager and the mob, Stoker gives the fight his all. To reveal more would be a
spoiler. Hard-hitting and cynical as hell, The Set-Up apparently was a
big influence on Scorsese’s Raging Bull; in fact, Scorsese himself
appears as an audio commentator on the disk along with director Wise! This audio
commentary is the only supplement, but at least this time both Scorsese and
Wise are listed on the packaging and on the disk menu.
Gun
Crazy (1950)
is based on a short story by MacKinlay Kantor, who co-wrote the screenplay with
none other than master movie scribe Dalton Trumbo, who, because of being
blacklisted at the time, was forced to use a pseudonym in the credits. It’s a
picture in the film noir sub-genre known as “lovers on the run.†Peggy Cummins
and John Dall star as Annie and Bart, gun enthusiasts who begin to commit armed
robberies. Their affection for each other drives the movie, and in many ways Gun
Crazy could also be called a great romance picture. For a low-budget
effort, though, Crazy is also one of the essential films noir—well-written,
acted, and directed. The audio commentary here is by author and film noir
historian Glenn Erickson. An additional supplement on the disk is the
previously mentioned 2006 documentary, Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light,
which features many talking heads and film clips. It’s quite good. Erickson’s
name doesn’t appear on the packaging, but this time his name is on the Blu-ray
disk menu.
The
Warner Archive has done a slam-bang job on the presentation of these four
upgrades to Blu-ray from their original DVD releases. The transfers are
fantastic and the movies themselves belong in any cinephile’s collection. Aside
from the oversights of leaving off documentation of the first two audio
commentators’ names, this is a superb package… and buying the collection is less
expensive than buying the four titles in their separate Blu-ray editions.
Highly recommended.
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