Todd Garbarini
Entries from October 2020
BY TODD GARBARINI
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.
Continue reading "STREAMING REVIEW: MARIO BAVA'S "BLACK SUNDAY" STARRING BARBARA STEELE (WWW.KINONOW.COM)"
(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 The Fast 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.
Continue reading "REVIEW: "RONIN" (1998) STARRING ROBERT DE NIRO; ARROW VIDEO BLU-RAY RELEASE"
BY TODD GARBARINI
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.
Three
recent horror releases that I can safely say never, ever, ever come up
in conversation when suggesting the best horror films to watch in the month of
October include director-credited Claudio Lattanzi’s strangely titled slasher Zombie
5: Killing Birds (1987), Robert Hughes’s straight-to-video
killer-in-the-woods homage Memorial Valley Massacre (1988), and Rubén
Galindo, Jr.’s Grave Robbers (1989). None of these films won any awards
in the acting department, but they are all worth noting for a variety of
reasons.
"ZOMBIE
5: KILLING BIRDS"
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.
Click here to order from Amazon
Continue reading "REVIEWS: THREE HORROR FLICKS FROM VINEGAR SYNDROME: "ZOMBIE 5: KILLING BIRDS", "MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE" AND "GRAVE ROBBERS""
BY TODD GARBARINI
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.
Keep
‘em coming, Kino!
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON
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