Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Latest Title in the Paramount Presents Line Debuts March 30, 2021

Legendary director Cecil B. DeMille’s grand spectacle THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH arrives for the first time on Blu-ray as part of the Paramount Presents line on March 30, 2021 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

A two-time Academy Award-winner^*–including Best Picture and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story–THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH captures the thrills, chills and exhilaration of the circus.  Featuring three intertwining plotlines filled with romance and rivalry, DeMille's film includes spectacular action sequences, including a show-stopping train wreck. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH also boasts a sensational cast, including Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame, and James Stewart. 

Newly restored from a 4K scan of the original negative, this essential movie of the Golden Age of Hollywood packs action, romance, laughs and treachery into an epic only DeMille could create, resulting in one of 1952’s biggest hits.

The limited-edition Paramount Presents Blu-ray Discâ„¢ includes the newly restored film in collectible packaging with a foldout image of the film’s theatrical poster and an interior spread with key movie moments.  THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH Blu-ray also includes a new Filmmaker Focus with film historian Leonard Maltin, exploring the making of the film and its reception, as well as access to a Digital copy of the film.

About Paramount Presents

This collectible line spans celebrated classics to film-lover favorites, each from the studio’s renowned library.  Every Paramount Presents release features never-before-seen bonus content and exclusive collectible packaging.  There are 14 additional titles available in the Paramount Presents collection: Fatal Attraction, King Creole, To Catch a Thief, Flashdance, Days of Thunder, Pretty In Pink, Airplane!, Ghost, Roman Holiday, The Haunting, The Golden Child, Trading Places, The Court Jester and Elizabethtown.

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In this clip, Harrison Ford pays tribute to composer John Williams for his scores for the Indiana Jones films, as Williams is honored by the American Film Institute.

Walter Matthau pays tribute to his friend and frequent co-star Jack Lemmon at the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony for Lemmon in 1988. Lemmon's acceptance speech follows.

Sandra de Bruin is an established actress who has appeared in more than 100 television series (ER, Barnaby Jones, The Rockford Files, Three’s Company, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, to name but a few), TV films (Law and Order, Return to Earth) and feature films (The Andromeda Strain, Gray Lady Down). She has done numerous commercials, worked in voice-over and looping, danced at the Los Angeles Music Center and is the creator of the bestselling Actor's Audition Log. Sandra will periodically be sharing her stories of working with Hollywood legends, which will appear in a forthcoming memoir about her on-and off-screen adventures.

BY SANDRA DE BRUIN WITH DEAN BRIERLY

Throughout my wonderfully unpredictable career I’ve enjoyed a number of repeat chance meetings with various Hollywood luminaries, perhaps none so memorable as my close encounters of the Cliff Robertson kind.

Each film generation boasts a handful of actor’s actors, leading men and women whose work is exceptional yet unaffected in ways that only fellow performers might recognize. To me, Cliff Robertson was such a paradigm during a sparkling career that spanned five-plus decades.

Although he had done acclaimed work in film and television earlier in his career and had a strong stage background, I first became aware of him after seeing the 1963 WWII film P.T. 109, wherein he played John F. Kennedy, then a Naval Lieutenant on the titular torpedo boat. However, Cliff’s Oscar-winning performance in Charly (1969) solidified my admiration for him. Not as the popular macho hero of the time, but as a mildly intellectually disabled adult who agrees to an experiment that temporarily imbues him with a super-intellect. It also leads to a romance with his night school teacher that inevitably turns tragic when Charly regresses to his previous mental state. A truly forward-looking film, both sad and inspiring thanks largely to Cliff’s talent.

In the late 1970s he became every actor’s hero when he exposed the fact that Columbia Pictures studio chief David Begelman had been embezzling money through forged checks. Begelman was subsequently fired, but a year later was named head of MGM, such was Tinseltown’s morality at that time. But the industry didn’t thank Cliff. The studios stood behind their executives, no matter how corrupt, and Cliff suddenly found himself blacklisted for several years. (David McClintick’s 1982 book Indecent Exposure details the entire sordid story.)

However, prior to the blacklisting, he was still landing great roles in significant films through the first half of the ’70s, notably Too Late the Hero (1970), J.W. Coop (1971) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). Also in 1975 came Return to Earth, a TV movie about Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to walk on the moon, and his subsequent mental breakdown as his career and marriage disintegrated. I was cast as Aldrin’s Air Force secretary. However, the shoot date was an “on or about,” meaning sometime in a week or so, giving me an opportunity to work on other shows.

The timing was right, as Lady Luck smiled on me and I was cast on the mystery/comedy TV show Ellery Queen. Dina Merrill, the beautiful New York socialite-turned-actor, married to Cliff Robertson, was the guest star. The breakdown for my character was “an inept secretary in a lawyer’s outer office.” The scene opened with me filing my nails and Dina with her male assistant entering and announcing herself at my desk. I was to buzz my boss on the intercom that she had arrived, then jump up and escort her to his office. Well, when I jumped up I accidently knocked over my pencil holder, sending pens and pencils all over the floor in front of her. As I babbled an incoherent apology her assistant immediately began picking up the pencils. The crew and some bystanders, which to my surprise included Cliff, broke into laughter.

However, the director was not amused and yelled in an irritated voice, “Cut! Let’s go again. Sandra, try not to knock over the pencils this time.”

Encouraged by the laughter and not wanting to acknowledge it was an accident, I countered, “The character description says she’s inept. I thought it would be funny.” There was a pause as the director gave it some thought. “Okay, go with it. But for the record the description says inept, not clumsy.” The director always has to have the last word, as well he or she should.

We did one or two more takes, close-ups, etc., and moved into the interior of the lawyer’s office. After making the introductions, I turned to go and suddenly remembered the hilarious scene in the 1973 film Day for Night in which the Italian actress Valentina Cortese kept opening or colliding with the wrong door. With that embedded in my mind, I deliberately walked smack into the open office door. Everyone stifled a laugh as I muttered something and exited very tentatively while closing the door behind me. (Interestingly, Ingrid Bergman said in her 1975 Oscar acceptance speech, “This Oscar belongs to Valentina Cortese for her performance in Day for Night.”)

The director yelled, “Cut! Good! Like it! Let’s do it again, and Dina, give me an ‘I don’t believe her’ reaction.” She did a marvelous blank look, rolling her eyes upward.

We did the scene a few more times, then moved back to my outer desk as Dina and her assistant took their leave. That was it for the day. After saying farewell and thank you to everyone, I gathered my things from my trailer, including the wardrobe I had worn on the show, and began the long walk to my car parked in the back lot at Universal. Just a short distance from the sound stage a bland, nondescript car slowed down and a male voice called, “Can I give you a lift to your car?”

Without even looking at who was driving, I happily replied, “That would be great!” (Studio personnel driving cars and golf carts on the lot often did this helpful thing, so I didn’t hesitate accepting.) After getting myself, my wardrobe and other stuff situated in the passenger seat, I turned to look at the driver. It was Cliff Robertson! I think I said something like, “Oh, it’s you,” not knowing at the moment what else to say.

He laughed and complimented me on my performance, which of course I graciously accepted. We talked briefly about his film Charly, which he was very proud of, and then I asked him how Dina was going to get home. He grinned and said, “They have a limo for her.”

The head-spinning release schedule of the oft-delayed "No Time to Die" has taken another turn. The film is now scheduled to open internationally on September 30 of this year. However, American Bond fans will have to sulk for a week, as the U.S. opening won't occur until October 8. For more, click here.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The comedic genius of Peter Sellers is amply displayed in his 1963 hit British comedy "The Wrong Arm of the Law". Sellers was already an established star in the UK and in 1964 his reputation (and salary) would rise considerably with the release of his two major tour-de-force performances in "The Pink Panther" and "Dr. Strangelove". "The Wrong Arm of the Law" and "Heaven's Above!" (released the same year) would be the last of Sellers' modestly budgeted B&W British comedy productions. While Sellers would go on to bigger things, the charm of the British farces remains irresistible. In "The Wrong Arm of the Law", admirably directed by Cliff Owen, Sellers has a larger-than-life role as "Pearly" Gates, the leader of a London crime ring who masquerades by day as a fey French fashion designer. In amusing scenes, we see Pearly addressing his clients in an upper crust manner complete with heavy French accent. Seconds later, he berates his gang members in a back room and reverts back to normal voice as an unsophisticated gangster. Pearly orchestrates a number of audacious robberies that his men carry off successfully- until they are confronted by a rival mob who pose as police officers. They have official uniforms and use of an official squad car and intimidate the gang into giving them the stolen loot. By the time Pearly's men realize they've been snookered, the other gang has taken off with their ill-gotten gains. Unable to tell real cops from the I.P.O. Mob (Impersonating a Police Officer), as they are now known, Pearly's men have to hand over the fruits of their labors in every robbery they carry out. While Pearly considers himself a criminal mastermind, he cannot figure out how the gang's robbery plans are are known to the I.P.O. gang in advance. In reality, the plans are being leaked by his seductive girlfriend Valerie (Nanette Newman), who uses sex to disarm Pearly and have him blab about his next robbery. When Pearly learns that a rival gang headed by Nervous O'Toole (Bernard Cribbins) is also being victimized, they decide to form an alliance to thwart the I.P.O. gang. They ally with a third party, Police Inspector "Nosey" Parker (Lionel Jeffries), a buffoon who convinces the top brass to allow him to work with the two gangs in order to thwart the police impersonators, who are causing embarrassment to the department.

The briskly-paced crime spoof offers considerable pleasures. It's never outright hilarious but it is highly entertaining, with Sellers in top form and aided considerably by some of England's best comedy actors. (Lionel Jeffries is especially amusing.) The climax is a comedy of errors in which Pearly persuades the police brass to use a fortune in actual currency as the bait for a trap for the I.P.O. gang. What results is master disaster for all concerned with gangsters and police running amok trying to retrieve the loot in a scene reminiscent of the finale of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (coincidentally released the same year.) The film represents another example of how efficiently made British films of this era were- and how impressive the talent pool was that producers could utilize. 

"The Wrong Arm of the Law" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. The transfer, provided by FilmRise is excellent. Viewing is free for Prime members and it can be rented for $1.99 or purchased for streaming for $7.99.

BY DOUG OSWALD

A Japanese Naval officer and an American Marine Corps aviator are marooned on a Pacific island during WWII in “Hell in the Pacific,” available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. The film is a virtual silent movie with the exception of the Pacific island sounds of surf, wind, birds and the occasional words spoken by the co-protagonists portrayed by Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin. However, neither understands the other’s language. The film opens with Mifune scanning the horizon for any signs of rescue when he spots a deflated life raft. The rubber raft belongs to Marvin who is hiding in the thick jungle growth nearby. Marvin is able to elude discovery by Mifune, but eventually thirst forces him to reveal himself on the beach.

Mifune captures Marvin after several attempts are made by Marvin to take water from Mifune’s water supply as well as other general mayhem like stealing fish from Mifune’s fish trap. Mifune ties him to a stock and Marvin is forced to drag a piece of driftwood up and down the beach. Mifune also blindfolds Marvin because he doesn’t want Marvin looking at him. Later, Marvin tricks Mifune and the tables are turned. Mifune is now forced to drag the log while tied to a stock and blindfolded. The island is not so much Hell, but a sort of Purgatory where each man takes turns harassing the other. Eventually, Marvin tires of this and releases Mifune, much to Mifune’s befuddlement. The men form a grudging alliance and focus their efforts on building a raft to escape the island. They do escape, only to arrive at a larger bombed out island once occupied by both sides. Perhaps this is their fate, to repeat the cycle.

Although the setting is World War II in the Pacific, the movie could just as well be set in a post apocalyptic or alien world. The 1985 science fiction film “Enemy Mine” offers an alternate version of “Hell in the Pacific” and was clearly partially inspired by that film. Although based on a 1977 novella, “Enemy Mine” is a unique, but maintains the basic plot of two enemies forced to work together in order to survive. This story concept served as a template used in countless television series from “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek” to “The Rat Patrol” and “Battlestar Galactica.”

Directed by John Boorman, “Hell in the Pacific” was released four years before his 1972 box office hit, “Deliverance.” He previously worked with Marvin on the 1971 thriller “Point Blank.” While not a prolific director, Boorman directed several high profile movies such as “Zardoz” (1974), “Exorcist II: The Heretic” (1977), the ultimate Arthurian epic “Excalibur” (1981), “The Emerald Forrest (1985), the autobiographical “Hope and Glory” (1987), “Beyond Rangoon” (1995) and “The Tailor of Panama” (2001). I have no doubt Boorman put his heart and soul into every production.

Released by Cinerama Releasing Corporation in December 1968, the movie under- performed at the box office. This was probably due to the unusual nature of the film with sparse dialogue, no subtitles, bleak setting and downbeat ending. The original ending as directed by Boorman was scrapped in favor of the ending fans are familiar with as seen in the theater, on television and on the initial home video releases. The DVD release by MGM was the first release to include the original ending as does this Blu-ray release. Making great use of the wide screen lens, the movie was filmed on location in the Palau Islands which are located north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines where the WWII Battle of Peleliu took place from September to November 1944.

Both Marvin and Mifune served in the Pacific during WWII. Marvin was a Marine wounded during the Battle of Saipan in 1944. Mifune was in the Japanese Army Air Service. Mifune was the most famous actor from Japan at the time and Marvin had recently received an Oscar for “Cat Ballou” (1965) and was in one of the biggest box office hits of 1967, “The Dirty Dozen.” Both men featured in many now classic movies in a variety of genres from detective thrillers, dramas and comedies to samurai films (Mifune) and westerns (Marvin). “Hell in the Pacific” is a must-see movie if, for no other reason,n than to experience the result of the creative triumphant of John Boorman directing Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin. Both Marvin and Mifune deserve praise for their performances.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific and is a worthy upgrade from the early DVD releases by Anchor Bay and MGM. Extras on the disc include an insightful audio commentary by Travis Crawford and Bill Ackerman, in-depth discussions by director John Boorman and another by Art Director Anthony Pratt. The disc also includes subtitles which reveal the dialog spoken in Japanese by Mifune and the dialog spoken by Marvin. The real treat comes in the form of an option to view the movie as originally seen upon release in theaters or with the alternate ending. The alternate ending is more accurately Boorman’s original filmed ending. As for me, I prefer Boorman’s version, but I’m pleased both are offered. The previous MGM DVD release only offered the Boorman ending as an extra on the disc and did not edit it back into the movie as this release does. The disc also includes reverseable sleeve artwork and the trailers for five other Kino releases. Unfortunately, a trailer for this movie is not included. This is a movie which needs to be watched multiple times; with the original ending, with the theatrical release ending, with the subtitles and also with the audio commentary. Well worth it for fans of this outstanding movie. It’s a terrific Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber.

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Retro movie historian Jonathan Baak looks back on the 1974 disaster blockbuster "The Towering Inferno" and provides interesting insights into the making of the film.

BY DARREN ALLISON

Fireball XL5

It’s always a gratifying feeling when Silva screen produces another title in their successful Gerry Anderson collection. This time around, they have focused on the 1962-63 series, Fireball XL5 (SILLP1595).

The black & white puppet television series followed the missions of Fireball XL5, a vessel of the World Space Patrol in the year 2062. Commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac, XL5 travels the universe encountering alien civilisations and defending planet Earth from interstellar threats. It was produced, like most other Anderson productions, in Supermarionation, using puppetry techniques that captured the imagination of a generation.

The Fireball XL5 soundtrack has been newly compiled, mastered and designed by the creative and committed team at Fanderson – The Official Gerry And Sylvia Anderson Appreciation Society.

The album features 24 tracks from 16 episodes, including the Fireball XL5 main theme and single version. In the opening theme, Barry Gray employs, for the first time, the Ondes Martenot, bringing an eerie and other-worldly sound to the series. The contrast of detached electronic music with the jazzy musical language served as a perfect juxtaposition of the alien and human Worlds. Each episode would finish with the pop song “Fireball”, bringing the viewer back to the warmth of their 60s lounge. The song was performed by Don Spencer and was a minor hit in the UK, spending 12 weeks in the UK charts and peaking at number 32.

Barry Gray was a classically trained composer and a versatile musician and was amongst the first composers to use electronic instruments in music for television. Best known for creating the music for most of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson television series in the 1960s and 70s (Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds, UFO, Space:1999), Barry Gray’s complete musical opus is still not commercially available in its entirety. Fanderson, dedicated to the productions of Gerry Anderson, has gained access to all Barry Gray’s original studio tapes and have undertaken a major re-issue project. Together with Fanderson, Silva Screen Records is championing Barry Gray’s incredible musical opus and is releasing the material in a series of physical and digital albums and vinyl records.

Given the age of this early soundtrack, the music is crisp, clean and has a wide dynamic range. One has to applaud the production team who have really exceeded expectations. As with the rest of the series of albums, the packaging is superb, presented in a thick, sturdy gatefold sleeve and with both platters pressed in a transparent orange vinyl, it really is a thing of beauty and nothing less of what is deserved.

The album is also available on CD format (SILCD1595) and as a digital download.

Rawhead Rex

Released in 1986, horror film Rawhead Rex (SILLP1606) was based on a short story by Clive (Hellraiser) Barker. The tale is set in 1980s rural Ireland. The Demon, alive for millennia and trapped in the depths of Hell, is unleashed on the sleepy local farming community. Remembered faintly through pre-Christian myth, the only one that can stop Rawhead’s bloody rampage is the historian, desperately racing against the time.

Composer Colin Towns is not only one of Europe’s most prolific film, television and theatre composers, but also a pianist, songwriter, arranger, producer and collaborator. His name has graced the credits of many prestigious and popular features. "The first film I scored was Full Circle which starred Mia Farrow and is still in the BFI top ten for best score for horror films. I felt that film was more of a dark scary mystery. Rawhead Rex on the other hand was clearly a horror film 100%. I visited the film set in Ireland during the filming to take in the atmosphere and meet the actors after which I decided to record the music at CTS in London with a sixty piece orchestra plus electronics. I have always orchestrated my own work and had a wild time with Rawhead which is what I really love doing". Colin Towns

Towns, known for The Puppet Masters, Space Truckers, Maybe Baby, Foyle’s War, Doc Martin and Pie in The Sky, created a hugely enjoyable and diverse score for Rawhead Rex. It’s main theme especially conveys plenty of power, tension and full-on threatening brass. However, on the flip side of that, tracks such as ‘Welcome to Ireland’ or ‘The Family is Leaving’ are open and lush with some beautiful use of the string section - all of which makes for a nicely balanced and entirely rewarding mix.

This long-awaited score album is packaged in an attractive gatefold sleeve with both of the LPs pressed in an appropriate blood red vinyl. The soundtrack is also available on CD format (SILCD1606) and as a digital download from Silva screen’s website.

Both the Gerry Anderson and Rawhead Rex releases can be ordered from:

https://www.silvascreen.com/

Sit back and watch "Lady Godiva of Coventry" starring Maureen O'Hara, courtesy of Universal. (We hope you don't blush too easily...) 

“HEY, MANNY!”

By Raymond Benson

One of the generally underrated and mostly forgotten great action thrillers of the 1980s was Runaway Train, a sleeper that took audiences by surprise in late 1985/early 1986. Produced by the low-rent team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus for the now-defunct Cannon Films, Train was not the partners’ ordinary B-movie action fare. The picture’s pedigree assured that there was going to be something interesting within, and there was.

Runaway Train was originally an Akira Kurosawa project. The Japanese director had conceived the movie, co-written a screenplay with two of his regular colleagues, and planned to make it in conjunction with a Hollywood studio in the late 1960s. According to the supplements on Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release of the film, Kurosawa wanted to cast Henry Fonda and Peter Falk in the lead roles of escaped convicts aboard an out-of-control train speeding to its oblivion. Unfortunately, weather and financial hurdles caused the production to fail, so Kurosawa went on to work on Tora, Tora, Tora!, only to be replaced by Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda on that production when Kurosawa fell behind schedule and went over-budget.

Enter Golan-Globus. They secured the rights to the screenplay in the early 1980s and had it revised by Paul Zindel and Edward Bunker. With Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky hired to helm the picture, Djordje Millicevic came in to do more work on the script. The casting of Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, though, elevated the project to near-A-list caliber. The result is a breathtaking, armrest-gripping experience. Both leads were nominated for Academy Awards (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively), and the film received a deserved Editing nomination. At the time, the performances by Voight and Roberts were perceived by some as “over the top.” Nonsense. Runaway Train can be listed on the two actors’ resumes as among the best work either of them ever did. (Voight did win a Golden Globe for his performance.)

Manny (Voight) is the most notorious inmate of Alaska’s Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison. He’s been in solitary for three years, and he’s a thorn in the side of Warden Ranken (John P. Ryan). When he’s finally released from solitary, Voight makes his escape with the help of Buck (Roberts), who tags along with Manny as they run through the freezing cold wasteland with the warden and guards in pursuit. Eventually, they secretly board a train—but the lone engineer suffers a heart attack and dies before he can shut down the engine. The only other person aboard besides the two convicts is a feisty train hostler named Sara (Rebecca DeMornay). Meanwhile, the railroad employees at the control center (Kyle T. Heffner, Kenneth McMillan, and T. K. Carter) have to figure out how to stop the train before it causes a disaster. The movie then becomes a chase, a doomsday scenario, and a conflict of wills between man, nature, and machinery.

One can see how the movie grew from a simple premise into this obstacle course of a feature. The train can’t be diverted to that line because it’s near a nuclear power plant! No, not that way, there’s a bridge that will collapse if a train barrels over it at that speed! Uh oh, that track leads head on with a freight train moving in its direction! The possibilities for set pieces were endless, and the writers knew it.

As for the performances… Jon Voight is made up to be a Frankenstein monster of sorts with scars, gold teeth, and a half-shut eye. The actor gives the character—a truly despicable and vicious villain—everything he has, and it’s fabulous. Eric Roberts’ Buck is the brawn, but he’s short on brains. He, too, chews the scenery with aplomb, annoyingly calling out, “Hey, Manny! Hey, Manny!” throughout the picture. It’s appropriate, though, and this is easily the actor’s best work since The Pope of Greenwich Village. The thing is—these “over the top” characterizations are in tune with the outlandishness of the movie itself. The entire production is dynamite.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray restoration looks superb. It comes with an audio commentary with Roberts and film historians David Del Valle and C. Courtney Joyner. The only supplement is a “Trailers from Hell” episode on the picture featuring Rod Lurie, plus theatrical trailers for this and other Kino Lorber releases.

Runaway Train is an unsung masterpiece of gritty 1980s independent filmmaking, and it’s worth a revisit for those of you who may have elapsed memories of it, and it’s an enthusiastic recommendation for those of you who have never been on the ride.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

One of the most troubled film productions of its era, the 1983 sci-fi thriller "Brainstorm" is mostly remembered for being the final film of Natalie Wood, who famously died under mysterious circumstances during production. The movie was directed by legendary special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull. It was his second directorial effort following the 1972 release of his cult favorite, "Silent Running". Based on a story by Bruce Joel Rubin, who would go on to loftier achievements, "Brainstorm" combines science fiction elements with the traditional conspiracy sub-plot that has permeated so many thrillers over the last half-century. The premise is intriguing, however. Scientists Michael Brace (Christopher Walken) and his colleague Lillian Reynolds (Louise Fletcher) head a small team that's working for a major corporation headed by Alex Terson (Cliff Robertson). They have succeeded in creating the most fantastic scientific achievement of all time: the ability to video record people's thoughts and preserve them on tape. Even more impressive, the tape can be accessed by others, who must don a rather cumbersome helmet that looks like a combination of comic book Ant-Man and Ed Norton's Captain Video chapeau from that famed episode of "The Honeymooners". At first, the experience is a joyous one, as each member of team is able to view what their colleagues have imagined for the sake of the experiment. Thus, the images consist of visual delights such as soaring over the Grand Canyon and immersing oneself in a thrilling rollercoaster ride. However, when privately utilizing the device, each member of the team is unable to control their innermost thoughts. All humans have at least fleeting fantasies that are either arousing, shocking, distasteful or all of the aforementioned. When members of the team begin to secretly access their colleague's visuals, unintended consequences occur. One person becomes obsessed with someone else's graphic sexual fantasy with disastrous psychological and physical results. It becomes apparent that the device is less a dream machine than a potential instrument of destruction. Adding to the tension is the fact that a new member of the team, Karen (Natalie Wood), is Michael's wife and the two are currently going through the process of a messy divorce even while they still live under the same roof with their young son.

A subplot is introduced mid-way through the film in which government officials (the villains, of course) want to take control over the project for intelligence purposes. The scientists rebel at this, even though Alex has been cooperating with them. They become determined to subvert their own achievements rather than have them militarized. This plot device gives the audience heroes to cheer for and baddies to boo. However, the scenario is implausible. It stands to reason that any responsible government would want to have control of mind-reading technology for the simple reason that adversarial nations would inevitably gain access to the same abilities and could use them for intimidating purposes. Nevertheless, the scenario allows for some action scenes in which director Trumbull gets to show off his special effects abilities, as in a scene in which a wild melee ensues inside the scientists' laboratory. (The effects must be viewed within the context of the era in which they were created and although crude by today's standards, an objective analysis is that they were highly impressive when the film was in production.) The most intriguing aspect of "Brainstorm" is a parallel dilemma that is introduced when a member of the team realizes they are about to die. They manage to record their final thoughts on video. Michael realizes that the video might hold the answer to eternal question: is there life after death? If so, whatever the dead scientist experienced might have been recorded for posterity. Alex warns Michael not to tempt fate and view the images...but you know how that goes. This aspect of the plot is the most fascinating and thought-provoking and allows the film to end on a satisfying note.

"Brainstorm" is by no means a sci-fi classic but it certainly deserved a better fate. With Natalie Wood's death, Trumbull had little time to mourn his leading lady. He had to immediately salvage the film by rewriting portions of the script and editing existing footage of Wood in creative ways to extend her role until the final scenes of the movie. (Natalie's sister Lana stood in for her in certain shots.) Trumbull hit another speed bump when MGM decided to cancel production of the movie, even as Trumbull was trying to salvage it. The studio was going to accept a payout from Lloyds of London when Trumbull exercised a clause in his contract that forbade them from doing so. This prolonged process delayed release of the movie substantially. By the time it had opened, Wood's death had already faded from the headlines despite the scandalous aspects and unanswered questions which remain unresolved today. Not even the morbidly curious could save it from being a boxoffice flop. Trumbull was so disgusted by his battles with the studio that he vowed to never direct another major film. He kept true to his word and has used his filmmaking talents primarily for educational projects.  Despite all these woes, Trumbull's final cut of "Brainstorm"  is reasonably compelling and the performances are all fine, if unremarkable, though it's interesting to note that Walken had not yet overtly demonstrated the kind of eccentricities that would characterize his performances in the years to come. 

The Warner Archive Blu-ray presents a fine transfer but, alas no special features except for a trailer. If ever a film deserved to have a commentary track, this is it.

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BY TIM MCGLYNN

During the 1970s, small distribution companies such as Sunn Classic Pictures, began to carve out a niche in the film industry by concentrating on low budget family-oriented movies. With the MPAA rating system firmly in place, moms and dads needed to search for G-rated titles they knew would be suitable for younger audiences. Aside from Disney features, it was often difficult to find such films.

Documentaries with educationally sound titles such as Cougar Country, In Search of Noah’s Ark and The Outer Space Connection played matinees at theaters across the country. Usually shot in 16mm and sometimes a tad boring, these movies were a safe destination for parents looking to drop the kids off for a couple of hours.

If any of these children happened to be unloaded at a local cinema playing The Legend of Boggy Creek, they were in for quite a surprise. Initially, it may have looked safe with a G rating and a storyline concerning a Bigfoot type of creature. Little did these kids realize they were in for a scary trip through the Arkansas wetlands where there had been stories of a large, two-legged monster over the past two decades. Farmers and ranchers had reported mutilated or missing livestock along with sightings of the creature.

Charles B. Pierce of Louisiana, a local television personality and creator of commercials, made his directorial debut with 1972’s The Legend of Boggy Creek, a quasi-documentary. The film chronicled the search for a seven-foot tall Bigfoot like creature that dwelled in the swamps near the town of Fouke, AR. Pierce allowed local residents to relate their experiences with what became known as the Fouke Monster. Dramatic recreations of sightings and confrontations with the creature were also filmed with local actors playing the roles of real life witnesses.

Adhering to the idea of “less is more,” Pierce never showed a close-up or an otherwise clear shot of the monster and there is no graphic violence or gore. He felt that what you didn’t see was more frightening than a man in a hairy suit. This style of storytelling would serve Steven Spielberg well in 1975 with his epic thriller Jaws.

While the production budget was about $160,000, which Pierce borrowed from a local trucking company, the director achieved an incredibly effective film by shooting in 35mm Techniscope. The photography in the creeks and marshes near Fouke is gorgeous and there are many shots of indigenous creatures and birds. The soundtrack of forest sounds lends a creepy atmosphere to the movie especially in the night scenes outside of local cabins.

The script by Earl E. Smith opens with several eyewitness accounts and some very distant shots of the monster that only define it as a large shape. Then there are depictions of actual contact with the beast where the residents in cabins attempt to kill it with shotguns and rifles. It is in these scenes that we hear the ferocious roar of the animal as it slips back into the darkness. Special mention needs to be made of the excellent narration by Vern Stierman. His news-anchor like professionalism adds an air of authenticity to the docu-drama style of the film.

A serviceable music score is provided by Jamie Mendoza-Nava, which includes a folksong type ballad sung by the filmmaker Charles Pierce. The director also served as his own photographer, using an older camera to which he made several modifications for this film. Pierce is very adept at setting up several jump scares where the creature is suddenly in the frame, often shown from the back. The 2.35 widescreen ratio is vital to these shots and they are quite effective. Another startling scene involves the creature being spotted as it suddenly crosses the road. This is filmed through a car windshield as the occupants are fleeing the scene.

I found the most impressive parts of the film are the two extended scenes where residents in a cabin and a mobile home are threatened by the monster. The whole “something is out there” scenario is well-played as the actors react to the danger in a realistic fashion. No randy teenagers doing drugs in the woods, just parents protecting their families by any means necessary.

Without giving away too much information about the conclusion, I’ll just say that the story has a possible open ending. Multiple sightings of the Fouke Monster were reported by more than 250 individuals over a period of 20 years until the making of this film. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that people in the area continue to see the monster. There were two sequels, one authorized and one not. Charles Pierce made Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues in 1984, but by his own admission it was not a very successful effort.

In 1976 director Pierce worked with Samuel Z. Arkoff and American International Pictures in creating his best-known work, The Town That Dreaded Sundown. This film pre-dated the slasher film craze of the 1980s with the true story of a masked killer terrorizing the town of Texarkana, TX. The cast included Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells and, once again, narrator Vern Stierman.

I recently communicated by e-mail with Pamula Pierce Barecelou, daughter of Charles Pierce, and asked about the re-mastering of the film. She replied that one of the challenges was locating a quality print. “After gaining permission from Mr. Ledwell (the film’s financier) to pursue the restoration in 2014, I had to find a good print to work from and that hunt took four years. One was finally found at the British Film Institute of all places!”

Ms. Pierce went on to describe the actual process. “I was able to connect with the venerable George Eastman Museum and Audio Mechanics to have to the work performed. I trusted their expertise.”

BY GIACOMO SELLONI

The Act of Reading is Mark Blumberg's first documentary feature. One can categorize it as what's considered a "personal, or me documentary”, as it tells the story of his Ahab-like obsession of finally writing the book report on "Moby Dick" that, without doing so in eleventh grade, caused him to fail his English class. Damn that wickedly, wordy, white whale!

Show of hands from those of you reading this: how many of you can honestly say you made it through the entire novel? Anyone? Buhler? Yeah, neither have I. But we know the story, don't we? From the first line "Call me Ishmael" to the drowning death of Ahab, we all know a bit about the story. T'was obsession that did him in. A lesson, to be sure. Herman Melville's fanatical Ahab predates J.M. Barrie's Captain Hook and his crocodile obsession by fifty-three years. Yes, Barrie based his captain on Melville's.

The film opens, in of all places, Austin, Texas with high school English teacher Vicki Hebert introducing the novel "Moby Dick" to her class. Had we had an instructor with such passion for the material, we too may have been "given membership in a kind of cohort, or club [in which] one finds a, little disturbing, as well as exhilarating sense for many readers that the book was written for them." says Samuel Otter - Professor of English UC Berkeley. I had instructors in both high school and college whose passion was palpable. Paul Noonan and Father Robert Roth, S.J. would "act" what we were studying\, Noonan with Shakespeare's Macbeth and Roth with Plato's Socrates dialogues. That may be why I have a passion for those works as opposed to Melville's novel with its rough sledding through mogul-filled vocabulary along with its "theological meditations" (as voiced by Otter). Many of the characters' names and attributes have biblical roots. Ishmael, Elijah, Rachel. And the name Ahab (according to Wikipedia), "derives from the Hebrew ahavah and aheb meaning "to love" or "beloved".

Blumberg's journey kicks off in New Jersey and takes us many places. He meets with his former English teacher, Janet Werner. He informs her that this film is going serve as his overdue book report. He travels to Bedford, Massachusetts to take part in the annual "Moby Dick Marathon" where he meets Peter Whittemore, the great-great-grandson of Melville and we intrude on some of the aloud readings. Back in Austin, Blumberg's wife, Alissa, meets Elizabeth Doss, yoga instructor, playwright and great-great-great-granddaughter of Melville. She's written a play, "Poor Herman" and we see scenes from it.

We're taken to the Arrowhead Farm in Berkshire county, Massachusetts. It was Melville's home. We, along with Blumberg and Whittemore, learn more about Melville's history, family and 'affair' with Nathaniel Hawthorne. To Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and the Mixed Magic Theatre company where we meet Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, an actor/theatre director who staged "Moby Dick- Then and Now" (we see excerpts) for M.I.T.'s New Media Literacy Project. On to San Francisco where we meet Mark Blumberg's older brother Kris, a nurse who tells Mark, who is attempting to turn him on to "Moby Dick", "I don't read. So I don't think."

Maryanne Wolf - Reading Expert, Stanford University: "Most people believe that reading is something that the brain has that unfolds just like language or vision. It is anything but true. Reading is an unnatural act." Philosophy Professor John Cleary: "How we find meaning is often constructed, not received. The meaning that's found by the student is theirs, they have to possess it and make it theirs...Being wise means that you're engaged with the interpretation of wisdom." And there's an excerpt from Plato's Phaedrus and "the illusion of knowledge." Wolf informs us of how it was Socrates who helped "transition an oral-based culture to a literacy culture and how it relates to us as we are transitioning from a literacy based culture to a digital one with similar issues about memory and delusions of knowledge."

Back to the marathon. Back to the experts. To the museum. To the Whalecave, Queequeg! It all sounds much harder to follow than it actually is.

"The Act of Reading" seems, at times, almost too ambitious. There is so much information here... Clinical experts expound on the nature of learning, on Dyslexia, and how it's been with humanity for over 50,000 years, hoow our capacity for learning comes from reading. Somehow, Blumberg manages to pull them together in this film.

As Vicki Hebert says: "Reading is more intimate than any other media." And, as to why she teaches her students "Moby Dick": "I want them to be happy with who they are. But I want them to be smart about the world so they don't get eaten alive or horribly disappointed.” Why is "Moby Dick" so important to that? This film attempts to answer that question.

"The Act of Reading" is much more intimate than a viewer will expect, especially the final scene at the Blumberg Family home when Mark's former teacher Janet Werner and her husband join the Blumbergs for dinner and film critique.

The film is available to stream as on iTunes or for rent on Amazon Prime.

“THE WEAPON OF SEX”

By Raymond Benson

The great Taiwanese director Ang Lee has worked in Asia and in Hollywood, delivering an impressive array of motion pictures that have won awards, made money, and wowed audiences. A handful of his titles that includes Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Life of Pi (2012) place him on a top tier of filmmakers working today. He’s also won two Oscars for Best Director for the latter two titles.

Lee’s 2007 feature that came after the success of Brokeback Mountain was Lust, Caution, a Hong Kong/American co-production that won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, made some waves in Asia and other markets internationally, but was, sadly, little seen in the West. That said, Focus Features, which distributed the picture, has said that Lust, Caution is the highest grossing movie rated NC-17 ever released in the U.S. More on that in a bit.

The film is inspired by the true story of Chinese spy Zheng Pingru, a woman who allowed herself to be the bait in a “honey trap” for a Japanese collaborator target during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which began in 1937 and folded into World War II. The movie is based on a novella by Eileen Chang, and it was adapted for the screen by Hui-Ling Wang and James Schamus, the latter a longtime colleague of Lee.

In the late 1930s, the Japanese have occupied most of China and the country is being ruled by a puppet government. Many Chinese officials, including Mr. Yee (Tony Leung, credited as Tony Chiu-Wai Leung), a handsome, but rather cold elitist who acts as a recruiter and special agent. In short, he is a traitor to his country. A naïve but passionate group of university theatre students in Hong Kong devise a half-baked plan to assassinate Yee by luring him to a remote location. Young Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) volunteers to be the seductress, even though she’s a virgin and is clearly out of her depth. The attempt fails, there is a violent disaster (an astonishing sequence that can’t be revealed here!), and the students flee and scatter. The story resumes in 1942 in Shanghai as the students, now resistance fighters, regroup and start their plan anew. This time Wong Chia Chi is much more confident, has been trained, and can do a much better job at seducing Yee. Unfortunately, Yee, despite his villainy, is charismatic, powerful, and teaches the woman a thing or two about sex and passion. Now conflicted, Wong is caught in her own honey trap in which newly discovered lust and her duty to country battle for domination of her spirit. Sex has indeed become a weapon on both sides.

Lust, Caution is a fascinating, beautifully shot movie that is extremely well acted. The period detail is compelling, and the sense of foreboding and oppression that motivates the characters is palpable. The performance by Tang Wei, especially, is courageous and revealing in shocking vulnerability, considering the sex scenes depicted. Tony Leung, a stalwart actor in Hong Kong pictures, exhibits a different persona than one previously seen in his action flicks.

The movie was controversial in many markets because of the explicit nature of the sex scenes and the one sequence of violence. In America, the film was rated NC-17, which is considered box office poison. Ang Lee refused to make cuts, so it was released intact. Other markets censored the picture on their own—for example, China released it in a heavily-cut version, and it was a hit. It must be said that the sex scenes are gorgeously photographed and powerfully presented so that the emotions between the two characters are unambiguous. This is important to the story and serves to justify Wong’s actions toward the end of the movie.

This reviewer’s only quibble with the film is that the ultimate message is a little too cynical. The thrust of the story examines a young woman’s sacrifices of her mind, heart, and body to patriotism, and it brings up difficult moral questions that are not easily answered. This is not a happy movie. In fact, it is quite troubling, and that is likely the point.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray presents the uncensored NC-17 cut of Lust, Caution in a gorgeous digital restoration. It comes with an audio commentary by film historian Eddy Von Mueller. The only supplement aside from the theatrical trailer is a short featurette on the making of the film.

Lust, Caution is a challenging erotic thriller that will appeal to fans of World War II history, Chinese and Hong Kong pictures, and the films of director Ang Lee. For adults with discerning tastes.

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"OUT OF THE PAST: THE BEST FROM CINEMA RETRO'S ARCHIVES"

“A STUDY OF DARKNESS”

By Raymond Benson

One of the more controversial motion pictures to emerge out of what film historians call “New Hollywood” was In Cold Blood, which was released to theaters “for mature audiences only.” The New Hollywood movement began around 1966, when the Production Code finally started to collapse (and before the movie ratings were instituted) and studios commenced allowing auteur filmmakers to do whatever the hell they wanted. The year 1967 was especially a groundbreaking one with the release of such “adult” fare as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, and In Cold Blood.

In Cold Blood is based on the “non-fiction novel” by Truman Capote about the true crime of 1959 in which an innocent family of four in Kansas were murdered by two ex-cons who believed there was $10,000 hidden in a safe in the house (there wasn’t). Capote spent several years writing the book, interviewing law enforcement men involved in the case, as well as the two killers themselves—Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. The accused were eventually executed in 1965. In Cold Blood turned out to be, along with Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, one of the two most successful true crime books ever published.

Richard Brooks was a Hollywood veteran who had been working in the industry since before World War II. In the 1950s, he made a name for himself as a writer/director, especially as an adapter of previously existing material. He had won an Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Elmer Gantry (1960) and had brought to the screen other acclaimed pictures such as Blackboard Jungle (1955), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and The Professionals (1966). Brooks received Oscar nominations for both Director and Adapted Screenplay for In Cold Blood.

Deliberately filmed in black and white at a time when most movies were in color, the picture is a stark, dark, and ultra-realistic depiction of two psychologically-damaged men, brilliantly portrayed by Robert Blake as Smith and Scott Wilson as Hickock. Brooks’ reasoning to film in black and white was that “documentaries were usually in black and white” and he wanted that true-to-life feel. Conrad Hall, the director of photography, used a palette of extreme blacks and harsh whites to achieve a higher than usual contrast (Hall was also nominated for an Oscar). This served to emphasize the darkness that resided in these two men’s souls.

In Cold Blood is a tough picture to watch. It’s very disturbing, even today. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its rewards. As a study of darkness, and a display of virtuoso filmmaking, it’s easily one of the better motion pictures of that decade. Brooks considered it to be the best film he ever made, and he’s probably right.

The movie is very faithful to the book with a few minor exceptions, such as the addition of a reporter character who provides some voice-over narration, and the complete elimination of the trial. The only scene from the trial in the film is the prosecutor’s closing argument for the death penalty. Oddly, one figure is totally absent from the movie, and that is Truman Capote himself. As shown in the recent pictures, Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006), the author inserted himself into the convicted men’s incarcerated lives on an intimate level. (It is highly recommended that after viewing In Cold Blood, one might want to take a look at Douglas McGrath’s Infamous, an often overlooked and underrated biopic on Capote that deals closely with the author’s relationship with Perry Smith, who in this case is played by none other than Daniel Craig!).

Many have said that In Cold Blood is a statement against the death penalty, but in many ways, it’s also the opposite. While Brooks does a great job in evoking some sympathy for the killers by portraying the hard life Perry had as a child and other circumstances that brought the two killers to commit murder, it’s also difficult not to side with the jury. The Clutter family—the victims—are presented in such a compassionate light that, in the end—at least for this viewer—the verdict makes complete sense.

The Criterion Collection disc presents a new 4K digital restoration with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack (and the jazz score is by Quincy Jones—also nominated for an Oscar!). Visually, the Blu-ray could not be more striking. The abundance of supplements is also impressive. There are new interviews with: a) Author Daniel K. Daniel on director Brooks, and this is very enlightening; b) Cinematographer John Bailey about DP Conrad Hall and his work; c) Film historian Bobbie O’Steen on the film’s editing; and d) Film historian and jazz critic Gary Giddins about Jones’ score. Vintage interviews include one with Brooks from 1988; one with Capote from 1966 during a visit to the crime scene; and one with Capote from 1967 conducted by Barbara Walters. There is also a short 1966 documentary on Capote directed by Albert and David Maysles. The film’s trailer and an essay by critic Chris Fujiwara in the enclosed booklet rounds out this excellent package.

In Cold Blood is not for the faint-hearted, but it is also hard-hitting, arresting, and brilliantly made. It’s a must for fans of crime drama and those who appreciate a little art with their popcorn.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

The late Loren Adelson Singer, who passed away in 2009, has published several novels as an author, among them That’s the House, There (1973), Boca Grande (1974), and Making Good (1993). His first work, 1970’s The Parallax View, published by Doubleday, was written as an answer to his disdain for the printing business he worked at with his father-in-law and proved to be enough of a success to permit him to become a paid author. The inspiration for the book came from the covert operations he assisted in while training with the Office of Strategic Services and was penned following the high-profile political assassinations of the 1960’s. It also provided the blueprint for the film of the same title directed by the late Alan J. Pakula, the second in his informally named “paranoia trilogy,” bookended by Klute (1971) and All the President’s Men (1976).

The Parallax View concerns the mysterious workings of a corporate entity, The Parallax Corporation, that appears to be behind the assassinations of political nominees regardless of which side of the aisle they sit on. It is 1971 and Charles Carroll (William Joyce) is campaigning while at a luncheon atop Seattle’s Space Needle. Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss) is covering the event for a television news story and her ex-boyfriend, newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty), attempts to gain access to the event but is denied entry when Carter shrugs him off. An associate of Carroll’s, Austin Tucker (William Daniels), speaks with Carter in a short on-camera interview. Two sinister-looking waiters (Bill McKinney and Richard Bull) serve food when suddenly the former shoots and kills Carroll in front of shocked and horrified guests. A chase ensues and the other “waiter” falls to his death.

Three years later, a shaken Carter goes to Frady and unleashes a tale of paranoia, revealing that several witnesses at the luncheon have all died under mysterious circumstances. Frady initially brushes off her concerns until Carter is found dead 24 hours later. Out of guilt, he begins to investigate the deaths and in a major scene lifted straight from the novel he nearly dies himself, outsmarting a “sheriff” who sets Frady up to be drowned at the hands of a deluge running out from a dam (in the novel it’s a “helpful hotel manager”). Frady manages to secure documents concerning the Parallax Corporation from the sheriff’s house and tries to convince his skeptical editor, Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn), of the links to the deaths. Frady then turns his attention to Austin Tucker and accompanies Tucker and his aide on a yacht ride to talk – until a bomb onboard kills both men and Frady narrowly escapes by jumping overboard. It seems that wherever Frady goes, a Parallax minion is not too far behind. This sets in motion a series of near logic-defying events which results in an ending of ambivalence.

To fully appreciate this film in 2021, one needs to be aware of the climate of fear and panic that must have pervaded the zeitgeist in the 1960’s and 1970’s when seemingly no one could be trusted. After the assassinations of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm Little/Malcolm X in February 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968, who really could? The film was shot in the Spring of 1973 while the country was in the Watergate scandal and points to evil forces at work that Frady hope to get to the bottom of. In the novel, Joe’s name is Malcolm Graham and works with Austin Tucker to uncover the mystery.

Conspiracy thrillers of this era concerned with Everyman against the Establishment often possessed creepy, minimalist musical scores and The Parallax View is no exception. Michael Small provides an excellent theme on the heels of his work for Klute prior to passing the baton to David Shire on All the President’s Men (Mr. Shire coincidentally scored Francis Coppola’s, his then-brother-in-law, masterful The Conversation in 1974). It is reminiscent of the music he would later write for John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man (1976).

Walter McGinn, the late actor who sadly died in an automobile accident in March 1977, is excellent as Jack Younger, a rep from The Parallax Corporation who is sent to feel out and vet Frady (who is assuming the identity of “Richard” and wanting to give the impression that he died on the boat) based on his (forged) test results. One can only wonder if Jack has fallen for Frady’s/Richard’s ploy, or if he is actually privy to the deliberate subterfuge – given how meticulous and cold The Parallax Corporation is, and the transpiring of events during the film’s ending, one has to assume the latter. The audience is made to believe that the Corporation is for more sophisticated than the average company at the time, if they have access to top-of-the line intelligence and money-is-no-option/sophisticated surveillance equipment. A shrewd viewer will beg the questions: how did The Parallax Corporation manage to keep several steps ahead of the subjects it intended to kill? Assuming they did had access to top security equipment, how were they able to harness it? One could theoretically drive themselves crazy pondering such questions.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Once upon a time in Hollywood, Shelley Duvall was an acclaimed and sought-after star. She defied the tradition of having to be a sex symbol in order to achieve major stardom. In fact, it was Duvall's "girl next door" looks and persona that ingratiated her to both audiences and critics. She was championed by director Robert Altman and graduated from small parts to major roles in his films. Her star burned brightly but flamed out quickly following starring roles in Altman's ill-fated "Popeye" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", which afforded the role movie lovers most remember her for. Duvall began appearing in undistinguished films and eventually just vanished from sight, facing mental health and financial problems and entering self-imposed retirement from the film industry. In fact, Duvall vanished so thoroughly that few people even knew that she ended up moving to a rural community in Texas where she has been living a modest lifestyle, to put it mildly. In a remarkable piece for the Hollywood Reporter, writer Seth Abramovitch tracked Duvall's current whereabouts and managed to meet her. He found her to be friendly and charming and surprisingly willing to share her memories of her film career and her trials and tribulations in the years that followed.

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“MELODRAMA, MUSIC, AND MAYHEM”

By Raymond Benson

The 1936 Hollywood extravaganza, San Francisco, is a near-epic that attempts to place a melodramatic love triangle (or is it four-sided?—it seems to want to be that) in the context of the catastrophic 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco; thus, making the film a melodrama-disaster movie. Oh, but it has singing and dancing, too!—the flick spawned the title number (composed by Bronislaw Kaper and Walter Jurmann, lyrics by Gus Kahn) that became one of the city’s official songs.

Helmed by the even-handed W. S. Van Dyke, one of the Golden Age’s most dependable directors, San Francisco reaches to be too many things. Granted, it is a motion picture that has its fans, especially a devoted following in its titular town. It was indeed nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award of its year; Van Dyke was also up for Best Director, and Spencer Tracy was given the nod for Best Actor (although his role is decidedly a supporting one). However, the movie won only a single award—Best Sound Recording.

Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald are the stars in this tale of nightlife folks in the days leading up to that fateful morning of April 18, 1906. “Blackie” Norton (Gable) runs a nightclub and gambling hall called the Paradise. Mary Blake (MacDonald), freshly arrived from Colorado, applies for a singing job at the club. Mary is a trained classical singer, so the fare served at the Paradise is not really her style—but she needs the job. She is also naïve and a bit too vulnerable for the rather sleazy nightlife of the Barbary Coast area. Nevertheless, Norton hires her. Norton’s friend, Father Tim Mullen (Tracy) immediately sees that Mary doesn’t belong there. Wealthy Jack Burley (Jack Holt) runs the Tivoli Opera House. He falls in love with Mary and woos her away to sing opera—where she belongs. That’s when Norton realizes he’s in love with Mary and tries to get her back. Conflict ensues. Father Mullen interferes. And then there’s an earthquake in the final twenty minutes of the picture.

Audiences in 1936 no doubt flocked to the movie to see the then-spectacular disaster footage, which is impressive considering when the picture was made. Unfortunately, it feels as if this set piece is a long time coming. The melodrama on display in the first 95 minutes can induce eyerolling. A major problem of the film is that Gable’s character is a heel and a jerk, and he treats Mary as if she’s his property. Are we supposed to believe that she loves him? Well, okay, he is Clark Gable, the most popular male star at the time. MacDonald is competent—she certainly sings like a bird and looks good—but her character is sadly undeveloped. She also allows herself to be too easily bounced between the men in her life—first Norton, then Burley, then even Father Mullen, and back again, and then to one of the others, and so forth.

There is much to admire, though. Some of the supporting actors are fun to see—Ted Healey as Norton’s sidekick at the club, Harold Huber as the club’s manager, Jessie Ralph as Burley’s mother, Edgar Kennedy as the sheriff… and other faces that will be familiar to fans of 1930s Hollywood. The musical numbers are well staged, and the “bigness” of the picture is notable—San Francisco feels as if it’s one of those “cast of thousands” pictures, even though it isn’t.

Warner Archive’s new Blu-ray is a worthy upgrade to a previous DVD release. Supplements are also ported over from the earlier edition: a nice documentary featurette on Clark Gable (narrated by Liam Neeson); two vintage “FitzPatrick Traveltalks” Shorts on San Francisco; a vintage Harman/Ising cartoon, “Bottles”; and an alternate 1948 ending that was edited into the film upon re-release. The 1936 version ends with a montage displaying “modern” (1936) San Francisco, rebuilt after the destruction of the earthquake. The 1948 alternate simply shows a skyline of ten years later. The original ’36 ending is better edited, fits better, and is appropriately in the main feature on the disk. The re-issue theatrical trailer rounds out the package.

San Francisco is an example of the kind of big movies Hollywood could make when a studio wished to do so. While it’s not a particularly great film, it’s good enough to represent a style and presentation that reflects the time in which it was made.

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“I’VE GIVEN UP KISSING STRANGE WOMEN”

By Raymond Benson

Bob Hope had a stellar career that stretched from the late 1930s through the 1960s, with subsequent star power appearances in his senior years on television in variety and awards shows. His efforts to entertain troops overseas for decades are highly commendable. What many punters today don’t realize, unless one is a Hope aficionado, is that his early solo comedies (or the duos with Bing Crosby) are absolute comic gems. Woody Allen has gone on the record to say that he based much of his early 1970s screen persona on Bob Hope, and one can easily see that nebbish, albeit here decidedly non-Jewish, “character” in My Favorite Blonde.

The story of this 1942 outing is credited to longtime Hope collaborators Melvin Frank and Norman Panama (the screenplay is by Don Hartman and Frank Butler), and it is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. The one-liners are worthy of the Marx Brothers, and Hope’s onscreen antics solidify his reputation as a superb comedian. The movie is a joy to watch.

The war is on, and British agent Karen Bentley (Madeleine Carroll, a popular U.K. actress who made the move to Hollywood in the early 40s) must get revised flight plans for U.S. bombers to a colleague in Chicago, who will in turn deliver them to the army in California. The Nazi spies are on to her, though, so she must quickly find cover for travel from New York to the west. Enter Larry Haines (Hope), who performs a comedy act with a penguin named Percy, who makes more money than he (Percy nearly steals the movie, by the way). Karen seduces Larry just enough to get him to bring her along to California, as he’s on his way there to put Percy in the movies. The German spies, led by icy Madame Runick (Gale Sondergaard) and Dr. Streger (George Zucco), follow them every step of the way. Both Karen and Larry undergo captivity and near death, and then luckily escape, several times throughout the picture, until they… well, fall in love.

There are some classic set pieces and dialogue exchanges. For example—

“Kiss me, Larry,” Karen implores.

Larry: (hesitating, shaking his head) “I hardly know you! Besides, I’ve given up kissing strange women.”

Karen: “Oh, what made you stop?”

Larry: “Strange women!”

Director Sidney Lanfield keeps the picture moving at a brisk pace, and its brevity (only 78 minutes) is a plus. The lead performers take command of the material and run with it, and the audience cannot help but be pulled along, laughing all the way. This is great stuff.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release looks good and is appropriately grainy in its glorious black and white. An informative audio commentary by film historian Samm Deighan is included. The only supplement is a collage of scenes from other Kino Lorber Bob Hope titles and a slew of theatrical trailers from the same.

My Favorite Blonde was an extremely popular entry in those early war years when the Allies needed some laughs. There were subsequent follow-ups (My Favorite Brunette and My Favorite Spy in 1947 and 1951, respectively, but the stories are not related). So, grab a copy of this excellent comedy and be ready to have a good time in the old home theater.

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BY TIM MCGLYNN

“If you were a man, I’d divorce you!”

Myra Gardener (Sylvia Miles) insults her stage producer husband, Odell (James Mason), with this line in the 1982 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun during a spat while vacationing on a fictional Italian island in the Adriatic Sea. They are attempting to entice Broadway legend Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg) to appear in their next musical, despite her reputation as a spoiled diva. Evil Under the Sun has recently been released on Blu-ray by the good people at Kino Lorber, who have also seen fit to issue new editions of The Mirror Crack’d and Death on the Nile.

The screenplay, by Anthony Shaffer, is loaded with witty and sometimes randy putdowns that help breathe a bit of life into this rather formulaic whodunit from director Guy Hamilton. When Arlena is found dead on a deserted beach it seems that all of the guests at the island’s resort have a possible motive. Innkeeper Daphne Castle (Maggie Smith), a former stage actress who envied Arlena’s success, is fortunate that the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) is on hand to investigate and identify the murderer. We soon learn that Arlena’s death may be related to another killing in Scotland and, as with most crimes of passion, money appears to be the motive.

Poirot was originally visiting the island to meet industrialist Sir Horace Blatt (Colin Blakely) to appraise a valuable diamond that was gifted to Arlene and was returned to Blatt after his affair with the actress ended. Poirot identifies the jewel in question as a fake and Blatt quickly becomes a suspect.

Also residing at the resort are lovers, former lovers, cheating lovers, stepchildren and professional associates of Arlena who, it turns out, all have reasons to wish her harm. The pedigree cast includes British stalwarts Roddy McDowell, Jane Birkin (who also appeared in Death on the Nile), Denis Quilly and Nicholas Clay. There’s even a Hitchcock-style cameo by director Hamilton near the start of the film.

The script by Shaffer slims down the list of suspects by combining several characters from Ms. Christie’s novel. The humor that is added with the barbs traded among the cast is a bright spot, as it helps the story move along at a faster clip. As with many of his previous films, particularly the Bond epics, director Hamilton lets us laugh at the pretentious nature of the resort guests without going overboard with the camp. One especially funny sequence involves Poirot’s efforts to exercise by taking a swim in the ocean. He has previously been identified as somewhat obese and decides to take the advice of his doctor and add strenuous activity to his daily routine.

The cinematography by Christopher Challis is gorgeous, with location shots highlighting the Formentor, Mallorca and Belearic Islands near Spain. Mallorca also happened to be where director Guy Hamilton was making his home at the time. The titles for the film feature beautiful watercolor paintings by Hugh Casson with each picture containing an object or article of clothing related to the story.

The costume design is the work of veteran Anthony Powell and some of the outfits worn by Diana Rigg and Sylvia Miles are gloriously overdone. The music is almost a character unto itself, as composer John Lanchbery has created a score made up entirely of popular songs by Cole Porter. Lanchbery’s arrangements are lush and fit in nicely with the sunny location shots and the open Mediterranean style of Alan Cassie’s art direction. Tunes that stand out are Night and Day, You’re the Top, I’ve Got You Under My Skin and Anything Goes.

Relish once again Robert De Niro's brilliant Oscar-winning performance as Jake LaMotta in director Martin Scorsese's 1980 classic "Raging Bull".

BY LEE PFEIFFER

It's never good when a film becomes the object of derision and controversy while it is still in production. There's a good chance it will be a dead duck by the time it opens to the public. MGM's ill-fated 1982 screen adaptation of "Cannery Row" may not have been a dead a duck when it arrived in theaters but it was definitely a mortally wounded one. The intent was to tell a sweet story about lovable eccentrics so it's not without irony that the film would be drenched in bad will and a legal case that extended for six years before it was resolved. Things started out swimmingly enough with David S. Ward, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Sting", set to not only write the script (an adaption of two John Steinbeck stories: "Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday") but to also make his directing debut. Nick Nolte and Raquel Welch were the two leads and production was underway when Welch received a letter from the studio advising her that she was fired forthwith, ostensibly for making unreasonable demands on the set. Welch was shocked, since the only "demands" she had made had been contractually agreed to and were hardly excessive. She suspected that her name had been used to drum up interest in the project with the intent of ultimately replacing her with a younger actress, in this case up-and-comer Debra Winger. Welch was 40 years-old at the time; Winger was 25. Welch had been hoping that the role would finally allow her to be cast in more mature, intelligent parts than the sex kitten characters that had brought her to stardom. The case resulted in Welch receiving a good deal of sympathy from women who had been battling sexism and ageism in all aspects of life. The case dragged on for six years and Welch prevailed, winning a judgment of $10 million. However, it was a pyrrhic victory, as she found she had been essentially blacklisted from starring in feature films. 

It was against this dramatic backdrop that "Cannery Row"'s first time director had to ensure completion of the film. To his credit, he did just that, although the result was largely negative reviews and measly international gross of $5 million. The film is set in Monterey, California and though no specific date is mentioned, we assume it is in the 1940s. The inhabitants of Cannery Row (so named because it once was home to a thriving canning industry that has now gone defunct) are a motley lot of friendly but not-too-ambitious people from the outer fringes of society. The most prominent residence of this skid row community is Doc (Nick Nolte), an educated man who works as a marine biologist, though it is never made clear how he earns a salary by sitting around his modest home studying the  habits of various octopusses that he keeps throughout the house. He's a confirmed bachelor who lets off steam with the occasional hook-up with a local woman. One day a new person arrives on Cannery Row, a young woman named Suzy DeSoto (Debra Winger). Like everyone else, she's endured a hardscrabble life and is looking for stability. Failing to find a "real" job, she reluctantly visits the local madame, Fauna (Audra Lindley) and agrees to become one of her "girls", only to fail in her single encounter with a client. Doc is immediately attracted to Suzy and they play a cat-and-mouse game of flirting with each other before starting to date. Suzy fits into the community well and is embraced by a group of eccentric homeless men who contentedly reside in makeshift houses on the street constructed from disused massive pipe cylinders from the old canning plant. Most prominent among the homeless men are Mack (M. Emmett Walsh), the de facto leader of the bunch and Hazel (Frank McRae), a mentally-challenged African-American who is near and dear to all.  The street guys are supposed to be a lovable bunch but director Ward makes them cartoonish. At one point I came to the conclusion that they would be better suited in a Disney animated film..then- presto!- they appear at a costume surprise party for Doc in which they are dressed like characters from Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". One of the other prominent residences of Cannery Row is a character who is so adorable that you suspect he was written into the script simply to bring out the handkerchiefs when he inevitably dies.

Director/screenwriter Ward has his heart in the right place, but not his instincts. The problem with the film is that there is no dramatic "hook", thus no suspense. It's a bit like spending a few days in Mayberry without Andy, Barney and the other funny characters to liven things up. All you get is politeness and boredom. The core of the story is the on-again, off-again romance between Doc and Suzy, but neither one of them is very interesting as a character. Ward tries to inject some intrigue into the story by revealing why Doc abruptly resigned from being a promising pitcher in major league baseball. I don't need to issue a spoiler alert here before telling you what you've probably already suspected: seems he threw a pitch that conked a batter in the head, thus causing him brain damage. This old plot device about the guilt-ridden former athlete who blames himself for a disastrous mishap had moss on it when it was used in "The Quiet Man", "From Here to Eternity" and a couple of Elvis Presley movies. Not helping matters is the fact that Nick Nolte and Debra Winger don't display any fireworks when they are together on screen. Their best scene shows them dancing and allowing Winger to show off some impressive acrobatics.

"Cannery Row" isn't a bad movie, but it isn't a very good one, either. The most impressive aspect is the production design by Richard MacDonald, who constructed a rather imposing street set where most of the action takes place. However, the way the film is lit and photographed makes it always apparent that we are watching actors on well-designed set, complete with large matte paintings. Consequently, the movie begins to resemble a filmed stage production.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray looks very good indeed but the company generally doesn't provide commentary tracks unless they can be ported over from a previous DVD edition. It's a pity because "Cannery Row" has a compelling behind-the-scenes story that is more interesting than what takes place on screen. The only bonus extra is the trailer.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

At the opening of “Taza, Son of Cochise,” (1954), it’s 1875 and the great Apache Chief Cochise (Jeff Chandler) is dying. At his side are his two sons, Taza (Rock Hudson) and Naiche (Rex Reason, billed here as Bart Roberts). He asks them to continue the peace he made with the White Eyes after his death. Naturally, if the two sons were in agreement the movie would have ended right there. But in fact, they don’t agree. Taza wants to do as his father said. But Naiche hates the white man and intends to side up with Grey Eagle (Morris Ankrum) and Geronimo (Ian MacDonald) and start the war up again. If that isn’t enough complication to make a movie out of, writers George Drayson Adams and George Zuckerman add in a rivalry between the two brothers over the affections of Oona (Barbara Rush), Grey Eagle’s beautiful daughter.

It’s a good set-up for a story and Universal International intended the film as another of the westerns being produced at that time with the purpose of showing Native Americans in a favorable light. “Taza” is in fact a follow-up to “Broken Arrow,” which featured Chandler as Cochise, another movie about “good” Apaches who’d rather get along with the white man than lift his scalp . Yet, despite the studio’s noble intentions, as you probably already noticed, there is a total lack of any Native Americans in any of the lead roles. That’s how it was in 1954. In that era, Hollywood did not hire many Native Americans for big movie parts. Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto in The Lone Ranger TV series, was a rare exception. As a result, you had some really hard-to-swallow casting of Native American characters back then. Rock Hudson’s Taza is one example, although not as bad as blonde and blue-eyed Chuck Connors in “Geronimo” or Burt Lancaster in “Apache.” Victor Mature played the title character in “Chief Crazy Horse,” and his high cheek bones and Italian good looks almost let him get away with it, except, well, you know, it was big hammy old Victor Mature.

Watching these films today it’s pretty hard to maintain your “suspension of disbelief” at the sight of these Hollywood hunks running around on the warpath with tomahawks and bows and arrows. Hudson himself was more than aware of the problem and said later, according to commentary provided on a separate audio track, he considered this to be his worst film. I wouldn’t go that far. At over six feet tall, with his dark hair and brown eyes, he maintained a certain amount of gravitas in the role and at least had the physical presence to convincingly vault onto his Indian pony’s back with ease and he handled himself pretty well in action scenes involving knives and rifles.

“Taza, Son of Cochise,” was director Douglas Sirk’s second time working with Hudson, and his first and only shot at making a western. He never made another, perhaps realizing it just wasn’t his métier. There is dramatic potential in a story about a man who sides with his enemies, wears an Army blue coat and forms a police force to arrest those of his own people who break the peace. But if Taza ever felt any inner conflict, it’s never dealt with. Instead Sirk focuses on Taza’s desire to prevent needless suffering by his people when they are forced by General Crook (Robert Burton) to move to the dreaded San Carlos Reservation. He convinces Captain Burnett (Greg Palmer) to talk Crook into at least letting him form a reservation police force made up of Apaches in order to police themselves, rather than suffer brutality and humiliation at the hands of white soldiers. Taza must have been a believer in the old saying: “When you’re stuck with lemons, make lemonade.”

“Taza” was one of the last of the movies made during the “golden age of 3-D.” Between 1952 and 1954, 48 films were shot that way. The 3-D process, which was used to lure movie goers away from their television sets, faded quickly because of the many technical problems encountered both in shooting the films and in projecting them in theaters. In “Taza,” however, cinematographer Russell Metty put it to good use, capturing the mountain and desert scenery around Arches National Park in Utah, where the movie was filmed. It also, of course, features the obligatory 3-D scenes with actors and stunt doubles hurling rocks, firing arrows, hurling spears, and men falling directly into the audience’s lap.

I hate to admit it, but I’m old enough to have seen “Taza” in a theater as a kid, and frankly back then I didn’t care about who played what. I didn’t know Rock Hudson from Chief Red Cloud or how historically accurate any of it was. Did Taza actually lead his band to attack Geronimo and kill other Apache warriors in order to save Cavalry Captain Burnett (Gregg Palmer) from certain death? Sounds far-fetched, but maybe they did. I don’t know. And who cares? I had a good time watching “Taza, Son of Cochise” back then and, if you’re willing to make allowances for the time in which it was made, you probably will too. it’s worth catching if only as an authentic artifact of the film making of its time.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray presents “Taza, Son of Cochise” in both 2-D and 3-D in its correct theatrical aspect ratio of 2.00:1 from a 2K Master. The picture is very good, with a soft Technicolor pallet accurately capturing the reddish hues of the mountainous desert country. Frank Skinner’s score sounds good, a typical Universal soundtrack of the fifties with tom-toms added. Bonus features include commentaries on separate audio tracks by film historians David Del Valle author C. Courtney Joiner, and 3-D expert Mike Ballew. Also included is the original theatrical trailer, and English subtitles.

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(John M. Whalen is the author of "Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto". Click here to order from Amazon.)

In an article for IMDB, Thomas Doherty presents a fascinating look at how Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic "Psycho" changed the patterns of behavior of moviegoers. Doherty points out that from the inception of cinema, audiences "dropped in" to movie theaters in a haphazard fashion, often after the feature presentation was well under way. They would then stay through the start of the film until they got to the scene they saw when they entered the theater. Studios and theater chains launched campaigns to convince movie fans that this behavior was self-defeating. Not only was a film often incomprehensible when seen under such circumstances, it also affected appreciation of the artistic manner in which movies were constructed. However, the campaigns flopped- until Alfred Hitchcock personally oversaw the marketing campaign for "Psycho" in 1960. This extended to the film's classic trailer which didn't reveal a single frame of the film itself. Click here to read how the master director successfully convinced moviegoers to become more sophisticated in enjoying the cinematic experience.

Plummer in "Battle of Britain" (1969).

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Christopher Plummer, the world-acclaimed star of stage, screen and television, has passed away at age 91. Complications from a fall in his Connecticut home were cited as the cause of death. Plummer never had to make his way up the ranks on the big screen. He received prominent billing in his movie debut in Sidney Lumet's 1958 production of  "Stage Struck"- and henceforth he would generally enjoy starring roles. Plummer moved with ease between films, stage and TV, earning critical plaudits along the way, as well as winning two Tony Awards and a late career Oscar for the film "Beginnings" in 2010. He was especially acclaimed for his work in Shakespearean productions in the U.S., England and Canada. Plummer, a native Canadian, became a legend by playing the male lead, Captain von Trapp, in the 1965 Oscar-winning film production of "The Sound of Music". Plummer was initially adamant that he wanted to sing the songs himself but ultimately conceded to having singer Bill Lee dub him in the final cut. Plummer professed to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the movie's success and over the years made disparaging remarks about its sugary content. However, in later years, he seemed to warm to the film and participated in a reunion with the cast.

Plummer's many high profile film roles include "The Man Who Would Be King", "The Insider", "The Fall of the Roman Empire", "Night of the Generals", "Battle of Britain", "Waterloo", "Return of the Pink Panther", "The Silent Partner", "Somewhere in Time", "Murder by Decree", "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", "A Beautiful Mind", "The Last Station", "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and the 2018 film "All the Money in the World", in which he was called in at the last minute to replace Kevin Spacey, whose footage had been excised. Plummer received an Oscar nomination for his performance. His last major film role was as an autocratic murder victim in the smash hit 2019 movie "Knives Out".

For more about his life and career, click here.

Here's an unusual trailer for the 1962 classic chiller "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", which revived the careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford even though Jack Warner was skeptical about starring both of "those two old broads" in a new film. Davis and Crawford may have loathed each other personally but they both brought out the best in the other on the big screen. The trailer is carefully crafted to hint at the macabre nature of the plot without giving away any details. 

“ANOTHER ‘FORBIDDEN FRUIT’ EXPLOITATION RELIC”

By Raymond Benson

Here’s another one, folks! Another entry in the “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture” series, this time it’s Volume 8. Presented by Kino Lorber in association with Something Weird Video, we have for your pleasure the controversial “hoax” documentary, Ingagi (1930), a shocking example of racism and circus sideshow-style cinematic exhibition.

There have always existed what have been termed in the motion picture industry “exploitation films,” even back in the silent days. The 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 “educational” adult fare. You know the type. Reefer Madness. Child Bride. Mom and Dad (all previous titles released in the Forbidden Fruit series).

Kino Lorber and Something Weird have been doing a bang-up job on releasing some of the best (i.e., infamous) of these jaw-dropping pieces of celluloid. Most are so bad that they’re hilariously entertaining, and they especially elicit eye-rolling because they often portend to be “instructive” in nature.

Ingagi was marketed as a documentary, which, by definition, claims to be a truthful depiction of real events. Well, a gullible American audience of the year 1930 actually swallowed this carnival act, because the independently made and distributed picture grossed $4 million—and in 1930 dollars, that was a monstrous amount of cash. The movie, however, was attacked by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, a Hollywood organization that attempted to ban the film. There were indeed court cases, but it was the Federal Trade Commission that finally forced the production company, Congo Pictures, to either come clean and stop duping the public with assertations that what the movie contains is real—or withdraw it from exhibition. As a result, Ingagi disappeared for years until it was bought and resold a couple of times and finally ended up in the hands of Dwain Esper. Esper, one of the foremost practitioners of the exploitation film, redistributed Ingagi in the late 1940s as the scandalous and sensational movie it is… and the thing continued to make money. Ingagi eventually vanished again for decades… until now.

It’s allegedly the footage of an African exhibition led by “Sir Hubert Winstead.” The explorer and his team go on safari and hunt and kill exotic animals for 3/4 of the picture. If that wasn’t disgusting enough, the final quarter is about the “discovery” of a primitive race that worships ingagi (the Rwandan word for “gorilla”). The tribe sacrifices a woman every year to the ingagi, who mate with the human females to produce, uhm, half-human/half-gorilla creatures.

Right. Now you know why the film was banned.

When one excavates the production history of the film, we learn that the whole thing was a hoax to cheat the American moviegoer out of an admission fee. According to both Kelly Robinson and Bret Wood, narrators on two separate audio commentary tracks, 3/4 of the movie is actually stolen material from a 1915 silent movie, Heart of Africa, which documented a real safari—but for some reason that picture was never even completed and is lost. That existing footage, however, was hijacked by “Congo Pictures.” The remaining 1/4 of the movie was shot in Hollywood with actors. African-Americans were cast as stereotypical Tarzan-style natives, and men in gorilla suits portrayed the apes. The lead ingagi is played by Charles Gemora, arguably the most prolifically employed actor in a gorilla suit.

One major clue to the lack of authenticity is that the narrator of the picture, the supposed Sir Hubert Winstead, mispronounces ingagi throughout the movie. He pronounces the middle syllable vowel of the word as “gag,” whereas it’s supposed to be pronounced like “gog.”

As commentator Robinson tells us, the real appeal of going to see Ingagi was to view “gorilla sex,” i.e., naked “native women” who are about to have sex with gorillas. We don’t ever see that happen, but it’s implied. We do see naked “native women,” and that’s where the picture gets its exploitation and racist reputation.

Kino Lorber’s high-definition presentation of this relic is amazingly good. A featurette in the supplements details the restoration process that was undertaken. The only other supplements are the interesting and informed audio commentaries by Robinson and Wood, and trailers for other titles in the series.

Ingagi will appeal to fans of the Something Weird series, exploitation films, and cinema curiosities. Hey, it’s “movie history”—in fact, a print of Ingagi resides in the Library of Congress as a testament to its infamous standing. Ungawa!

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

    Oscar^®-Winning Classics Spanning Nine Decades Arrive in New Collection March 23, 2021

Revisit 10 of the most celebrated films in cinema history, together for the first time, in the
BEST PICTURE ESSENTIALS 10-MOVIE COLLECTION, arriving on Blu-ray March 23, 2021 from Paramount Home Entertainment.

A must-own set for film fans and ideal entertainment in preparation for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, the BEST PICTURE ESSENTIALS 10-MOVIE COLLECTION includes an array of landmark films, each of which earned the prestigious Best Picture Oscar.

Along with access to a digital copy of each film, the Blu-ray collection includes the following in high definition:

• · Wings (1927)
• 
  
• · My Fair Lady (1964)
• 
  
• · The Godfather (1972)
• 
  
• · Terms of Endearment (1983)
• 
  
• · Forrest Gump (1994)
• 
  
• · The English Patient (1996)
• 
  
• · Titanic (1997)
• 
  
• · American Beauty (1999)
• 
  
• · Gladiator (2000)
• 
  
• · No Country For Old Men (2007)

These 10 unforgettable films feature star-making and award-winning performances from actors including Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger,
Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Kate Winslet, Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Javier Bardem, and more.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Actor Hal Holbrook, acclaimed star of stage, screen and feature films, has passed away at age 95. Holbrook rarely had the leading role in films but built a career as a reliable and beloved character actor. On stage, his one-man show about Mark Twain earned him a Tony Award and a subsequent Emmy for the television production. Holbrook's film career got a boost in 1968 in the popular film "Wild in the Streets" in which he played Kennedyesque presidential candidate who enlists the services of a popular rock star on his campaign tours. The plan goes awry when the musician inspires a worldwide, violent youth revolution. Holbrook's other feature films include "The Group", "The Fog", "Magnum Force", "Midway", "The Star Chamber", "The Firm", "Creepshow" and "Julia". Perhaps his most memorable role on the big screen was his unbilled cameos in "All the President's Men" in which he played the legendary anonymous leaker nicknamed "Deep Throat", who divulges top secret information that leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Ironically, Holbrook initially refused the role because of its brevity but ended up playing the part as a favor to star Robert Redford. In 2007, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his moving performance in "Into the Wild", thus becoming the oldest Oscar nominee in history. For more about his life and career, click here. 

BY MATT DAVEY

Released in 1972, The Valachi Papers depicts the rise and fall of Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, who became the first member of the Mafia (otherwise known as Cosa Nostra) to acknowledge its existence in public. Directed by Terence Young (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball) and produced by legendary Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis The Valachi Papers stars Charles Bronson in the lead role, alongside his real-life wife Jill Ireland as well as Lino Ventura, Walter Chiari and Joseph Wiseman.

The film covers five decades of Valachi’s involvement in organised crime – from his burglaries with the Minutemen to working under mob boss Vito Genovese from the 1930s – as the film unceremoniously portrays life in the criminal underworld. Told from the perspective of Valachi, the film begins with the ageing gangster in prison fearing for his life after a contract for his killing is ordered by Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura), who suspects him of betraying the Family. Determined not to be silenced behind bars and avoid an inside hit, Valachi co-operates with the U.S. Justice Department – unveiling the secrets of life in the Mafia as the film follows Bronson’s on-screen Joe Valachi through voice-over and flashback sequences.

The film is based on the biographical book of the same name, written by Peter Maas in 1968. Nearly five decades after the movie’s release, it’s difficult to truly comprehend the anticipation surrounding a Hollywood picture based on Joseph Valachi’s tell-all testimony to the FBI that was televised across the United States in 1963. Never before had the public, or indeed the FBI, really been aware of the true extent to which organised crime functioned in America. Valachi - who had been a former Mafia ‘soldier’ in the Genovese crime family – disclosed that the Mafia was called ‘Cosa Nostra’ in Italian – translating as “this thing of ours” in English. Valachi’s public testimony divulged the structure of the Mafia, from its hierarchy to the Five Families in New York City. This incredible true story was always going to have golden Hollywood potential when being made into a motion picture, but there would be two competing Mafia movies in 1972. One became widely regarded as one of the best films ever made and the other would disappear from popular culture…

Perhaps, The Valachi Papers is worthy of a reappraisal in the modern era. Sure, there are some clunky edits that also plagued director Terence Young’s early James Bond films – although they are simply too good to care – and the jolty dubbing of certain supporting actors also fails to go unnoticed. That being said, it’s to the film’s credit that you can overlook its flaws, that the story and performances are simply too good to worry about a few minor things that don’t hold up well fifty years later. Charles Bronson starred in The Valachi Papers at a time when he was finally achieving major international stardom. Having enjoyed success in ensemble pieces in a supporting capacity – The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen – Bronson made his name as a leading man in Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti western, Once Upon a Time in the West opposite Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale and Jason Robards. The Valachi Papers would be Young and Bronson’s third and final collaboration together after Cold Sweat and Red Sun. As Bronson’s popularity as a leading man grew, he would carry forward his tough guy persona under director Michael Winner as vigilante Paul Kersey in the Death Wish series, among other collaborations with Winner.

There’s an argument to be made that Bronson’s performance as Joseph Valachi is the most versatile performance of his entire career. Bronson emits his trademark softly spoken innocence packaged with his menacing cats’ eyes that tell a thousand words when no dialogue is offered, which in itself is a contradiction in terms. Yet Bronson’s appearance changes more in this movie than in any of his others combined. He’s convincing as Valachi in young, middle and old age – long before the days of CGI and de-aging techniques. From the colour of his hair to the speed at which he moves, Bronson is totally believable as Joe Valachi, which alone makes the film worth seeing. It’s Bronson who makes the film tick, as the narrative jumps back and forth through time – a comparison that you can make with Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. As good as he is, Lino Ventura doesn’t have the same on-screen magnetism as Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone. Perhaps the author of ‘The Godfather’, Mario Puzo,based Don Vito Corleone on the real-life Vito Genovese? Puzo certainly drew on the real Valachi Papers for his best-selling book that was adapted for the screen by Francis Ford Coppola.

Indeed, The Valachi Papers lacks the all-round spectacle, pomp and grandeur than that of The Godfather. It’s not difficult to analyse why The Godfather was so successful. Hoping to ride the wave of The Godfather’s success – The Valachi Papers bombed commercially – critically shunned as inferior. Director Terence Young said of The Godfather: “It is the most expensive trailer ever made – a trailer for our film! We are really much closer to The French Connection. We are the other side of that coin – you could call us ‘The Italian Connection’!”

Comparable with The Godfather, The Valachi Papers does feel like an old movie – it’s not a criticism, but it’s overshadowed by Coppola’s timeless classic. With the exception of Bronson, there isn’t an all-star cast with multiple Academy Awards between them or an array of quotable lines. The best we get is delivered by Joseph Wiseman who’s best known as Dr. No in the film of the same name: “We cannot bring back the dead, only kill the living.”

The Valachi Papers ultimately failed. Failed because it was immediately compared with The Godfather. How could it win? It has a stripped-down sensibility – The Irishman meets Goodfellas but on a tenth of the budget. It’s not a masterpiece, but with Charles Bronson giving a career best performance – The Valachi Papers is a forgotten gem in need of a polish.

(Readers are invited to share their thoughts with Matt Davey at 4davem12@solent.ac.uk )

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

There were so many great British war movies produced in the 1940s and 1950s that it becomes almost an inevitability to pronounce each one you newly discover as a classic. "Malta Story", released in 1953 is, alas, not a classic. However, it is a good, solidly made and generally engrossing tale that is unique in that it covers the incredible story of the island of Malta, then a British colony, and its unlikely strategic importance to the Allies during the campaign to prevent Rommel and his forces from dominating the African continent. Malta is a tiny nation that found itself sandwiched between Sicily to the North and North Africa to the south. Both the Allies and the Axis powers deemed it to be essential to the conquest of Africa, as it could provide a valuable port and landing strips for bombers. For over two years, the undermanned British defense units on the island, bolstered by the courageous local population, endured daily bombing raids that devastated the nation. Malta was dependent on receiving essential supplies from Allied convoys, most of which proved to be sitting ducks for German U-Boats. Countless tons of precious food, medicine and ammunition went to the bottom of the ocean along with a large loss of crew members. Still, with plucky stiff-upper-lip resolve, the British and Maltese fought on, even with the RAF fighter planes having been reduced to only 15 aircraft. Ultimately, the British managed to reinforce the air defenses and some American convoy ships managed to survive the U-Boats. Malta managed to prevail and thwarted an inevitable full-scale invasion by German and Italian forces. King George VI was so impressed that he collectively awarded the nation as a whole the prestigious George Cross to commemorate the courage of the military and civilian forces.

"Malta Story" opens with its protagonist, a military photographer, Flight Lt. Peter Ross (Alec Guinness) on a flight to Africa to photograph German military installations. Flight troubles force the plane to unexpectedly land in Malta, where Ross meets the beleaguered commander of military forces, Air Commodore Frank (Jack Hawkins), who instantly arranges for Ross to join his command. Ross has his hands full with a starving local population and a shortage of planes and anti-aircraft ammunition. He sends Ross on an assignment to photograph German military movements, but Ross diverts his course and manages to photograph suspicious German train movements that he suspects are transporting supplies to build gliders- a sure indication of an impending commando invasion. Frank chews him out for disobeying orders, but it turns out Ross's instincts seem to be correct. When "Malta Story" sticks to the military plot it soars along very well indeed. However, the somewhat muddled screenplay bogs down the action by introducing a romantic subplot that finds Ross smitten by a courageous Maltese woman, Maria (Muriel Pavlow) and much screen time is devoted to one of the screen's most boring love stories. Guinness was a genius as an actor but he excelled in playing characters that were either very eccentric or larger than life. Ross is neither. He's an every day schlub with no particularly interesting traits. Guinness seems out of his element and perhaps for this reason he was rarely cast as a romantic leading man.  In fact, the love scenes between Ross and Maria are about as erotic as giving your sister a peck on the cheek. Indeed, things bog down to the point where Ross disappears from the middle section of the film only to pop up again at the end, when he volunteers to take on a one-man mission to locate and photograph a German convoy- a seemingly suicidal task that curiously would be replicated by Kirk Douglas in Otto Preminger's far superior "In Harm's Way" twelve years later.

With Guinness a bore, it falls to Jack Hawkins to carry the acting chores and he saves the film with his steadfast performance. Much of the combat footage was recycled from actual newsreels but because the film is in B&W the gimmick works rather well. "Malta Story", competently directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, is primarily valuable as a history lesson. The trials and courage of the Maltese people have largely been overlooked in studies of WWII history and for this reason, the movie can be recommended viewing.

"Malta Story" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. It can also be ordered from Amazon on DVD by clicking here.