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.
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.
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, “Bottlesâ€;
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.
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.â€
Karen: “Oh, what made you stop?â€
Larry: “Strange women!â€
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.
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 “educationalâ€
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 “gorillaâ€).
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.â€
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 historyâ€â€”in fact, a print of Ingagi resides
in the Library of Congress as a testament to its infamous standing. Ungawa!