BY TODD GARBARINI

One of my all-time favorite horror films is Richard Ciupka’s 1983 outing Curtains. Following nearly three consecutive decades of relative obscurity after a VHS release even among die-hard horror genre fans, Curtains finally made its DVD and Blu-ray debut in 2014, restored to its original grandeur. The film starred Samantha Eggar who I knew from William Wyler’s The Collector (1965) and David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979). At the time that I first viewed the film in the summer of 1986, however, I was unfamiliar with much of the supporting female cast members. One of them was an actress named Anne Ditchburn, and it came to my attention that she had primarily been hired for the film due to her talent in ballet, which she performs in the film.

An earlier title that she co-starred in is the little seen but interesting Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978), a leisurely romantic drama starring Paul Sorvino. The film was directed by the late John Avildsen and was his follow-up to his 1976 surprise smash hit Rocky which starred Sylvester Stallone and won the 1977 Oscar for Best Picture. Slow Dancing was shot from September to November in 1977 and follows the exploits of two characters from completely disparate backgrounds. Lou Friedlander (Paul Sorvino) is a New York Daily News columnist who ingratiates himself into any and every situation that he can possibly write about because his paycheck depends upon it. Whether he is chatting up young children on the playground (an action that would get you jailed today), or meeting with creepy undesirables in a bar, Mr. Sorvino portrays Lou with an unusually spirited and enthusiastic air. Nothing bothers him: insults roll off his back and he perpetually smiles against even the most vituperative of threats. He genuinely cares about the people he writes about, including an elderly apartment dweller (Michael Gorrin from 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three) displaced following a fire, reminding him that he is a human being. He is well-known, and those who recognize his name are only too happy to tell him that they love his work. (The character of Lou was all-too-obviously based on legendary New York reporter Jimmy Breslin, a fact that many critics pointed out, much to Breslin’s disdain.)

It is not long before he crosses paths with Sarah Gantz (Anne Ditchburn), a stunningly beautiful and lithe ballet dancer ten years his junior who leaves the safety of her impatient boyfriend David’s (Nicolas Coster) opulent home for a tiny New York City walk-up apartment right next door to him. She is a workaholic and dances as much as she can, almost putting The Red Shoes’s (1948) Victoria Page to shame. For Sarah, dancing is all she knows, or even seems to care about. Specifically, she is training for a show that is due to open at Lincoln Center and becomes the target of the show’s director’s frustration as she makes considerable missteps in her beats and timing and begins to flail here and there. When pressed as to why she is fumbling, she brushes it off as being tired and unfocused. The truth comes out eventually when, at a fellow dancer’s urging, a visit to a doctor reveals that she suffers from fibro myositis, a muscle disorder that will not only require an operation but will also derail her plans for dancing in the future. The news is devastating, though she chooses to press on, thumbing her nose in the face of adversity.

Meanwhile, Lou is trying to get a young Spanish drummer out of poverty and into the big time by trying to convince him that his natural gift is something that he should pursue. This is a subplot that I feel could have been jettisoned and does not work as well as it should, though the director probably felt that it was necessary to make the ending more emotional. The focus should be more on Lou and Sarah’s budding romance similar to the teen drama Jeremy (1973), and the film could have easily lost about 20 minutes to make it tighter. There is an argument to be made that the movie is Rocky simply supplanted to the world of choreography and dancing. However, Mr. Sorvino is always charming when constantly looking at the bright side of things and attempting to raise Sarah’s spirits.

Kino Lorber has restored and released the film on Blu-ray. It begins with the era’s United Artists/Transamerica logo and the film is shot in a way that visually downplays the seediness that plagued New York City in the 1970s. (Owen Roizman made New York look far more sinister in William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971). The trademark landmarks of Lincoln Center and Broadway are recognizable to even out-of-towners. The film’s running time is 110 minutes, although the artwork states 84 minutes. This discrepancy could be based upon the fact that some sequences were reportedly added or extended following the film’s lukewarm reception upon its release on Friday, November 8, 1978 in an effort to flesh out the characters more and draw in the audience.

The extras are a bare minimum this time around, with on-camera interviews with actor Nicolas Coster at just under eight minutes and composer Bill Conti at around seven minutes. I would have loved a commentary with Paul Sorvino, and am not sure if an attempt was made to include his participation.There is also reversible sleeve artwork. 

The trailer is included, and it is a bit of a curiosity as it makes no mention of Mr. Avildsen’s success with Rocky.

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“JUNGLE JEOPARDY”

By Raymond Benson

The 1964 action-adventure picture, The 7th Dawn, is a solid piece of work that features an exotic location (it was filmed in Malaysia), a couple of big stars (William Holden, Capucine), a fairly “new” one (Susannah York), and, for the year it was released and its budget limitations, moderately spectacular action sequences.

However, today, the movie might be memorable because of its links to James Bond films. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert (who helmed You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker), it co-stars Tetsurō Tamba (“Tiger Tanaka” in You Only Live Twice), is photographed by Freddie Young (credited here are Frederick Young, DP of You Only Live Twice), the main titles are by Maurice Binder (veteran of the 007 films for three decades), it was released by United Artists, and the movie is produced by Charles K. Feldman (responsible for the non-EON 1967 Casino Royale)!

The 7th Dawn is based on the 1960 novel, The Durian Tree by Michael Keon, and was adapted to film by Karl Tunberg. It’s the story of the path to Malayan independence from British rule after World War II, especially during the chaotic and violent years of the early 1950s.

Three close friends—American Ferris (William Holden), Malayan/French Dhana (French actress Capucine), and Malayan Ng (Japanese actor Tetsurō Tamba) fight with the Malayan army against the Japanese during World War II. Both men are sweet on Dhana, but at the end of the war, Ng graciously retreats and allows Ferris and Dhana to live together while he goes off to Russia to further his education. Cut to 1953, when Malayan guerrillas—led by Ng—are attacking both the British forces and Malayans in terrorist acts to force the British to leave. Ferris, who simply wants to live in peace on his rubber plantation, is persuaded by the British leader, Trumpey (Michael Goodliffe), to find Ng and convince the man that the British eventually do want to grant the Malayans independence. Dhana leaves Ferris to join Ng’s guerrillas, making room for Trumpey’s daughter, Candace (Susannah York), to set sights on the American. When Dhana is arrested, tried for terrorist acts, and sentenced to death, Candace is kidnapped by Ng’s forces. Ferris then has seven days to find Ng and Candace in the back country before Dhana is hanged.

It’s all fairly exciting stuff, and it’s a colorful display of mid-1960s Hollywood production values depicting warfare in a jungle setting. Holden is fine as the stalwart and stubborn former mercenary turned businessman. Capucine, although lacking Asian heritage, is convincing enough as being half Malayan (her skin color appears to have been artificially darkened), and Tamba exhibits why director Gilbert likely chose him to play Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice. York is also a screen presence who, being the only blonde in sight, attracts audience attention. She had just come off her appearance in the award-winning Tom Jones, so her star was quickly rising.

The musical score by Riz Ortolani is of note with lush melodies and sweeping strings. The theme song, sung by The Lettermen, became a hit standard in the decade.

Kino Lorber’s high def transfer is acceptable; it certainly shows off that distinctive look of 1960s film stock, and Freddie Jones’ cinematography captures panoramic vistas of Malaysia and its jungles. There are no other supplements other than a theatrical trailer and optional English subtitles for the hearing impaired.

The 7th Dawn is fine fare for fans of any of the cast members, action-adventure in exotic landscapes, and 1960s Hollywood sensibility in widescreen Technicolor.

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BY JOHN M. WHALEN

In the early 1970s best-selling author Alistair MacLean (TheGuns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare) was having a hard time of it, suffering through a rough marriage that eventually ended in divorce and alcoholism. His friend, movie producer Elliot Kastner, who had produced several movies based on MacLean’s books, gave him an office at 20th Century Fox and told him to write his next novel there as therapy. MacLean took the task on and decided to do something a little different from the straight adventure stories he usually wrote. He came up with the idea of mashing up two different genres—a tale of the Old West and an Agatha Christie-type cozy mystery. He basically took the plot from Murder on the Orient Express and set it on a train carrying medical supplies through the Rocky Mountains in 1870 to Fort Humboldt, which was besieged by an epidemic of diphtheria. Instead of Hercule Poirot on board trying to figure out who’s murdering all the passengers one by one, John Deakin, an outlaw with a price on his head, is given the job of figuring out who the culprit is.

No sooner did Breakheart Pass hit the bestseller list than Kastner asked MacLean to write the screenplay for a film based on the book, and Kastner and company began casting the characters. In 1974, Charles Bronson, who was in his fourth year as one of the top 10 box-office moneymakers in Hollywood, was brought on board to play John Deakin. A lot of the other parts went to what might be called “Bronson regulars,” actors that Bronson liked working with. First and foremost among them, of course, was Bronson’s wife, Jill Ireland, who appeared in 15 of his movies. She plays Marica, the fiancé of Nevada Governor Fairchild (Richard Crenna), who is on board to make sure the needed medical supplies get to their destination. Ed Lauter, who made four films with Bronson, plays Army Major Clairmont, whose first inclination is to hogtie Deakin and leave him be until they get to the fort. Robert Tessier, who would appear in Bronson’s Hard Times as one of his boxing match opponents, plays Levi Calhoun, the murderous leader of an outlaw gang that has taken over the fort. The strange makeup and costume he wears somehow makes him resemble a member of a way off Broadway production of Cats. There are other familiar faces in the movie that you’ll recognize from other Bronson flicks.

Also in the cast is veteran western actor Ben Johnson as U.S. Marshal Pearce, who shows up to take Deakin into custody, Bill McKinney (Deliverance) as Rev. Peabody, David Huddleston as Dr. Molyneaux, former boxing champion Archie Moore as the train’s cook, and Charles Durning as O’Brien, the conductor.

As the plot progresses we discover that almost none of the passengers is who he says he is, and the medical supplies on board are actually boxes loaded with rifles and dynamite. Deakin eventually solves the mystery but not without the usual amount of violence and mayhem one expects from a Bronson flick. One of the highlights of the film is a sequence in which the last three cars of the train, containing soldiers on their way to Ft. Humboldt, are decoupled and allowed to jump the track, roll downhill and fall off the side of the mountain. Unlike moviemakers today, director Tom Gries (Will Penny) did not have CGI technology to help create the scene. The production spent $800,000 for the purchase of actual box cars and sent them crashing down the mountainside. The sequence is noteworthy for being the last to be done by legendary stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt (Stagecoach, Ben-Hur). Unfortunately, according to the audio commentary provided by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, the dummies dressed in Army uniforms that were supposed to fall out of the cars as they went down the cliff, remained hidden from the cameras. They couldn’t reshoot it so instead they dubbed in the sound of men screaming as the cars plummeted down the mountainside.

Breakheart Pass is an entertaining movie even though the plot literally makes no sense at all, and the characters have about as much depth as you’ll find in any SpongeBob Squarepants cartoon. But the ease and sense of “who cares what it’s all about, I’m just a Pennsylvania coal miner’s son having fun with some friends of mine” that Bronson displays, makes it enjoyable in a weird sort of way. His casual pursuit of clues from corpse to corpse, as they fall off trestles, or are found buried in the locomotive’s wood pile, or catch on fire and leap out of the locomotive in flames, manages to hold your interest—if you try not to think about it too hard.

Gries directs the film with a suitable lack of rigor and manages to keep the action going at a steady pace. He keeps the characters and their shifting identities straight, while giving Bronson a chance to play a Wild West detective without letting the whole show go over the cliff, so to speak. Lucien Ballard’s cinematography captures both the beauty and rugged treachery of the Rocky Mountain locations and the great Jerry Goldsmith provided a spirited, pulsing soundtrack for the film.

Kino Lorber’s 1080p Blu-ray disc transfer of Breakheart Pass is adequate but could be better. The color is good but the print is definitely in need of a good 2K restoration. Audio is 2.0 mono and seems flat, with little dynamic range. Goldsmith’s score deserves better treatment. Among the extras included on the disc are the previously mention audio commentary and trailers for other Bronson films available from KL. There is also reversible sleeve artwork. If you’re a Bronson fan, or just want to see box cars careening down the side of a mountain, you’ll probably want to see this.

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John M. Whalen is the author of "Hunting Monsters is My Business: The Mordecai Slate Stories" . Click here to order the book from Amazon)

“ARTHUR MILLER ANGST”

By Raymond Benson

The Academy Awards certainly overlooked this well made and superbly acted drama when it was released in 1948. All My Sons is tightly-adapted from the 1947 stage play by Arthur Miller, and it deserved some recognition, especially for some of the actors and perhaps the screenplay by Chester Erskine, who also produced the movie. It was directed by Irving Reis, who had earlier in the decade come into his own in Hollywood with the first few “Falcon” detective pictures starring George Sanders.

All My Sons was Arthur Miller’s first significant hit play, his second produced on Broadway (the first one flopped), and it won the playwright a Tony award. Erskine and Universal Pictures quickly secured the rights and got the movie into production, streamlining the three-act play into a roughly 90-minute movie. It works extremely well.

Joe Keller (Edward G. Robinson) runs a steel manufacturing business in a small town in the Midwest. His son, Chris (Burt Lancaster), is his right-hand man. Joe’s wife, Kate (Mady Christians), suffers from depression—she holds on to the hope that her other son, Larry, who disappeared three years earlier during World War II, is still alive. Kate also does not approve of Chris’s intention to marry Ann (Louisa Horton), who was originally Larry’s fiancée. Both Joe and Chris believe Larry to be dead. Ann, too, has moved on and has redirected her affections to Chris. The bigger elephant in the room, though, is that Keller and his company came under criminal scrutiny when some airplane fuselages they built proved to be faulty, causing the deaths of many soldiers overseas during the war. Keller’s business partner, Herb (Frank Conroy), took the fall and went to prison. Herb happens to be Ann’s father! Ann, Chris, Joe, and Kate have accepted the sad truth that Herb was responsible for the disaster, but Ann’s brother, George (Howard Duff), has not, and he wants to blow the lid off some well-kept secrets. Has Joe been lying all this time about his role in the manufacturing mishap? Is he not the father that Chris has placed on a pedestal for his entire life?

It’s very typical Arthur Miller angst, the kind of family drama that the playwright would explore often. And here, in All My Sons, the Miller angst is faithfully represented.

Edward G. Robinson delivers a powerful performance as Joe Keller. It is Oscar worthy, and the sad thing is that Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award throughout his long career. He did receive an honorary Oscar in 1973, but he died two months before it was presented. This is one of those “shame on you” footnotes in the history of the Oscars, for Robinson always approached his roles with professionalism and skill. His Joe Keller in All My Sons is a pivotal piece of the film’s success.

Burt Lancaster, still fairly new to the industry, is also quite effective as the Good Son who is ready to leave his career at the factory for the girl he loves if his parents don’t accept the union. Louisa Horton is also very good, and All My Sons is her debut film performance. Horton didn’t make many movies, but she did a lot of television and was then married to filmmaker George Roy Hill for a couple of decades. Mady Christians, a longtime veteran of films since the silent days, holds her own, too. Unfortunately, Christians became a victim of HUAC—the House Un-American Activities Committee—shortly after the release of the movie and her career ended after four decades. HUAC certainly had its tentacles on several elements of the movie. Robinson had some unpleasant dealings with them, Elia Kazan (original director of the Broadway play and co-producer of the film) was a major figure in the investigations into “Communist infiltration” of Hollywood, and, most of all, Arthur Miller himself was an outspoken adversary of the committee.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release presents a high definition transfer that shows off Russell Metty’s black and white cinematography quite well. It comes with an informative audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger and author/film historian Lee Gambin. The only supplements are the theatrical trailer and other Kino Lorber trailers.

All My Sons is highly recommended for fans of Arthur Miller, Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster, and for late 1940s Hollywood fare. Just be ready for the angst.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

My introduction into the world of the late horror film director Wes Craven’s films came in October 1977 when I began seeing ads in my local newspaper for his film The Hills Have Eyes. The image of actor Michael Berryman as Jupiter, with his bald head and serious grin, I will not lie, freaked me out. Twenty-one years later I would meet him at a horror film convention, and he could not have been nicer – but that is beside the point! I did not know what the movie was about, but it sported an R-rating, and it did not look like anything that I could ever sit through at the age of nine. I would later learn that I was correct. I finally caught up with Hills in the summer of 1984 on a television broadcast, three years into my newfound love of horror films. I found it to be fairly terrifying, even during an afternoon viewing. Around the same time, I obtained Mr. Craven’s lesser-known film, Deadly Blessing (1981), which also featured Mr. Berryman, on CED, which takes place in the Amish Country. It is more of a supernatural film, but I enjoyed it just the same.

Everything changed when, in early November 1984, I saw the television trailer for Mr. Craven’s new film, A Nightmare on Elm Street, which introduced audiences to the world of Fred Krueger. I was curious and enthralled, and my mind began working on how I could get my parents to agree to allow me to see it. A local theater was showing it with the PG-rated A Soldier’s Story on the other screen. I lied and said that I needed to review A Soldier’s Story for my English class as we were reading the stage play upon which it was based. My friend and I saw Elm Street on my sixteenth birthday. When we left the theater after the film was done, I was over the moon. The original Elm Street was and still is the best horror film I have ever seen in a theater, though I was clueless that it would begin a franchise that I would grow to like less and less as time went on. When my parents asked me what A Soldier’s Story was about, all I could muster what that it was a story about a soldier. I think they had their suspicions…

When I saw Mr. Craven’s latest film at the time, Scream (originally titled Scary Movie), on opening night on Friday, December 20, 1996, it did not feel like anything that he had directed before. The terror and brutality that permeates much of Hills and even portions of Elm Street are absent. There is graphic gore in Scream, but the whole affair looks closer to an episode of The O.C. than a horror film as the California high school setting looks a little too clean and shiny. Drew Barrymore plays Casey, a babysitter, at the film’s start in a similar way that opens Fred Walton’s 1979 thriller When a Stranger Calls. She fields calls from a psycho who taunts her, asking her what her favorite scary movie is, etc. The calls become more verbal and horrible. Casey is killed after the first thirteen minutes in a clear nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, although Janet Leigh’s scream time (sorry) in that film was much longer.

The real protagonist of Scream is Sidney (Neve Campbell), the virginal high school girl whose boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich) is predictably pressuring her for sex. We discover that her mother was killed a year ago and her father travels for business. Sidney is pretty much left to fend for herself. As though her problems were not bad enough, she is now subjected to the same calls that plagued Casey. A cloaked figure wearing a contorted ghost mask makes his way into her home and a fight ensues, with her boyfriend Billy coming to the rescue. His timing arouses suspicion in both the audience and Sidney, and his possessing a cell phone at a time when they were not everywhere as they are today is even more cause for alarm. The police bring him in for questioning but they have no tangible proof of any guilt. While all of this is going on, a television newscaster (Courtney Cox) is anxious to get the story of her career and stops at nothing to glean information from Sidney or even seduce the local goofball cop (David Arquette) who is never taken seriously. She uses her charms to infiltrate a party comprised of teenagers who are all suspect; she places a hidden camera to record their gathering. The camera is nondescript, and it made me wonder what 1996 technology would be small enough to go unnoticed. How does it even work? How is it powered? From the looks of it, it is wireless, though this raises more questions than it answers. Probably best to not make too much of it in a film that clearly does not take itself seriously.

One of the issues that I have with the film is its failure to make up its mind as to what kind of a film it is intended to be: a parody or an actual slasher film? It never really succeeds at either, because it is not funny enough to be a parody, nor is it even scary enough to be considered a true slasher film. Henry Winkler plays the high school principal. He is summarily displaced as a request from producer Bob Shaye, who wanted an additional kill in the story, but not before encountering a janitor named Fred in a green and black sweater, played by Mr. Craven, in an eye-rolling cameo, clearly saluting the “hero” of his better film.

The screenplay also gets into a little too much social commentary wherein the high schoolers talk about how movies do not make killers, etc. By the time the true killer’s identity is revealed, I was honestly glad that the film was over, as I found it more irritating than anything else.

Scream was written by Kevin Williamson who is best known for the teen drama Dawson's Creek, and it shows – the film has a polished look that, I feel, works to its detriment – Hills (shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm) and Elm Street (shot on 35mm) both have their own signature visual styles that work very well. He also penned a short-lived and (unfairly) panned television series in 2007 called Hidden Palms, which featured a twenty-year-old Amber Heard as Gretchen, a troubled teen whose boyfriend reportedly committed suicide, with rumors about aspects of his death arising afterward. That show only lasted two months, but an air of mystery permeated each episode. Mr. Williamson has employed sexual promiscuity in much of his work and the results never seem to be worth the trouble that the characters endure.

I take no pleasure in saying anything negative about Scream, as I possess a genuine affinity for Mr. Craven’s work. Scream feels like a Hollywood mainscream film (I know, sorry!), however the another issue that I have with it probably is not even an issue at all. It is just a pet peeve of mine: when it comes to slasher films, beginning with Halloween (the 1978 John Carpenter film and Mr. Williamson’s favorite movie, one that figures prominently in Scream), there has been sort of a misunderstanding, in my humble opinion, among hardcore fans regarding the notion of the reputed â€œLast Girl” being a virgin and therefore making it through to the end while the promiscuous “Bad Girls” are killed. The unspoken notion is that being a virgin is what manages to keep these surviving girls safe from being killed. In Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis's character, Laurie, makes it not because she is a virgin, but because she actually pays attention to what is going on around her. Her friends Linda and Annie are so busy being distracted by their boyfriends and their sexual shenanigans that they have no idea what is really going on and are oblivious to the presence of the killer, Michael Myers. The way that this motif is displayed historically from everything following Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13^th (1980) up to Scream is quizzical, and I often wonder if we are meant to identify with the teenage characters because we are seeing it through their eyes. They seem to be interpreting the “Final Girl” as making it simply because she is a virgin.

Mr. Craven has made plenty of other films throughout his career that have nothing to do with Elm Street’s Fred Krueger, among them his debut film The Last House on the Left (1972) of which I am not a fan; the Linda Blair TV-movie Stranger in Our House/Summer of Fear (his first 35mm film); Swamp Thing (1981); the oddball Kristy Swanson vehicle Deadly Friend (1986); The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988); Shocker (1989); and the bizarre The People Under the Stairs (1991), all horror films that deal with different subjects. Despite what most people may feel about Scream, it was a highly successful and well-received film that also paved the way for not only sequels, but also a remake scheduled for release in early 2022. Scream also revived the slasher film, a genre that for years languished in the mediocre made-for-video sections of video stores all across the country. For that, I am grateful, as some true classics of the genre have been made in the years since.

Scream is now available on a Paramount 4K Ultra High-Definition Blu-ray and the results are spectacular. The disc has some interesting extras, which consist of:

A feature-length audio commentary with Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson that was more than likely recorded for the original DVD release. It is a fun listen, though most of it entails them commenting on the onscream action (damn, sorry again! These puns write themselves!) than delving into the behind-the-scenes facts to any great extent.

A Bloody Legacy: SCREAM 25 Years Later – This is just over seven minutes and is more of a promotional piece for the 2022 release of the new Scream film directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Production Featurette – This runs just over six minutes and is exactly what it sounds like.

Behind the Scenes has two small parts: a three-and-a-half-minute piece of BTS footage, while another runs just under three minutes and focuses on Drew Barrymore’s work on the film.

Q & A with Cast and Crew – Two short parts, the first being What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?, which most people interviewed do not reveal, they sort of just list movies that scared them. I was grateful that one woman mentioned Burnt Offerings, which is the first thriller that I saw and made me become interested in horror films. This part runs just under three minutes. The second portion, Why Are People So Fascinated by Horror Films?, runs about two-and-a-half-minutes, and they all echo similar notions about living through fear vicariously. Neve Campbell reveals the dark side in all of us and letting it out in a movie. Look fast for Linda Blair early on as a television reporter.

The release also includes a digital code for streaming the film. 

Scream is, of course, not to be confused with the film of the same name from 1981, written and directed by Byron Quisenberry, which was widely panned by pretty much everyone who saw it.

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BY DARREN ALLISON

Rosso come La Notte

It’s always good to hear from All Score Media, a label that continues to focus on retro soundtrack releases and new soundtrack music produced in a retro style. Mondo Sangue are a group that continue to flourish within that new/old style genre of fictional scoring, and they do it extremely well. Their latest album, Rosso come La Notte (ASM 050 / LP 21300-1) is in fact their fourth release for the label, the previous three of which have been featured either within the pages of Cinema Retro or here on our site. Mondo Sangue are certainly diverse in their range, exploring the Spaghetti Western genre, the fantasy sci-fi adventure and with this latest outing, the world of Italian Giallo.

Arguably, the European Giallo genre is among the most popular, with colourful, atmospheric use of music which defined the entire psychedelic mood of the period. Mondo Sangue has cleverly stuck to the formula here, with plenty of recognised references to Italian genre cinema, and why wouldn’t they? It is after all, a genre-defining sound. So whilst it may sound somewhat familiar, we are certainly listening to something entirely original. The familiarity merely acts as a layer of comfort and in doing so, perfectly sets the scene for an entirely fresh and enjoyable listening experience.

Like other fictional scores, we are of course required to use our imagination a little more, as we have no previous visual concepts in comparison to a film that we have perhaps become accustomed to. However, we do have a premise. The Milanese taxidermist Barbara travels to the Black Forest for a museum assignment and shortly afterwards disappears without a trace. Her sister follows her and not only comes across a mysterious series of murders in the tranquil place, but also a dark secret …

There is certainly a nice dream-like, otherworldly feel to Rosso come La Notte, and it’s easy to find yourself completely immersed in its quality. The Stuttgart duo Mondo Sangue (Christian Bluthardt and Yvy Pop) have not only proven (again) that they have a natural flair for this style and concept, but it’s their passion and their love for this niche music that ultimately transcends over to their releases. There’s no question that their heart is undoubtedly in it, and it shines through in abundance.

Like their previous releases, Mondo Sangue and All Score Media have produced a stunning package for their album with period artwork by artist Adrian Keindorf. The 180g vinyl LP provides a rich sound quality, comes in a lavish gatefold sleeve and is strictly limited to just 666 copies - all of which are hand-numbered. Each LP comes with a film poster and a digital download code. In addition to this, 100 special edition LP copies come sewn in screen-printed butcher paper. Overall, it’s a classy addition to their impressive catalogue of releases.

Winnetou and His Friend Old Firehand (1966) Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra

For their second release, All Score Media have unveiled another great from their Peter Thomas collection. Winnetou and His Friend Old Firehand (aka: Thunder at the Border , Winnetou and Old Firehand ) (ASM 049 / LP 21299-1 / CD 21299-2) was the 1966 finale of the Karl May film adaptations of Horst Wendlandt's Rialto film. Alfred Vohrer (Perrak, The Yellow House on Pinnasberg), described by cult director Quentin Tarantino as a genius, directed the film, moving away from the contemplative German to the far more violent Spaghetti Western genre. The move triggered an ambivalent response from critics and fans ranging from "explosive" to "the low point of the series".

It also marked a change of direction in terms of the film music, when Peter Thomas was brought in to replace Martin Böttcher as the established “Winnetou composer” and was to remain the only Karl May film to receive a Peter Thomas score. However, this wasn't due to a negative response, far from it. Moreover, it was simply a case of ‘practicality’. Thomas was, at this period of his career, extremely in demand. Between Edgar Wallace thrillers and Jerry Cotton action films, he simply had more commissions than he could handle. It was not until 1980 that Thomas returned to the subject with the music for the TV series Mein Freund Winnetou.

Thomas’s resulting score fell somewhere in between Böttcher's Karl May string melodies and the much more experimental and stylistic Spaghetti Western music of Ennio Morricone. The score is impressive, and never plays safe, it’s title theme paves the way and sets the tone perfectly with plenty of high energy strings and wild playful brass. It’s typically Thomas in full flow.

This packed (42 tracks) score marks its world premiere on vinyl and has been fully remastered. The The CD version goes a step further and also contains three previously unpublished tracks that were found within Peter Thomas' estate, as well as a another bonus track with the composer himself at the piano, as he presented the first demo to the film producer along with his spoken comments (recorded in 1966 in the Bavaria Tonstudios, Munich).

Following on from their Bruce Lee: The Big Boss (CD / LP ASM 048, 2020), this is All Score Media’s second LP / CD release in the new dedicated series of the composer who died on May 17th, 2020. The packaging and audio quality is again exceptional with Adrian Keindorf responsible for the superb artwork to both the gatefold sleeve of the LP and the digipack CD. The LP appears on high quality 180g vinyl as standard in black and in a very attractive limited edition pressing of 300 LPs in transparent turquoise. Another couple of first-rate releases from Dietmar Bosch and his team, long may it continue.

To order: https://www.allscore.de

(Darren Allison is Soundtrack Editor for Cinema Retro)

“A MARITAL MISADVENTURE”

By Raymond Benson

Most film historians agree that the great Alfred Hitchcock became the Master of Suspense with his British production, The Man Who Knew Too Much. But Hitchcock had been directing movies since 1925—nine silent titles and seven sound features preceded that 1934 landmark. While a couple of these earlier titles are quite good, such as The Lodger (1927) and Blackmail (1929), the rest are mostly oddballs that don’t reflect the types of films for which Hitchcock would be known.

Rich and Strange, released in Britain at the end of 1931 and in America (retitled East of Shanghai) in early 1932, is one of these oddities. That is not to say it’s an unworthy entry in Hitchcock’s filmography. While it will never be considered one of his numerous masterworks, Rich and Strange is such a curiosity that it’s interesting and entertaining enough for the discerning Hitchcock fan or vintage film buff. Everyone else, though, will assuredly stop watching after thirty minutes.

Based on a 1930 novel by Dale Collins, the screenplay was written by Alma Reville (Mrs. Hitchcock) and Val Valentine. Hitchcock also worked on the script uncredited. Allegedly it is somewhat inspired by a round-the-world cruise the Hitchcocks had taken. Is it autobiographical? Some historians claim that some elements might be, but it’s more likely that Rich and Strange is the couple’s shared fantasy of a marital misadventure.

Billed and marketed as a comedy, the movie does contain humorous moments in the vein of Hitchcock’s sardonic wit and sometimes rather prurient sensibility. The first third is certainly more comic than the rest, the middle becomes tragically serious, and the final act is action-adventure on the high seas. Yes, it’s an oddball movie.

Fred and Emily Hill are a middle-class married couple who are happily married, and yet they don’t realize they’re happy. Fred (Henry Kendall) is bored with his job in London and dissatisfied with their living conditions. Em (Joan Barry) is a bit shrewish but only because of Fred’s malaise. Then, out of the blue, Fred receives a large early inheritance from an uncle. The couple ditches it all and goes on a round-the-world cruise. From the get-go, Fred discovers that he easily succumbs to seasickness aboard the ship, which puts a damper on the festivities. In Paris, they are shocked by the Folies Bergère. By the time they get to the Mediterranean, Em has become infatuated with handsome Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont). Fred, too, begins an affair with a sexy German “Princess” (Betty Amann). Thus, the Hills’ marriage is threatened by their attractions to other partners. It takes the sinking of a tramp steamer, where they end up after losing all their money, and being captured by Chinese pirates, to save it.

Rich and Strange could be called a warm-up to Hitchcock’s 1941 Hollywood comedy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which also revolved around a bickering couple played by Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery. While even that picture is not held in high regard in Hitchcock’s filmography, it’s much better than Rich and Strange. True, there is a ten year difference in technical advancements and in Hitchcock’s development as a director. In fact, Rich and Strange seems to still have one foot in the silent era. Quite a bit of the movie has no dialogue and there is an abundance of unnecessary title cards. Obviously, when Hitchcock made Rich and Strange, he was still learning—and experimenting with—how to make sound pictures.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray is the 4K restoration recently done by the BFI and it looks the best this reviewer has ever seen it. In the USA, the title has mostly appeared on knock-off bootleg compilations on VHS and then DVD in poor quality. The movie comes with optional English subtitles, and an audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth. The only supplements are an introduction (in French with subtitles) by Noël Simsolo, and an audio excerpt about the film from the famed Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews. The theatrical trailer and more Kino Hitchcock trailers complete the package.

Rich and Strange is for Alfred Hitchcock completists and fans of early British cinema.

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Lee Van Cleef traditionally kept a low profile and granted relatively few interviews. Filmmaker Mike Malloy has compiled some brief snippets of comments from those who worked with Van Cleef: Fred Williamson, Henry Silva and Dubbing Editor Ted Rusoff. They all share some anecdotes that reflect well on the man who played so many intimidating characters.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Sally Ann Howes, who played the female lead as Truly Scrumptious, in the 1968 screen version of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", has died at age 91, three months after the passing of her husband, literary agent Douglas Rae. Howes was also a major name in theater productions, having received her first break as an understudy for Julie Andrews in the 1958 Broadway production of "My Fair Lady". When the audience heard that Howes was replacing Andrews at a matinee performance, the ticket buyers were understandably devastated. But Howes took pride in the fact that she won over the audience with her spirited performance and called that afternoon "the best I ever had". In 1963, she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in "Brigadoon".

Howes was cast opposite Dick Van Dyke in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" when James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli decided to adapt Ian Fleming's children's novel for the big screen. The film was released between two Bond movies: ""You Only Live Twice" (1967) and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969). However, Broccoli produced "Chitty" alone, as his Bond producing partner Harry Saltzman was working on his own solo projects. Broccoli once told this writer that the challenges of bringing a major musical to the screen while simultaneously preparing for another Bond film proved to be daunting, which is why he decided to never produce a non-Bond movie again. "Chitty" was a big budget production and Broccoli had enlisted some top talent including production designer Ken Adam, who rose to fame on the early Bond movies. The effects in the film remain impressive today, especially when one considers they were achieved in the pre-CGI era. Initially, the film was a boxoffice disappointment. However, over the years, it has become regarded as a beloved children's classic, especially in England. It would later spawn a successful stage production mounted by Broccoli's daughter Barbara and his stepson Michael G. Wilson that would play in the West End and on Broadway. Sally Ann Howes was deemed to be integral to the film's legacy and undoubtedly "Chitty" fans worldwide will mourn her passing. For more, click here.

BY TODD GARBARINI

I owe a lot to my late grandmother on my mother’s side. She introduced the arts to me at a very early age. As far back as I can remember, her household was always a place filled with music and laughter as the sounds of Broadway show tunes, singer Allen Sherman and George Burns and Gracie Allen filtered through her basement. In the summer of 1978, she told me about a new film that had just come out which was a remake of an earlier black and white comedy that she had enjoyed. I had heard the term “remake” the previous year when my father took me to see King Kong as directed by John Guillermin starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. This time, the “remake” in question was Heaven Can Wait which had been based upon Alexander Hall’s Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). I knew nothing of either film, but it was a day to go to the movies with my grandmother, so I jumped at the chance.

Heaven Can Wait opened on Wednesday, June 28, 1978 as another starring vehicle for Warren Beatty, an actor who was new to me. Coming on the heels of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Parallax View (1974) and Shampoo (1975), Mr. Beatty was riding high and struck box office gold with this colorful and charming update of an athlete who finds himself in a predicament for the ages. I immediately liked his interpretation of Joe Pendelton, a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams (not a prize fighter as in the original which, itself, was based on a stage play) training for the Super Bowl who has a near-fatal bicycle accident which results in his appearing at a heavenly “way station” with others who have just become deceased. His escort (Buck Henry) introduces him to Mr. Jordan (James Mason) when he fails to convince Joe about his worldly death and ultimate fate. Through their discussions, it becomes clear that The Escort, for lack of a better term, jumped the gun and removed Joe from the accident just before it happened – a big “no-no” and a clear rule-breaker as far as the gentlemanly Mr. Jordan is concerned. To fix this, The Escort must find a suitable body back on Earth to put Joe back into, as his own body has already been cremated.

Leo Farnsworth is a millionaire who is involved with many industrial and political affairs and is about to be murdered by his wife Julia (Dyan Cannon) and her lover Tony Abbott (Charles Grodin) who works for him. Joe steps into his shoes and perplexes the staff at his (Farnsworth’s) character traits and sudden love of football, while also shocking Julia and Tony following the “murder”. Joe/Leo finds himself in the midst of a meeting with Betty Logan (Julie Christie) who is determined to stop the reach of Farnsworth’s company’s negative effects on the environment. Deep down, however, Joe’s/Leo’s only desire is to play football and get back to playing with the Rams.

Mr. Beatty co-wrote the script with Elaine May and co-directed the film with Buck Henry. The supporting cast in this film are all excellent and charming, especially Ms. Cannon and Mr. Grodin, both of whom I would go on to enjoy immensely in Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978) and Midnight Run (1988), respectively. Jack Warden is also terrific as Max Corkle, Joe’s trainer who is summoned to the Farnsworth estate and is astonished when he is made aware of Joe’s transformation into Leo. I could not help but feel overjoyed for Max as I knew that he missed his friend terribly. James Mason is also wonderful with his dry expressions and comments.

Heaven made a huge impact on my life that year. For Halloween 1978, I came very dangerously close to dressing in Joe’s trademark sneakers, sweatpants and zippered sweatshirt, though I doubt that any of my fellow classmates, who themselves were donning their best impressions of ghosts, vampires, characters from Happy Days, Star Wars and Grease, would have had the slightest idea of who I was trying to impersonate. Coincidentally, Here Comes Mr. Jordan was airing on the 1:00 Movie on Channel 9 in New York on Halloween. My mother’s uncle was the sole owner of a then-$1200.00 top-loading Magnavox VCR which he used to record the movie for me to view on a later date. I liked it just as much as the remake.

Heaven was nominated for nine Academy Awards in the Spring of 1979 and I wanted very badly to view the ceremonies. A start time of ten o’clock in the evening for the broadcast on a school night ensured no such luck. I had to make do with the movie tie-in novelization of the film as well as the Fotonovel, an ingenious paperback reproduction of the entire film in color photos with all the dialogue. I enjoyed Dave Grusin’s lovely musical score, though if anyone had told me that I would have to wait until 2017 to purchase it on a device known as a “compact disc” I would have been thoroughly confused and crestfallen to say the least. Heaven ultimately won its sole Oscar for Best Production Design, indubitably due in no small part to Northern California’s beautiful Filoli Mansion that doubles as the Farnsworth estate. The Best Picture accolades went to Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter.

Birney Lettick provided the marketing campaign with the film’s sole key art for the promotion of the film, an enormous tapestry of which was unfurled on the side of (Grauman’s?) movie theater in Los Angeles which can be seen briefly in the 1978 John Travolta film Moment by Moment.

Although released in July 1999 on DVD, that pressing has been out-of-print for many years. Fortunately, “Paramount Presents” has now reissued the film in a lovely transfer on Blu-ray. Inexplicably, there are no extras, not even a trailer (although it does contain a code to access a digital version), but that should not stop you from purchasing one of the most delightful romantic comedies from the 1970’s. A true classic.

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BY FRED BLOSSER

In Andrew V. McLaglen’s “One More Train to Rob,” an obscure but modestly entertaining Western from 1971, train robber Harker Fleet (George Peppard) masterminds the armed theft of $40,000 from a Wells Fargo express. Thanks to his careful planning, he and his gang all have airtight alibis when the law comes calling. His partners Tim (John Vernon) and Katy (Diana Muldaur) posed as passengers on the train, and his other henchmen Slim, Red, and Jimmy were presumed asleep in their bunks at a nearby ranch. Checking on Fleet’s whereabouts during the holdup, the sheriff is assured by the town madam Louella that she and Harker were together in her bed all night. Louella is played by Marie Windsor, still plenty hot at fifty-two, if I may be excused a little ageism and sexism. The sheriff is ready to let Fleet off the hook, but the unexpected arrival of the hulking Jones brothers (Merlin Olsen and his real-life brother Eric) throws a wrench into the scheme. The brothers demand that Fleet marry their sister Cora Mae, whom he seduced and abandoned during an earlier layover, so to speak, while he and Tim scoped out the Wells Fargo heist. The prospect of a shotgun wedding doesn’t thrill Harker. “What if I confess to robbing the train and go to jail instead?” he asks the sheriff. No dice. Trying to get away, he slugs a deputy and winds up in prison for assaulting an officer.

Two years later, released early on good behavior, he finds that Tim has married Katy and combined Harker’s share of the loot with his own and Katy’s to start a ranch and a lumber business. Tim and Katy are unsettled by their former partner’s arrival for different reasons, Tim because Harker wants his cut of the money, Katy ostensibly because she enjoys her present lifestyle as a lady of means, but really because she still has a thing for Fleet. Tim’s position is especially shaky. He’s overextended on the ranch, the bank is poised to foreclose, and because of Harker’s accidental intervention, he’s been foiled in an attempt to shore up his credit with gold stolen from a neighboring mine owned by Chinese immigrants. As a hole card, he holds hostage the Chinese elder, Mr. Chang (Richard Loo), and tries to coerce him into turning over the gold. Aware of Tim’s plot, Harker sees a chance to recover his own losses and ruin his former partner in the process.

The tagline for the movie poster — reproduced as the cover art for a new Blu-ray edition of “One More Train to Rob” from Code Red — positions the film as a sweaty, violent story about betrayal and retribution: “He’d been cheated out of his gold . . . and his woman . . . now the only weapon he had left was revenge!” It’s a little misleading. “One More Train to Rob” offers plenty of action to satisfy genre fans, well-staged by McLaglen and stunt coordinator Hal Needham, but it takes a lighter approach to the vengeance theme than the poster implies. Harker’s payback relies more on intimidation and shrewdness than gunplay. The robber enjoys watching Tim and Katy squirm at his reappearance, wearing beat-up clothing and chewing tobacco in their lavish house, while they’re preparing to host a visit by the local minister and his wife — the humor is obvious but still pretty funny. In the meantime, he maneuvers to get on the good side of the Chinese immigrants to outfox Tim. Since Fleet is played by George Peppard, always at his best when cast in this type of role, neither the viewer nor the Chinese miners are quite sure whether he’s to be trusted. But Loo’s character is warily satisfied once he understands the robber’s ulterior motive: “I wondered why a man of your character would wish to befriend us, but now I see,” he concludes. Mr. Chang’s associates are played by France Nuyen and Soon-Tek Oh. It isn’t exactly “Crazy Rich Asians” or “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” in terms of casting Asian actors above the title in respectfully quirky roles, but at least the Chinese characters are depicted with shrewd dignity, and they give as good as they get with the racist white bad guys.

The Code Red Blu-ray presents McLaglen’s film in a sharp, rich transfer at its proper 1.85:1 aspect. Licensed from Universal, it includes the theatrical trailer and subtitles for those of us who didn’t need them in 1971 but welcome them now.

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Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

“BROSNAN BEFORE BOND”

By Raymond Benson

In 1986, Pierce Brosnan almost became James Bond, nearly a decade before he actually did so. He had been cast to replace Roger Moore as the iconic 007, but at the last minute, NBC waved his contract for the television series Remington Steele at him, exercising the option to make another season. Brosnan was out, and Timothy Dalton was in.

And then… Remington Steele’s new season ended up consisting of only six episodes, finishing its run in early 1987. So, Brosnan had been baited and switched. Nevertheless, in the interim years between then and his appearance in GoldenEye (1995), the actor set about establishing himself as a leading man in feature films.

One of these early starring roles was in the 1988 production, The Deceivers, a British picture made by the elite Merchant Ivory Productions, and it was produced by Ismail Merchant himself. Based on a 1952 novel by John Masters, the film was touted as being based on fact (the screenplay was by Michael Hirst). After a couple of directors, including Stephen Frears, dropped out of the project, Nicholas Meyer signed on. Meyer, known for his work on such titles as Time After Time (1979) and Star Trek II—the Wrath of Khan (1982), seemed to be a viable choice for this action-adventure period piece that the studio hoped would be perceived as something along the lines of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It wasn’t.

The story is set in India in 1825, before the British Raj but when Britain’s East India Company was a heavy influence in the country. The trading company had already come to rule large areas of India, employing military power and administrative functions. Captain William Savage (Brosnan) is a highly regarded employee, and he’s also engaged to the daughter of his boss, Colonel Wilson (Keith Michell). The bride-to-be, Sarah, is played by Michell’s real-life daughter, Helena Michell. After the marriage, all looks rosy for Savage if he keeps his nose clean and doesn’t rock the boat in his job. However, a loosely-organized cult called the Thugee, or Thugs (which, in Indian, means “deceivers”), are terrorizing the countryside. The Thugee brutally murder groups of people in surprise raids. When British citizens and employees of The Company become victims, Savage takes it upon himself to find a way to infiltrate the gang, become a member, and do something to take them down. Of course, to become a member, he must stain his skin color and become an Indian. Against his father-in-law’s wishes, Savage does just that with the help of a repentant Thug, Hussein (Saeed Jaffrey). What follows causes the “dark side” of Savage’s personality to emerge, as he must adopt murderous tendencies to successfully pull off the charade.

The Deceivers has a “literary,” art-house sensibility, as if it were a Masterpiece Theatre episode. At the same time, however, it is brutally violent and deals with a not-so-admirable period of British dominance in a country of people treated as inferior. While the action and battle scenes are well done, the movie might have benefited from a more populist approach. As a result, the film’s lofty attitudes prevent it from being truly gripping or exciting.

There is much to admire, however. For James Bond fans, there is not only the presence of Brosnan, who performs admirably and intensely in the role of Captain Savage, but also production designer Ken Adam, who presents a gorgeous pallet of period landscape and buildings, and main title designer Maurice Binder, whose style of production is easily recognizable in the opening credits.

Cohen Film Group’s new Blu-ray looks fine, if a bit dark (which could be Walter Lassally’s cinematography). It comes with optional English subtitles. There are no supplements other than the original theatrical trailers and an endless array of trailers for other Cohen releases.

The Deceivers may not be an award winner, but it is interesting enough as a period piece, for the pre-Bond performance by Pierce Brosnan, and for its historical milieu that is rarely touched upon in modern cinema.

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In this clip from a 1957 episode of "The Jack Benny Program", the world's worst violin player and penny-pincher arrives in Rome and has a brief encounter with a young, ruggedly handsome Italian luggage porter played by Sean Connery. Most amusing is that Connery's brief dialogue is delivered in a unique Italian accent highlighted by a Scottish brogue! (A tip of the hat to reader Doug Gerbino who alerted us to this video.)

Here's a production featurette from the underrated 1968 Western "Guns for San Sebastian" which featured Anthony Quinn squaring off against Charles Bronson, under the direction of Henri Verneuil. 

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“AGE IS JUST A NUMBER”

By Raymond Benson

Harold and Maude, which was directed by Hal Ashby (his second feature film) and released in 1971, is one of those initially critically stomped box-office bombs… and yet years later became a cult hit in revival houses, on television broadcasts, and home video releases. It’s one of many examples that illustrate how critics don’t always know everything and how some motion pictures are ahead of their time. Harold and Maude now resides in the top 50 of the AFI’s list of 100 greatest comedy films.

Written by Colin Higgins, who simultaneously turned his original screenplay into a novel (also published in 1971), the movie was unquestionably a counter-culture, rebellious black comedy that from the get-go had the potential to offend some folks. The main character’s fake suicide pranks aside, the theme of a May-December romance—this time with the woman being the older one in the relationship—was sure to be off-putting to the moral majority. One often hears the justification for couples in which one person is much older than the other is that “age is just a number.” In the case of Harold and Maude, Maude’s number is 79, while Harold’s is 19. That’s a sixty year difference. Okay, then!

Most everyone by now knows the story. Harold (Bud Cort) is a cynical young man who lives with his wealthy, snobbish mother (Vivian Pickles). He is a misfit who is obsessed with death. He constantly stages gory suicides for shock effect, which of course upsets his mother as well as any blind dates that she sets up for her son. Harold also attends funerals for people he doesn’t know, and that’s where he meets Maude (Ruth Gordon). It turns out that Maude, a concentration camp survivor, also likes to go to strangers’ funerals, but her outlook on life is much different than Harold’s. She is wild, happy-go-lucky, and full of life. She’ll commit misdemeanors like stealing cars for the fun of it. The two develop a fast friendship, and together they have some misadventures, all set to the lively music of Cat Stevens. Romance blooms between the two, and Harold ultimately announces that he will marry Maude. The movie takes a poignant left turn at this point, and to say more would spoil it for those who have never seen the picture.

Director Ashby has always been something of an iconoclast in Hollywood. He started out as a successful editor who transitioned to directing. He found a niche in the swinging early 1970s as a helmsman of fringe anti-establishment titles like The Last Detail (1973) or Shampoo (1975). The failure—and then cult reputation—of Harold and Maude solidified Ashby’s place as a quirky, but talented, director. His work here is obviously eccentric, inventive, and perfect for the material.

Bud Cort is winning in his role as Harold, but it is of course Ruth Gordon who is the heart of the movie. Without her screen presence, charisma, and enthusiasm in the role of Maude, the film would not have worked.

Another element that elevates the film is the soundtrack full of songs by Cat Stevens. Most of the tunes were taken from previously-released albums, but two numbers were composed and recorded specifically for the movie.

Harold and Maude has appeared several times in home media, including a now out of print Criterion Collection edition. A more affordable new release from Paramount Presents is the item on display here, and the remaster from film transfer looks quite good. It comes with an entertaining audio commentary by Larry Karaszewski and Cameron Crowe. The only supplements, though, is a short interview with Yusuf/Cat Stevens and a couple of theatrical trailers.

For fans of Hal Ashby, Ruth Gordon, Cat Stevens, and those free-wheeling early cult films of 1970s Hollywood, Harold and Maude is for you.

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BY DARREN ALLISON

The Film Detective continues to thrill us with a couple of excellent cult classics. Frankenstein’s Daughter is a film that had been denied a great deal of exposure to fans of the strange and macabre. For many, it’s a title that has teased us for decades, with a still or a lobby card appearing once in a while by way of a horror book or a specialist periodical, so it is certainly welcome. It is typically what one would expect from this lush 1950s period. An incredibly low-budget affair, these films would often be produced for around $60,000, but the filmmakers certainly knew how to squeeze every ounce out of that budget. If anything, it ignited creativity and provided a lesson in how to make the most of the limited resources that were available to them.

Frankenstein’s Daughter is a fine example of that. Starring Donald Murphy, Sandra Knight, John Ashley and Harold Lloyd Jr (yes, that’s the son of the silent film comedian), the film was directed by Richard E. Cunha. The film is a simple enough story, if a little absurd, and attempts to latch on to the whole horror family spin off notion - film’s such as Universal’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936), Son of Dracula (1943) and Son of Frankenstein (1939) undoubtedly contributed towards the filmmakers line of thought. There was a gap in the market, and it was rich ground for exploiting. Donald Murphy is the real villain here, playing the sleazy and devious lab assistant Oliver Frank (Frank being a thinly disguised identity for the Frankenstein family name), and it’s his intention of creating the first female Frankenstein's monster which drives the narrative.

Like most of these low budget horrors, it’s usually down to the ‘monster make-up’ which determines its overall likeability factor. Frankenstein’s Daughter fits right in. It is very much in the same ballpark as AIP’s cult classics such as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein made a year earlier in 1957, and where the central ‘monster’ seems to be inspired by an automobile accident victim, which of course, in the worst instance, can be something quite grotesque and disturbing. This all works well in the context of Frankenstein’s Daughter and adds a great deal to the overall thrill factor. The acting is quite naturally wooden and stiff, but anyone who knows and loves these films wouldn’t expect anything less, as it’s part of their appeal.

The Film Detective has done a remarkable job on this film. Considering its low budget, the film looks quite beautiful framed at 1.85:1, and with sharp, clean detail in both picture and audio.

I was really impressed with the bonus materials which include a very interesting documentary, Richard E. Cunha: Filmmaker of the Unknown - A new retrospective from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, featuring an archival interview with director Richard E. Cunha. There is also a very detailed and enjoyable audio commentary with numerous contributors and a fascinating featurette, John Ashley: Man from the B’s - a new career retrospective featuring film historian C. Courtney Joyner. The Film Detective seals this fine tribute with a nice 12-page booklet featuring an original essay, The Making of Frankenstein’s Daughter written by Tom Weaver. It’s a thoughtful and well -produced Blu-ray release which has to be admired.

The Amazing Mr. X (1948), also known as The Spiritualist, is an American horror thriller made in a film noir style. For a title that sits in the public domain it's perhaps unfairly overlooked or labelled as a ‘lessor’ quality film, and this really isn’t the case. Starring Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari, Cathy O'Donnell, and Richard Carlson, the film was directed by Bernard Vorhaus.

Some two years after her husband's death, Christine Faber (Lynn Bari) hears her late husband Paul Faber (Donald Curtis) calling out her name. She walks outside her beachfront home and encounters Alexis (Turhan Bey), a mysterious, charming stranger who seems to know all about her. After more ghostly manifestations, Christine and her younger sister Janet (Cathy O'Donnell) become obsessed with the strange life of Alexis, a spiritualist. But Alexis finds himself in more trouble than he had in mind. After staging a convincing séance involving the deceased Paul, he is surprised by the appearance of Paul Faber himself. And so begins a twisting tale of deceitful plotting.

The Amazing Mr. X moves along very nicely, and is full of wonderfully atmospheric scenes. But it’s also a story of two parts. Once Paul is revealed as being very much alive, the film changes direction and becomes more of a straightforward piece of noir and the supernatural element takes more of a back seat. However, everything is handled exceptionally well, especially the impressive cinematography by John Alton. Alton’s use of shadow and his clever optical effects really helps to elevate the movie and gives it a more polished (and expensive) look that you would expect to see in a RKO or a Universal production from the same period. Large, lush sets and exotic beach locations all add to the general glossy production values.

Once again, The Film Detective has produced a fine addition to their catalogue of titles. The movie’s new 4K transfer, both in visual and audio terms, is superb - perhaps a little soft in certain scenes, but some close-ups, particularly on Bari, appear more as intended soft focus shots. But overall, The Amazing Mr. X, presented in its correct aspect ratio of 1.37:1, punches high above its weight. The bonus material is also very enjoyable and includes a specific audio commentary by Jason A. Ney. There is also a new documentary, Mysteries Exposed: Inside the Cinematic World of Spiritualis, which is an enjoyable and informative reflection of the genre. A nice 12-page booklet is included which features a detailed essay, The Amazing Mr. Bey written by Don Stradley.

Both Frankenstein’s Daughter and The Amazing Mr. X (1948) offer a great deal of enjoyment and fun. It’s nice to see that the wonderful original artwork has been utilised on both releases rather than some badly cut and pasted Photoshop design which always cheapens the overall presentation. It’s a shame that the original trailers were not included, especially for Frankenstein’s Daughter. As an exploitation movie, the accompanying trailers often provided a certain over-the-top sense of salesmanship which was always so unique and memorable.

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(Darren Allison is the movie soundtracks reviewer for Cinema Retro magazine.) 

RIP VAN MARLOWE

By Raymond Benson

(Note: Portions of this review appeared on Cinema Retro in 2014 for an earlier Kino Lorber edition.)

Robert Altman was a very quirky director, sometimes missing the mark, but oftentimes brilliant. His 1973 take on Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel The Long Goodbye is a case in point. It might take a second viewing to appreciate what’s really going on in the film. Updating what is essentially a 1940s film noir character to the swinging 70s was a risky and challenging prospect—and Altman and his star, Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe (!), pull it off.

It’s one of those pictures that critics hated when it was first released; and yet, by the end of the year, it was being named on several Top Ten lists. I admit that when I first saw it in 1973, I didn’t much care for it. I still wasn’t totally in tune with the kinds of movies Altman made—even after M*A*S*H, Brewster McCloud (an underrated gem), and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. But I saw it again a few years later on a college campus and totally dug it. Altman made oddball films, and either you went with the flow or you would be put off by the improvisational, sometimes sloppy mise-en-scène that the director used. And the sound—well, Altman is infamous for his overlapping dialogue (one critic called it “Altman Soup”). If you didn’t “get” what the director was doing with sound, then you would certainly have a hard time with his pictures.

Yes, Elliott Gould plays Philip Marlowe. A very different interpretation than Humphrey Bogart or Dick Powell, obviously. And yet, it works. Gould displays the right amount of bemused cynicism, as if he had been asleep for twenty years and suddenly woken up in the 1970s. And that’s exactly how Altman, screenwriter Leigh Brackett (who co-wrote the 1946 The Big Sleep), and Gould approached the material. Altman, in a documentary extra on the making of the film, called the character “Rip Van Marlowe.” He is an anachronism in a different time. For example, Marlowe can’t help but be bewildered by the quartet of exhibitionist hippie lesbians that live in his apartment complex. And he still drives a car from his original era. And therein lies the point of the picture—this is a comment on the 70s, not the 40s or 50s.

The plot concerns the possible murder of the wife of Marlowe’s good friend, Terry (played by baseball pro Jim Boutin), who is indeed a suspect, as well as a suitcase of missing money belonging to a vicious gangster (extrovertly portrayed by film director Mark Rydell), an Ernest Hemingway-like writer who has gone missing (eccentrically performed by Sterling Hayden), and the author’s hot blonde wife who may know more than she’s telling (honestly played by newcomer Nina van Pallandt). The story twists, turns, hits some bumps in the road, and finally circles back to the initial beginning mystery.

It may not be one of Altman’s best films, but it’s one of the better ones. It’s certainly one of the more interesting experiments he tried in his most prolific period of the 70s.

Kino Lorber already put out a Blu-ray release several years ago, but it didn’t really improve much on the original DVD release prior to that. The company has now re-issued the film in a brand new 4K master that is a vast step-up from the previous release. It looks great. The soft focus cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is no longer a hazy gaze but is instead a crystal transfer of that distinctive 1970s film stock imagery. The movie now comes with an informative audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas.

Some of the extras are ported over from the previous Kino Lorber release, such as the aforementioned “making of” documentary, a short piece on Zsigmond, an animated reproduction of a vintage American Cinematographer article, the trailer, and a few radio spots. New to this edition are featurettes with film historian/critic David Thompson on Altman and the film, author Tom Williams on Raymond Chandler, and author/historian Maxim Jakubowski on hard-boiled fiction in general. There is also a “Trailers from Hell” segment with Josh Olson.

If you’re an Altman fan and don’t already own the out of print DVD or previous Blu-ray, you may want to pick up the new, improved The Long Goodbye. It probably won’t be long before this, too, like Philip Marlowe himself, is a rare collector’s item.

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(Note: It has just been announced that "The Long Goodbye" has been named to America's National Film Registry of classic motion pictures.)

BY HANK REINEKE

The tales of adventure, fantasy and science-fiction penned by the great French novelist Jules Verne have served as filmmaking source material since the silent era. In the 1950s and early 60s such films as Disney’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954), U.A.’s Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Fox’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), and Columbia’s Mysterious Island (1961) had studio cash boxes ringing. Verne’s charming mix of adventurous whimsy and exciting scenarios were big moneymakers. They would all capitalize, in part, by the fact these were “family” films that promised a couple of hours of cross-generational entertainment.

So it was not surprising when James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff of American-International Pictures thought it might be time to get into the game. “You can get an indication of public taste by observing the pictures that are doing good business at the box office,” Nicholson would tell a writer from the Atlanta Constitution during a May 1961 stopover. “You can also detect growing trends.”

It was obvious that the most recent trend to catch his attention was the success of the big studio Jules Verne pictures. Not to let a money-generating bandwagon pass, AIP would chose Verne’s’ 1886 novel Robur the Conqueror as their next big project. Technically, their film would be a mashup of the latter title with 1904 successor, Master of the World. “Jules Verne is the kind of writer whose stories appeal to the family trade,” Nicholson opined, acknowledging the family trade was good business. But he admitted that the “combining two of [Verne’s] classics into a film represents quite a challenge.”

That may have been so but, as one Los Angles newspaper would note, it was a challenge AIP considered worthy of undertaking. Similarly to their series of celebrated Edgar Allan Poe films, Verne’s Master of the World could be freely adapted as a feature-length film, “without paying a quarter to a half a million” for the rights. Public Domain status was a copyright-free blessing of the Gods to frugal film producers.

As might be expected, Arkoff was typically the less publically diplomatic of the two AIP producers. His occasional press interviews would invariably tilt to the importance of producing a bankable, unapologetically exploitable feature. He wanted the company’s product to ring at the cash register, uninterested in birthing an under-attended critic’s darling type of film. “We make pictures for the young in heart, as well as the young in mind,” Arkoff confessed to Hollywood publicist Joe Hyams. “Neither Jim nor I have any Narcissus love. We don’t make art for art’s sake. To us making movies is a business. Fundamentally, we’re trying to amuse and entertain people, with only one objective – to make money. The way most other Hollywood producers talk they’re ashamed of making money.”

The two men shared one thing in common: they were actually happy to be industry mavericks. Their modest, targeted productions enabled them to not deal often with “temperaments, agents, and Hollywood paraphernalia.” The cigar-chomping Arkoff boasted that as long as there was a topical market ripe for exploitation, “we’ll be in the business. When the trend changes, we change. We make money, we’re happy men.”

The Poe series had put a bit of disposable cash in the studio’s vault, so it was promised that their Master of the World project would be a lavish one, exacting to its creator’s visions – well, within limits. “We had to see that the sets followed the Verne descriptions in meticulous detail,” Nicholson confided. “They had to look ornate, and yet be scientifically correct.” Though AIP favorite Vincent Price would be brought aboard to star as Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, the real star attraction of the film was to be the villain’s magnificent airship, the Albatross.

The producers tapped Richard Matheson to combine the two Verne novels into a single story. Matheson was happy to accept the challenge. The author preferred to cultivate a reputation as an “off-beat” writer or “story-teller,” than one pigeonholed as someone working within a single genre. In the finally summation, and while Matheson was properly defensive of his work on the film’s screenplay, the script is certainly not the best of his storied career.

The film is set in the pre-Wright Bros. age of 1868. It’s no sooner than one disgruntled citizen proclaimed Morgantown, PA, as the “most boring and monotonous town in the U.S.,” that a strange, disembodied voice - reciting scripture - booms mysteriously from the foreboding mountain top of Great Eyrie. Word of the strange event makes its way to Philadelphia, where an agent from the Department of the Interior, John Strock (Charles Bronson), chooses to pay a visit to a balloon society meeting at Independence Hall.

Strock is seeking an experienced team to carry out a ballooning expedition so he can inspect the crater of Mount Eyrie from on high. The team chosen from the Weldon Balloon Society is the cantankerous, arms manufacturer Prudent (Henry Hull), his beautiful daughter Dorothy (Mary Webster) and her fiancé Phillip Evans (David Frankham). Their expedition is cut short when a missile brings down their balloon. They soon are held as temporary prisoners of Robur the Conqueror (Vincent Price), quartered aboard his massive, paper-weight flying machine the Albatross.

The foursome learn that Robur, a self-proclaimed “citizen of the world,” is both bellicose and rabid in his pacifist beliefs and aviation enthusiasms. He ridicules Hull and company, pronouncing ballooning as dead. “The future belongs to the flying machine,” he bellows, noting the military munitions-equipped, 150 MPH Albatross as an example of modern aviation’s progress. From aboard the vessel, it’s Robur’s intention to effectively “war against war… to end for all time the scourge of war.”

Paradoxically, he plans to drop the munitions of warfare on the imperialist capitols of the world. While he does pre-warn his targets to “disarm or perish,” there will be, of course, a pushback. Seeking an end to warfare makes the obsessed Robur, arguably, a somewhat complicated villain. His aim is entirely an unselfish, principled one. Even agent Strock concedes that he’s not necessarily angered by Robur’s “ambition” but only by “his method” of obtaining it. Can Robur be stopped? Should he be stopped?

There was the usual ballyhoo pumping up the film’s release. The gossip columns were reporting that in addition to Price receiving his “regular salary” for his role in Master of the World, the producers had also agreed to toss in a twenty-thousand dollar cityscape painting by the - recently deceased - French artist Maurice Utrillo. The offer would serve as a prized bonus, one the actor could add to his famous personal art collection. Charles Bronson, with whom Price would first appear on screen with in House of Wax, was also cast, not necessarily against type, but in a role not playing to his strength. For reasons known to no one but the gruff actor himself, Bronson was reportedly difficult and aloof on set, skulking around with a chip on his shoulder for some unknown reason.

Matheson would admit he was “a little disappointed” with the finished film. He believed, not unreasonably, the half-million dollars allotted to the production wasn’t adequate to present the scope of its vision. It also thought the “casting was off,” mentioning Bronson in particular as ill-suited for the role as Strock. The actor was described by several of the film’s principals to be more than a bit standoffish while working on Master of the World. Matheson thought Bronson uncomfortable with much of the script’s Victorian era dialogue since delivering such florid lines was clearly not his style. Following a less-than-friendly first encounter with the actor, Matheson recalled Bronson telling him that he preferred to play “the part as a coal miner.” He was more or less was a man of his words in that regard. Vincent Price, who famously could get along with practically anyone and or off set, was also tested by the sulking Bronson, sighing to friends, “I can’t get through to this guy. I cannot make friends with him.”

Curious casting aside, Master of the World has simply never been a favorite film of mine. It’s certainly has never been one my favorite Vincent Price, AIP, nor even Jules Verne film adaptations. It simply doesn’t work. I might have held a bit of nostalgia for the film had I seen it on the big screen as a child, especially watching the glorious panoramic shots of the Albatross exterior in flight. But I didn’t… and truthfully the film tends to meander, seeming much longer than its 102 minute running time. I might also be in agreement with Bronson’s assessment that much of the dialogue is too grand eloquent and over-wordy.

The film should have been a bit more fun than it ever is. Here’s a case where the film’s accompanying fifteen-cent Dell comic-book adaptation might have served the story better. One also might have expected the film’s action sequences to be a bit more exciting than staged. Director William Witney, after all, had made a career since the 1930s of cranking out adventure, super-hero and western serials. But there’s very little edge-of-you-seat excitement on display here.

What we do get is a lot of stock footage. Some of the footage is amusing, if used merely as a bit of running-time padding. The first few minutes of the film features an amusing, monochrome series of clips documenting man’s earliest attempts – and resultant failures - to “touch the stars” through flight. The later battle scenes of Robur’s airborne war against the world’s capitols are mostly humdrum, clipped from bleak wartime stock-footage. Les Baxter’s score is undeniably wonderful, but is terribly over-used, under-pinning nearly every scene to the point of becoming tiresome. It’s better to experience the great score as a standalone on the film’s soundtrack LP (Vee Jay 4000). I’s still say Master of the World is worth a watch, if only on a rainy day.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray edition of Master of the World is presented here in a 1920x1080p with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and dts sound, removable English subtitles and an attractive slipcase cover. The set also includes the extended featurette Richard Matheson: Storyteller originally offered on the MGM “Midnight Movies” DVD of 2001. There are also a number of audio commentary tracks featuring a number of film historians, authors, and actors including Tom Weaver, Lucy Chase Williams, and David Frankham. The release rounds out with the film’s original theatrical trailer as well as a generous sampling of titles from Kino’s expansive catalog of Vincent Price films.

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In this clip from "The Dick Cavett Show", Cavett asks guest Henry Fonda to name his favorite movies. Fonda mentions "Twelve Angry Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath" but demurs when it comes to "Mister Roberts", despite the film's great critical and financial success. He explains to Cavett why her personally ended up hating the film.

BY TODD GARBARINI

We all know the old saying that hindsight is 20/20. When it comes to slasher films from the 1980s, movies that were released during that time were very often dismissed by critics – and rightfully so. Audiences, on the other hand, had a great time experiencing arguably the cinematic equivalent of riding a roller coaster. Following the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978 and its most closely related “holiday” second cousin, Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th in 1980, movie studios were falling over themselves to come up with the next big horror hit in much the same way that the spate of killer fish and outer space movies followed the success of Jaws in 1975 and Star Wars in 1977, respectively. Unfortunately, for us, often this resulted in some terribly silly and cookie cutter films that were nothing more than derivations of superior slasher films from years past.

The House on Sorority Row (1982) is a film that didn’t exactly set the box-office on fire during its initial release. To be fair, it didn’t receive a huge theatrical distribution deal. It was shot on a small budget, starring a cast of relative unknowns at the time. In keeping in slasher film tradition, the film begins, as so many other films of the day do, with the typical opening sequence that takes many years prior to the film’s start wherein something quite awful happens before bringing the viewers to present day. In this case, House begins with a soft filter which is generally used to imply a flashback. The trick is remembering this prologue as it will answer the question as to what is happening for the rest of the film. This is a familiar trope that can be seen in everything from Paul Lynch’s Prom Night (1980) to his own Humongous (1982).

Written and directed by Mark Rosen in the summer of 1980 and released in New York in February 1983, House concerns seven sisters of a sorority – Katey (Kathryn McNeil), Vicki (Eileen Davidson), Liz (Janis Zido), Jeanie (Robin Meloy), Diane (Harley Jane Kozak), Morgan (Jodi Draigie), and Stevie (Ellen Dorsher) – whose graduation celebration is interrupted by their house mother, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt), who throws cold water on their plans for a party. In retaliation, the leader of the pack, Vicki, devises a prank to play on Mrs. Slater which involves submerging her cane in the outdoor pool (which is full of muck) and forcing her to retrieve it at gunpoint! The gun is supposed to be loaded with blanks but accidentally fires and hits Mrs. Slater, who collapses. Shocked, there is a mad dash by the sisters to hide her body in the pool and go through with the party and pretend as though everything is status quo.

The bulk of the film revolves around the party and the sisters trying to keep up a good-natured charade, though some of them have more difficulty than the others. None of these characters are especially interesting and the actresses portraying them do their best to remain interesting enough to parlay their actions into suspense, however in the hands of another director, the film could just as easily resemble a comedy, something along the lines of Weekend at Bernie’s (1989). The ending may have been a bit of a shocker at the time, however nearly forty years hence it’s old hat and has been echoed in many better slashers, in particular Michele Soavi’s 1987 directorial debut film Deliria (StageFright).

House made its home video debut on VHS, Betamax, CED and laserdisc in 1983 (wow – did I really just type that??) and then surfaced on DVD in 2000, 2004, 2010 and 2012(!) in varying special editions. Scorpion Releasing brought the film to Blu-ray in 2014 and 2018. Now, MVD has reissued the film on Blu-ray as part of its MVD Rewind Collection in a slipcase edition wherein the cardboard cover is made to resemble a worn VHS rental that needs to be returned to a video store. If you don’t own the 2018 Scorpion Releasing version, this new MVD release contains all the extras from that Blu-ray and is the most comprehensive release to date.

The first interview is with actress Harley Jane Kozak (Diane) who went to New York University and was waiting tables while trying out for the role of Diane. She says that the cast saw the film at the only theater in New York City that was showing it. She also recalls how Eileen Davidson (Vicki) wore her gym shorts in the film. Strangely, the house mother was dubbed! Harley also describes the party scene as “slogging through cement” as they had to dance with no music playing while speaking their lines. This interview lasts a whopping 42 minutes.

The second interview is called “Kats Eyes” with Eileen Davidson, who went on to a successful career in soap operas, and runs just over seven minutes. The third interview is with Kathryn McNeil (Katey) and runs about 14 minutes. She discusses how she got the audition through Backstage magazine (the old-fashioned way!). She had no agent; the cast helped the crew set up the scenes; she was paid $50.00 per day; she was scared by The Wizard of Oz when she was a child and is amazed how young kids now tend to see the more violent films (I was always freaked out by the boat ride sequence in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!).

The fourth interview is with writer and director Mark Rosman, running about 21 minutes. He had the great opportunity to work on Home Movies by Brian De Palma as a first assistant director on the campus of Sarah Lawrence!

The fifth interview is with composer Richard Band and is the most in-depth, running 45 minutes. The score was recorded in London; he grew up in Rome, which I never would have assumed; he talks about many other aspects of his career and his website.

The sixth interview is with composer Igo Kantor and runs 10 minutes.

The additional extras consist of:

Original pre-credit sequence – this runs just over two minutes and is bathed in a blue hue.

Alternate ending storyboards and runs just over seven minutes.

Alternate monoaural audio version with re-timed pre-credit sequence

There is a feature-length audio commentary with the director, and a secondary feature-length audio commentary with the director and Eileen Davidson and Kathryn McNeil.

There are trailers for this film, Mortuary, Dahmer, Mikey and Mind Games.

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For a limited time enjoy a commercial-free streaming of the delightful 1967 comedy "Fitzwilly" starring Dick Van Dyke and Barbara Feldon, courtesy of Universal Video. 

James Cagney made his final gangster movie, "White Heat", in 1949- and it endures as one of the best films of his long, distinguished career.

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Last week, at Deadline's annual film industry event, Contenders: New York, James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson were among those participating. They appeared by a video feed from London to discuss "No Time to Die" and were joined by Eon team members Chris Corbould (Special Effects Supervisor), Production Designer Mark Tildesley and actor Rami Malek, who plays the chief villain. While no major news was broken, the team provided some interesting insights into the making of the film, their motivations and some of the challenges they faced. No announcement was made about how they envision a new incarnation of Agent 007, but Barbara Broccoli once again assured fans that Bond will indeed be back.

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(We are running this review from 2016 in commemoration of Pearl Harbor Day.) 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

If ever an epic deserved the Blu-ray deluxe treatment, Fox's 1970 Pearl Harbor spectacular Tora! Tora! Tora! is it. The film was a major money-loser for the studio at the time and replicated the experience of Cleopatra from a decade before in that this single production threatened to bankrupt the studio. Fox had bankrolled a number of costly bombs around this period including Doctor Doolittle, Hello, Dolly and Star! Fortunately, they also had enough hits (Patton, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A*S*H, the Planet of the Apes series) to stay afloat. However, the Tora! debacle cost both Fox chairman Darryl F. Zanuck and his son, production head Richard Zanuck, their jobs. Ironically, Darryl F. Zanuck had saved the studio a decade before by finally bringing Cleopatra to a costly conclusion and off-setting losses with spectacular grosses from his 1962 D-Day blockbuster The Longest Day. By 1966, Zanuck and that film's producer Elmo Williams decided they could make lightning strike twice by using the same formula to recreate the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The project seemed jinxed from the beginning. Skyrocketing costs and logistical problems delayed filming until 1969. By then, America's outlook about war movies had changed radically due to the burgeoning anti-Vietnam movement. Zanuck and Williams also forgot one important distinction between The Longest Day and Tora! Tora! Tora!: the former was about a major Allied victory while the latter was about a tremendous defeat. Americans generally stay away from military movies that depict anything other than glorious victories and Tora! was no exception. Critics were also lukewarm and the only saving grace was that the film performed spectacularly in Japan, largely because it presented both sides of the conflict on a non-judgmental level.

Bringing the story to the screen strained the relationship between both Zanucks, especially when legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was brought on board to helm the Japan-based sequences. What should have been a tremendous boost to the production became a nightmare when Kurosawa acted irrationally and burned up money while working at a snail's pace. He was ultimately fired in a scandal that was seen as an insult to all of Japan. So much of the budget had been wasted that it left no major funding for big stars. Unlike The Longest Day, which boasted a "Who's Who" of international film favorites, Fox could only hire well-respected character actors with little boxoffice clout. Thus, the spin was put on the production that they were chosen due to their resemblance to the actual people they were playing. That notion was absurd because audiences did not know or care about such nuances, especially since many of the major figures were not known by their physical characteristics. Although fine actors such as Jason Robards, Martin Balsam and James Whitmore gave distinguished performances, the film lacked the pizazz of John Wayne or Lee Marvin in a lead role.

When the film opened, reviews were respectable at best. The film received Oscars for technical aspects but was not nominated in major categories. Yet, Tora's reputation has grown over the years and today it is much more respected than it was in 1970. The film is a thinking man's war movie and 2/3 of the film is dedicated to claustrophobic sequences set in board rooms and conference halls as the antagonists debate where and when war will break out. Nevertheless, this aspect of the movie is quite admirable, especially in this era of dumbed-down, CGI- generated "epics". The screenplay assumes the audience is intelligent and has the patience to endure a gripping story, well-told. By the time the actual attack on Pearl Harbor is depicted, it is quite spectacular, even if the use of miniatures in some scenes is very apparent.  The film is enhanced by the extremely efficient co-direction of Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku and Toshio Masuda. Most refreshingly, the Japanese characters are anything but ethnic stereotypes, which adds immensely to the impact of their side of the story.Special mention should be made of Jerry Goldsmith's innovative, pulse-pounding score that brilliantly heightens suspense as the time line draws nearer to the attack.

Fox's Blu-ray edition looks magnificent and contains a wealth of bonus extras that include numerous original Fox Movietone WWII newsreels, the excellent AMC network documentary about the making of the film as well as an equally impressive History Channel documentary that examines how accurately the film depicted real events, Day of Infamy (another very good documentary), the original trailer, commentary by Fleischer and film historian Stuart Galbraith IV and two still photo galleries. Astonishingly , Fox makes a major faux pas by not even listing on the packaging the fact that the set contains the entire Japanese release version of the movie, which includes ten minutes of footage not seen in the American cut. Not surprisingly, the extra footage is dedicated to the Japanese sequences and contains one bizarre, largely superfluous sequence centering on two cooks aboard one of the war ships. The Blu-ray has a menu that is rather awkward to find certain features through but the disc is attractively packaged in a small hardcover book that has plenty of insights about the film, biographies of cast members and a wealth of rare photos.

Tora! Tora! Tora! has only grown in stature over the decades- and Fox's magnificent Blu-ray release does justice to the type of ambitious epic we simply don't see today.

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BY HANK REINEKE

When Kino Lorber announced in April 2021 that a Blu-ray of Universal’s The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946) was scheduled for issue in autumn I was, to put it mildly, over-joyed. It’s not that The Spider Woman Strikes Back is a great film – it most certainly is not – but it’s long been a missing entry on home video, a film of great interest to collectors of Golden Age horror. The studio has chosen, time and again, to re-master and re-offer the classic and iconic “Universal Monsters” in nearly every conceivable home video format and creative packaging. Too often these releases would be at the expense of the studios less famous genre titles as the still unissued Ghost Catchers (1944), and The Cat Creeps (1946).

In the course of this disc’s ten-minute featurette, Mistress of Menace and Murder: The Making of The Spider Woman Strikes Back, author C. Courtney Joyner notes the film was essentially the “last gasp” of Universal’s low-budget B-unit. Or as one commentator puts it, an opportunity to “burn out the contracts” of actors still on the lot. The studio’s A-list franchise ghouls of the 1930s – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy – had since been reduced to appearances in B programmers during the years 1940-1945.

Seeking to freshen things up, the studio engaged in a “desperate attempt… to create another horror franchise.” Their first attempt came with their Inner Sanctum series, each supernatural mystery featuring Lon Chaney Jr. in a starring role. The studio also cynically brought aboard non-actor Rondo Hatton, a real life victim of acromegaly, as a hulking brute in such productions as The Pearl of Death, The Jungle Captive, House of Horrors and The Brute Man. Uni-contracted actress Gale Sondergaard had made a splash as the icy and sinister nemesis of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes in the studio’s The Spider Woman (1944) and many thought a return of the villainess was worth considering.

In March of 1945, Hollywood newspapers were reporting that Universal had indeed contracted Sondergaard to appear in a proposed series of Spider Woman films. The Los Angeles Times predicted the “Spider Woman is expected to become as much of a fixture as those other horror protagonists, Dracula, the Monster of Frankenstein, and the newly created Creeper.” The Los Angeles Daily News noted one difference: Sondergaard’s Spider Woman “will not resort to grotesque makeup, but will accomplish her diabolical deeds as a charming sophisticate.”

Technically speaking the Spider Woman that Strikes Back is not the same Spider Woman who tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes a year earlier. Sondergaard is no longer playing the role of villainess Adrea Spedding. She’s now Zenobia Dollard, a blind woman of wealth who lives alone in a creepy mansion house with her frightening mute servant Mario (Rondo Hatton). Dollard, we soon learn, appears to have a lot of trouble keeping her string of nursemaids in employ. They all tend to disappear a short time following their hiring.

The latest nursemaid sent to tend to Dollard’s needs is the lovely and charming Jean Kingsley (Brenda Joyce). Kingsley begins to suspect that the strange goings-on at the manor house might not only have something to do with strange goings-on in town but with the mysterious onset of her own illness. This being a Universal horror picture, it isn’t long before Kingsley stumbles upon a secret brick-wall basement laboratory outfitted with a steamy greenhouse. It’s here that Dollard extracts poisonous venom from a vampire-like plant brought “from the jungles of Central America.” One has to assume that Roger Corman’s far more famous and spoofy Little Shop of Horrors was at least, in part, suggested by the scenario of The Spider Woman Strikes Back.

Though early reports suggested Ford Beebe (Night Monster (1942) and The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1943) would serve as associate producer and director of The Spider Woman Strikes Back, his name was soon scrubbed. Arthur Lubin was signed to helm the feature, directing from a script and original story by Eric Taylor (The Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Son of Dracula (1943). Lubin had been knocking about the film industry since the early 30s, having recently scored with a number of successful Abbott and Costello comedies and the recent Claude Rain’s version of the Phantom of the Opera. He had also, not coincidentally, just finished working with Sondergaard on Universal’s Night in Paradise.

Though all the makings of a good chiller are present here, there’s simply something off about The Spider Woman Strikes Back. The film seems longer than its fifty-nine minute running time (never a good sign). The actors and actresses are blameless, doing what they can with the material in this mostly thrill-less thriller. Sondergaard is at her devilish best working and plotting amongst her poisonous botanicals, but there’s evidence that several key sequences that would have enhanced the storyline were clipped from the final print.

The trade ads for the film would ballyhoo the Spider Woman as the “Mistress of Menace” and “Queen of a 1000 Crawling Killers.” One theater owner in Louisiana practically dared patrons to attend: “We cannot accept responsibility for teeth broken from chattering, curls lost when hair stands on end, chilled spines, jitters, nightmares or any other conditions brought about” from seeing The Spider Woman Strikes Back. Sondergaard would later dismiss the film as a lesser effort, appalled that Universal had exploited Rondo Hatton’s tragic disfigurement as a box office draw. When she first encountered Hatton on set, she thought his elongated skull and swollen facial features were the machinations of Jack Pierce’s makeup department.

It’s a tragedy that Sondergaard wouldn’t find much work in Hollywood as the 1940s drew to a close. Her absence from movie screens was not due to performances, but politics. The actress found herself named as a Communist sympathizer in the pages of the career-wrecking Red Channels. Though Sondergaard was a politically active liberal, her biggest “crime” was one of association. Her husband was director Herbert J. Biberman, a progressive writer-director-producer who later was imprisoned as one of the notorious “Hollywood Ten.”

In March of 1951, Sondergaard too found herself in Washington D.C., summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The actress invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to cooperate or disclose or disparage the names of friends and colleagues. She defiantly interrupted one line of Congressional questioning by asking, “May I say something about [this committee’s] branding as subversive every progressive or liberal organization? I find that shocking.”

Sondergaard would pay a price for her unwillingness to cooperate with the inquisitors. She was effectively put her out of work in Hollywood for two decades, with even the Screen Actors Guild cowering and refusing to lend support. In 1956 she returned to Washington, telling the committee that the absence of acting offers post 1949 “has not been accidental. I think rather that it might be construed as blacklisting.” The actress would disappear from film work for a twenty-years following her appearance in the MGM drama East Side, West Side (1949).

She tried to salvage her career with roles in regional theater, but here too Sondergaard found obstacles. No sooner than her appearance in a “Plays-in-the-Park” production would be announced, that a campaign to cancel her participation would follow. Though she would return to work in 1969, mostly on television dramas, Sondergaard, now age seventy, found roles and opportunities scarce. Sondergaard would pass away in 1985, age 86. The Los Angeles Times would note in her obituary Sondergaard was the first actress to be awarded an Academy Award for a supporting role. The paper would also describe the actress, ironically, as “Hollywood’s reigning female villain” of the 1940s.

This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray edition of The Spider Woman Strikes back is presented here in a 1920x1080p with an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, dts sound, and removable English subtitles. The set also includes the aforementioned featurette Mistress of Menace and Murder: the Making of The Spider Woman Strike Back which features comments and back stories from the like of actor-archivist Bob Burns, cult filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, special effects wiz Rick Baker and writer-documentarian Ted Newsom. The set also features the audio commentaries of film historians Tom Weaver and David Schecter. This release rounds out nicely with the film’s original theatrical trailer as well as a sampling of titles from Kino’s catalog of 1940s horror and mysteries: The Mad Doctor, The Spiral Staircase, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Lodger and The Undying Monster.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

Dustin Hoffman has played a tremendous variety of roles throughout his 50-plus year career: an underconfident graduate in love with his fiancé’s mother; a terminally ill hustler; a mathematician forced to defend his home; real-lifers Lenny Bruce and Carl Bernstein; a marathon runner out to avenge his father’s and brother’s deaths; and most notably as a divorced father and a mentally challenged genius (for which he scored two Academy Awards for Best Actor), among many other memorable performances. However, there is one film that he made during all his great work in the 1970s that, despite receiving a sizeable theatrical release and decent reviews, is virtually unknown to anyone outside of his most ardent admirers. His young fans today who know him primarily from the “Fockers” films are probably oblivious to his interpretation of ex-convict Max Dembo in Ulu Grosbard’s streetwise Straight Time, which was shot in the Spring of 1977 in Los Angeles and opened nationwide on Friday, March 17, 1978. This is one of his best outings (my personal favorite film of his) and proof that Mr. Hoffman is one of cinema’s greatest actors. It’s a strong, quiet yet often brutal and measured performance, one that should have earned him an Oscar nomination as he portrays a convict trying desperately to fit into society. The film possesses a bleak outlook on life, and the unsavory and nearly irredeemable and generally unlikeable characters who populate the film’s landscape are brilliantly realized by all involved.

Max is released from Folsom Prison after completing a six-year incarceration for burglary. Despite being mild-mannered, we sense that there is something brooding beneath the surface just waiting to erupt out of control. (Actor Jason Isaacs portrayed Irish mobster Michael Caffee in the Showtime series Brotherhood from 2006 to 2008 who returns home following a jail stint with a similar disposition.) Max makes the six-plus-hour bus ride down to Los Angeles and he gets his first taste of life outside of prison when he calls and leaves his parole officer Earl Frank (M. Emmet Walsh) a message that Earl says he didn’t get when Max meets him the following day. They get off on the wrong foot when he makes the mistake of not going to a halfway house, rubbing Earl the wrong way. The conditions of his parole are that he is to discuss all his intentions with Earl first. After getting a room at the Garland Hotel for the week, he tries out for a typing job at the Wilshire Agency. Under the eye of Jenny Mercer (Theresa Russell), we see that Max has a problem with rules as he continues typing long after Jenny calls “time” on the test. Despite this and his revelation of his past, she agrees to date him. Max looks up a former convict, Willy Darin (Garey Busey just before his breakout role in the Oscar-winning The Buddy Holly Story), at Willy’s house in the Echo Park suburb of Los Angeles. Willy’s wife Selma (an unrecognizable Kathy Bates) is less-than pleased at their reunion and confides her trepidation to Max who, although visibly hurt, leaves the house. The look he gives her on his way out is one of a wronged man who doesn’t forget. Yes, that’s Gary Busey’s real-life son, then-credited as Jacob, playing his onscreen son Henry. Again, Max abides by his own rules, and it costs him when Willy shoots up heroin in his room and leaves behind evidence that Earl discovers when he visits Max unannounced, costing him time back in L.A. County jail for a week. When Earl springs Max, he asks him the identity of the person who shot up in his room. Max flips out and steals Earl’s car, leaving him hanging half naked against a freeway divider fence. Max is now back to his old ways, pulling petty hold-ups to make ends meet while looking for shotguns and semi-automatic pistols.

Straight Time began life as No Beast So Fierce, an intriguingly titled 1973 novel written by the late paroled and convicted felon Edward Heward Bunker, who would go on to achieve a modicum of success in Hollywood by appearing in Steve DeJarnett’s Miracle Mile (1988) and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) among other films. Reportedly, Mr. Hoffman began directing the film himself before handing over the reins to veteran director Ulu Grosbard whom he worked with previously on Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? in 1971 so that he could focus on playing Max. Mr. Bunker appears briefly in the film, and the plot is bolstered by the always excellent Harry Dean Stanton as Jerry, an ex-con who, like Willy, is also bored by his legit profession and wants to get back into the game and do jobs with Max. The trouble with Max is, he’s reckless and takes unnecessary risks, allowing his temper to get the better of him. He wants the bigger scores and when he and Jerry rob a prominent bank in broad daylight, he goes way beyond the time at which he should leave, narrowly escaping. Things go awry when his hunger for more money gets them into big trouble following a jewelry store that he scoped out earlier with an unassuming Jenny who thinks he is buying her an expensive watch.

Straight Time raises a lot of questions: Why does Jenny, an attractive woman, get involved with Max? Why do Max and Jerry take scores with no masks on? Is The System really trying to help ex-convicts assimilate back into a free society, or is it simply there to give the impression of attempting to handle ex-convicts as they try to get back on their feet? Do we sympathize with Max for a life of crime? Is a life of crime better than working for The Man? Who is responsible for the recidivism rate among paroled convicts? If the film seems familiar in how it handles the issue of thievery, it might not come as a surprise that writer and director Michael Mann did some uncredited work on the screenplay. His films Thief (1981), L.A. Takedown (1989) and Heat (1995) are all examinations on thieves and the way they live their lives, especially how the rush of stealing is what they find exciting. Tom Sizemore said it best in Heat: “For me, the action is the juice.”

My introduction to Straight Time came in the form of the film’s trailer that was shown prior to a screening of (I kid you not) Walt Disney’s Pete’s Dragon that my family took my younger sister and I to see at a local neighborhood movie theater when I was nine in early 1978. It was not the sort of fare I would have expected to see advertised in front of a children’s film, though I distinctly recall seeing Mr. Hoffman pull down M. Emmett Walsh’s pants, baring his bottom. The trailer on the Blu-ray is intact with this sequence, however the pulling down of the pants is only hinted at and not outright or explicitly shown. Whether this is the way the original trailer played theatrically or not 43 years ago, the answer is buried deep in my hippocampus and neocortex, and I’m tending to believe that if Mr. Walsh’s derriere had been shown, my mother would have protested, as anything even remotely sexual to my sister’s and my own eyes was anathema to her. (This was evinced by her reaction to Lesley Ann-Down’s risqué outfit in the trailer to The Great Train Robbery shown before my virgin screening of Superman: The Movie in December 1978 would attest to.) Given the evidence, my gut feeling is that I imagined it.

It would be another six years before premium cable viewers would have an opportunity to see the film; four years after that my visit to the new Blockbuster Video in an adjacent town made me giddy with delight as the aisles were filled with VHS copies of movies that I knew of yet never saw before. Max Dembo beckoned me from the cover of the oversized Warner Home Video clamshell box for Straight Time, his large sad eyes asking me to rent it and give it a chance, which I did and did not regret in the slightest.

Straight Time was released on DVD by Warner Home Video in May 2007 with a much-needed upgrade from the old VHS transfer. It’s now available on Blu-ray through their Warner Archive line and it looks even better. I appreciate Warner Archive retaining the original black and red “A Warner Communications Company” logo from the period. This edition carries over the audio commentary track featuring director Grosbard and star Hoffman who both give wonderful anecdotes about the making and history of the film. The aforementioned trailer is also included. It’s marvelous hearing Mr. Hoffman talk about this film, as it reminds me of the excellent commentary that Jack Nicholson provided to Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), arguably the actor’s greatest film.

Cinematographer Owen Roizman, already a veteran of some great New York-lensed films such as William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971), Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974), Sidney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (1975) and Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), brings his characteristic visual genius to the Hollywood and Wilshire Boulevard streets of Los Angeles and makes the city another character, with close-ups of Montgomery Ward and Woolworths, their signage stylized in long-gone and forgotten fonts.

Composer David Shire provides a wonderfully catchy minimalist score that I would love to see released on compact disc (remember those?).

Ironically, Dustin Hoffman and his roommate, Gene Hackman, were both were voted least likely to succeed in their Pasadena Playhouse classes when they first started out. Hilarious.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Olive Films has released the 1963 Jerry Lewis comedy "Who's Minding the Store?" on Blu-ray. The film was made at the peak of Lewis's solo career following the breakup of Martin and Lewis some years before. The movie was directed by Frank Tashlin, who collaborated with Lewis on his best productions. It can be argued that, with the exception of Lewis's inspired "The Nutty Professor" (released the same year as "Store"), his work never reached the heights that he achieved by working with Tashlin, a talented director and screenwriter who never quite got the acclaim he deserved. "Store" is one of Lewis's best movies because it's also one of his funniest. He plays Norman Phiffier, a nerdy manchild who fails at even the most elementary of careers. When we meet him he's trying to make ends meet by running his own dog-walking service, which provides some amusing sight gags as Norman attempts to control about twenty dogs at the same time. Despite being a loser in terms of career, he's landed the right girl: sexy Barbara Tuttle (Jill St. John), an heiress to the famed Tuttle department store chain. Barbara shuns her heritage largely because she is estranged from her overbearing and dominating mother, Phoebe (Agnes Moorhead) and wants to make a career on her own instead of relying on her mother's bribes to live life under her terms. Barbara works at a Tuttles store in the innocuous career of being an elevator operator, working under an assumed last name. Her nice guy father John (John McGiver) plays along with the charade though he, too, suffers from his wife's constant nagging and insults. When Phoebe learns that Barbara is dating a common man with no financial resources, she devises a plan to break up their relationship before they can get married. She instructs her sniveling store manager Quimby (Ray Walston) to hire Norman and then assign him a series of humiliating and seemingly impossible tasks with the intention of having him fail and therefore lose Barbara's respect. However, despite a series of chaotic mishaps, Norman perseveres and frustrates Quimby by using some inventive methods of carrying our his assignments. These scenes are the highlights of the film, with Lewis in top form whether he is inching out on a horizontal flag pole on a skyscraper in order to fulfill a minor paint job or dealing with obnoxious customers who make extravagant demands. (Among them is Nancy Kulp as a legendary female big game hunter whose dictatorial demeanor results in Norman destroying an entire department). In the finale, Norman has to contend with an errant super vacuum cleaner that goes out of control and sucks up everything from women's furs to their pet dogs. It's a marvelously funny and inventive sequence that feature some highly impressive special effects work.

"Who's Minding the Store?" finds Jerry Lewis and Frank Tashlin in top form. The cast of esteemed "second bananas" are all wonderful, especially the great John McGiver who finally gets to find his mojo at the movie's climax. Other familiar faces from the era include Lewis's favorite foil, Kathleen Freeman and Richard Deacon. Francesca Bellini is memorable as Walton's sexpot secretary who is intent on sleeping her way to the top. Most of the comedic scenarios are highly predictable (once you see Lewis handling an appliance, there's no doubt he's going to wreak havoc with it) but predictability is an asset in a Lewis film. Not having seen the movie in many years, I was pleasantly surprised that it still made me laugh out loud.

The Olive Films Blu-ray looks very good indeed but the release continues the company's rather frustrating trend of almost never including any bonus material. C'mon guys, throw in at least a trailer (we'll provide one for you here). Highly recommended.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

One of the positive elements of the Blaxploitation film genre that exploded in the 1970s was the emergence of many hitherto unknown talents. Among them was Bahamian-born actor Calvin Lockhart, who immigrated to New York and immersed himself in theater, studying with the legendary Uta Hagen. Lockhart didn't find immediate success but hop-scotched between the U.S. and Europe, where he found more opportunities on stage and in film. By the time he returned to America, the Blaxploitation rage was in its early stages and Lockhart nailed down a key, scene-stealing role in director Ossie Davis's film version of "Cotton Comes to Harlem" in 1970. He also earned the starring role the same year in "Halls of Anger", playing a besieged inner city teacher who is trying to keep the lid on inter-racial tensions. Lockhart also starred in the crime thriller "Melinda", which- perhaps because of its bland title- is not as well-remembered as lesser entries in the Blaxplotation genre. Thus, it's good news that the film has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive. "Melinda" is impressive on any number of levels. Unlike most Blaxploitation movies, which were actually produced, written and directed by white filmmakers, this one was brought to the screen entirely by African-American talent: director Hugh A. Robertson, producer Pervis Atkins, screenwriter Lonnie Elder III and composers Jerry Butler and Jerry Peters. The movie also has an intense, realistic tone that affords Lockhart to give what is arguably the performance of his career. 

Lockhart plays Frankie J. Parker, the morning drive DJ on a popular L.A. soul music radio station. Frankie is a showman supreme. His combination of unapologetic narcissism combined with his snarky, biting sense of humor sets him apart from the competition- and makes him a local legend among black listeners.  Frankie is living the life. He makes a lot of money, drives a fancy sports car and has a bachelor pad apartment where he entertains a stream of beautiful young women. He's so in love with himself that he has the place adorned with posters and photos of himself and looks in the mirror every morning verbally express how damned good looking he is. One fateful day, however, Frankie's charmed life goes into a tailspin when he meets Melinda Lewis (Vonetta McKee), a sexy new arrival from Chicago who is very much a woman of mystery. When she resists Frankie's standard pick-up lines and shows she is wise to his well-worn methods of seduction, she becomes a challenge for him. He wines and dines her and shows her off at a high profile party aboard a yacht owned by his old friend Tank (Rockne Tarkington), a black athlete who has made good. On board, he has an unexpected encounter with a former lover, Terry Davis (Rosalind Cash), who makes it clear she still carries a grudge against Frankie because of his philandering ways. Later that evening, Frankie and Melinda return to his apartment where they finally get down to business- but she makes it clear that she is in control of the situation. Unbeknownst to either of them, the heated sounds of their love-making are being enjoyed by a shady character who has been following Melinda since she arrived in L.A. and who is know pleasuring himself outside the apartment door! The next morning, Frankie realizes that this time he is genuinely in love- and Melinda seems to reciprocate.

Frankie learns that "Melinda Lewis" is an alias and that his new lover is the former mistress of a ruthless Chicago mob boss, Mitch (Paul Stevens) who is desperate to track her down because she has deposited a cassette tape in a bank safe deposit box that implicates him in a high profile murder. Before long, the mob links Frankie to Melinda and thinks he in cahoots with her. He is framed for a ghastly murder and pummeled and beaten by cops before he finally makes bail. Realizing he has limited time to get to the bottom of what is going on and clear his name, Frankie finds he has to enlist the aid of estranged lover Terry Davis, who becomes the only friend he can trust. The two become amateur detectives trying to get access to the bank vault and the evidence that would give them leverage over Mitch and his gang of murderous goons who are now in L.A. Things go awry, however, when Frankie is framed for yet another sordid murder and Terry is kidnapped by Mitch and held for ransom under threat of death unless Frankie delivers the incriminating evidence against him. Frankie knows that if he does, he and Terry are as good as dead so he enlists some unusual allies- the fellow students of his karate academy. It helps when the Grand Master is real-life martial arts expert and future "Enter the Dragon" star Jim Kelly. In the film's only truly over-the-top sequence, Frankie and the karate students ambush the gangsters, Before you can sing "Everybody Was Kung Fu fighting", everybody is  Kung Fu fighting. The film culminates with Frankie and his allies laying siege to Mitch's mansion, where they find Terry locked in a glass gazebo surrounded by rattle snakes and other dangerous critters. 

Until its rather fanciful finale, "Melinda" is a realistic urban crime movie packed with interesting characters and intriguing mysteries that are revealed slowly. Like a Hitchcock film, it centers on a completely innocent man who is swept up in fantastic and deadly events beyond his comprehension. Lockhart gives an outstanding and commanding performance, turning from a carefree, narcissistic playboy to a man who is willing to do anything necessary simply to survive another few hours. He gets able support from both female leads, gorgeous Vonetta McKee as the mystery woman who affords Frankie an evening of sexual bliss that turns his life into a nightmare and Rosalind Cash, in full tough girl mode as she was the previous year opposite Charlton Heston in "The Omega Man". On the other extreme,  Paul Stevens makes for a suitably slimy villain. The direction by Hugh A. Robertson is quite impressive and he overcomes the relatively modest budget by capitalizing on the street locations which he uses to maximum atmosphere and effect. "Melinda" is a superior entry in the Blaxploitation film genre. Highly recommended.

The Warner Archive DVD includes the original theatrical trailer.  

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Please note that our "WWII Movies of the Sixties" special issue is now sold out. Thanks to everyone who supported this project. 

BY RAYMOND BENSON

One of the great Alfred Hitchcock’s normally derided pictures from his early British period that the Master of Suspense made prior to gaining that moniker is the 1932 comic thriller, Number Seventeen. It is a short work, running only 63 minutes, and its brevity is one of its few strengths.

For some reason, Hitchcock’s British films, made between 1925 and 1939, have all turned up on various home video labels in the USA over the years, mostly of dubious quality ranging from bad to terrible. They often show up on bootleg “bargain collections” and such. This is despite the fact that none of these movies are in the public domain, as is commonly thought. Thankfully, certain boutique DVD/Blu-ray producers have taken the reins to correct this horrid practice. StudioCanal or the BFI have restored most of the titles and they are slowly making appearances in America (the UK is way ahead in this regard).

Kino Lorber has recently released a few of these works, usually port-overs from the StudioCanal restorations. The new Blu-ray edition of Number Seventeen is a 4K restoration by the BFI. In this reviewer’s experience, viewing this title in the past has been an unpleasant endeavor because of poor video and sound quality on those previously-cited wretched home video releases. Not anymore. The Kino Lorber edition of Number Seventeen looks and sounds as if the film is almost brand new.

Alas, it ranks near the bottom of Hitchcock’s output. The problem—and Hitchcock himself admits it in an audio interview with François Truffaut—is that he wanted to make a comedy, or a parody, of a thriller. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work as a comedy or a thriller. The story is mind-bogglingly confusing, and in the end it’s much ado about nothing. Of particular interest to Hitchcock aficionados and film buffs, though, is the final twenty minutes, in which there is indeed an exciting chase involving a train and a bus. This sequence utilizes miniatures rather than real vehicles, the latter assuredly unaffordable to the studio and production team. To today’s audience’s eyes, there is no question that we’re watching many miniatures; it’s as if we’re eye level with a model train set. In 1932, however, this may very well have been a dazzling piece of cinematography and visual effects.

The story? Hmm. The “number seventeen” refers to a house that’s a creepy old place that appears haunted. A detective, who at first calls himself “Forsythe” (John Stuart) enters the house and discovers a squatter named Ben (Leon M. Lion). There is also a dead body, or at least they think it’s a corpse. It turns out, he’s the very much alive father of Rose Ackroyd (Ann Casson), who is somehow involved with thieves who are after a diamond necklace. These people arrive, and one of them is Nora (Anne Grey), supposedly a deaf mute. After much mistaken identity shenanigans, gun-pulling on each other, and other head-scratching (for the audience) action, the thieves get away to catch the train to Germany. The detective, who eventually reveals that he’s really the “Barton” whom everyone has spoken about throughout the movie, pursues with the aid of Ben, who is suddenly and surprisingly adept at derring-do.

Since the whole thing takes up just an hour of one’s time, Number Seventeen is worth a look to see early studio playfulness by Hitchcock. However, the acting is nothing to note—Leon M. Lion, especially, chews the scenery with an outrageous Cockney accent and mugging.

That said, the Kino Lorber 4K restoration does looks marvelous and is a revelation to anyone who has seen only inferior quality versions of the movie. The feature comes with an audio commentary by film historian and critic Peter Tonguette.

Supplements include an introduction—in French with subtitles—by Noël Simsolo, which isn’t very enlightening. Of more interest is the nearly-hour-long documentary—again in French with subtitles (it was made by StudioCanal in France)—about Hitchcock’s early years. There is also a short excerpt from the Hitchcock/Truffaut audio interview regarding Number Seventeen. The theatrical trailer, along with other Kino trailers, complete the package.

Number Seventeen is for fans of Alfred Hitchcock, early British cinema, and for anyone who has always wondered what the movie was really supposed to look and sound like after seeing it horribly bootlegged.

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Hard to believe, but Cinema Retro is entering its 18th season thanks to the consistent support among classic and cult movie lovers worldwide. The new season will begin with issue #52, which will ship in the UK and Europe during December and to all other sections of the globe in January. Throughout the new season, we have an exciting lineup of in-depth analysis from talented film scholars who will be providing highlights such as these:

• "The Sand Pebbles"- director Robert Wise's acclaimed 1966 epic that saw Steve McQueen earn his only Oscar nomination
• Disney's "Dr. Syn: Alias the Scarecrow", the fascinating journey of the adventure TV episodes starring Patrick McGoohan and the subsequent feature film version.
• "Somewhere in Time", one of the most beloved and haunting romances ever filmed. Exclusive interview with director Jeannot Szwarc.
• "Lord Jim", director Richard Brooks' ambitious adaptation of Joseph Conrad's classic novel. The film was deemed a major misfire and boxoffice flop- but we feel its ripe for a re-evaluation.
• "Tora! Tora! Tora!", the massive production that recreated the attack on Pearl Harbor from both the American and Japanese viewpoints. This was yet another major boxoffice disaster but one that affords viewers an intelligent and insightful script and some of the best special effects seen during this era of filmmaking.
  
• "Age of Consent" - a quirky May/December island romance directed by Michael Powell and starring James Mason and the up-and-coming Helen Mirren.
• "Ryan's Daughter", yet another underrated gem, this time directed by the estimable David Lean.
  
• The making of Blake Edwards' landmark comedy "The Pink Panther" starring Peter Sellers as the immortal Inspector Clouseau.
• Why "Tarzan's Greatest Adventure" starring Gordon Scott (and a young Sean Connery) is arguably the best screen appearance of the fabled jungle hero.
  
• Rare interview with actor John Leyton, who reflects on filming "The Great Escape", "Von Ryan's Express" and "Krakatoa, East of Java".
  
• Charlton Heston as "The Omega Man", one of the most popular "Last Man on Earth" adventures, released in 1971.
  
• We celebrate the 60th anniversary of the James Bond film series and present some rarely-seen production stills and behind-the-scenes photos.
  

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Jerry Lewis always was- and remains- an acquired taste. When he was bad, he was awful but at his peak in "The Nutty Professor" (1963), a comedic take on Jekyll and Hyde, he provided some truly inspired moments and a great performance. The film, which Lewis also directed, is generally considered be the the highlight of his solo career following the breakup of his partnership with Dean Martin.