BY LEE PFEIFFER

"A Tattered Web" is yet another 1970s American made-for-TV movie that has found new life on Amazon Prime's streaming service. The 70s were a golden age of TV movies, then a relatively innovative concept. Popular actors and talented writers and directors would bring to the small screen countless productions, many of which have long been forgotten. However, that doesn't diminish their worth. "A Tattered Web" is an engrossing crime thriller that I either forgot existed or never knew it did. In any event, it's a compelling and unconventional crime flick. Lloyd Bridges plays Sgt. Ed Stagg, a 25 year veteran of the L.A. Police Department. Stagg has a reputation as a top-notch detective and he's by-the-book in every respect. At home, however, his life is a lot messier. Stagg's wife abandoned him and their young daughter Tina (Sallie Shockley) who he has raised to adulthood on his own. She's now married to Steve Butler (Frank Converse) a hunky blue collar worker in the oil industry. Trouble is they are living in Stagg's house and the situation is tense. Butler resents Stagg's authoritarian rules and things get worse when Stagg discovers that Steve has been having an affair with goodtime girl Louise Campbell (Anne Helm). Stagg has played the role of overprotective father to Tina since her mother left them. In doing so, he has also gone overboard, treating her as a child who can't cope with bad news or pressures. When Steve refuses to agree to Stagg's demands that he end the affair, Stagg takes it on himself to pay Louise a visit at her apartment.Things go badly. Louise isn't bothered by the fact she is endangering another woman's marriage and she seems quite content to continue to play the role of mistress to Steve. The argument becomes physical and Stagg pushes her, with Louise striking her head on a piece of furniture and dying from her wound. Stunned and frightened, Stagg does his best to remove any traces of his being in the apartment. 

The next day, the LAPD receives news that a cleaning woman has found Louise's body. Ironically, Stagg and his partner, Sgt. Joe Marcus (Murray Hamilton) are assigned to the case. Stagg does his best to appear unaware of the circumstances of Louise's death but neighbors report she had been seeing a man regularly in her apartment. An artist's sketch makes the front pages and Marcus is all-too-aware the sketch is identical to Steve. Adding to Stagg's worries is the realization that he neglected to dispose of a drinking glass at Louise's apartment that has his fingers prints on it. Stagg finds himself trying to put out quite a few fires, all the while keeping Tina in the dark about the events. With the police closing in on Steve as a suspect, Stagg finds the opportunity to get him off the hook. A local alcoholic hobo (Broderick Crawford) has already confessed to murdering someone and has been sentenced to the death penalty. Stagg begins trying to convince him to confess to Louise's murder, as well. Stagg justifies the deception by rationalizing that if the drunk is going to die for one murder, what difference does it make if he also admits to another homicide?

Lloyd Bridges is exceptionally good as the man trying to juggle many different levels of this crisis simultaneously. He's not a villain in the traditional sense, but he is covering up his own responsibility for manslaughter and trying to frame another man for the death. The supporting cast is first-rate, with Frank Converse a standout as the much-put-upon son-in-law who becomes the prime suspect in the murder. Murray Hamilton is also very good as Stagg's partner who becomes increasingly suspicious that Stagg is covering up a crime.  Broderick Crawford is truly impressive and he makes the most of his couple of brief scenes as the alcoholic whose memory is so bad that Stagg might convince him he committed a murder he is innocent of. As with most TV movies of the era, the tight 74-minute running time ensures the story moves quickly and there isn't any extraneous dialogue. "A Tattered Web" is an above average crime thriller. 

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Time Life:

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The first African-American to direct a major film for a majorHollywood studio was Gordon Parks, whose feature film debut "The Learning Tree" was released in 1969. Parks may have shattered the glass ceiling but there wasn't a tidal wave of opportunities that immediately opened for other minority filmmakers, in part because there were so few with any formal training in the art. One beneficiary of Parks' achievement was Ossie Davis, who was internationally respected as a well-rounded artist. He was a triple threat: actor, director and writer but his directing skills had been relegated to the stage. In 1970 Davis co-wrote the screenplay for and directed "Cotton Comes to Harlem", a major production for United Artists. The film was based on a novel by African-American writer Chester Himes and proved to be pivotal in ushering in what became known as the Blaxploitation genre. In reality, it's debatable whether "Cotton" really is a Blaxploitation film. While most of the major roles are played by black actors, the term "Blaxploitation" has largely come to symbolize the kinds of goofy, low-budget films that are fondly remembered as guilty pleasures. However, "Cotton"- like Gordon Parks's "Shaft" films that would follow-  boasts first class production values and top talent both in front of and behind the cameras. Regardless, the movie had sufficient impact at the boxoffice to inspire a seemingly endless barrage of Black-oriented American films that were all the rage from the early to mid-1970s. The Blaxploitation fever burned briefly but shone brightly and opened many doors for minority actors. 

The film was shot when New York City was in the midst of a precipitous decline in terms of quality of life. Crime was soaring, the infrastructure was aging and the city itself would be on the verge of bankruptcy a few years later. Harlem was among the hardest hit areas in terms of the economy. The once dazzling jewel of a neighborhood had boasted popular nightclubs, theaters and restaurants that attracted affluent white patrons. By the mid-to-late 1960s, however, that had changed radically. Street crimes, organized gangs and the drug culture spread rapidly, making Harlem a very dangerous place to be. It was foreboding enough if you were black but it was considered a "Forbidden Zone" for most white people, who spent their money elsewhere, thus exacerbating the decline of the neighborhoods. "Cotton Comes to Harlem" serves as an interesting time capsule of what life was like in the area, having been shot during this period of decline. Director Davis was considered royalty in Harlem. Despite his success in show business, he and his equally acclaimed wife, actress Ruby Dee, never "went Hollywood". They stayed in the community and worked hard to improve the environment. Thus, Davis was perfectly suited to capture the action on the streets in a manner that played authentically on screen. Similarly, he had a real feel for the local population. As with any major urban area, Harlem undoubtedly had its share of amusing eccentrics and Davis populates the movie with plenty of such characters. 

The film opens with a major rally held by Rev. Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart), a local guy who made good and who is idolized by the population of Harlem. O'Malley is a smooth-talking, charismatic con man in the mode of the notorious Reverend Ike who uses religion as a facade to rip off gullible followers. This time, O'Malley has launched a "Back to Africa" campaign for which he is soliciting funds. It's based on the absurd premise that he will be able to finance disgruntled Harlem residents back to the land of their ancestry. The hard-working, semi-impoverished locals end up donating $87,000 in cash but the rally is interrupted by a daring daytime robbery. An armored car filled with masked men armed with heavy weaponry descend upon the goings-on, loot the cash box and take off. They are pursued by two street-wise local cops, "Grave Digger" Jones (Godfrey Cambridge)  and his partner "Coffin" Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). Davis provides an exciting and colorful car chase through the streets of Harlem, as the cops fail to snag the robbers. They also discover that O'Malley has gone missing, leading them to believe that he orchestrated the heist himself so he could keep the proceeds raised at the rally. The plot becomes rather convoluted, as Jones and Johnson learn that a bale of cotton has arrived in Harlem and its somehow connected to the crime. They assume that the stolen money has been stashed in said cotton bale, which quickly changes hands among the most unsavory characters in the community. Getting in on the action is a white mob boss and his goons who are also trying to recover the cotton bale. The cotton itself is resented in Harlem because of its historical links to slavery and by the end of the film, the bale ends up in a stage show at the famed Apollo Theater where it is used as a prop in a bizarre production that involves historical observations about the black experience intermingled with a striptease act! Through it all, Jones and Johnson doggedly chase any number of people through the streets, engage in shoot-outs and car chases and come in and out of contact with Rev. O'Malley, who professes his innocence about being involved in the robbery. The Rev isn't so innocent when it comes to other unscrupulous activities such as chronically cheating on his long-suffering girlfriend Iris (Judy Pace) and manipulating other women in a variety of ways. 

The most delightful aspect of the film is the showcasing of some very diverse talents of the era. Godfrey Cambridge (who made it big as a stand-up comic) and Raymond St. Jacques enjoy considerable on-screen chemistry even if the script deprives them of the kind of witty dialogue that would have enhanced their scenes together. They make wisecracks all the time and harass some less-than-savory characters but the screenplay never truly capitalizes on Cambridge's comedic potential. The film's most impressive performance comes from Calvin Lockhart, who perfectly captures the traits of phony, larger-than-life "preachers". He's all flashy good looks, gaudy outfits and narcissistic behavior. Lockhart seems to be having a ball playing this character and the screen ignites every time he appears. There are some nice turns by other good character actors including pre-"Sanford and Son" Redd Foxx, who figures in the film's amusing "sting-in-the-tail" ending, John Anderson as the exasperated white captain of a Harlem police station that is constantly on the verge of being besieged by local activists, Lou Jacobi as a junk dealer, Cleavon Little as a local eccentric, J.D. Canon as a mob hit man and Dick Sabol as a goofy white cop who suffers humiliation from virtually everyone (which is sort of a payback for the decades in which black characters were routinely used as comic foils).  The film has a surprisingly contemporary feel about it, save for a few garish fashions from the 1970s. It's also rather nostalgic to hear genuine soul music peppered through the soundtrack in this pre-rap era. Happily, life has not imitated art in the years since the film was released. Harlem has been undergoing the kind of Renaissance that would have seemed unimaginable in 1970. The old glory has come back strong and the center of the neighorhood, 125th Street, is vibrant and thriving once again. These societal perspectives make watching "Cotton Comes to Harlem" enjoyable on an entirely different level than simply an amusing crime comedy.

(The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)

Australia-based ViaVision's Imprint video line is taking pre-orders for a limited edition (1500) Blu-ray release of "The Avengers: The Emma Peel Collection".The set will be released on 30 November.

This set is Region-Free, which is good news for fans worldwide.

Here is the relevant information:

Number of Blu-ray Discs	16
Rating	PG
Release Date	30 November 2022
Runtime (in minutes)	2255
Product Code	IMP3065

Mrs. Peel… We’re needed!

Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state have to be avenged by agents extraordinary. Two such people are John Steed, top professional, and his partner, Emma Peel, talented amateur. Otherwise known as The Avengers. With lethal bowler hat and umbrella, killer fashion and kung fu, the secret agents investigate bizarre and colourful adventures with nonchalant efficiency, sophistication and charm.

Whilst every era of the long-running, enduringly popular and trend-setting British series has its own unique style, charm and wit, it is the Emma Peel years that have become the programme’s most iconic and recognisable, with Diana Rigg’s portrayal of Mrs. Emma Peel ushering in a new era of excitement, fashion and iconology, coupled with Patrick Macnee’s continuing depiction of the urbane and sublime John Steed.

Now, this 16-disc Blu Ray set brings together every episode from the Emma Peel era in stunning high-definition encompassing the complete Series 4 and 5, plus a copious collection of vintage and new Special Features celebrating this peak era of The Avengers.

Special Features and Technical Specs: 

• 1080p high-definition presentation from the original 35mm elements
• Collectable double-sided Hardbox packaging LIMITED to 1500 copies
• 120-page booklet featuring essay by Dick Fiddy of the British Film Institute and Story Information for every episode taken from the original studio files
• Original ‘as broadcast’ mono audio tracks (LPCM)
• Original ‘as broadcast’ “The Avengers in Color” opening slate on Series 5 episodes
• Audio Commentary on “The Town of No Return” by producer / writer Brian Clemens and director Roy Ward Baker
• Audio Commentary on “The Master Minds” by writer Robert Banks Stewart
• Audio Commentary on “Dial A Deadly Number” by writer Roger Marshall
• Audio Commentary on “The Hour That Never Was” by director Gerry O’Hara
• Audio Commentary on “The House That Jack Built” by director Don Leaver
• Audio Commentary on “The Winged Avenger” by writer Richard Harris
• Audio Commentary on “Epic” by guest actor Peter Wyngarde
• NEW Audio Commentary on “The Joker” by filmmakers Sam Clemens and George Clemens (sons of writer/producer Brian Clemens) (2022)
• Audio Commentary on “Return of The Cybernauts” by Diana Rigg’s stunt-double Cyd Child
• Audio Commentary on “Murdersville” by producer / writer Brian Clemens
• Filmed introductions to eight Series 5 episodes by producer / writer Brian Clemens
• Filmed introduction to “The ?50,000 Breakfast” by guest actress Anneke Wills
• Brief audio recollection from guest actor Francis Matthews on filming “The Thirteenth Hole”
• “THE AVENGERS AT 50” – Footage captured from the 50^th anniversary celebration of the series, held at Chichester University in 2011. Includes: video message from Patrick Macnee, interviews with producer / writer Brian Clemens, director Don Leaver (never before released), director Gerry O’Hara (never before released), stunt co-ordinator Raymond Austin, guest actress Carol Cleveland, guest actress Anneke Wills, writer Roger Marshall, and Patrick Macnee’s biographer Marie Cameron
• “Dame Diana Rigg at the BFI” – 2015 on-stage interview and Q&A held at the British Film Institute in London to celebrate 50 years of Emma Peel
• “The Series Of No Return” – audio interview with actress Elizabeth Shepherd, who was originally cast as Emma Peel
• Granada Plus Points featuring actor Patrick Macnee, composer Laurie Johnson, writer Roger Marshall and stunt-double Cyd Child
• Bonus Series 6 episode “The Forget-Me-Knot” – Emma Peel’s final story and the introduction of Tara King
• “K Is For Kill” – excerpt from The New Avengers episode featuring appearances by Emma Peel

ARCHIVAL MATERIAL

• Armchair Theatre episode “The Hothouse” starring Diana Rigg (the performance that led to Rigg’s casting as Emma Peel in The Avengers
• Chessboard Opening Title sequence used on US broadcasts for Series 4
• German and French title sequences
• Series 4 UK Commercial Break Bumper slates
• Alternative titles / credits / end tag of select Series 4 episodes
• Series 4 Commercial Break Bumpers
• Production trims from select Series 5 episodes
• “The Strange Case Of The Missing Corpse” – Series 5 teaser film
• German television interview with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg by Joachim Fuchsberger
• Colourisation test footage for “Death At Bargain Prices” and “A Touch Of Brimstone”
• Reconstructed John Stamp Series 4 trailer
• “They’re Back” Trailers, Series 5 Trailer and Series 5 German Cinema Trailer
• Extensive Photo Galleries from the studio archives
• 1973 Interview with Diana Rigg discussing her US sitcom Diana, and leaving The Avengers
• Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1, b&w / colour
• Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
• English subtitles for the Hard of Hearing (Series 4 & 5 episodes only)

BONUS DISC 1: ADDITIONAL SPECIAL FEATURES

• More interviews from “THE AVENGERS AT 50” including composer Laurie Johnson, writer and guest actor Jeremy Burnham, stunt-double Cyd Child, and a screenwriters’ panel discussion featuring Brian Clemens, Richard Harris, Richard Bates and Terrance Dicks
• “Brian Clemens In Conversation” – on-stage interview at the British Film Institute in London discussing his early writing career
• Diana Rigg German Super8 films: “Das Diadem”, “Minikillers”, “Der Goldene Schlüssell”
• Extensive Photo Gallery from The Avengers Fashion Show
• Diana Rigg Photo Gallery

BONUS DISC 2: THE ORIGINAL EPISODES FILE

• Featuring the 4 original episodes from the Cathy Gale era of the series which were remade in Series 5: “Death Of A Great Dane”, “Don’t Look Behind You”, “Dressed To Kill” and “The Charmers” (Standard Definition)
• Audio Commentary by writer Roger Marshall on “Death Of A Great Dane”
• Audio Commentary by actress Honor Blackman and UK presenter Paul O’Grady on “Don’t Look Behind You”
• Filmed introduction by Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman to “Don’t Look Behind You”
• “Tunnel Of Fear” – a full-length, previously lost episode from Series 1, recovered in 2016
• “THE AVENGERS AT 50” – interview with Honor Blackman by Paul O’Grady

BY LEE PFEIFFER

"Kill a Dragon", a 1967 action-adventure production from United Artists, is the perfect example of kind of film I've praised many times before. Namely, it's a low-budget flick designed for a fast playoff (perhaps as the second feature on double bills) and a modest profit. Often, as in this case, they were marketed with terrific movie posters that often promised more sex and violence than the films delivered. Studios thrived on such mid-range fare which inevitably employed actors in leading roles who would generally be playing supporting parts in more prestigious productions. They still enjoyed enough respect and name recognition to market the films successfully internationally. "Kill a Dragon" is based in an around Hong Kong and stars Jack Palance as Rick Masters (now there's a cinematic name for a hero), who is an American jack-of-all-trades who enjoys a laid-back lifestyle with his mistress, nightclub "hostess", Alizia Gur (who memorably squared off against Martine Beswick in the gypsy catfight in "From Russia with Love".) In the umpteenth Hollywood attempt to crib from the scripts of "Seven Samurai"/"The Magnificent Seven", Masters, who specializes in maritime salvage operations, is approached by peasants from an impoverished village. They inform him that recently a ship was grounded on their island and the crew deserted it because of its cargo: a gigantic load of highly volatile nitroglycerine. The peasants offer Masters a 50/50 split of the profits if he can smuggle the goods into Hong Kong and sell it on the black market. There is a catch, however. The nitro shipment is the property of Nico Patrai (Fernando Lamas), a local crime kingpin who warns the peasants to turn over the goods or have their village destroyed. Masters accepts the assignment and contacts his frequent collaborators: Vigo (Aldo Ray), who is now relegated to hosting bus excursions for tourists, Jimmy (Hans Lee), a local aspiring boxer and martial arts expert and his British manager, Ian (Don Knight). They are outnumbered and outgunned so they must use their instincts to outwit Patrai.

"Kill a Dragon" is the kind of goofy action flick that never takes itself very seriously. It opens with what is possibly the worst title song in the history of film and presents  Latin heartthrob Fernando Lamas as a Hong Kong crime lord without a word of explanation as to how he managed to arrange this. The film is laden with Bond-style quips and the fight scenes are pretty limp under the direction of Michael Moore. (Obviously, not that Michael Moore.) But there is a great deal of fun to be found in the film. The Hong Kong locations adds an exotic element and cinematographer Emmanuel L. Rojas makes the most of it, capturing the hustle and bustle of the city center and the serenity of the surrounding areas very effectively. Palance gives a low-key performance (for him, at least) and minimizes his tendencies to ham it up. Lamas is a villain in the Bondian style and its a pleasure to see him and Palance in the requisite scenes in which they banter with witticisms and civility even though they have marked each other for death. An unusual and pleasurable aspect of the movie is that all of the Asian characters are played by Asian actors, a rarity in 1967 and they are presented in a dignified manner.

I don't want to overstate the merits of "Kill a Dragon", as it's the epitome of a "B" movie and nothing more. However, if one approaches it with those expectations, you may well find it as enjoyable as I did.

Kino Lorber has released the film on Blu-ray, a significant upgrade to MGM's previous burn-to-order DVD. Quality is very good and the original trailer is included along with a gallery of other action films from KL.

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By John M. Whalen

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD . . . (actually from the late 50s to the late 80s) there was a famous screenwriter who was something of a living legend. His name was Stirling Silliphant. He’s all but forgotten now but he was once one of Tinseltown’s most prolific, highest paid writers, having turned out 47 produced screenplays (including the Oscar winning “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), literally hundreds of hours of primetime TV episodes (including “Route 66” and “Naked City”), and several novels (“Steel Tiger”). He drove around L. A. in a Rolls Royce, sailed the world in a yacht, was friends with and a student of Bruce Lee, had an office on the Warners lot and was married four times—his last to Du Thi Thanh Nga, a Vietnamese actress better known as Tiana Alexandra, who was also a Bruce Lee student and 38 years Silliphant’s junior.

Silliphant took an active interest in advancing his wife’s acting career. Between 1974, when they were married, and 1987, he wrote parts for her in Sam Peckinpah’s “The Killer Elite” (1975), several TV dramas (“Pearl” (1978), “Fly Away Home” (1981),” and he created a starring role for her in “Catch the Heat” (1987), an action movie designed to show off her acting and martial arts skills. (The film has also been marketed as "Feel the Heat"). Silliphant produced the picture and action director Joel Silberg (“Breakin” (1984), and “Rappin” (1985), directed. Moshe Diamant’s Trans World Entertainment which had produced a host of action movies with stars like Sho Kishogi, and Jean Claude VanDamme, released the film.

“Catch the Heat” features Tiana as San Francisco cop Checkers Goldberg, who goes to Buenos Aires undercover, posing as Chinese singer/dancer named Cinderella Pu to investigate Jason Hannibal (Rod Steiger). He’s a talent agent who is actually a drug kingpin from Thailand who is somehow smuggling drugs into the U.S. Checkers’ partner, Detective Waldo Tarr (David Dukes) is already in Buenos Aires, ready to slap the cuffs on Hannibal as soon as Checkers can come up with some drug-smuggling evidence. Waldo also just happens to be in love with Checkers.

There is plenty of action in “Catch the Heat,” as Checkers kicks, punches, and thigh-crushes a host of 80s action movie villains including Professor Toru Tanaka (Subzero in “The Running Man” (1987), Brian Thompson (Night Slasher in “Cobra” (1986), John Hancock (“Dead Aim” (1987), and others. Tiana’s karate moves are authentic and she doesn’t stop moving throughout the entire film, even in scenes that don’t require any action, such as when she finds out Hannibal’s fiendish method for smuggling heroin into the U.S., she becomes so infuriated, she goes to Waldo’s hotel room and instead of knocking or turning the door knob, she kicks the door off the hinges, raging about what she’d like to do to him. “He’s not a talent agent,” she shouts. “He’s a monster.” Probably a line she may have uttered in real life more than once.

“Catch the Heat” may not be the greatest action movie to come out of the 80s, but it’s certainly not the worst either, and probably should be better known than it is, especially among martial arts movie fans. Silliphant’s script is more of a send-up of the genre, even to the point of having Checkers wear a “Suzie Wong” dress and wig and talk in a sing-song Chinese cutie accent when she’s on screen as Cinderella Pu. The satiric elements seemed to have been lost on Silberg, who probably saw the film as just another chop socky day at the office.

Unfortunately, it would be Tiana’s one and only starring role in a feature film. In Nat Segaloff’s biography, “Silliphant: The Fingers of God,” Tiana explains that despite Bruce Lee’s success, studios were still reluctant to cast Asians, especially females, in leading roles. Silliphant said it was racism that prompted one Warners executive to tell Lee, when he was being considered for the Kung Fu TV series, that Americans would be offended by having a Chinese man in the living rooms every week. Lee had to leave the country to find success. According to Tiana, she was an even tougher sell. Producers and studio executives disliked having the wife of a writer/producer pushed on them. When Silliphant proposed making Dirty Harry’s female partner in “The Enforcer” (1976) an Asian, Tiana said, “They were not amused.”

In 1988, a year after “Catch the Heat” flopped, Silliphant, at the age of 70, moved lock, stock and barrel out of the “eel pit” that he called Hollywood and expatriated to Thailand, where he said he felt he had lived in a previous life. He and Tiana remained married for 22 years, but the last several years of their relationship found them apart more than together. Silliphant was busily involved in the Bangkok film industry, and managed to pen at least one decent script, an adaptation of Truman Capote’s “The Grass Harp” – miles away from the likes of “The Swarm” or even “Catch the Heat.” He died of prostate cancer in 1996.

Tiana went back to her birthplace despite the U.S. Trade Embargo that was in place at that time to film “From Hollywood to Hanoi ”, a documentary, which won critical accolades, and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. She has since partnered with writer Christopher Hampton on several significant projects including serving as associate producer for “A Dangerous Method (2011).”

Her mini-bio on the Internet Movie Database says that she is working on a documentary on General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Commander of the North Vietnamese Army during both the French and the American wars, called “The General and Me,” to be released in 2025. From late 2020 to 2021 she traveled the United States collecting stories and characters for a new series entitled “Detour 66.” The project follows in the tracks of her late husband’s TV series, “Route 66” (1960), and “chronicles the dramas and cultural zeitgeist unfolding across the Divided States of America.”

Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray release, presented in collaboration with Scorpion, presents “Catch the Heat” in its 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio. The transfer to disc is a major league improvement over the previous MGM video of 2003, which was full-screen. The only extras are the theatrical trailer, the VHS Preview Trailer, and trailers for half a dozen other Kino Lorber action flicks from the 80s. It’s really too bad there wasn’t at least an audio commentary from a martial arts film authority included as a bonus feature to provide some background and context for “Catch the Heat.” Now that it’s out on Blu-ray, maybe it’ll finally get some recognition as an undiscovered ‘80s cult classic.

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John M. Whalen is the author of "Tragon and the Scorpion Woman...and Other Tales". Click  here to order from Amazon

By Dana Polan

There are two fleeting moments in Love Story, based on author Eric Siegel’s bestselling novel that became a publishing phenomenon, where the major social and political issue of the day – the war in Vietnam – intrudes into a film notorious for deflecting or displacing larger concerns of the day into seemingly private questions of love and family. Of course, it was a common assertion in the Sixties and Seventies that the “personal is the political,” and Love Story could well be said to be politically “relevant” (to use another catchphrase of the times) around questions of class and generation as they play out in two families. But it’s certainly the case that one would be hard-pressed in the many scenes set outdoors on college campuses (Harvard and Radcliffe) to see any signs of antiwar protest or leafletting or whatever: instead, outside provides a site for a couple to frolic in the snow or toss a football back and forth in an empty stadium that thereby becomes their own private playground.

All the more surprising, then, that the first allusion, to militarism, comes in a very privatized inner sanctum, a members’-only club where Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal) comes to spar verbally with his millionaire snob father (Ray Milland) over young Oliver’s desire to marry a girl from across the tracks, Jenny Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw). As they begin their conversation, Barrett Senior asks his son about what a classmate will be doing after graduation and learns the kid is joining Army Officer’s Training. Good, says the imperious father, to which his son replies “Bad.” One shouldn’t perhaps make too much of this but it is a moment that raises the question of the good or bad of fighting for one’s country, especially when it can be so deadly. Later, in another indoors scene, young Barrett, now a budding lawyer, tells a pal at their gym, that he's turned down a request by his law firm to go defend a journalist beaten up by cops “in Chicago” (he doesn’t tell his friend that he needs to stay home with Jenny, who’s got a fatal illness). Again, the moment passes quickly but it was likely impossible for most viewers in 1970 not to understand the reference as code for police brutality against protestors and their journalistic advocates.

The critics generally hated Love Story for what they imagined as its refusal to address the times. Fans loved it, often, for that very refusal: it allowed them to cry about something other than the real death and dying (both overseas and in the streets of the cities back home). But even though the American Film Institute lists it as number 9 amongst all romances, we should note that this film is ultimately, like what one could read in the papers or see in many other movies, about life abruptly cut short.. Maybe it’s not brutal death, à la other films of the moment like, say, The Wild Bunch or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but just as these films are saying something about the violence of the times even as they look to other times for their specific subject matter, Love Story is marked by a fatalism that actually could be saying something resonant about fragility of live in that historical moment. Love Story perhaps is due for critical reconsideration, and Paramount’s careful remastering of the film in striking Blu-ray might well help in that project.

The careful digitalization allows the viewer to focus on visual accomplishment as much as the saccharine story. For example, there are some impressive long-takes often with a complex choreography between character and camera. Most noteworthy is the Blu-ray’s careful capture of the color design for the film: a washed out look for scenes of Cambridge and New York in winter matched to oppressive dark but oh-so-masculine colors (browns and blacks) in the interior scenes of Oliver’s confrontations with his father, both leavened by touches of red, from a single lamp in the brown wood of Barrett Senior’s imperial home office to the scarlet dresses or miniskirts that Jenny sports and that bring vitality into a story of staid convention and oppressive rule-boundedness across class and generational lines.

The Blu-ray combines several new special features with ones that were available earlier in DVD editions. New are a short discussion of the film by critic Leonard Maltin and a very brief introduction by Ben Mankiewicz to an airing of the film on TCM. Both tend to repeat commonplaces about the film -- sometimes the same ones, such as that the film resonated with audiences who needed sweet emotion in a complicated historical moment – and both go over well-known production facts, such as that Ali MacGraw was in large part cast because she was Paramount boss Robert Evans’s girlfriend at the time.

Carried over from the DVD are a 14-minute documentary “Love Story: A Classic Remembered,” which goes over much of the same ground as Maltin and Mankiewicz, and a commentary track by director Arthur Hiller. Hiller’s narration is curious, caught between light anecdotes (for example, Ray Milland agreeing to not wear his beloved toupee for this film) and some sparse but useful technical discussion (for example, how some of those impressive meandering long takes were engineered) and, fairly unbearably, fatuous thematic commentary about how Hiller wants to make films that say something (in this case, something about the triumph of human spirit).

Nonetheless, whatever one thinks of it, Love Story at the very beginning of the 1970s is a key film in American cinema history, and it is so important to have this carefully crafted Blu-ray to commemorate it.

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(Dana Polan is the author of "Dreams of Flight: 'The Great Escape' in American Film and Culture". Click here to order from Amazon

BY FRED BLOSSER

John Sturges’ “Last Train from Gun Hill” was released in 1959 as one of several high-profile Westerns of its era, designed to lure audiences away from their television sets and back to their neighborhood movie theatres. Against TV’s advantage of free programming that you could enjoy from the leisure of your easy chair, films like “Last Train from Gun Hill,” “Warlock,” “The Horse Soldiers,” and “The Hanging Tree” countered with A-list stars, widescreen CinemaScope and VistaVision, Technicolor, and sweeping outdoor locations. The studios wagered, correctly, that viewers would welcome a change from the predictable characters, cheap backlot sets, and drab black-and-white photography of “Gunsmoke,” “Wagon Train,” and “Cheyenne.” The approach was successful, sporadically continuing through the next decade with expensive epics like “How the West Was Won” (1962), “Custer of the West” (1967), and “MacKenna’s Gold” (1968) before it collapsed from dwindling returns, scaled-back studio budgets, and changing popular tastes at the end of the 1960s.

As Sturges’ movie opens, two loutish cowboys chase down, rape, and murder a young Indian woman. Although the rape and murder occur offscreen, the lead-up is viscerally terrifying. In a bizarrely poor choice of words, Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times referred to the murderers as “scallywags.” At least in my lexicon, scallywags are mischievous kids who make prank phone calls, not perpetrators of a horrendous sexual assault. When the pair flee in panic after realizing what they’ve done, they inadvertently leave behind a horse and saddle. The murdered woman’s husband is Matt Morgan (Kirk Douglas), the marshal of the nearby town of Pawley, who immediately identifies the letters “CB” branded on the saddle. They’re the initials of Craig Belden (Anthony Quinn), a powerful rancher who controls Gun Hill, a community further down the railroad line. One of the murderers was Belden’s hired hand Lee (played by Brian Hutton, later the director of “Where Eagles Dare” and “Kelly’s Heroes”), and the other was Belden’s son Rick (Earl Holliman). When Morgan arrives in Gun Hill with arrest warrants, Belden first tries to convince him to go easy by reminding him that he and Craig were once good friends. After that doesn’t work, he resorts to intimidation. The cowardly local marshal refuses to help Morgan, unashamedly admitting that he fears the boss man’s wrath more than he respects the rule of law. (I’ll leave it to you to decide if you see a similarity to recent political controversies.) The other townspeople are chilly if not hostile, and when Morgan finally subdues Rick and handcuffs him in a hotel room, waiting for the arrival of the train back to Pawley, Belden surrounds the building with his army of hired guns.

The only person sympathetic to Morgan is Belden’s battered girlfriend Linda (Carolyn Jones). Even she believes the determined marshal faces overwhelming odds:

“You remind me of Jimmy, a fella I used to know,” she remarks. “Stubborn as a mule.”

“Next time you see Jimmy, say hello,” Morgan answers dryly. “We seem to have a lot in common.”

“More than you know. He’s dead.”

“Last Train from Gun Hill” originated with a story treatment by writer Les Crutchfield, expanded by James W. Poe with an uncredited assist from Dalton Trumbo, whom Douglas brought in to sharpen the dialogue. The exchanges between the characters, like the one quoted above, crackle with Trumbo’s signature style. Crutchfield contributed scripts regularly to “Gunsmoke,” and “Last Train from Gun Hill” unfolds like a traditional episode of the long-running series, dressed up with a little more complexity, a rape-murder that would never have passed network censorship, and a striking climactic scene that also would have run afoul of the censors. Standing up, Morgan drives a wagon slowly down main street to meet the arriving train. Rick stands beside him, handcuffed, with the muzzle of Morgan’s borrowed shotgun pressed up under his chin to keep Belden and his gunmen at bay.  When Dell Comics adapted the movie as a comic book at the time of the film’s release, it chose that scene as the cover photograph. As far as I know, the graphic come-on of imminent shotgun mayhem didn’t raise the ire of parents, educators, child psychologists, or media pundits in that distant year of 1959. Back then, of course, pervasive gun violence wasn’t the social catastrophe that it is today. In 2022, the comic book would surely raise a firestorm of controversy on social media and cable news.

“Last Train from Gun Hill” falls just short of a true classic, since the plot mostly relies on ingredients that we’ve seen many times before in other Westerns—the incorruptible lawman, the overbearing cattle baron, his bullying but weak-willed son, the old friends now at cross-purposes, the unfriendly town, the tense wait for a train—but Douglas, Quinn, and supporting actors Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman, Brian Hutton, and Brad Dexter are at the top of their form, and Sturges’ no-nonsense direction keeps the action moving at a tense pace. The Blu-ray edition of the film from Paramount Pictures’ specialty label, “Paramount Presents,” contains a sharp, remastered transfer, an appreciative video feature with Leonard Maltin, and theatrical trailers. Even though “Last Train from Gun Hill” ran frequently on local TV channels in the 1970s and ‘80s, its visual quality there was seriously compromised by the broadcast format. Worse, endless commercial breaks disrupted Sturges’ masterful mood of mounting tension. Revisiting the production in its original, intended form, we may better appreciate its merits as classic Hollywood professionalism at its finest. Highly recommended.

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By Giacomo Selloni

“Hello, Bookstore” chronicles the heart-warming story of how the community of Lenox, Massachusetts rallied around their local bookshop to save it from bankruptcy during COVID-19. Viewers are treated to an amazing storyteller, Matthew Tannenbaum, owner of The Bookstore since 1976. It's not your typical documentary. There's no narrative here. It is not linear. What we are treated to is a raconteur of the first level musing about his life and raison d'être, The Bookstore on Housatonic Street. The film is best described as being stream of consciousness musings attached to a metronome of time.

Director A.B.Zax, the sole cameraman of the film, started filming in the fall of 2019. "It was an amazing journey, starting in fall 2019 and early winter, 2020. Then COVID hit, and I came back from L.A., where we were living at the time. I was upset at first, this isn’t The Bookstore I want to show, it wasn’t that magical world anymore. Once I accepted that this is the time we had to do this, what an interesting microcosm to explore, these shifts in our communities, this humble little bookstore. We stayed and bought a small house in West Stockbridge," Zax (who is married to a high school friend of Tannenbaum's daughter, Shawnee) said.

Tannenbaum has owned this shop since 1976. He's hosted many a book reading there and raised a glass with his customers at the in-store/next door wine bar Get Lit. 

Matt Tannenbaum behind his Get Lit wine bar.

(Photo: Heather Bellow.)

He's been in debt since he signed the papers and borrowed money to buy the store 46 years ago. But he's been doing what he loves ever since: “I’m just that guy who likes to do what I do, to sit upfront, do the work, and handle books. The film captures me doing that,” he said in a post-film interview.

In April of 2020, while the shop would not let browsers in, books were sold either curbside, asked for through the front door or via the internet. Customers would read off their credit card numbers and books from inside were placed on a stool right outside the front door.We meet many regular customers during the course of the film as well as his two daughters, the previously mentioned Shawnee and Sophie, who gave birth to a child during the filming. Matt has a great rapport with his customers and a never-ending font of stories. In his early days in Manhattan he worked at the famous Gotham Book Mart. He eventually wrote a short (36 page) memoir: My Years at The Gotham Book Mart with Frances Steloff, Proprietor. The idea for the documentary came to Zax when he asked Tannenbaum if he planned to write more stories and Tannenbaum said he didn't. Thus, it was decided to film the stories as they were related by him to the camera. And occasional customer.

In August of 2020 he was selling in one week less than what he would sell in a day. Bills mounted up. In desperation he started a Go-Fund me page hoping to raise $60,000 to save the store. He reached it in 23 hours. Eventually, it topped out at $120,000.The Bookstore, a fixture in Lenox for well over four decades, got its start in Stockbridge, “in the living room of a small rented house behind an alley that housed a then little-known café that later came to be known as Alice’s Restaurant.”

In a photograph taken in the mid-1990s, Matt Tannenbaum with Alice Brock of Alice’s Restaurant and Arlo Guthrie. Brock had just illustrated Arlo’s new book, Mooses Come Walking.

The move to Lenox took place sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. And the baton pass from the previous owner, David Silverstein, to Matt Tannenbaum took place on April Fool’s Day, 1976. Due to the community's generosity, The Bookstore still operates to this day. “Hello, Bookstore” is available on DVD from Kino Lorber/Greenwich Video (Click here to order from Amazon). It can also be rented for streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple. For those interested, the film's website has a video of Neil Gaiman's introduction to the movie that was shown while running at Manhattan's Film Forum. https://www.hello-bookstore.com/

For further reading you may be interested in reading these newspaper articles:

https://theberkshireedge.com/matt-tannenbaums-bookstore-lenox-40-years-serving-writers-readers/

https://theberkshireedge.com/business-monday-the-bookstore-in-lenox/

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/central_berkshires/matthew-tannenbaum-hello-bookstore-film-lenox/article_d4f29782-c4cf-11ec-9ebd-779f12000d16.html

The Power of the Social-Problem Programmer

By Dana Polan

Film historians like to connect Jack Arnold’s Man in the Shadow (1957) to Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil from the same year, produced both at Universal-International by Albert Zugsmith. Each revolves around a murder somewhere in the South or Southwest that ensues when a rich and prejudiced gringo capitalist tries to prevent a romance between his daughter and a Mexican man. Each involves an intrepid squared-jawed he-man law enforcement figure investigating that murder and fightin the obstructions of a racist megalomaniac played in both cases by Welles.

But the differences are instructive. For instance, in Touch of Evil, the Welles figure is, like the hero, a lawman, but in this case corrupt yet often getting the job done even as he bends the law to do so. In Man in the Shadow, in contrast, Welles’s character Renchler is an imperious cattleman (Virgil Renchler) whose ranch was the site of a killing he oversaw. He’s unremittingly corrupt from beginning to end. Touch of Evil then is about moral ambiguity – Welles’s Hank Quinlan is good cop and bad cop rolled up into one. Man in the Shadow is more certain of its morality: if, at the film’s beginning, Sherriff Ben Sadler (Jeff Chandler) has a somewhat jaded attitude to his job (he clearly couldn’t care a whit about the presumed killing of a Mexican bracero), he nonetheless pushes on in his inquiry and stands finally for ethical uprightness against the unambiguous immorality of Renchler. If Jeff Chandler once played Native Americans (Cochise in three films), thus crossing or confusing racial and ethnic lines, here he is the all-American, initially disdainful of the lowly Mexican workers but coming ultimately to defend their rights against fascistic Anglo over-reachers. Conversely, in Touch of Evil, the good cop, played by sculpted macho man Charlton Heston, is himself Mexican, a casting decision that has never made sense even as it adds to the weird fun of Welles’s film. And indeed Touch of Evil is weird in so many ways – curious acting, baroque editing, overwrought compositions, convoluted plot, and on and on.

Man in the Shadow in contrast is a straightforward 80 minute programmer shot in a generally sober style: after an initial act of excessive violence (the murder of the bracero in the shadows), the film settles down to offer a taut and tight morality tale played often in daylight (until a final battle that is dark in look but clear in moral stance) and in long takes that, instead of meandering like the ones in Touch of Evil often do, frequently remain implacably fixed on the action in order to take in the verbal sparring of Sadler and everyone who wants to prevent him from getting at the truth.

In this pared-down narrative of one intrepid man against the world, Man in the Shadow is in a lineage of other such films that came out the complex context of the 1950s. For instance, Sadler’s casting off of his badge when virtually no one in the town comes to his defense seems inspired by High Noon while the paranoid atmosphere of a modern Western town where deadly realities of racial violence are being hidden away by the villagers reminds one of John Sturges’s man-against-conspiratorial-community-nightmare, Bad Day at Black Rock. Yet, when an Italian barber announces his allegiance to Sherriff Sadler and explains that over in Italy, they tried to install a dictator in the 1920s and that’s why he prefers America, we can readily see that Man in the Shadow is going in a different direction than the paranoid narratives of the hunted hero alone against corrupt society. The barber is the first crack in the mindless devotion to fascistic conformity. Like, say, the Frank Sinatra Western Johnny Concho from the year before, Man in the Shadow ultimately shows itself devoted to the cause of liberalism as the townsfolk convert in their convictions and come to Sadler’s defense. This liberalism against a conspiratorial conformity takes on new relevance and resonance in today’s fraught political context as we see the townsfolk initially disdaining the Mexican workers as undocumented and othering them through xenophobic stereotypes while imagining whiteness as a fundamental decency. That the white commonfolk can evolve ideologically and overcome prejudice might well link the progressivism of Man in the Shadow to a key earlier film by director Jack Arnold, It Came from Outer Space, another liberal intervention into Cold War Culture that, similarly, is all about turning fear of the other into inter-cultural tolerance.

Filmed in CinemaScope black-and-white (like some other programmers just around this time), Man in the Shadow looks great on Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray edition. The only special features are the original trailer (which, interestingly, pinpoints Sherriff Sadler and not Orson Welles’s seemingly respectable but fundamentally corrupt capitalist as the “man in the shadow”) and a breathless commentary track from movie critic Troy Howarth. To my mind, Howarth is a bit too enamored of character actors’ filmographies, enumerating at length the career and date of death for virtually anyone from within the film’s secondary cast, but he does offer helpful insights about the film’s genre affiliations: for example, Horwath’s perception that violence around a seemingly alien otherness insinuating itself into arid small towns is common to a number of Jack Arnold films enables us to see the xenophobia at issue in both Arnold’s Westerns and science-fiction.

Long unavailable (or available only in pan-and-scan), Man in the Shadow in Kino Lorber’s fine Blu-Ray edition offers anew a strikingly suspenseful social-problem film that offers a trenchant glimpse of the politics of its time.

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(Dana Polan is the author of "Dreams of Flight: 'The Great Escape' in American Film and Culture". Click here to order from Amazon

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Cinema of the 1970s is primarily remembered for being a bold era in which groundbreaking films were released and the emergence of titanic new talents both on screen and behind the camera. It was an era in which sex, crime and violence were often exploited to take advantage of the new freedoms in the industry. Yet, there still remained a market for family comedies. While Disney and other major studio family fare could still prove to be profitable, there was also a subculture of low-budget films of this genre that were made by independent production companies. Some of these films were never even released in big cities but they proved popular with rural audiences, thus there were an abundance of rural themes in many of them. A good example of this is the 1978 comedy "They Went That-A-Way & That-A-Way" starring Tim Conway and Chuck McCann, working from a screenplay by Conway. I've always had sentiment towards both of these comedy stars, having grown up in the 1960s watching Conway on "McHale's Navy" and McCann hosting a kid's show. Conway was a major factor in driving the success of "McHale's Navy" and in the 1970s he would be an integral part of "The Carol Burnett Show"'s popularity. His skits with straight man Harvey Korman were often hilarious as Korman would gamely try (unsuccessfully) to prevent himself from cracking up at Conway's often improvised antics. In the 1970s, Conway also found success in Disney feature films, sometimes co-starring with another TV icon, Don Knotts.

In "That-A-Way", Conway and co-directors Stuart E. McGowan and Edward J. Montagne provide a prison comedy that introduces us to small town deputies Dewey (Conway) and Wallace (McCann). Do we have to inform you that they are totally inept? Every decision they make turns into a disaster, yet they are secretly appointed by the governor to pose as inmates at a prison camp in order to find out what happened to some stolen loot that one of the prisoners has stashed away. Their mission is to win his confidence and use the information to recover the money. The scenario is ripe for big laughs, but Conway and McCann so blatantly attempt to emulate their idols, Laurel and  Hardy, that it only serves to remind us that they were inimitable in their comedic brilliance. At one point, Conway resorts to dusting off his classic sketch as an inept dentist that ran on "The Carol Burnett Show". However, without a live audience and Harvey Korman as his hapless foil who can't stop laughing, the skit falls flat as a pancake. There are a few chuckles in the scenarios of the inept duo trying to cope with living among hardened criminals, among them Lenny Montana and Richard Kiel. In fact, it's quite funny to see Montana, who played the much-feared Luca Brasi in "The Godfather" as Kiel's intimidated "yes man". There are numerous other supporting players who are fun to watch: the always-marvelous Dub Taylor as the prison warden (named Warden Warden), Reni Santoni as the inept deputy who is carrying on with his sexpot wife and the ageless Hank Worden as the con with the stash of cash. Our inept heroes stumble upon the hidden loot but they soon learn that the governor has died without informing anyone he has assigned two lawmen to pose as inmates. Thus, they are facing years in prison. They decide to break out and head to the new governor's residence where he is hosting a swanky luncheon for the Japanese ambassador (!). This gives Conway the opportunity to pose as a  fellow Japanese  and McCann as a geisha in one of those painful comedy bits that is cringe-inducing by today's sensibilities. The film races to a finale that manages to be chaotic without being even slightly funny.

The fact that the film was credited to two directors indicates some kind of problem or tension on the set. My guess is that Edward Montagne's contributions were minimal and I put forward as evidence that he brought several Don Knotts feature films to the screen as producer and sometimes writer and director. They have all stood the test of time and remain very funny. In any event, Montagne would not direct another feature film and he passed away in 2003. I admire Tim Conway but I've found that his comedic persona has not always aged well. As a kid, I thought his bumbling Ensign Parker on "McHale's Navy" was hilarious. I still find the show amusing but it's now in spite of Conway, not because of him. Conway's character, much like the one he plays in "That-A-Way", is not just comically inept. Rather, he seems like a man-child, someone who suffers from a mental deficiency- a four year-old boy trapped in a man's body. I have the same opinion when I watch the characters played by Jerry Lewis in his early films with Dean Martin. There is nothing remotely believable about them and they seem more pathetic than funny.

It gives me no pleasure to knock an attempt to provide wholesome family entertainment such as this. Still, a comedy isn't worth much if it isn't funny, and "That-A-Way"'s few modest pleasures don't merit a recommendation. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks good and provides only some TV spots and a trailer as extras.

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By Lee Pfeiffer 

The year 1979 was a good one for vampires, cinematically speaking. John Badham's version of "Dracula" premiered starring Frank Langella in the film version of his Broadway hit, George Hamilton had a surprise success with the spoof "Love At First Bite" and German director Werner Herzog unveiled his remake of the classic German silent horror movie "Nosferatu: The Vampyre". The original version by director F.W. Murnau is still regarded by many as the greatest horror movie ever made. Indeed, the mere sight of the film's star Max Schreck (who was as eerie in real life as he was on screen) is enough to give you nightmares. Herzog's version was not only the best of the vampire films released in 1979, it is a fitting homage to the Murnau classic. Working with a relatively extravagant budget, Herzog produced a film that is eerie and unsettling. He refrains from going for quick shocks, relying instead on the overall unnerving atmosphere that resonates throughout the production. Perhaps the most iconic aspect of the film is Klaus Kinski's remarkable resemblance to the character played in the original by Schreck, who embodied what is perhaps the most unnerving movie monster of all time.  Kinski's appearance mirrors that of Schreck but the actor brings his own persona to the role.

The film, based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, opens with Jonathan Harker  (Bruno Ganz) leading an idyllic life with his beautiful young wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani). His boss, Renfield (Roland Topor), induces him to make an arduous journey to Transylvania to visit the eccentric but rich Count Dracula, who has expressed interest in buying a house in Harker's town. Harker is enthused about the mission because of the financial rewards but Lucy has a premonition that the journey will have disastrous consequences. She pleads with him not to go but to no avail. Harker sets off over mountain roads that lead through deep forests. The nearer he gets to the Count's castle the more unnerved the local peasants are. They blatantly warn him to turn back, citing eerie disappearances and deaths associated with Dracula. Harker dismisses their concerns as the superstitions of unsophisticated people. However, upon arrival at Dracula's castle he immediately has second thoughts. The Count is a corpse-like, sinewy figure with almost impossibly long fingernails who talks in a whispery voice that is more menacing than comforting. In the cold dank castle, Dracula serves Harker a meal then becomes obsessed with sucking the blood from a small cut Harker has suffered from a kitchen knife. The Count assures him that's all just a homespun way of treating the wound. Harker, increasingly unnerved, realizes he has made a mistake in visiting the castle but it's too late to escape. Dracula notices a locket with Lucy's photograph in it and makes inquiries about her, much to Harker's distress. In the morning, Harker awakens to find he has been imprisoned in the castle- and worse, he has been the victim of a vampire. Having arranged the sale of the house to Dracula, he realizes he is in a race against time to return to his village before the Count arrives there. He is desperately ill, however, and fails in his quest. Meanwhile, Dracula has stowed away inside a coffin on board a cargo ship headed towards the town of his destination. Along the way, crew members begin to die mysteriously. By the time the vessel arrives in port, it is a ghost ship, devoid of any human life with only the captain's log hinting at the horror he has witnessed. Accompanying Dracula on board the ship were thousands of rats who now run amok in the town, spreading the plague. Harker is returned to Lucy by some kindly peasants, but he is very ill and in a zombie-like condition. Lucy is then threatened by the appearance of Dracula in her own bedroom and she realizes that the town is being victimized by a vampire, though no one believes her. As the plague takes its toll on the citizenry, the town falls into chaos- and Lucy becomes determined to kill Dracula even if she must do so by herself.

Herzog, who also wrote the screenplay, has fashioned a film that oozes menace to the extent that even before the appearance of Dracula, the movie has a sense of foreboding. It is a rather cold and emotionless film, more visually interesting than moving. Herzog seems to intentionally present his protagonists in a dispassionate manner. He provides cursory details of their lives but seems to be far more interested in making almost every frame a work of art. To a great degree he succeeded. There are images in Nosferatu that will haunt the viewer, but there's no getting around the fact that there isn't anyone the audience can truly relate to. Neither Harker or Lucy are ever seen as anything more than one dimensional characters. The silly eccentric Renfield is largely wasted in the latter part of the story. He does become a servant of Dracula but this plot device is disposed of rather quickly. Prof. Van Helsing (Walter Ladengast), who is generally presented as the hero in Dracula films, is shown here to be a half-senile old fool who realizes too late that a vampire may be running amok. Herzog provides plenty of memorable moments, among which are scenes of the town's rapid decay into death and disaster because of the plague.  As Lucy walks through the town square, she witnesses doomed people acting out their final fantasies, whether it is indulging in a last sumptuous feast, dancing wildly or illogically stealing furniture from vacant stores. Composer Popul Vuh provides an appropriately eerie score throughout.  

Herzog's Nosferatu is a poetic experience in many ways. It's leisurely pace and low-key tone make it one of the more unusual horror films you'll ever see. However, it can be deemed a success by virtue of the fact that he and Kinski brought relevancy to this remake of what many people believe is the greatest German film ever made.

The excellent Shout! Factory Blu-ray features both the German and English language versions of the film and  a commentary track by Herzog, whose soothing, rather monotonous tone becomes somewhat mesmerizing. He provides interesting insights into the making of the film and this is complimented by the inclusion of a vintage "making of" production short that shows fascinating footage of Herzog and Kinski during production, including Kinski's rather arduous daily makeup sessions. Also included is a photo gallery showing great behind the scenes shots of Herzog at work. There are also a selection of superbly designed original trailers that truly convey the menace of the titular character.

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