Charles Bronson, the epitome of the screen hero of few words and emotions, is the subject of the French documentary "Charles Bronson: Hollywood's Lone Wolf" from writer/director Jean Lauritano. While the movie's 52-minute running time is hopelessly inadequate for providing much insight into the film legend's life and career, it does benefit from plenty of HD film clips instead of the usual VHS-quality footage culled from public domain movies and well-worn trailers, which is usually the norm in documentaries of this sort. Because the French are generally known as the ultimate cinephiles, the film concentrates primarily on aspects of Bronson's professional career, with only some fleeting insights into his personal life and background. We learn he grew up in a hardscrabble lifestyle in the coal country of western Pennsylvania and seemed destined for a dead end job in the mines. However, after being drafted for service in WWII, he joined a generation of other recently-discharged young men who gravitated toward the acting profession after the war. Like most of his peers, Bronson never dreamed of being an actor and tried out for a play at the suggestion of a friend. He found he had a knack for the profession and soon moved to Hollywood, where he traded his real name- Charles Buchinsky- for Charles Bronson because Senator Joseph McCarthy's "Red Scare" witch hunts were in play and Bronson suspected that a Slavic name would not be beneficial. He found work immediately and was generally cast as ominous tough guys and henchmen largely because he lacked the handsome features of traditional leading men of the era.
In the late 1950s, Bronson landed the lead role in the modestly-successful TV series "Man with a Camera" before director John Sturges cast him as one of "The Magnificent Seven" and in "The Great Escape", both of which afforded Bronson high profile roles. It was during the filming of the latter production that Bronson began wooing actress Jill Ireland, despite the fact that she was married to his co-star and good friend David McCallum. Ultimately, she would divorce McCallum and marry Bronson, but such dramatic developments are dismissed with in a nanosecond in the documentary. Instead, director/writer Lauritano dissects Bronson's achievements on screen, pointing out that he reached leading man status in Europe long before Hollywood recognized his potential as a boxoffice super star. The film presents Bronson as resentful that, while he was starring in films by the likes of Rene Clement and Sergio Leone in Europe, he was still relegated to playing rather nondescript villains in American cinema, despite a high profile role as one of "The Dirty Dozen" and playing a non-violent role opposite Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in "The Sandpiper".
Brosnson's prospects for American stardom rose with the release of two European films that were well received in the States: the Western "Red Sun" and the real-life crime drama "The Valachi Papers", both directed by Terence Young. Soon after, his collaborations with British director Michael Winner on films such as "Chato's Land" and "The Mechanic" finally afforded Bronson name-above-the-title respect in his native country. The highlight of this period was starring in Winner's "Death Wish", the controversial crime thriller that perfectly tapped into the American public's concerns about urban crime waves of the era. It would prove to be one of the most influential films of all time, for better or worse. The documentary is frustrating because it affords us an interesting overview of a cinematic icon who is rarely examined in any meaningful way, yet it needs to have a much longer running time to do him justice. What exists is impressive, however.
The version of the film currently presented on Amazon for streaming rental or purchase and on Freevee for free, but with ads. (Yuck!)
Louis B. Mayer’s MGM was not a preeminent fright-movie
factory in the 1930s.In a 1935
interview with London’s Picturegoer,
C.A. Lejeune, managing director of MGM in Great Britain, boasted the studio
didn’t “specialise in any single type of production,” whether they be “musicals,
or comedies, or horror films.”That
said, following the successes of Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein,
and the still-in-production The Bride of
Frankenstein, MGM wisely chose to dip their toe into the horror pool.In doing so, they managed to release a couple
of eerie 1930 classics of their own.In
1935-1936 MGM delivered to the big screen The
Devil Doll with Lionel Barrymore and Mad
Love with Peter Lorre.But the
studio was also interested in capitalizing on Universal’s success of Dracula.So much so they even sought out that film’s director, Tod Browning, to
do so.It was Browning, an earlier collaborator
on multiple silent-film classics starring Lon Chaney, chosen to helm the
production of MGM’s The Vampires of
Prague.
Mayer was not particularly enamored of horror pictures,
but business was business and he recognized Universal was doing good box office
with their string of chillers. MGM did insist writers tapped to scribe The Vampire of Prague should draw upon
an earlier property of theirs:Tod
Browning’s silent feature London after
Midnight (1927).Though only a relatively
few short years separated release dates of London
after Midnight and Mark of the
Vampire (as The Vampires of Prague
would be re-titled), it didn’t seem a large number of critics (circa 1935)
recognized the latter as a re-make of the earlier Lon Chaney film - an effort now
sadly lost for examination and contrast.
So it wasn’t too surprising that MGM brought Tod Browning
on.Though Lon Chaney was dead and gone,
the director had an ace-in-the-hole, an actor holding current high attention.Bela Lugosi had come to Browning’s attention
with his casting in the director’s cinematic adaptation of Bayard Veiller’s 1916
three-act stage mystery of The Thirteenth
Chair (1929).Though Lugosi’s role in
that film was relatively minor – he was only the seventh-billed of the cast – his
subsequent popularity as Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula on stage productions
cemented Browning’s decision to cast the actor in the title role of the iconic
Universal film of 1931.
With this bankable asset in place, Variety reported in December of 1934 that Sam Ornitz and Hy Kraft
had been conscripted to write the screenplay for The Vampires of Prague: but this news was not only late arriving,
but incorrect.When production commence
directly following the New Year (January 12), Guy Endore and Bernard Schubert were
handling screenplay chores. Endore was something of an anomaly among
horror-writers.The author of such works
as The Werewolf of Paris (1933) and Babouk (1934), Endore was a devout
leftist who dressed mysteries with subliminal doses of theoretic Marxism.
That said, the most controversial aspect of Endore’s scenario
was not necessarily political, though its inclusion was completely excised from
the finished film.It’s never explained
why Lugosi’s Count Mora (a virtual mirror-image of his Count Dracula persona) displayed
a visible bullet-hole in his right temple.Actress Carol Borland, playing Mora’s daughter Luna, later reminisced Endore’s
script was envelope-pushing in its construction.In a scene excised from the film, the actress
recounted the original screenplay explained it was an act of incest that caused
Mora to strangle to death his daughter and take his own life with a bullet to
the head.
It was this ghastly act that caused the restless souls of
Mora and Luna to solemnly walk the earth in perpetuity.Endore’s plot device, needless to say,
conjured a scenario far beyond any sort of supernatural hokum: MGM, not without
cause, demanded its exclusion from the finished film.If such a scene was actually filmed, it was
likely excised along with fourteen other minutes reportedly trimmed from the
final cut.In any event, Mark of the Vampire clocks in at a tidy sixty-one
minutes which, all things considered, is probably for the best.
The production was allotted a twenty-four day shooting
schedule and budget of some 305,000 dollars, $3000 of which went to Lugosi for his
(mostly) silent walk-through role.For
those cineastes who complain Lugosi was under-used in Mark of the Vampire – given that the actor’s only speaking lines consisted
of only one or two sentences uttered at the film’s end – such fans should enjoy
the film’s trailer (included here on this new Blu-ray from the Warner
Archive).Lugosi serves as the trailer’s
singular narrator, spookily warning - in his Slavic trademark style, of course
- cinemagoers “Shall be the judges of
this eerie conspiracy!”It was nice
to see the trailer included with the set, however misleading its vampiric content.
In Mark of the
Vampire, Browning and MGM borrow generously from Universal’s established horror
film tropes:cinematographer James Wong
Howe’s photography is atmospheric and moody, particularly in scenes where Luna
stoically skulks the graveyard in her “cemetery clothes.”The film’s exterior setting is a quaint
eastern European village, peopled by superstitious residents who enjoy a bit of
folkloric dancing in the daylight hours - but who wouldn’t dare travel at night
should they encounter such ghouls as Mora and Luna.No string of garlic cloves or wolfs bane are
used to protect the villagers from evil.They prefer a regional botanical they refer to as “Bat’s Thorn.”
In the unlikely scenario someone reading this is not
already conversant with the plot of the film, I don’t want to give too much
away.So I’ll just say elements that
work best and prove memorable are the ghostly mute walk-throughs of Lugosi and
Borland.The latter’s swooping entrance
on a set of animated bat wings during one scene is particularly cinematic.The performances of the cast are all up to
par, though one gets the feeling Lionel Barrymore regards his leading role as unworthy
of his talent.
There are stories of Browning carping on Barrymore’s diffident
performance while the film was in production. Which is surprising as the two were certainly familiar
with each other’s work habits.Though
Browning earned a reputation as a stern taskmaster on set, the director had
worked with Barrymore earlier:on the
Lon Chaney Sr. silent West of Zanzibar
(1928).Though Barrymore is tasked to
play only one-half the character Lon Chaney played in London after Midnight, it is obvious Browning would have preferred
Chaney in the lead role – if only the silent-screen legend had not tragically
already passed in 1930.
Browning’s opinion of Chaney bordered on the
worshipful.In 1928 he enthused the “Man
of a Thousand Faces” famous make-up appliances and grotesqueries were hardly “Chaney’s real secret.He could put the same make-up on the face of
another man and that man would fail on the screen.There is a personality, a something about the
man that grips one.” Even accepting Browning’s
preferences, Barrymore’s performance is not the crux of the problem plaguing Mark of the Vampire. The main weakness of the film is the
implausibility of its red-herring scenario.
Based on Browning’s own short story, The Hypnotist, both London
after Midnight and Mark of the
Vampire are atmospherically disguised as genuine “horror” pictures, but in
truth they’re simply routine mysteries dressed as ghoulish entertainment.While I actually enjoy Mark of the Vampire, I concede the picture might otherwise be regarded
a middling whodunit without the presence of Lugosi and Borland.The actress – who had earlier worked with
Lugosi on a stage production of Dracula,
acknowledged neither she nor Bela were made aware they were merely red
herrings; the final “reveal” page of the script had been withheld until the
final day of production.Universal’s
lawyers tried to get an injunction to stop production of the MGM film,
believing MGM’s use of Lugosi’s Dracula-persona in the film seemed an
uncomfortable infringement of their intellectual properties.But threatened legal action against MGM was dropped
when Universal’s lawyers deemed the case unwinnable.
Universal needn’t have worried: the film doesn’t really
work as a great mystery, much less a gripping vampire tale.One doesn’t need to wait breathlessly until
the closing minutes for the murderer’s reveal.Instead, we’re only given insight into how the perpetrator is entrapped
into confessing.Which doesn’t make for
a particularly exciting climax.The
film’s other weakness is its parlor-room staginess – a plodding element also plaguing
Browning’s otherwise iconic staging of Dracula.
With that said, it wouldn’t be fair to
throw the baby out with the bathwater.Mark of the Vampire is still a classic –
albeit a somewhat minor one – from Hollywood’s Golden Age of Horror.
Previously issued in 2006 on DVD as part of the six-film Hollywood Legends of Horror set, Mark of the Vampire makes its first U.S.
appearance on Blu-ray via this Warner Archive Collection release.Ported over from that earlier set is the
audio commentary supplied by film historian’s Kim Newman and Stephen Jones as
well as the film’s original trailer.“New” to the Blu-ray release are two items of tangential interest to
people interested in circa-1935 cinema: the 8 minute-long The Calico Dragon (a 1935 MGM cartoon) and an episode from MGM’s Crime Does Not Pay series of film shorts
A Thrill for Thelma (1935).
Be warned neither bonus has really anything to do with Mark of the Vampire though there’s a slight connection to the latter bonus.The Crime
Does Not Pay series served as both a long-running film and radio series.On December 12, 1949, Lugosi was a featured
player on the series’ radio broadcast of Gasoline
Cocktail.This arguably might have
been a more interesting audio supplement to include on this archive release,
but interested fans can listen to the Lugosi program easily via You Tube should
they desire.In any event, the release
from Warner Archive looks great: 1080p High Definition 16x9 1.37.1 DTS-HD
Master Audio.This Blu-ray should be on
the shelf of any fan of classic horror film fan or enthusiast of Browning’s
work.
The tagline for the 1971 crime movie The Last Run reads "In the tradition of Bogart and Hemingway..." That would probably seem preposterous to assign to an action film with most of today's soft-boiled leading men, but it seemed perfectly appropriate at the time for a movie starring George C. Scott. The script by Alan Sharp, who also wrote such underrated gems as The Hired Hand, Night Moves and Ulzana's Raid, is perfectly tooled to Scott's persona. With facial features that look like they were chiseled out of granite, the actor, who had just won the Oscar for Patton, is well-suited to the tough-as-nails character of Harry Garmes. Harry has forsaken a life in crime for a seemingly idyllic retirement in a small Portugese fishing village. Happiness, however, does not follow him. Shortly after their young son died, Harry's wife left for Switzerland to have her breasts lifted only to run off with another man. In one of the film's most amusing lines, Harry says he thought she was having them lifted as part of a surgical procedure. He finds that old adage "Be careful what you wish for- you just might get it" has special pertinence to his life abroad. He has succeeded in establishing the low-key, no risk lifestyle he so badly desired. However, he is now bored and feels out of place. He has a friendship with a local fisherman (Aldo Sanbrell) and a middle aged hooker who genuinely likes him (Colleen Dewhurst), but he feels he'll die of boredom. Thus, he decides to take on one more simple crime run, a seemingly low-risk job that involves transporting an escaped convict over the border to France.
The escape is cleverly planned and goes well, but Harry immediately gets a bad vibe from his passenger, a smart-mouthed, often manic career criminal named Paul Rickard (Tony Musante in a truly unnerving performance.) Ignorant of what the caper is actually all about, Harry is soon disturbed to learn he has to pick up Rickard's sexy young girlfriend Claudie (Trish Van Devere) to accompany them. Harry is the kind of man who doesn't like unexpected developments and his instincts prove correct. Before long, he finds himself wrapped up in a complex situation defined by double crosses and deathtraps. To say much more would ruin some of the more surprising elements of Sharp's gritty script, which is punctuated by smart dialogue. Director Richard Fleischer and the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist fully capitalize on the exotic scenery (the film was actually shot in Spain) and eschew studios to shoot even the interiors in actual locations. The decision adds immeasurably to the atmosphere of the movie, which is tense and engrossing throughout.
The film also benefits from a wonderful score by Jerry Goldsmith and fine supporting performances. From a trivia standpoint, the movie afforded Scott to star on-screen with then-present wife Dewhurst and future wife Van Devere.
The Last Run is an atmospheric crime thriller. It may not have looked like a work of art in its day but today it approaches that status, basically because when it comes to stars like George C. Scott, they just don't make 'em like that anymore.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from UK-based Fabulous Films.
"Dr Terror’s
House of Horrors is a fascinating and fast paced example of portmanteau
filmmaking with a deadly twist in the tale.... Dr Terror foretells the future…
and five men wish he hadn’t…
This was
Amicus Productions’ first of 16 horror films made between 1965 and 1977, 7 of
which were portmanteau films. The portmanteau style of film helped Amicus
(who’s small budget meant filming was done in 2 weeks) get established actors
in their films, enabling them to compete with the better known horror film
producer - Hammer Film Productions. Hammer film actors such as Peter Cushing
and Christopher Lee were brought in to the cast whilst only needing to be paid
for a fifth of the movie, rather than the full film.
This cult
classic is directed by horror veteran and two time Academy Award winner Freddie
Francis who worked with David Lynch on The Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984),
and The Straight Story (1999). The film stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee,
Roy Castle and Donald Sutherland. Francis directed Peter Cushing 8 times saying
“I think Peter is absolutely wonderful - there is not an actor in the world who
can speak rubbish like Peter and make it sound real”.
Anyone who
ever watched Record Breakers knows that Roy Castle played the trumpet, but
Castle who plays a jazz musician in the film, mimed his Voodoo track
performance with the Tubby Hayes Quintet in the film. Castle replaced jazz
legend Acker Bilk at the last minute after he had a heart attack. Virtuoso
musician Tubby Hayes’ performance is a highlight of the film as Tubby was at
the peak of his career when the film was released. Castle released "Dr.
Terror's House Of Horrors/Voodoo Girl" as a 7-inch 45 vinyl in 1965 which
is now highly sought after.
Synopsis:
Dr. Terror (Peter Cushing) is a mysterious fortune teller who boards a train to
tell fellow passengers (including Christopher Lee, Roy Castle and Donald
Sutherland) their fortune withtarot cards.
Five possible futures unfold: an architect returns to his ancestral home to
find a werewolf out for revenge; a huge flesh-eating vine takes over a house; a
musician gets involved with voodoo; an art critic is pursued by a disembodied
hand and a doctor discovers his new wife is a vampire. But they all end in the
same result…
Cast: Peter
Cushing, Christopher Lee, Donald Sutherland, Roy Castle, Neil McCallum, Alan
Freeman, Peter Madden, Ann Bell, Ursula Howells.
Extras: All
new interviews with Kenny Lynch, Ann Bell and Jeremy Kemp (Blu-ray only), House
of Cards Documentary, Gallery of Images (courtesy of Stephen Jones), Original
Theatrical Trailer, Double-Sided Foldout Graham Humphreys Artwork Poster, 12
Sided Film Guide Booklet."
Composer Elmer Bernstein's official YouTube page presents his beautiful score for the 1962 classic "To Kill a Mockingbird". Bernstein's creative genius is on display as the main title theme perfectly captures the essence of the beloved and dramatic tale.
I have to admit I wasn’t sure going in how I was going to
appreciate “A Christmas Story Christmas,” the sequel to “A Christmas Story,
(1983)” the perennial holiday favorite, directed by Bob Clark, based on the
works of writer/humorist Jean Shepherd. The new film finds his children serving as Executive Producers. Shepherd and I go back a long way. Not
that I knew him personally—it just feels like I did.In the 1960s during my high school and
college years I used to listen to him on WOR-AM on my little transistor radio. He
was on for about an hour every night and all he did was talk. But not just
talk. He told stories, stories about growing up in Hammond, Ind., and stories
of his days in the Army Signal Corp in World War II. Or he’d read some haiku
poetry, or render verse about the Yukon by Robert Service, or stories by George
Ade. He was one of a kind, a man who left a deep, if almost relatively unacknowledged,
influence on American popular culture. He’s not mentioned much by comedians and
writers today, but at least Jerry Seinfeld has said he learned comedy from
listening to Shepherd. Marshall McLuhan said Shepherd was writing a new kind of
novel night after night.
Some of the stories he told on the radio went into his
novel, “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash,” which he later adapted into a
script for Bob Clark’s film, “A Christmas Story.” We all know that movie, the
story of Ralphie Parker who wants a Red Ryder .22 shot Range Model Air Rifle for
Christmas. Who can escape it? It runs every Christmas Eve for 24 hours on
cable. Well, here we are in the Streaming Age and HBO Max is streaming a sequel
to the original, and despite a few missteps, as Larry David would say, “It’s
pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
It’s 1973, 33 years after the original film, and Ralphie,
now living in Chicago, has grown up to be something of a loser. He’s being
supported by his wife Julie (Errin Hayes), while he struggles to achieve his
dream of becoming a writer. He’s having a hard time finding any publisher
interested in publishing a 2,000 page science fiction tome entitled “Neptune
Oblivion.” He tells Julie he’ll give himself until the end of the year to sell
his book and if he has no luck, he’ll give up and get a mainstream job. Tragedy
strikes when Ralph gets a call from his mother (Julie Hagerty) back home in
Indiana, informing him the The Old Man (Shepspeak for Ralphie’s father) has
died. Darren McGavin, who passed away in 2006, played The Old Man in the
original film, and his presence is felt all through the movie, via short flash
backs and soundtrack clips. He’s as important a character as any member of the
cast.
The family drives from Chicago to be with Ralph’s mom.
Instead of wallowing in grief, Mom reminds Ralph how his father always made
Christmas something special for the family, and she makes Ralph promise to make
this Christmas as good as the ones his father made. Ralph doesn’t have a clue
how to do that, but he’s going to try. Mom also asks him to write an obituary
for The Old Man for the local newspaper. He balks, saying he doesn’t know how
to write something like that, but she reminds him: “You’re the writer in the
family.”
Part of the charm of “A Christmas Story Christmas” comes
from the scenes in which Ralph goes into town and meets up with some of the
characters from the original film, including Flick (Scott Schwartz), and Schwartz
(R.D. Robb). Even yellow-eyed bully Scut Farkas (Zack Ward) shows up before
it’s all over. One of the funniest scenes in the movie is a reversal of the
scene in the original where Schwartz tricked Flick into sticking his tongue on
a frozen telephone pole. All these years later, Ralphie’s voice-over informs
us, Flick’s been holding a grudge. He maneuvers Schwartz into “Riding the Ramp”—a
triple dog dare that involves riding a sled down a giant sluice left at a
construction site by the Army Corps. of Engineers. “They say revenge is a dish best
served cold,” Ralph says. “This was a frozen dinner.”
Director Clay Kaytis (“Angry Birds” (2016)) directing
only his second live action film, the first being “Christmas Chronicles” (2018),
moves the story at a fairly brisk pace and hits a lot of the right notes. It only
slows down slightly in the middle, where he seems to have set up a list of
highlights from the original film to revisit, including having the Parker
family trek downtown to the Christmas window at Higbee’s Department Store. Ralph
ends up doing all the shopping as wife and mother sit in the lounge, and the
kids climb up the papier mache mountain to tell Santa what they want for
Christmas. Julianna Layne as Julie and River Droche as Mark are very good as
the kids. Julie scores some extra points interrogating Santa to see if he’s the
real deal, including asking him for his Christian name and the coordinates for
his workshop at the North Pole.
Billingsley for the most part does a good job playing the
grown-up Ralphie. He was made up to almost look like Jean Shepherd himself. Occasionally
I thought he played him too soft, almost like John Boy of the Waltons clan.
Shepherd had a sharper edge to his delivery, cynical with a touch of the
sardonic. But as the plot thickens and things heat up, Billingsley comes close
enough.
The script by Nick Schenk and Billingsley is remarkably
good. Schenk, whose previous work includes screenplays for three Clint Eastwood
movies, including “The Mule” and “Cry Macho,” sneaks quite a few inside
references into the screenplay that only Shepherd’s biggest fans would
recognize. For example, a scene where a bunch of kids sled down a steep hill at
breakneck speed features “Bahn Frei, Op. 45,” by Edward Strauss on the
soundtrack—the music that Shepherd played every night at the opening and close
of his WOR radio show.
Overall this is a film better than anything you might
have expected, certainly better than the abominable “A Christmas Story 2”
(2012), and even better than “My Summer Story” (1994), which Shepherd wrote and
Clark directed. Any flaws “A Christmas
Story Christmas” may have are forgiven and forgotten by the ending of the
movie, which, frankly, left me speechless. I can’t reveal what happens but it
puts the movie into a special category very few films achieve.
“A Christmas Story Christmas” has been described as a
tribute to the late Darren McGavin, but it’s also a tribute and homage to
Shepherd, who is given a writing credit in the opening titles. Also listed in
the titles are Randall and Adrian Shepherd, Shepherd’s two children—children
whose existence he reportedly never recognized after divorcing their mother,
the second of his four wives. It’s a sad fact that after he walked out of the
marriage, he never had anything to do with his kids. Yet somehow here they are now
involved in a film based on his work. Perhaps “A Christmas Story Christmas,” is
not only a tribute to McGavin as The Old Man, a father, who in the end, does
make it a Christmas to remember, but also a tribute to and an attempt at reconciliation
with a father who didn’t.
(The film is currently streaming on HBOMax).
John M. Whalen is the author of "Tragon and the Scorpion Woman...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon
The 1970 Western "Cannon for Cordoba" is yet
another film that was written off as "run of the mill" at the time of
its initial release but probably plays far better today when Westerns are scare
commodities. The film is clearly designed to capitalize on movies such as The
Professionals and The Wild Bunch, and while it certainly isn't in the league of
those classics, it's a consistently engrossing and highly entertaining horse opera.
Set in 1916, when the US was embroiled in assisting the Mexican government in
suppressing "revolutionaries" who were really bandits, the plot
centers on a crime kingpin named General Coroba (well played with charm and
menace by Raf Vallone), who launches an audacious raid on American General
Pershing's troops and succeeds in stealing a number of valuable cannons that
will make him almost invulnerable to attack once they have been installed at
his remote mountaintop fortress retreat. George Peppard is Captain Douglas, a
hard-bitten and insolent cavalry officer in Pershing's command who is sent on a
virtual suicide mission to infiltrate Cordoba's compound, blow up the cannons
and kidnap the general. Imagine The Guns of Navarone with sombreros. He takes along
the standard rag-tag team of tough guys which includes Peter Duel and the
always-reliable Don Gordon, seen here in one of the most prominent roles of his
career. That old chestnut of a plot device is introduced: Gordon has sworn to
kill Peppard at the end of the mission for allowing his brother to be tortured
to death by Cordoba.
The group pretends they are American sympathizers to the
revolution and succeed in infiltrating the compound with the help of Leonora
(comely Giovanna Ralli), who intends to seduce the general and then betray him
in revenge for having raped her years before. The film is as gritty as it gets,
and as in the Sergio Leone Westerns, there is a very thin line that separates
the villains from the heroes. Peppard is in full Eastwood mode, chomping on
omnipresent cigars and saying little. He betrays no sentiment and is almost as
cruel as the criminal he seeks to bring to justice.
Director Paul Wendkos keeps the action moving at a fast
clip and there is at least one very surprising plot device that adds
considerable suspense to the story. The action sequences are stunningly staged
and quite spectacular, and it's all set to a very lively and enjoyable score by
Elmer Bernstein. Cannon for Coroba may not be a classic, but it's consistently well-acted
and will keep you entertained throughout.
The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, which is
available for a separate subscription fee of $2.99 a month through Amazon
Prime, Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE DVD FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
When movie fans think about films related to the battle of the Alamo, the most obvious reference that comes to mind is John Wayne's epic 1960 production, "The Alamo". There are two others from the modern era of filmmaking that are largely forgotten to all but Alamo history buffs: the 1955 film "The Last Command" and the ill-fated, but underrated 2004 production, also titled simply "The Alamo". Less obvious is the 1987 NBC-TV presentation of "The Alamo- Thirteen Days to Glory" based on Lon Tinkle's book of the same name. Tinkle presented a historically accurate depiction of the legendary battle, at least in terms of what was accepted by historians at the time. However, facts about the battle continue to be fluid and hotly debated among historians. The TV production has not been widely seen since its initial airing. It was released on VHS tape and research has shown an obscure DVD release as part of a double feature with "High Noon II: The Return of Will Kane". However, the movie is now being streamed on Amazon Prime. Not having seen it since its broadcast in 1987, I felt it was time revisit the production, which was widely panned by fans who obsess over all things relating to the Alamo. Their main complaint was the casting of the pivotal roles of Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, who were played by popular TV stars James Arness and Brian Keith, both of whom were not only long-in-the-tooth but were sporting tusks. The role of Crockett was particularly a thankless one to play. Fess Parker had become an American phenomenon when he played the role in Walt Disney's telecasts. Disney only made a handful of episodes and even he was shocked when the show generated a massive fan movement and became the most successful film/TV tie-in up to that time. Parker knew he was on to something so in the mid-1960s, free of Disney's edicts, he simply put on a new buckskin jacket and raccoon hat and starred in a hit TV series, "Daniel Boone". When John Wayne was negotiating with United Artists to produce and direct the big screen version of "The Alamo", he had to be forced to play Crockett as the studio's insistence. They wanted his name upfront to draw in his legions of fans. Wayne acquitted himself well enough, but the shadow of Parker loomed over his performance. The choice of Brian Keith was a bizarre one. He was 66-years old at the time and nothing about his appearance suggests the popular image of Crockett (he doesn't even wear the signature cap.) I'm second-to-none in my admiration of Keith's talents and recently praised his portrayal of Theodore Roosevelt in "The Wind and the Lion" on the forthcoming Imprint Blu-ray, but this was a rare case of his judgment in roles being off-course. Arness was also too old to play Bowie, but since the popular conception of the historic figure wasn't ingrained in modern society the way Crockett was, Arness's performance proved to be a bit more tolerable. The only agreement seemed to center on young up-and-coming Alec Baldwin, who delivers a fine and believable performance as Col. Travis, though it's a less interesting one than presented by Laurence Harvey in Wayne's film. Lorne Greene makes a very brief cameo as Sam Houston, showing frustration at his inability to raise an army in time to save the defenders of the Alamo. Greene is generally a commanding screen presence, but his role is so limited he can't make an emotional impact, as Richard Boone did in the role in the Wayne production.
In favor of the TV production, it was filmed on location in Brackettville, Texas, where the massive and convincing sets from Wayne's movie still stood. Behind the scenes, the film benefited from a seasoned pro in the director's chair, Burt Kennedy, an old hand at making good Westerns ("Support Your Local Sheriff", "The War Wagon"). I'm not an expert on the history of the battle, but it's been pointed out that the TV production gets certain things more accurately than the feature films but certain other factors are clearly the invention of the screenwriters. In attempt to appeal to younger viewers, the screenplay provides a completely superfluous subplot about a young Mexican girl in love with one of the Caucasian defenders of the Alamo. It's pretty dreadfully presented, with the young lovers looking like they'd be more suitable for "The Breakfast Club" gang than the besieged Texas mission. Faring a bit better are Kathleen York and Jon Lindstrom in the key roles of Captain Dickinson and his wife, who was one of the few inhabitants of the Alamo to survive. There are some familiar faces among the defenders, but most of them don't register strongly because their roles are under-written. (John Wayne's son Ethan has a minor role.) This version of the Alamo saga differs from Wayne's by presenting Santa Ana as a major character, whereas in the Wayne film he is only a minor presence. As played by Raul Julia, the legendary historic figure is presented as Snidley Whiplash-type, leering at young women and devoid of any human qualities. Julia brings some gusto to the role but a more nuanced characterization is called for. There is also the distracting presence of David Ogden Stiers as a Mexican army officer, which is justified by having him described as an adviser from the British army. If such individuals did exist, it's news to me but in any event, Stiers' presence seems more like a casting gimmick than an attempt to portray an obscure historical fact.
Original TV Guide advertisement.
Things are fairly turgid through much of the film but as the battle scenes finally arrive they are well-handled with impressive stuntwork on display. The problem is that the spectacular climax of Wayne's big-budget production looms over the relatively skimpy assets that director Burt Kennedy has as his disposal. The TV battle attempts to add some spectacle by cribbing battle footage from Wayne's film. Much of it is set to Peter Bernstein's serviceable score, though at various times during the production, he shamelessly copies the work of another Bernstein (Elmer), with similar music to that found in the latter's classic score from "The Magnificent Seven".
In summary, "The Alamo-Thirteen Days to Glory" is undeniably flawed, but it has enough positive aspects to merit viewing, if only for comparison to other films that depict the battle and the events leading up to it. The source material used by Amazon leaves a lot to be desired, but it's still a positive development to see the production get some exposure. It deserves a Blu-ray release with a commentary track by Alamo historians, who could decipher its truths and fabrications far better than this writer can.
In the mid 1960s Amicus Productions emerged as a Hammer Films
wanna-be. The studio aped the Hammer horror films and even occasionally
encroached on Hammer by "stealing" their two biggest stars, Christopher
Lee and Peter Cushing. The first Amicus hit was "Dr. Terror's House of
Horrors", released in 1965 and top-lining Lee and Cushing. The format of
various horror tales linked by an anthology format proved to be so
successful that Amicus would repeat the formula over the next decade in
films such as "Tales from the Crypt", "Vault of Horror" and "The House
That Dripped Blood". The studio cranked out plenty of other horror
flicks and by the mid-to-late 1970s Amicus was producing better fare
than Hammer, which had made the mistake of increasingly concentrating on
blood and gore and tits and ass to the detriment of the overall
productions. Occasionally-indeed, very rarely- Amicus would branch out
from the horror genre and produce other fare. (i.e. the Bond-inspired
"Danger Route" and the social drama "Thank You All Very Much") but the
studio was out of its element when it came to producing non-horror
flicks. A particularly inspired offbeat entry in the Amicus canon was
the 1970 production "The Mind of Mr. Soames", based on a novel by
Charles Eric Maine. The intriguing premise finds John Soames (Terence
Stamp) a 30 year-old man who has been in a coma since birth. He has been
studiously tended to by the staff at a medical institution in the
British countryside where a round-the-clock team sees to it that he is
properly nourished and that his limbs are exercised to prevent atrophy.
Soames apparently is an orphan with no living relatives so he is in
complete custody of the medical community, which realizes he represents a
potentially important opportunity for scientific study- if he can be
awakened. That possibility comes to pass when an American, Dr. Bergen
(Robert Vaughn) arrives at the clinic possessing what he feels is a
successful method of performing an operation that will bring Soames "to
life". The operation is surprisingly simple and bares fruit when, hours
later, Soames begins to open his eyes and make sounds.The staff realize
this is a medical first: Soames will come into the world as a grown man
but with the mind and instincts of a baby.
Soames' primary care in the post-operation period is left to Dr.
Maitland (Nigel Davenport), who has constructed a rigid schedule to
advance Soames' intellect and maturity as quickly as possible.
Initially, Maitland's plans pay off and Soames responds favorably to the
new world he is discovering. However, over time, as his intellect
reaches that of a small child, he begins to harbor resentment towards
Maitland for his "all stick and no carrot" approach to learning. Dr.
Bergen tries to impress on Maitland the importance of allowing Soames to
have some levity in his life and the opportunity to learn at his own
pace. Ultimately, Bergen allows Soames outside to enjoy the fresh air
and observe nature first hand on the clinic's lush grounds. Soames is
ecstatic but his joy is short-lived when an outraged Dr. Maitland has
him forcibly taken back into the institute. Soames ultimately rebels and
makes a violent escape into a world he is ill-equipped to understand.
He has the maturity and knowledge of a five or six year old boy but
knows that he prefers freedom to incarceration. As a massive manhunt for
Soames goes into overdrive, the film traces his abilities to elude his
pursuers as he manages to travel considerable distance with the help of
well-intentioned strangers who don't realize who he is. Soames is
ultimately struck by a car driven by a couple on a remote country road.
Because the lout of a husband was drunk at the time, they choose to
nurse him back to health in their own home. The wife soon realizes who
he is and takes pity on him- but when Soames hear's approaching police
cars he bolts, thus setting in motion a suspenseful and emotionally
wrenching climax.
"The Mind of Mr. Soames" is unlike any other Amicus feature. It isn't a
horror film nor a science fiction story and the plot device of a man
having been in a coma for his entire life is presented as a totally
viable medical possibility. Although there are moments of tension and
suspense, this is basically a mature, psychological drama thanks to the
intelligent screenplay John Hale and Edward Simpson and the equally
impressive, low-key direction of Alan Cooke, who refrains from
overplaying the more sensational aspects of the story. Stamp is
outstanding in what may have been the most challenging role of his
career and he receives excellent support from Robert Vaughn (sporting
the beard he grew for his next film, the remake of "Julius Caesar") and
Nigel Davenport. Refreshingly, there are no villains in the film. Both
doctors have vastly different theories and approaches to treating Soames
but they both want what is best for him. The only unsympathetic
character is a hipster TV producer and host played by Christian Roberts
who seeks to exploit the situation by filming and telecasting Soames'
progress as though it were a daily soap opera.
Amicus had a potential winner with this movie but it punted when it
came to the advertising campaign by implying it was a horror film. "The
mind of a baby, the strength of a madman!" shouted the trailers and the
print ads screamed "CAN THIS BABY KILL?" alongside an absurd image of
Stamp locked inside an infant's crib. In fact, Soames does pose a
danger to others and himself simply because he doesn't realize the
implications of his own strength- but he is presented sympathetically in
much the same way as the monster in the original "Frankenstein".
Perhaps because of the botched marketing campaign, the film came and
went quickly. In some major U.S. cities it was relegated to a few art
houses before it disappeared. In fact the art house circuit was where it
belonged but the ad campaign isolated upper crust viewers who favored
films by Bergman and Fellini but balked when the saw the over-the-top
elements of the ads.
"The Mind of Mr. Soames" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER DVD FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
(The following press release pertains to the U.K. release)
STUDIOCANAL have announced the brand new 4K restoration of John Guillermin’s (Blazing Inferno, Death on the Nile)
Academy Award® Winning remake of iconic Hollywood classic, KING KONG (1976).
Starring Jeff
Bridges (The
Big Lebowski, Crazy Heart, True Grit) and Jessica Lange (Tootsie, American Horror Story),
and produced by Hollywood legend Dino
de Laurentiis (Flash
Gordon, Nights of Cabiria, Barbarella), this retelling of the
classic monster adventure film went on to jointly win the Academy Award® for
Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Glen Robinson and Frank Van der Veer), as
well as receiving Academy Award® nominations for Best Cinematography (Richard
H. Kline) and Best Sound (Harry W. Tetrick, William McCaughey, Aaron Rochin and
Jack Solomon). Jessica Lange was also honoured as Best new Actress for her role
at the Golden Globes that same year.
Now restored in 4K for the first time, STUDIOCANAL will re-release
the film across 4K
UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital as well as a 4K UHD Steelbook from December 5.
New artworks have been created for the Home Entertainment releases
by graphic designer Sophie
Bland, and for the 4K UHD Steelbook release by Francesco Francavilla.
The 4K UHD will include a limited-edition poster of Sophie Bland’s artwork.
SYNOPSIS
Fred Wilson (Charles
Grodin), an employee of a large American oil company, has been
charged with a mission to find new oil wells. With a chartered boat, he sets
off on a journey to an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. On board is
also a stowaway: the palaeontologist Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) has
smuggled himself onto the ship, as he hopes to examine a rare species of monkey
on this island. On the way, after a violent storm, the expedition also takes on
board the shipwrecked Dawn (Jessica
Lange), who is floating in a lifeboat at sea. When the ship
anchors off the island, however, it turns out not to be as uninhabited as
everyone once thought. The natives of the island perform a strange ritual to
worship a larger-than-life ape named "Kong". As soon as they
catch sight of the blonde Dawn, they decide they have found their perfect offering.
ABOUT THE RESTORATION
This 2022 restoration is presented by STUDIOCANAL and Paramount
Pictures. The 35mm original negative was scanned in 4K and colour graded by
Paramount. The restoration and mastering was then carried out at L'Immagine
Ritrovata, under the supervision of STUDIOCANAL. The purpose of this
restoration was to give a new lease of life to the film for audiences to enjoy
on the big screen, and eventually on the smaller screen. A 4K DCP was created,
as well as a UHD HDR Dolby Vision master, to enhance the sharpness and
brightness in cinemas which is not usually possible with a standard HD master.
In addition there is a new, improved and cleaned up 5.1 audio.
STUDIOCANAL owns one of the largest film
libraries in the world, boasting nearly 7000
titles from 60 countries. Spanning 100 years of film history.
20 million euros has been invested into the restoration of 700 classic films
over the past 5 years.
SPECIAL FEATURES
· Extended TV
broadcast cut (unrestored)
· Audio commentary
with film historian Ray Morton
· Audio commentary
with actor and makeup artist Rick Baker
· Interview with
Barry Nolan
· Interview with
Bill Kronick
· Interview with
Scott Thaler and Jeffrey Chernov
· Interview with
David McGiffert and Brian E. Frankish
The 1970 film adaptation John Le Carre's 1965 Cold War novel The Looking Glass War is now available for streaming on Amazon Prime. The movie has been largely forgotten and relatively unseen since its release, which is odd given the consistent interest in all things Le Carre. Christopher Jones plays Leiser, a twenty-something Polish illegal immigrant in London who has the goal of being able to live there with his pregnant girlfriend, Susan (Susan George.) Although prone to bad habits and unpredictable behavior, Leiser is intent on taking his future role as a father seriously. He is arrested for immigration violations, however, and an MI6 boss LeClerc (Ralph Richardson) concocts an audacious plan to manipulate Leiser into spying for the West. Using a legal immigration status as a carrot, LeClerc gets Leiser to reluctantly agree to the scheme. The young man is given a crash course in spying by another MI6 agent, Avery (Anthony Hopkins). He proves an adept enough student when it comes to handling the physical requirements of the job. (The film's best sequence finds the two men engaged in a knock-down, extended brawl when a training exercise gets out of hand when their personal animosities take over.) However, Leiser sneaks away for a brief romantic interlude with Susan but he is emotionally distraught when she tells him she has aborted their baby. Although having lost the main goal of his life- fatherhood- Leiser agrees to go on a secret mission into East Germany to search for evidence of a deadly new class of missiles that MI6 feels could tilt the Cold War in the direction of the Soviets.
Director/screenwriter Frank Pierson took considerable liberties with the source novel, but it still retains LeCarre's trademarks: a highly complex plot peppered with all sorts of extraneous characters who epitomize the author's cynical view that, when it came to espionage, there was little moral difference between East and West. Still, the film is far less confusing than the over-rated 2011 big screen version of LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy which won international acclaim although seemingly no one I have discussed the film with can begin to explain what it's all about. One of the main problems is that Leiser is an unsympathetic protagonist. As played by Jones, fully in his James Dean/Marlon Brando mumbling mode, he is a fairly unlikable character, routinely lying, breaking his word and abusing those around him, including Susan, who he physically assaults. It's pretty hard to consider him one of the good guys. Nevertheless, Jones, who was always underrated as a screen presence, uses his good looks and charisma to full advantage so you can't help but hope he survives his seemingly suicidal mission in the most intrusive and paranoid society the world has ever seen. The film does pick up steam once Leiser makes it under a barbed wire fence and is forced to reluctantly kill an East German border guard. The scene is quite suspenseful, as is another fine sequence in which the desperate and wounded Leiser accepts a ride from a predatory farmer who unexpectedly tries to goad him into performing a homosexual sex act- with tragic results. Leiser also picks up a hitchhiker himself, but- this being a 1960s spy movie- she's a drop-dead gorgeous blonde (played by flash-in-the-pan starlet Pia Degermark), who later reemerges in the story in a not-too-convincing plot twist that is designed to provide an obligatory sex scene. The first coincidental meeting between them takes place on a country road where she is traveling with a young boy who she introduces as her friend. Their relationship is never explained and the kid is never seen again when she has an ridiculously improbable reunion with Leiser in a nightclub. There's also a humdinger of ludicrous plot point in the first scene of the movie. Here, an MI6 agent in a foreign country obtains a roll of secret film that has proof positive of the missile system. He is handed the film by his contact. The agent gripes that his departmental budget is so small that they didn't give him cab fare. Thus, after obtaining this all-important evidence, he is left to trudge along a desolate road in the dead of night in the freezing cold. He is struck by a car and the film is lost. MI6 calculates this as murder and assume the Reds now have the film, which Leiser must retrieve. Really? We're all for financial restraint but the idea that the lack of taxi fare would endanger such important evidence is beyond crazy. It's just one of the improbable elements of Pierson's screenplay.
The film boasts a hip jazz score by Wally Stott, that nevertheless seems out of place in this dark espionage tale and the cinematography by Austin Dempster finds beauty in the East German countryside that contrasts with the "Show your papers" demands made by the secret police he encounters along the way. The performances among the supporting actors are all first rate, with Hopkins particularly impressive in an early screen role. The Looking Glass War is by no means the best of the LeCarre film adaptations (nothing has really equaled The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. ) However, it is an intelligent thriller (a few absurdities aside) with exotic locations and an impressive cast. Retro spy movie lovers will certainly enjoy it.
Joe Dante's "Trailers from Hell" presents this 2013 tribute to director Richard Brooks' 1966 classic "The Professionals", which is now streaming on Netflix. Don't miss it even if you've seen it fifty times! Subscribe to the "Trailers from Hell" YouTube channel to see plenty more.
Quite often in Marty,
from 1955, there are long takes (some multiple minutes long) that calmly
observe the anodyne activities and interactions of the little people that the
film takes as its subject matter. It might be tempting to think of such shots
as theatrical – although the film adapts a teleplay (by Paddy Chayevsky,
a key writer in what is often thought of as television’s Golden Age of live
drama) and not a piece of theatre per se. Yet while some of the shots of the
film are static, none approximate the perspective of an imagined audience at
the theater and many are about characters moving quietly through space as the
camera glides along with them. This is a resonant form of cinematic
storytelling in its own right.
In an historical moment
where Hollywood was turning often to splashy and spectacular films (what the
self-congratulatory musical Silk Stockings extolls as “Glorious
Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sound”) to challenge the
easy domesticity of television viewership, Marty took a different path:
it tried to rival the small-screen by showing that Hollywood could make little
pictures (little in narrative ambition, that is, and unassuming visual style) that
might outdo television at its own game by re-making television’s own offerings.
Marty tells
of a Queens butcher (Borgnine) who is desperate for love but blocked by
insecurity, low self-regard around his looks and bodily frame (he’s quite
stocky), and by his own internalization of the macho codes of the dead-end guys
he hangs out with. When he meets plain schoolteacher Clara (Betsy Blair) at a
dance hall, the two seeming losers at life find they share a soft suffering at
love’s misfortunes and they hit it off through an evening of walking and
talking and furtively reaching out to each other. Ironically, the friends and
family who have encouraged Marty to find the right woman and get married
realize that his new-found romance could actually take him away from them, and
they try to paint the worst possible picture of Clara. The last section of the
film revolves around Marty’s torment as he is tempted to give in to the
pressures of the locals he’s known so long (his mom, his buddies at the bar)
but also realizes that loving Clara may be his only real shot at happiness, self-respect,
and emotional growth.
Marty was
only one of set of films that cinematically opened up a prior teleplay for the
big screen but it became the most acclaimed, winning the first ever Palme d’Or
at the Cannes Film Festival and then the Oscar for Best Picture (along with
Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, the latter in a moment where
there wasn’t a distinction between Original and Adapted so that Chayefsky could
win for a reworking of his teleplay). It is perhaps worth noting that the Oscar
for Best Picture the following year went to the big-cast, multiple
location epic Around the World in Eighty Days – Hollywood thereby
returning to business as usual. But Marty helped legitimate a tradition
of intimate dramas that, as entertainment journalists Bryan Reesman and Max
Evry note in their well-researched and wide-ranging commentary track for the
Blu-ray of Marty, led to the low-budget indie tales of recent decades.
(The commentators are particularly good at noting Marty’s direct
influence on the Baltimore working class narratives of Barry Levinson.)
Reesman and Evry make
continued reference to the celebrated TV version of Marty from 1953
where the key roles were played by Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand, and it’s too
bad this Blu-ray edition of the film couldn’t have included the earlier
teleplay. (Maybe there were licensing issues?) The only added Marty features
in fact are a trailer for the film (along with other of the intimate films made
from teleplays) and the commentary track. The latter is quite rich in insights
– about similar small dramas of the time, about European influences on working
class Hollywood realism, about the writer and director and the actors, and so
on. At times perhaps, the very capaciousness of the commentary means that the
film itself can get left behind. But Marty is itself emotionally
resonant enough to stand on its own as one watches this very key film of the
1950s.
“Wagon Master” (1950), a Blu-Ray release from the Warner Archive, is
director John Ford’s film about the first wagon train of Mormons to cross miles
of treacherous desert and mountain terrain in order to settle in Utah’s San
Juan Valley. It opens, however, with a short, almost incongruous prelude, in
which an outlaw family known as the Cleggs robs a bank. They kill a bank
employee and, after family patriarch Uncle Shiloh (Charles Kemper) takes a
bullet in the shoulder, they run off into the desert with the money. They are
pursued by the sheriff and his posse but we don’t see much of them again for
another 40 minutes. But you know they’re out there.
Ward Bond, one of Ford’s “stock company” players, is Elder
Wiggins, the Mormon leader, who started out for San Juan without exactly
knowing how to get there. He runs into a couple of wandering cowboys, Travis
Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy (Harry Carey, Jr.), who’ve just come from the San
Juan River area. At first they resist his offer of a job, until Sandy meets
Prudence Perkins (Kathleen O’Malley), daughter of Adam Perkins (Russell
Simpson) one of the Mormon Elders. He convinces Travis to accept the job as
Wagon Master.
The next half hour shows us the hardships they had to
endure during the desert crossing, while Sandy and Prudence start a romance,
and the laconic Travis whittles a stick and plays with his lariat. On the way,
however, they encounter a broken down medicine show wagon belonging to Doctor
A. Locksley Hall (Alan Mowbray), who is accompanied by two showgirls, Denver
(Joanne Dru) and Fleuretty Phyffe (Ruth Clifford). Mowbray plays almost the
same character he played in Ford’s “My Darling Clementine” and Denver is one of
Ford’s typical Shady Ladies, similar to Dallas (Claire Trevor) in “Stagecoach”
(1939). Travis falls for her.
The wagon train starts to run out of water at one point
but they make it to a river and that night everybody’s happy and they do what
all John Ford pioneer do in that situation. They have a hoe down—in the middle
of which, who should show up, looking like a pack of mangy coyotes? You guessed
it. The Cleggs. They come in out of the night carrying rifles and have the
Mormons at their mercy. The Cleggs must have been close relatives of the
Hammonds, the subhuman gold miners who would show up some 12 years later in Sam
Peckinpah’s “Ride the High Country” (1962). Surely Peckinpah was “inspired” by
Hank Worden’s imbecilic Luke Clegg when he cast Warren Oates as the degenerate
Henry Hammond, who never took baths and wanted to share his brother Billy’s new
bride on their wedding night. The whole Hammond clan look, talk, and act
exactly like the Cleggs. But that’s a topic for another discussion.
At any rate, they force Doc Hall to take the bullet out
of Uncle Shiloh’s shoulder and decide to stick with the Mormons until such time
as they can be sure the sheriff and his posse have stopped looking for them. Next
some Navajos show up. But they are friendly, because, while they don’t like
white men “because they’re thieves,” they do like Mormons because they are only
“little thieves.” But when one of the Cleggs molests a Navajo woman, Wiggins is
forced to order the offending Clegg tied to a wagon wheel and whipped. When
Uncle Shiloh protests, Wiggins tells him a whipping is better than a scalping.
But the incident creates resentment in Uncle Shiloh that will result in a final
showdown later on.
“Wagon Master” is classic John Ford, filmed on location
in Monument Valley and Moab, Utah, with Ford’s iconic imagery and the usual thematic
statements about the indomitability of the human spirit, and the development of
a community in an unfriendly wilderness. But it differs from most of his other
films in two ways. First of all, although it was filmed on Ford’s favorite
location, it was shot by cinematographer Bert Glendon in black and white
instead of color. He eschewed the gorgeous hues of Monument Valley, and instead
created a backdrop that seems more fitting the grim life and death struggle of
the Mormons trying to reach the Promised Land. Second, unlike the other films he
shot there, whether in color or black and white, there is no larger- than- life
hero, no John Wayne, or Henry Fonda, to take on the heavies and save the day. In
“Wagon Master” the main characters are all average people. Travis and Sandy are
simply drifters. Elder Wiggins is a man of strong character, but neither he,
nor Sandy or Travis are gunmen. They admit to themselves and each other they’re
scared of the Cleggs, but Wiggins says he’ll never let them know it. Nor will
he let his people know it. Without the Duke, the little people have to stand up
for themselves.
The Warner Archive has provided a clear, sharp 1080p high
definition transfer of the film to disc, as well as a terrific audio commentary
track, featuring director Peter Bogdanovich and cast member Harry Carey, Jr.
talking about the film as they watch it. Carey tells what it was like, and how
he felt, working with Ford. His comments are priceless. In one scene where Ford
tilted his hat to one side, Carey gripes to Bogdanovich: “Why did he have me
wear my hat that way? I look like a village idiot!”
Bogdanovich and Carey’s commentary is interspersed with
audio clips of Bogdanovich’s 1966 interview with Ford himself, in which he
presents his own view of his work. He tells Bogdanovich he never thought of his
films in terms of them being art. “I am a hard-nosed director,” he says. “I’m
not carrying any messages. I have no personal feelings about the pictures. If I
liked the script, I shot it. It was nothing earth-shaking. It was a job of
work.”
It may have been just a job as far as Ford was concerned,
but it was a job he did extremely well and sometimes a job of work can be a
work of art. Highly recommended.
The first major "biker movie" was the 1953 production of "The Wild One", which elevated Marlon Brando from being a hot Hollywood commodity to that of a pop culture icon. Posters of him in his leather jacket and biker's cap still adorn walls today. Given the success of the film, it's surprising that it took until 1966 for the biker film to emerge as a genre. That occurred with the release of Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels". The film- like all Corman productions- was shot on a modest budget but was efficiently made, starred a host of young talents and made a boatload of money (spawning two soundtrack albums in the process.) "The Wild Angels" begat "The Born Losers", which pitted Tom Laughlin's Billy Jack against savage bikers and that begat a host of other lower-grade biker flicks of varying merits. Of course, the genre would hit its peak with Dennis Hopper's 1969 pop culture classic "Easy Rider". At the bottom of the biker barrel was "The Rebel Rousers", a 1967 crudely-made production that was deemed unworthy of a theatrical release. The film did afford prominent roles to up-and-comers Bruce Dern, Harry Dean Stanton and Jack Nicholson and after the latter was vaulted to stardom with his Oscar-nominated turn in "Easy Rider", someone dusted off "The Rebel Rousers" and promoted it as a Nicholson flick. The film is the creation of Martin B. Cohen, who co-wrote the screenplay and kind of directed it. (Many of the scenes between the bikers appear to have been improvised.)
The movie's top-billed star is Cameron Mitchell, who plays Paul Collier, a free-spirited type who arrives in a tiny desert town in search of his lover, Karen (Diane Ladd, the real-life wife of Bruce Dern and another member of "The Wild Angels" cast.) When he finally locates her in a motel, their reunion is less-than-sentimental. She explains that she learned she was pregnant with Paul's child and, fearing he would insist that she undergo an illegal abortion, she fled for parts unknown with little money and even fewer resources. (In reality, Ladd was pregnant with future Oscar winner Laura Dern.) Paul accepts the responsibility for her dilemma and insists on marrying her, but Karen declines on the basis that she fears Paul's life as a rolling stone type would only lead him to abandon her at some point. As the two debate their plans for the future, a secondary plot takes hold in which the Rebel Rousers biker gang rides into town and takes over the local saloon, wreaking havoc, accosting women and causing the town's sheriff (John 'Bud'Cardos) to courageously force them out of town. The gang obliges, but refuse to leave the immediate area, causing headaches for the locals and the sheriff. A chance encounter between Paul and Karen and gang members seems certain to lead to tragedy, as the bikers torment their victims. However, the leader of the gang, J.J. Weston (Dern) turns out to be an old high school acquaintance of Paul's. He "invites" them to join the gang for some festivities on a nearby beach, leaving them no alternative but to comply. Things get out of hand quickly, however, when Bunny (Nicholson), one of the most brutal members of the gang, decides he wants to force himself on Karen. Paul is beaten to a pulp but J.J., showing a smattering of human compassion, challenges Bunny to some motorcycle stunt games on the beach. If Bunny wins, he can claim Karen as his prize. If not, she goes free. The film lumbers to a clunky conclusion in which Paul fails to rally any of the cowardly townspeople to help him rescue Karen (shade of "High Noon"!) and it falls to a previously unseen character (Robert Dix) to unconvincingly take on the mantel of hero.
The film is so sloppily constructed that even Martin Cohen would publicly disown it. The cinematography by the soon-to-be esteemed Laszlo Kovacs and Glen Smith is rather amateurish and there is little evidence of the future star power pertaining to its stars. Only Cameron Mitchell and Diane Ladd provide performances that resonate in any way. There is some minor suspense when the gang kidnap Paul and Karen but much screen time is taken up and padded out with Dern and Nicholson performing some boring biker competitions on the beach. "The Rebel Rousers" has been released on DVD by the indie label Liberty Hall. The print, as you might suspect, has not undergone any restoration efforts and is therefore mediocre, but that's a bit better than I suspected it would be.
The DVD is billed as a "Biker Triple Feature" because it contains two other wildly diverse bonus films. The first, "The Wild Ride", is a micro-budget 1960 production that runs only 61 minutes. It has nothing to do with bikers or biking but does feature Jack Nicholson in an early leading role. He plays the narcissistic and cruel leader of a group of high school students who have formed a cult of personality around him. He routinely insults and abuses them and drops one of his girlfriends, telling her "You're too old." Nicholson, was actually 23 years-old at the time, gives a rather one-note performance under the direction of Harvey Berman, who probably would have tried harder if he knew he had a future cinema icon in his film. The titular wild ride refers to an incident in which Nicholson's speeding car is pursued by a police officer on a motorcycle. The cop crashes and dies and Nicholson faces consequences for his actions. The movie is briskly paced and is entertaining but one can only wonder why Nicholson's character continues to receive unquestioned loyalty, given his rude, crude and cruel ways. On the other hand, we're living in a time in which rude, crude and cruel authoritarian figures are all the rage among vast numbers of the world population, so perhaps the scenario isn't irrational. The print quality is passable, if a bit grainy, though it has been restored by one Johnny Legend in 2009, as evidenced in the credits.
The second bonus feature is titled "Biker Babylon" (aka "It's a Revolution Mother!" (sic), a 1969 feature length documentary directed by Harry Kerwin and a team of fellow future filmmakers of "B" horror flicks. The film's opening credits say we'll see over 5,000 people attending an anti-Vietnam War peach march. Apparently, the team didn't watch their own footage, as the November, 1969 march attracted over a half-million people. The footage of the peace marchers is awkwardly and weirdly juxtaposed with separate segments that follow the exploits of a biker gang known as The Aliens over a particular weekend in which they play to the camera by engaging in outrageous behavior including having a Wesson Oil party that, as you might imagine, involves plenty of naked female flesh. We're told that the role of young women in the gang is to be owned by either a particular member or be regarded as common property for the men to have sex with on a whim. Things then move to a Florida Woodstock-like music festival where bikers and rock fans mingle without much to show for it. For whatever reason, the filmmakers don't show us the rock acts but instead just concentrate on thousands of hot, sweaty young people milling about in a muddy terrain.
The most interesting aspect of the set is this documentary, however, largely because it does crudely capture the anti-Vietnam War movement at its peak. It provides an interesting time capsule as everyday citizens march with celebrity activists such as Dr. Spock and Dick Gregory, with Gregory demanding that the Nixon administration end the war. (Gregory refers to Vice-President Agnew as Washington D.C.'s version of "Rosemary's Baby". ) What is lacking is context. Nixon squeaked into the presidency in 1968, winning a razor-thin contest against Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey, largely on running a campaign that promised he had a "secret plan" to end the war that would only be revealed after he took office. The plan turned out to be an escalation of the conflict that would drift into Cambodia. His "law-and-order" administration saw Agnew resign in disgrace after being caught accepting bribes, a practice he had carried over from his tenure as governor of Maryland. Of course, Nixon himself would be caught having covered up for the Watergate break-in and he, too, would resign from office under threat of impeachment from prominent fellow Republicans. Dozens of members of his administration would would be convicted of or plead guilty to crimes. It would have been worth the effort for someone to provide a commentary track reviewing the documentary in a modern context and providing insights into historical events. Instead we get an unintentionally hilarious narrator who peppers his every sentence with perceived hippie jargon in an attempt to appear cool. Instead, he sounds like Jack Webb's Sgt. Joe Friday in one of those "Dragnet" episodes in which he lectures teens about drugs using their own lingo.
