BY LEE PFEIFFER

"Young Billy Young" is the kind of film of which it can be said, "They don't make 'em like that anymore". Not because the movie is so exceptional. In fact, it isn't exceptional on any level whatsoever. Rather, it's the sheer ordinariness of the entire production that makes one pine away for an era in which top talent could be attracted to enjoyable, if unremarkable, fare such as this. Such films, especially Westerns, were churned out with workmanlike professionalism to play to undemanding audiences that didn't require mega-budget blockbusters to feel they got their money's worth at the boxoffice. Sadly, such movies have largely gone the way of the dodo bird. In today's film industry, bigger must always be better and mid-range flicks such as are no longer made. However, through  streaming services such as ScreenPix, it's possible to still enjoy the simple pleasures that such movies provide. (The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is now out of print.) 

The story opens with botched robbery in Mexico committed by Billy Young (Robert Walker) and some cohorts including Jesse (David Carradine). The plan to steal horses from the Mexican military goes awry and Billy is forced to split from his fellow robbers with the army in hot pursuit. Making his way back across the border to New Mexico, he is penniless and desperate. He has a chance encounter with Ben Kane (Robert Mitchum), a tough, sarcastic older man who he encounters again in a nearby town. Here, Billy is being cheated at cards by the local sheriff, who goads him into a gunfight. Billy ends up killing him but stands to be framed for the sheriff's death. He's saved by Ben, who rides along with him to another town where Ben has agreed to take on the job of lawman. Ostensibly he is there to keep order and collect back taxes from deadbeats but in reality, he is on a mission of revenge. Some years before, Ben's son had been gunned down by a criminal named Boone (John Anderson) and Kane has learned that Boone is a presence in the new town and that he is being protected by a local corrupt businessman, John Behan (Jack Kelly). Ben makes his presence known immediately by enforcing the law in a strict manner. He's confronted by Behan, who tries to intimidate him. This results in Behan being slapped around by Kane. Behan also grows to resent the new lawman because he is flirting with his mistress, saloon entertainer Lily Beloit (Angie Dickinson). When Behan abuses her as punishment, he gets another beating from Kane. Meanwhile, Billy runs into Jesse and accuses him of having deserted him in Mexico. The two men fight it out and Jesse is later involved with the accidental shooting of the town's beloved doctor while in the employ of Behan. Kane learns that Jesse is Boone's son and holds him in jail as bait for Boone to come out of hiding. The plan works all too well. Boone turns up with a small army and lays siege to the jailhouse where Kane and Billy are holed up.

"Young Billy Young" was compared to a TV show by New York Times critic Howard Thompson on the basis that it contains so many standard elements of westerns from this time period. There is the bad girl with the heart of gold, the evil business tycoon, the brash young gun and his wiser, older mentor, the heroes outnumbered by superior forces and a lovable old coot (played against type by Paul Fix in full Walter Brennan/Gabby Hayes mode.) Yet somehow it all works very well, thanks mostly to Robert Mitchum's stalwart presence. With his trademark ramrod stiff walk and cool persona, Mitchum tosses off bon mots like a frontier version of 007. Even the Times acknowledged that "Mitchum can do laconic wonders with a good wise-crack". He has considerable chemistry with Dickinson, though the action between the sheets is more implied than shown. Robert Walker Jr. acquits himself well in the title role and David Carradine makes an impression even with limited screen time. The film was directed by Burt Kennedy, an old hand at directing fine westerns in reliable, if not remarkable, style and it all culminates in a rip-snorting shoot-out that is genuinely exciting. The fine supporting cast includes Willis Bouchey, Parley Baer and Deanna Martin (Dino's daughter) in her acting debut.  One oddball element to the film: Mitchum croons the title song over the opening credits. If this sounds strange, keep in mind that Mitchum improbably once had a hit album of calypso music. 

The film is currently streaming on ScreenPix, which is available to Amazon Prime customers for $2.99 a month.

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

By Lee Pfeiffer

There has been a very positive response to Cinema Retro's coverage of "B" WWII movies in some of our back issues. Writer Howard Hughes concentrated on the films produced by Oakmont Productions, the British-based company that financed and released such modestly-budgeted gems as Attack on the Iron Coast, The Thousand Plane Raid, Hell Boats, and Mosquito Squadron. These films had no lofty pretenses of being potential Oscar winners. Instead, they were made simply to generate a modest profit. However, they tended to be intelligently scripted and well-directed and acted, with showcase roles afforded to stars who didn't usually get top-billing (Lloyd Bridges, Christopher George, David McCallum). The 1970 film Underground was not an Oakmont production but is largely indistinguishable from the company's catalog of titles. It stars Robert Goulet as Dawson, an embittered American agent for military intelligence who is based in England. Dawson is wracked by guilt because his mission behind German lines in occupied France ended disastrously. Both he and his fellow agent (his wife) were captured. Dawson, under extreme torture, revealed his wife's true identity and she suffered a horrendous death at the hands of the Gestapo. Dawson managed to escape and make his way back to England, though how he achieved this remarkable feat is glossed over in the script.  The film opens with Dawson bluffing his way aboard a plane carrying a fellow agent on a new mission over occupied France. Dawson, who is determined to atone for his previous failure by taking on this mission himself, disables the agent and parachutes in his place to meet his contacts in the French Resistance. His French underground colleagues find him to be a bitter, unpleasant man and it isn't long before they realize that he is an imposter for their real contact. Nevertheless, Dawson persuades them to let him carry out the important mission which involves kidnapping a high profile German general who has vital intelligence information and bringing him back to England. Dawon's team is headed by Boule (Lawrence Dobkin), a headstrong and valiant man who frequently locks horns with Dobson over strategy. The team also includes Yvonne (Daniele Gaubert), a beautiful agent who is Boule's wife. Complications ensue when Dawson shows his more human side and he and Yvonne secretly become lovers.

Underground is the kind of film that often receives the backhanded praise of benefiting from "workmanlike" efficiency from its stars and director Arthur H. Nadel. Yet, like the Oakmont productions, it probably plays better in today's era of overblown, CGI-stuffed action movies than it did at the time of its initial release. The film is tightly scripted and the plan to capture the German general is straight out of a top-of-the-line Mission: Impossible episode. The movie was shot on location in Ireland but the countryside passes convincingly for France. Goulet, grim and determined, makes for an impressive leading man and there are fine turns by Lawrence Dobkin and Carl Duering, who is impressive as the German general who adds a clever plot twist to the story line. Like most of these WWII mini "epics" of the period, the production team manages to make the film look far more expensive than it probably was. The action sequences are exciting and well-staged, particularly a climactic shootout as Dawson awaits the arrival of a British plane on a makeshift runway as German forces close in on him and his team.

Underground has been released by MGM as a region-free DVD with a rather bland cover design instead of the terrific original poster artwork. Transfer quality is very good but there are no bonus extras.

By Chris Bainbridge & Cai Ross

We basically became friends because we both loved The Prisoner. They were showing the series on Channel 4 for its 25th anniversary; we were both hooked and stayed hooked, too. As with a lot of people, the tedium and restrictions of lockdown led us to consider the idea of a podcast. There were a few Prisoner podcasts already out there, but they were either a bit dry and professorial or strangely dismissive. One frustrating aspect was the apocryphal information that had cemented itself as part of Prisoner lore, we really wanted to set the record straight where we could.

The ‘Free For All’ podcast was an absolute hoot to make, and it brought us into contact with loads of Prisoner devotees from around the world. We’d expected a bit of pushback from a certain type of social media gatekeeper, but there was absolutely none. Plus, we got to interview Prisoner stars Derren Nesbitt and Jane Merrow, which was a thrill.

The problem with making a podcast about something as finite as a 17-episode TV series is that once it’s done, it’s done. We’ve made some specials (a Columbo episode and a look at Danger Man aka Secret Agent) and have more in the works, but ultimately, we were Prisoner-ed out.

We thought that what we’d recorded had the makings of an entertaining book. It had to be more than just a transcription of what we’d said in the podcast, but we did incorporate some of that element into the text to give it a conversational feel. With the book, as well as the podcast, we wanted readers to feel that they were hanging out with like-minded friends. This was also an opportunity to create an entry point for new viewers by injecting contemporary connections and a lot of humour, making it accessible to everyone.

We also felt that we’d uncovered things about The Prisoner that didn’t seem to be covered in any of the literature or ongoing discussions. We have some theories about the controversial final episode ‘Fall Out’, that we think, are quite unique and stand up to scrutiny better than many of the tired 1960s drug culture theories. As much as the book is a deliberately fun and entertaining read (even if your memory of The Prisoner is a bit rusty), it holds its own as critical analysis of a much-discussed series.

(L to R: Authors Chris Bainbridge & Cai Ross.)

There were a few obstacles to overcome, mainly in the form of rights issues. Necessity being the mother of invention, we created a Prisoner-ish original, with the invaluable help of Alan Hayes, the book’s designer, Prisoner expert Rick Davy and talented graphic artist Jemima Duncalf, who illustrated it.

I hope that it will sit snugly on the shelf in amongst the grand tomes that make up The Prisoner library. It’s a testament to the enduring fascination of Patrick McGoohan’s extraordinary series that the number of books written about it is still growing nearly sixty years after it first appeared.

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Here's a vintage public service announcement in which John Wayne promotes the American Cancer Society. Strangely, the spot has some factual errors. The Duke says he went for a check up after completing his 199th film...which may be accurate if you count every chapter in the old serials he made as a separate movie. The segment shows him in "North to Alaska", which was released in 1960. In fact, Wayne came down ill while filming "In Harm's Way" in 1964 and had a lung removed shortly thereafter which did save his life. The spot goes on to have him show a clip from the 1969 movie "True Grit" which he says was seven years after his diagnosis. In fact, the film came out only five years after his cancer surgery. Well, at least the spot was well meaning and did cause a spike in people getting cancer screenings.

By  Lee Pfeiffer

If there is such thing as a family-oriented sex farce, the 1969 hit "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell" fits the description. The delightful concoction stars Gina Lollobrigida as Carla Campbell, a vivacious woman of relative wealth who lives in a modest Italian village. She is known for her rather upscale lifestyle that includes a live-in maid, Rosa (Naomi Stevens) and the fact that she can afford to send her 18 year-old daughter  to a fancy American university in Switzerland. Life is very pleasing for Carla, who is known for using her money for charitable purposes. She has told everyone that she came by her wealth when her husband, an American officer named Captain Campbell died in action during WWII. She tells a moving tale about how she married him when he took shelter at her house when she was only 16 years old. They fell in love, married and had only a few days together before he was shipped out and killed in battle. During their brief marriage, she became pregnant with their daughter Gia (Janet Margolin), who is now far more American than Italian in her speech and mannerisms. Carla claims that her financial security comes from her late husband's family in America, which has been kind enough to send ample checks every month to provide for her and Gia. Carla also has her own boy toy, hunky Vittorio (Philippe Leroy in a very amusing performance), who oversees her small wine business. As with most Italian lovers depicted in comedies of this period, the two spend a good deal of time verbally sparring with each other but every time one of them threatens to leave, the other uses sex as lure to get her/him back.   

A crisis erupts one fine morning when Carla discovers the town is preparing to host a reunion of American airmen who were stationed there during the war. Turns out she has been living a lie. She confides to Rosa and Vittorio that there had never been a "Captain Campbell" who she married. In fact, she created him out of thin air to cover the fact she was pregnant and took the name from a can of Campbell's soup! In reality, three different airmen had been housed with her family during the same week. As one moved out, another moved in...and she had relations with each of them. At the war's end, she was not certain which of them was the real father of her baby so she wrote to each man and told him he was the father. The three men all believed that he was her only lover and dutifully and secretly sent checks to Carla over a period of twenty years, continuing the practice even after they married and had kids of their own. Now the three ex-G.I.'s are coming to town and will expect to slip away from their spouses and see Carla. Making matters worse, Gia has heard about the reunion and has made a surprise return from school in order to meet the men of her father's fighting unit. All the set pieces are now firmly in place for a traditional Italian farce. There is a script flaw in that the film should be taking place some years earlier, as the age of some of the characters doesn't add up. Also, as the movie was released in 1968, why are the Americans visiting Italy to celebrate their 20th anniversary reunion? That would mean they were in the country three years after the war ended. 

The three men who think they are Gia's father are a diverse lot. Justin Young (Peter Lawford) is an aristocratic playboy who is accompanied by his long-suffering wife Lauren (Marian Moses), who can barely endure his constant womanizing. She correctly assumes that he intends to hook up with another girl while in Italy for the reunion, though she doesn't know that he believes he will be seeing the mother of his daughter. Walter Braddock (Telly Savalas) also has an abrasive relationship with his wife Fritzie (Lee Grant), who constantly throws painful insults at him because the couple can't have children. (Walter doesn't believe the medical diagnosis because he feels he fathered Gia). Then there's Phil Newman (Phil Silvers) and his loyal wife Shirley (Shelly Winters in full Shelly Winters mode). The couple has their young sons along for the trip and Phil finds that every time he concocts a way to meet up with Carla, family responsibilities intrude. Finally, each man manages to contact her and Carla finds herself in the unenviable position of having them all make secret visits to her villa at the same time. This results in the predictable madcap scene in which she tries to hide them from each other. Director Melvin Frank (who co-wrote the script) demonstrates an ability to make such ancient comedy scenarios work, thanks in no small part to the presence of those great male second bananas, each of whom gets plenty of screen time. (Only Lawford seems miscast. He looks too much like a dapper movie star and no one attempts to explain why an American airman has a British accent.)  Carla's complex situation becomes increasingly troublesome as pace becomes frantic, resulting in car chases, lovers quarrels, the unveiling of long-kept secrets and a very moving and sentimental finale.

Lollobrigida gives one of her best performances in this film and was nominated for a Golden Globe. The sheer amount of talent on display makes us point out once again that in days of old, such marvelous actors were taken for granted. Today, there is a dearth of great character actors and the film industry is not better off because of it. The film zips along at a brisk pace, accompanied by Riz Ortalani's inspired score, topped off by the infectious title tune which is crooned by Jimmy Rosell, which was also nominated for a Golden Globe.   

The movie is currently available for streaming through Screenpix, which is available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional $2.99 a month).

Here's a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the 1968 western "Guns for San Sebastian" which had Anthony Quinn squaring off against villain Charles Bronson in an underrated gem from the era. Click here to order Blu-ray from Amazon.

If you're of a certain age and grew up in the New York City area, then you know that WPIX TV used to show Laurel and Hardy in "Babes in Toyland", otherwise known as "March of the Wooden Soldiers", every Thanksgiving. If you remember those days, then here's pleasant blast from the past.

(To view in Full Screen Mode, click on "Watch on YouTube.)

The good folks at Shout! Factory have a streaming site, Shout!TV and are making it possible for fans to stream beautifully mastered episodes of "The Prisoner", the classic series starring Patrick McGoohan. In fact, every episode is available for streaming. Be seeing you at Shout!TV...Click here to view.

Writing on the TCM web site, Raquel Stecher looks back at the connection between Warner Bros. boss Jack Warner and Frank Sinatra and how it resulted in several of the Rat Pack motion pictures, though Sinatra would ultimately discard old pals Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford due to personal disputes. The crime classic "Oceans Eleven" featured the full Rat Pack but by the time "4 for Texas" was made, only Sinatra and Dean Martin appeared together. Click here to read.

We love these vintage studio production featurettes and here's a good one: Irwin Allen's 1973 blockbuster "The Poseidon Adventure".

THE FUGITIVE COMES TO 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY^TM AND DIGITAL

THE 1993 ACTION THRILLER FILM STARRING HARRISON FORD AND TOMMY LEE JONES WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)

Purchase the film on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital November 21

Burbank, Calif., October 4, 2023 – As part of the year-long centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros. Studio, the acclaimed action thriller film The Fugitive from director Andrew Davis (A Perfect Murder, Holes) will be available for purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital for the first time on November 21.

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of its 1993 release, The Fugitive will be available to purchase on November 21 on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.

The Fugitive stars Academy Award nominee Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy U.S. Marshall Sam Gerard, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  The film also stars Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, and Jeroen Krabbé.  

Directed by Davis from a screenplay by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy from a story by Twohy, the film is based the television series “The Fugitive” which was created by Roy Huggins and ran from 1963 to 1967. The film was produced by Arnold Koppelson.

The Fugitive was nominated for 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, for which Jones won the award, and Best Original Score.

The Fugitive will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc for $33.99 ERP and includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the theatrical version of the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Digital download of the film. Fans can also own The Fugitive in 4K Ultra HD via purchase from select digital retailers beginning on November 21.  

The 4K restoration of The Fugitive was completed at Warner Bros. Discovery’s Motion Picture Imaging (MPI) and was sourced from the original camera negative.  The restoration was overseen by director Andrew Davis.

About the Film

The Fugitive Ultra HD Blu-ray disc contains the following previously released special features:

Introduction by Andrew Davis and Harrison Ford

Commentary by Andrew Davis and Tommy Lee Jones

"The Fugitive: Thrill of the Chase"

"On the Run with the Fugitive"

"Derailed: Anatomy of a Train Wreck"

Theatrical Trailer

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Publisher: Headpress

Paperback
Street Date: October 5, 2023
Size: 229mm x 152mm

Pages: 434
Illos: 64 B&W stills and ads

ISBN: 978-1-915316-09-7

RRP: UK £22.99

Review by Adrian Smith

One of the most important and influential television writers of the twentieth century, Nigel Kneale has enjoyed something of a resurgence in popularity of late. Headpress published the biography Into the Unknown by Andy Murray (not the tennis player) a few years ago, Electric Dreamhouse published a lavish collection of essays on his legacy called We Are the Martians, Comma Press reissued his collection of short stories Tomato Cain last year, and now Headpress again brings us this dense, information-packed study of his 1970s folk horror-inflected (before the term ‘folk horror’ had been invented) anthology show Beasts. This attention is well deserved: Nigel Kneale wrote the screenplay for the groundbreaking 1954 BBC production of 1984 before creating The Quatermass Experiment, a show that was so popular that pubs across the country would empty as people ran home to watch it. Quickly followed by Quatermass II and what was arguably the best of the three, Quatermass and the Pit, these shows were hugely important in the early history of television, and Nigel Kneale’s name was forever associated with science fiction and horror. The sixties proved to be a bit more difficult for him after some issues he had with the BBC, but there was still some amazing work, such as The Year of the Sex Olympics, which effectively predicted the rise of Big Brother and Survival-type reality shows.

In the mid-1970s he was commissioned by ATV, one of the independent commercial stations that formed part of the ITV network, to write a show loosely connected by a single theme. There were many such shows in the 1970s, often hung on one writer’s work and with a horror focus, such as Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected or Brian Clemens’ Thriller. The six episodes of Beasts, plus pilot episode ‘Murrain,’ had some form of animalistic connection and explored strange and unexplained phenomena; a couple besieged by rats, a ghostly dolphin, an actor becoming obsessed with the monster he plays in a film, a pet shop owner conducting werewolf experiments, a shopgirl whose telekinesis manifests as a destructive rodent, and a family who discover a mummified animal in the walls of their new home. These were unique, disturbing and memorable television dramas that undoubtedly made for memorable viewing experiences, and they have remained influential to this day.

Screen’s new book on Beasts is a well-researched piece of work. The author has had access to production records, scripts and other ephemera, and he also covers the wider social and historical context around the subject of each episode as well as the critical and public response. It’s an incredibly deep dive and one which will keep fans of the show, and of strange 1970s British television in general, thoroughly engrossed. It is not a book to read if you have yet to see Beasts however, so do seek out the DVD collection, enjoy its equal levels of nostalgia and creeping dread, and then dig into The Book of Beasts to discover everything you could ever want to know about this series and its impact on popular culture.

Click here to order from Amazon UK

Click here to pre-order from Amazon USA (Ships December 1)

Imprint, the Australian video company, has released a boxed set of Blu-rays devoted to Gene Hackman. The set is region-free and limited to 1500 copies.The set includes "I Never Sang for My Father", "Bite the Bullet", "March or Die" and "The Domino Principal".

Click here to order. (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter to see value in your local currency.)

By Ernie Magnotta

Horror films featuring either attached, murderous hands with minds of their own or just a homicidal, disembodied hand on the loose have been around since the early days of cinema. Classic films like The Hands of Orlac (1924), it’s 1935 remake, Mad Love, as well as The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) are just a few that immediately come to mind.

After the phenomenal success of 1973’s The Exorcist, a plethora of demonic possession films flooded theater screens, creating a popular cycle of movies which consisted of, amongst other things, satanic possession and the power of good (usually in the form of a Catholic priest) to stop it. Titles such as Beyond the Door (1974), Abby (1974) and The Omen (1976) quickly followed, with the first two, although thoroughly entertaining, aping The Exorcist quite a bit. Unfortunately, there were also many films that were merely unenjoyable and stale Exorcist cash-ins. However, in 1981, a low-budget filmmaker smartly combined the homicidal hand idea with satanic possession and created a fun, little cult film called Demonoid.

While in Mexico, Mark Baines (Chinatown’s Roy Jenson) unwittingly unleashes an ancient evil in the form of a severed hand. The hand immediately possesses Mark and wreaks havoc until the poor man is killed and the demonic hand is separated from his dead body. Once free, the hand continues to possess anyone it comes across, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. With the help of benevolent Irish priest, Father Cunningham (Stuart Whitman from Eaten Alive), Mark’s wife, Jennifer (The Brood’ s Samantha Eggar), does everything in her power to try and stop the evil hand before more innocent blood is spilled.

The fun film features two Academy Award nominees: Samantha Eggar (for 1965’s The Collector) and Stuart Whitman (for 1961’s The Mark). Needless to say, Eggar and Whitman are both convincing due to taking their roles and the premise of the film seriously. This only helps the audience to believe in it as well, therefore making the film even more enjoyable. Fans of 60s/70s cinema and television will also be happy to spot highly recognizable character actor (and sometime stuntman) Roy Jenson from Our Man Flint, The Getaway, The Gauntlet, Kung Fu and Star Trek, just to name a few. Last, but not least, actor/stuntman Ted White (Starman), who is best known to genre fans for playing our favorite hockey-masked slasher-killer, Jason Voorhees in 1984’s Friday the 13^th: The Final Chapter, shows up as an unfortunate victim of the hand’s deadly rampage.

Filmmaker Alfredo Zacarias’ idea for Demonoid sprang from a desire to make a film about the good and evil that dwells within every person. Combining the disembodied hand idea with demonic possession/Exorcist-like themes, Zacarias fashioned a somewhat original and enjoyably cheesy drive-in film that grindhouse fans like me find extremely pleasurable. The movie may be a bit silly in spots (certain scenes of the hand moving around as well as the actors pretending that their left hands have a mind of their own are unintentionally hilarious and quite charming; not to mention the fact that Stuart Whitman goes in and out of an Irish accent whenever he feels like it), but it’s still an interesting and entertaining enough horror-thriller with a solid, likeable cast and a fun monster in the form of the disembodied hand.

Demonoid has been released as a Blu-ray/DVD combo from the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome. The film, which has been restored from the original 35mm camera negative and scanned in 2K, is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and, with the exception of a little grain here and there, the transfer looks beautiful. Special features include the theatrical trailer, TV spot, an artwork gallery, and an interesting and informative video interview with writer/director/producer Alfredo Zacarias. The disc also contains the international version of Demonoid titled Macabra, which runs ten minutes longer than the US version and features a different soundtrack (the US version uses music taken from the 1977 sci-fi classic The Incredible Melting Man). We are also treated to a Macabra trailer and TV spot. The eye-catching, original poster artwork for Demonoid can be seen on the Blu-ray sleeve and the Blu-ray disc itself while the striking artwork for Macabra shows up on the DVD disc as well as on the reversible sleeve. All in all, a very well put together collection of a not very well-known, but extremely fun film.

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By Doug Oswald

William Holden, Grace Kelly and Mickey Rooney star in James A. Michener’s Korean War drama, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. Holden is Lieutenant Harry Brubaker, a lawyer and Naval Reservist called to active duty during the Korean War. The film opens in November 1952 where we meet Brubaker returning to the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Savo Island off the coast of Korea. He ends up ditching his plane in the ocean after running out of fuel and is rescued from the icy waters. Mickey Rooney gives a memorable performance as Chief Petty Officer Mike Forney, the helicopter pilot who rescues Brubaker from the ocean. Forney wears an unauthorized addition to his uniform, a green top hat and matching scarf, when flying. He also likes to brawl while on shore leave due to girlfriend problems. Earl Holliman plays Nestor Gamidge, the rescue man who assists in getting the pilots into the helicopter and brawling with Mike.

Brubaker is a good pilot and WWII veteran who’s resentful because his civilian life was disrupted by the recall for the Korean War. He starts to question his abilities as a pilot after ditching his plane and is nervous about an upcoming bombing mission. Grace Kelly plays his wife, Nancy Brubaker, who surprises her husband by visiting Japan with their children which casts additional doubts on Brubaker’s ability to carry out dangerous missions.

Headquartered on the USS Savo Island, the naval task force commander is Rear Admiral George Tarrant and is played by Fredric March. Tarrant lost his sons during WWII and is filled with many regrets in life but tries to change Brubaker’s mind about his career as a naval aviator. Rounding out the cast is Charles McGraw as Commander Wayne Lee, the fighter wing commander, who leads the climactic assault on the bridges. Robert Strauss is Lieutenant “Beer Barrel,” and Willis Bouchey as Captain Evans. There’s also an uncredited bit role by Dennis Weaver as the mission briefing officer.

The movie is divided into three parts. We meet the members of the carrier crew in part one. The middle section features shore leave in Japan where we meet Mrs. Brubaker and the Brubaker’s two young daughters. There’s also some shore leave drama involving Forney and Nestor which shows Brubaker’s dedication to these men. The final part of the movie involves the bombing mission at Toko-Ri which pays off beautifully.

The movie features great use of United States Navy resources as the bulk of the film takes place on the deck of the carrier USS Essex with extensive use of the F9F Panther and shots of the carrier task force. The use of actual United States Navy ships and aircraft rather than models is an essential part of the authenticity of this movie. Michener himself spent time on board the USS Essex gathering research for what would become the short novel, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” which was released in 1953. That experience by Michener was made into the MGM release, “Men of the Fighting Lady,” with Michener played by Louis Calhern. That movie was released in May 1954, a few months prior to the premier of “Toko-Ri.”

Holden gives one of his typical cynical performances which he was great at doing, especially in such films as “Sunset Blvd,” “Stalag 17” and later in “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “The Horse Soldiers.” He’s not quite so cynical in this film and gives a great performance as Brubaker. Grace Kelly isn’t given much to do other than looking beautiful as the dutiful wife with kids in tow, but she’s important in sealing her husband’s’ doubts. All her scenes were filmed on studio sets in Hollywood with someone doubling for her in long shots in the location scenes. I think Rooney gives the standout performance as Mike Forney with the green top hat and scarf. Earl Holliman is also good as Mike’s best friend and sidekick with Fredric March and Charles McGraw good as the stoic and capable father figures. I wish Robert Strauss’ comedic skills were put to greater use in the film, especially considering he is fondly remembered in “Stalag 17” with Holden. There’s a side story set up at the start and end of shore leave involving a set of golf clubs carried by Beer Barrel that’s never explained.

The movie is directed by Mark Robson with a screenplay by Valentine Davies. While Robson is not a name that rings bells, you certainly know his movies which include “Peyton Place,” “The Prize,” “Von Ryan’s Express,” “Valley of the Dolls” and “Earthquake” to name a few of his most well-known movies. Robson started his career working uncredited as an assistant editor for Orson Welles and eventually worked his way up to editor and director culminating in several high-profile big budget movies. He died of a heart attack in 1978 shortly after the completion of “Avalanche Express” which was released the following year.

The score by Lyn Murray is serviceable and the on-location shipboard filming adds great production value to the movie. The model work depicting the crash landing scenes are very done as well. The film was released theatrically in December 1954 by Paramount. This Kino Lorber release looks and sounds better than ever. The movie clocks in at 102 minutes and is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio which resembles VistaVision, even though it isn’t, as the movie went into production during the transition period when the process was still being perfected. The Blu-ray release includes an outstanding audio commentary by film historians Steve Mitchell and Steven J. Rubin as well as trailers for this and other Kino Lorber releases. The movie is highly recommended for fans of Holden, Kelly, Rooney and military drama.

Click here to order from Amazon

By Cai Ross

To TV fans of a certain age, the acronym ITC instantly invokes memories of spies, guns, girls, espionage, memorable theme tunes, lush sideburns, flared trousers, almost continuous smoking, purple flock wallpaper and grand, globe-trotting adventures.

Actually, the wide-ranging TV shows made by Lord Lew Grade’s pioneering company have fans of all ages, with shows like The Saint, The Champions, The Persuaders! and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) (US. My Partner The Ghost) still appearing in television schedules to this day, nearly 70 years after Grade scored his first hit in 1955 with The Adventures of Robin Hood.

And so it’s everyone from grandparents to grandkids who have been tuning in in their droves to hear ITC Entertains The World, a podcast that celebrates all things ITC. Fronted by devotees Jaz Wiseman, Al “Smudge” Samujh and Rodney Marshall, the podcast casts an eye at the output of this much-loved stable, from whole-series overviews to individual episodes. They also look at the movies made under the ITC banner (films like Blake Edwards’s The Tamarind Seed and Peter Sellers’s career-reviving The Return of The Pink Panther).

I spoke to Rodney Marshall about the podcast and his love of all things 1960s, starting with the genesis of the podcast.‘Like a lot of podcasts, ours started in lockdown. Jaz approached me and suggested that we did one based on the little-known ITC show Gideon’s Way, which I hadn’t actually seen. I watched them all and thought it was fantastic. You have all those great 1960s guest actors, the Anton Rodgerses, Peter Bowleses and Annette Andres. I thought the podcast would be very niche but it proved surprisingly popular.

‘I’ve known Jaz for a long time through my late father. Jaz interviewed him for lots of DVD commentaries when The Avengers came out.’ Rodney’s father just happens to be Roger Marshall, a very familiar name to fans of vintage espionage television shows. The creator of popular UK dramas like Travelling Man, Zodiac and Floodtide, Marshall Sr also co-created the highly regarded and influential private detective show Public Eye in 1965, starring Alfred Burke as down-at-heel gumshoe Frank Marker.

He was also a regular contributor of scripts for the likes of The Avengers, writing 15 episodes of the iconic 1960s series.

After the success of the Gideon’s Way podcast, they were encouraged to broaden their scope and cover the entire range of ITC shows, but to do that they needed a new recruit. ‘We thought that in terms of voices, three is better than two. Jaz got in touch with his old friend Smudge, who is very much into the history of Elstree studios, into Hammer films and of course, ITC shows. I think all three of us bring something different to the podcast. Jaz is into things like music and titles, Smudge is very into things like directors and direction, talking about fish-eye lenses and the like. I’m more into the scripts, probably because of dad.

‘It was a learning curve for me because these two guys are ITC-mad. They probably have huge tardis-sized rooms full of all things ITC. If I said to one of them, “Do you have a copy of the scripts for The Persuaders! that my dad wrote for?” and they’d probably have three different copies of it.’

We bemoaned the fact that following the sad demise of the distribution company Network, it now seems unlikely that long-running shows like The Saint will receive the BluRay treatment and be discovered anew in pristine condition. It’s a huge shame since the likes of The Prisoner and Man in a Suitcase have enjoyed BluRay remastering and look breathtakingly fresh and vibrant as a result.

(L to R: Rodney Marshall, Jaz Wiseman and Al Samujh.)

'Man in a Suitcase is very much a shared love. I discovered it in the early nineties when BBC started showing it again during the school holidays. In my early misguided smoking days, I used to copy McGill’s habit of standing my cigarette up on the table between puffs. Naturally, I wasn’t able to pull it off with the same je ne sais quoi as Richard Bradford.

Marshall is very much an admirer of the US actor. ‘Bradford’s performance is astonishing. When you put him up against someone like Colin Blakely or Jacqueline Pearce, Bradford is dynamite. He has an incredibly magnetic presence. A lot is made of the fact that there was a lot of tension between him and the actors and stuntmen, but the main directors on the show absolutely loved him. Peter Duffell who was one of the main directors was our next door neighbour and one of dad’s mates, and he raved about Bradford.

‘He may have overdone the Marlon Brando thing; he would race around the set four or five times in order to look breathless before a take, but he really invested himself in his performances. Like Patrick McGoohan, he was a lead actor who wouldn’t take bullshit. If an actor came along and just wanted a quick cheque, they wouldn’t put up with it. Bernard Lee turned up drunk for an episode of Man in a Suitcase, and Bradford walked up to him and said, ‘I’m not putting up with this crap.’ Bernard Lee immediately switched onto acting-mode and suddenly there were no problems.’

Marshall’s other great ITC love is one of its earlier hits, Danger Man (or Secret Agent in the States), a popular and innovative pre-Bond spy series that made a global star out of Patrick McGoohan. ’I think what kept McGoohan engaged with Danger Man for so long is the fact that he’s undercover in so many different roles. One week he might be playing a roaring drunk, the next week he’s a timid school-teacher in glasses, sending someone into a nervous breakdown by stalking them! That variety made him feel like he was back in his old rep company in Sheffield.’

Danger Man was one of several ITC shows that, like ABC’s The Avengers, made the shift from black and white to colour in the mid sixties, when the US networks made it mandatory. Marshall however, believes that something was lost after the transition.‘I still think that The Prisoner, Man in a Suitcase and the amazing Strange Report aside, the best ITC series are from earlier in the decade like Gideon’s Way, Danger Man and The Saint, which I much prefer in black and white.

‘I always felt that when a show went from black and white to colour, you lost a lot of the subtlety. Take an episode of The Saint like ‘Scorpion’ with Dudley Sutton, who rides around on a motorbike bumping people off and even tries strangling his girlfriend. Perhaps its something to do with the shadows, but you can pull off a kind of darkness in a monochrome episode which doesn’t quite work in colour. Jaz recorded a DVD commentary for the Avengers episode ‘Town of No Return’ with Brian Clemens and director Roy Ward Baker, and they both said, ‘you know, black and white is more…real.’

The podcast casts its net wide to cover not just the big, popular hits but some of the ITC gems that may have faded from the public consciousness. ‘Man of The World from 1962 is very interesting, with Craig Stevens from Peter Gunn playing a photo journalist travelling the world getting himself into scrapes. It actually started in colour then went back to black and white after its budget was slashed.’

Intriguingly, The Sentimental Agent starring Carlos Thompson started off as an episode of Man of The World. The powers that be were so impressed with Thompson that they span it out into a whole series. Marshall explains, ‘Carlos was like a continental Roger Moore, very good looking, very charming, very flirty. But suddenly he fell ill, and they had to make the rest of the series with this humourless guy who was none of the above.’

The podcast, like the work it celebrates, is a labour of love and it’s benefitted from some Lew Grade-style serendipity that brought exactly the right three people together to extol the many virtues of a series of entertainments that are still adored by millions.

‘We’re lucky,’ concludes Marshall,‘because Jaz has access to a library of things like the music and a lot of interviews and DVD commentaries that he’s done with the likes of Richard Bradford and Sir Roger Moore, who was hilarious. On the commentary for The Saint, they debunked the theory that Patrick McGoohan turned down the role. He was interviewed for it, but producer Bob Baker thought he was unsuitable for the role as he refused to do any romantic scenes. They said to Roger, ‘we knew that kissing ladies on screen wouldn’t be a problem for you,’ and he replied in that most Roger Moore way, ‘Indeed not!’

(ITC Entertains The World is available to listen to across all streaming platforms.)

By Todd Garbarini

I was introduced into the world of Billy Idol’s music in late 1983 when my younger sister discovered his music. His signature hits “White Wedding (Part 1)” and “Dancing with Myself” from his self-titled 1982 album emanated from her room daily and I found his energy to be infectious. At that time, his follow-up album, the widely popular Rebel Yell, was just released (it’s now forty years-old!) and it really put him on the map, setting him apart from the group he burst on to the scene with in 1976: the short-lived Chelsea, and then later, Generation X. With guitarist Steve Stevens, who has been with him ever since, and a group of musicians, Billy Idol, whose surname was inspired by one of his teachers labeling him as an “idle” student, began his Rebel Yell tour and was Yours Truly’s first foray into the world of rock concerts. Since then, he has toured the globe and garnered legions of fans the world over.

A self-professed history buff and environmentalist, Billy teamed with then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in February 2020 just weeks before the COVID-19 shutdown to promote a public awareness Anti-Idling campaign in New York City to remind drivers that motor vehicles are forbidden to idle for no more than three minutes, and no more than one minute in a school zone. So, he’s very pro-environment.

In April of this year, Billy did something that no artist has ever done before: he performed a concert at the Hoover Dam in Boulder City, NV, which was filmed for the new concert film Billy Idol: State Line, playing in theaters this week. The first 20 minutes of the film reveal that Billy would have been a history professor had he not been in a band (I for one am glad that he never got his teaching license) and gives a brief history of the construction of the modern engineering marvel. Amazingly, this is Billy’s maiden voyage to Hoover Dam and you can tell that he is stunned by it.

He plays an acoustic set at the foot of the dam with Steve Stevens of “Eyes Without a Face” and “Rebel Yell” before taking the stage or, in this case the Hoover Dam helipad, to belt out “Rock the Cradle of Love,” “Dancing with Myself,” “Flesh for Fantasy,” “Eyes Without a Face,” his trademark cover of “Mony Mony,” “Blue Highway,” “Rebel Yell,” “Hot in the City,” and “White Wedding (Part 1).”

Will this venue become a mecca for future bands?

This is a must-see on the big screen for Billy Idol fans.

See the press release below for more information:

BILLY IDOL: STATE LINE MAKES U.S. THEATRICAL DEBUT NOVEMBER 15

FILM DOCUMENTS THE FIRST CONCERT EVER PERFORMED AT HOOVER DAM

IDOL CONTINUES WATER CONSERVATION ACTIVISM WITH PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS IN CONJUNCTION WITH U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Billy Idol: State Line, a Vertigo Live concert film documenting the rock legend’s April show at the famed Hoover Dam - the first ever concert performed at the location - is set to make its U.S. theatrical debut on November 15, 2023. The movie highlights the history and significance of Hoover Dam and includes performances from two unique sets of Billy Idol’s iconic hits: a full band concert at sunset with special guests that electrified and illuminated the surrounding Black Canyon and an acoustic duo set on the roof of the powerhouse at the foot of Hoover Dam straddling the Colorado River, directly on the Nevada/Arizona state line. Tickets and additional info on film screenings can be found at billyidolstateline.com, with additional screenings to be added shortly.

For both sets, Idol is joined by his collaborator and lead guitarist of over forty years, Steve Stevens. Performed in front of only 250 fans, the full band set features special guests Alison Mosshart (The Kills, The Dead Weather), Steve Jones (Sex Pistols, Generation Sex) and Tony Kanal (No Doubt). See the film’s trailer here.

“Our show at Hoover Dam was a monumental and surreal career highlight,” notes Idol. “I’m excited to get State Line out into the world. With this film we set out to highlight the continued importance of one of the most inspiring infrastructural achievements of the 20th Century, while also bringing the power of rock n roll to a stunning, magical location. I think we more than succeeded on both accounts.”

Idol’s first-person experience of the Colorado River Basin drought conditions while shooting the film at Hoover Dam inspired his ongoing efforts to promote the importance of water conservation, including appearing in a series of public service announcements being released by the U.S. Department of the Interior. See Idol’s most recent P.S.A. with Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland here.

Of his activism relating to water conservation, Idol adds, “The drought conditions prevalent in the American West are severe and impossible to ignore. It takes all of us conserving water in whatever ways we can to preserve the future of our natural resources for our grandkids and beyond. I’m proud to help amplify this issue in whatever way I can.”

Billy Idol: State Line is produced by Lastman Media for Vertigo Live in collaboration with the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas and is distributed theatrically throughout North America by Unbranded Events and U.K./rest of world via Kaleidoscope Entertainment.

Idol will also perform in Las Vegas the same day as Super Bowl LVIII in February; see below for a complete list of tour dates.

For 46 years, Billy Idol has been one of the definitive faces and voices of rock’n’roll. Between 1977 and 1981 Idol released three albums with Generation X as their camera-ready frontman. In 1982 he embarked on a transatlantic/trans-genre solo career that integrated the bold and simple lines of punk and rock’n’roll decadence. Touring consistently around the world for the last ten years and showing no signs of slowing down, Idol released both The Roadside EP in 2021 and The Cage EP in 2022 on Dark Horse Records, earning praise from fans and critics alike. In January, Idol cemented his name among Hollywood legends with the first Walk of Fame Star of 2023.

Idol recently wrapped the first-ever Generation Sex tour in the U.K. and E.U. The punk supergroup is comprised of Idol and Tony James from Generation X, and Steve Jones and Paul Cook from Sex Pistols. November 10 marks the 40th Anniversary of Idol’s seminal record Rebel Yell, with an expanded edition of the album due in early 2024.

By Todd Garbarini

Paramount Home Video has released a set of five horror films in 4K UHD format. Here is a breakdown of the films included in the set.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

I was in the minority of those left unimpressed by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), based upon the 1967 novel of the same name by Ira Levin. I never saw what the fuss was about and could not find it even remotely scary when I originally saw it in the 1980s on VHS. I rewatched the film when the Criterion Collection released it on the now-out-of-print Blu-ray in October 2012 (if you have that version, hold on to it) and I realized that I had an incorrect reading of it. I believe that the terror that oozes from the screen is directly attributed to Rosemary Woodhouse’s (Mia Farrow) new life in the enormous Dakota Apartments (made famous by Mark David Chapman following his murder of John Lennon in December 1980) which is surrounded by people who initially make her feel safe and welcomed, but slowly begin to reveal their true natures which are malevolent and evil. Her husband Guy (maverick independent film director and actor John Cassavetes) is a struggling actor who understudies for a Broadway play and is suddenly fast-tracked to the lead role by the inexplicable blindness that befalls the play’s lead actor (portrayed by an off-screen Tony Curtis over the phone) following a discussion with two nosy neighbors (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon as Roman and Minnie Castavet, respectively) who ingratiate themselves into their lives. Coincidence? Guy is often short-tempered with his wife, but midway through the film he suddenly has a burst of fatherhood when he suggests to her that they have a baby. Overwhelmingly happy, Rosemary soon becomes suspicious of the people around her during her pregnancy. They are revealed to be a coven of witches, and Rosemary is carrying Satan’s child during a disturbing sequence of supernatural impregnation that she believes was just a dream.

Rosemary’s Baby is the ultimate gaslighting movie. It is also a movie that, I would imagine, would work to great effect on the psyche of female audience members for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is due to knowing what the outcome of Rosemary’s pregnancy is, and knowing that no one, not even the doctor (Charles Grodin) she has foolishly and naïvely confiding in regarding her suspicions regarding the coven, can or is even willing to help her. The film is set against a backdrop of complete normalcy, and when that normalcy is slowly eroded by the Devil’s minions in sheep’s clothing, it’s too much for us and Rosemary to bear. It’s also a film about betrayal, and it’s shocking to see how Guy willingly confesses to her that he had no problem selling her out to this life inorder to make an easy life for themselves, something he sees as a bonus. Her reaction to him and to the (offscreen) face of her baby is complete disbelief, and Ms. Farrow is more than capable of carrying the film. Rosemary’s horrifically contorted face when she sees her baby for the first time, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (sorry, Walt…), is all that the audience needs to know that the evil has come full circle.

Rosemary’s Baby turns 55 this year. Filmed in the final four months of 1967 and released on Wednesday, June 12, 1968, it takes place in 1965 and 1966. Ruth Gordon won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time, and it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2014. The film spawned a TV-movie follow-up in 1976 with Patty Duke.

(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)

The new package contains the film in 4K UHD on one disc, and the film on a standard Blu-ray, the latter boasting the following extras:

Rosemary's Baby – A Retrospective – this piece, originally shot in 2000 for the DVD, runs just under 17 minutes and includes comments from the late film producer Robert Evans, the late production designer Richard Sylbert, and Roman Polanski.

Mia and Roman – this piece runs roughly 23 minutes and contains a lot of nice behind-the-scenes shots taken during filming on location in New York City, with input from actress Mia Farrow and director Roman Polanski.

Theatrical Trailer

50th Anniversary "Redband" Trailer

This is a nice upgrade to 4K that will make you feel as though you’re watching it in a cinema again, though the lack of a feature-length commentary by film historians is disappointing given the film’s stature in the genre, making one wonder if the director is just against this sort of thing. Steven Spielberg and David Lynch do not offer commentaries on their works, sadly.

NOTE: It has come to Paramount’s attention that there is an error on this pressing, and they are going to correct it with a disc replacement program. Apparently there is a line of dialog missing from the film! When you purchase this box set, click on this link to request the replacement discs which should become available in the next several months.

Pet Sematary (1989)

Stephen King published two frightening and best-selling novels in 1983: Christine and Pet Sematary. Attempting to sandwich these massive tales into films that ran less than two hours is a near impossible task and neither film, the former directed by John Carpenter and the latter by Mary Lambert, is completely successful in this regard. Lensed between August and November 1988 and released on Friday, April 21, 1989, Pet Sematary begins with a familiar nod to Dan Curtis’s creepy Burnt Offerings (1976) as Dr. Louis Creed and his wife Rachel (Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby) leave the Windy City and arrive at their new Ludlow, Main home with their young daughter Ellie (Blasé Berdahl) and even younger son Gage (Miko Hughes). The house is located right in front of a major road that trucks whiz by at a high rate of speed, setting up the roadway as the imminent threat. Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne), the family neighbor, takes them to the Pet Sematary and explains how children bury their pets there. This proves convenient when the family, sans Louis, visit Rachel’s parents for Thanksgiving, and Ellie’s cat Winston Churchill (“Church” for short) is killed by a truck. Jud takes Louis to a location beyond the Pet Sematary called the Micmac Burying Ground dating back to ancient Native American days. Buried pets have come back to life, though their personalities are different, and this is no exception with Church. The idea is to save Ellie the grief of losing him.

Following Ellie’s displeasure of the now-reanimated Church’s smell, Gage finds himself in the path of a truck and, following his death, Louis digs up his corpse and heads for the Micmac Burying Ground despite verbal warnings from Jud. Unfortunately, Gage comes back as a meanie, killing those around him until a final showdown with his father.

Despite being written by author King, the screenplay never really manages to get above the level of a gross-out horror film. The subject of grief is best left to serious dramas (think Ingmar Bergman) as director Mary Lambert can only give us what’s on the written page as a truncation of an oversized novel, is fairly schematic at best. Whereas the novel is more of a deep-rooted mediation on the nature of the overwhelming emotion of grief over the death of a child, the film focuses more on the horrific aspects of the deaths at hand. It does seem to be enough, however, to satisfy genre fans.

Bonus Content (on both 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray Disc):

Feature-length commentary by director Mary Lambert

Pet Sematary: Fear and Remembrance – this piece is in high definition and runs about 7 minutes. Select members of the film’s cast and crew look back on the film and its reception.

Pet Sematary: Revisitation – this piece is in high definition and runs about 10 minutes. The director discusses the film’s production, how she came to direct the movie, and restoring the film.

Still Galleries – this is in high definition and consists of a large selection of photos separated into four sections.

Storyboards Introduction by Mary Lambert – this intro runs 1 minute in length. She explains how they derived the new transfer from the original camera negative and how the storyboards came to be.

Storyboards – this feature is extensive and recalls the image galleries of the laserdisc days. By using the left and right buttons on the remote control, you can navigate what is essentially a visual representation of the film. Very cool!

Behind the Scenes – this is a stills gallery that, like the storyboards, can be navigated in a similar fashion, showing images on the set of shooting during the summer of 1988.

Marketing – nice section of stills containing the marketing of the film for both theatrical and home video exhibition.

The following extras are only on the standard Blu-ray, though I will never understand why they do not replicate all extras on both discs as there is more than enough room to do so:

Stephen King Territory – this is a nice piece from 2006 that is shot in standard definition for the then-DVD release and runs about 13 minutes. It discusses the autobiographical genesis for the story, which really happened to Mr. King’s family and daughter.

The Characters – also from 2006 and shot in standard definition, this runs 13 minutes and looks at the motivations behind the characters and the cats used on the set. They had an ingenious method of making the cat’s eyes glow maniacally with an attachment to the Panavision cameras.

Filming the Horror – running 10 minutes, Mary Lambert discusses how the script came to her and while she read Stephen King’s novels, she did not consider herself to be a horror film director. Miko Hughes, who was two-and-a-half-years old when he played Gage, appears to have had a fun time on the set!

Smile (2022)

David Sandberg’s 2013 short film Lights Out is a brilliantly frightening, just-under-three-minute film about a woman seeing a strange creature in her kitchen and bedroom. It is widely available on Youtube and is one of the scariest movies I have seen in my 42 years of watching horror films and thrillers. It provided the basis for an unnecessary, feature-length film of the same name three years later, also directed by the same person, who has gone on to direct Annabelle: Creation (2017), as well as other projects. Likewise, Parker Finn is a director who made a short film called Laura Hasn’t Slept (2020), starring Caitlin Stasey and Lew Temple as her somnologist. It’s the second short he made after his impressive and creepy The Hidebehind (2018), a nearly ten-minute now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t bit of computer trickery that will make you think twice about trekking solo in a forest. In Laura Hasn’t Slept, which is just under twelve minutes, Laura tells her therapist that she has a recurring nightmare wherein a frightening man is constantly smiling at her. While I appreciated the effort of this film and experienced no difficulty in determining the ending, the prospect of sitting through the theatrical version entitled Smile simply did not sit well with me. My disappointment with Lights Out nearly made me pass on Smile, and I am glad that I reconsidered.

Unlike most of the horror films marketed today, Smile is every bit as terrifying as its marketing campaign has professed. Like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Smile feels like the sort of film that would emotionally bifurcate the audience into those who love it and those who hate it. In terms of genre tropes, the film’s most obvious cinematic antecedent is David Robert Mitchell’s superb It Follows (2014), and a nod to the film’s title can be further traced back to the malevolent chauffeur, played with icy stillness by the late Anthony James in Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (1976). While it is true that familiarity can often breed contempt, this does not make Smile any less frightening. There is credence to the notion that although the film might offer up a less-than-compassionate view of mental illness and handle the subject flippantly, the movie should ultimately be judged for what it sets out to do: scare you. It may not be completely original, but it is no less frightening.

Sosie Bacon, the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, gives a bravura performance as recently engaged Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist who meets a new patient, Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey, the actress from the short film), who fails to convince Rose that she is being chased by a demon that possesses people by smiling at them. Rose’s training misinterprets this as an episode of some sort of psychosis until Laura screams and reacts violently to something in the examination room invisible to Rose. Laura’s terror suddenly turns inexplicably serene wherein she effortlessly cuts her own throat with a broken plant’s pot while smiling maniacally at Rose, who reacts with complete terror. Unbeknownst to Rose, a terrible curse that plagued Laura has now been transferred to her. It takes Rose a while to make this realization. In the interim, she blames what she experiences on overworking, reluctantly taking a week off at the urging of her manager. Her fiancée (Jesse T. Usher) wants to help her but feels powerless. Rose begins to have hallucinations, and as the audience we see what she sees. Her mother’s painful death becomes a force that she needs to reckon with and is a major reason why she works as hard as she does. The hallucinations become more and more unnerving. With the aid of her ex-boyfriend cop Joel (Kyle Gallner), she begins looking into murder cases wherein people having died by suicide that they committed in front of another person, and they themselves have also witnessed a suicide. A turning point occurs when Robert Talley (Rob Morgan of Netflix’s Stranger Things, in a small but powerful role), a murderer currently in prison, managed to escape the clutches of the entity. With Joel’s help, Rose goes to the prison to see him. He tells Rose that the entity feeds on other people’s trauma. Apparently, the only way to relieve oneself of this curse is to murder someone else in front of a witness to thereby transfer the trauma on to them (again, similarly like in It Follows). Rose attempts to do this, yet it turns out to be another hallucination. By the end of the film, Rose confronts her childhood trauma at her now-abandoned childhood home in an unsatisfactory ending that paves the way for a sequel.

Thematically similar to Rosemary’s Baby in that the protagonist knows the truth and cannot seem to convince anyone around them that they are not crazy, Smile, while certainly not original, manages to take a familiar horror genre trope and seriously make it its own, packing a powerful emotional punch with several genuine jump scares nearly on a par with Gary Sherman’s Death Line (1972) and William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist III: Legion (1990). In order for a film like this to work, the performances need to be believable and they are all spot-on.

Bonus Content (on 4K Ultra HD Disc):

Audio Commentary by director Parker Finn – this is a feature-length discussion by the film’s director who speaks about the movie scene by scene regarding what he wanted in the scenes and what he got. I normally shy away from such commentaries as I am not interested in a blow-by-blow description of the film, but the director speaks so intelligently about it that he is a constant pleasure to listen to.

Something's Wrong with Rose: Making Smile (HD) – at just under 30 minutes, this is a behind-the-scenes look at what it took to make the film in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Flies on the Wall: Inside the Score (HD) – Smile has one of the creepiest scores that I have ever heard, and it was composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer. In under nine minutes, we are treated to his vast studio and his methods of creating ungodly sounds for the film.

Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by director Parker Finn – there are two scenes provided here with an optional commentary and add depth to Rose’s character. These run just under 12 minutes. I would have loved to have had these scenes added as an optional cut of the film viewable through seamless branching.

Laura Hasn't Slept – Original Short with Introduction by director Parker Finn – this is the short film that Paramount scouts saw at South By Southwest in Austin, TX that paved the way for Smile. It runs about 11 minutes.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release: 

THE BELOVED HOLIDAY FAVORITE COMES HOME

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON 4K ULTRA HD

"LOVE ACTUALLY 20^TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION"

YOURS TO OWN NOVEMBER 21, 2023

FROM UNIVERSAL PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT

INCLUDES BLU-RAY™ AND DIGITAL CODE

SYNOPSIS: Funny, irresistible, and heartwarming, Love Actually is the ultimate romantic comedy that follows eight couples whose lives intersect shortly before Christmas. From the makers of Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill, this beloved film is headlined by an incredible roster of stars including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson and more. Take a breathtaking tour of love's delightful twists and turns as you fall under the spell of Love Actually and share the laughs and charm again and again!

• BONUS FEATURES:
• · Making LOVE ACTUALLY (NEW)
• o Join Writer/Director Richard Curtis along the with cast and crew as they reflect on the making of the film and its legacy 20 years later.
• · Deleted Scenes with Introductions by Richard Curtis
• · The Music of LOVE ACTUALLY with Introductions by Richard Curtis
• · The Storytellers
• o A featurette exploring the film’s main storylines, featuring interviews with the cast discussing their characters and the major elements within each on-screen relationship.
• · Kelly Clarkson “The Trouble with Love is” Music Video
• · Billy Mack “Christmas is All Around” Music Video
• · Feature Commentary with Director Richard Curtis and Actors Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy and Thomas Sangsters

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LOVE ACTUALLY FILMMAKERS:

Cast: Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon, Rowan Atkinson

Casting By: Mary Selway _CDG

Music By: Craig Armstrong

Co-Producers: Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin

Costume Designer: Joanna Johnston

Line Producers: Chris Thompson

Production Designer: Jim Clay

Director of Photography: Michael Coulter _BSC

Editor: Nick Moore

Produced By: Duncan Kenworthy, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner

Written and Directed By: Richard Curtis 

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“A VISCERAL LIFE IN LITTLE ITALY”

By Raymond Benson

Although he had made two previous feature films and several shorts, it was Mean Streets that placed Martin Scorsese into the minds of discerning filmgoers. This low budget independent picture (released by Warner Brothers) proved, as filmmaker Richard Linklater states in a Directors Guild of America interview with Scorsese from 2011 (presented here as a supplement), that artists who wanted to make a movie could go out and find the means to put their vision on the screen without interference from studio brass. Indeed, that’s what Scorsese did.

At the time, Scorsese was trying to make it in Hollywood. It was John Cassavetes who had urged him to stop working for Roger Corman (for whom Scorsese had made 1972’s Boxcar Bertha) and “go back to his roots.” Well, Scorsese’s roots were in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City. He had grown up there. He had friends there. He knew the life there, all the “goodfellas” and wannabe tough guys and low level (and some high level) gangsters. So the filmmaker crafted a screenplay with fellow NYU film school alumnus Mardik Martin, cast guys he knew such as Harvey Keitel in the lead (he had starred in Scorsese’s first feature, Who’s That Knocking at My Door from 1967, retooled and released in 1968 and again in 1969) and Robert De Niro (who had also grown up in the neighborhood and had known Scorsese when they were younger; this was Scorsese’s first collaboration with De Niro, then an actor who had done some Roger Corman films and was still attempting to up his game). Other familiar faces that have appeared in Scorsese’s oeuvre were also cast—Victor Argo, Harry Northup, David Carradine, and Murray Moston—but also other notable actors who have been in mob-related pictures such as David Proval, Richard Romanus, and Cesare Danova. Amy Robinson, who later became a producer (she co-produced Scorsese’s After Hours in 1985) was cast as the female lead.

Mean Streets features the hallmarks of what we would come to know to be in a “Martin Scorsese Film,” especially when he focuses on the underworld, a topic to which he has returned many times: brotherhood, loyalty, friendship, betrayal, guilt (lots of guilt), Catholicism, sex, drugs, rock and roll, crime, and violence. This life in Little Italy is edgy, gritty, dangerous, and quite self-contained. There isn’t a moment in which an audience might think—oh, this couldn’t happen… because Scorsese convinces you that it can and has.

Charlie (Keitel) is a small time hood in Little Italy. His uncle is Giovanni (Danova), a big time Mafioso. Charlie acts as a big brother figure to his friend, Johnny Boy (De Niro), who is reckless and not the brightest bulb in the socket, and who owes money to several gangsters, including Michael (Romanus). Charlie secretly dates Teresa (Robinson), who is Johnny Boy’s sister. She suffers from epilepsy and is an outsider to the closed-knit Italian culture of the neighborhood. Giovanni wants Charlie to get away from Johnny Boy, but Charlie can’t do it. Eventually the debtors come to get Johnny Boy to pay up, and Charlie must make decisions that will tear him apart. And that’s when the violence erupts.

What’s truly amazing about Mean Streets is that, according to cinematographer Kent Wakeford, only 6% of the film was actually shot in Little Italy (this reviewer believes it is slightly more, but certainly not as much as 10%). The rest was all shot in the Los Angeles area! Scorsese and his design team managed to find locations in California that somewhat resembled New York City, and nearly all of the interiors were shot in real spaces (existing bars, hotels, and apartments). No sound stages were used. For decades, critics and film historians have touted Mean Streets to be one of the “great New York films, shot on the streets” when, in fact, it wasn’t! That’s not to say that it’s not a great New York film, because it is.

Mean Streets is a rough and ready, visceral, fast moving, in your face crime picture with unsavory characters and a vibe that will make you nervous. You might ask, well, is it entertaining? You bet your life it is. But with these ne’er-do-wells, your life may not be worth much.

The Criterion Collection presents a new 4K digital restoration approved by Scorsese and frequent collaborator/editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who was not involved with the film), with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. After several home video releases in the past on DVD and Blu-ray, this one is obviously tops.

Supplements include the excellent previously mentioned discussion about the film between Scorsese and Richard Linklater at the DGA; an audio commentary by Scorsese and Amy Robinson on specific scenes from the film; a new, observant video essay by Imogen Sara Smith about the picture; an interview with DP Wakefield; excerpts from a documentary about co-writer Mardik Martin; a vintage promo video from 1973 about the making of the film (the only supplement ported over from previous home video releases); and the theatrical trailer. The package booklet contains an essay by critic Lucy Sante.

Mean Streets is a must-have for fans of Martin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and New York City mob movies. Get it now… just remember to pay your debts!

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From a 1974 issue of Boxoffice magazine, though the photos are from at least a couple of years previous to this issue with the exception of the depiction of the Colorado 4 Cinemas in Denver, which was an artist's concept drawing. The Alameda Theatre in San Francisco is showing "Pete 'n Tille" with Carol Burnett and Walter Matthau, while the Americana 5 multiplex in Panorama City, California is showing "The Graduate", "Doctor Zhivago", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Brain" and "Take the Money and Run". The photos were from an advertisement promoting theater chains.  

Here is an official 2008 Warner Bros. video documentary about the making of the 1967 Paul Newman classic "Cool Hand Luke".

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For those readers of a certain age who have retained fond memories of the laser disc era, here are a couple of treats: two 1990s ads promoting laser discs of "Dances with Wolves" and "Terminator 2:Judgment Day".

On this date in 1963, Stanley Kramer's all-star Cinerama comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" opened at the Cinerama Dome Theatre in Los Angeles. The film represents what people mean when they say "They don't make 'em like that anymore!"

Here's the original trailer for one of the greatest espionage movies of all time: director Martin Ritt's acclaimed 1965 screen adaptation of John LeCarre's international bestseller "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold". At the height of the James Bond-inspired spy craze, Ritt's film presented the dark, ugly and non-glamorous side of espionage. Richard Burton received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his brilliant performance as the weary, cynical spy who is disgusted by his profession but finds he can't leave it. 

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By Lee Pfeiffer

"Some Kind of a Nut" is yet another obscure movie from the late 1960s (1969, to be precise) that is available through Screenpix, which is an ancillary subscription channel through Amazon Prime. The film is not currently available on home video in the U.S. and I don't know if it ever was. I was aware that the movie didn't make any impact upon its initial release but, given the amount of talent involved in it, I thought it was time to invest 90 minutes of my life to see a collaboration between star Dick Van Dyke and legendary writer/director Garson Kanin. Van Dyke was a hot property at the time, having left his classic TV sitcom "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to concentrate on a career in feature films, where he initially found considerable success. Van Dyke was busy with so many projects at the time that "Some Kind of a Nut" had a bizarre shooting schedule to accommodate him. According to the TCM web site, some of the film was shot in May of 1968 with the rest filmed in January 1969. The logistics of arranging this with a full cast and crew must have been challenging but Van Dyke's presence in the film led United Artists to agree to the terms. The company had recently released "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with Van Dyke in the starring role. The studio was also seeking a long-term relationship with Garson Kanin and signed him to a four-picture deal arranged by producer Walter Mirisch, but none of the other projects came to fruition and Kanin retired from making feature films after "Some Kind of a Nut".

Van Dyke is cast as Fred Amidon, a mousey bank teller who works in a busy branch in the heart of mid-town Manhattan. He and the other employees suffer in an Orwellian atmosphere under the thumb of a priggish, humorless boss who demands complete conformity with conservative banking policies. Fred is also carrying the weight of his pending divorce from his wife Rachel (Angie Dickinson) which will be finalized in a few weeks time. His one pleasant diversion is his romantic relationship with fellow bank clerk Pamela Anderson (no, not that Pamela Anderson) played by Rosemary Forsyth. While enjoying a precious lunch hour together in Central Park, Fred is stung on the chin by a bee. The painful sting proves to be stubborn and won't go away even when the couple leave on a cross-country vacation. Frustrated by the unsightly wound on his chin, Fred decides to grow a beard. (For a bank with prison-like working conditions, the institution must have a very liberal vacation policy, as Fred and Pamela have enough time to drive to San Francisco and back and for Fred's beard to come into full glory.) Upon returning to the bank, his new appearance causes a scandal. His boss insists that he shave it off, as beards are against bank policy. When Fred refuses, he is summarily fired. His stance earns him the respect of his fellow employees and when the media learns of his situation, he becomes a cause celebre. Before long, Fred becomes a reluctant hero to everyday people who are fed up with having to conform to outdated policies in society. He is particularly embraced by the counter-culture movement, making him an unlikely figurehead for local hippies. He has more problems: his soon to be ex-wife Rachel reconnects with him because she is impressed by his new-found courage. This complicates things with Pamela, who detests the beard and the symbolism it represents. She's under the influence of her two meddlesome brothers who seek to compromise Fred's status as a cult figure. Meanwhile, Fred starts to dabble in Eastern mysticism and begins consulting an Asian guru in one of the film's funniest scenes. Beyond this, however, Kanin's script is anything but unpredictable and you can pretty much guess the outcome of the movie long before it arrives.

"Some Kind of a Nut" was filmed under the working title "The One with the Fuzz". It was a dud with critics and audiences, as was often the case when older filmmakers tried to be relevant to the anti-Establishment crowd of the era. (All the hippies are safe, joyous and satisfied carrying protest signs that are about as controversial as "No Trespassing". There isn't a hint of the Vietnam War and civil rights protests that defined the era, let alone any expletives. The film paints a Brady Bunch-like depiction of a time that never was. Nevertheless, the script does have something to say about the price of conformity, expressed in comical fashion through the inimitable talents of Dick Van Dyke, who makes otherwise unfunny scenes amusing. Angie Dickinson has a rather bland role and her screen time is limited, though director Kanin ensures there is a scene set at a swimming pool for no other reason than to present the welcome sight of Dickinson in a bikini.The film also has the virtue of presenting some nostalgic scenes shot on location in Manhattan. For Dick Van Dyke, the movie would be the first of two feature films released in 1969 that were ambitious in content but failures at the boxoffice and with critics, although the second film, Carl Reiner's comedy/drama "The Comic" has earned respect over the years in certain quarters. Van Dyke would only star in one more comedy on the big screen, "Cold Turkey", released in 1971. That film proved to be quite popular. Thereafter, he would not star in a feature film for another eight years, when he appeared in the leading role in Stanley Kramer's admirable but under-appreciated final movie "The Runner Stumbles", in which Van Dyke gave a fine dramatic performance. He returned to the medium where he had originally found success: television and his late career series "Diagnosis: Murder" would prove to be a major hit that ran for many seasons.

("Some Kind of a Nut" is currently streaming on Screenpix, available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional $2.99 a month.)

When we think of the 1969 Oscar winner "Midnight Cowboy", chances are Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" comes to mind, as the song played a key part in setting the tone and atmosphere of the film, even though it was not written for the movie. United Artists made a deal to include it in the film.  John Barry's moody, haunting main theme for the movie is one of the great composer's best works. If you need to be reminded why, you can relish the song again in this video montage.

By Nicholas Anez

The incentive for this 4^th volume in my Celluloid Adventures series was a dismissive review in a reference book of the 1956 film version of George Orwell’s novel, 1984, calling it “a great disappointment and a lackluster adaptation of the briliant novel.” This derogatory opinion remains the general consensus among many critics. I disagree with this assessment, in part

because the movie remained in my memory long after I first saw it. Furthermore, I had read the novel so I knew that, though the adaptation was definitely a loose one, it was actually faithful to Orwell’s ideas. So I wanted to redress this negative opinion of the movie and proceeded to write about it. This led to my considering other movies in the science fiction and horror genres that, I believe, are also underrated. Thus was born the concept for Celluloid Adventures 4: Science Fiction Thrills….Horror Chills.

I should state at this point that I became a fan of science fiction and horror movies in my adolescence. I also loved Westerns (Shane is my all-time favorite movie) and it has always upset me when a good movie, particularly in my favorite genres, fails at the box-office. Thus, my objective in the first three volumes was to bring overdue attention to some of these movies. In these books, I discuss films within several genres while I devote individual chapters to science fiction and/or horror movies. For this fourth book, I decided to focus only on science fiction and horror because the ascendancy of these genres that began with Star Wars (1977) and The Exorcist (1973) relegated to relative obscurity many fine movies that preceded this dominance along with a few that followed. And it is some of these films that I wanted to retrieve from anonymity for this book. (Not coincidentally, my devotion to the genres more or less ended in the late 70s, coinciding with this ascendancy, but that’s another story.)

It was very rewarding for me to research the movies in Celluloid Adventures 4 because I discovered numerous interesting details about their development and production that I hope will make this book equally interesting. For instance, here are just a few of the many intriguing facts that I learned:

The director of one movie fired his own brother who had written the screenplay.

One movie is based upon a legend of the birth of a deformed monster.

One movie was made by a married couple that later engaged in an acrimonious divorce.

One movie failed upon its original release but played to enthusiastic audiences in New York

and Los Angeles 65 years later.

The screenplay for one movie is based upon actual inhumane experiments conducted in

prestigious universities.

The producer of one movie was forced to cast the actor who starred in it.

The director of one movie considers it among his worst.

One serious movie suffered because its studio promoted it as an exploitation movie.

The 14 movies that I highlight cover a period of three and one-half decades, from 1943 to 1978, and I would speculate that the average moviegoer today has not heard of most of them. With one exception, they were financial failures or disappointments, a fact that contributes to their obscurity. However, I believe that they still deserve the recognition and praise that they did not receive upon their original release. In my estimation, these are all excellent films but yet most of them did not attract wide audiences.

These movies include a wide variety of subjects. In Son of Dracula (1943), the main character is a woman who is not only eager to die but is also willing to kill the man that loves her. In Alias Nick Beal (1949), Lucifer is determined to condemn an innocent man him to eternal suffering. Both The Power (1968) and The Medusa Touch (1978) portray men with superior brains that have the capability to either save or destroy the entire world. One of them will choose destruction because he hates humanity with a passion.

Very few people have heard of the movie, Who? (1974), and those who have heard of it were probably confused by the title. And yet it is a poignant story of an altruistic man who is victimized by futuristic technology. The protagonist of The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972) also endures tremendous suffering from another type of futuristic technology. The future of the aforementioned 1984 (1956) is extremely frightening because it depicts a world in which a sweet-looking child will betray her own father to be tortured and perhaps killed.

I am hoping that this book will encourage people, including some of you who are reading this, to view these movies. They are all entertaining and, in some respects, provocative. For instance, after seeing The Maze (1953), you might actually sympathize with a monstrous amphibian. If you believe that a brain is lifeless once it is removed from its body, Donovan’s Brain (1953) may change your mind. You might also discover how fragile our brains are after viewing The Mind Benders (1963), a story about the cruelty of pitiless scientists. If you view Crack in the World (1965), you will witness how the earth is almost destroyed by a scientist with abundant hubris. Upon viewing Journey to the far Side of the Sun (1969), you will witness a benevolent scientist lose his sanity because of his extraordinary discovery.

There are moments of pure excitement and suspense as well as pure terror in these movies. Viewers of Capricorn One (1977) will inevitably break out in ecstatic applause at the sight of a rickety biplane suddenly appearing on an isolated desert road. This is the only movie among the 14 in this book that was a success – with the public if not the critics. In contrast, The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) played the bottom-of-the-bill of double features and was unnoticed upon its release. But I believe it deserves some kind of awareness.

So I hope that I have piqued your curiosity enough to encourage you to read about the making of these movies. But even if you choose not to buy the book, for your own safety, I implore you to please heed this warning: Beware the beat of the cloth-wrapped feet!

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By Adrian Smith

For international audiences, the words “Australian comedy” probably conjures up images of Dame Edna Everage, or the sexual adventures of Alvin Purple. What may be less familiar is the work of the comedy group Double Take, led by former child actor Des Mangan, who began performing live in the mid-eighties in cinemas, screening the schlock horror classic Astro Zombies (Ted V. Mikels, 1968) whilst lip-syncing an entirely new script. What had begun as a group of friends throwing funny lines at the TV during late might screenings of B movies developed into a successful series of live screenings that spread in popularity throughout the country, and eventually overseas with an appearance in 1987 at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 1989 they began a new show using the relatively obscure Italian peplum film Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili (Samson and the Mighty Challenge, Giorgio Capitani, 1964). This was coming from the tail end of the sword and sandal boom that had begun with Le fatiche di Ercole (Hercules, Pietro Francisci, 1958) a few years and hundreds of films earlier, and as such was already almost spoofing the conventions, particularly in having mythological heroes from different backgrounds (Greece, Israel and Rome) fight each other. Double Take, by this time consisting of just Mangan and comedian Sally Patience, took this already amusing film and drastically rewrote the story so that Hercules, a Sinatra-style crooner, falls in love with the beautiful Labia, whose mother runs the Pink Parthenon nightclub in Climidia, and, well, you get the point. It’s smutty, politically incorrect and hilarious.

The success of the ‘Double Take Meets Hercules’ live show encouraged an American business and wannabee film producer to provide funding to turn the whole thing into a movie, so Mangan wrote a wraparound story about Brad (David Argue), a disillusioned cinema executive who quits his job with one of the major distribution franchises to restore and open his own reparatory cinema. With publicist Lisa (Mary Coustas) and projectionist Sprocket (the legendary Bruce Spence, a man so tall he probably wouldn’t fit in a real projection booth), they plan a gala black tie event opening screening featuring the last film to be screened at the venue before it closed down – Hercules. It is not until the guests arrive that they realise the print they have been sent is in Italian, so Brad and the gang must dub the film live, much the great delight of the audience. This set-up is obviously just the excuse needed to be able to present large sections of the original Hercules film with the new dubbing, and it works very well. Unfortunately, despite successful film festival appearances around the world, Hercules Returns did not stick around in cinemas for very long and was largely forgotten. The Double Take team went back on the road with shows based around, among others, Morgan the Pirate, (André De Toth & Primo Zeglio, 1960) and Starcrash (Luigi Cozzi, 1978), and later Mangan became a well-known face on Australian television through presenting film screenings and Eurovision coverage.

This new, fantastic blu ray release from Umbrella Entertainment features not only the restored Hercules Returns, but also the full English-language version of the original film, Samson and the Mighty Challenge. This is a very entertaining and funny film in itself; a sort of Italian Carry On film. However, the jewel in the crown of this release is the full original recording of ‘Double Take Meets Hercules’. Whilst much of the script was used in the rerecorded version for Hercules Returns, in my opinion this version is purer and funnier, uninterrupted by the new narrative segments required to make the Hercules Returns story work. It is witty and frequently outrageous, and it’s easy to forget that there are only two people doing all the voices. There is also a new audio commentary for Hercules Returns with the cast and crew, which raises the slightly meta prospect of watching the film, which is mainly a commentary, with another commentary over the top. This deluxe, limited-edition package also comes a book which tells the complete story of Double Take, the making of the film and the critical reaction, as well as a copy of the wraparound story script. Housed in a hardbox with fantastic new artwork, it also contains a complete set of lobby cards and a reversible poster.

This Collector’s Edition of Hercules Returns is only available from the Umbrella Entertainment webstore, and is highly recommended.

By Ernie Magnotta

Nick Martin (Joey Travolta, Hollywood Vice Squad, Normal People Scare Me), the leader of a gang called the Nightcrawlers, dreams of moving his girlfriend, mother and two brothers out of Sunnyside, Queens, but becomes involved in a violent war against a rival gang called the Warlocks.

Beautifully directed by Night Gallery’s Timothy Galfas (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff King from a story by King and Robert Schaffel), and released by American International Pictures, Sunnyside is an engaging and entertaining drama/love story that carries an important message. Although it never reached the popularity of other gang films like Walter Hill’s The Warriors, Sunnyside is still an extremely well-done movie that I not only feel is underrated, but that should definitely be seen.

Besides Travolta’s solid and likeable performance, the movie also features an amazingly talented cast of actors such as John Lansing (More American Graffiti), Stacey Pickren (Runaway Train), Andrew Rubin (Police Academy), Michael Tucci (Grease), Talia Balsam (The Kindred), Chris Mulkey (The Hidden), Joan Darling (The Troublemaker), Jonathan Gries (The Monster Squad), Peter Kwong (Big Trouble in Little China), Eric Laneuville (A Force of One), John Megna (To Kill a Mockingbird), Thomas Rosales, Jr. (The Hunter), Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump), John Alderson (Against All Flags), Grand Bush (Colors), Billy Jacoby (Bloody Birthday) and Robert Dryer (Savage Streets).

Sunnyside has been released on a Region 1 Blu-ray and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The film looks great and the audio is also superb. Special features include a terrific interview with actor Chris Mulkey, the original theatrical trailer as well as trailers for Dirty O’Neil; Checkered Flag or Crash, and Walk Proud.

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From TCM: "In this episode of Film 101, we're focusing on three from the charming duo of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant--Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940).” 

The segment also goes into the draconian decency rules that were imposed on older films and how studios managed to get around topics such as sex and infidelity.  

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Once again we visit the archive pages of the New York Times to celebrate an abundance of fine movies that were all playing in theaters simultaneously. In this case, the precise date was February 2, 1967. Among the gems: "A Fistful of Dollars" (just opened), "The Quiller Memorandum", "Is Paris Burning?", "Georgy Girl", "A Man for All Seasons", "Gambit", "Night of the Generals", "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", "The Sand Pebbles", "The Bible", "Hawaii", "Alfie", "The Blue Max", "The Deadly Affair", "Blow-up" and perennial favorite "The Sound of Music".