I have often been asked why
did I choose to write a book about The Dirty Dozen. Well, the short answer is
that it’s always been a favorite film, very popular, and no one has ever
thought to do it before, to my knowledge. How it came about is a more involved
answer concerning my current agent, Lee Sobel. After my previous agent, Michael
Hamilburg passed away, I was left in free fall until Lee contacted me. I
checked him out and decided to take him up on his offer of representation. In
short order we came up with a new book idea, he goaded me into a proposal, and
the next thing I knew, we got a publisher's offer!
Following my initial
conversation with Lee Sobel, I began the research by rereading and notating the
original novel, as well as Googling info on the internet before agreeing to
create the proposal, all of which took place in January 2021 and continued
until I turned in the manuscript nine months later. From that moment on I was
researching and writing the book continuously, even though I had to maintain a
day job to pay my bills. Thank God my girlfriend was willing to help out
financially when my advance ran out. A freelance author’s lot is not an easy
one.
(Author E.M. "Mick" Nathanson (center) visits the chateau set and poses with director Robert Aldrich (left) and actor Lee Marvin (right. Photo: Dwayne Epstein.)
Because of the extremely short
timetable, the publisher gave me — the aforementioned nine months to research
and write —I had to hit the ground running, very fast. Fortunately, I had a lot
of unused research about the film from my biography of Lee Marvin that I could
use which helped immensely. Also, a friend of mine, Beverly Gray, who also writes
non-fiction about filmmaking, had recently written a book on the making of The
Graduate (1967) entitled Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, which I was able to use as a
sort of template. Even better than that, when I told Beverly what I was working
on, she told me she had interviewed The Dirty Dozen’s original author, E. M.
Nathanson, but it had never been published. In one of the most gracious acts of
kindness I’ve ever experienced, she gave me the interview on a CD which proved
invaluable to my research as Nathanson passed away in 2016. Can’t thank Beverly
enough!
Most days began with me
checking my sources, answering or sending out e-mail inquiries, and going over
what I had written, and what was not yet written. Coffee was of course
required, a local jazz station on the radio in the background and eventually
playing the soundtrack to The Dirty Dozen as the day wore on. I was also
wracked by the constant fear of not being able to finish in time but it was
often allayed by the discovery of a new source of information. My favorite
example was discovering the film’s producer, Ken Hyman, still alive at the age
of 92 and sharp as a tack when it came to his memory of the film. Finding him
was not easy but once I did, I like to joke, how come there aren’t any famous
Jewish detectives?
(Photo: Barbara Troeller)
I quickly discovered that
there are many facts and misinformation about the film and its production that
are still circulating out there that I was most enthusiastic to correct with
proven facts & stats or simply dispel out of hand. Where does one begin?
The story of 12 convicts ordered to kill Nazis on a secret mission during WWII
has always been thought of to be true. The inclusion of filmmaker Russ Meyer in the film’s genesis was also a revelation. What cast members, especially
lead actor Lee Marvin, really thought of the film was great to disprove despite
misinformation to the contrary. As I said, way too many amazing facts to narrow
down to just one. Gotta read the book to find them all out! As a lifelong fan
of the film, I was amazed at the number of differences between the novel and
the film that was provided by such exclusive sources as producer Hyman, cast
members Bob Phillips (Cpl. Morgan), Donald Sutherland (Vernon Pinkley), Dora
Reisser (German Officer's Girl), Colin Maitland (Seth Sawyer), and more. I also
spoke with the adult children of many of the film’s participants such as
Valerie Walker, Lisa and Cheyney Ryan, Caine Carruthers, Michael Nathanson, and
Christopher Marvin, among others. It also helps to have access to the Margaret
Herrick Library at The Motion Picture Academy. Not to brag but my extensive
personal library collection of motion picture history was also a key factor in
discovering the film’s amazing history.
(Actor Lee Marvin (left) and producer Ken Hyman (right) practice the tick fighting skills explained by former Marine self-defense instructor Bob Phillips (center). Photo: Dwayne Epstein).
When I turned in the
manuscript I was expecting to deal with a lot of edits or deletions from the
editor assigned to the book. Much to my surprise, there were none at all. It
was simply accepted and the proofs were sent to me for my approval. Pretty
amazing. As my agent, Lee Sobel messaged me when he read the opening of the
book: “I just read the opening of your book and it’s fantastic. I’m running
around dealing with my kids so I’m not sure when I get to read more but that’s
a sensational opening to the book. You did what all book openings of this kind
should do in my opinion which is to whet the appetite for things to come and
lay out your mission statement if you will. Bravo! It is nice and tight too, no
wonder he didn’t do any editing.” The end result of such diligent hard work is
now available online and in bookstores everywhere.
With the passing of Jim Brown, it seems appropriate to revisit his show-stopping final scene in the 1967 classic "The Dirty Dozen" that incorporated his athletic skills into his final act of cinematic heroics in the film.
(Brown in the 1967 blockbuster "The Dirty Dozen". Photo: Cinema Retro Archives.)
By Lee Pfeiffer
Jim Brown, one of America's most legendary athletes and an iconic film star, has passed away at age 87. No cause of death has been announced as of this writing. Brown was an American sensation on the football field during his nine seasons as a fullback with the Cleveland Browns. When he left sports, he transcended into a successful acting career in the mid-1960s. It was a time when bankable Black stars were few in number. Brown was immediately accepted by movie audiences of all races and backgrounds. He exuded the kind of tough, dignified characters that resonated with film audiences in movies such as "Rio Conchos", "The Dirty Dozen", "Ice Station Zebra" and "Dark of the Sun " (aka "The Mercenaries"). In the 1969 Western, he and Raquel Welch caused a sensation (and a scandal in some quarters) with their steamy interracial love scenes in the Western "100 Rifles", a film that boasted an ad campaign that seemed specifically designed to cause racists sleepless nights. Brown benefited from the so-called Blaxploitation film craze of the 1970s that was initiated by the success of director Gordon Parks' 1971 film "Shaft", although like his colleague Sidney Poitier, he refused to play characters that were exploitive or undignified. Both men recognized they were symbols for a new generation of young Black people and-like it or not-they were also role models, even if Brown occasionally played a charismatic character on the other side of the law.
Brown and Raquel Welch in "100 Rifles" on the cover of Cinema Retro issue #4.)
By the 1980s, Brown's status as a leading man began to diminish but he never went out of style. He began to appear in supporting roles in films made by a young generation of directors such as Tim Burton and Spike Lee. Brown's success didn't prevent him from enduring some messy periods in his personal life, mostly concerning his interactions with women. He once opted to spend months in jail rather than settle a domestic misdemeanor charge with his wife. Brown prided himself on his role as an activist for civil rights. In 1988, he founded an organization dedicated to keeping young people away from the lure of street gangs.
Jim Brown had a low-key persona onscreen but there is no overstating his achievements in real life.
Where
does a book begin? In my case, with Cleopatra
it came when my dear late mother found out that Elizabeth Taylor had been
recently seen in the pub in South East London where we used to go to celebrate
family occasions.
This
would have been in 1963/64, when the very idea of a screen goddess, a genuine film
star, a bona-fide legend likeElizabeth Taylor would inhabit the same
universe as us!
Thirty
years later and I am Film Editor of Vox,
a monthly UK music and film magazine. I wrote a feature for the 30th
anniversary of Cleopatra, and tried
pitching it as a BBC radio documentary. So over the years I accrued a filing
cabinet drawer and shelf full of material about that legendary 1963 film.
Few
of the film’s stars survived into the 21st century, so I had to rely
on cuttings, biographies and film histories. As you might expect for a film on
the scale of Cleopatra, that in
itself was quite a challenge. But the more I dipped into it the more amazed I
became: stars signed up for 10 weeks hanging round for 18 months in Rome. The
battles Darryl F. Zanuck fought to gain control of 20th Century Fox.
The Burton family’s determination to keep Richard’s marriage together…
I
suspect that my inspiration for a book was based on Steven Bach and Julie
Salamon’s books on Heavens Gate and Bonfire Of The Vanities – brilliant
books about terrible films. And for all its grandeur, Cleopatrais a terrible
film. But what a story in how it made it to the cinema screen.
It
was a five year journey: 20th Century Fox were keen to cash-in on
the success of MGMs Ben-Hur, and so dusted
down a 1917 script about the Queen of the Nile. It was intended as a $2,000,000
vehicle for Fox contract player Joan Collins with a 64-day shoot.
The
fact that the Theda Bara Cleo was a
silent film didn’t seem to worry the studio unduly. Five years later, and at a budget twenty times the original estimate, Cleopatra premiered.
Elizabeth
Taylor accounted for $1,000,000 of that budget, the first star to ask for – and
get! – that legendary seven figure sum. There was no finished script, but the
UK offered generous tax breaks, so Fox decided to construct a massive set of
the ancient port of Alexandria at Pinewood Studios. Shooting began in September
1961, the beginning of the English autumn. Some days it rained so heavily you
couldn’t see the other side of the set. Other days it was so cold, vapour was
coming out of the extras’ mouths. The imported pine tress had to be constantly
replaced because of the wind. The enormous sea tank containing a million
gallons was overflowing because of the rain.
The
original cast of Peter Finch (Caesar) and Stephen Boyd (Marc Antony) had to
quit due to existing commitments. The sky remained grey and gloomy.Trying to conjure up Mediterranean grandeur
was proving problematic. Ancient Alexandria in rural Buckinghamshire suddenly
seemed not such a good idea.
Eventually,
after two months the decision was made to pull the plug on the UK shoot. Eight
minutes of film ended up in the finished film, at a cost of nearly $8,000,000.
The question was: to write off such a sum (half of what Ben-Hur cost!) Or get a new director, script and stars and relocate
to begin filming again in Rome. At least in Italy you could be guaranteed good
weather, besides, what else could possibly go wrong?
As
Cinema Retro readers will know it all
went horribly wrong. Once in Rome, Cleopatra was far removed from the
Hollywood studio. In those pre-fax, email and text days, it was a cumbersome
business to arrange phone calls and telexes. The story of the romance between
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor was only one of the factors whichdelayed the production of Cleopatra. Poor writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was shooting
by day and writing the script by night. His original vision for the film was
two films, but the studio wanted something – anything – out to cash in on the Burton/ Taylor romance.
On
its release, Cleopatra was the most
successful film of 1963, but it took years to claw back its costs, and 20th
Century Fox was only saved by a modest little musical, The Sound Of Music, which came in at a sixth the cost of Cleopatra!
Like
many, I was of an age to be beguiled by the big-screen releases of the early
1960s. It's a cliché, but with only two UK black & white TV channels,
colour was a big deal. Especially in all its Todd-AO, stereophonic majesty. I’d
already lapped upThe Alamo,
Barabbas, King Of Kings, Ben-Hur, El Cid, How the West Was Won, The Guns of
Navarone, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Lawrence of Arabia, PT109, The Longest
Day, Mutiny on the Bounty, Spartacus, and Taras Bulba. Then came The Great Escape, Fall Of The Roman Empire,
55 Days At Peking, 633 Squadron… The glory days.
Finally seeing Cleopatra was a disappointment. It has spectacle, but
is somehow just not… spectacular. And
beware the Ides of March, because once Rex Harrison is gone, the film dips. Over
the years when I began reviewing and writing about films professionally, I kept
coming back to Cleopatra. How could
they have got it so wrong? And didn’t
they learn from their mistakes? Obviously not as flops like Dr Dolittle, Star! and Hello Dolly were overtaken by the likes
of The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, Easy
Rider…
You’d
think by now, the studios would have learned from their mistakes, but no, only
last year Warners announced that they’d written off their $100,00,000 Cat Woman. There is something rather
magnificent in the folly of Cleopatra.
But it is a hard watch. Far more enjoyable was The VIPs, made to cash-in
on the infamy of the Burtons.
For
those of a certain age, those epic films were emblematic. They were school
holiday treats at the London Astoria, the Dominion, the Metropole… Souvenir
brochures and Kia-Ora in hand as we sat open-mouthed as the screen was filled
with thousands and thousands of costumed extras, besieging the Alamo or Peking.
Even rewatching them on CD or Blu-Ray, the scale of those productions is jaw
dropping – and those were all humans occupying those Roman forums and besieged
cities, not generated by a computer. And here’s
a thought… a profile of that maverick producer Samuel L. Bronston is long
overdue.
Cleopatra all
but finished the career of J.L. Mankiewicz, it took the studio to the cleaners,
and was a body blow from which the old Hollywood never really recovered. It is
hard to be fond of it as a film, but what happened offscreen gave me a
fantastic opportunity to recall those extravagant days. When even a film as
flawed as Cleopatra was made on a
scale which had to be witnessed with an audience. At a cinema near you…
There is little left to marvel at in
the Marvel Comic Universe.
There just aren’t stars like Burton and Taylor today. For all its manifold flaws,
there is something compelling about the legend of Cleopatra. Not so much in the finished film, but my memories of
cinema-going when a film like that was an event.For all its follies, a film like Cleopatra could almost be said to end an
era of cinematic innocence. My research into what went on off the screen, and
what it took to get it into cinemas was fascinating. They have done it with The Godfather, so maybe a TV series
about the making of Cleopatra. Now that would make a great movie.
Photo: Courtesy of Patrick Humphries.
"Cleopatra & The Undoing Of
Hollywood" is published by The History Press, £20.00, ISBN 9781803990187
Here is a 60 second radio spot commercial promoting director Terence Young's 1972 screen adaptation of the bestselling book "The Valachi Papers" starring Charles Bronson.
Although it’s not
necessarily thought of as initiating the cycle of late 70s and then 1980s teenage
sex comedies, The Graduate, from Embassy Pictures in 1967, is clearly an
inspiration for the later films about awkward virginal guys caught up in
farcical narratives of dream, drive, and desire. The success of The Graduate
enabled its production company head, impresario Joseph Levine, to broker a
merger of Embassy with Avco, and it was the newly named Avco-Embassy that about
a decade after The Graduate brought out the virgin teenage guy comedy, The
Chicken Chronicles. From the same year (1977), The Van, a broad
farce about a guy who revamps his van as a love-machine likewise suggests the
first glimpses of a trend, one that got its fullest recognition soon after in
the wildly successful Animal House from the following year, along with
later iterations like Porky’s (1981) and its sequels, all produced by
Melvin Simon who also was the producer of The Chicken Chronicles.
Ironically, although The
Graduate has a stronger reputation in cinema history as a serious work of
social-cultural engagement within the fervent and foment of the 1960s, it’s
actually the raunchy low-class gross-out virgin-comedies that come after it
that engage in any manner with the politics of the time. To be sure, the ups
and downs of Benjamin’s relationships in The Graduate address in their
own manner the claims of the Sixties to show that “the personal is the
political” (especially for young women like Elaine Robinson, so mistreated by
Benjamin when he first takes her out on a date), but one would be hard-pressed
to find much direct reference to the times (we see some hippies as mere
background when Benjamin and Elaine go out on that date).
In contrast, Animal House
takes on the jockeying for power in the contemporary college system while Porky’s
addresses redneck racism in the South. And from a very early scene where we
hear tough news about the times on the car radio of protagonist Dave Kessler
(Steve Guttenberg), The Chicken Chronicles, set in 1969 and continually referencing
the war in Vietnam, keeps bringing the real politics of the day into its
seemingly personalized story of one guy’s quest for sexual fulfillment. Most
poignant is a moment where one of Dave’s co-workers at the fried chicken outlet
he works at (hence, the film’s title) learns that her brother has died in Nam.
An African-American woman, she had enjoyed a lively moment of dancing with her
team, and she is a figure that we, and the white employees and boss, admire.
Her last moment in the film comes when the take-out’s boss (Phil Silvers, the
classic comedian) tells her to go home so she can mourn properly. A cut shows
her waiting at a bus stop when Dave comes by in his car and offers her a lift:
she demurs (is she worried about a white guy being seen driving her into her
neighborhood?) and he drives off and we see her get on the bus and exit
off-screen, out of the film.
No other scene in The
Chicken Chronicles is like this one in its explicit and quite non-comedic
acknowledgement of the times. But many other scenes are like it in their very
fleetingness. In fact, it is probably misleading to insist too much on any
consistent desire of the film to offer social commentary. Like the later broad
and buffoonish sex comedies, The Chicken Chronicles operates by a sort
of scattergun approach, taking on any and all topics, large and small, relevant
or irreverent, and jumping here and there to random new scenes for the sake of
immediate effect. While there’s an overall narrative thrust (pun not intended
although noted!) – the goal of the protagonist to lose his virginity – the film
is a deliberate hodgepodge, hoping that whatever’s onscreen at the moment will
work at the moment. Whether this or that scene works depends then on individual
taste: for instance, if you like to see stuck-up kids get theirs by falling
into the suburban pool, that will be your moment of hilarity; if you like hints
of relevance, there are enough of those in the film to keep you going. It’s
noteworthy that while few mainstream critics reviewed The Chicken Chronicles
– and the rare ones that did didn’t like it much – one thing these
commentators did single out as intriguing was the fact that Dave Kessler’s
parents are unseen in the film and communicate with him only by speakers dotted
throughout their house (a contrast to the very different generational
alienation of The Graduate where the problem for Benjamin Braddock is
that his parents are too visible, too fatuous in their overbearing advice).
Ironically, the scattershot
approach of The Chicken Chronicles is (no doubt, unintentionally) echoed
in its commentary track, by cult film historians Lee Gambin and Emma Westwood,
which is itself frenetic and all over the place. (Curiously, Westwood is not
listed on the Blu-ray back cover.) At one point, the commentators even have to
remind themselves to talk about the film at hand, as they go off on all sorts
of tangents (for example, that the director had an interest in documentary
leads to a digression about cinema verité maverick D.A. Pennebaker while a
mispronunciation of “chutzpah” occasions discussion of Jewishness in film). While
the commentary track talks of the actors (especially Phil Silvers), it does so
by going at length into their filmography or videography, and the film
frequently gets left behind. Luckily, one of the few moments where the
commentators actually converse about the film unspooling before them has to do
with the multiracial and multiethnic nature of the casting, an important aspect
of the film’s random attention to politics (in this case, a politics of
identity). The commentary track is one of the only special features on the
Blu-Ray, along with a trailer.
To the extent that, like
other examples from teen sex cinema, The Chicken Chronicles targets an
audience that would come increasingly to appreciate the raucous non-coherence
of individual moments around the central narrative premise, the film, and now
its Blu-ray release, probably work best for its projected target audience. To
state an obvious truism, if you like this sort of thing, you’ll like this early
example of it.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Film Chest.
The film noir genre, which became a staple for movie fans
during its heyday in the 1940’s & 50’s, was based on a tough and gritty
environment and revolved around those who lived it. It was raw, without much
margin for how things went down or who would end up surviving the fallout.Films
stylized with elements of film noir have surfaced over the years and perhaps
one of the best is the Mickey Spillane stories of Mike Hammer, which offered a
more contemporary version of the format.Mike Hammer, Private Eye brings us to
the late ‘90’s.
Stacy Keach plays the wiser, tougher, more sarcastic and
blunt-worded private eye who offers a salute to the early years with his felt
fedora. A bevy of beautiful women still abound in his world, and over-the-top
measures with the use of his fists, wits, and savvy tenacity against deceptive
enemies are the norm. Still, there is a balance, with Keach managing his
character that’s both serious and, at times, more lighthearted with some campy
humor.
This 26-episode series (along with the original trailer and episode
synopses) includes a new sexy blonde secretary (Velda) played by Shannon Whirry
and the introduction of a sidekick (Nick Farrell) played by Shane Conrad. Kent
Williams returns with a strong portrayal of Deputy Mayor Barry Lawerence and
Peter Jason plays Hammer’s closely aligned police captain, Skip Gleason.Stacy
Keach has spent a career making Mike Hammer his own character, and without question,
he has succeeded. Private Eye (1997-1998) is a fast-paced, no nonsense Hammer
series that will delight the many fans of Mickey Spillane’s character and again
prove that STACY KEACH IS MIKE HAMMER!
This Kino Lorber 4K Restoration Blu ray of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame is likely as
good as we’re going to get.Universal
Studio’s official 1923 program heralded Hunchback
as Hugo’s “Mighty Epic of a Mighty Epoch” and, truth be told, director Wallace Worsley’s
film never delivers less than promised. It is, above all, a spectacle. In August of
1922 when announced Universal-Jewel was to begin lensing the film, newspapers
reported it had been Lon Chaney’s “life’s ambition” to bring Hugo’s tale – and
the story of the novel’s titular tortured soul Quasimodo - to the big screen.
Chaney’s Hunchback
would not be the first cinematic adaptation of the famed 1831 novel.Esmeralda,
a ten-minute long French adaptation was brought to the screen as early as in
1905. Albert Capellani’s 1911 French
silent (Notre-Dame de Paris) would also
precede the Universal version, but that film too was a modest production running
a mere twenty-six minutes in length.The
first feature length-effort was Fox’s romantic The Darling of Paris (1917) featuring silent-screen-siren Theda
Bara.A British version of 1922 preceded
Chaney’s by only a year – though, again, only as a short of some thirteen
minutes.All but the 1911 version are
now presumed lost.
If Universal was not the first to bring the epic to the screen,
producer and studio co-founder Carl Laemmle promised a production unmatched in size
and scope.Universal would front a
budget of some $1,250,000, bringing in some 2800 artisans to work on the film’s
massive sets.The centerpiece was to be
the cathedral of Notre Dame, built practically to scale.Universal promised, “The cathedral at Notre Dame is an exact replica in every infinite
detail of the cathedral as it looked in 1482, an extraordinary feat and an
archeologic, historical and technical triumph.”
Such an ambitious project was going to require an
ambitious production team.In October of
1922, gossips whispered the studio was “anxious to have D.W. Griffith direct” Hunchback.On the surface, Griffith would seem a natural
choice.He had, after all, helmed such
pictures as Birth of a Nation (1915)
and Intolerance (1916), both showcase
spectacles of large scale and huge casts.In the end, Universal would announce, January 1923, that Worsley would
direct – with assists by “ten assistant directors and twenty-eight field
captains.”Worsley and Chaney already
had a good working relationship: the two having already combined their talents
on The Penalty, The Ace of Heartsand The
Blind Bargain. This new collaboration would spend six months in pre-production
and one year in filming.
Everything was crafted bigger-than-life. The make-up
appliances for Quasimodo, the film’s monstrous bell-ringer, were painstakingly crafted
by Chaney in a series of three-and-a-half hour sessions.The September 1923 issue of Pictures and Picturegoer magazine
enthused Chaney had promised “something even more startling than usual in the
way of make-up.” Alongside that of Erik, The
Phantom of the Opera (1925), the twisted and feral Quasimodo remains the
most iconic example of Chaney’s make-up artistry.
Biographer Michael F. Blake’s Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Thousand Faces (Vestal Press, 1990)
and A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney’s Unique
Artistry in Motion Pictures (Vestal Press, 1995) remain the two most
essential reference books on the man and his films, but they weren’t the first.There were earlier “serious” circulating books
on the actor:Robert G. Anderson’s Faces, Forms Films: The Artistry of Lon
Chaney (1971) came first, N.L.
Ross’s Lon Chaney: Master Craftsman of
Make Believe following more than a decade later. That said, Blake’s sister
volumes remain the most reliable and error free sources of Chaney marginalia.Blake occasionally proffers stern judgements,
some fair and some maybe not so, on preceding Chaney biographers, but all books
mentioned above are worthwhile reads and contain excellent bibliographies.
Blake opens his 1995 study with the declaration “Lon
Chaney was not a “horror actor.”Though this is essentially true, Blake – who contributes
seven pages of booklet notes to this new Kino Blu – sighs the actor’s association
with the horror genre is terribly overblown.He argues this mistaken union was due to the actor’s famous ghastly
make-up creations.It’s doubtful the
audience of eleven and twelve year-olds who sought out these cheap newsprint monster
movie magazines of the 1950s and ‘60s had actually ever saw a Lon Chaney silent film.But the reproduced published stills would fire imaginations, giving
Chaney Sr. instant cult status as a “horror film” icon. At the very least, I think
it’s fair to say that the genre mags were instrumental in keeping Chaney’s
legend alive at a time when few other outlets were interested.
It was that way for me at least.I’m not sure when I first learned the name “Lon
Chaney.”But it was likely through
photographs or an article in the pages of Famous
Monsters of Filmland magazine.I had
become obsessed with Famous Monsters when
chancing upon a used copy of their May 1967 issue at a school “white elephant”
sale.The magazine sent me scouring the
listings in TV Guide in search of the
films I was first introduced to in the pages of “FM.”It was through Famous Monsters I was first introduced to silent films – many of which
I find even today to be as fascinating as any talkie.
In trying to learn about silent films, I discovered
Daniel Blum’s A Pictorial History of the
Silent Screen (1974) at my local library.It was an oversize hardcover held in the reference section.Since I couldn’t bring it home to read at leisure,
I spent hours in the library looking through the hundreds – maybe thousands of
stills – reproduced therein.My
knowledge of and interest in film history really began there.While combing through the pages for Chaney info
(there wasn’t a lot, if I recall), I discovered Chaplin, Keaton, Pearl White,
Fatty Arbuckle, the Keystone Cops and hundreds of others.
It was around this time I also managed to catch Robert
Youngson’s affectionate silent-era doc Days
of Thrills and Laughter on television.As with Blum’s book, I don’t believe Chaney, again to my great disappointment,
was even mentioned in the doc.Youngson’s
emphasis was mostly on the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, “Fatty”
Arbuckle,” Snub Pollard and Ben Turpin.Though
a rare, brief clip of Boris Karloff in King
of the Congo (1929) further fueled my interest in early cinema, Chaney –
frustratingly – would remain a man of mystery.
Knowing what I know now, the notoriously private and
reclusive actor – non-ceremoniously interred following his passing, age forty-seven,
in a Glendale sepulcher – would have likely preferred it that way.At age nine I finally had the opportunity to catch
Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
on WNET-13, Manhattan’s PBS-TV affiliate.Hunchback was the last title to
be featured on the network’s “The Silent Years” series (each segment introduced
by Orson Welles) in September of 1971.
OK, I apologize. I have digressed. I will also confess
it’s taken me quite some time to finally getting around to view this Kino issue
of Hunchback. I was gifted a copy
back in the autumn of 2021 but chose to put the Blu-ray aside – for the time
being, anyway.I had already planned to
attend a genuine film element screening of Hunchback
at a local cinema that October, one complete with live organ
accompaniment.That night, sadly, proved
to be a projection booth disaster.The
theater ran the last two reels in reverse so inter-titles appeared Cyrillic and
completely unreadable.God bless Ben
Model, the silent film historian/organist accompanying the program.He calmly and expertly navigated through this
maelstrom with amazing poise and finesse, salvaging what would have been
otherwise a completely disastrous evening.
There’s no point in discussing here the plot of Worsley’s
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s a
more-or-less faithful rendering of the Hugo novel.This is a century old film, one I find as
entertaining today as it was a hundred years ago.Yes, the acting often is – as was the order
of the day – visually exaggerated and overly emotive, but the story remains a
compelling one.The scenario really
revolves around Esmeralda, the soft-hearted street dancer, and not the tragic
Quasimodo.To his credit, Chaney – though
top-billed – recognizes this and admirably serves as an essential member of the
ensemble, not as the film’s principal player.
This Kino release has been cobbled together from the best
existing prints available, so there are temperature and tinting changes from
section to section.But it’s a beautiful
4K restoration and while surviving element damage is not totally absent, the
film looks remarkable all things considered.This edition also features a lively and original musical score.This new soundtrack is composed and performed
by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Laura Karpman, both Julliard-trained artists and
the previous recipients of Grammy and Emmy Award nominations/victories.
Over this millennium, The
Hunchback of Notre Dame has been re-made on any number of occasions.The best recalled of these are RKO’s 1939
version featuring Charles Laughton or the French-Italian 1956 version featuring
Anthony Quinn and Gina Lollobrigida.Folks of my generation might better recall these two post-Chaney re-tellings,
especially if they have little interest in silent cinema.Younger folks were likely first introduced to
the tale via Disney’s 1996 animated musical adaptation – a film whose cartoon
Quasimodo most resembled Laughton’s pitiful, less grotesque caricature.Having said that, Chaney’s Quasimodo, despite
age, will forever remain the most iconic.
A few notes on this generous bonus materials supplied on
this set.Included is a vintage, silent Life in Hollywood newsreel that features
a birds-eye view of the massive Universal City lot, described on an inter-title
card as “the strangest city in the world.”Once on soil, we watch as a procession of Universal’s silent-era stars
and starlets’ parade out of a studio canteen.Most of these names are now sadly lost to the memory of all but a small cabal
of film historians.The newsreel,
running approximately eight and a half minutes in length features a small clip
of Chaney – sans costume and make-up - demonstrating a bit of acrobatics on the
exterior of the Notre Dame structure.
The set also features a thirteen-minute silent reel of
“Mabel and Bill Dumphy’s Visit with Hazel and Lon.”This is sourced from 16mm footage shot during
the couple’s visits with Chaney, his wife Hazel, and their wire-haired terrier
Sandy, at rest during the family’s residencies in Soboba Hot Springs and
Saratoga.The Soboba footage is
primarily interesting in its moody capture of the former’s Riverside County
hamlet’s Spanish mission-styled architecture and terraced landscapes.There’s not much Chaney in the Soboba
footage, aside from Lon looking out pensively over the hillside, or playfully
tugging at Sandy the dog’s tail in another.
The Saratoga footage documents additional glimpses of the
Chaneys at home.We watch as Chaney and
guests mill about a backyard garden, the reclusive actor letting down his guarded
reserve.We watch as Lon playfully
wrestles a giggling Hazel on the lawn or smoking and drinking with friends.The latter clip is of interest due to the recognizable
presence of Lon’s son, Creighton (strategically “re-christened” Lon Chaney Jr. following
his father’s passing), smiling as he too puffs away on a cigarette in the
background.The set also features an
audio-commentary track by Farran Smith Nehme, a film historian and critic whose
work has appeared in such publications as Film
Comment, The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice and New York Post.The set
rounds off with a generous gallery/slideshow of publicity materials and
production stills.
One hundred years following the date of its production,
Worsley’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
admittedly puts the “retro” in Cinema
Retro.But despite the film’s age,
its heart still beats soundly.Anyone
interested in film history should visit this film at least once in their
lifetime, and this Kino Blu-ray might just be the best conduit for one to do
just that.
An
old saying is that drama is easy, but comedy is hard. When comedy works, it is
nothing short of a miracle. When it fails, it is a thundering disappointment. On
New Year’s Eve in 1976, I attended a party at my mother’s aunt’s house. While the adults were ringing in the New Year in the small
and cramped basement, I was on the first floor watching a television airing of
Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It was the first time
I had ever heard of and seen this madcap, star-studded extravaganza that pits a
Who’s Who of top-notch comedians in a quest to locate a suitcase containing
$350,000.00, the equivalent of roughly $3.5 million dollars today. To say that
I loved it would have been an understatement. To make a film on that scale with
that number of people and actually make it hilarious is other worldly. I immediately
became a fan of most of the cast, particularly Jonathan Winters in his role as Pike,
the driver of the moving van who must get to Yuma, AZ and will stop at nothing
to get his hands on $350,000.00 located under a “big ‘W’”.
James Frawley’s The Big Bus is a comedy
that took its maiden voyage theatrically on Wednesday, June 23, 1976,
nationwide. As a send-up of disaster films that made their rounds at the box
office during the 1970s, it is a film similarly pitting an all-star cast in an inane
situation that should be laugh out loud hilarious but falls a bit short in this
department. The premise concerns a nuclear-powered bus designed to be driven
from New York to Denver in record time while an iron lung-encased oil magnate
(Jose Ferrer), in cahoots with a group of oil sheikhs, plot to sabotage the bus
to protect their financial interests. They manage to take both the driver and
co-driver out of commission with a bomb, necessitating their replacements with
Dan Torrance (Joseph Bologna), a vilified former bus driver who crashed a
previous bus and was accused of eating all the passengers to survive, and his
narcoleptic co-driver “Shoulders” (John Beck), so named as he cannot keep the
bus off the highway shoulder and in his own lane. Along for the ride are Kitty
Baxter (Stockard Channing) as Dan’s former flame; Ned Beatty as one of the
remote radio navigators; Ruth Gordon as a passenger who tells it like she sees
it; Sally Kellerman and Richard Mulligan as a couple about to be divorced who
cannot seem to keep their hands off each other (the bit is initially humorous
but wears out its welcome); Lynn Redgrave as a staid fashion designer; a crazed
Bob Dishy as a veterinarian; Richard B. Shull as a man whose time on planet
Earth is coming to a close, and so on. The bus is even outfitted with an onboard swimming pool, if you can believe that such a
thing would fit. For those of you unlucky enough to recall, in February
1979 NBC-TV launched an ill-fated television series as their answer to ABC-TV’s
The Love Boat. Titled Supertrain, the most expensive television
series ever produced up to that time, it was (surprise!) a nuclear-powered
transcontinental New York to Los Angeles souped up ride that housed a swimming
pool, a movie theater, a disco(!), and a cast of characters so bland one wonders
how this train ever left the station. The pilot episode, directed by Dan
Curtis, was an interminable two hours, with a catchy theme that I dug at the
age of ten and was composed by Robert Cobert. Both shows were conceived of by
Fred Silverman at different points in his career.
Bus made its television network premiere
on Saturday, May 24, 1980 at the unorthodox time of 09:30 pm. The film runs 88
minutes, and while being placed in a 90-minute time slot, a good amount of
footage must have been excised to accommodate commercials. Bus may have
played out much funnier at the time of its release as a fair number of jokes
are topical, though the 2001 theme accompanying the rollout of the
titular vehicle is still very much in the minds of filmgoers decades later. The
gags are amusing but are light-years away from what it could (and should) have
been. An admirable attempt at humor, Bus cannot hold a candle to the
absurdist wrongdoings of the stewardesses and passengers of 1980’s Airplane!
Apparently, the Zucker Brothers, the brains behind Airplane!, worked on Bus
as well. Bus can be viewed as the appetizer, with Airplane!
served up as the main course – and dessert, to boot.
Kino
Lorber has released the film on a beautifully transferred Blu-ray. I love this
company and they do not disappoint. There is a feature-length commentary by
film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson which is more fun to
listen to than actually watching the film – at least for me. They discuss the
location shooting and give short bios of the cast members as they appear
onscreen, while also engaging in anecdotes about the big disaster films of the
period. It is always a pleasure to listen to them.
The
film’s trademark comedic key poster art was illustrated by the late great
cartoonist Jack Davis, who also drew the key art for the aforementioned MadWorld. It appears on the Blu-ray cardboard sleeve and the Blu-ray cover
art in a slightly truncated and altered version to fit the dimensions and still
be discernible.
Oscar-winning
composer David Shire, who also scored The Taking of Pelham 123 (1973), The
Conversation (1974), and All the President’s Men (1976), may seem
like an unorthodox choice to score such material, but he makes the most of it
with a rambunctious score that made its way to compact disc (remember those?)
in 2011 via Film Score Monthly.
Rounding
out the Blu-ray are a selection of trailers from the showcased title, John
Schlesinger’s Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), Richard Fleischer’s Million
Dollar Mystery (1987), Gus Trikonis’s Take This Job and Shove It
(1981), Marty Feldman’s In God We Trust (1980), Michael Apted’s Continental
Divide (1981), Joel Schumacher’s D.C. Cab (1983), and Neal Israel’s Moving
Violations (1985).
When
asked to name a Pre-Code melodrama starring Charles Laughton as a sadistic
megalomaniac in a tropical setting, most movie enthusiasts are likely to cite
“The Island of Lost Souls.”As H.G.
Wells’ Dr. Moreau, who turns animals into humans through appalling surgery in
his “house of pain,” Laughton’s performance in the 1932 Paramount film remains
a classic of horror cinema.“White
Woman,” which followed from the same studio in 1933, isn’t nearly as well
remembered or as outrageous.Still, it
provided another delicious role for Laughton and offers wonderful insight into
the tactics used by Hollywood in the Pre-Code era to exploit audiences’ demand
for lurid escapism, while skirting the watchful eye of censors.The film, based on a stage play and directed
by Stuart Walker, is available as a Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics,
from a new 2K master.
Laughton’s
character, Horace H. Prin, is a predatory merchant who holds a monopoly on
trade in the hinterlands of Malaya, then a British colony.In town he encounters Judith Denning (Carole
Lombard), a young woman shunned by her fellow expatriates.Already the subject of salacious rumours, she
learns that she’s about to be deported as an undesirable after going a step too
far, performing torch songs in a “native cafe.”The stiff-necked governor is unmoved by Judith’s plea that she’s broke
and has nowhere else to go.Judith
attracts Prin’s attention and he offers her an escape to “something better” by
accompanying him to his remote outpost.There, he promises, she’ll live in style.
Once
she accepts his proposal, she realizes she’d have been better off taking her
chances with deportation.Horace
exploits the tribes with whom he trades, holds his employees in virtual slave
labor, and once he has Judith in his control, he treats her with biting
scorn.One of his clerks, David Von Elst
(Kent Taylor), a disgraced military officer, falls in love with Judith, and she
with him.Horace enjoys watching them
squirm with no hope of escaping his domination.The two are trapped because the river is the only feasible way out of
the jungle.Prin owns the only boats,
and headhunting tribesmen lurk along the trail by land.When David is banished upriver to one of
Horace’s warehouses, Judith’s troubles come to a head.A new employee arrives, Ballister (Charles
Bickford), a roughneck who doesn’t bother to hide his intention to make time
with Judith:“I’ve watched those sweet
eyes of yours . . . and other things,” he tells her.“C’mon baby, what do you say?”Prin takes note but he’s more curious than
anything else.How far will Ballister
press his crude advances, given that he doesn’t fear Prin, Prin doesn’t fear
him, and Judith treats both men with icy contempt?
In
2023, when it takes a lot to create a sex scandal worthy of attention, the
backstory of “White Woman” appears more quaint than shocking.The cafe that draws the governor’s
displeasure is about as raucous as your neighbourhood Applebee’s, its Chinese,
East Indian, and dissolute European clientele apparently more interested in
chatting among themselves than ogling the gorgeous blonde who plays the piano
and sings on stage.Judith might as well
be performing Billy Joel tunes at a piano bar in Iowa City.But this was about as far as the filmmakers
could push the envelope in those days of restrictive erotic and racial
conventions.A franker explanation for
the fuss and bother—that the hapless Judith is actually a prostitute who hangs
out at the cafe to solicit sex from men of color—would have been a non-starter
even in the Pre-Code era.
Things
liven up whenever Laughton appears as the chortling, smirking, and preening
Prin, wearing a cheap tropical suit, a straw boater, Jheri curls,a bushy, bristly moustache, and an East End
London accent.Prin is one of Laughton’s
great grotesque characters, a monster shaped by a terrible start in life.“You ‘aven’t spent any part of your childhood
in the slums, ‘ave you?” he asks Judith.“Well, I ‘ave.”Thanks to his
early lessons in class prejudice, he luxuriates in his ability, via wealth and
influence, to intimidate the “bloomin’ snobs” who run the colonial
government.The same passive-aggressive
rage fuels his treatment of Judith, whom he exploits, isolates, and emotionally
abuses.Inferentially, she is a surrogate
for all of the beautiful women who spurned him when he was young and poor.That she refuses to act the victim only
intensifies his abuse.If critics
haven’t explored this facet of the picture as a feminist statement years before
modern feminism emerged, they should.
The
Kino Lorber Blu-ray greatly improves on the movie’s previous home video
release, a 2014 manufactured-on-demand DVD in the Universal Vault Series.As a special feature, the KL edition includes
informative audio commentary by director and film professor Allan Arkush and
film historian Daniel Kremer.It’s
difficult to argue with their criticism of Stuart Walker’s static,
unimaginative blocking of scenes, but in fairness, most movies adapted from
stage productions in the early days of talkies suffered from the same
shortcoming.Walker showed a little more
flair in 1935’s “Werewolf of London.”
The
Kino Lorber Studio Classics’ Blu-ray edition of “White Woman” can be ordered
HERE from Amazon.
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)
I reviewed the Universal print-on-demand DVD of “The
Mississippi Gambler” (1953) for Cinema Retro eight years ago. I didn’t give the
film, starring Tyrone Power, Julia Adams, and Piper Laurie, very high marks.
Now Kino Lorber has released it anew on Blu-Ray. Aside from an audio commentary
by film historian Toby Roan, and better color because it’s Blu-Ray, it’s
basically the same experience. I can’t think of much new to say about it, so
here’s some of what I wrote back when, along with some final thoughts on the
current state of the home video market.
Here’s the original review I wrote 8 years ago:
I watched The Mississippi Gambler (1953) DVD from Universal
while recovering from a root canal, hoping a good rousing Tyrone Power flick
and three fingers of Kentucky bourbon, would cure my pain. Boy, was I wrong.
Watching this slow, soap opera-ish movie, with a cast of characters that belong
in an old Carol Burnett Show sketch, was like having the root canal all over
again. Admittedly, the Technicolor was good, and Julie Adams was great (which
she always was) but the script by Seton Miller was a complete turnoff with one
of the worst endings I've ever seen. The characters were mostly boring and
despicable. The plot was ham-fisted melodrama served with a mint julep.
Direction by Rudolph Mate’ was lethargic and unimaginative.
Basically, it's one of those stories about four people
all in love with the wrong person. But Miller added some very weird touches to
the familiar story line. Piper Laurie plays Angelique Dureau, a snooty,
neurotic iceberg who is way too close to her brother Laurent (John Baer) for
comfort. She uses him as a shield against intimacy with any other man, as
Tyrone Power, playing the titular gambler Mark Fallon, explains to her. For no
comprehensible reason at all, other than the plot demands it, Fallon falls
madly in love with her. Why? She's a pouty, petulant, porcelain imitation of a
woman.
Her brother, Laurent, is a miserable weasel, a man with
no honor and thus a perfect foil for the upright and honorable Fallon, who is
not only good with a deck of cards, he's also the son of one of New York's
finest fencing masters. (Zorro rides again!). The three of them meet on a
Mississippi riverboat named The Sultana. Pardon a digression while I note that
this was the same paddle boat on which Yancy Derringer, a few years later,
would ply his poker skills in the CBS television series starring Jock Mahoney.
Fallon's goal is to run an honest gambling table and
eventually open his own casino. He teams up with Kansas John Polly (John
McIntyre), a seasoned veteran of many a three card Monty game. In a game of
poker, Laurent loses his sister's diamond necklace to Fallon. Fallon tries to
give it back to her later, but she pretends she told her brother to wager it.
In the next scene she confronts the weasel and cries, "How could you do it
without asking me?" This obviously gets the star-crossed- lovers off on the
wrong foot. Fallon wins big that night but he and Polly barely escape being
killed by a gang of crooked gamblers and have to jump off the boat when the
captain gets near the riverbank. They walk to New Orleans, after losing all
their winnings in the river. But they have a good laugh about it.
At about the second act mark,enter Julie Adams (billed
here as "Julia Adams") as Ann Conant. She's the member of another
weird brother/sister duo. Her brother, Julian (Dennis Weaver, believe it or
not, with a sort of New York high society accent) sits down to play with
Fallon, saying he heard he played an honest game. He quickly loses every cent
he brought with him, then goes out on deck and shoots himself. The Captain and
Fallon discover he has a sister on board, and Fallon feels responsible and
wants to help her. She says he must have gambled away the money his company
gave him to take to New Orleans. Fallon, noble fellow that he is, lies and says
no he gave that money to the captain for safe keeping. He takes Ann to New
Orleans where and sets her up in a hotel. It complicates his plans to romance
Angelique but what's a story without complications.?
Meantime in New Orleans he runs into fencing expert
Edmund Dureau (Paul Cavanaugh) and guess what? He turns out to be Angelique and
Laurent's father! Of course, he invites Fallon to his home where he meets them
again. In one of the lamest scenes in the whole film, when they have a moment
alone, he tells her that he knows he and she are in love with each other and
always will be. "I could have you thrown out of this house for speaking to
me like that,” she exhorts. He replies, "You don't have to run me out. I'm
leaving tomorrow." And he adds: "You’re not ready for marriage. And
you won't be until the day you come to me." She calls him an egotistical
cad. And here's the punchline. "Yes", Fallon says, "I suppose it
sounds that way. But it's the only way a woman can be truly happy with a
man".
What? Did women in the 50’s really buy this tripe? Can
you imagine George Clooney trying that line on Catherine Zeta-Jones, or
Catherine Heigel? He'd get his ass kicked. I won't go on with any more of the
plot, but you can be sure it involves some fencing and a duel with pistols at
the Dueling Oaks. Funny thing about Power's fencing scene with Paul Cavanaugh.
Both men wore fencing masks through the entire scene, which makes me wonder if
either one did any of the fancy sword work, even though Power was in reality a
very good fencer. In another fight scene between Fallon and Laurent on the riverboat,
it is so obviously two badly matched stuntmen carrying the action. Power was
only 39 when he filmed “The Mississippi Gambler,” but he looked older and a bit
tired. Maybe he wanted to take it easy. He'd made many great films by then but
would only live five more years. He'd make seven more films in that time, all
better than “The Mississippi Gambler,” including “The Sun Also Rises,” and
“King of the Khyber Rifles.”
Nevertheless “The Mississippi Gambler” was a big
financial success. Lucky for Power, because his wife, Linda Christian divorced
him after losing out to Piper Laurie for the part of Angelique. She never
forgave Power for not getting her the part, and also, allegedly, for having an
affair with Anita Ekberg, who played an uncredited part as a maid of honor at
Angelique's wedding to another of her suitors.
. . . So that’s the review I wrote 8 years ago. The new
Blu-ray release, as noted earlier, contains nothing new except a commentary by
Toby Roan. Frankly, even Roan’s commentary doesn’t warrant spending the money
for the new edition. His comments merely consist of providing biographical info
on each and every actor, no matter how insignificant his role. Oh, look, here’s
John McIntyre. He was a regular on the Naked City TV series. There’s Paul Cavanaugh,
he was in a Tarzan movie. And that’s Guy Williams who played Zorro on TV. And
on and on and on. I turned the commentary off after half an hour.
The home video market is disappearing before our eyes.
Streaming has become the consumer’s first choice for watching movies at home.
Go into Target or Best Buy and what used to be row after row of DVDs for sale
has shrunk down to a few shelves, hidden behind the flat screen TV display
area. If companies like Kino Lorber hope to stay in business they have to
provide extras that aren’t available through the streaming platforms to make it
worth their while. So any of these commentary tracks are very welcome, even if
this one falls short.
When it comes to Kino Lorber’s “The Mississippi Gambler,”
as I said in the original write up, I'd rather put on a Yancy Derringer DVD and
watch him at the poker table with Pahoo Ka Te Wah standing behind him with his
shotgun hidden under his poncho, ready for action as the Sultana winds its way
down the Big Muddy. Rollin’ down the river.
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the little-remembered
1970 romantic comedy "How Do I Love Thee?" The film's primary
distinction is the interesting teaming of Jackie Gleason and Maureen
O'Hara. By this point in his career, Gleason was a force of nature in
the American entertainment business. When his variety show went off the
air, CBS couldn't induce him to do another series so the network
actually paid him not to work for any other network. When you get paid a
fortune not to work, you know you're doing something right.
Gleason had settled in Miami Beach in the early 1960s as one of the
demands he made of CBS in return for doing his variety show. The
location offered what Gleason liked most: sun, golf, plenty of drinking
establishments and no shortage of beautiful young women. Gleason's
impact on elevating Miami Beach's popularity was notable. It was widely
believed that the city's rebirth as a hip destination as opposed to a
retirement destination was due in part to Gleason referring to Miami
Beach as "The sun and fun capital of the world!". Gleason, like his
contemporary Dean Martin, had long ago tired of working very hard. If
you wanted him, the mountain had to come to Mohammed, so to speak. Thus,
it's no coincidence that "How Do I Love Thee?" was filmed in Miami
Beach, thereby ensuring Gleason prime opportunities for maximizing his
play time and minimizing his work before the cameras. (Gleason had a
photographic memory and famously refused to rehearse very much, often to
the consternation of his co-stars).
The film focuses on the character of Tom Waltz (Rick Lenz), a
twenty-something professor who is rising up the ladder at his
university. He's a got a nice house and a beautiful wife, Marion
(Rosemary Forsyth) but when we first meet him, he's filled with anxiety.
Seems that while visiting the "miracle" site of Lourdes in France, his
father Walt (Jackie Gleason) has suffered a major health crisis. Tom's
mother Elsie (Maureen O'Hara) implores Tom to race over to France and
visit his father, who seems to be dying. Tom wants to go but Marion
reminds him of the lifetime of contentious situations he has endured
with his father and tells him that this is just another method of Walt
trying to gain attention. Indeed, as we see through a series of
flashbacks, Walt is a real handful. He owns his own moving company but
still has to break his back loading and lifting furniture all day long.
He has a pretty fractious relationship with Elsie, largely due to her
strong religious convictions that conflict with his atheism. As young
boy, Tom witnessed a lot of fighting in the household. When he
accompanied his dad on jobs, he discovered that his father is not the
devoted family man he thought he was- especially when he witnesses Walt
trying to seduce a ditzy social activist and amateur photographer
(Shelly Winters in typical over-the-top Shelly Winters mode) who is one
of his clients. Walt is similar in nature to Willy Lohman of "Death of a
Salesman" in that both men are past their prime but working harder than
ever to provide for their family. Walt is a good man, but he's subject
to self-imposed crises generally related to his short temper, drinking
habits and flirtatious nature. Ultimately, Tom opts to take the trip to
Lourdes, even though Marion is threatening to divorce him over his
decision. The majority of the tale is told in flashbacks that present
some moderately amusing situations and some poignant dramatic scenes as
well. There's also a good dose of sexual humor, typical for comedies of
the era that were capitalizing on new-found screen freedoms.The
direction by old pro Michael Gordon ("Pillow Talk") is fine but the
screenplay, based on a novel by Peter De Vries, punts in the final
scenes, tossing in an improbable extended joke about cars going amiss on
their way to a funeral and a feel-good ending that wraps everything up
quickly in a style more befitting a sitcom episode of the era. Still,
the performances are fun with Lenz and Forsyth quite good as the young
couple and Gleason and O'Hara registering some genuine chemistry on
screen.
The Blu-ray transfer is generally fine but around the 80-minute mark
some speckling and artifacts appear during the final reel, although it
isn't distracting enough to bother the average viewer. The bonus extras
don't include the trailer for the feature film but do present trailers
for other KL comedy releases including "Avanti!", "The Russians are
Coming! The Russians are Coming!" and " The Adventure of Sherlock
Holmes' Smarter Brother".
Enjoy this vintage documentary, "Steve McQueen: Man on the Edge", narrated by his friend James Coburn, with whom he starred in "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape". (To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube".)
Now available from Imprint, the Australia-based video label. (The Blu-ray set is region-free.) Since these limited edition titles tend to sell out quickly, we suggest you order ASAP.
Essential
Film Noir: Collection 4 includes five acclaimed and much sought after classics: Rope of Sand
(1949), Appointment with Danger (1950), The Enforcer (1951), Beware, My Lovely
(1952) & Jennifer (1953).
Limited 4 Disc Hardbox
edition with unique artwork on the first 1500 copies.
Rope of Sand (1949) - Imprint Collection #210
After a two-year
hiatus, Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster) returns to the same African city where he
was tortured and left for dead at the hands of a sadistic Police Commandant
(Paul Henreid). Originally innocent of all charges, Mike is back to claim the
diamonds he had supposedly stolen two years ago. He enlists the help of an
alcoholic stranger (Peter Lorre) and the doctor (Sam Jaffe), who had helped him
back to health. The diamond syndicate head (Claude Rains) recruits a nightclub
temptress Suzanne Renaud (Corinne Calvet) to seduce and betray Mike as an
alternate to brute force.
This suspense-noir
classic was directed by William Dieterle (Dark City).
Starring Burt
Lancaster, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid & Sam Jaffe.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio
commentary by film historian Samm Deighan
NEW Interview
with film professor Jose Arroyo
Trailer
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
Appointment with Danger (1950) - Imprint Collection #211
Postal Inspector Al
Goddard (Alan Ladd) is assigned to investigate the murder of a fellow officer.
The only witness to the crime is Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert), who
identifies the photograph of one of the assailants. This leads Goddard to a
seedy hotel where he learns that the assailant is a member of a gang headed by
Earl Boettiger (Paul Stewart), and he soon discovers that the gang is planning
a million dollar mail robbery. This classic film noir also features the stars
of Dragnet, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, as Stewart's Henchmen.
This was Alan
Ladd's final Film Noir and was directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited).
Starring Paul
Stewart, Alan Ladd, Phyllis Calvert, Jan Sterling & Jack Webb.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio
commentary with professor and film scholar Jason Ney
NEW Interview
with Film Noir specialist Frank Krutnik
NEW Video
featurette on director Lewis Allen
Trailer
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
The Enforcer (1951) - Imprint Collection #212
Humphrey Bogart (The
Maltese Falcon) is in fine form as a crusading District Attorney out to
convict the head of a vicious murder-for-hire ring. But when his star witness
is killed, Bogart must race against time to find the evidence he needs to bring
down the mob boss. Told in a series of flashbacks, this tense, tough-as-nails
crime thriller on the cutting edge of film noir was based on actual Murder,
Inc. Trials.
Stylishly directed
by Bretagne Windust (June Bride) with un-credited help from Raoul Walsh
(Pursued) and beautifully shot by the great Robert Burks (North by Northwest).
Starring Humphrey
Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia & Everett Sloane.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
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NEW Audio commentary
by noir expert and Film Noir Foundation board member Alan K. Rode
Original
aspect ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English subtitles
Beware, My Lovely (1952) - Imprint Collection #213
Helen Gordon (Ida
Lupino) hires Howard Wilton (Robert Ryan) as a handyman to do chores around her
house. She doesn't know what she's let herself in for. Insecure and paranoid,
Wilton thinks everyone, including Helen, is against him. He suffers from memory
lapses and extreme mood swings. She's soon a prisoner in her own house after
Wilton locks the doors and tears out the telephone. His mood swings from
violence to complacency but after Helen gets a message to the police via a
telephone repairman, she finds he is still in the house. ...Beware, My Lovely.
Starring Robert
Ryan, Ida Lupino, Taylor Holmes & Barbara Whiting.
Premier Blu-ray
release worldwide.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio
commentary with professor and film scholar Jason Ney
NEW Interview
with author and programmer Pamela Hutchinson
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
Jennifer (1953) - Imprint Collection #213
Agnes Langsley (Ida
Lupino) gets a job, through Jim Hollis (Howard Duff), as caretaker of an old
and vacated estate. The owner's cousin, Jennifer, was the last occupant and
mysteriously disappeared. Agnes soon begins to believe that Jennifer was
murdered and that Jim, whom she has fallen in love with, is responsible.
Starring Ida
Lupino, Howard Duff & Robert Nichols.
Premier Blu-ray
release worldwide.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
Any pre-order titles will be dispatched in the week
leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special features and artwork are
subject to change.
Enjoy James Coburn's star-making scene from John Sturges' 1960 classic "The Magnificent Seven". His unfortunate nemesis is Robert J. Wilke. The film cemented Coburn as the epitome of the screen hero who was short on words and long on action.
Writer Olivia Rutigliano knows a thing or two about Sherlock Holmes and she's put that knowledge to good use in this article that ranks the best, worst and strangest portrayals of the master detective on screens large and small. This isn't the usual slapped together, meaningless list created to serve as click bait. Rutigliano provides insightful background information on every conceivable portrayal of Holmes and includes stories in which the main character merely thinks he is Holmes. She also includes animated and animal portrayals of Holmes. Chances are you won't have heard of many of the more obscure international inclusions, which makes them even more interesting to read about. Click Hereto do so.
John Wayne only directed two films- "The Alamo" and "The Green Berets". Both were passion projects for him, though he certainly had a challenge with "The Alamo", an epic production in which he was reluctantly obligated to also star. To some, the film is a great American epic, to others it's simplified history loaded down with corny dialogue. But no one can dispute that when it came to the logistics of staging the climactic battle scene, Wayne did an outstanding job. In this clip, Wayne, Richard Widmark and Laurence Harvey initiate the action through a simple act involving a canon and a cigar.
Scorpion has released a Blu-ray edition of the 1979 Canadian disaster movie "City on Fire". If you've never heard of it, don't feel bad- neither had this writer and I thought I was quite familiar with the genre which arguably began with the release of "Airport" in 1970. The success of that film spawned similarly-themed adventures that generally found all-stars casts threatened by water, fire, animals and other forces of nature. Producer Irwin Allen hit two home runs with "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno", the latter representing the artistic and commercial peak of the short-lived but highly popular genre. At its height even second-grade disaster flicks could make sizable profits (a low-grade Japanese import titled "Tidal Wave" was a hit after it was "Americanized" with some brief footage of Lorne Greene included.) By the late 1970s, however, fickle audiences had tired of the sheer predictability of the disaster movie premise. The release of "Star Wars" incited a new interest in sci-fi but there were still some attempts to pump life into disaster flicks even if most of the passion and creativity had been drained from these productions. "City on Fire" is about, as you might have guessed, a city on fire. The unnamed city (actually Toronto) is the setting for a catastrophic blaze that starts as an act of sabotage caused by a disgruntled employee at a large chemical plant that has been foolishly located in the center of the urban metropolis. The seemingly minor act of mischief quickly escalates when raw fuel pours unchecked into the city's water supply. A spark ignites a huge inferno that rapidly isolates a major part of the city in a ring of fire that makes it almost impossible for firefighters to penetrate, thus leaving it to the potential victims to find their own methods of escape. Most of the action takes place inside a major hospital which is being evacuated even as the flames make it unlikely that many of the staff and patients will be able to reach safety. In order to do so they must navigate a deadly gauntlet of fire.
"City on Fire" lacks the big budget production values of the more successful disaster movies but director Alvin Rakoff and production designer William McCrow get around that obstacle in very commendable ways. Rakoff does utilize the old stand by of using actual disaster footage from news broadcasts in certain instances and uses a jittery camera to provide a sense of impending danger to otherwise stagnant buildings, at times making it look like Don Knotts was the cameraman. However, the production design is quite good and Rakoff handles the action scenes very commendably. There are some cheesy special effects, primarily scenes of the skyline burning, but the up-close action footage is spectacular at times and the movie features some of the best stunt work I've seen including many instances of the stuntman's worst nightmare: the full-body burn. The biggest star in this budget-challenged production is Henry Fonda, then in the winter of his career and seemingly content to play characters of authority who sit around offices and control rooms barking orders over telephones (i.e "Meteor", "Rollercoaster" and "The Swarm"). Old Hank would prove he still had his mojo with his final film, "On Golden Pond", that saw him win an Oscar, but in the years leading up to that he was happy to pick up quick pay checks with supporting roles in populist fare. Here he plays the stalwart fire chief trying to cope with the loss of an entire city. Barry Newman is the playboy physician who is trying frantically to save his hospital which is in the direct line of fire. He's also juggling a strained relationship with old flame (pardon the pun) Susan Clark, a glam socialite who had once been his lover. Meanwhile, she is involved in an illicit affair with the mayor (Leslie Nielsen) and is unaware that there are incriminating photos that are about to be used to blackmail both of them. Shelley Winters is wasted in a throw-away role as a bossy nurse who acts a lot like Shelley Winters and James Franciscus is a TV news producer who is trying to keep wall-to-wall coverage on the air despite that the fact that his star anchor, an aging diva (Ava Gardner) has turned up drunk right before the broadcasts. One of the more rewarding aspects of the film is that it affords meaty roles to actors who are generally relegated to second-tier status. They all perform admirably but it's impossible to view any of Leslie Nielsen's pre-comedy career performances objectively. He became such a master of brilliantly spoofing his own acting style that when you view his dramatic work you keep waiting for punchlines and slapstick gags that never materialize. The film follows all the conventional elements of the standard disaster movie (i.e children in peril, a pregnant woman who goes into labor during the crisis, lovers reunited, etc.) I half expected the climax to feature the heroes trapped aboard an upended ocean liner while being menaced by a shark. However, I must say that I very much enjoyed "City on Fire". It boasts an intelligent script, fine direction and reasonably good performances. There is also an almost complete lack of humor, so you won't see Fred Astaire as a charming con man or an unbilled Walter Matthau getting soused in a bar in the midst of an earthquake. The sense of gravitas is in keeping with the dramatic scenario of people stranded within a ring of fire. The movie came a day late and a dollar short to capitalize on the disaster movie trend. It's not as slick or polished as the best entries in the genre but it's better than many others including Irwin Allen's career-ending turkeys, "The Swarm" and "When Time Ran Out".
The Scorpion Blu-ray contains a notice that the transfer was put together from various sources. There are a few blotches here and there but the Blu-ray generally looks fine. Bonus features include a TV spot for the film and a trailer gallery of other Scorpion releases. Recommended.
The James Bond-inspired spy movie boom of the 1960s resulted in the films of this genre generally fitting into one of two distinct categories: tongue-in-cheek spoofs played largely for laughs (the Flint and Matt Helm series) and gritty, realistic depictions of espionage that stripped away any glamour from the spy trade ("The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "The Deadly Affair", "The Venetian Affair", "The Ipcress File" and countless others.) Straddling the line between the two genres was writer/director Val Guest's 1966 film "Where the Spies Are" starring David Niven, who seemed impeccably suited to capitalize on the movie craze. The film was based on the novel "Passport to Oblivion" by James Leasor, a straight-up thriller set in Beirut, Lebanon when it was a thriving holiday destination for wealthy Europeans to the extent it was known as "The Paris of the Middle East". The movie opens with the abduction and murder of an MI6 agent, Rossiter (Cyril Cusack) in Beirut. He's been investigating a Soviet-inspired plot to murder the head of state and install a puppet government. The British are especially concerned because they depend upon the friendly government of Lebanon to provide Great Britain with substantial amounts of oil (some things never change.) When Rossiter goes silent, MI6 boss MacGillivray (John Le Mesurier) needs to send an agent to Beirut to investigate his disappearance. He decides he needs a non-professional who has no trace to the agency to act as an operative. He recalls using the services of Jason Love (David Niven) twenty years earlier in the war. It seems that Love proved to be reliable in successfully pulling off a dangerous mission. Love is now a well-off physician living a happy bachelor lifestyle with a posh house and a vintage, valuable roadster that he takes pleasure in driving through the country lanes. MacGillivray uses Love's sense of patriotism (and a bribe to buy him an even more valuable and rare roadster) as an incentive for him to agree to visit Lebanon, ostensibly to attend an international medical conference. It's supposed to be an easy job with Love simply nosing around and trying to find some clues as to Rossiter's fate, but you know how things usually turn out in missions of this type.
When Love disembarks from his plane in Rome to await a connecting flight to Beirut, there is quite a stir in the terminal because world famous fashion model known simply as Vikki (Francoise Dorleac) is being photographed for a fashion spread in a major magazine. They meet cute and Love is understandably distracted by her beauty. After turning on the charm, she confides in Love that she is actually one of the MI6 contacts he will meet on his mission. Love is so shocked that he is too late to catch his flight- and lucky for him that he didn't because minutes after takeoff, the plane explodes, killing everyone on board. (Inexplicably, the incident directly over the airport doesn't seem to generate much reaction from the people at the airport.) Love attributes the disaster to a mechanical flaw and arrives at his hotel in Lebanon- the same one that Rossiter had a room at. He's pleased to find that Vikki is there, too, and is as enthused about getting under the covers as he is. Their romantic fling is later disturbed by an assassination attempt and Vikki informs Love that the destruction of the airplane might have been a plot to kill him. He soon meets Parkington (Nigel Davenport), another MI6 contact- a career agent who is depressed and cynical about intelligence work. He copes by hitting the bottle hard but he proves to be a valuable ally to Love in tracing Rossiter's fate. Ultimately, Love finds himself in further peril and having to resort to his own defense mechanisms (and a couple of spy gadgets, of course) in order to survive. The finale finds him trying to thwart the assassination as well as escape Soviet kidnappers who bundle him aboard a plane bound for Russia.
"Where the Spies Are" starts off with the implication that it will be a comedy in the Flint/Helm mode with Niven playing a comic fish-out-of-water character embroiled in a larger-than-life adventure. However, the laughs are few and far between once he sets off on his mission. The film still offers some witticisms and subdued laughs, but it turns primarily into a thriller including a larger-than-life action scene atop ancient ruins. The movie was directed and co-written by Val Guest, a reliable old hand at making highly enjoyable mid-range films that weren't designed to be blockbusters or win awards. He keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, accompanied by a lively score by Mario Nasciembene. Niven is perfectly cast and delivers his usual charismatic and charming performance. Dorleac is given some mod fashion wear to show off and makes for a suitable love interest. She was set to follow her sister Catherine Deneuve as the next "it girl" in films but tragically died in 1967 in a car crash shortly after completing her final film, the spy thriller "Billion Dollar Brain". The film benefits from some exotic on-location scenes in Lebanon, with interiors shot at the old MGM Studios at Boreham Wood, England. However, it suffers from some crude special effects and the all-too-obvious use of miniatures and rear screen projection. Similarly, Niven's stunt double doesn't pass muster, as he doesn't resemble the actor in the slightest even from afar.
The film features any number of people associated with James Bond films. Niven, of course, would go on to star as Sir James Bond in the 1967 spoof version of "Casino Royale" which was co-written and co-directed by Val Guest. Wolf Mankiewicz, who had been an uncredited contributor to the script of "Dr. No", co-wrote the screenplay for "Where the Spies Are" as well as "Casino Royale". The titles were designed by Robert Brownjohn who also created the classic titles for "Goldfinger" and "From Russia with Love". Among the actors who were associated with at least one Bond movie include Eric Pohlmann (who provided the voice of the unseen Blofeld in the early Bond movies), Paul Stassino "("Thunderball"), John Le Mesurier ("Casino Royale" as "M"'s chauffeur), George Pravda ("From Russia with Love"), Bill Nagy ("Goldfinger") and Geoffrey Bayldon ("Casino Royale"). Also, former Bond star George Lazenby starred as Jason Love in an audio book adaptation of "Passport to Oblivion" available on Amazon Kindle. "U.N.C.L.E." fans will also enjoy seeing "Girl from U.N.C.L.E." star Noel Harrison as an MI6 agent and will get a laugh out of one of the passwords used in the film, "Love from Uncle", which could not have been a coincidence since it was an MGM production.
Val Guest had obtained the screen rights to "Passport to Oblivion" and several literary sequels in the hopes that a series of Jason Love films would go into production. However, the film didn't elicit much excitement from moviegoers or critics and, thus, a series never went into production. Not helping matters was MGM's decision to recut Guest's final version of the film without his permission, which supposedly infuriated him. Nevertheless, if you have a soft spot for spy movies of the 1960s, you'll probably find the film as enjoyable as I did.
The region-free Warner Archive DVD proves that this title is in dire need of a Blu-ray upgrade. The color quality is all over the place, ranging from satisfactory to wild deviations to various garish tints, giving it a Frankenstein-like quality in that it seemed to have been cobbled together with bits from several prints. That probably wasn't the case, but it is nevertheless the effect. The Archive is doing some great work upgrading even "B" titles so let's hope "Where the Spies Are" is on their list for future Blu-ray release. The only bonus feature is the original trailer which is narrated for some reason by a guy who sounds like an extra from an old WB gangster movie.
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For those of us who are hopelessly addicted to spy movies of the
1960s, the Warner Archive provides a gift: the first DVD release of "The
Scorpio Letters", one of the more obscure 007-inspired espionage films
of the era. Produced by MGM, the movie was shown on American TV in early
1967 before enjoying a theatrical release in Europe. It seems the
studio was trying to emulate the strategy that it was employing at the
time for its phenomenally popular "Man From U.N.C.L.E." TV series. That
show had proven to be such a hit with international audiences that MGM
strung together two-part episodes and released them theatrically. (Three
films were released in America but a total of eight were shown in
international markets.) As "The Scorpio Letters" was produced with a
theatrical run in mind, it has a bit more gloss than the average TV
movie, which was then a genre in its infancy. Nevertheless, it still has
all the earmarks of a production with a limited budget. Although set in
London and France, you'd have to be pretty naive to believe any of the
cast and crew ever got out of southern California. Grainy stock footage
is used to simulate those locations and there is ample use of the very
distinctive MGM back lot, which at times makes the film resemble an
episode of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." What the movie does provide is some
nice chemistry between its two lead actors, Alex Cord, who had recently
acquitted himself quite well in the underrated 1966 big screen remake
of John Ford's "Stagecoach" and Shirley Eaton, then still riding the
wave of popularity she enjoyed as the iconic "golden girl" from the Bond
blockbuster "Goldfinger". The two play rival spies in London, both
working for different British intelligence agencies, though whether it
is MI5 or MI6 is never made clear.
The film is based on a novel by Victor Caning that had been adapted
for the screen by the ironically named Adrian Spies, who had a long
career working primarily in television. (Curiously, his one credited
feature film was for the superb 1968 adventure "Dark of the Sun" (aka
"The Mercenaries".) There is nothing remarkable about his work on "The
Scorpio Letters". In fact, Spies provides a rather confusing plot. The
film opens on a jarring note with a man taking a suicidal plunge from
his apartment window in London. Turns out he was a British intelligence
agent and the reasons for his suicide are of great interest to the
higher ups in the spy business. Alex Cord plays Joe Christopher, an
American ex-cop who now does work for one of the intelligence agencies
run by Burr (the ever-reliable Laurence Naismith). Burr orders him to
get to the bottom of the suicide case and in doing so, Joe gains access
to the dead man's apartment just in time to encounter a mysterious man
stealing a letter addressed to the dead agent. A foot chase ensues that
ends with both men getting struck by a London double decker bus (yes,
MGM had one of those laying around the back lot.) Still, Joe manages to
steal back the letter the man had swiped and finds it is obviously a
blackmail attempt made against the dead agent by a mystery person who
goes by the name of Scorpio. From there the plot gets rather confusing
and becomes one of those thrillers that is best enjoyed if you stop
trying to figure out who is who and just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Joe flirts with Phoebe Stewart (Shirley Eaton), who works in another
intelligence agency. It appears her boss and Joe's boss are constantly
trying to undermine each other in the attempt to solve major cases.
Phoebe makes an attempt to seduce Joe, but he correctly suspects that
she is trying to compromise him for information he knows about the case.
Inevitably, a real romance blossoms but the love scenes are pretty
mild, perhaps due to the fact that this film was made with a television
broadcast in mind. (The plot invokes the old joke of having the would-be
lovers get interrupted every time they attempt to get it on.)
Joe gets a lead that takes him to Paris where he discovers that
Scorpio is the man behind a shadowy spy network that uses agents
employed as waiters in an upscale restaurant. I imagine the reason for
this is explained somewhere along the line but it's just one more
confusing element to the script. Joe infiltrates the spies/waiters gang
in the hopes of finding out who Scorpio is. Meanwhile, in the film's
best scene, he is exposed, captured and tortured. There is even a
modicum of suspense as there appears to be no logical way he will get
out of this particular death trap. Refreshingly, Joe is no 007. He makes
miscalculations, gets bruised and beaten and often has to rely on the
intervention of others to save him. (In the film's climax, finding
himself outmanned and outgunned, he actually does the logical thing and
asks someone to call the local police for help.) Ultimately, Scorpio is
revealed to be one of those standard, aristocratic spy villains of
Sixties cinema. In this case he is played by the very able Oscar Beregi
Jr. If you don't know the name, you'll know his face, as he excelled in
playing urbane bad guys in countless TV shows and feature films of the
era. There are numerous kidnappings, shootouts, double crosses and red
herrings and one bizarre sequence that is ostensibly set in a French ski
resort in which the ski lift is inexplicably in operation even though
it's summer. Additionally, the California mountains look as much like
France as Jersey City does.
Despite all of the gripes, I enjoyed watching "The Scorpio Letters".
It's an entertaining, fast-moving diversion, directed with unremarkable
efficiency by Richard Thorpe (his second-to-last film). Cord makes for a
very capable leading man, tossing off the requisite wisecracks even
while undergoing torture. Eaton possesses the kind of old world glamour
you rarely see on screen nowadays. Together, they make an otherwise
mediocre movie play out better than it probably should. (A minor trivia
note: this represents the first film score of composer Dave Grusin, who
would go on to become an Oscar winner.)
The Warner Archive DVD transfer is very impressive and the film
contains an original trailer, which presumably was used in non-U.S.
markets.
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It's always fun to look back on how retro films were regarded by
critics at the time of their initial release. Here is the evaluation of
Frank Sinatra's 1967 hit "Tony Rome" as written by a new, upcoming film
critic named Roger Ebert!
In the star-studded, wildly erratic experience that is the 1967 big screen version of "Casino Royale", there is one oasis amidst the non-stop slapstick and zaniness. In this scene, noted expert gambler Evelyn Tremble (under the assumed name "James Bond"), played by Peter Sellers, engages SMERSH bigwig LeChiffre (Orson Welles) in a high stakes game of backgammon. Not shown in this clip is a preceding bit in which LeChiffre mesmerizes the bystanders by engaging in some marvelous feats of magic. (Welles was a noted magician in real life.) This is followed by an all-too brief interplay between Tremble and LeChiffre that actually approaches a level of seriousness not found elsewhere in the movie, which Bond fans either loathe or love. By the way, an observance of the scene shown here disproves the myth that Peter Sellers refused to ever be on camera with Welles, who he found intimidating. They are indeed seen in the same frame. However, it is true that Sellers' paranoia was in full bloom and he was resentful toward Welles because of his revered reputation and the idolization shown to him by the cast and crew. Sellers made it clear that he would not appear on set with Welles again. This left the production team with the awkward alternative of having to film closeups of Sellers that were shot when Welles wasn't on the set and vice-versa. Making matters worse, Sellers publicly insulted Welles, who responded in kind. Ultimately, producer Charles K. Feldman fired Sellers from "Casino Royale", which was probably what the mercurial actor had hoped for. This explains why his character is killed off and doesn't appear in the wacky, expensive battle royale inside Casino Royale. For all that, the film has plenty of merits: an amusing Woody Allen, a delightful David Niven as the real James Bond, the presence of the first "Bond girl", Ursula Andress, fantastic production design and a marvelous Burt Bacharach score and title theme song, played winningly by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. For more, click here.
(Mark Cerulli, Paul C. Rosen and movie poster designer Dan Chapman (who did many famous posters including The Rock, Basic Instinct, Bad Boys and more) on the Red Carpet.)
CR
scribe and friend Mark Cerulli produced and directed a documentary feature devoted
to 101 year-old graphic designer Joe Caroff, who created numerous iconic film
and TV logos including the legendary 007 gun logo.
Last week the film was awarded Best
Documentary Short at the prestigious Beverly Hills Film Festival.Aside from Joe’s film work, By Design also
tells the story of his remarkable life – living through the Great Depression,
fighting in WWII and becoming a design force in the Madmen Era.
It’s currently streaming on HBOMax and Mark
and producer/editor Paul C. Rosen are looking for an international
distributor.
On Tuesday, April 25, it was a balmy and pleasant New York evening as ticket holders and the press lined up at Lincoln Center to attend the New York Philharmonic's special concert in honor of five-time Oscar winning composter John Williams. Attendees walked past the famous circular fountain in the main concourse area where Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder had rejoiced in Mel Brooks' "The Producers". The movie reference is appropriate because Williams is best known for his contributions to cinema over the course of the last six decades. Inside the Wu Tsai Theater in David Geffen Hall, nary a free seat could be found. The event had sold out quickly, with even standing room only places quickly snapped up by eager admirers of Williams. Cinema Retro has been invited to cover many of the NY Phil's film-oriented concerts over the years and each one is a very memorable occasion. However, at the risk of appearing to engage in some hyperbole, the Williams concert was not only memorable but the most impressive film concert this reviewer has ever seen. Conductor Ken-David Masur, son of NY Phil's Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur, made his debut with the orchestra with this performance. If Masur had any trepidation of performing with John Williams in the audience, it was not evident. He was simply brilliant, as was the full orchestra.
(Photo: Chris Lee)
The concert began in dramatic fashion with the NY Phil's magnificent rendering of Williams' main theme for the 1978 film "Superman". The choice of musical selections was inspired and sidestepped predictability. There were selections from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" that had hints of the famous main title theme. This was followed by a presentation of Williams' track from a chase scene in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". An unusual inclusion was the animated Oscar-winning 2017 short film "Dear Basketball" narrated by Kobe Bryant that chronicled the late, legendary basketball player's lifelong fascination with the sport. Williams provided the score the production, illustrating once again the sheer diversity of his achievements. Then, to the delight of the audience, The NY Phil played selections from "Star Wars: A New Hope", which predictably brought down the house. But there were plenty more thrills in store.
(Photo: Chris Lee)
To the accompaniment of Williams' main theme from "Jaws", Steven Spielberg took to the stage, eschewing his usual casual look for black tie. Commenting upon his musical introduction, Spielberg quipped that "I've made 3,300 hundred movies and all anyone wants to talk about is 'Jaws'!" He elaborated by saying that even among autograph hunters, it's "Jaws" more than any of his other films that elicits the most comments. Spielberg spoke warmly about his longtime friendship with John Williams, reminding the audience that they have collaborated on 51 films over a period of 29 years. It's clear that Spielberg still regards him as a treasured mentor as well as an essential collaborator. Spielberg then showed the opening sequence of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" sans any musical score. He wanted to emphasize how valuable a composer's contribution to a film is. We're all familiar with the scene, as Indy appears to have successfully snatched a golden relic only to find he has triggered the activation of many death traps. Spielberg remembered that, upon seeing the unscored sequence back in the day, George Lucas said "We need Johnny!" Indeed, "Johnny" did contribute his magic, as evidenced when Spielberg replayed the scene with Williams' score intact. I came to realize that his genius was not only in providing a suspenseful score, but for making musical notes appear to be special sound effects that further enhanced the scene. The tribute continued with the NY Phil providing musical tributes to "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Jurassic Park" and "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial", accompanied by extensive film clips.
The event concluded with Spielberg paying tribute to Williams' haunting score for "Schindler's List". He then invited Williams to take to the podium and conduct the orchestra for this pivotal work. Predictably, the audience responded with thunderous applause. The somber, heart-wrenching score brought back all the memories of the brilliant film and the disturbing images that have led me to be unable to watch it since I saw it upon its initial release. Williams left the stage to a standing ovation that wouldn't stop. He then reemerged to conduct the orchestra for the iconic theme song from the Indiana Jones films. He left the stage once more but the audience wouldn't relent in its applause so Williams came out again. This time, the energetic 91-year old concluded the proceedings by conducting the "Imperial March and Finale" from "Star Wars: A New Hope". I doubt there was a dry eye in the house.
(Photo: Chris Lee)
New York City has taken it on the chin in recent years with reports of all the things that had gone wrong during the time of the pandemic. But Gotham was back in full glory thanks to the remarkable talents that provided the audience with a historic and unforgettable evening. We are unlikely to see a film composer with the career accomplishments of John Williams ever again. Anyone who was privileged to witness this extraordinary event would understand why.
Here's the original 1964 trailer for "A Hard Day's Night". Most people thought the Beatles would be the latest flash-in-the-pan novelty act and the film would be the equivalent of a beach movie designed for fast playoff for teenage audiences. However, director Richard Lester brought to the screen a true musical/comedy classic that was one of the most revolutionary films of its era.
ViaVision's Imprint line will release a limited edition, region-free (1,500 units) Blu-ray boxed set commemorating director Walter Hill. Suggest you get your pre-orders in early, as Imprint limited edition sets usually sell out fast. This set will be released in July.
Here is the official announcement:
Walter Hill has been directing films
for almost 50 years and has established himself a reputation of delivering
thrilling, gritty, and highly stylized films.
This special edition set collects five
films and one landmark miniseries from one of the most important and
influential filmmakers of modern cinema.
Hard Times (1975)
The Driver (1978)
The Long Riders (1980)
Extreme Prejudice (1987)
Johnny Handsome (1989)
Broken Trail (2006)
Featuring performances from some of
Hollywood’s greatest actors including Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Bruce
Dern, Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman & Robert Duvall.
Limited Edition 8-Disc Hardbox. 1500
copies only.
Hard
Times (1975) – Imprint Collection #164
In the middle of the Great Depression,
Chaney (Charles Bronson, Death Wish) is just looking to catch a
break. When he meets Speed (James Coburn, The Magnificent Seven), a
promoter of bare-knuckle street fighting, Chaney thinks with his fighting skill
and Speed’s savvy, he might have a chance. But Speed has his own problems, and
what seemed like a sure thing is not as simple.
This gritty, compelling drama is the
directorial debut of Walter Hill.
Starring Charles Bronson, James
Coburn, Jill Ireland & Strother Martin.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
Special features TBC
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Audio English DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0
Optional English subtitles
The
Driver (1978) – Blu-ray & 4K – Imprint Collection #165
Ryan O’Neal plays the Driver, an
ice-cool getaway “Wheel Man” for hire. Bruce Dern is the detective who becomes
obsessed with catching him. The more O’Neal leaves tantalising clues at the
crime scenes, the more Dern becomes a man possessed with catching his prey.
This cult neo-noir thriller is
presented on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray.
Starring Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern,
Isabelle Adjani, Joseph Walsh & Ronee Blakley.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
4K UHD Disc
NEW 4K restoration by StudioCanal
Walter Hill Masterclass – featurette
Interview with Walter Hill
Alternate Opening
Original English Trailer
Original German Trailer
13 Original Teasers
Blu-ray Disc
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
NEW Audio Commentary by film historian and critic Matthew Asprey
Gear (2022)
NEWCut to the Chase – interview with actor
Bruce Dern on The Driver (2022)
NEWTeeth Bared – interview with actor Rudy
Ramos on The Driver (2022)
NEW Simplicity in Motion: Editing The
Driver – interview with editor
Robert K. Lambert (2022)
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional English HOH subtitles
The
Long Riders (1981) – Imprint Collection #166
The Long Riders is Hill’s version of the story of the James-Younger
gang. Held as heroes by many, and much celebrated for its attacks upon the
railroad, the gang became the most famous band of outlaws in the country. They
were eventually brought to ruin by the Pinkerton detective agency, losing many
of their number in the ill-fated Northfield, Minnesota bank raid.
Four sets of real-life brothers – the
Carradines, the Keachs, the Quaids and the Guests – star in this classic
western.
Starring Keith Carradine, James Remar,
Dennis Quaid, Stacy Keach, Robert Carradine & David Carradine.
Special Edition 2-Disc Set.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
Disc One
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
Audio Commentary by film historians Howard S.
Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
NEW Audio Commentary by film historian Toby Roan
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional English HOH subtitles
Disc Two
Interview with actors Keith Carradine and Robert
Carradine
Interview with actors Stacy Keach and James Keach
Interview with actor Randy Quaid
Interview with actor Nicholas Guest
Interview with director Walter Hill
Interview with composer Ry Cooder
Interview with producer Tim Zinnemann
Outlaw Brothers: The Making of The Long Riders – documentary
The Northfield Minnesota Raid: Anatomy of a Scene – featurette
Slow Motion: Walter Hill on Sam Peckinpah – featurette
Extreme Prejudice stars Nick Nolte as tough, no-nonsense Texas ranger
Jack Benteen, whose childhood friend Cash (Powers Boothe) is now a ruthless
drugs baron on the other side of the border. Jack finds himself recruited by
the CIA to eliminate Cash, who allegedly has secret government documents.
Starring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe,
Rip Torn, Maria Conchita Alonso & Michael Ironside.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
NEW Audio Commentary by film critic / author Walter Chaw
NEW Audio Commentary by film historians Daniel Kremer and Nat
Segaloff
Audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney
Joyner and Henry Parke
Interview with director Walter Hill (2010)
Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with
music historian John Takis
The Major’s Agenda – interview with actor Michael Ironside
The War Within – interview with actor Clancy Brown
Capturing The Chaos – interview with director of photography
Matthew F. Leonetti
Theatrical Trailer
Vintage Electronic Press Kit
Photo Gallery
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
Optional English HOH subtitles
Johnny
Handsome (1989) – Imprint Collection #168
Severely-deformed petty criminal
Johnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) is double-crossed in a robbery and left to take
the rap on his own. He is stabbed in jail and sent to hospital, where a prison
doctor decides that plastic surgery and a fresh start will lead Johnny on the
path to reform. However, when the handsome new Johnny emerges from prison, his
potential fresh start in life is hampered by his desire to get even with the
man who put him away.
Starring Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin,
Morgan Freeman & Forest Whitaker.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
NEW Audio Commentary by film critic and author Walter Chaw (2022)
NEW Audio commentary by film critics Daniel Kremer and Scout
Tafoya (2022)
NEW Interview with actor Peter Jason
Codes to Live By: Walter Hill on Johnny Handsome – featurette
Wordsmith – interview with writer Ken Friedman (2010)
Eye of the Beholder – interview with makeup artist Michael
Westmore (2010)
Action Man – interview with stuntman Allan Graf (2010)
Theatrical Trailer
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
Optional English HOH subtitles
Broken
Trail (2006) – Imprint Collection #169
Set in 1897, Print Ritter (Robert
Duvall) and his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Haden Church) become the reluctant
guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte’s
attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to
deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals, intent on
kidnapping the girls for their own purposes. Classic Western action takes
centre stage in this dramatic miniseries!
This critically acclaimed miniseries
is the winner of four Emmy Awards.
Starring Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden
Church & Greta Scacchi.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
Broken Trail: The Making of a Legendary Western – featurette
Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
Audio English DTS HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0
Stereo
Optional English subtitles
Any pre-order titles will be
dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special
features and artwork are subject to change.
Click here to to order. (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter to see value in your local currency.)
Harry Belafonte has died at age 96. The iconic singer who rose to fame with his best-selling Calypso number, "The Banana Boat Song", passed away from congestive heart failure. Belafonte was multi-talented. Although he was primarily known as a singer, he also enjoyed a successful acting career. He was also known as one of the most iconic figures in the American civil rights movement. He was a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and devoted much of his time to protest social injustices. In doing so, he became a lightning rod for controversy, often leveling news-making insults against political figures on the right and left who he felt were insufficient in addressing the issues most important to him. For more about his remarkable life and career, click here.
In reviewing "Fuzz" when it opened in 1972, Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted that the film looks more like a dress rehearsal than a finished movie and was obviously intended to appeal to viewers who had a limited attention span. In contrast, Roger Ebert said he was put off by the exploitive elements of the movie poster, but in the end called it a funny, quietly cheerful movie. I guess I land in the same ballpark as Ebert, although I'm not without criticism of the film, which was based on author Ed McBain's popular "87th Precinct" novels that explored the excitement and absurdities found in a modern, big city police department. The film has an impressive ensemble cast: Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch (reunited after co-starring in "100 Rifles"), Tom Skeritt, Jack Weston and Raquel Welch, who appears rather fleetingly despite her prominent billing. Oh, and the bad guy is played by Yuel Brynner, who appears rather late in the film in a limited number of scenes.
The film is primarily played for laughs and it's scattershot plot jumps around at a dizzying pace. The action takes place in the aforementioned 87th Precinct in Boston, a run-down venue located in a troubled part of the city. The plot focuses on a harried group of cynical detectives who report to their equally cynical, burned-out boss, Lt. Byrnes (Dan Frazer). The precinct is depicted as decrepit and as worn-out as its inhabitants. There's a lot of chaotic action going on throughout the day with various local miscreants and eccentrics clogging up the works, much to the frustration of the burned-out cops. The plot sees seasoned veteran cops Steve Carella (Burt Reynolds), Bert Kling (Tom Skerritt) and Meyer Meyer (you read that right) (Jack Weston) trying to cope with the chaos- as well as the arrival of a strikingly beautiful policewoman who has been assigned to the precinct, Eileen McHenry (Raquel Welch). Among the cases being investigated simultaneously are the identities of the creeps who have been setting local hobos on fire, a serial rapist, various petty crimes and a late-breaking, high-profile threat posed by an unknown man who phones in death threats aimed at local public officials.When the ransom he demands isn't paid, said officials are bumped off in a high profile manner despite intense efforts by the police to thwart the plots. The villain is known as The Deaf Man (Yul Brynner), a sophisticated brute with the persona of a Bond villain, who employs a small team of loyal and very competent crooks to help him carry out the various assassinations.
Director Richard A. Colla employs the Altmanesque gimmick of having characters talk over each other in a Tower of Babel-like scenario, but in the context of a chaotic police department, the tactic works. The air of realism is accurate. During this era, my father was a cop in Jersey City, a stone's throw across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Like most urban areas during this era, it was a city beset by plenty of problems. Whenever I would see him at the precinct, I witnessed the kind of mutual ball-busting humor cops would engage in. I realized it was their way of coping with the pressures of the job and "Fuzz" captures this environment perfectly. The screenplay by Evan Hunter, who wrote the source novel under the nom de plume Ed McBain, is rather episodic and some plot lines are left to dwindle as the cops try to solve any number of on-going threats to the city. Raquel Welch's character is subjected to the predictable sexist comments, but, refreshingly she is spared any exploitation scenes (except for one fleeting moment) and acquits herself well as this valiant public servant. The whole messy scenario comes together in a very clever ending in which all of the unrelated characters end up converging on a local liquor store where the cops are holding a stakeout. The mayhem that ensues is both funny and exciting and ties some of the loose ends together. A comic highlight finds Reynolds and Weston dressed as nuns in a stakeout to capture the rapist.
The cast is first-rate. Reynolds is in top form and he gets fine support from Tom Skerritt, Jack Weston (particularly impressive), Dan Frazer and James McEachin. Don Gordon is among the bad guys, and as with any of his screen appearances, he's a welcome presence. Reynolds breaks the wise-cracking mode in a touching scene that shows him with his wife, a deaf mute played by Neile Adams. Yul Brynner adds his customary classy presence in his limited screen time.
Reynolds and Welch could not have been pleased with the marketing campaign for the movie: a Mad magazine-style ad that capitalized on Reynold's recent centerfold in Cosmopolitan and had Welch depicted in a bikini, although she appears in no such attire and is demurely dressed in the film. (Her character disappears mid-way through the movie and inexplicably doesn't show up again.) Nevertheless, Reynolds would finally rise to major boxoffice status later in the year with his superb performance in "Deliverance" and Welch would graduate to intelligently-written roles that proved she was more than a pretty face.
"Fuzz" is an imperfect movie but it's a lot of fun. Recommended.
(The film is currently showing on Screenpix, which is available by subscription through Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV.)
"The Pink Jungle" is a Universal production from 1968 and it looks it, with plenty of backlot sets doubling for authentic foreign settings. The studio always clutched the purse strings rather tightly when producing mid-range fare such as this, but it doesn't mean these films were devoid of value. This particular production was based on a 1965 action adventure novel titled "Swamp Water" by Allan Williams, which is regarded as a straight-forward thriller. The film adaptation with a script by Charles Williams eschews the thrills in favor of laughs. The film opens in one of those conveniently unnamed-but-undesirable South American countries where we find James Garner arriving in a one-horse town. He's fashion photographer Ben Morris who is there to do a quick shoot before returning to the States. The subject of his fashion spread soon arrives: supermodel Alison Duguesne (Eva Renzi), and she's more than a bit put off by the primitive environment. Things go downhill from there. They find they are stranded when the only local helicopter is stolen. They are introduced to the local corrupt police chief, Colonel Celaya (Fabrizio Mioni), who is looking to squeeze them for any bribes he can get. Then there is Raul Ortega (Michael Ansara), a local shady character in his own right. I won't bother with detailing how all of these characters affect the story, as we're not outlining "Citizen Kane" here. Suffice it to say that both Ben and Alison find themselves on defense all the time among this stew of swindlers and killers. Things kick into high gear when they meet Sammy Reiderbeit (George Kennedy), a South African with an American accent (!). He's a volatile nut case who embroils them in a seemingly madcap scheme to find a hidden diamond mine. He has access to a map that supposedly outlines where it is located but it requires an arduous and dangerous journey to reach the area- and there are all sorts of villains on their trail trying to obtain the map at any cost.
"The Pink Jungle" is played strictly for laughs with Garner playing a typical Garner role: a man of action who can dispense punches and quips with equal skill. Kennedy plays a typical Kennedy role: a loud, crude boisterous type who is more brawn than brains. They form one of those uneasy partnerships to set off to find the gold only to encounter another disreputable character, McCune (Nigel Green) who joins the team even though no one trusts him. The first section of the film is shot entirely on the Universal backlot, though the art directors- Al Ybarra and and Alexander Golitzen- do succeed in making the seedy buildings seem convincing. Things only open up when the characters hit the mountains and desert (entirely filmed in California and Nevada). It's clear that Universal designed this movie for quick playoff. I'm not even certain it ever played as a main feature, as I recall as a kid seeing it as the bottom half of a double-bill with "Lady in Cement". Writing in his memoirs many years later, Garner dismissed the film thusly: "I made this thing for the money and I'm lucky it didn't wreck my career". That seems a bit harsh. If one approaches the film with modest expectations, they might be rewarded with some modest pleasures. Garner is always fun to watch and Eva Renzi, fresh from her success in "Funeral in Berlin", makes an appealing leading lady whose flirtatious relationship with Ben remains chaste, probably because they spend most of their time dodging assassination attempts. George Kennedy dominates every scene he's in as the cigar-chomping, erratic, yet likable madman who is obsessed with finding the diamond mine. Nigel Green's appearance mid-film adds some intrigue and he's fun to watch. Director Delbert Mann, like his cast members, would not have put this film near the top of his credentials. (He had directed the Oscar winner, "Marty"). However, his workmanlike direction here keeps the pace lively and the action flowing. Oh, and the ending does provide a bit of a surprise revelation.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents the film in a reasonably good transfer. The only bonus extra is the original trailer (which plays up George Kennedy's recent Oscar win for "Cool Hand Luke") and a gallery of other trailers for KL action movie releases.
Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film of Stephen King’s 1977 novel The
Shining is one of the most written about, most celebrated, most loved, most
hated, and most misunderstood motion pictures in the history of the medium. Its
hypnotic effect is undeniable, and countless books and articles have been
written in many languages about its purported hidden meanings and the on-set
difficulties that were encountered by the cast and crew on the nearly year-long
shooting schedule. One of the film’s biggest fans, film director Lee Unkrich
and caretaker of http://www.theoverlookhotel.com,
teamed with the late great author J.W. Rinzler on the ultimate book on the
making of the film: a 2,200-page tome from Taschen appropriately entitled Stanley
Kubrick’s The Shining, now available on the company website, just in time
for Jack Nicholson’s 86th birthday. Cinema Retro recently spoke with
Mr. Unkrich about the new book, twelve years in the making, and how it came
about.
Todd Garbarini: How did you first hear about Stanley
Kubrick’s The Shining?
Lee Unkrich: Honestly, I had no awareness of it
until my mom took me to see it. I had no knowledge or understanding of who
Stanley Kubrick was. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and I may have seen it at the
Randall Park Mall. I was 13 and I remember liking it. A few days after I saw
the movie, my mom was driving me to summer camp, and we stopped at a gas
station. They had a rack of paperback books, and they had the movie tie-in edition
of Stephen King’s novel. It had Saul Bass’s yellow and black poster art on the
front. I bought it, and I ended up reading it voraciously all summer at camp
and beyond. I still have the copy to this day. I think I realized right away
that the book was different in a lot of ways than the movie, but for me, it was
more of an extension of the film. We got a Betamax at some point, and I had to
wait until The Shining came out on video to see it again. I loved both
the movie and the book. In the middle of the paperback, there was a collection of
black and white film stills from the movie. One of the photos was from a scene
that I didn’t remember. It was a shot of Wendy cooking in the kitchen,
presumably making the breakfast that she then takes up to Jack who is just
waking up. I saw that and I started thinking, wow, if that was a scene that was
shot and cut, were there others?
TG: I saw The Shining on ABC-TV in May
1983 and became obsessed with it, too, watching it on home video shortly
afterwards. When we went to Florida on vacation in July, I found a used copy of
the movie tie-in, and saw the photo of Wendy that you mentioned and wondered
what happened to the scene.
LU: Somewhere roughly around the same
time, I read that there had been a hospital epilogue that Kubrick had cut out
of the film after its limited release. Between those two things, I just started
really becoming obsessed with trying to get my hands on a screenplay or any
more information about the film. I would say that the idea of trying to track
down ostensibly more of the movie that I loved was the beginning of this
obsession that built and grew and morphed over the subsequent decades. It was
the fact that I couldn’t find anything, frustratingly, because Kubrick held
such tight reins over it all. I’d get little tidbits here and there. I found a
few crumbs, but it honestly wasn’t until TheStanley Kubrick Archives
book by Allison Castle was published by Taschen in 2005 that I had my first
glimpse into the fact that there was a lot more material that existed in
Kubrick’s own archives. Then subsequently his family established the Kubrick
Archive after he passed away. It was when I was on a press tour for Toy
Story 3 that I managed to visit the archive for the first time and really
got to dive in deep for the first time and get answers to the questions I’d had
for decades.
TG: Did The Shining scare you when
you saw it?
LU: I don’t think so. It didn’t give me
nightmares or anything like that, and I’m an only child. My parents both
worked, so I was a latchkey kid. I was home alone a lot. I had a vivid
imagination. I liked reading scary things. I liked scaring myself, but then
that would extend into bad scaring where I’d be alone and think someone was in
the house, or a statue that we had was alive, or all kinds of crazy stuff. My
parents fought a lot. They ended up divorcing by the time I was nine, so I knew
what it was like to be the child of an unstable marriage. All of that, there
were just so many elements to the movie, coupled with its tone and its
uncanniness, and how it gets under your skin, that I think it just really
wormed its way into me in a way and just never left.
TG: Your new book looks beautiful and vast
in scope, covering intimate aspects of the film’s production. It’s a book that could
never have been published without the inclusion of the Kubrick family. How
involved were they?
LU: They were very involved, and they were
amazing. What I had that was the most helpful was Stanley’s daughter, Vivian, who
made the documentary on the making of The Shining that has been
available on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra High Definition. She sat Jack and
everyone down for interviews around the time the film was completed and I got
my hands on the transcripts and those full interviews, including Jack’s, which
is like a two-hour interview. That’s the most helpful because he’d just made
the movie. He’s young and he remembers everything. I would have loved to have
met Jack, of course. I know fully that the book itself wasn’t harmed in any way
because he wasn’t involved. It’s just full of him through and through but very
thoroughly. We sent him a few copies of the book that just got to his house within
the past few weeks. I’m looking forward to hearing his thoughts about it.
(Photo courtesy of Lee Unkrich.)
TG: Did you talk to Steven Spielberg about The
Shining? I know he said he wasn’t crazy about the film the first time he
saw it because he felt that Jack was nuts from the word go.
LU: Yes, we spoke multiple times and he wrote
the foreword. Kubrick was mostly interested in Steven because he was fascinated
with how Steven had made such a huge blockbuster in Jaws. He was just
constantly peppering him with questions about Jaws and the marketing. If
Stanley was talking to you, usually it was because you had some information
that he wanted, and that was true for Spielberg as well.
TG: Did you speak at length with Leon
Vitali (Stanley Kubrick’s personal assistant)?
LU: I did, yes. I spent a lot of time with
Leon. He was extremely helpful to me at many junctures throughout the making of
the book. I was, of course, devastated when he died suddenly last summer, that
he never got to see the finished book because he was really honestly the person
I probably wanted to see it the most. He was just a very sweet, kind man. He
had a very complicated relationship with Stanley, but it was loving. I just had
enormous respect for him and how he just essentially gave his life over in many
ways to Stanley. Then even in the decades after Stanley’s death, he did
everything he could to fight the fight and make sure that everything was
presented and handled in a way that Stanley would’ve wanted. Sitting down with
Leon, especially in showing him photos, because I had hundreds that nobody had
seen before, many of them I got from the Danny Lloyd family, it would instantly
bring up stories that he probably never would’ve summoned or remembered.
TG: I’ve seen the film well over fifty
times, and yet I’m still seeing things that I never noticed!
LU: I know! It’s because we’re in this
digital age now where people can do frame grabs and overlay them. If you look
at the Colorado lounge set throughout that movie, practically every scene,
there are major differences from one scene to the next in terms of how the
furniture is laid out, where lamps are, for example. It’s because Stanley didn’t
care about continuity because he knew nobody would notice. What he did care
about were individual compositions. If a lamp in the background was coming out
of someone’s shoulder in a weird way, he’d say, “Get the lamp out of there.” He
didn’t care.
(Photo: Taschen)
TG: What did you stumble across that you
had absolutely no idea about, that was revelatory to you?
LU: I saw lots of stuff in the Kubrick
Archive that made me think, “What the hell is this?” An example of that would
be, I found all these outtake frames, most of which are reproduced in the book.
These are actual compositions, frames from set-ups, from shots and scenes that
Kubrick shot that aren’t in the finished film. A lot of them I could figure out
from drafts of the screenplay and shooting scripts, shot logs, all that I could
figure out. Like the scrapbook, for instance. It used to play a big part in the
movie (as it does in the novel). You can see it on Jack’s desk while he’s
typing. No reference is made to it in the finished film, but there were lots of
scenes about it. There was a whole scene where he found it. There were scenes
of him becoming obsessed with it. There was a scene of him showing it to Wendy.
There was a scene of him going back and looking at it again after he saw the
old woman in room 237. There was a lot of stuff having to do with that. I saw
all those frames, and I was able to figure out what they were. Then there were
other things as well. One in particular, where I never found any reference to
it anywhere, nor did I speak to anyone who remembered it. That was when Jack is
wandering around the hotel with writer’s block where he’s throwing the tennis
ball. He ends up in the lobby of the hotel, and he wanders over to the maze
model. There’s a model of the hedge maze in the lobby. He looks down at it, and
Kubrick cuts to this weird shot that’s almost like the maze in Jack’s mind. It’s
like a maze that’s far bigger and more elaborate than the model sitting on the
table in front of him. As you know, he slowly zooms in on that, and you see a
tiny little Wendy and Danny walking around in the center of the maze. I found
some footage of that same oversized maze model that had been completely
redressed to be encrusted with snow. Sitting in the middle of it was a tiny
frozen Jack. I found both the head and the tail of that shot. It was a slow
zoom. I’m presuming it was a slow zoom-out from frozen Jack. I’m guessing that
Kubrick had an idea and intended, possibly after the shot of him frozen in the
snow, that he would cut to this God’s eye view of the maze and Jack frozen in
it, and just slowly zoom out to reveal him just getting lost in this endless
labyrinth before then presumably dissolving through to the hospital epilogue. I
talked to Les Tomkins, the man who built that maze model, but he had no memory
of the snowy version.
TG: How many people did you interview for
the book?
LU: Seventy-two. I spoke with Kelvin Pike
at his house, and he has the coffee table from room 237 in his living room. When
I was over at Jan Harlan’s
(Kubrick’s brother-in-law) house, Jan has a guest bedroom in the bathroom. He
did a renovation right around the time they finished The Shining, and so
the bathtub in his guest bathroom is the bathtub from room 237.
TG: That’s arguably cinema’s most famous
(and peculiar) bathroom.
LU: I talked a lot with (assistant editor) Gordon Stainforth
who was very helpful to me with the things that he was able to be helpful with,
which is Vivian’s documentary and the cutting of music on The Shining,
which he ended up doing most of. I met Greg
MacGillivray a few times (whose company shot the
opening in Montana). He ended up providing a lot of photographs as well for the
book. He had a big archive. He went to visit the set twice, and Stanley allowed
him to take photos. He had a whole bunch of photos from the second unit shoot,
the helicopter stuff at the beginning of the movie. He graciously gave me
access to his entire library of mostly slides. Some black and white negatives.
It was mostly color slides. Greg is one of two people I spoke to who I really
am convinced has a photographic memory. Vivian was very friendly. I spent two
whole days with her down in Florida, but she was very selective about what she
would talk about. She gave me an amazing artifact, this continuity script that
the script supervisor, Joan Randall, had given her at the end of production. I
was shocked that she’d entrusted me with it. She popped it in the mail, and it showed
up at my office at Pixar. I opened it, and I just about died because it was
this amazing working screenplay with notes all over it, and fragments of paper
right out of Stanley’s typewriter on the set, taped in, and continuity
Polaroids. It was amazing. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, it’s such a shame
that no one is going to get to see this in its entirety.” But, as it worked
out, as we figured out what this collector’s edition of the book was going to
be, I ended up pitching the idea of doing an exact facsimile of this script and
Taschen went forward with it after Vivian gave us approval. Everyone who buys
this collector’s edition gets this. Other than it not having actual photos
taped and glued into it, it’s an exact replica of that screenplay.
TG: Nice! I read that Vivian had shot
roughly 45 to 50 hours on the set during principal photography.
LU: That’s exactly what it is. Yes, 50
hours.
TG: She keeps that close to her vest. She’s
not releasing it. Did you see any of this footage beyond the widely available 30-minute
documentary?
LU: No. There were little clippings,
16-millimeter clippings of it in the archive, all of which I scanned and used
as stills in the book. Jan used some bits of it in his film Stanley Kubrick
– A Life in Pictures. There are some bits from The Shining that are
not in Vivian’s documentary. The family defers to Vivian on that footage
because it was her film. Ultimately, I think Warner Brothers probably owns it,
but in terms of the relationship with the family and the estate, everyone
defers to Vivian, and she just is very adamant about no one ever seeing it.
TG: I know that a lot of viewers probably
felt that Stanley really worked over Shelley Duvall on this film.
LU: Exactly, and nothing could be further
from the truth. Was it a difficult shoot? Yes. Did Shelley have to summon
hysteria and cry on a daily basis sometimes for a big stretch of the last part
of the production? Yes. Was she abused? No, I don’t believe she was abused.
When I talk about this, I really try not to have my own opinion, even though I
do have my own opinion based on everyone I’ve talked to. At the end of the day,
I think that the only person who can really speak on the subject is Shelley. I
have interviews with Shelley, and I spent a whole day with her. We talked about
this, and Shelley remembers Stanley warmly. Shelley is proud of her work on
that film. Shelley will say, “Yes, it was difficult. Yes, it was taxing.” It
was a taxing role and she knew what she was getting into in terms of what the
role demanded, and she took the part. She’s proud of her work.
TG: I am eagerly looking forward to seeing
this book. It looks astonishing. Thank you for all your hard work and
dedication for making this a reality.
LU: It was a pleasure. Thank you.
Stanley Kubrick’s The
Shining limited edition collector's edition (1,000) is
available for purchase from Taschen.Click here.
(Lee Unkrich's credits as film director include Coco, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 and as co-director of Finding Nemo.)
Ok,
its opening weekend was, um, anemic and it seems critics’ long wooden stakes
have been out for "Renfield", but as a longtime fan of the thirsty count in all
his cinematic forms, I found the film to be a highly enjoyable cinematic homage.
Over
the decades, an elite group of actors have donned the black cape – Bela Lugosi,
John Carradine, Christopher Lee, Jack Palance (in Dan Curtis’ 1974 made-for), Gary
Oldman, Claes Bang (in the BBC’s 2020 mini-series) and now Nicolas Cage joins
the unholy brotherhood. Cage, a skilled and still underrated actor despite
winning a Best Actor Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas, has an absolute blast as
Dracula. Director Chris McKay, working from a script by Ryan Ridley, created a
canvas of vivid colors and over the top action set in modern-day New Orleans. Their
Count does all the things we’ve learned to expect from a vampire – turn into
bats, vaporize into dust, drink blood (in a martini glass) and embody pure
evil.The filmmakers paid attention to
the details – a vampire must be welcomed into a house and there’s a shot of
Dracula stepping over a “welcome” mat.As
every horror fan knows, vampires are allergic to sun so they included an
intense sequence where Dracula is burned to a crisp by daylight – echoes of
Christopher Lee’s crumbling demise in Horror of Dracula 64 years earlier.There is also a clever tribute to Lugosi’s
Dracula where the Count and Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) faithfully recreate
several scenes from the 1931 original.
Hoult,
so good as the starstruck foodie in "The Menu", is terrific in the title role as the
vampire’s lackey who seems slightly bewildered by his long servitude and now wants
to break free from his boss from hell.The production team spared no expense on visuals – Dracula swoops across
the screen, throws people across rooms and severs limbs (as did Renfield, who
drew his superpowers from eating bugs). Rapper/comedian Awkwafina plays a gutsy
beat cop who becomes Renfield’s love interest – although their chemistry is
weak at best and their relationship never really goes anywhere.But the marquee draw here is Cage as Dracula
and he totally eats the role up - snarling, threatening, slashing and oozing an
oily charm.
Deep
thinking isn’t needed for "Renfield", instead it’s a bloody rollercoaster ride
that’s exactly what a shell-shocked, post-Covid audience needs – laughs, gore
and cinema’s most iconic monster, played with real gusto by an actor who isn’t
afraid to have fun and let it rip.Grab
your garlic – or martini glass full of tomato juice and enjoy!
The
1957 romantic comedy, The Prince and the Showgirl has likely received
more press about what went on behind the scenes and the notorious animosity
that existed between the two stars, Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. The
latter was also producer and director of the picture, although the production
company was the first title made by the newly-formed Marilyn Monroe
Productions. The 2011 picture (was it that long ago?), My Week with Marilyn,
featuring Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, depicted the stormy relationship
between Monroe and Olivier and how Monroe behaved rather, well, erratically and
irrationally toward her director/co-star, other actors, the cinematographer,
the costumer, and nearly everyone else on the set. The actress even brought
something of a “support coach” with her every day in the form of Paula
Strasberg, who, with her husband Lee, ran the Actors Studio.
Unless
one had actually seen the real movie, The Prince and the Showgirl,
one came away from My Week with Marilyn with the impression that Monroe
was a mess, that Olivier hated her guts, and that the movie they made was a
disaster.
The
Prince and the Showgirl is actually a charming, well-acted, funny, and
touching piece of work. This reviewer is happy to say that Marilyn Monroe is marvelous
in the role of Elsie Marina, a chorus line showgirl of a musical playing in
London’s West End in 1911, when the picture takes place. Monroe displays impressive
comic timing and wit, does a pratfall or two with aplomb, and categorially
holds her own against the likes of renowned thespian Olivier. He, too, is quite
winning, even though his accent as a “Carpathian” prince regent (from the
Balkans) sometimes causes one’s eyebrows to rise. But make no mistake—this
movie belongs to Monroe, and this reviewer would easily cite her performance
here ranked in her top five.
Funny
how the bad rep of a movie and its making clouds what one really sees on the
screen.
Granted,
The Prince and the Showgirl was received with lukewarm praise upon its
release. The BAFTAs honored it with several nominations, including Actor,
“Foreign” Actress, Screenplay, and British Film. It received no Academy Award
nominations. The film did very well in the UK, likely due to Olivier’s presence.
Perhaps the picture’s indifferent reception in the USA was due to its rather
slow pace, length (a few minutes under two hours), and the fact that the story
takes place mostly in static one-room sequences of the Carpathian Embassy.
That’s not surprising, because the movie is based on a stage play, The
Sleeping Prince, by Terrence Rattigan, who also penned the screenplay.
Perhaps Rattigan adhered too closely to the conventions of the stage. All of
these things are indeed flaws in the motion picture.
Still…
this is a worthwhile romantic comedy on the strength of the two leads,
especially Monroe’s luminous performance. Not only does she look fantastic, as
always, but she truly does light up the screen with charisma, warmth, and
delight. Other standouts in the cast would include Richard Wattis, who nearly
steals the movie as the frustrated foreign office suit who is charged with
keeping the prince happy during his stay in London, Sybil Thorndike as the
prince’s dowdy but often frank mother-in-law, and Jeremy Spenser as the
prince’s son, King Nicolas, who to this reviewer resembles what Quentin
Tarantino might have looked like at the age of sixteen.
The
Warner Archive has released a region-free, beautifully rendered, restored presentation of
the feature film in high definition. That 1950s-era Technicolor pops out, and
the costumes are undeniably gorgeous. Unfortunately, the only supplement on the
disk is the theatrical trailer.
The
Prince and the Showgirl is enthusiastically recommended for fans of Marilyn
Monroe. Fans of Olivier, who does what he can when someone so appealing is
sharing the screen with him, will find it interesting. For this reviewer’s
money, The Prince and the Showgirl is far more enjoyable than My Week
with Marilyn, which now seems to be a rather sordid coda to this romantic
comedy bauble.
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Seven years after his blockbuster success producing the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, Irwin Allen revisited the same story for a sequel, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. The 1979 film represents all the reasons that sequels to most hit films are generally disdained. Yes, there was The Godfather trilogy to buck the trend, but there were also those God-awful sequels to Jaws. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure opens the morning after the capsizing of the cruise ship. Michael Caine is Mike Turner, the financially destitute captain of a small vessel who is facing bankruptcy after losing his cargo in the same violent storm that destroyed the Poseidon. On board his boat are his first mate Wilbur (Karl Malden) and Celeste Whitman (Sally Field), a perky but klutzy young drifter the men have befriended. They stumble upon the capsized wreck of the Poseidon and Turner immediately smells financial opportunity in the tragedy. If he can make his way through the hull and down to the purser's office, he can raid the safe and abscond with the riches that are inevitably stored there. This is the first of any number of absurdities in the script. With the Poseidon the worst maritime disaster since the Titanic, Turner and his crew discover that, with the exception of one French copter that is conveniently leaving the scene upon their arrival, there is literally no other sign of the international rescue forces that would be omnipresent at the scene. Instead, after rescuing the few people who managed to make it onto the hull in the preceding film, those forces are in no hurry to get additional manpower to the scene in order to search for additional survivors before the ship sinks the bottom of the ocean. Inexplicably, while the rescue forces can't make a timely arrival at the scene, a small craft under the command of Captain Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas) does. Svevo claims he is a doctor who is there with his crew to enter the ship and search for any survivors. (Absurdity #2: Svevo is about to undertake this arduous, grimy and potentially deadly task while attired in a snow white designer suit!). Turner buys his story and forms and uneasy alliance with Svevo and his team, who are also clad all in white and resemble some of those bands of henchmen from the old Batman TV series.
Once inside the ship, movie magic takes over and the group finds every chamber to be brightly lit, thus making it possible to move about freely. True, there is the hazardous task of finding your way around an upside down vessel, but that problem is solved when they conveniently find a map that lays out precisely where everything is located. Soon, Turner discovers what even the most naive viewer has already realized: that Svevo is actually a villain with his own agenda. In the third major absurdity, we learn that the Poseidon was transporting plutonium that Svevo wants to acquire for nefarious purposes relating to bomb- building. As if that isn't enough, it turns out the ship was also transporting a huge shipment of assault weapons and stockpiles of ammunition. It's a wonder there was any room for those joyous conga lines to dance around on that fatal New Years Eve.
Since a hallmark of any Irwin Allen film is the presence of respected actors peppered throughout the production, it isn't long before familiar faces start popping up in every room, like those celebrities who used to stick their heads of windows and make wise-cracks on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Slim Pickens, in full scenery-chewing hayseed mode, comes stumbling out of nowhere, drunk and protecting a precious bottle of wine. He pretends to be a Texas tycoon but it turns out he was the ship's wine steward and regards the bottle of expensive vino as a symbol of his life long dream to acquire the lifestyle that has always eluded him. Then there is Shirley Jones, who emerges and announces that she is a registered nurse, which is certainly more practical to the group than if she were a butcher by trade. Angela Cartwright is a young woman who was on the cruise with her father, a bull-headed Archie Bunker type played by an unusually over-the-top and embarrassing Peter Boyle. Every Allen film needs a sympathetic older couple to wring a few tears from from the audience so this time we have Shirley Knight and Jack Warden substituting for the previous film's Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson. Allen throws in the kitchen sink by making Warden play a blind man. Not to be politically incorrect, but the sequences of Warden stumbling around the upside down wreck of the Poseidon with a cane and wearing sunglasses begins to resemble a Monty Python sketch. Then there is Veronica Hamel as the prerequisite "bad girl" who slinks around in a drenched evening gown showing ample cleavage- oh, and Mark Harmon has a major role as a young hunk who finds love with Angela Cartwright in the bowels of the sinking ship. If that isn't enough, we learn that lovable ol' Karl Malden's character is terminally ill and the symptoms manifest themselves while he's holed up in the upside down ship. (Somehow Allen showed restraint by not introducing killer sharks to the mix.)
Irwin Allen had the good sense to have seasoned directors Ronald
Neame and John Guillerman direct his two biggest blockbusters, The
Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno and they remain enormously
entertaining films. However, he became convinced that he could save a
few bucks by doing the job himself. Thus, the man known for making
disaster movies became better known for the man who made disastrous
movies. The first slip was The Swarm, a 1978 flapadoodle that we always
refer to as the worst "Bee" movie of all time. The movie was a bomb but
that didn't teach star Michael Caine and co-star Slim Pickens a darn
thing, since they re-teamed with Allen right away for Beyond the
Poseidon Adventure. (Many years later, Caine said he was ashamed of this
period of his career when he took virtually any job in order to earn an
easy pay check.) With Allen back in the director's chair, Beyond was
destined to be another camp classic and it has the look and feel of a TV
movie. Caine looks understandably embarrassed, Field is in Flying Nun
cutesy mode and Savalas channels his inner Blofeld as the villain. Allen
packs in everything from an ax murder (!) to a full blown shoot-out in
which every day people turn out to be as adept at handling machine guns
as Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. There
are some reasonably impressive sets on view but many of the special
effects are sub-par. The most hilarious are found in the opening frames
in which we see Caine at the helm of his storm-tossed boat in the midst
of a hurricane. The sequence was apparently filmed with the ship on
rockers and the violent rainstorm was simulated apparently by having
some guy off camera spray garden hoses. It's quite possibly the
cheesiest effect I've ever seen in a modern, major studio production.
The Warner Archive has released Beyond the Poseidon Adventure only on DVD. With the film itself a dud, there is at least the
saving grace of an interesting bonus extra: a vintage 22 minute TV
special about the making of the film. It affords some excellent behind
the scenes views of the production and makes it clear that a lot of
talented people put a great deal of work into creating films that often
turn out badly. There are also some nice trailers for the main feature,
The Swarm, Twister and The Perfect Storm. Even bad movies need some love, so how about a Blu-ray release of "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure"?
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
Here is the original 1969 U.S. trailer for director Brian G. Hutton's WWII classic "Where Eagles Dare" starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure.
Click here to order Cinema Retro's "Where Eagles Dare" 116-page tribute issue.
By Darren Allison, Cinema Retro Soundtracks Editor
It was back in 2005 that I last reviewed Guido
and Maurizio De Angelis’s Piedone a Hong Kong (1975). A multi layered and
hugely enjoyable score to the Bud Spencer poliziotteschi-comedy film directed
by Stefano Vanzina (aka Steno). Piedone a Hong Kong was the second of four
"Flatfoot" films, all of which featured Spencer as the Naples Police
Inspector "Flatfoot" Rizzo. In 2005 it was the new Digitmovies CD,
which in itself was a nicely produced album consisting of 70 minutes of music.
Some eighteen years on, Chris’ Soundtrack
Corner decided to dig a little deeper and as a result, produced a super two-CD
version of Piedone a Hong Kong (CSC 035), the label’s first two-disc release. Rizzo's signature theme composed for the first
film embodied the De Angelis' penchant for flavourful, catchy melodies. The
theme was carried over into all four movies and naturally became the primary
motif heard in Piedone a Hong Kong. This time, it was aided by an exotic
electric guitar that works well to identify the luxurious Hong Kong landscape
as well as accommodating Rizzo's cheerful, uninhibited nature, just as it would
later in the detective's adventures in Africa and Egypt. Reprising their
infectious main theme from the first Piedone movie, brothers Guido &
Maurizio De Angelis weave their way through Piedone a Hong Kong with a
delightful array of tuneful themes etched with a degree of ethnic Asian music
which energise Rizzo's journey, all of which treats the film's humour and dramatic
action with an equal degree of light-hearted fun and exciting suspense music.
It’s a blend that might seem a little awkward on paper, but it works tremendously
well as a listening experience.
Chris' Soundtrack Corner’s new extended two-CD
edition now consists of 101 minutes of music, incorporating the complete film
score. Disc one (the score) includes a great deal of previously unreleased cues,
while the second disc provides an impressive collection (19 tracks) of
alternative versions, different mixes and the A and B sides of the original
Italian 7” single release (CAM AMP 153) from 1975.
There has obviously been a great deal of
thought behind this release, and Chris' Soundtrack Corner have made sure this
is not just another standard re-issue. There’s an entirely new, fresh vibrancy
about this edition, not only in its content and audio quality (excellently produced
by Christian Riedrich and mastered by Manmade Mastering), but in its packaging
too. A 16-page, full colour illustrated booklet designed by Tobias Kohlhaas accompanies
the CD’s and features detailed, exclusive notes by Randall D. Larson, who
explores the making of the film as well as the score in fine detail. A super
release which deserved of much praise.
It's probably fair to say that Le ultime ore di una vergine (1972) (CSC 040) wasn’t
widely seen outside of it’s native Italy. The film was also known by various
other titles such as The last hours of a virgin, Un Doppio A Meta and Double by
half for its limited American release. However, you’d still be excused had it
passed you by. As so often is the case, it is the music to such obscure titles
that often lives on beyond that of the film itself - and Daniele Patucchi's Le ultime ore di una vergine is no exception to that
rule.
In the 1970s, the genre of Italian melodramas
found fresh and innovative ways to discuss heavy topics against the backdrop of
romantic stories. Until abortion was made legal in 1978, Italian filmmakers
shot dramas cantering around the issue with varying degrees of good taste. Le
ultime ore di una vergine is one of the more constructively made examples of
these ‘abortion’ dramas. The film was co-written and directed by Gianfranco
Piccioli and features a relatively small cast, including Massimo Farinelli (his
last movie) as Enrico, a photographer. Laura, his pregnant girlfriend, is
played by the American-born actress Sydne Rome, perhaps best known as the
fetish-geared archaeologist hypnotised by Donald Pleasence in the rather
dreadful The Pumaman (1980). Enrico's deceitful journalist friend Roberto is played
by Don Backy. But through all of the unfolding drama of Le ultime ore di una
vergine, there's only one winning aspect of the movie, and that's Daniele
Patucchi’s score.
Whilst the Turin born composer has scored
over 50 films, his work has never tended to fall into the realms of mainstream consciousness,
which is a genuine pity as he really deserves much more attention. The score's
central theme is introduced in "Titoli" and is written for the female
character which curiously enough Patucchi titled "Sydne's Theme," basing
it after the actress rather than her character's name. There are also brilliant
recurring motives for other aspects of the story. "I mendicanti"
collects several cues that use the same propulsive energy for a montage
highlighting the various swindles all captured with a POV style of camera. The
score also provides a few suspense cues. In what is arguably the film's strangest
moments, Enrico attends a magic show prompting the composer to provide a seemingly
self-contained cue for one of the story's visually most interesting sequences.
There are also some wonderful, almost improvised, electronic forms of scat
vocals peppered throughout the score where the singer improvises melodies and
rhythms rather than words. Delicate, haunting whispers also fluctuate through certain
cues - all of which work particularly well and really add to the score’s unique
footprint.
This is a world premiere release of the
film's soundtrack – although certain tracks have made their way on various
library compilations of Daniele Patucchi's music in
the past. As mentioned above, this has been fairly typical of Patucchi's recognition,
and the full score as a complete package, is far more beneficial in respects of
Patucchi’s talents as a composer. The CD has two bonus sections, opening with
the record versions of certain cues, which includes the unused version of
"Tema per Sydne," which was originally to appear on the soundtrack
but was actually removed from the film. The second half of the bonus section
includes all the source music heard in the movie including the vocal track "I
Love You More Than Life" with lyrics by Norman Newell.
The audio, again produced by Christian
Riedrich and mastered by Manmade Mastering, is clean and sharp throughout. The
CD is accompanied by a 12-page illustrated booklet featuring detailed notes by
Gergely Hubai. An excellent job for what could have easily become a forgotten
score. Kudos to Chris' Soundtrack Corner
for rescuing it from potential obscurity.
Piero Piccioni’s ...Dopo Di Che, Uccide Il Maschio E Lo Divora (1971) (CSC
041) has, in terms of its soundtrack history, had a somewhat varied life. As a
composer, Piccioni’s work is still highly regarded. Despite that, ...Dopo Di
Che, Uccide Il Maschio E Lo Divora remained a score that perhaps has not been
fully recognised in the past – despite a couple of incarnations. The standard
11 tracks did make their way onto a 2001 Piccioni CD (Screentrax CDST 335)
where it was paired up alongside music from Due Maschi Per Alexa (1971) and La Volpe
Dalla Coda Di Velluto (1971). In later years, it appeared in 2019 under its
American title Marta as a limited edition (300 copies) pressed on white vinyl
and released by Quartet Records (QRLP10) of Spain. Yet, despite of all its bells
and whistles, and in respects of its content, this only contained 12 tracks.
To set the scene, the film is a dramatic
thriller about a wealthy landowner (Miguel) haunted by the spectre of his dead
mother. When Miguel has an affair with a beautiful fugitive who bears a
striking resemblance to his missing wife (who has possibly run away or may have
been murdered) things turn decidedly awkward. Based on a play by Juan José
Alonso Millán, who also co-wrote the screenplay, the film was directed by
Spanish filmmaker José Antonio Nieves Conde. His influence
for the story was not so much the Giallo atmosphere of Dario Argento, as perhaps
some might suspect from its wordy Italian title, but more from the films of
Alfred Hitchcock. Featuring a psychopath linked to a mother and whose hobby is
collecting insects instead of taxidermy, plus a notorious weakness of spying on
beautiful women from hidden holes in the walls, the influences were pretty hard
to ignore.Miguel was played by Irish
actor Stephen Boyd (Ben-Hur, Fantastic Voyage) with Austrian actress Marisa Mell playing both Marta and the missing wife, Pilar. Mell
became very popular in Europe - especially in Italy, where she co-starred in Danger:
Diabolik and many other genre movies. At the time of filming, Boyd was in a
real relationship with Mell, so their charged, on-screen sexuality extended further
beyond their mere dedication to the acting profession.
Piero Piccioni's
score is an interesting and engaging mélange of original cues along with a
large variety of library music or cues tracked in from other films. The
repetition of motifs, textures, and full-on themes throughout the score assertively
integrates the music with the drama playing out on screen. Even with a variety
of individual tracks and musical sequences, Piccioni ties most of them together
by recognisable instrumental patterns and designs that characterise the
uncertain and potentially dangerous liaison between Marta, Pilar, and Miguel. Chris'
Soundtrack Corner have certainly taken up the challenge of ...Dopo Di Che,
Uccide Il Maschio E Lo Divora and its previous shortcomings. For their
presentation, they have opened this expanded release with Piccioni's original
11 album tracks followed by a further 19 tracks featuring the film versions, 17
of which are previously unreleased. There is also another alternate version of
the vocal track "Right or Wrong" sung by the golden voiced American songstress,
Shawn Robinson. As a result, the soundtrack now has a more rounded feel to it
and makes for a ‘fully grown’ listening experience and deserved of a ‘Mission Accomplished’
sticker.
As with their other releases, the score is
beautifully produced by Christian Riedrich and mastered by Manmade Mastering.
The CD is accompanied by a 12-page illustrated booklet featuring detailed notes
by Randall D. Larson. Overall, an excellent trilogy of releases that continue
to see the label grow in both style and stature.
Here is the acclaimed scene between Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's 1954 Oscar winner, "On the Waterfront". The landmark scene shows what great screen acting is all about.
Colin Quinn's latest one-man comedy show, "Small Talk" has arrived at the historic Greenwich Theatre in the heart of Greenwich Village. Quinn, a former "Saturday Night Live" cast member, has acquired a loyal following, as evidenced by the fact that this is his seventh such stage production, two of which were directed by Jerry Seinfeld. (This one is directed by James Fauvell). Not having seen any of these previous shows, I accepted the invitation to review this production with an open mind and no particular expectations. Quinn is quite the raconteur, weighing in on many aspects of modern life. In this case, as the show's title indicates, he spends much of his time on the subject of small talk and bemoaning his conclusion that this form of societal intercourse is going the way of the dodo bird and leisure suits. Quinn's thesis is that throughout history, it is the seemingly benign art of making inconsequential conversation that has kept humanity from engaging in complete anarchy because it often forces people with adversarial points of view to engage in at least the basics of civil behavior. Quinn cites the culprits who caused the breakdown of small talk and their names aren't legion, but rather Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Quinn postures that their achievement in making personal computers accessible to the average person has led to diminishing social skills, a dilemma that has only intensified with rapidly expanding technology. It's hard to argue with his logic in an age in which people seem to favor virtual friends over the company of living, breathing human beings. A recent study shows that a shocking percentage of young adult males are losing interest in sex because they prefer on-line relationships to real-life lovers, although considering the cost of going on a date in today's world, maybe they aren't quite as crazy as they appear. Quinn ridicules people who spend too much of their life posting their thoughts on social media and decrees that anyone who posts more than five times a day should seek psychiatric care. He has grappled with his own human weaknesses from the terror of having narrowly survived a heart attack to his successful battle against alcoholism. (In a recent interview, he admits to having been banned from the famed New York watering hole, McSorley's Old Ale House, a seemingly impossible feat if you've frequented the venue.)
Quinn starts off the show with a barrage of comedic observations delivered with the rapidity of a blazing machine gun. There's no warming up in the bullpen because he's got a lot to say and only a self-imposed 70-minute timeline in which to say it. I don't like citing specific jokes when covering comedy acts because it's akin to giving away spoilers in a movie review. Besides, it's possible that many of Quinn's quips might come across as flat as a pancake in print. You have to be in the room with him for the full impact and the Greenwich House Theatre provides an intimate setting that is the perfect venue. Everyone is close enough to the stage to arrive at the belief that Quinn is addressing them personally. It takes only seconds for the laughs to begin, as he weighs in on the most uncomfortable setting in which people have to make small talk: an elevator. He observes that one's choice of words to a total stranger can seem vacuous at best or downright creepy at worst. Like a grumpy but amusing bar patron, Quinn moves beyond small talk through his personal list of people and things that he finds annoying. He vents against the public's embracing of fast food chains, postulating that in the distant future, archaeologists will believe that McDonald's signature "Golden Arches" will indicate places of worship. He says that people's social media profiles indicate who they think they are but their browser histories reveal who they really are, which is an uncomfortable but indisputably true observation.
While Quinn doesn't work "clean", as his colleague Jim Gaffigan does, he doesn't engage in profanity for the sheer sake of shock value, as is the norm with many prominent standup comedians. He has the combined traits of the classic New Yawk comedian, with elements of Lenny Bruce combined with social observations akin to those of Jackie Mason, Woody Allen and Mort Sahl. His political targets are surprisingly few and are balanced. He decries the far left for being politically correct hypocrites who are in a constant state of making cringe-inducing apologies for injustices that they had nothing to do with creating. As for the far right, he dismisses them as being simply stupid. The only positive comments he makes are in tribute to his friend and fellow "SNL" cast member, the late Norm MacDonald, who he clearly misses and admires greatly.
The audience roared with laughter throughout the show. I may have missed Quinn's six previous stage productions but I won't miss the next. This is stand-up comedy at it's best.
"Colin Quinn: Small" talk runs through May 6. Click here for tickets and information.
Way back in 1971 when I was in high school, there seemed to be a tidal wave of soft-core porn flicks, mostly imported from Europe and dubbed rather crudely into English. I never sought to spend the paltry contents of my wallet on these tame sex movies movies because I lived directly across the river from Times Square and that offered my friends and I the real forbidden fruit in sleazy, grind house movie theaters. Age was no barrier as long as you were willing to pay the then tidy sum of $5. However, the softcore Euro imports did find enthusiastic audiences in places where there weren't many alternatives to finding cinematic "adult entertainment". The films were generally rated "X" but were pretty tame, stressing humor to overcome objections from local killjoys who thought the idea of seeing some naked people on screen would condemn their entire community to eternal damnation. One of the most profitable of these films was the 1969 release, "The Stewardesses", which was so tame that it could be shown on Disney+ today. Nevertheless, these films afforded women to get a few cheap thrills without having to suffer the stigma of being seen entering a theater showing hardcore fare. Thus, plenty of couples enjoyed the opportunity to share in date nights that somewhat pushed the envelope in terms of general standards. The films were generally bestowed with memorable titles, which is why I remember the newspaper ads for "Dagmar's Hot Pants" and similar fare such as "The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried". The good news is that some of these films have been lovingly presented on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, in collaboration with Code Red. When a screener arrived of "Dagmar's Hot Pants", I took an immediate interest, remembering hot pants as one of those short-lived fashion trends of the 1970s. For those readers who were not around way back then, the gimmick with hot pants was a simple one: they were very short and very tight and left little to the imagination. Although my high school had a very liberal dress code (jeans and T shirts were the norm), I do recall one of my female classmates pushing the envelope by wearing hot pants to class. That was a bridge too far and she was summarily sent home to change into something less offensive, much to the consternation of her male classmates. At least hot pants were provocative and sensible, as opposed to the male fashions of the era such as the leisure suit and safari jacket, the latter of which was a dress/casual abomination that looked as though it was designed to allow a man to hunt elephants in the morning and then attend a swank cocktail party in the evening without changing attire.
I looked forward to viewing "Dagmar's Hot Pants" simply to see an abundance of this long-forgotten fashion trend glorified on screen. Alas, I was snookered, as was anyone back in the day who paid to see the film. You see, there are no hot pants in "Dagmar's Hot Pants". They are neither shown nor discussed. It was simply a case of a shamelessly deceptive marketing campaign to capitalize on a recent fashion trend. Oh, well.The film itself presents lovely Diana Kjaer in the title role, playing a fabulously successful young woman who has emerged as one of Copenhagen's most in-demand hookers. Dagmar's daily schedule of meeting with clients from around the globe is frantic and she sometimes has to call on the services of fellow prostitutes to assist her in meeting some of the more unusual demands of her customers. The film takes a humorous view of all this, as we see Dagmar patiently keeping a straight face while interacting with oddball clients ranging from two goofy Japanese businessmen who want an orgy to horny local businessmen of some esteem, including a doctor who pays Dagmar to initiate his teenage son in the ways of the world. The only "normal" client Dagmar services is a member of Copenagen's Vice Squad, who ensures she doesn't get busted in return for sexual favors. One of her adoring clients is a gruff, but rich American businessman played by Robert Strauss...yes, that Robert Strauss who had earned an Oscar nomination for Billy Wilder's "Stalag 13". It's a bit uncomfortable seeing the sixty-something actor engaging in a sexual dalliance with Dagmar but presumably the lure of a quick paycheck and a trip to Copenhagen made for an offer Strauss couldn't refuse. If Robert Strauss has always figured into your fantasies, then your ship has come in. Throughout the story, Dagmar is keeping a big secret as she arranges to leave her lucrative business for a top secret venture. "That's it!", I thought- she's going into the hot pants manufacturing business, but alas, the answer is somewhat more mundane and disappointing. There are a couple of minor efforts to introduce some dramatic scenes into the slapstick. Dagmar lends her desperate brother money so that his girlfriend can get an abortion. There is also a tense scene with her quasi-pimp, a scary fellow who threatens her if she doesn't obey his wishes. In this sense, the film differs from similar movies of this type by at least acknowledging that the life of a call girl isn't all fun and games.
As is usual with these films, there are some interludes showing the star walking through the lovely streets of Copenhagen in an obvious attempt to add an exotic appeal to the production. Diana Kjaer manages to keep her clothes on occasionally but for the most part she is seen showering or chatting on the phone sans any cumbersome garments. I must say the dubbing in this film is a bit better than most and Code Red and Kino Lorber have provided a good looking transfer from a 2K master. You have to admire companies that take such efforts to preserve and present even minor films such as this.
The only bonus extra is an English language trailer that continues the sin of false advertising by saying "Dagmar's Hot Pants" is the name the title character has given to her prostitution network. In fact, there is never any mention of Dagmar's Hot Pants anywhere in the film. However, if these tame sex comedies from the distant past appeal to you, this is one of the better in this genre. I now hopefully await a Blu-ray release of "The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried"!.
Lewis Gilbert's 1964 film The 7th Dawn is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Longtime readers will remember that Gilbert discussed
the movie in an exclusive interview with Matthew Field in Cinema Retro
issue #18. The movie had previously only been available in the U.S. as a burn-to-order MGM DVD. This is a thoroughly engrossing,
adult drama with an unusual setting and story background. The movie
begins on the final day of WWII and centers on three disparate friends:
an American named Ferris (William Holden), a French woman, Dhana
(Capucine) and a Malayan, Ng (Tetsuro Tamba) who have led guerilla
forces against the Japanese occupation in Malaya. The three close
friends are jubilant in victory, after having suffered from fighting in
the jungle for extended periods. At the end of the war, Ng goes off to
Moscow to pursue communist political training. The apolitical Ferris
stays behind, with Malayasia now under British occupation. He thrives as a
local rubber plantation owner, and Dhana is his lover, despite her
frustration with Ferris' womanizing. The story advances to 1953, with
Malayans now impatient for independence from England, which is easing
toward granting their demands, but at a snail's pace. Ng returns to
Malaya to try to instigate communist-inspired violent uprisings. To his
sympathizers, he is a freedom fighter. To the British, he is a terrorist
and the most wanted man in the nation.
Ferris is shaken from his cynical desire to remain removed from the
political situation when Dhana is framed and charged by the British for
assisting the terrorists. She has a choice: lead the authorities to Ng's
hideout in the jungle or be sentenced to death. Dhana, who has always
been as attracted to Ng as she has to Ferris, refuses to give him up.
Ferris is faced with the ultimate dilemma: betray his best friend by
capturing him and turning him into the British, or face the prospect of
his lover being executed. Adding to the complications is the presence of
Candace (Susannah York), the comely young daughter of the British
governor who is also in love with Ferris and who concocts a scheme that
might save Dhana, despite the fact that it places her own life in
danger.
The 7th Dawn is a superb movie on every level, although it was
not particularly successful on its initial release. Unlike most of the
simplistic, special-effects driven action films of today, this movie
deals with basic human dilemmas such as the meaning of friendships and
the price of loyalties. The four leads are outstanding and Holden, in
particular, gives one of the most impressive performances of his
career. York and Capucine give touching performances, as well, and Tamba
(who would go on to star as 'Tiger' Tanaka in Lewis Gilbert's 1967
James Bond film You Only Live Twice) is particularly impressive
as a man who is torn between political ideology and his affection for
his friends. The political drama is played out in an engrossing manner,
as one witnesses the bumbling, if sincere attempts by the British
bureaucrats to try to win the hearts and minds of the locals through
tragically misguided methods. The film builds to a harrowing conclusion
as Ferris and Candace venture into the jungle in an attempt to capture
Ng before the death sentence can be carried out against Dhana. The last
half hour of the movie is especially riveting and packed with suspense
and Gilbert's direction is truly impressive. The film benefits from the
lush landscapes photographed by Freddie Young and a beautiful musical
score by Riz Ortolani.
Put this one on your "must see" list.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray boasts an impressive transfer, though bonus materials are relegated to a trailer gallery. It would have been a good idea to include a commentary track, but considering the Blu-ray is a big step up from the previous DVD release, we won't complain.
In
“Secret of the Incas,” a 1954 release from Paramount Pictures, Harry Steele
(Charlton Heston) and Ed Morgan (Thomas Mitchell) are rival opportunists in
Cuzco, Peru.Both are searching for the
Sunburst, a fabled Incan artefact said to be hidden in the “lost city” of Machu
Picchu.“Not too many people go to Machu
Picchu,” Harry says.Today, when
tourists descend on the ancient Incan capital in droves, you would have to
wonder if he’d ever heard of Expedia.But the observation was true enough in the early 1950s when the ruins were
far off the beaten path.In those days,
most small-town Americans would have regarded a visit to New York or Miami as
an exotic excursion, never mind finding the time, money, or inspiration to fly
to the Andes.
Harry
has the edge in the quest for the Incan treasure, having appropriated a broken
chunk from an idol.The fragment
contains part of a pictograph which, when fitted to the rest of the carving on
the remainder of the statue, reveals the method for finding the hiding place of
the Sunburst.Putting the two together
isn’t a problem, requiring Harry only to follow a tourist group into the museum
where the fractured statue sits on display.But getting over the Andes to Machu Picchu to claim the Sunburst, “a
hunk of gold with 119 pure diamonds and 243 other precious stones,” is another
matter.This challenge is solved when
Elena (Nicole Maurey) arrives in Cuzco, a refugee from communist Romania.Elena is as grasping as Harry, whom she views
as her meal ticket to the U.S., while Harry uses her as bait to steal a small
private plane from the Romanian counsel, who flies into Cuzco to arrest
her.In Machu Picchu, Stanley Moorehead
(Robert Young), an archeologist directing a dig for the tomb of the last Incan
king, falls in love with Elena.Harry is
more amused than put out.His real
concern is Ed, who has followed by pack train and carries a gun.
The
Indians in the surrounding villages regard the Sunburst with spiritual awe,
believing that when it is found, the discovery will mark the rebirth of the
Inca nation.But Harry and his rival
only care about the fortune they can realize when they pry the jewels off the
relic and melt the gold into ingots.“We’ll
sit around and pluck it over like a roasted chicken, piece by piece,” Ed
gloats.The two agree on a fifty-fifty
split for the Sunburst, but given their mercenary natures, it’s about as
tenuous a deal as a division of spoils between competing bounty hunters in a
Spaghetti Western.Cast against type if
you remember them strictly for their signature roles, Heston and Mitchell are
excellent.Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, as
one of Machu Picchu’s Indian caretakers, has a sly screen presence and three
vocal numbers, which may be three too many for those who only want to get on
with the story.But Sumac was a
marketing draw comparable to having a performance by Lady Gaga or Adele in a
2023 movie.Largely forgotten today, she
was a star in the early 1950s “exotic music” genre pioneered by Les Baxter and
Martin Denny, with performances at Carnegie Hall and best-selling LPs on the
Billboard charts.Heston appears in some
exterior scenes of Cuzco and Machu Picchu, having participated in a month-long,
pre-production location shoot, but he, Mitchell, Young, Mourey, Sumac, and the
supporting Hollywood cast are missing (or represented by stand-ins at a
distance) from scenes where crowds of actual Peruvian Indians congregate at
Machu Picchu.Eagle-eyed viewers are
likely to notice the seams, but for most of us, it’s part of the fun to watch
old-school escapist pictures like this and tease out the real locations from
the studio sets.
“Secret
of the Incas” was absent from official U.S. home video release for
decades—neglectfully so, according to critics who have cited it as an influence
on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a precursor to the James Bond franchise in the
double entendres that Harry trades with an appreciative housewife of means from
Michigan, Mrs. Winston, played by the great Glenda Farrell.When Mrs. Winston greets the strapping Harry
by commenting, “My, you’re a big one,” and looks forward to his “services” as a
tour guide, you know she has more in mind than a dinner reminder to her tourist
group.“I’ll be right outside your
door,” he assures her.
A
new Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics makes up for the film’s
long absence with a remastered print licensed from Paramount, from a 4K scan of
original negative elements.The rich
colours of the Indians’ shawls and serapes are eye-popping in restored
Technicolor.Maybe the movie’s omission
from prior video formats, especially the inferior VHS process, and more
especially the even worse VHS/EP/SLP budget format in which Paramount briefly
released a handful of its archival titles in 1992, wasn’t such a loss after
all.
The special features
on the Blu-ray include an informative audio commentary by Toby Roan, previews
of related KL titles, and sharp SDH captioning.
Fran Simeoni has been a
well-known name in the world of classic and cult film releasing for a long time
thanks to his years at Arrow Video, but in 2022 he set out on his own with a
new label called Radiance Films (https://www.radiancefilms.co.uk/).
Cinema Retro caught up with him to talk about his reasons for starting
Radiance and their future plans.
Cinema Retro- Can
you tell us why you started Radiance?
Fran – I worked
for Arrow for 12 years. That's where I really learned the business side, but I
got to the point where I wanted to do things that were more in line with my own
interests. It was also about change of pace and a change of scenery as much as
anything, really. What I wanted to do with Radiance was to have my cake and eat
it, essentially, so I left Arrow on a Friday and started working again on Monday.
I had a big list, because you're constantly looking for titles. There are
always things that I'd like to see that I had previously looked into. These
things are always kind of going round and round, so I had loads I could draw on.
Radiance came out of the gates really, really quick, a little bit faster than I
anticipated.
Cinema Retro - Considering
you've been going for less than a year, you've already got quite an big number
of releases either out or announced.
Fran - I
wasn't starting from scratch. I had a lot of things that I knew I could do and
was drawing on relationships that I've had for years and years, so it was it
was not difficult for me to get titles. The challenge for me is doing
everything that's involved in getting them out. It's all the restoration work,
the authoring, creating the extras and stuff. That's what is time consuming.
Cinema Retro –
Let's talk about the Japanese film Big Time Gambling Boss (1968): Could
you just talk me through the process of identifying the title, finding out
where the rights are, the restoration, all that kind of thing?
Fran - Before
I started at Arrow I would basically just find out about films by reading about
them. So that really is the basis for finding lots of things even in a
professional capacity. And I think what happens is it's very easy when you're
sort of indoctrinated into the industry, is to do things by just talking to
people who sell films and do it that way. So in a way, you're kind of working
from their agenda in that they have restored something, and they want to push
that. They're showing at a festival or they've got a screening. If they haven't
got an agenda for a film, and Big Time Gambling Boss was on nobody's
agenda, then it's really difficult to find a film like that. So that and many
of the films do really come from my agenda and that is my reading about them. Big
Time Gambling Boss goes back probably about ten years to when I first read
about it when I was working on the Arrow boxset Battles Against Honour and Humanity.
It came up because we reprinted an article about the Yakuza films and it's
mentioned in there and it went to the back of my mind. I never did anything
about it because it was really difficult to see. Eventually I did find a way to
see it and I knew it was owned by Toei so I just went there and asked, “Have
you got this film? Is it in HD when you restored it?” etc. And from there it's
easy.
Cinema Retro - And
then how do you persuade the consumer at the other end that this is a film that
they're going to want to buy?
Fran - Yeah,
that's the big challenge. I want to be as distinctive as possible because the
boutique label market is an incredibly knowledgeable crowd. We’re at a point
now where the market is so mature that you can take bigger risks. We've got all
the classics, so then we're always adding new great directors. I think if
people are already fans with one thing and then you explain it in terms that
they can have a leaping off point: “So this is a Yakuza film.” You've got
things to cling on to. I think if you have those access points, people are
going to go for it. The trick, of course, is to not overplay your hand. You
don't want to go out and say this is a masterpiece and then people watch it and
think “It’s okay!” I do have some Japanese films coming out which aren't
masterpieces, but they're a hell of a good time.
Cinema Retro - The
phrase ‘Big Time Gambling Boss’ could be on your business card.
Fran - Yeah,
it does feel like that sometimes.
Cinema Retro –
Another example is something like Walking the Edge (1985), where you've
partnered up with Fun City Editions. That's kind of a different approach to
doing the whole thing from scratch.
Fran - I
began to license Married to the Mob (1988) and Cutter’s Way (1981)
and I ended up speaking to Fun City because I knew they were doing them and I
said, “There's no point me doing everything you've done. What's the point in me
doing the same extras as you, with just a slightly different cover?” I like their
stuff and I think they're great films. I explained this to Fun City, and some
of the other labels and said, “Why don't we just partner? I can be your conduit
and you can do what you're doing in more than one territory.” It's been
well-received so far. It's still early days, but that's the idea. We're up to
five labels now. I mean, it just remains to be seen how it's going to go but
the signs are good.
Cinema Retro - One
of the things that you've announced that you've got coming up soon is the ‘Cosa
Nostra’ box set, the collection of three Damiano Damiani films. Was that one of
your projects from the beginning?
Fran - Yes,
that's one of mine. That kind of political filmmaking is really fascinating to
me. I love that era of Italian filmmaking.
Cinema Retro - So
what was it about those films that that made you want to create your first box
set?
Fran - I
had acquired a few Damiani films and these three, as I was working on them and
researching them, it just occurred to me that they have this thematic link of
the Mafia and I just thought that was so fascinating because Damiani went back
to this sort of theme over and over again. When you
have them side by side, they become more interesting. Damiani was somebody
who's never really been given his due. No one has looked at Damiani and said, “What
a stylish director.” He didn't do avant-garde, he didn't do arthouse, he was
sort of squarely in the middle, and I think that's what didn't allow anyone to come
around and say this guy should be celebrated. When you look at all his films,
particularly when you have them side by side, you do get a very strong sense of
him being an auteur and his visual sense becomes much more apparent the more
you look at it. His whole inner ethos behind his films, civic investigation
essentially, is really fascinating. The way in which he does some of those
things is as good as someone like Francesco Rosi or Elio Petri. You had Rosi at
the much more political end and then Petri becomes slightly more baroque, and
then Damiani came after that going more towards genre. And then after Damiani
you have all the poliziotteschi that everyone's familiar with. So that
kind of trajectory is fascinating in itself, I think.
Cinema Retro - And
of course, Franco Nero! It helps that you can have him on the box cover because
he's very marketable to cult film fans.
Fran - Yeah,
absolutely. He is a great asset, obviously. My worry always with everything
that I do, because of where my interests lie, is that I don't want to get stuck
in the cracks, because sometimes some of the films I focus on are too arthouse
for genre fans and too genre for arthouse fans, and these films are a bit like
that. They become increasingly genre as you progress through the set, and
Franco Nero is brilliant in it, particularly in The Case is Closed: Forget It
(1971) in which his performance is one of his best. We have a profile of him in
the book and he's had an amazing career.
Cinema Retro –
What have you got coming up for Radiance?
Fran - We've
got The Bride Wore Black (1968), the François Truffaut film, which is a
lot of fun.
Cinema Retro –
That's interesting as, like you said, it’s got that arthouse versus genre idea,
because when people think Truffaut, they think French New Wave, but then at the
same time, it's got the crime thing going on.
Fran - It’s
François Truffaut's Kill Bill (2003). It's a lot of fun as a film and
it's not a film he was very fond of. He basically made it because he needed to
do something commercial but if you look at the biggest hits of the New Wave,
they were very crime influenced or genre influenced. Just look at À bout de
souffle (1960), with its meditation on Bogart and crime films and so on. So
this for me is just an extension of that, essentially, but it's very much its
own thing. It's as close to Hollywood movies as you get from that period in
France. And it's a lot of fun! Jeanne Moreau is good in it, it's got a great
cast and inexplicably it’s never been out on Blu-ray in the U.K. I had a lot of
fun putting together the extras. And then we have Yakuza Graveyard
(1976), which is one of Kinji Fukasaku's best films, I think. This is an
interesting counterpoint to Big Time Gambling Boss, because that is a
much more traditional, more reserved Yakuza film and then Yakuza Graveyard
is the complete opposite! It's frenetic, it's completely bombastic, and its
violence and visuals are just a lot of fun. I do feel like I'm doing a lot of
crime films. I don't actually want to only do crime films! But I do have a
passion for crime films and this is a great one. It's basically about a corrupt
ex-cop and his dealings with the Yakuza and he falls in love with the Yakuza
wife, played by Meiko Kaji. It was really fascinating to dig into this film
because there is a theme going on with Japanese films of the time and their
treatment of Koreans and treatment of Koreans in the films themselves. It's
difficult to understand as an outsider but we were able to dig into that in the
booklet, which is really fascinating. I love the kind of educational aspect of
this work and it's there if people want it as an extra. I think some people
just watch the film and move on, but it is fascinating when you have this throughline
between all the films. I think the tight curation that we have really helps us.
I think if you're constantly going back to Radiance releases, you’d be watching
The Sunday Woman (1975) from us next month. You’d think “Oh, I really like
that actor, he's quite cool,” and then you'll get the ‘Cosa Nostra’ box set and
the same actor pops up in a completely different role. And then you sort of
start to get a sense of these character actors that you might not really know so
that's a lot of fun as well.
Cinema Retro - Boutique
label collectors and fans are probably the most educated of all the film fans
because so much is targeted at them. There are all these books and obviously
all the releases now have booklets and extras and commentary tracks, and people
can become so invested and know absolutely everything.
Fran - Fans
know more than you do and point things out that you've got wrong. I mean, the
fans always know more than me for sure, because it's me versus 3000 people away.
The fans are always going to win out and that does create pressure in the job. You
do have to be really thorough! The way I manage that is by always trying to
hire the absolute best people for the booklets and the commentary tracks. That
can be a challenge at times if it’s a film no one has ever seen before, but
it's a fun one.
Thank you to Fran Simeoni at
Radiance Films. You can find out about all their current and future releases at
https://www.radiancefilms.co.uk/
Dragonslayer was one of the many films that I
looked forward to seeing as part of Hollywood’s roster of movies during the
glorious summer of 1981 that was owned by Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the
Lost Ark. I distinctly remember seeing trailers for Peter Hyams’s Outland,
Desmond Davis’s Clash of the Titans, John Carpenter’s Escape from New
York, and Lucio Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery and wanting to see
them all, though I was only halfway successful. The 3-D gimmick resurgence from
the 1950s kicked off with the R-rated Comin’ at Ya by Ferdinando Baldi
and would continue for another few years. In those days, I subscribed to the
notion that I had to have the tie-in paperback novelization of the film that I
wanted to see. I am reminded of Woody Allen’s Isaac Davis in his 1979 film Manhattan
bemoaning novelizations of movies as
being another contemporary American phenomenon that is truly moronic. I
disagree. Novelizations are often based upon the earliest drafts of a film’s
screenplay and can therefore differ enormously from a finished film upon which
it is based, making the novelization an interesting companion to a beloved
film. I had the novelization of Dragonslayer. I read it forty-two years
ago and while I barely remember it, I recall there being differences.
I
saw Dragonslayer on Thursday, July 9, 1981 with my father and my best
friend at the time. Bruce Springsteen was playing at the then-Brendan Byrne
Arena in New Jersey that night and I recall hearing the disc jockey talking
about it on the radio after we saw the film. The film that I saw was an
adventurous tale that takes place in the center of England in the Sixth Century
A.D. An enormous 400-year-old dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative, is holding the kingdom
of Urland in a grip of deadly fear. In continuing efforts to assuage the
dragon’s wrath and leave the villagers alone, King Casiodorus (Peter Eyre) holds
a lottery twice a year containing the names of young female virgins who are
sacrificed to Vermithrax in exchange for peace in Urland. This scenario does
not sit well with Urland. An elderly sorcerer, Ulrich of Cragganmore (Sir Ralph
Richardson), possesses a magical amulet and is visited by a young man named
Valerian (Caitlin Clarke) who implores him for help to destroy the dragon. Tyrian
(John Hallam), the Captain of the King’s Royal Guard, challenges and kills Ulrich,
placing Ulrich’s apprentice Galen Bradwarden (Peter MacNicol in his first film
role) as the one to defeat the dragon. Hesitant, Galen is convinced to make the
trek to Urland after Ulrich’s amulet selects him as his successor. During a
brief respite, he joins Valerian in the lake while swimming, much to the
latter’s consternation who, it turns out in a brief but explicit revelation of
very obviously non-male anatomy, is exposed as a female traveling incognito to
avoid the lottery. Once in Urland, Galen takes action that causes him to
believe that he has sealed off the entrance to the dragon’s lair, however the
King believes otherwise and imprisons Galen while confiscating his amulet. Galen
has a brief conversation with Princess Elspeth (Chloe Salaman) and tells her
that the lottery has been fixed and her name deliberately withheld from the
commonfolk. Shocked by this revelation, the Princess fixes the lottery so that
only her name is included, sealing her fate to being tossed into the
dragon’s lair. Even in Medieval times, money talks. This leads to much conflict
in the kingdom and a showdown between our intrepid hero and the feared dragon
at the hands of the titular spear.
There
was a slew of sword and sorcery films in the early 1980’s, among them Albert
Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer, John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian
(1982), Don Coscarelli’s The Beastmaster (1982), Jack Hill’s Sorceress
(1982), Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, all in 1982, with Peter Yates’s Krull
(the film that Columbia invested in while passing on Steven Spielberg’s E.T.
The Extra-Terrestrial) and Giacomo’s Battiato’s Hearts and Armour
coming out the following year. Dragonslayer, filmed on location in England,
Scotland, and Wales, was released on Friday, June 26, 1981, two months after
John Boorman’s Excalibur and two weeks after Desmond Davis’s Clash of
the Titans. It has so much going for it that even author George R.R.
Martin, the author of the novels upon which HBO’s Game of Thrones is
based, proclaimed that Vermithrax is the best dragon ever seen in a film. This
is a view shared by film director Guillermo del Toro, whose enthusiasm for the
film compelled him to enlist Dragonslayerdirector Matthew Robbins writing talents on four films. There
is much to admire here. Mr. MacNicol is wonderful in his first major screen
role as a reluctant apprentice who becomes the kingdom’s only hope to defeat
the dragon, with shades of Luke Skywalker going head-to-head with the Empire’s
almighty Death Star in George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977). Ian McDiarmid,
best known as Palpatine in the Star Wars saga, appears briefly as
Brother Jacopus, and the late Caitlin Clarke does an admirable job of appearing
like a male (to avoid being placed in the lottery) at the film’s start. Composer
Alex North provides a sinister score, much of it culled together from the
original music that he wrote for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968) but was rejected by Mr. Kubrick in favor of the classical music he used
as temp tracks. However, the real star here is the dragon as brought to life by
the magicians of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), brought to glorious life by
members of the team responsible for Star Wars. After forty- two years,
the film is finally being represented properly on home video in both standard
Blu-ray and 4K Ultra High Definition and the results make previous home video representations
of the film pale in comparison.
The
film comes with a wonderful audio commentary with director Robbins and film
director Guillermo Del Toro who enthusiastically waxes nostalgic and extolls
the virtues of the film, in particular the intercutting of the Go Motion technology
that introduces blur into stop-motion action to create realism to match the
shots of the mechanical dragon. Mr. Del Toro is a huge admirer of this film and
rightly lauds the effects team for creating the de facto standard by which all
future films of this ilk are measured. In addition to the commentary, the
following extras round out the set:
The
Slayer of All Dragons is
the overall title of five smaller high-definition-lensed pieces that can be
watched consecutively for a total documentary viewing of 63:24 in total which
contains brand new interviews with those involved in the film’s special
effects, in particular Phil Tippet, Dennis Muren, and Brian Johnson. First up
is Welcome to Cragganmore (11:08) which takes a look at the effects work
done for Star Wars in the parking lot of the Van Nuys, CA warehouse
where ILM originally began, in addition to the creation of Dragonslayer from
screenplay to screen. A Long Way to Urland (9:21) is a look at the
film’s cinematography, production design, and ornate costumes as the principal
photography began in the summer of 1980 in England. Vermithrax Pejorative
(17:48) is the name of both the dragon and this piece that looks at the star of
the film and the incredible amount of blood, sweat and toil that went into
creating this creature. Truly impressive and feels like the issue of Cinefex
Magazine #6 from October 1981 come to life. Into the Lake of Fire (13:34)
illustrates how issues encountered during production required quick thinking
and problem solving in order for production to continue. The Final Battle
(13:45) is about just that – the final battle between the dragon and Ulrich,
all accomplished in front of a blue screen.
An
interesting section of screen tests (15:42) illustrates why Ms. Clarke and Sir
Ralph were the correct choices. The requisite original theatrical trailer
(1:58) is also included.
I
am so thrilled and thankful to Paramount for restoring and making this gorgeous
package available and for the wonderful memories I have of initially seeing the
film.
Mark Rozzo’s first book, Everybody Thought We
Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles (Ecco
Press/Harper Collins), is about Hopper and Hayward and the Los Angeles art,
film and music scene in the 1960s. The paperback edition will be published on
April 18. The dean of non-fiction Gay Talese said of the book: “Mark Rozzo, an
electric and virtuoso storyteller, resurrects the relationship between icons
Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward to dissect their marriage and its fallout, and
takes many fabulous detours along the way with the artists and stars who
crossed paths with Hopper and Hayward.”
Rozzo
is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, was also an editor with Town
& Country and teaches non-fiction writing at Columbia University. His
writing credentials are extensive, with bylines in the Los Angeles Times,
the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, Vogue,
the Wall Street Journal and the Oxford American. As if that was
not enough, he has been a musician with several prominent rock groups,
including America and Bambi Kino. Bambi Kino is known for playing Hamburg-era
music that the Beatles performed during their German wood-shedding days. Along
with Mark, who fronts the band, the group consists of members of Nada Surf,
Guided by Voices and Cat Power. His book features an often-overlooked aspect of
how the Los Angeles movie scene of the 1960s intersected with art and music and
reflects how Hopper and Hayward were at its vortex.
The
following is a condensed version of an interview with the author conducted earlier
this year.
Steve
Matteo: You're primarily a New Yorker. What is it about
Los Angeles that so intrigues you?
Mark Rozzo: I knew I
wanted to do a cultural history of LA someday, and I knew that it would be set
in the 1960s. What made Los Angeles during that decade so dynamic and unique was
the concurrent revolutionary ferment in contemporary art, popular music, and
Hollywood: like a revolution in triplicate. I gradually found that Dennis
Hopper and Brooke Hayward, more than anyone else, seemed to connect those three
realms. They knew all the artists, they went to the rock shows, and they were
so immersed in Hollywood.
SM: Did you ever have a chance to meet Dennis
Hopper?
MR: Dennis died in 2010 and I never got a chance to
meet him. But I was the first writer—and I believe still only—given access to
his personal archives, along with his photographic archive, the Hopper Art
Trust. I was also fortunate in that the Jean Stein Papers at the New York
Public Library opened in the fall of 2019, a critical point in my research time
line. Jean had been interviewing Dennis since the early 1970s and hers were the
best interviews I’d ever read with him. Since they were old pals, and on the
same page culturally in so many ways, he opened up to her more than he ever did
to anyone assigned to write about him at, say, a film magazine.
SM: How hard was it getting Brooke
Hayward to cooperate on your initial story? Were you ambivalent about her
participation at any point? Did you feel her cooperation would in any way
possibly make the story less objective. MR: With Brooke, I had to go up and talk to her at
her house in Connecticut. The first time was with her and Dennis’s daughter,
Marin Hopper, and Marin’s husband. They were the wingmen. We were there to
convince Brooke to let me write about her for Vanity Fair. I knew from
talking to Marin, whom I’d befriended several years before, that her parents
were the way in to the story I wanted to tell about LA and that a big piece for
Vanity Fair would be a crucial first step. Brooke was hesitant at first (she’s
very good at playing hard to get) but as we talked and as we asked her
questions—"What about the party you guys threw for Warhol and buying the
first Campbell’s soup-can painting? What about hanging out with Oldenburg? What
about going to see the Byrds on the Sunset Strip? What about Joan Didion? What
about starring in The Twilight Zone?”—she started to understand that
what I was after was a cultural history with her and her husband at the center
of it, not another retelling of marital trauma and woe. I never felt beholden
to her point of view or restricted in any way. She and the family opened every
door and gave me free rein to tell the story.
SM: Motherhood and supporting
Dennis seemed to derail her acting career. Do you think if she hadn't met
Dennis, she would have had a more fulsome film career?
MR: It’s so hard to know.
Brooke had obviously inherited talent from her mother, Margaret Sullivan, and
had been granted admission to the Actors Studio. Her career was taking off in
the early 60s, whereas Dennis’s had tanked. That was probably why Dennis was
jealous of her and freaked out in 1964, asking her to stop, which she did. But
Brooke had always felt ambivalent about Hollywood and knew that someday she’d
get back to doing what she loved as a kid, which was writing. And she did. Her
book Haywire came out in 1977 and was a huge bestseller. It’s probably
the greatest Hollywood memoir of all time.
SM: Your book reflects how the
post-war years, particularly beginning in the late 50s and early 60s, so an
emergence of the co-mingling of high art and pop art. Hopper and Hayward seemed
to be at the center of this explosion.
MR: They really were. And it
became their focus during that time, more than acting. And for this, they stood out in Hollywood. They were different. Their tastes
were unusual. There were only two people working in Hollywood who regularly
showed up for Ferus Gallery openings: Brooke and Dennis. As Irving Blum, the
Ferus impresario, told me, “They were virtually unique. There was nobody else doing it in the way that they were doing it.” And they bought stuff, offering crucial early support to such
artists as Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein… it goes on
and on. Their house, 1712 North Crescent Heights Boulevard, was as avant garde
as any museum or gallery in the world at that time. And since people like the
Fondas, Ike and Tina Turner, Terry Southern, Joan Didion, Miles Davis, even
Hells Angels were coming through the house, that new art—mostly Pop Art—was
exposed to an ever-larger circle. I should maybe note that their collection
today would be valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Not bad for two
semi-employed actors!
(Photo: Jonathan Becker)
SM: What do you feel is his most significant
contribution to film?
MR: As Dennis would have said, it came down to a
handful of projects over a very long career: Rebel without a Cause, Giant,
Cool Hand Luke, Easy Rider (of course), The Last Movie, Apocalypse
Now, Blue Velvet. Those would be the biggies, more or less. I do think he
was a very special, one-of-a-kind actor who came out of the Shakespearean
tradition, had his mind blown by the Method, and created his own thing. He
never won an acting Oscar yet perhaps he accomplished something more than that.
As the critic Jenny Diski once put it, “As charm is to Cary
Grant, awkwardness to Jerry Lewis, vulnerability to Montgomery Clift, so
malevolence is to Dennis Hopper.” And then too was his stance in
Hollywood—rebel, maverick, artist, survivor. There’s never been anyone quite
like him in the history of American moviemaking.
SM: How significant is Easy Rider to the
evolution of American film and how influential was it on American film in the
70s, which seems like a golden era?
MR: It’s massively significant. It was the movie that propelled what we call the New Hollywood—that era
of ambitious, artful American filmmaking—into the 1970s, the decade of
Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, and Spielberg. It’s a movie that’s been picked
apart, dissected, and subjected to near-exegetical analysis and interpretation.
And yet also, in some quarters, it’s been dismissed as a period artifact. It’s
certainly the film that turned Dennis into an icon, even an icon that
transcended Hollywood—at least for a while. And it proved for the first time
that a movie could be made about the counterculture and still make a ton of
money. It represented a whole new kind of Hollywood math: a movie shot for well
under $500,000 hauls in something like $60 million. Beyond that, it’s forever a
part of our collective memory of the summer of 1969, along with the Apollo moon
landing, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, the Manson murders, and Woodstock.
It’s an enduring cultural touchstone. And it has an amazing soundtrack!
SM: He and Peter Fonda had an interesting
relationship to The Byrds. It has been said, that for Easy Rider, Fonda
borrowed a little from Roger McGuinn and Hopper borrowed a lot from David
Crosby.
MR: That was certainly corroborated by my research,
including conversations with Roger McGuinn. Roger loved the movie so much that
he said to Peter Fonda something like, “I wish I’d been in it!” Peter replied,
“But you were!” He explained to Roger that he and Dennis had developed their
characters based on him and his irascible bandmate in the Byrds, a band that
represented a lot of the cultural change in LA in the 1960s.
SM:The Last Movie was a film that gestated for years, but
then became one of the key films of the 70s American film renaissance, but also
signaled how the end of the 70s would be a time of excess and the end of that
kind of creative film-making.
MR: Yes, The Last Movie. That project became Dennis’s Waterloo
after the outsize success of Easy Rider. He had initially been trying to
make that film in 1965 and 1966. But, after causing excitement throughout
Hollywood, it came to nothing. Dennis was distraught; if he’d have made The
Last Movie then, it would probably have been considered the first New
Hollywood film, coming before Bonnie and Clyde. But the project fell
apart. Executives didn’t want to pay Dennis Hopper, of all people, to direct a
movie. Brooke said that if Dennis had been able to make that movie then, he
wouldn’t “have fallen into the abyss.” Dennis’s alcoholism really started to
accelerate after that.
SM:What would Dennis make of the world of movies today?
MR: That’s a stumper! I think he’d either have been
totally appalled at the Marvelization of Hollywood… or he’d find it to be the
greatest Pop Art happening ever. Dennis was always so engaged in his time,
whether it was the 1960s or the 1980s or the 2000s. He would have found a way
in. He always did.
(Steve Matteo is the author of the books "Act Naturally: The Beatles on
Film", to be published on May 15, 2023, "Let It Be" and "Dylan". He has contributed to the collection "The Beatles in Context" and has written for
such publications as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, New
York, Time Out New York, Rolling Stone, Elle, and Salon. @MatteoMedia)
In the estimation of many film scholars the 1970s was the most
adventurous and liberating period in the history of the medium. The new
freedoms in regard to sex, violence and adult themes that had exploded
in the mid-1960s became even more pronounced in the '70s. Among the most
daring studios to take advantage of this trend was United Artists. The
studio had been conceived by iconic actors in the silent era with the
intent of affording artists as much creative control over their
productions as possible. UA had continued to fulfill that promise,
producing a jaw-dropping number of box-office hits and successful film
franchises. The studio also disdained censorship and pushed the envelope
with high profile movie productions. The daring decision to fund the
X-rated "Midnight Cowboy" paid off handsomely. The 1969 production had
not only been a commercial success but also won the Best Picture Oscar. A
few years later UA went even further out on a limb by distributing
"Last Tango in Paris". UA fully capitalized on the worldwide
sensation the movie had made and the many attempts to restrict it from
being shown at all in certain areas of the globe. Like "Midnight
Cowboy", "Tango" was an important film by an important director that
used graphic images of sexual activity for dramatic intensity.
Unfortunately, not every filmmaker who was inspired by these new
freedoms succeeded in the attempt to mainstream X-rated fare during
those years that the rating wasn't only synonymous with low-budget porno
productions. Case in point: screenwriter John Byrum, who made his
directorial debut with "Inserts", a bizarre film that UA released in
1975 that became a legendary bomb. The movie was released some years ago on Blu-ray as a limited edition by the now sadly defunct Twilight Time label. To my knowledge, it isn't available in that format today, although it is streaming on Screenpix, the subscription-based service that can be accessed through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV.
The claustrophobic tale resembles a filmed stage production. It is
set primarily in one large living room in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
The time period is the 1930s, shortly after the introduction of sound to
the movie industry resulted in the collapse of silent pictures (Charlie
Chaplin being the notable exception.) The central character, played by
Richard Dreyfuss, is not named but is referred to as "The Boy Wonder".
From our first glimpse of him we know we are seeing a man in trouble. He
is unkempt, dressed in a bathrobe and swizzling booze directly from the
bottle. We will soon learn that he was once a respected mainstream
director of major studio films and was revered by Hollywood royalty. Now
he is a has-been who has resorted to making porn movies in 16mm in his
own home. (Yes, Virginia, people liked to watch dirty movies even way
back then.) He is entertaining a visitor, Harlene (Veronica Cartwright),
a perpetually cheery, bubble-headed young woman who was once a
respected actress but who, like Boy Wonder, has fallen on hard times.
She is now a heroin addict who earns a living by "starring" in Boy
Wonder's porn productions. They make small talk and some names from the
current movie business are bandied about. Harlene tells Boy Wonder that a
rising star named Clark Gable is said to be an admirer of his and wants
to meet him. Instead of responding favorably to this news, Boy Wonder
seems unnerved by it. The implication is that he is locked in a
self-imposed downward spiral and lacks the self-confidence to attempt a
real comeback. Harlene also needles him about his sexual prowess. It
turns out that the king of porn films has long been impotent for reasons
never explained. As they prepare to film some scenes Harlene's male
"co-star" (Stephen Davies) arrives. He is nicknamed Rex, The Wonder Dog,
which seems to bother him especially when the Wonder Boy uses it to
intentionally disparage him. Like Harlene, Rex is short on brains but is
physically attractive. Boy Wonder seems to have a real resentment
towards him, perhaps because Rex is a powerhouse in bed while he can't
get anything going despite directing naked people in sex scenes. It
becomes clear that Boy Wonder and Rex don't like each other. Boy
Wonder ridicules Rex for performing sex acts on male studio executives
who he naively believes will help him become a star. However, their
relationship looks downright friendly compared to the interaction
between Harlene and Rex. When Rex is a little slow in becoming
physically aroused, Harlene mocks him mercilessly. This results in him
essentially subjecting her to a violent rape which thrills Boy Wonder,
who captures it all on film. Harlene doesn't appear to be any worse for
the wear, however, and blithely says she's going off to a bedroom to
rest.
The household is next visited by mobster Big Mac (Bob Hoskins), the
man who finances Boy Wonder's film productions. He is accompanied by his
financee Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), a pretty young woman who seems to
have a particular interest in the forbidden world of pornography. Big
Mac and Boy Wonder also hate each other. Big Mac berates Boy Wonder for
making his porn flicks too esoteric and artistic for their intended
audiences who just want a cheap thrill. However, for Boy Wonder the porn
films represent the last opportunity he has to demonstrate the
cinematic style and camera angles that once impressed critics and the
public. In the midst of their arguing, it is discovered that a tragedy
has occurred: Harlene has died from a heroin overdose. Everyone seems
nonplussed by the news and Big Mac's only concern is to ditch the body
somewhere quickly. Turns out Rex has a part time job in a funeral parlor
and can arrange for a gruesome plan in which they dump her body inside a
grave that is being prepared for another person's funeral the next day.
The plan is to dig a bit deeper, bury Harlene, then place a layer of
dirt over her and have the "new" body placed on top of hers. As Big Mac
and Rex leave to "undertake" this sordid task, Boy Wonder finds himself
alone with Cathy Cake. She wants to use the time to have Boy Wonder film
her in her own personal porn movie since Big Mac would never let his
"fiancee" do so with his knowledge. She finds the idea of sex on film to
be a stimulant but Boy Wonder won't have any of it. He knows that Big
Mac's volatile temper and ever-present bodyguard could result in him
being the next corpse in the house. Cathy Cake tries another tactic and
feigns interest in Boy Wonder. He lets his guard down and gradually is
seduced by her. She even manages to cure his impotence but the tryst
turns ugly when she learns he has not filmed it. Boy Wonder soon
discovers that his renewed pride and self-respect is to be short-lived
when it becomes clear that Cathy Cake actually loathes him and was only
using him in order to fulfill her porn movie fantasy. The ploy works to a
degree- her attention to Boy Wonder reawakens his sexual prowess but
when she learns the camera wasn't rolling, she cruelly tells him that
she only used him for selfish purposes. With this, Big Mac and Rex
return from their horrendous errand and catch Boy Wonder in bed with
Cathy Cake. The situation becomes dangerous with Big Mac threatening to
kill Boy Wonder and things only deteriorate from there.
Richard Dreyfuss was said to have had a personal
obsession with this film. He was very involved in all aspects of its
production and remained defensive about the movie after its harsh
reception from critics. The movie's complete rejection by reviewers and
the public might have hurt his career but Dreyfuss already had "American
Graffiti" and "Jaws" under his belt. Soon he would also star in another
blockbuster, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" followed by his
Oscar-winning performance in "The Goodbye Girl". The fact that so few
people ever saw "Interiors" actually worked to his advantage. However,
whatever motivated him to become involved in this bizarre project
remains a mystery. It's an ugly tale about ugly people doing ugly things
to each other. If there is a message here, I didn't receive it. There
isn't a single character you can identify with or sympathize with. They
are all self-obsessed cynics with no redeeming traits. That leaves us
with whatever values the performances afford us and it's a mixed bag.
Dreyfuss is miscast. He was twenty nine years-old when he made the film
and, despite his sordid appearance which ages him considerably, he is
still far too young to portray a once-great movie director who has
fallen on hard times. John Byrum's direction of Dreyfuss is unsteady. At
times he encourages him to underplay scenes while at other times he has
Dreyfuss chew the scenery mercilessly. Similarly, Stephen Davies plays
the brain-dead hunk Rex with flamboyantly gay characteristics one minute
then suddenly transforms into a heterosexual stud the next. Bob Hoskins
is squarely in what would become his trademark tough-guy gangster mode but gives a
solid performance. The best acting comes from the two female leads, with
Veronica Cartwright especially good as the ill-fated Harlene. Jessica
Harper also does well in her thankless role. Both women seem at ease in
doffing their clothes and playing much of their scenes in a provocative
state. Cartwright even goes full frontal for the violent sex scene with
Rex while Harper spends almost the entire last act of the film being
photographed topless. Curiously, the willingness to appear nude onscreen
was considered the epitome of female emancipation in films during the
1970s but the practice has largely become frowned upon in more recent
years. In fact the days are long gone when virtually every major actress
had to appear naked on screen. Today, female emancipation is the
ability to play erotic scenes on screen without having to be completely
compromised.
If John Byrum's
debut as a director is problematic, so, too, is his script. There is a
lot of name-dropping about the great figures in the movie industry who once socialized with the Boy Wonder but it all seems pretentious and
unconvincing right down to the constant attempts by Boy Wonder to avoid
meeting the unseen Clark Gable. In fact, aside from some fleeting
references the "Flapper Look" styles worn by the women, the film could
have been set in the 1970s. Byrum has the characters indulge in
vernacular that is far too contemporary for the 1930s. The only wit
that is apparent concerns Big Mac's plans to build roadside restaurants
that would all look the same and serve identical fast food. ("Big Mac"-
get it?) Beyond that, there are few attempts at humor and most of those
pertain to unspeakably cruel behavior and mutual humiliation. There
seems to be no purpose for the film's existence beyond the desire of the
participants to be in a porn movie. Given their status in the industry
that was obviously not going to happen so they banded together for a
quasi-porn movie and shrouded it in the protective layer of
intellectualism. This gave them all the cover of being artistes and
Richard Dreyfuss the opportunity to nibble on Jessica Harper's nipples
while pretending there was some greater purpose to it all. In reality
the film's most cringe-inducing scene has Dreyfuss and Harper having an
extended conversation about her private parts, which are referred to
repeatedly (almost to an absurd degree) in gutter language as those the
actors were pre-teenagers using naughty words for the first time.
There are said to be people who consider "Inserts" to be an underrated gem. But for this
writer, it represents an interesting but woefully misguided experiment
by some very talented people who should have known better.
Here's a chance to watch director Andrew V. Mclaglen's highly enjoyable 1979 adventure "ffolkes" starring Roger Moore as a grumpy but courageous leader of a private commando team. He's quite the opposite of his 007 persona: he loathes female companionship and loves cats. The film has a marvelous supporting cast including James Mason, Anthony Perkins and Moore's ol' pal David Hedison. (To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube.) T
The Australian video company Imprint has released "The Gidget Film Collection". Here are the details:
The original beach party movie
‘Gidget’ plus three sequels on Blu-ray for the first time worldwide!
Gidget
(1959)
The original surfer girl/beach bum
movie, adapted from the novel by Frederick Kohner, Gidget (1959) stars Sandra
Dee as determined little Frances Lawrence, who falls in love both with surfing
and with the characters who populate the local Southern California beach
hangout. Of particular interest are the young Moondoggie (James Darren) and the
more mature Big Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), a Korean War vet who is the idol of
every surfer on the coast for his life of apparently unfettered freedom.
Gidget
Goes Hawaiian (1961)
In this sequel to the hit 1959 film
“Gidget,” Francie “Gidget” Lawrence (Deborah Walley) is once again involved
with her boyfriend, Jeff “Moondoggie” Matthews (James Darren). However, they
have a lovers’ spat, and Gidget goes to sulk in Hawaii with her parents. In the
islands, she meets TV dancer Eddie Horner (Michael Callan). Seeing how
miserable she’s become, Gidget’s wise dad (Carl Reiner) sends for Moondoggie,
and the couple reunite just as Gidget gets romantic with Eddie.
Gidget
Goes to Rome (1963)
Gidget, in Rome for a holiday,
misinterprets attention she receives from a famous journalist. Discovering he
is “chaperoning” her at Dad’s request she resumes interest in her boyfriend.
Based upon characters created by Frederick Kohner.
Gidget
Gets Married (1972)
Newly married Gidget makes waves in
her husband’s company by taking a stand against the social caste system.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
“Gidget Gets Married” – the 1972 Television Movie
“Gidget” Theatrical Trailer
Keep in mind that prices are quoted in Australian dollars. Use a
currency converter to see what the price is in your national currency.
In days of old before every movie released was designed to be a record-breaking blockbuster, studios routinely produced modestly-budgeted fare designed for a quick playoff and modest profit. A perfect example of this is "Quick, Before It Melts!", a softball sex comedy from 1964 that must have been considered to be a bit risque in its day. Although George Maharis, then a current heart throb gets first billing, the real star is Robert Morse. He plays Oliver Cromwell Cannon, an aspiring reporter who is routinely abused by his boss, publishing magnate Harvey T. Sweigert (Howard St. John), who considers Oliver to be so inconsequential that he has to be reminded that he is engaged to his daughter Sharon (Yvonne Craig). Oliver's career is on the fast track to nowhere until Sweigert affords him an opportunity to prove himself. He is being assigned as the first staff reporter at the South Pole and will be stationed at a U.S. Navy weather installation there. Sweigert is to the political right of Sen. Joe McCarthy and sees Soviet expansion everywhere, even in the remote frozen tundras. Sweigert gives Oliver the seemingly impossible task of digging up some sort of scoop that would embarrass the Soviets. Accompanying Oliver is Peter Santelli (George Maharis), an ace photographer who is also a renowned ladies man.
Prior to leaving, Oliver visits Sharon and does his best to seduce her. She's a virgin on the verge but insists on waiting until their wedding night, much to Oliver's frustration. En route to the South Pole, Oliver and Peter have an extended stopover in New Zealand. Here they befriend two lovely young ladies- Tiara (Anjanette Comer in her big screen debut), an exotic beauty and her equally sexy friend Diana (Janine Gray). Both of the women are the polar opposite (pardon the pun) of Sharon, and they have liberated attitudes towards sex. Peter falls for Diana and Oliver is immediately smitten by Tiara. A running gag in the film is Oliver's inability to get her to tell him if they slept together during one particularly wild night in which he became so drunk he developed amnesia. Soon Oliver is a conflicted man. He wants to remain loyal to Sharon but boys will be boys and his hormones are raging. Fate intervenes when Sweigert insists they leave immediately for the South Pole. Upon arriving at the naval station, Oliver and Peter are hit with the stark reality of how unpleasant life is about to become. Enclosed in the small confines of the base with 50 below zero temperatures outside, they find themselves subjected to hazing rituals by the longtime staffers. The base is manned by Navy personnel as well as a contingent of scientists that includes Mikhail Drozhensky, a Soviet representative of a joint scientific research project. As the days turn to weeks, boredom becomes a problem and Sweigert is getting impatient for Oliver to file some type of scoop. With everyone on the base suffering from sexual frustration, Oliver and Peter con a visiting admiral (James Gregory) to get some good press by inviting down a contingent of everyday women to visit the base. Naturally, they arrange for Tiara and Diana to be among them. Upon arrival, Oliver's hormones win out and he starts to seduce the willing Tiara in a snowmobile (talk about sexual frigidity!). This leads to another running gag that must have been old in Shakespeare's day: every time they come close to consummating the deal, some distraction interrupts them. Naturally, the women become stranded at the base due to weather and the sexual high jinks continue. Peter isn't having any problem with Diana but fate prevents Oliver from sealing the deal with Tiara. The conclusion of the story has Oliver trying to file a career-saving scoop about the Soviet scientist defecting before his arch rival reporter (Norman Fell) can beat him to it.
"Quick, Before It Melts" is the kind of mid-range movie that defines mediocrity. It has a good cast but most of them are encouraged to overact by director Delbert Mann, who once directed such estimable fare as "Marty" and "Separate Tables". What led him to become involved in this drivel remains a mystery. Even more bizarre is that the screenplay was written by Dale Wasserman. Yes, that Dale Wasserman- the acclaimed writer of "Man of La Mancha" and the stage version of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The film has some amusing gags including composer David Rose finding a way to insert his signature song "The Stripper" into the action. Morse is an energetic leading man but his character inexplicably morphs from Jerry Lewis nerd mode into a sophisticated Sinatra type by the end of the film. Anjanette Comer does make for a stunningly beautiful leading lady and the equally lovely Yvonne Craig gives her usual perky performance. Popular character actor Bernard Fox, who generally epitomizes every old fashioned cliche about the British, is bizarrely cast as a U.S. naval officer. Go figure. The film is marred by some poor rear screen projection work. The long shots were filmed by a second unit near the Bering Sea but anyone above the age of five will recognize that the closest the cast members got to something cold was an ice cream sundae at the studio commissary.
"Quick, Before It Melts" has been released as a Warner Archive title. The transfer is excellent. There are no bonus extras but the disc is region free.
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Sean Connery didn't always share his sense of humor during interviews but in this appearance on "The Tonight Show" from 1983 (presented in two parts), Connery seems in a fun mood, bantering quips with Carson as he promotes what would be his final James Bond movie, "Never Say Never Again".
It’s best to start this review by noting that Kino’s Blu
ray release of Claude Chabrol’s Bluebeard
is not a retelling of the centuries old French folk tale.The first published appearance of the grim fairy
tale was penned by Charles Perrault in 1697, but the oral folk tale actually dates
ages older. The Bluebeard of fable is a wealthy nobleman who has savagely
murdered and hidden the bodies of his six previous wives in a subterranean
chamber beneath his castle. But just as George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) would introduce the psychological manipulation of “gas
lighting” into our modern vernacular, Webster’s defines a “bluebeard” as a “man
who first marries and then murders one wife after another.”Which is not exactly the case in Chabrol’s film of 1963.Though this
bluebeard’s wife is involved in the imbroglio, she is not targeted by her
murdering husband.But otherwise the description
is close enough.
In fact, the French title of this French-language
production - based on a gruesome but series of true crimes - was not Bluebeard but simply Landru.The titular character referenced is Henri Désiré Landru (1869-1922), a
bald and thick-bearded Parisian dealer of antique furniture.The problem with Landru is that he’s chosen
to supplement his income by murdering a succession of wealthy dowagers,
spinsters and widows in the years of French involvement in World War I.Collecting the names of moneyed lonely hearts
from personal ads sent privately to a postal box, Landru’s modus operandi was
to charm and romance his intended victims, offering all a respite from Paris at
his countryside Villa rental near Gambais.
Once separated from their bank accounts and antiquities,
Landru coldly murdered the women, disposing of their bodies – and all evidence
of his crime - in a coal-fired kitchen stove.Landru was found out and arrested in the spring of 1919, charged with
the murder of eleven women – though authorities believed he was likely involved
in many other unsolved disappearances.The macabre and sensational circumstances surrounding the Landru case
brought with it attendant international press coverage and a circus atmosphere
to the courtroom proceedings.Landru was
ultimately found guilty of his crimes, despite the absence of bodies.He was executed by guillotine in the early
winter of 1922.
Such notoriety would bring Landru lasting infamy as one
of the modern world’s most legendary serial killers.Both the fairy tale of Bluebeard and the
real-life terror wrought by Landru would figure into a number of film and television
productions.Sinister waxen images of
Landru’s bluebeard would be cinematically present in practically every wax
museum’s rogue gallery of horror:House of Wax (1953), the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “The New Exhibit,”
and Terror in the Wax Museum (1973)
to name only a few.Charlie Chaplin, of
all people, would even revisit the Landru affair in his thinly-veiled dark
comedy Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
So it was only proper that a French director and French writer
should assume ownership of the legend of Landru in this French-Italian
co-production.In late February of 1962,
Parisian cinema correspondents reported that Italian film producer Carlo Ponti
and Frenchman Georges De Beauregard, the latter president of Rome-Paris Films
and a champion of France’s “New Wave” cinema, were planning an Eastman color production
of Landru.The film was to be directed by Claude Chabrol
– already feted for such films as Le Beau
Serge (1958), The Cousins (1959)
and Les Bonnes Femmes (1960). The screenplay for Landru was to written by the popular French novelist Francoise
Sagan.Though this was to be Sagan’s
first effort at screenwriting, four of her novels had already been adapted for
the screen by French film studios.Earliest expectations were that Sagan’s script was to be one serious in
tone and unlike Charlie Chaplin’s comic-take of the serial killer’s spree.
Then, one month later, it was reported that Chabrol and
Sagan were in fact both crafting
elements of the screenplay, oddly semi-independent of one another:Chabrol was developing the film’s male
characters, Sagan charged to concentrate on the murderer’s female victims.Reports also noted that Chabrol himself might
play the role of Henri Désiré Landru should a suitable actor for the primary role
not be found.A more than suitable actor
was found in the person of Charles
Denner, an actor mostly unfamiliar-to-the-public at large.It’s Denner who really carries the film with a
masterful, emotionally casual performance.
In late March, Rome-Paris announced that a worldwide
distribution deal was in the works with United Artists, the studio having
agreed to “put up most of the coin” of production.Following their work together on Landru, Chabrol was promising to tackle
a film version of Sagan’s 1960 play Château en Suède. (That film would actually
be lensed and released in 1964 as a television production sans Chabrol’s
involvement).In any event, by
mid-summer of 1962, the deal with United Artists seems to have fallen
through.It was announced that Joseph E.
Levine’s Embassy Pictures had secured distribution rights; the deal was reportedly
struck when Levine was made privy to the preview rushes of the still unfinished
film.Lux Films was to handle domestic
distribution in France.With financing
and casting and a script in place, principal photography on Landru would wrap in September of 1962.
The film would enjoy – fittingly -a premiere in the city
of Paris in February of 1963. Though somewhat charmed by the film, a Variety critic attending a 5 February
screening floated the possibility that the production may not enjoy wide appeal
being an “unusual offbeater” and an “spirited if uneven pic.” There was also an
acknowledgment that Sagan’s script was curiously both “deft” and “repetitive” in its construction.These were fair criticisms, but by April’s
end, Landru had already drawn 306,767
paid admissions in France – not a bad box office total for an edgy filmmaker of
the “New Wave” school.
The film would be given a domestic publicity boost courtesy
of Mme. Fernande Segret.Segret, now age
seventy and a mistress of the real-life Landru, attempted to “enjoin” the
film’s release, concerned that the film sullied her reputation.Taking her case before the Tribunal of the
Seine, the French court dismissed Segret’s complaint, citing her relationship -
as a twenty-four-year-old - with the murderous Landru was already a “matter of
historical record” of which Sagan’s screenplay took no particular
liberties.Segret appealed, but as late
as 1967, her continuing attempt to bring suit against the filmmakers was again
dismissed.
With Chabrol’s Landru
racking up decent reviews and box office returns in France, an opportunistic distributor
chose this moment to reissue the director’s previously moribund effort Ophelia, an “updating of the Shakespeare
opus.” In the meantime, a U.S. premiere of the French-language, English
subtitled Landru was set for April 9,
1963, at Manhattan’s arthouse Cinema I/Cinema II Studio on Broadway near
Lincoln Center.It was announced that Francoise
Sagan would be in attendance.
Following that U.S. debut Box Office was impressed, acknowledging Landru held “several exploitative angles to attract art house
regulars” as well as devotees of “the bizarre and macabre.”But not every critic was as enamored with the
film’s promise.The New York Times suggested that Chabrol’s employ of genuine transcript
excerpts from the Landru trial were “more entertaining than those Mlle. Sagan
found for him.”The famously venomous stage
and screen critic John Simon, wrote witheringly that Sagan’s attempt to
“compete with Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux
takes a good deal of arrogance, but in that area both Chabrol and Sagan are
amply endowed.”
In an interview with New York City’s Film Journal, Chabrol confessed that many of his films examined
matters of criminality, morality, and the often misused scales of justice, from
different angles.“In Landru the problem was to be faithful to
the legend and to be funny with it.”Which was an odd angle to tell the story of a serial murderer whose
crimes were heinous.
The French actress Michele Morgan, who played Landru’s
victim Célestine Buisson, advised prior to the film’s release that
Chabrol’s picture was to be “ironic and comic, with each victim ending as a
puff of smoke from the chimney.”Chabrol
borrowed this smoke billowing visual image from Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, but unfortunately uses this device to the point
of near-ridiculous repetition.Despite
this being a film being centered on one of the 20th century’s most
notorious figures there’s virtually no on-screen violence – only the suggestion
of such.
It was a curious decision.Not allowing audiences to actually see Landru
committing his terrible crimes, Chabrol allows the character as written to
retain a semblance of evasive humor and an anti-hero aura.Perhaps more tiresome than Chabrol’s multiple
cuts to the numerous chimney immolations are the appending comic bits where
Landru’s neighbors wilt from the odors of flesh incineration.The only images tying Landru to the brutal
murders are brief passing shots of the Villa’s fiery stove, coal bins and a
butcher block table with attached meat grinder.
Though a great fan of American films and the work of
Alfred Hitchcock – even co-authoring (with Erich Rohmer) an early book-length
study Hitchcock (Editions
Universitaires, Paris, 1957) – Chabrol’s filmography and interests were more
varied than that of his hero.It was
also, perhaps, the reason Chabrol’s mystery thrillers are less suspenseful in their
construction. Hitchcock once famously
wrote, “The mass [film] audience has had no education in technique of cinema,
as they frequently have in art and music, from their school days.They think only of story.”
Chabrol approach to film is different.It would be unfair to suggest that Chabrol
was a visual artist first, a storyteller second.But it’s clear that Chabrol’s work differs
from that of Hitchcock, the latter choosing to work with diligence from prepared
story boards and fully formed scripts.Chabrol’s film seems more freewheeling in construction, less plotted.I suppose Landru
might have been partly influenced by the mixing of black comedy with the macabre
as seen in Hitchcock’s The Trouble with
Harry (1955).
For my taste, the Chabrol film goes on too long – the
running time lasts a single tick under two hours but seems much longer.Choosing to lens the tale of Landru as a
darkly sardonic, serio-comic drama was not new – Chaplin already had fun tweaking
the public’s morbid interest in the case – but too often the murders and
subsequent courtroom drama seem to unspool in real time.With the romancing, the murders, the winking
comedy, the inter-cutting of grim black and white WWI newsreel footage, the
courtroom proceedings… the layering all becomes too much.
Similarly to Chaplin, Chabrol tries to weave an
undercurrent of politically-motivated shenanigans behind the prurient
international interest of Landru’s celebrity notoriety. Though involved in negotiating the Treaty of
Versailles - which formally brought the WW I to its end - French Prime Minister
George Clemenceau was despairing of its outcome – as were the French public who
would vote him out of office in 1920.As
imagined by self-described communist Chabrol, Clemenceau’s ploy was an attempt
to redirect the discontent of the French public by shepherding the press to
devote their efforts on the concurrent - and far more titillating - murder
trial of Henri Désiré Landru.He may
very well have been right about that.
This Kino Lorber Studio Classic edition of Bluebeard offers a stunning and color
saturated 4K restoration from the original camera negative.The film is presented in an aspect ratio of
1.66:1 in 1920x1080p and DTS audio.The release
comes with its original French language soundtrack and removable English
sub-titles. There is an audio commentary
courtesy of film historian Kat Ellinger, the editor of Diabolique magazine and self-described Instagram “loudmouthed
hysterical feminist.”
Ellinger provides an excellent commentary throughout,
describing Landru as the “strangest
and most frustrating” films of Chabrol’s 1960s oeuvre.She also notes the politically left director
also staged Landru as a cynical
commentary of the mores of the petite
bourgeoisie class – an element that’s insufferably
present throughout.
There are no alternate scenes included on this set.But while there is only the briefest flash of
topless nudity present in his finished cut, Chabrol later intimated that
producer Ponti insisted he also photograph a number of “undressed” scenes, presumably
for European distribution.If indeed
there is a continental version of Landru
floating about, I have not seen it.The
set also includes five trailers, including Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, as well as such French productions as Le Doulos, Alphaville, Diabolically Yours and
Max and the Junkman.
In the Golden Age of film criticism, Vincent Canby of the New York Times was one of the most revered (and feared) reviewers. But his tastes weren't only for art house import films and those of Oscar-worthy prestige. Canby could relate to populist entertainment as well. One of the mysteries of the universe is how he came to the conclusion that "Goldfinger" and "Moonraker" represented the best of the James Bond films, which is like saying Laurence Olivier and Jerry Lewis were the finest actors of their era. Nevertheless, with the June, 1981 release of "For Your Eyes Only", Canby was unimpressed with some elements of the film, but was open to providing back-handed compliments to other aspects. In the aggregate, you could say his review was net positive. Read for yourself....