All good things come to those who
wait. That being said the reason why
Blu-ray was invented is finally here. Steven
Spielberg's Jaws, arguably the first
and the greatest summer movie ever made, in addition to being one of the best
American films of all-time, has been given a complete digital 4K restoration
derived from the original camera negative. The results are magnificent. A far cry
from the MCA DiscoVision laser disc, the Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) by
RCA, the VHS tape, the 20th anniversary letterboxed laser disc, or even the
past two previous DVD incarnations (which were admittedly pretty decent), the
new Blu-ray most closely approximates what it was like to see Jaws for the first time in movie
theaters in the summer of 1975. Best of
all, the Blu-ray cover retains artist Roger Kastel’s iconic poster art.
The plot of Jaws by now is so familiar that I do not feel it warrants a
summary. Jaws is a nearly perfect
film, held together by three fine lead performances by Roy Scheider, Richard
Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw. At times humorous, playful, thrilling, terrifying,
and wildly adventurous, Jaws is one
of the best-edited motion pictures ever made. Verna Fields won a well-deserved
Oscar for fashioning a masterpiece out of all the raw footage brought to her by
Mr. Spielberg. Each subsequent viewing of Jaws
tends to reveal something new. The mafia angle which was prevalent in the novel
is somewhat alluded to in the one brief scene where Chief Brody (Roy Scheider)
is cautioned by Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to keep the beaches open, and
that the Island needs summer dollars. This
verbal strong-arming calls to mind Tony Soprano. This conversation speaks
volumes about corporations putting stockholders interests ahead of the safety
of their workers, a comparison that can be drawn to Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) if one cares to delve into it.
Watching the film again makes one
realize just how powerful the bond is between Mr. Spielberg and John Williams, the
composer on nearly all of Mr. Spielberg’s work for the past 40 years. Equally, Jaws
is possibly the first film to have terrific and memorable one-liners that have
made their way to the American lexicon. Chief Brody, the fish out of water from
New York City who is also deathly afraid of the ocean, in the end prevails
against all odds and could quite possibly take the credit for being the model
of all of those horror film heroes that were to follow in the footsteps of Jaws. (i.e either one man or one woman
is left standing after their comrades have been massacred.) The ending is also
a metaphor for the success of the film itself, wherein one issue after another
befell this production which lasted for nearly one year. Jaws is not only grand entertainment, but the film stands as an
example of how triumph in the face of adversity can be attributed to good old
fashioned brainpower and problem-solving.
While it is understandable to groan
about double and triple dipping when it comes to movies being reissued on home video
formats, the new Blu-ray of Jaws is a
must buy. With the exception of the beautiful
60-page booklet that accompanied the 2005 DVD (hold on to that!), the Blu-ray retains
all of the previous DVD extras:
-The Making of Jaws – Laurent Bouzereau’s excellent two-hour
documentary on the making of the film which originally appeared on the 1995
laserdisc box set
-Deleted
scenes and outtakes
-From the Set – a report from the set of the film
-Production
photos, storyboards, marketing Jaws
and the Jaws phenomenon
-Original
theatrical trailer
In addition to these extras, the
Blu-ray sports the inclusion of the long-desired documentary about the Jaws phenomenon entitled The Shark is Still Working: The Impact and
Legacy of Jaws directed by Erik Hollander and produced by Mr. Hollander,
James Galete, Jack Grove, and J. Michael Roddy. The film runs 101 minutes.
Jaws also includes an all-new 7.1 audio
soundtrack, in addition to Spanish and French audio. Subtitles are provided in English SDH, Spanish
and French.
A standard definition DVD is also
provided and it contains the restored film, in addition to a 50-minute version
of the aforementioned documentary by Laurent Bouzereau. The inclusion of this disc and the truncated
documentary is questionable given Jaws’s
release on DVD in 2000 and 2005. I would
have liked to have seen a double Blu-ray set with even more extras. If someone doesn’t have a Blu-ray player by
now, Jaws is the reason to get
one. This minor carping aside, I am
grateful to finally have one of my favorite films in this format.
Lastly, let’s all be thankful that the
shark didn't work most of the time!
CLICK HERETO ORDER THE JAWS BLU-RAY + DVD + ULTRAVIOLET INSTANT STREAM + DIGITAL COPY FROM
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FOR MY REVIEW OF JAWS: MEMORIES FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD AND INTERVIEWS WITH THE
BOOK’S AUTHORS.
In August 1981, at the age of twelve, I
viewed my very first horror film, Dan Curtis' 1976 theatrical outing Burnt Offerings, based upon the 1973 novel
of the same name by Robert Marasco.I
was immediately impressed with the film's spooky quality and the performances
by Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, and Burgess Meredith. One area that
stood out most was the chillingly icy score by Robert Cobert. I was eager to
discover other works directed by Mr. Curtis and it would be nearly 30 years
before I would finally see episodes of what is arguably his most popular
production, the soap opera/thriller Dark
Shadows. Running for nearly five years on ABC-TV from 1966 to 1971 and consisting
of 1,225 episodes in total (some of which were in black and white), Dark Shadows is an enjoyably spooky
production that was shot on videotape. It stars Jonathan Frid as Barnabas
Collins, Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, and Lara Parker as
Angelique.Genre fans will recognize the
late Ms. Bennett from as Celia Lamphere in Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door… (1948) and as Madame Blanc in Dario
Argento’s Suspiria (1977).Like many of Mr. Curtis’ other creepy
productions, it was scored by Robert Cobert as well.
For those of you who were watching this
series when it premiered 46 years ago, your opportunity to view uncut and
uninterrupted episodes is now possible thanks to home video. There are two newly released single DVDs (Dark Shadows: Fan Favorites and Dark Shadows: Best of Barnabas), each of
which contain nine of the most loved episodes by the millions of fans who tuned
in to it daily. These DVDs were released
to coincide with Tim Burton’s film version of the show starring Johnny Depp and
give new viewers a taste of what the series was like. While it is a far cry from such current
vampire fare such as HBO’s enormously popular True Blood, it still possesses (no pun intended) an air of Gothic creepiness
and in my humble opinion the entire series should have been shot in black and
white. Eagle-eyed viewers will catch a
glimpse of a boom mike here and there, and it’s a hoot to see that the show’s
costumes were provided by Ohrbach’s, a department store I recall from my youth
in the 1980s. Actresses Kathryn Leigh
Scott and Lara Parker provide introductions
to the individual episodes which are a nice added value for the money
spent.
The success of the show led to two theatrical
offerings: House of Dark Shadows (1970)
and Night of Dark Shadows (1971),
also directed by Mr. Curtis and scored by Mr. Cobert.
New Zealand film director Peter Jackson is a favorite among
genre fans most notably for his early, off-the-wall gross-out comedy/horror
films.Anyone who has seen Mr. Jackson's
early work – specifically Bad Taste
(1987), Meet the Feebles (1989), and Dead Alive (1992) – cannot help but
wonder how in the world he managed to score the director’s chair for the film
versions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive epic about hobbits and Middle Earth.These three films, while highly entertaining,
are exercises in excess and were not embraced by the masses, although they have
all since developed cult followings.Bad Taste, about aliens who invade a
fictitious village in New Zealand in order to harvest human beings for their
outer space franchise of fast food, took four years to make on weekends and was
a gross-out success.It permitted Mr.
Jackson to secure financing for Meet the
Feebles in 1989, a black comedy about the entertainment industry, akin to The Muppets on acid.Like Bad
Taste, Meet the Feebles was shot
on 16mm.The film is comprised of
puppets and adults in oversized puppet suits and details a troupe of performers
called The Feebles, the antithesis of Jim Henson’s lovable group of which
Kermit and Ms. Piggy are the most recognizable members.The Feebles is a vulgar group of two-timing,
backstabbing performers who are caricatures of the worst people the business
world has to offer.A hilarious satire
with terrific music by Peter Dasent, the film is woefully in need of a deluxe
Blu-ray release.
His next film, Dead
Alive, was his first 35mm outing and is an over-the-top, cartoonish
gorefest that needs to be seen to be believed, and is now available on Blu-ray
from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.The
plot involves a creature known as the Sumatran Rat-Monkey who goes nuts and
bites people, spreading disease and contagion, resulting in one of the goriest
and messiest endings in film history involving limbs and a lawnmower.The style of the film is that of an
uproarious horror comedy and is by no means meant to be taken seriously, much
like Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator
(1985), and once again Peter Dasent is on board to provide a wonderful film score.
Timothy Balme and Diana Peñalver are
wonderful as Lionel and Paquita, respectively, two lonely souls who find one
another in a New Zealand town.Lionel
lives with his overbearing mother, brilliantly played by Elizabeth Moody.She is bitten by the rat monkey and the
contagion begins to spread.Despite his
best efforts, Lionel is unable to stop the spread of the virus and his house
becomes a battle ground of blood and guts as the townspeople turn into ravenous
zombies.
The late publisher Forrest J. Ackerman
makes a funny cameo and there is enough comedy and gore to go around to satisfy
the appetites of the genre’s most discriminating followers.The Blu-ray is a significant improvement over
the film’s previous home video appearances on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD and is a
worthy upgrade.The de rigueur trailer constitutes the disc’s sole extra; English and
Spanish subtitles are a welcome addition, too.
Filmed in 2009 in San Juan and Vega
Baja, Puerto Rico, The Rum Diary
(2011) feels much the way that Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) felt in that it seems like two movies in
one.In Mr. Kubrick’s Vietnam War film, the
opening boot camp scenes took the audience through the Marine Corps Recruit
Depot on Parris Island, SC to see the demoralization process in action that
makes killing machines out of the marines.The combat scenes, which were shot
before the aforementioned training sequence, takes the audience out of the boot
camp and puts them into the heart of the action.In the The
Rum Diary, the first half of the film follows an alcoholic, Kemp (Johnny Depp), through his exploits in
Puerto Rico after he lands a job as a journalist for a dying newspaper in the
years prior to the Kennedy assassination; the second half almost feels like the
hangover and the after effects of too much self-indulgence.This is not a swing at the film, which is an
accomplished cinematic work and not the desultory meanderings of an idealistic
writer that the film’s detractors have intimated. Rather, it is a regard for
the differences in tone and style the film takes as the protagonist makes his
way through the underbelly of society which is bifurcated into the incredibly
wealthy and the outright dirt poor, with crooked politicians and corrupt police
officers galore.
The critical
reaction to The Rum Diary reminds me of another of Mr. Depp’s films, Blow
(2000), which was unfairly overlooked upon its initial release, as it drew
comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s admittedly superior Goodfellas (1990),
with the former somehow being the bastard stepchild of the latter.Blow was as entertaining as is The
Rum Diary, and who better than Mr. Depp to bring it to the screen after his
collaboration with Mr. Thompson on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in
1998?
The Blu-ray looks terrific, with
minimal film grain and manages to capture the dark and light aspects of Puerto
Rico quite nicely.Extras-wise, the disc
contains: A Voice Made of Ink and Rage:
Inside The Rum Diary in high definition, which runs about twelve minutes.Mr. Depp talks about his friendship with Mr. Thompson,
while other members of the cast and crew discuss the story in general and
working on the film.The Rum Diary Back-Story is in standard
definition and runs about 45 minutes, discussing how the film got made.
Sergio Martino’s Torso (1973) was originally recommended to me on VHS at a Chiller
Theatre horror film convention in 1999.I caught up with it later when DVD supplanted the inferior videocassette
format as the primary method of home video viewing and while that transfer was
a considerable step up, it was nothing compared to the new Blu-ray from Blue
Underground, which is absolutely gorgeous.The image is pristine and bright.Derived from the original camera negative, Torso, succinctly and mercifully truncated from the jaw-breaking I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza
Carnale (Italian for The Bodies Show
Signs of Carnal Violence), falls into the category of the Italian giallo thriller.The word giallo
(pronounced gee-AL-oh), like the term splatter
films which is used for the brutally violent American horror thrillers released
in the 1970’s and 1980’s in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), describe an Italian genre of film and literature
which possess elements of both mystery and crime fiction.Giallo
in Italian translates into the word “yellow†in English and refers to the series
of paperback novels, better known as “penny dreadfuls,†which had yellow
covers.Gialli (plural) generally refer to films directed by Mario Bava and
Dario Argento, and these two gentlemen are certainly responsible for some of
the genre’s best outings.However, there
are other Italian directors who have produced such work and based upon Torso, this is a genre that horror fans should
familiarize themselves with if they have not already done so.
Shot primarily in the Perugia section
of Italy in the spring of 1972, Torso
is a tale of sexual violence seen in unusually graphic detail.A spate of brutal murders occurs in this
university town and young women are the target. The only clue appears to be a red and black
scarf used by the killer to off his victims, and just about every man in town
is a potential suspect.A quartet of
young female friends, one of whom is played by Suzy Kendall who previously
appeared in Dario Argento’s stunning debut film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), leave town and stay at a
mountaintop retreat until the killer is caught.Naturally, instead of fleeing from the killer, they unexpectedly lure
him right to their front door.
Torso is by no means original in terms of
plot or narrative structure, but it is head and shoulders above similar yarns from
a cinematic standpoint.The final reel
of the film is masterfully photographed and edited, literally with no dialog,
and really keeps the audience on the edge of their seat.As director Eli Roth quite correctly states
in his introduction to the film, this sequence is pure cinema.The films falters slightly during its denouement, as it contains a scene where
the killer reveals the reasons for killing, a device derided in many movies,
even Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho
(1960).However, don’t rob yourself of
the experience of viewing this nifty thriller due to this minor quibble.
The disc extras consist of:
·Murders in Perugia – an interview with Sergio Martino
·U.S.
Opening Credits
·Theatrical
Trailers
·TV
Spots
·Radio
Spot
·Poster
and Still Gallery
·Viewer’s
Choice of Watching the Uncensored English Version or the Full-Length Italian
Director’s Cut
The first Disney movie that my family
owned was Dumbo (1941) on the
Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED), RCA’s long-defunct pipe dream home video
format that began production in 1981 and ended in 1986 after seventeen years in
development, an also-ran in the kiddie’s seat while the recordable VHS sat at
the grown-up’s table.The picture
quality of CED was nothing to write home about though it was arguably better
than the aforementioned recordable cassette.CED was a stepping stone, albeit in the analog realm, to a future of
home video viewing in the form of movies on a disc.While Disney offered a considerable number of
their most beloved titles on VHS, the sheer lack of decent picture quality
never sat well with me.I was beside
myself, however, when most of their best known works made their way to the
superior laserdisc (still an analog format), especially Lady and the Tramp (1955), which looked wonderful in the
letterboxed format.This image was
improved upon with the DVD releases in 1999 and 2006, but even they pale in
comparison to the new Diamond Edition Blu-ray, which is jaw-droppingly beautiful
thanks to a frame-by-frame restoration and easily worth the price of the
upgrade.Just about every detail and
every nuance can be seen in this version.
Generally overshadowed by Disney’s
other features Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves (1937) and Sleeping Beauty
(1959, in its gorgeous Technirama splendor), Lady and the Tramp, which was released theatrically on June 22,
1955 and was the first animated feature filmed in CinemaScope, is a fun film
for the whole family.Based
upon Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog by
Ward Greene, which Walt Disney read in a 1943 issue of Cosmopolitan, the story concerns Lady, a cocker spaniel who is
given to Darling Dear by her husband, Jim Dear, on Christmas morning in
1909.The center of attention until a
new baby is born, Lady trades in her digs for time with other dogs from the
neighborhood: Jock, a Scottish Terrier; Trusty, a bloodhound, and Tramp, a
mutt.When the couple leaves the baby in
the care of ailurophile Aunt Sarah (a questionable maneuver given the infant’s
age) who despises dogs, Lady gets into a tussle with her Siamese cats,
prompting Aunt Sarah to buy a muzzle for Lady.A lot of hijinks ensue: think Tom and Jerry but without the over-the-top
violence as Lady and Tramp make a run from the house to a fancy restaurant in a
scene that earned the film a place at number 95 on the American Film
Institute’s list of “100 Greatest Love Stories of All Time.â€
Lady ends up the in the dog pound and discovers
that having a license is her ticket out while getting an earful about Tramp’s status
with other female dogs.Bailed out by
Aunt Sarah, Lady returns home and castigates Tramp for his checkered past.After a rat makes its way into the baby’s
crib, Tramp knocks the crib over, setting in motion a series of misinterpretations
by Aunt Sarah who has pegged Tramp as a troublemaker and sends him to the
pound.Jock and Trusty come to the
rescue, but not without Trusty nearly losing his life in attempting to save
Tramp.All’s well that ends well when at
the following Christmas Lady and Tramp are the proud parents of four puppies.
There are a good number of musical
numbers in the film, one of the most memorable being “We are Siamese if You
Please†by the titular cats, and all the animals only speak among themselves.
Lady
and the Tramp
comes in three flavors:
3-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack (Blu-ray +
DVD + Digital Copy) = $44.99 U.S./$51.99 Canada
2-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack (Blu-ray + DVD) = $39.99 U.S./$46.99 Canada
1-Disc DVD = $29.99 U.S./$35.99 Canada
Here is a listing of the features on the Blu-ray:
Blu-ray Bonus: Disney Second Screen: Inside
Walt’s Story Meetings*
Audio Commentary: Inside Walt’s Story Meetings
Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad
Three Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes
Never Recorded Song: “I’m Free as the Breezeâ€
Classic DVD Bonus:
-Lady’s Pedigree: The Making of Lady and the Tramp
-Finding Lady: The Art of the Storyboard
-Original 1943 Storyboard Version of the Film
-PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs
-“The Siamese Cat Song,†Finding a Voice for the
Cats
-“Bella Notte†Music Video
-Trailers
-Excerpts from “Disneyland†TV Shows
DVD Bonus: Diane Disney Miller: Remembering
Dad
PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs
Digital Bonus: Diane Disney Miller:
Remembering Dad
Three Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes
PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs
Click here to order 3 disc Blu-ray special edition from Amazon
After
the dramatic, Ingmar Bergman-esque directorial turn he took with Interiors (1978), on the heels of his Oscar
winner Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen
turned back to contemporary New York for a daring film that was shot in black-and-white and scored with the music of
George Gershwin.Manhattan
(1979) was the result.Proclaimed as the
only truly great American film of the 1970s by film critic Andrew Sarris, Manhattan
is a joy to behold from start to finish and is quite simply one of the most romantic
films of all-time.Gordon Willis’
beautiful photography married with the sumptuous Gershwin music makes me wish
that filmmakers would make black and white films today.There are some who do, but they appear to
only do it within avant-garde and independent circles.
Manhattan, released on
Wednesday, April 25, 1979, stars Woody Allen as Isaac Davis, a twice-divorced
television writer who is unfulfilled with his life as a comedy writer.His second ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) has
left him for another woman and is writing a book about their marriage.Isaac is 42 and is dating Tracy (Mariel
Hemingway) who is 25 years younger than he is and is still in high school.He feels very guilty about this, but
genuinely cares for her (this plot point was reportedly inspired by Mr. Allen’s
affair with actress Stacy Nelkin on the set of Annie Hall in 1976, though her part was eventually cut from that
film).His friend
Yale (Michael Murphy) is writing a book about Eugene O’Neill and is married to
Emily (Anne Byrne) but has started an affair with Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton)
whom Isaac initially can’t stand but increasingly grows fond of.Throughout the film we are confronted by
these characters that cannot seem to put their finger on what they want and
stick with it.They are not inherently
bad people: they just keep making questionable decisions.By the end of the film, the only person who
seems to have their head on straight is Tracy
and the film ends, like Mr. Allen’s Hannah
and Her Sisters (1986), on a very positive and upbeat note.
The
real star of the film is Manhattan
itself, with its pulsating and bustling people and automobiles.Rarely has the city looked so luminous and
beautiful onscreen.Gordon Willis, the
revered cinematographer of The Godfather
films and Mr. Allen’s Annie Hall and Interiors, captures Gotham
in all its beauty even during an era when the city was beset by social decay.For the first time in his career, Mr. Allen
forgoes the relative constraints of the 1.85:1 flat ratio to the far more
accommodating 2.35:1 anamorphic Panavision vista and the results makes one ache
for further use of this format.
As
long as there are films, there will always be lively discussions as to what
Woody Allen’s best movie is.Most film
fans tend to argue amongst his four greatest works: Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan
(1979), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).If I personally had to choose, it would
probably be Hannah, which is perhaps
the finest film that he has ever made.At the same time, I don’t want to neglect the others, so it becomes an
exercise in futility as none of these films suffer from any condition other
than they are great films.Mr. Allen
would probably disagree, insofar as Annie
Hall is concerned.Mercifully
title-changed from Anhedonia (a
condition which characterizes a person’s inability to experience pleasure from
activities usually found to be enjoyable), Annie
Hall is a film full of life, laughs, and, ultimately, ironies.Few comedies have reached the heights that Annie Hall reaches for and easily tops,
and as such it resides on the number four spot of the American Film Institutes’
100 Funniest American Movies of All-Time.
Annie Hall, which opened on Wednesday, April 20,
1977, won the Best Picture award over George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) in April 1978 at the 50th Annual Academy Awards.I was nine at the time and positively
bewildered that anything would have trumped my favorite science fiction film.Didn’t everyone see and love Star Wars?Who could have voted against it?When I finally did see Woody Allen’s comedy years
later I was broadsided by how different, mature, and outright hilarious it was.The film is a feast of high-brow humor with
its visual and verbal in-jokes, effectively upping the ante from the hilarious
sight-gags that populated Take the Money
and Run (1969), Bananas (1971),
and Everything You Always Wanted to Know
About Sex: But Were Afraid to Ask (1972).What makes this film so remarkable are the performances, the dialogue,
and the brilliant editing.Originally
intended as a dramatic murder mystery with a comedic and romantic subplot (which
Mr. Allen shelved until 1993’s Manhattan
Murder Mystery), Annie Hall revolves
around Alvy Singer (Allen), a neurotic Manhattan comedian, and his relationship
with his girlfriend, the titular Annie Hall (played by Diane Keaton, whose real
name is Diane Hall).Told in flashback
like J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the
Rye (which is mentioned in the film), Annie
Hall details their struggles to maintain a relationship in the Big Apple.Alvy meets the awkward Annie, and once their
relationship begins the film soars in its cinematic depiction of how they
relate to one another as well as to the audience.This is the one film of Mr. Allen’s which
begins and ends with no music over the credits, and wherein he talks directly
to the audience in character.Among the
standouts are Alvy’s description of his childhood; Alvy’s harassment by “the
cast of The Godfather†outside the
Beekman Theatre; Alvy introducing Marshall McLuhan to an annoying theatre
patron; Alvy and Annie’s attempts to cook lobster; their first meeting and
first date; making fun of people in Central Park; Alvy meeting Annie’s family; Annie’s
middle-of-the-night call to kill a spider in the bathtub; and Alvy’s
“fish-out-of-water†reaction to Los Angeles.
The
film is about memory and acts also as a great time capsule of what life was
like in 1976 when the film was shot.I
can’t help but notice how dressed up people are at the movie theatres, most of
which specialized in foreign films.It
is hard to believe now that New York City was once a place that was moderately
affordable to live in.
MGM's Annie Hall Blu-ray presentation is a considerable step
up for the previous DVD release which was marred by video noise as well as speckles
and blemishes on the film.The new
Blu-ray is, of course, sharper and is sourced from a film print in considerably
better condition.The disc has subtitles and the theatrical trailer.
If you are a Woody Allen fan, the purchase of this Blu-ray
is a no-brainer.
Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980) is one of the most beautifully-realized cinematic
experiences ever captured on film.The
follow-up to his previous film, Suspiria
(1977), Inferno is a film that upon
first viewing appears to be short on substance but considerably long on
style.While dialogue has never been the
director’s strong suit, the verbal platitudes that permeate not just this
phantasmagorical tale of alchemy and murder, but just about every other film he
has directed, provide a certain charm that has become an unofficial and
unmistakable part of his oeuvre.Although
the film takes place in New York, virtually all of it was faked in Italy
between April and August 1979, with some minor location shooting in the Big
Apple.Beautifully framed and suffused
with primary colors, Inferno, the
story lifted from the myth of the Three Mothers as written by Thomas De Quincey
in his 1945 essay “Suspiria de Profundis,†takes the viewer on a journey not
seen outside of a nightmare.Whereas Suspiria was loud, strident, and truly
graphic, Inferno is a study in
contrasts – long, meandering scenes suddenly give way to abrupt changes in
mood, the accompanying music cacophonous in its energy.The film is no less graphic in its depiction
of violence.Leigh McCloskey stars as
Mark, a music student in Rome who becomes involved in trying to track down his
sister, Rose (Irene Miracle), who has disappeared in New York.With the help of a fellow student, Sarah (Eleanora
Giorgi), Mark uncovers a layer of evil permeating the earth that he formerly
was oblivious to.This threadbare plot
provides the basis for some truly stunning set pieces ever mounted by the
director.
I have always
loved movies that take place outdoors in the wilderness ever since seeing Ken
Annakin’s The Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
at a matinee showing in 1980 (when theaters still did that sort of thing) and
John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972),
though I will admit that the latter, although beautifully lensed by Vilmos
Zsigmond, is enough to make anyone want to stay indoors!Matthew Leutwyler’s The River Why (2010), filmed in Portland, Oregon in the summer of
2008, is the film version of David James Duncan’s 1983 novel of the same name
and the beautiful outdoors figures prominently in the film.Essentially, this is a coming-of-age story about
a young man named Gus Orviston (Zach Gilford of Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter and television’s
"Friday Night Lights"), who is at his wits end when it comes to the constant
bickering of his parents, played effectively by William Hurt and Kathleen
Quinlan, the former of whom refers to Gus by his full name Augustine.He decides that rather than whine and
complain, he will actually do something about it.His answer is to move to a small cabin by
himself so he can concentrate on fishing, something that he loves to do.He creates an “ideal schedule†that consists
of eating, sleeping and fishing.This
schedule is more or less a result of tunnel vision as he
believes that this is all that he wants in life.As the days progress, he wants a stronger
connection to the people around him, especially with the young and initially
elusive fisherwoman named Eddy (played by the luminous Amber Heard of 2010’s The Rum Diaries) who catches his eye and
his heart.
The River Why
is a slow-moving and relaxing viewing and requires patience to stick with
it.Viewers used to the slam-bang
editing that has become the norm in Hollywood productions will more than likely
be bored, but for other viewers the film will be a rewarding experience.The story is a character-driven drama rather
than plot-driven, and there are solid supporting performances from William
Devane as a newspaper journalist and Dallas Roberts as a philosopher who gets
Gus to look at The Big Picture.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray, the latter of course is the
way to see this film as the scenery, not to mention Ms. Heard, is sumptuous in
high definition.
In the experience of moviegoers, there
are films that possess characters we come to care about, characters whom we
wish would make different choices by the film’s end.Inevitably, there are films that end badly
for those characters and even after repeated viewings we still wish that the
film would end positively in their favor.One such film is the 1994 New Zealand outing Heavenly Creatures, directed by a then-still-unknown Peter Jackson.Anyone who has seen Mr. Jackson's early work
– specifically Bad Taste (1987), Meet the Feebles (1989), and Braindead (1992) – cannot help but
wonder how in the world he managed to score the director’s chair for the film
versions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive epic about hobbits and Middle Earth.Mr. Jackson’s first three films, while highly
entertaining, are exercises in excess and were not embraced by the masses but
have all since developed cult followings.The positive reception of Braindead
was instrumental in getting his next and fourth film fast-tracked and in front of
the cameras in early 1993.At this
point, Mr. Jackson had developed a certain look and feel to his films that
managed to carry over into his next and most ambitious project.In my humble opinion, and without taking
anything away from The Lord of the Rings
trilogy, Heavenly Creatures stands as
the finest film that Mr. Jackson has made to date.Beautifully scored by Peter Dasent and
peppered with operatic cues, it is a film of such complexity, such visual
wonder, such sheer cinematic style, and is so self-assured that it easily
warrants repeated viewings.There are
films that we all see and we go on with our lives without thinking twice about,
and then there are films that we experience and find ourselves changed by.Heavenly
Creatures falls into the latter camp, and this truth cannot help but be overshadowed
by the fact that Heavenly Creatures,
while being truly awe-inspiring, is loosely based upon the true story of a
heinous and unfathomable case of premeditated matricide.
The
quintessential and politically incorrect New York movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) has arrived on
Blu-ray from MGM.Adapted from John Godey’s novel
of the same name and brilliantly directed by Joseph Sargent with loads of
smile-inducing and laugh-out-loud humor, The
Taking of Pelham One Two Three concerns four heavily armed men, all sporting
moustaches and machine guns, and named after colors to mask their identities
(this idea was lifted by Quentin Tarantino and used to great effect in his 1992
film Reservoir Dogs), who commandeer
a train from the New York City subway system and hold eighteen passengers
hostage.They demand one million dollars
in cash for their release – a mere pittance in today’s money.Robert Shaw shines as the lead baddy and heads
the superb cast which also features Martin Balsam as a confederate, Walter
Matthau as the police lieutenant who negotiates with Shaw, Hector Elizondo who is
virtually unrecognizable as the monkey-in-the-wrench who causes problems for Shaw
with his own sense of bravado; and Kenneth MacMillian as the Borough Commander.Among the film’s highlights are Matthau’s off-handed
and embarrassing treatment of the representatives of the Tokyo Metropolitan
Subway System who are visiting; Tom Pedi’s role as Caz Dalowicz whose no-B.S.
approach to the hijackers results in a shootout in the tunnel; Lieutenant Rico
Patrone (Jerry Stiller) who reads the newspaper and is bothered that he is
being “interrupted†by the Japanese reps touring the facility; Lee Wallace’s
turn as the Mayor (he’s a near dead ringer for Mayor Ed Koch who became the New
York Mayor four years after the film’s release) and his inefficacy in dealing
with the situation at hand, including his deputy mayor, played well played by
Tony Roberts; Robert Weil as a transit worker (he’s a character actor who
appeared in dozens of great New York films) and the film’s priceless ending.Film composer David Shire, who wrote
excellent music for Francis Ford Coppola’s The
Conversation (1974) and Martin Ritt’s Norma
Rae (1979), provides a spectacular score that one cannot help humming long after the film is over.
The Taking of
Pelham One Two Three is
a terrific balancing act of high suspense and tension and outright hilarity,
something that few films are ever able to achieve. (One notable exception is
Bob Clark’s 1974 thriller Black Christmas,
which manages the same feat). What the
film captures perfectly is the sense the people working in New York City have
about themselves and their jobs, a veritable “another day at the office†mentality
as they go about their routines no matter how outrageous the circumstances.The film couldn't have come to Blu-ray at a
better time.With politicians using the
safety and well-being of Americans as a bargaining chip for political gain
(i.e. health care), the sentiments of the film are timeless and ring true in a
city where corruption and racism run behind-the-scenes and are perfectly sized-up
by Doris Roberts’s turn as the mayor’s wife when she tells him what he’ll get
in return for paying out the ransom: eighteen sure votes.
There
is no mention on the Blu-ray packaging of a remastered image and sound, so the
transfer appears to be derived from the same master that was used on the
standard definition DVD released in February 2000.The image is sharper this time with just a
few instances of dirt and some scratches that are barely noticeable.The Blu-ray also adds subtitles in English, Spanish
and French and retains the film's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer.I originally hoped that with the release of Tony
Scott's 2009 remake, itself a well-made version with less emphasis on humor and
more on action, there would be a reissue of the original with commentaries and
a documentary on the making of the film, but no such luck.Still, despite the lack of the usual bells
and whistles that generally accompany far less entertaining films, the upgrade
to Blu-ray is worth it as this is one of the best films made during the
American cinema's most riveting decade.Lensed
also in 1998 for television by Felix Enriquez Alcala (how can you make this
film without profanity?), this 1974 original is the most entertaining version of this
story.
Like most children of the 1970s,
television viewing was a big part of my week.Beginning at 7:30 PM and ending two and-a-half hours later, my family’s Thursday
nights consisted of That’s Hollywood,
Mork and Mindy, Angie, Barney Miller, and
Carter Country.Not having seen Barney Miller until well into its sixth season, I just assumed that
the entire show took place in the police station.Now that the show’s entire series is available
in a DVD box set, courtesy of the fine folks at Shout! Factory, my initial
impressions of the show were proven wrong.The pilot episode features Barney Miller’s family, specifically his
wife, played with charm by Barbara Barrie. Abe Vigoda, Maxwell Gail, and Ron Glass appear
from the get-go, and guest star Chu Chu Malave, who played Maria’s boyfriend
who tackles Al Pacino in Dog Day
Afternoon (1975), and (of all things) the delivery boy who seduces Bobbie
Bresee in Mausoleum (1983), plays an
out-of-control prisoner who commandeers Fish’s gun and holds the precinct
hostage.
During the initial episodes, Barney Miller feels like it is trying to
find its way, and it gets much funnier as it progresses into later seasons.If it were made today it more than likely
would have been axed after a few lackluster-performing episodes.To think that it lasted eight seasons
illustrates just how different the television landscape was back in the 1970s.What is most surprising is the level of
diversity among the ethnic groups that were represented early on in the
show.Although this is so commonplace
now, it was sort of a watershed back then: Gregory Sierra as the Puerto Rican
detective Chano; Max Gail as Polish Detective Stan "Wojo"
Wojciehowicz; African-American Ron Glass as Harris (my personal favorite); Jack
Soo as the deadpan Japanese-American Yemana; and Abe Vigoda as Fish - I cannot
think of him in anything except The
Godfather (1972).
Where the show always shined for me even
at a young age was in the characterizations of both the detectives and the
silly perps who made their way through the 12th Precinct in Greenwich Village.Ron Carey as Levitt and James Gregory as
Inspector Luger always made me laugh when they showed up.This was not a show of one-liners, but rather
one that dealt with a multitude of topics and situations and made them truly
laugh-out-loud funny.The term “sitcomâ€
really fits this show as the humanity and hilarity that ensues comes from the
characters, not punch lines.
The first three seasons of Barney Miller had been released on DVD by
Sony, but due to lackluster sales the remaining five seasons were
neglected.Shout! Factory, on the other hand,
has put together a beautiful DVD box set which belongs in the collection of all
fans of the show.The entire series of
168 episodes is provided on 25 DVD’s and comes with a beautiful booklet that
details the names of each and every episode and the original airdate.There is a half-hour
look back at the show with Hal Linden, Max Gail, and Abe Vigoda; a half-hour description
about the character’s creations; a featurette about the show’s writing; the
show’s original, unaired pilot with Charles Haid(!); and all 13 episodes of Abe
Vigoda’s short-lived spin-off series Fish
from 1977.
Shout! Factory has done an
extraordinary job of putting together this collection which was obviously done
with a great deal of care and foresight.Highly recommended.
I would love to see the same treatment bestowed
upon on T.J. Hooker, a favorite of
mine from my teen-age years.This was another
show that Sony released and abandoned after only the first two seasons made
their way to DVD.Fingers crossed!
Beauty
and the Beast was
a very successful film for Walt Disney upon its was released on Wednesday,
November 13, 1991.The follow-up to the
studio’s highly praised The Little
Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast
proved that a new generation of audiences had a desire for animated film
fare.As a result of this success,
Disney decided to create another adventure with Belle and the Beast.The result was Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, which originally was
intended as a theatrical continuation of the story, but ended up being produced
for home video in 1997.The film may
appear to be a sequel, but it is not.The action actually takes place within the timeline that occurs in the
original film: after the fight with the wolves, but before the fight with
Gaston.
Since the Beast was transformed from a
Prince on Christmas, he is understandably Ebenezer Scrooge-ish when it comes to
the yearly holiday, and forbids the mere utterance in his presence of any
mention of the word.Belle must adhere
to his wishes or face violent outburst, which are frequent, from the
Beast.With the help of the castle’s anthropomorphized
clock (Cogsworth), candle (Lumiere), tea pot (Mrs. Potts) and tea cup (Chip), Belle
has to prove to the Beast that Christmas is a wonderful holiday.
The film was released on VHS cassette in
1997 and is now available on a double-disc set of a standard DVD and the high
definition Blu-ray.As you can well
imagine, the difference in picture quality between VHS and DVD is dramatic, and
comparing the VHS to Blu-ray is even more startling.If you are a fan of this film, the upgrade is
most definitely worth it.
In
addition to the Enchanted Christmas, Disney
is re-issuing their made-for-home video film Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Magical World on standard definition
DVD.This film was released on VHS in
1998 and was comprised of three separate segments:The
Perfect Word, Fifi's Folly, and The Broken Wing.In 2003, the film was released on DVD and an
additional segment, Mrs. Potts's Party,
was added.It is this same DVD version that is being
made available once again, this time with different cover art.If you have the VHS and are on the fence
about upgrading, this new DVD is the way to go.If you already have the 2003 DVD version, there is no reason to
upgrade.
The musical numbers in both films are
quite nice, although the animation isn’t quite up to the high level of
excellence of the original theatrical film.Paige O’Hara and Robbie Benson reprise their roles as Belle and the
Beast, respectively, in both films.
The obvious audience for the films is
children, girls in particular. The filmmakers reiterate the message that love
can overcome differences between people in an entertaining way that never
threatens to become overly-preachy.
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Having grown up on the Rankin Bass Christmas
specials since I was a child, the Yuletide season just isn't the same without a
yearly viewing of some of their most enchanting shows.Since the 1960s and 1970s, specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus
is Comin’ to Town, The Little Drummer Boy and The Year Without a Santa Claus were shown on the major television
networks.In the late 1980s it became increasingly
difficult to see most of these specials unless you had cable television or
video cassette recorders as the major networks stopped airing them.With the availability of home video, the shows were inevitably made available to the masses and made great Christmas
presents.
The fine folks at Classic Media have
released some of these beloved Christmas classics on Blu-ray.In a two-disc set entitled The Original Christmas Classics, disc
one contains Santa Claus is Comin’ to
Town. Premiering on Sunday, December 14, 1970, Santa Claus is a stop-motion animated special that stars Fred
Astaire as a postal worker who uses the device of children’s letters and
inquiries about Santa as the basis for telling the story of how Santa came to
be.Santa
Claus is voiced by Mickey Rooney. The story is based upon the Christmas
song of the same name and features a wide variety of musical numbers.There is the mean-spirited character Mayor
Burgermeister Meisterburger who despises toys and arrests anyone in possession
of one. There is a scene where his
soldiers burn a group of toys in front of horrified young children. The
sequence was often cut from some broadcasts because it was deemed too upsetting
to kids. Fortunately, it has been restored for the Blu-ray, along with other
scenes that were occasionally cut to accommodate more commercials
Disc two features three specials, the
first of which is the most well-known of all, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which premiered on Sunday, December
6, 1964.Also running 51 minutes, the
copyright year is erroneously listed as MCLXIV (1164), not MCMLXIV (1964).A stop-motion animated special that premiered
on the NBC network and was sponsored by GE, Rudolph
made its way to CBS for many years and is based on the Johnny Marks song of the
same name.It features a lot of themes
that are still prevalent today, including the consequences of bullying and name-calling. However, despite
all of this, Rudolph triumphs in the face of adversity with his equally-spurned
friend Hermie who wants to be a dentist!
Next up is Frosty the Snowman, a hand-drawn animated special from Sunday,
December 7, 1969 that features Jimmy Durante and a host of enjoyable songs. The idea was to create a show that resembled a
Christmas card and for the most part the concept is successful.A young girl, Karen, makes a snowman she
christens “Frosty†and tops him off with a top hat she obtains from a
magician.Karen is voiced by June Foray,
best known for Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Cindy Lou Who, Witch Hazel, and
Granny.
The final show is Frosty Returns from Tuesday, December 1, 1992 and it cannot hold a
candle to its predecessors.It is a
curiosity to behold as the dominant theme mirrors that of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, (i.e. corporate enterprise schemes
to profit at the expense of the environment.) The show is also an exercise in
political correctness as the there are no overt references to “Christmas.â€
It is wonderful to see these specials
in high definition, although Frosty
Returns looks like it was mastered from a lower-quality video release and
there is a fair amount of dot crawl prevalent.If you look closely at Santa Claus
and Rudolph, you can see the wires
that were used to move the characters around, something that was difficult to
see on standard television viewings.The
colors are strong and vibrant, especially in the sequence about the Island of
Misfit Toys.Despite the aforementioned
quality issues on Frosty Returns, it’s
safe to say that, by and large, these gems have never looked better and make for
a perfect holiday treat.
The programs are provided with the
requisite chapter stops and have no extras.
Space: 1999 was one of my favorite shows as a
child.Even before Star Wars changed my life, I eagerly watched Martin Landau and
Barbara Bain and their adventures in outer space in this series created by
Gerry Anderson.Unlike its predecessor Star Trek, the show ran for just two
seasons.From 1975 to 1977, I was treated
to a view of the future that was both exciting and ominous.I say was because the difference between
seeing this show as a child and seeing it now as an adult is night and
day.At the time, I really was convinced
that the show took place in outer space.Viewing the episodes today, the special effects don’t look quite so
convincing, to put it charitably.
As
a child, I never realized the show was a British production.In the series opener, the moon has become a
garbage heap for earth’s nuclear waste.An accident occurs, causing a cataclysmic eruption that occurs on
September 13, 1999.The force is so
enormous that it knocks the moon out of its orbit, and the result is that many
earthlings are sent spiraling into outer space.Most of the episodes are predicated on the fantastic, not the
realistic.If you are a fan of this
series, this Blu-ray purchase of the complete first season is a
no-brainer.Although the series was
released in the U.S. on standard DVD nearly ten years ago, this new Blu-ray set
puts that DVD set to shame, as the Blu-ray collection is mastered from the
original camera negatives and looks as though the show was just made
today.The 7-disc set is from A & E.
Visually,
the show is obviously inspired by Douglas Trumbull’s work on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and has a Logan’s Run (1976) look to it.Most of the show is relegated to the
soundstages, and it cannot compare to today’s action shows for sheer
excitement.Still, it is a great time
capsule of the type of show that passed for entertainment just over thirty-five
years ago.Some of the music is a bit
silly, and the episodes do run at a snail’s pace, but for true fans of the show
you absolutely cannot go wrong with this set.
It
would stand to reason that since season one has been released, there should be
a release of season two sometime soon.I
am looking forward to this set, as I recall seeing the show’s only two-part
episode “The Bringers of Wonder†in 1977 and my younger sister and I were quite
frightened of the gooey creatures from this story.
My love of horror films didn’t start
until I was twelve, but as a child in 1974 I recall seeing scenes from a film
that featured a white poodle and a monster with eerie, red eyes. I didn’t know the name of it until my
grandmother bought a VHS copy of Horror
Express in September 1985 from K-mart for the then unheard of amount of
eleven dollars.I immediately recognized
the images and was delighted to finally know the film that had unnerved me
years earlier.
Horror
Express takes place at
the turn of the 20th Century.Sir
Alexander Saxton (Christopher Lee), a British anthropologist, discovers frozen fossils
during an archeological dig and takes them aboard the Tran-Siberian Express en
route to England.Accompanying him are
his colleague Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing) and his assistant Mrs. Jones (Alice
Reinheart).Almost immediately, people begin
to turn up dead if they approach or look into the crate which harbors a
defrosted two million year-old creature which possesses a strong red eye that
sucks the brain power out of anyone who confronts it.The creature’s stare causes the eyes of its
victims to bleed and turn opaque white, and it possesses some ability to remove
memories from its victims, the evidence of which appears in the form of
removing the victim’s skull cap and exposing the brain which is smooth and free
of lines and impressions.What starts
out as a run-of-the-mill monster film becomes a much more interesting fright
fest, particularly as a loose adaptation of the novella “Who Goes There?†by
John W. Campbell, Jr. (which itself provided the basis for The Thing from Another World (1951) and John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)).Telly Savalas, of all people, shows up as an aggressive Cossack determined
to find out why people are dying on the train.There is a neat explanation regarding the origin of the monster: when
the creature’s eye is removed and studied under a microscope, images of
dinosaurs can be seen, in addition to the earth from outer space, indicating
that it has been frozen for millions of years and that it is not of this earth.
After many different public domain releases
on VHS and several DVD incarnations, Horror
Express has finally been given the respect that it deserves from the fine
folks at Severin Films.In their new
Blu-ray and DVD combo pack, Severin has provided a wonderful assortment of
extras:
• Introduction by Fangoria editor Chris Alexander
• Murder on the Trans-Siberian
Express: Interview with director Eugenio Martin
• Notes from the Blacklist:
Producer Bernard Gordon discusses the McCarthy Era
• 1973 Audio Interview with Peter Cushing
• Telly and Me: Interview with
composer John Cacavas
• Theatrical Trailer
• Trailers for Psychomania, The House That Dripped Blood, and Nightmare Castle
• Easter Egg: visit to the train station location
To see Horror Express look this good is a rare treat indeed.There are some scratches on the film and some
splices here and there, but nothing to carp about.The introduction by Chris Alexander is
spirited and informative, and the interview with composer John Cacavas is a joy
to watch as he talks about how he got the project, and his long-standing
professional relationship with Telly Savalas.His score for this film is very eerie, memorable, and fits the movie
like a glove.
Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others (2001) is a brilliantly scary
film.Almost as scary is realizing that
ten years have transpired since this film played in theaters.Released just one month prior to the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, The Others is the flipside
of Peter Medak’s The Changeling
(1980), a glorious ghost story with enough style and substance to draw
comparisons to the genre’s crown jewels: Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), both of which are in dire need of Blu-ray
upgrades.
The film opens with a series of
hand-drawn images that segue into the house where all of the action takes
place.This is a device used many times
in films, but it is particularly striking in The Others.It is 1945 and off the coast of France on the
island of Jersey lives Grace, played skillfully by Nicole Kidman, and her two
children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley).Both of these actors are wonderful, and they recall
the dynamic created between Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin in the
aforementioned Innocents.They suffer from a skin disorder that will
result in a severe outburst that will kill them if they are exposed to sunlight;
this requires that they live their lives indoors, away from the windows.Unexpectedly, three servants show up to serve
Grace and the kids, and then strange things begin to happen.From this point on, the audience is kept in
the dark, just like the characters, and once the strange revelation comes about
near the film’s end, all is revealed with the presence of light.It is wonderful to see that a major studio was
responsible for distributing such a beautifully-realized work, one that not
only clicked with critics but was also financially successful at the box office.
What is all the more amazing about this
film is that director Amenábar also wrote the screenplay and composed the
musical score; he’s a true jack-of-all trades.The Others is one of the best
ghost stories ever filmed, and the new Blu-ray by Lionsgate Home Entertainment is
to die for.It sports an absolutely stunning
transfer and makes upgrading a no-brainer.Nearly free of grain, the image is the best available on home video
outside of a theatrical presentation.The extras which appeared on the standard DVD release from 2002 are
ported over, though it would have been nice to have a commentary included by
the director.
There
are a handful of films that I hated the first time that I viewed them, but upon
subsequent viewings have all come to be beloved favorites of mine.James Toback’s Fingers (1978) was an incoherent mess to my naïve, nineteen
year-old eyes but was revealed to be one of the cinema’s greatest character
studies years later; William Friedkin’s To
Live and Die in L.A. (1985) seemed like a Miami Vice wanna-be, but is now
one of the best police thrillers ever and gives the average person a hint of
what it must be like to be a cop; and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) was…well…strange.The film was…confusing…boring…aimless…weird…My
friends and I honestly didn’t know what to make of it after we stumbled out of
the theater in October 1986 and pondered what we has just viewed for two
hours.We were honestly at a loss.What I didn’t realize was that I had just seen
David Lynch’s best film.
Filmed
between February and April in 1986, Blue
Velvet is about many things, and the main theme is set up beautifully in
the first few minutes after the main title credits roll over a blue velvet robe.It deals with the ugliness and rage that lies
beneath the surface of people’s faces and the beautiful sunny, white
picket-fenced suburbs.The milieu
doesn’t actually give us the impression that it takes place during the
mid-Eighties; there are visual references that almost suggest a time and place
thirty years earlier, but in keeping with the film’s themes it is very
subtle.From a plot perspective, Jeffrey
Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home to handle things after his father has
taken sick after suffering a stroke in a scene that recall Don Corleone’s death
in The Godfather (1972).On his way home from seeing his father in the
hospital, he walks through a wooded area and discovers a severed human ear,
which he brings to Police Detective Williams (George Dickerson).His daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) is
still in high school and knows details about the case since her room is above his
office, which she imparts to Jeffery over lunch.The case involves a singer, Dorothy Vallens
(Isabella Rossellini in a wonderful and courageous performance), and her
kidnapped husband and son.Jeffrey is
intrigued to the point that he hatches a plan with Sandy to gain access to
Dorothy’s apartment and spy on her from inside her closet.What follows is one of the most startling
mysteries ever filmed filled with some truly strange characters.The film is bolstered by a brilliant
performance by Dennis Hopper as Frank, one of cinema’s most frightening villains.I am willing to bet that Frank wasn’t much of
a stretch for the late great actor to portray.The scene where Frank takes Dorothy and Jeffery on a joyride is very unnerving.
The Conversation (1974), the best film that Francis Ford Coppola has ever
made, begins with a bird's-eye view of a crowd of people in San Francisco's
Union Square.The camera slowly and
decisively zeroes in on specific people moving about, such as a mime (Robert
Shields of the “Shields and Yarnell†television show from 1977-1978 and one of
the world's greatest mimes) and eventually rests on our protagonist, Harry
Caul, a wire tapper and surveillance expert played by Gene Hackman in one of
his best screen performances.From the
film's very first frame, this is a movie about seeing and listening without
being detected.It's also about deeper
issues such as guilt, paranoia, responsibility, absolution and redemption,
themes that were common to American cinema in the 1970's during the Watergate
scandal and the Vietnam era.What is
even more amazing is the fact that The
Conversation is a film that most contemporary audiences have never even heard
of.
Originally written in the 1960's, The Conversation was filmed in late 1972 and early 1973 in San
Francisco when the city was gripped by the Zodiac murders.It was released in the spring of 1974.The complete flip side of Jimmy
"Popeye" Doyle, another brilliant performance by Mr. Hackman in
William Friedkin's Oscar-winning The
French Connection (1971), Harry is a quiet, lonely, and deliberately
withdrawn man with literally no friends, no attachments, and no hobbies to
speak of, except playing his saxophone to his jazz records.His cinematic brethren would appear to be
Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's Taxi
Driver (1976) and Jimmy Angelleli in James Toback's Fingers (1978), both masterful studies of troubled individuals.Many films during the 1970s dealt with
withdrawn middle-aged men, but Harry wants
to be alone.Even his brief interlude
with his sometime girlfriend Amy, played wonderfully by Teri Garr, is awkward
and sad.He pays her rent, lies to her
about his age and what he does for a living, and is made uncomfortable when she
asks him simple questions about his life.David Shire, Mr. Coppola’s former brother-in-law, provides a brilliantly
quiet piano score that enunciates Harry’s aloof nature.
Richard Klemensen’s Little
Shoppe of Horrors is one of the genre’s best publications.Like Gary Svehla’s beautiful Midnight Marquee, it is a labor of love
for its publisher and it is currently up to issue twenty-six.Subtitled “The Journal of Classic British
Horror Films†and brimming with images that you probably can’t easily find
elsewhere, each issue runs nearly 100 pages in black and white.The front and rear covers consist of
beautiful and original color artwork depicting such favorites as Peter Cushing
and Christopher Lee, and scenes from such films as Frankenstein Created Woman and Frankenstein
Must be Destroyed.Sandwiched
between these beautiful color images are enthusiastic letters to the editor, reviews
of similar publications, and book reviews to name just a few goodies.Readers can also find in-depth interviews
with actors such as Alan Wheatley (from 1981!), Jane Merrow, Freddie Jones, and
the making of various Hammer Films.A
look at past horror film fanzines such as Photon (remember that?!) provides a
wonderful trip down Memory Lane topped off with personal photos of visits to DC
World Con and the Famous Monsters film conventions.
Past issues contained an in-depth look at the making of THE
BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW starring Linda Hayden and a look at the career of Terence
Fisher.
Little Shoppe of Horrors
has a beautifully designed and easily navigable website
that permits readers to see what’s coming up in the next issue, in addition to
ordering copies of back issues.
All in all, this is a terrific publication, published first
and foremost by the only people who should be publishing it – die-hard fans
with a true love for the subject matter.
When
Steven Spielberg's Jaws burst onto
movie theatre screens on Wednesday, June 20, 1975 (during a time when movies
opened on a Wednesday), few were prepared for the impact it would have upon the
movie-going public and the American cinema in particular.Moderately budgeted and given a standard
shooting schedule, the film notoriously took nearly five months of grueling
work to get usable footage.The story behind
the making of one of Hollywood's most successful and greatest motion pictures
is also one of the most interesting in the annals of cinema history.While books have been written about the
subject of the making of Jaws, no one
has really addressed the making of the film in an in-depth, substantial way through
the use of rare photographs.All of that
has changed now, thanks to Matt Taylor, a writer/historian of Martha’s Vineyard,
Massachusetts, the location where the film was shot, and Jim Beller, a Jaws fan and the owner of the Jawscollector.com website, both of
whom worked tirelessly talking to the people who lived on the island and took
part in the making of this Hollywood classic.
Racking
the brains of Islanders, the name given to people who were born on Martha’s
Vineyard, and collecting thousands of photographs, many of them cleaned and
restored to beautiful and pristine condition, they have assembled a nearly
300-page book appropriately titled Jaws:
Memories from Martha's Vineyard, which has recently been released in both a
limited edition hardcover printing and in paperback format.The book is indubitably the final word on the
making of this spectacular masterpiece.Anyone who is a Jaws fanatic
needs to own it.Nearly 1,000
never-before-published photographs populate the book which is accompanied by a
beautifully written text by Mr. Taylor on just about every conceivable
behind-the-scenes-facet on the making of this film, presented in chronological
order.It encompasses the film’s
beginnings in December of 1973 when Production Designer Joe Alves made his initial
trek to Martha’s Vineyard to search for a suitable shooting location, up to and
including the film's release in June 1975.Few if any of the Islanders, as well as the actors and producers, could
have imagined the impact that Jaws
would have on fans over thirty years later.The little shark movie that was originally regarded by Universal
Pictures as a low-budget production not only became an action adventure
masterpiece but also put Steven Spielberg on the map to become one of the
world's greatest film producers and directors.Jaws is, bar none, the
Quint-essential (pun most definitely intended) summer movie, and should be re-released
theatrically every five years or so to give young audiences the opportunity to
experience its brilliance on a major motion picture screen where it was meant
to be seen.
Jaws: Memories from
Martha's Vineyard tells you more than you've ever wanted to
know and then some about the making of this great film.The amount of time, energy and research shows
on every single page.The book is
lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs and
storyboards, in addition to newspaper clippings from the island’s local
newspaper, the Vineyard Gazette, which gave virtually daily updates about the
making of the film.The limited
hardcover edition contains:
1″x1″
piece of the fiberglass hull of the Orca II (a.k.a., sinking Orca) used in Jaws with a note of authenticity from
owners Lynn and Susan Murphy.
A
DVD containing nine minutes of 8mm behind-the-scenes footage of the Jaws production shot and narrated by Islander
Carol Fligor.
Hardcover
and portfolio packaged in a unique special edition case.
Limited
to a series of 1000 numbered copies.
12″
x 10.5″, 296 pages.
More
than 1,000 full color and b/w images.
Jaws
is one of those rare films that I can watch over and over again.I’ve been known to watch it more than once in
one day.Likewise, Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard is the kind of book that
keeps pulling me back to it, to pore over the photos and interviews, over and
over again.You can’t just pick it up
for a few minutes and then put it down.Like the water of Amity Long Island, the book draws you in, and if
you’re not careful you will realize that the few minutes you intended to read
through it suddenly extends to several hours.If this book is not the greatest book ever published about the making of
a motion picture, I simply don't know what is.It should set the standard for future publications on similar
classics.It stands as a testament to
not only a great motion picture, but as an authenticated record of what it
truly takes to make a film and realize that film through a camera lens and most
importantly, to be able to solve seemingly insurmountable odds and problems
that inevitably beset a film crew.After
all, time is money.
The
book can be ordered at the book’s
official site and will also be available in bookstores nationwide at the
end of September 2011.
Read
on for Cinema Retro’s interview with the gentlemen who created this astonishingly
beautiful book.
Dario Argento's DeepRed (1975), the best
movie he has ever made (Tenebre is a
close second), has been known under many titles such as Profondo Rosso, Deep Red The
Hatchet Murders and Les Frissons de l'Angoisse.The film astonished audiences with its
breathtaking cinematic style, unparalleled marriage of quasi-jazz/rock that
inspired John Carpenter’s Halloween
theme, and extensive use of a huge old house as the scene of a crime that has
remained secret for years until a chance meeting with a psychic threatens to
bring the murder out into the open.
Coming on the heels of Mr. Argento’s
phenomenal debut film The Bird with the
Crystal Plumage (1970), his interesting The
Cat O’Nine Tails (1971), the overlong and meandering Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972) and his comedic The Five Days of Milan (1975), Deep Red announced the arrival of
what most of us think of as a Dario Argento film.While his first three “faunaâ€â€“titled films all
employed a regular Everyman as its protagonist-turned-amateur sleuth attempting
to solve the puzzle of a murder victim’s death, Deep Red raised the bar by showcasing a series of firsts for the
director: it was the first time that he utilized the considerable talents of
Goblin, the Italian rock group whose musical score elevates the film into the
stratosphere, and Daria Nicolodi, Mr. Argento’s long-time girlfriend, appeared
in her first role for him.She was also
a story and script collaborator on his films until 1987.Ms. Nicolodi’s performance as news reporter
Gianni Brezzi and her ability to bounce off of David Hemmings’s Marcus Daly is
one of the film's greatest assets.Their
comedic banter is a pleasant counterpoint to the macabre mayhem at hand.While the Italian cut contains additional,
non-essential exposition of this same nature, the American version is the
preferable cut as it is more polished.
Cinema Retro columnist Todd Garbarini was invited by the Film Forum to an advance screening of a remastered print of The French Connection. Here is his report:
NYPD is the name of
the festival of New York-based films currently screening at Manhattan’s repertoire
theater, the Film Forum.Originally
mounted at the same time in 2001, the festival was interrupted by the terrorist
attacks on that fateful Tuesday morning.
Among the screenings is a
nine-day engagement of William Friedkin’s Oscar-winning The French Connection from 1971 which runs from September 14 –
22.Nominated for eight Academy Awards
and scoring golden statues for Best Picture, Best Director (Friedkin), Best
Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Screenplay (Ernest Tidyman’s adaptation of Robin
Moore’s book), and Best Editing (Jerry Greenberg), The French Connection is a masterpiece of visual storytelling
loosely based upon the real-life exploits of Edward Walter "Eddie"
Egan and his partner Salvatore "Sonny" Grosso in their quest to bust
what was, up to that point in 1962, the largest heroin deal in the United
States valued at $32M at the time (roughly $231M today).With Hackman standing in for Egan as Jimmy “Popeyeâ€
Doyle and Oscar-nominated co-star Roy Scheider in Grosso’s role as Buddy “Cloudyâ€
Russo, the film is a gripping thriller from start to finish highlighted by
several set pieces: a foot chase between Doyle and Frog One (Fernando Rey), the
code name given to the Frenchman providing the American counterparts with the
heroin; the much-celebrated chase between a commandeered 1971 Pontiac Le Mans
and an elevated subway train through Brooklyn in a sequence almost too gripping
to be believed; and the search for the heroin in question in a 1971 Lincoln Mk
III by completely tearing it apart and putting it back together.
Don Ellis, the late great
jazz musician who sadly passed away in 1978, provides a superb film score that
he wrote in five weeks and recorded in four days.Film Score Monthly issued a soundtrack album
on CD for the film in 2005.
The French Connection is a film unlike any other: bolstered by a
unique and gritty look, Owen Roizman’s camera provides an authenticated record
of Manhattan and Brooklyn rarely seen in the cinema.In addition to acting as technical advisors, Egan
and Grosso both appear in the film, the former as Simonson and the latter as
Klein, one of the officers assigned to the case.Egan passed away in 1995; Grosso became a
technical advisor on many projects, including The Godfather (he’s in the scene with Sterling Hayden outside the
hospital) and television’s Kojak.
The film is being shown in a
new 35mm print that is gorgeous and free of debris that generally plagues
prints that have been run through the projector many times over.
If you haven’t seen this film
in a theater, you really haven’t seen it.Click here for
more information.
Sharktopus and Dinoshark are the titles of two of the SyFy Channel’s most-viewed titles of late.Like Piranha 3D, which was released theatrically last year, the titles of these films are fairly self-explanatory and leave little to the imagination.There is plenty of T & A on display in Sharktopus, though for reasons unknown far more restraint is shown in Dinoshark.
Sharktopus and Dinoshark were both produced by Roger Corman, who has a cameo in the former as a beachgoer and a larger role as a scientist in the latter.In Sharktopus, the shark-octopus combo is a genetically-engineered creature that is strapped to a device to keep it under military control – until it breaks free of it, that is.Out on its own, the military needs to reel the creature back in, and that’s where genetic scientist Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts) comes in.Nicole Sands (Sara Malakul Lane) is his daughter/scientist, who is trying to break free of Nathan’s “Daddy’s Little Girl†grip, and tries her best to gain control of the titular creature.
The special effects in Sharktopus are fairly decent for a film shot on a shoestring.The effects team replicates “blood†splattering on the camera lens (in reality CGI blood), and there are a fairly high number of sharktopus kills to be had, the most memorable of which is a bungee jump gone haywire (no pun intended, of course).Mary Corman, daughter of Roger and Julie Corman (the film’s producers), appears in this scene.
The acting is nothing to write home about, although Mr. Roberts is the best of the bunch.Also on hand is Sara Malakul Lane as Nathan’s daughter, and she’s quite good in her role, but just about everyone else looks like they stepped off the pages of FHM and Maxim to get in front of the camera, especially Shandi Finnessey who did step off the pages of Stuff and was chosen as Miss USA 2004.The special features consist of a trailer and an enjoyable audio commentary with Roger and Julie Corman that discusses the genesis of the film and how the SyFy Channel approached it as a project.
Dinoshark runs nearly the same length as Sharktopus, but it feels twice as long.Like Sharktopus, the film was shot in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.Trace McGraw (Eric Balfour) and Carol Brubaker (Iva Hasperger) both share a mutual friend who dies at the hands of the dinoshark, and they spend the remainder of the film trying to get people to believe them.Naturally, no one does, and the authorities do their best to bring down the dinoshark.Like Sharktopus, the special features consist of a trailer and an enjoyable audio commentary with Roger and Julie Corman.
If you have to see one of these films, Sharktopus is the way to go – that is until Sharktopus vs. Dinoshark rears its head.
Click here to order Sharktopus discounted from Amazon
Click here to order Dinoshark discounted from Amazon
Dan Curtis’ Burnt Offerings (1976) was the first horror film/thriller that I
saw.I was twelve years-old and its
impact on me was indelible.The rapport
between Karen Black, Oliver Reed, and Lee Harcourt Montgomery was plausible
enough to make me extremely concerned when all hell broke loose on this
“perfect†family, though some have argued that this family was frightening
enough without the house!
Aside from the artful cinematic visual
style and the film’s methodic and slow build-up, the performances by the three
leads and supporting work from Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart, Dub Taylor,
Bette Davis, and the unforgettable Anthony James as the chauffer elevate the
film higher than similar genre productions.What also helped make Burnt
Offerings so memorable was Robert Cobert’s phenomenal score which fits the
movie like a glove.For years I searched
fruitlessly for a soundtrack album as Mr. Cobert’s music is perfect from its
ominous and slow beginning to the film’s sudden and violent ending.The closest that this music ever got to being
released in any known version was when a handful of selected tracks were
released on the compilation CD The Night
Stalker and Other Classic Thrillers by Varese Sarabande in September 2000.
This new and long-overdue Burnt Offerings CD, a limited edition of
only 1,000 copies courtesy of Counterpoint, contains the film’s complete score
presented in the film’s proper order, in addition to several musical tracks that
illustrate just how Mr. Cobert envisioned the film’s opening.The digital mastering was done by Doug
Schwartz of Mulholland Music, and the liner notes are by Jeff Thompson.There are a total of 32 tracks on the
CD.The CD booklet is 20 pages long and
is lavishly illustrated with never-before-seen photos taken on the set of the
film during the August 1975 production.
Could Mr. Cobert’s scores to Dan Curtis’s
made-for-TV movies Trilogy of Terror (1975)
and Dead of Night (1977) be far
behind?I have my fingers crossed…
This is one of the best horror film scores
ever written, and it’s one of those scores that is worth owning even if you
haven’t seen the film.
Directed
by Patrick Lussier, whose previous directorial outing was 2009’s entertaining 3D
film My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry is a wild, extravagant and
farfetched ride about deep, meaningful subjects such as love and loss, and
takes the audience through various locations in Louisiana. Nicolas Cage stars
as Milton, a convicted felon who
makes his way out of Hell to stop Jonah King (Billy Burke), the head of a Satanic
cult, from sacrificing Milton’s infant granddaughter to the Prince of Darkness on
the night of the full moon, thus becoming the most powerful human alive. The
cult killed Milton’s daughter and he will stop at nothing to kill as many of
the cult members as possible with his trusty “GodKiller†gun.Unfortunately, Milton is without a vehicle,
but a fortuitous stop at a roadside diner puts him into a partnership with Piper
(Amber Heard of The Joneses and the
upcoming The Rum Diary), a waitress who
bolts from her lecherous boss (Jack McGee) and cheating boyfriend Frank (Todd
Farmer, who co-wrote the script with the director) in the latter’s 1969 Dodge
Charger. Together, Milton and Piper seek to stop the cult and save Milton’s
granddaughter and humanity from the dark forces of evil.With the police hot on Milton and Piper’s
trail, one of the Devil’s minions, known as The Accountant (William Fitchner), inexorably
chases Milton in an effort to take him back to Hell.
This book is not for the faint-of-heart.Lavishly illustrated with personal
photographs, some of them of a truly violent and bizarre sexual nature
featuring both male and female genitalia, the book also features behind-the-scenes
shots on film sets.
Being a horror film fan, I loved the interview with the late Chas.
Balun, the man behind the Deep Red magazine of the late 1980’s and early
1990’s, whom I met in 1990 at a Dario Argento signing in Albany, NY.Deep Red, named after Argento’s best film, was
my introduction to scholarly views of my favorite horror films.
The book also features newspaper clippings of the original ad
artwork for movies and ad slicks for personal appearances.Some shots include Jim Vanbebber in front of the Cinema
Village in Greenwich Village and Dennis Paoli with behind-the-scenes shots of Re-Animator.I am a sucker for images of movie theaters with
films from the past: Buddy
Giovinazzo’s Combat Shock on the marquee at the Deuce on 42nd Street
in New York; William Lustig’s Maniac at Century’s Green Acre Theatre in Valley
Stream, NY; and a few others.
The
final thirty pages or so consist of some very entertaining book and film
reviews.
If
you’ve got the twenty-eight bucks and a strong stomach, Dark Stars Rising: Conversations from the Outer Realm is a great
way to spend an afternoon seeing what the wilder side of life has to
offer.
Widely considered by many to be the best film of the 1980’s, Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull is a film that Mr. Scorsese didn’t think he could make.Mired in a self-destructive lifestyle following the box-office disappointment that was New York, New York in 1977, Raging Bull is the film that saved Mr. Scorsese’s life and career while destroying the onscreen life of its protagonist, heavy weight champion Jake LaMotta, by the latter’s own hand.
In hindsight, to think that Mr. Scorsese was anything less than completely self-assured in his direction of the film is almost unfathomable.In a maneuver that would repeat itself several more times in his career until The Departed (2006), the film lost to Robert Redford and Ordinary People at the Academy Awards for best director and best picture, respectively, although Mr. Scorsese’s personal editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, won the Oscar for best editing (she always felt that it was his Oscar since he storyboarded and planned the film shot-for-shot).It’s also difficult to overlook the irony that the 1981 Oscar presentation had to be rescheduled to March 31 due to John Hinckley’s attempted assassination of President Reagan following his obsessive viewing of Mr. Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), and his infatuation with actress Jodie Foster.
Few filmmakers have reached the heights of greatness that Mr. Scorsese has achieved, and he is arguably America’s greatest living film director.While those unfamiliar with the film might be put off about a “movie about boxing,†Raging Bull is no more a film about prize fighting than Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972) is about a weekend boinkfest between a middle-aged man and a young woman.The former is about redemption, and the latter is about need.
From its opening shots of Robert De Niro in slow motion to the strains of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana to its closing shots of Mr. De Niro hitting the stage 58 pounds heavier, Raging Bull tells the story of a man who destroys his family and almost himself by his own insecurities.What would normally be an interminable film to sit through in the hands of a lesser director is instead a masterwork of modern filmmaking with all involved working at the height of their powers.Michael Chapman’s stunning black and white photography eliciting the chiaroscuros that permeated the film’s greatest influences, among them Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil (1948), has become a textbook of great cinematography.The fight scenes are among the most challenging ever shot for a motion picture, LaMotta’s inner rage and self destruction complemented by the animalistic screams mixed into the soundtrack.Joe Pesci is excellent as Jake’s younger brother, Joey, as is Cathy Moriarity as Jake’s wife, who must contend with his ceaseless, if unfounded, suspicions of infidelity. The scenes of domestic life gone to hell are among the most realistic that contemporary cinema has recorded outside of a documentary.
Originally released on Blu-ray in 2009, the new MGM 30th anniversary edition adds a few new extras to the mix, including a second DVD of the film in standard definition:
- Three commentaries: Director Martin Scorsese and Editor Thelma Schooonmaker, cast and crew, storytellers
- Four new featurettes: Marty & Bobby; Raging Bull: Reflections on a Classic; Remembering Jake; Marty on Fockers
- Cathy Moriarty on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, March 27, 1981
Dead & Buried is one of the those oddball horror films that came out when I was twelve; I recall seeing the television trailers and movie poster artwork in the local theater lobby and didn’t catch up with the film until nearly 20 years later on a lackluster import DVD.
Gary A. Sherman, who also directed the excellent and in-dire-need-of-royal-DVD-treatment Death Line (released as Raw Meat in the United States) in 1972, as well as Vice Squad (1982) and Poltergeist III (1988), shot Dead & Buried in Mendocino, CA.The town may look familiar to fans of Daniel Haller’s The Dunwich Horror (1970), Herb Freed’s Haunts (1977), Barbara Peeters’s Humanoids from the Deep (1980). Joe Dante’s The Howling (1981), and Lewis Teague’s Cujo (1983) as they were all filmed there.
James Farentino (Me, Natalie and The Final Countdown) is a town sheriff whose Potter’s Bluff is plagued by a rash of murders by the townspeople.Hoping to get to the bottom of the reasons behind the murders, he enlists the help of the local mortician, Dobbs (Jack Albertson of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).The sheriff’s wife (Melody Anderson of Flash Gordon) engages in some suspicious behavior, and what may have seemed original and fresh in 1981 is predictable and formulaic today.However, that much aside, this is a good little horror film, with good performances and great location shooting.The incomparable Blue Underground Blu-ray looks wonderful, blowing previous home video versions out of the water.The ample supplements consist of:
• Commentary with director Gary Sherman and David Gregory (Blue Underground)
• Commentary with co-writer/co-producer Ron Shusett and actress Linda Turley
• Commentary with cinematographer Steve Poster
• Stan Winston'sDead & Buried EFX featurette • Robert Englund: An Early Work of Horror featurette • Dan O'Bannon: Crafting Fear featurette • Two Trailers
The subtitles are easy to read and correspond to the action on the screen.If you haven’t seen the film, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.
Dennis Donnelly directed this film that was made as a result of the success of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and hoped to cash in on its success.Predating the slasher film cycle that came about following John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), which itself was originally planned as a sequel to Bob Clark’s Black Christmas made four years earlier, The Toolbox Murders (1978) was one of the earliest titles available on home video in the early 1980s.A schematically-paced thriller, The Toolbox Murders takes places in a LosAngeles apartment building wherein a toolbox-carrying killer who dons a ski-mask offs several of the residents, among them then-porn actress Kelly Nichols, who was featured prominently in her birthday suit in the film’s advertising art and is dispatched by a nail gun (puns abound).
Cameron Mitchell gives a very good performance as the creep who keeps a young woman, played by Pamelyn Ferdin, tied up in his bedroom.The rest of the cast is rounded out by the director’s brother, Tony Donnelly, as a detective and Nicholas Beauvy and Wesley Eure (from TV’s Land of the Lost) playing sleuths.
The Blu-ray extras on the Blue Underground release include:
• Audio Commentary by actress Pamela Ferdin, cinematographer Gary Graver, and producer
Tony Didio
• I Got Nailed in: THE TOOLBOX MURDERS - interview with actress Marianne Walter, aka Kelly Nichols
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV Spots
• Radio Spots
• Improved audio and video.The audio is available in the standard monaural mix, 7.1 DTS-HD, and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround EX.
Missing from the Blu-ray are the poster/stills gallery and Cameron Mitchell biography that was included on the standard DVD in 2003.
As a child growing up in the 1970s, I read the TV Guide from cover to cover, diligently marking the shows that I wanted to watch for the week.I have a fairly good memory when it comes to the shows that I viewed, and despite being a fan of Project UFO, I don’t recall its pre-emption for the January 18 and 25, 1979 airings of NBC-TV’s Legends of the Superheroes, two one-hour episodes now available on a single disc from the Warner Archive DVD Collection.They feature Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Robin, Garrett Craig as Captain Marvel, Howard Murphy as the Green Lantern, Bill Nuckols as Hawkman, Barbara Joyce as The Huntress, Rod Haase as The Flash, Alfie Wise as The Atom and Danuta Rylko Soderman as the Black Canary.The first episode is called The Challenge, and its title could not be more appropriate: Batman and Robin need to find the Doomsday Device before the villains destroy planet Earth, and the audience is challenged to sit through the 50-minute episode with their eyes wide open.How this show, complete with a forced laugh track, made its way to television remains a mystery, but this is from the network that put Supertrain on the rails. At times I found myself cringing at the (lack of) humor and thinking of ABC-TV’s Star Wars Holiday Special as a rival in camp/kitsch and just plain insanity.It’s truly incredible to watch mature adults running around in ridiculous costumes, attempting to act.Children appear to be the intended audience (or victims) of this show as sophomoric humor abounds, with Frank Gorshin as the Riddler giving a master class in scene-chewing. He interacts with a cavalcade of crazy characters to get the better of the Dynamic Duo, who both stop at Calabasas Automotive which boasts gas for sixty four cents per gallon.
Episode two, The Roast, fares better, with Ed McMahon (!) emceeing a Friars Club-like roast sans low-brow humor, though it should have been hosted by Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.Ruth Buzzi makes an appearance, and some of the jokes actually work this time around.Howard Morris plays some bald-headed fool who looks like the father of Mr. Six from the Six Flags commercials.
The disc contains some outtakes which, unsurprisingly, are no funnier than the actual show, and a sing-along metronome track to “That’s Entertainment.â€
If you’re waiting for Not Legends of the Superheroes XXX with the top adult performers of today, don’t hold your breath; Tori Black won’t be appearing as Black Canary anytime soon, so if you’re a fan of the Batman series from the Sixties, or if you saw these shows in 1979 and want to revisit them for purposes of nostalgia (or want to keep your relatives away), the DVD is worth a look.
All kidding aside, while they are not my cup of tea, I am pleased that Warner Archive has made these obscure shows available.
I first saw The Red Shoes on a PBS viewing 35 years ago on a Zenith black and white television.My younger sister, who was taking dancing lessons at a nearby studio, seemed transfixed by Moira Shearer’s effortless moves.While the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a ballerina who is danced to death went over my head, the images, even then, remained burned in my subconscious.Such is the power of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 film, quite simply one of the most sumptuous color films ever photographed.Shot in the original three-strip Technicolor dye transfer process, The Red Shoes was released by the Criterion Collection on laserdisc in 1995 and on DVD in 1999.While those versions were a real eye-opener to those of us who were used to seeing the film on television, on 16mm, or on videocassette, the new 2010 Criterion Collection Blu-Ray and standard DVD releases of the film are a revelation.These new transfers are the result of an extensive two-year, 4K digital restoration by the UCLA Film & Television Archive (headed by UCLA archivist Robert Gitt) and The Film Foundation, in association with the British Film Institute, ITV Global Entertainment Ltd and Janus Films.
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009, the restoration made its way to the Film Forum in New York City in February 2010 where film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, widow of filmmaker Michael Powell, introduced the film.Isabella Rossellini was also in attendance of the film’s premiere to show her support of this great film.
Cinema Retro columnist Todd Garbarini (L) with directors Scot McFayden and Sam Dunn at the Tribeca Film Festival.
By Todd Garbarini
RUSH: BEYOND THE LIGHTED STAGE is a documentary about Canada’s holy rock trio, Rush, which is comprised of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.The film, which runs a few minutes shy of two hours and is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray, chronicles the friendship and working relationship of these three highly-talented musicians which date back to 1974.
Winning the Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award, the film will also be in competition at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards in February 2011.Could an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary be far behind?
I had the opportunity to speak with the film’s directors, Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen, at the Tribeca Film Festival in April several hours prior to the film’s premiere there.
Todd Garbarini: Sam, how did you and Scot meet?
Sam Dunn: Well, we first met in Victoria, British Columbia in 1993.I grew up there, and Scot had moved out there.We met in the music scene.I was playing in a band, and Scot was promoting shows.Then, Scot moved to Toronto, and I subsequently moved to Toronto to go to the university, and we were friends.I wanted to write a book about heavy metal, and Scot asked me, “What about a documentary?â€And the rest, as they say, is history.We made our first movie together, METAL: A HEADBANGER’S JOURNEY.Then we did GLOBAL METAL, followed by IRON MAIDEN: FLIGHT 666.So, RUSH: BEYOND THE LIGHTED STAGE is our fourth movie together.
Scot McFadyen: I've always been involved in film and theater.I used to direct theater, and I've also done a lot of writing.When I moved to Toronto, I worked in film for quite a few years.When I met Sam, he was a student and didn't have the goal to work in film.He was leaning more towards going for academics or writing, and we had many discussions about it and that's what led to us making films together.
Todd Garbarini: How long has the idea of actually making a film about Rush been with you?Was it something that you had thought about for a long time or did it come up on a spur-of-the- moment?
Scot McFadyen:We were in the midst of making GLOBAL METAL, and I had just gone off to Mexico.While I was there, I started thinking about it.You know, in this business you always have to be thinking about the future and pretty much what your next project is going to be.And I started thinking about Rush, and we had actually interviewed Geddy for METAL: A HEADBANGER’S JOURNEY.And I just really felt at that time that Rush was a band that was deserving of their own documentary.This was around Christmas 2006.In January 2007, I e-mailed the management at Anthem-SRO about setting up a meeting with Rush, but it wasn't until mid-August 2007 while they were on the SNAKES & ARROWS tour that we met with them in a room while they were in Dallas.We were nervous, and they wanted to ask us some questions before they fully agreed to us doing the documentary.Geddy first said that he didn't believe that they were interesting enough.And we told them that we disagreed, and Neil asked me what our angle was going to be, and how would we tell their story.And I told him that we didn't really know yet, actually.I told him that I knew that it would take a lot of research as well as a lot of interviewing all of them before we would decide which way to go.Sam and I didn't really know ourselves how it was going to end up, honestly.It turned out to be a weird clincher in a way, because Neil appreciated that.He liked the fact that we weren’t just there to feed him some line.
Sam Dunn: I think a lot of people want to know your angle from the outset.They want to know what you're doing, and what your intentions are.And I think that it was pretty refreshing for Scot and I to know that Geddy, Alex, and Neil were sort of comforted by the fact that we weren’t really sure what the direction was going to be yet.I think that’s a testament to the fact that they trusted us on some level, and also they understand the creative process.They understand that it takes time to put something together because they spend a lot of time putting their albums together, and they know that it probably takes about two years to put something together if it's going to be a product of really good quality.
Scot McFadyen:Especially Neil, because he's a writer.He understands the writing process, of having an idea and not knowing what the story is going to be.
If Pretty Maids All in a Row were made today exactly the same way as it was made forty years ago, there would be an enormous outcry against the film’s cavalier attitude towards mentor/student sex.Such scenarios parodied in Roger Vadim’s 1971 film version of Francis Pollini’s novel of the same name are today the stuff of headlines as middle-aged teachers, both male and female, have been caught engaging in extracurricular activities with their young students that go far beyond anything that an educational institution would ever have in mind.To put Pretty Maids All in a Row into proper perspective, it is necessary to understand the era in which the film was shot.The sexual revolution was in full swing, Playboy and Penthouse magazines were enjoying unprecedented success, and Masters and Johnson were studying the sexual mores of many couples.A film about a vice principal/guidance counselor nicknamed “Tiger†bedding underage female students didn’t seem to ruffle too many feathers. Whether one chooses to look at the film as social commentary or the satire its director intended it to be is a matter of personal choice, though given the aloof handling of the murders that ensue it is impossible to regard the film as anything other than black comedy.Aside from this, it also doubles as a time capsule of attitudes and fashions from the early Seventies.
Cinema Retro columnist Todd Garbarini, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (Photo copyright Cinema Retro)
By Todd Garbarini
New York Times theater critic Jason Zinoman
recently held a discussion at the Times Center in mid-town Manhattan about
horror films.He was joined by author
Chuck Hogan and film director Guillermo del Toro who both discussed their
collaboration on “The Fall,†the second book in their best-selling trilogy about
vampires called “The Strain.â€For those
of you who only may be familiar with Mr. Del Toro’s work through the cinema,
“The Strain†trilogy comes highly recommended.
During the discussion, Mr. Zinoman pondered as to
why vampires endure, certainly a legitimate question given the audience’s
seemingly insatiable appetite for all things fang-like: Showtime’s “True Bloodâ€
series is enjoying terrific success.Mr.
Del Toro responded that vampires are highly romanticized – for women, they have
chastity.In romantic novels, women are
attracted to the Bad Boy.There is also
the tapping into people’s fear of death and ageing, and wanting to remain
frozen in time; novelists and filmmakers have exploited these fears for
years.
When asked what scares him, Mr. Del Toro replied
that he saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
when he was very young, and became a vegetarian for four years following his
initial viewing of that film.As a
child, his grandmother told him about going to hell as a result of original
sin, and this caused him much distress, fueling much of the horrific visions of
his films.
In speaking of his film work, Mr. Del Toro truly
loves the monsters that he has created, and the ultimate compliment came from
ILM’s Dennis Murren – technically and conceptually, audiences have never seen
monsters like the ones that Mr. Del Toro has dreamed up.
A teaser trailer for Mr. Del Toro’s upcoming film Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a remake of
the 1973 TV-movie of the same name, was shown to the audience.It is very effective, eschewing the
conventional cookie-cutter style that plagues so many Hollywood trailers.
Jason Zinoman has
also written about films, television, books and sports for publications such
as Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The Economist and Slate. His new book is called "Shock Value: How
A Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood and Invented
Modern Horror," and is scheduled to be released by Penguin Press in July
2011.
Michael Stever’s Saturday Nightmares: The Ultimate Horror Expo of All-Time! is an encapsulation of the first Saturday Nightmares horror film convention that was held in Jersey City, NJ in March 2010 at the gorgeous Landmark Loews Jersey Theatre, itself a relic of a glorious time in cinema where walking into a theatre was the closest that a mere mortal had to entering heaven.The film will entertain any horror fan who has yet to attend a convention and wants to see what goes on at one, as well as those who have attended this convention and want a souvenir.
The project benefits from Stever’s own enthusiasm and he actually takes the audience on a tour of the Loews Jersey Theatre, to the roof which houses an ornate dragon, and through several areas that are normally off-limits to patrons as the theatre is currently undergoing a massive restoration.
The film begins with a hilarious anecdote about fourteen year-old George Romero being arrested for throwing a flaming dummy off of a Bronx rooftop while filming The Man from the Meteor in 1954.It also highlights many panel discussions with filmmaker Roy Frumkes and cast members from Dawn of the Dead.Yellow subtitles are blessedly provided for those hard-to-hear moments where the dialog is unintelligible.Many scenes are punctuated by Brahms’ Hungarian Dance Number 5, and there are: one-on-one interviews with John Amplas of Martin; Adrienne Barbeau of Creepshow (who admits to being scared of horror films); Joe Pilato’s notorious all-in-fun loudmouth shenanigans; excerpts from the costume contest.
The DVD is definitely worth a look for completists of the horror genre.
My introduction to Ralph Bakshi’s animation came in November 1978 when I turned ten.My father had been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series and, after having seen Rankin and Bass’ The Hobbit cartoon the year before, I was eager to see the new large-screen treatment of Tolkien’s beloved adventure.Up until this point, all of the cartoons that I had seen theatrically were made by Walt Disney, with the exception of Charlotte’s Web (1973), Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure and The Mouse and His Child, both from 1977.So, along with Watership Down, it was unusual to see a cartoon aimed at adults and rated PG.
To my young eyes, The Lord of the Rings did not disappoint. I loved the music (I still have the 8-track!) and the visual style (including the rotoscoped scenes wherein the animators drew over live-action, which invoked much consternation from others with whom I debated the film’s merits).It was not until some years later that I became more aware of Mr. Bakshi’s previous filmography which included the very-adult-oriented Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, and Wizards, the latter of which played frequently as a midnight show at the Middlesex Mall cinema in South Plainfield, NJ.
Despite recalling the ads for American Pop, Hey Good Lookin’ and actually seeing Cool World theatrically, one film seemed to get lost in the shuffle.Although it had an August 1983 theatrically release date, Fire and Ice, a sword and sorcery epic that I caught up with on VHS in 1991, completely slipped by me.I would imagine that due to the prevalence of like-minded fare in the early 80’s (think Conan the Barbarian, The Beastmaster, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Krull, Hearts and Armour, etc.), Mr. Bakshi jumped on the bandwagon with this film, collaborating with none other than artist Frank Frazetta, the indisputable king of fantasy art.Fortunately, Blue Underground, William Lustig’s wonderful DVD and Blu Ray company, has released this film in both formats.
Rush is a band that has been playing live since 1968 and recording and touring since 1974.They rank just behind The Beatles and the Rolling Stones for the most consecutive gold or platinum studio album sales.They have toured the globe many times over in support of their 19 studio albums and have played to millions of people for 36 years.Despite all of this, little is known about this Canadian rock group outside of the circles of their most ardent fans. Rush is comprised of three fairly private individuals who don’t think of themselves as interesting enough to warrant media scrutiny.Fortunately, there are those who disagree. Among them are filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen, both Rush fans who met with the Holy Rock Triumvirate in August 2007 during a stop in Dallas, TX while on tour in support of their “Snakes and Arrows†album. During the visit, they convinced Rush that they should be the subject of their next documentary film.Having previously made several films about the world of heavy metal music – Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey (2005), Global Metal (2008), and Iron Maiden: Flight 666 (2009) – the filmmakers wanted to tell the story behind this incredible rock band, and how they have managed to not only last but flourish in an industry that can easily cripple and destroy other bands.
Lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart are center stage in Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, which premiered on April 24, 2010 as part of the ninth annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, and is now available on a double-disc DVD and single-disc Blu-Ray.Running nearly two hours in length, the audience is taken on an awe-inspiring, entertaining and informative journey documenting the history and philosophy of Rush.There are many musicians of various backgrounds who lend their thoughts on what Rush means to them, among them Gene Simmons of Kiss (Rush used to open for them in the 1970’s), Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, Jack Black of Tenacious D, Billy Corrigan of Smashing Pumpkins, and Sebastian Bach, to name a few.
There are films that look reminiscent of a particular time period, and films that look as though they were actually shot in the time period in which they are set.Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970; available on DVD from Paramount Home Video) takes place in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, yet cinematographer Vittorio Storaro managed to make this film look as though it could have been filmed during these respective decades.Likewise, Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, filmed in 1976 and released in 1978, takes place circa 1916 and the resulting imagery is like stepping back in time.
Bill, played by a 27 year-old Richard Gere, is a day laborer in a Chicago steel mill (filmed in Los Angeles) who has an argument with one of the bosses and inadvertently kills him, causing him to flee to the wheat fields of the Texas Panhandle (Alberta, Canada doubling as Texas) with his out-of-wedlock lover Abby (Brooke Adams) and his younger sister Linda (Linda Manz).With Linda’s help, Bill and Abby present themselves as brother and sister and are hired as seasonal workers on a farm owned by a wealthy farmer (playwright Sam Shepard) who is ill and who may or may not live much longer.Since Bill has been poor his whole life and has never known an existence that was not arduous, he encourages Abby to respond to the farmer’s affections and marry him in the hopes of inheriting his farm and money when he dies.Abby agrees, and initially the plan works as Bill, Abby and Linda enjoy life as they have never known it, experiencing the film’s title by relaxing and playing games, and living a life free of toil, worry and physical labor.At some point, however, their masquerade becomes apparent and things take a turn for the worse when several tragedies transpire and their lives are forever altered.
The French Connection was screened Friday evening at the Walter Reade Theater in New York in a beautiful 35mm print.Part of a series of films that won Oscars and were filmed in the Big Apple, the series continues on Saturday with screenings of Klute, The Subject Was Roses (Ulu Grosbard in person), Kramer Vs. Kramer (Stanley Jaffe in person), and Raging Bull.Sunday will see screenings of The Godfather and Annie Hall.
Film director William Friedkin was on hand following the screening of his 1971 film to entertain the audience with anecdotes and answer questions about what went on behind the scenes.Joining the Oscar-winning director onstage was former New York City Police Detective Salvatore “Sonny†Grosso who, with his former partner Eddie Egan, helped break the actual 1961 French Connection case upon which the film is based, and who played the role of Klein in the film.Film director Stanley Donen was also there to see the film, and made some eloquent comments about how much he loved it.
Mr. Friedkin discussed how he met the film’s producer, Philip D’Antoni, in a steam room on the Paramount lot and, encouraged to read the Robin Moore book that became the basis for the film, remarked how he did not like how the book read.However, when he met Egan and Grosso in real life, he decided to base the film around them, their partnership, and their police work which managed to break what was the largest heroin smuggling operation up to that point.He also went on to say that the film was made for $1.8M, and laughed about how he tried to get Jimmy Breslin and Peter Boyle to play the character forever immortalized by Gene Hackman.When asked about the film’s signature car chase, Mr. Friedkin wowed the audience by revealing that none of it was storyboarded.
The French Connection is now available on Blu-ray.When I asked Mr. Friedkin about the Blu-ray releases of The Exorcist and Sorcerer, he replied that the former is due in October, and the latter is currently in the works.
(Photos: Cinema Retro's Todd Garbarini with William Friedkin and Sonny Grosso)
It has been said that if you want action films, look no further than Asian and American cinema; and no one makes a mystery or a satire like the British.The same can be said about the French when it comes to love stories, and while our Seine-strutting amis can also whip up slapstick comedies like few can (think Louis De Funes donning a beard, black hat, and impersonating a rabbi), they rarely fail to deliver captivating examples of both of these beloved genres.
Patrice Leconte, best known to American audiences for Monsieur Hire (1989) and The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990), gives us The Perfume of Yvonne (1994), now available on DVD from Severin Films.Based on the 1975 novel Villa Triste by Patrick Modiano, the film introduces us to Victor Chmara (Hippolyte Girardot of Manon of the Spring among many others), who is recalling the events that transpired in his life during the summer of 1958 in Geneva.Casually avoiding taking up the cause in the Algerian War, he stops in his tracks while sitting in the lobby of his hotel when his eye catches Yvonne (former model Sandra Majani) for the first time.She is an actress and a vision to behold.Her under-confident manner is exuded by her slight lack of poise while sitting with her enormous dog, Oswald.She is also accompanied by her friend Dr. Rene Meinthe, played with exuberance and flamboyance by Jean-Pierre Marielle whom audiences will recall as Gianni Arrosio in Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet.After much conversation Yvonne and Victor enter into a relationship that quickly becomes sexual in nature.Leconte’s camera makes the ever so slight caress of Yvonne’s knee (a nice nod to Eric Rohmer), her back, her breast, or bare bottom intensely erotic.Underneath it all, Yvonne possesses an air of innocent hesitation, which I cannot discern to be attributed to Majani’s lack of experience as an actress, or if it is her interpretation of Yvonne.Majani she also appeared in Alberto Express (1990), Cold Moon (1991), and Leconte’s Tango (1993) under the name of Sandra Extercatte, so Yvonne is not her first film.
As time goes by, Victor somehow appears to feel that he is a stranger in Yvonne’s land, and suddenly suggests that they get married and move to America.This is a move that puzzles Yvonne, and Rene reminds Victor to keep an eye on her.The ending is intimated at from the very beginning, and when we are faced with it, we nod our heads in understanding.
Since its inception in 2006, Severin Films, the film and DVD company that is responsible for releasing special editions of many well-known films such as Roman Polanski’s What?, Gwendolin with Tawny Kitaen, Patrice Leconte’s The Hairdresser’s Husband and The Perfume Of Yvonne, Richard Stanley’s Hardware, and Enzo Castellari’s Inglorious Bastards to name a few, now adds Lucio Fulci’s directorial swan song to its roster. Fulci, who passed away in 1996, made Door into Silence (Le Porte del Silenzio) in 1991 (not to be confused with Dario Argento’s Door into Darkness, a series of four, one-hour episodes for Italian television in 1973). It stars - of all people - John Savage of The Deer Hunter and Do the Right Thing as a man who buries his father and takes a strange trip through Louisiana behind a hearse in a modern day variation of Steven Spielberg’s Duel, minus the suspense.
I’ve never been a card-carrying member of the Fucli cognoscenti, although Zombi (1979) and The House by the Cemetery (1981) are personal Fulci favorites. And how can you go wrong with The New York Ripper (1982), about a killer who quacks like a duck before he strikes? Argento and Mario Bava are closer to my tastes as I find their films to be intensely cinematic, sporting vertiginous camerawork and labyrinthine plots. Fulci’s work can sometimes come across as television movie-of-the-weekish, and Door into Silence is no exception. Distributed by our friends at Filmirage, a company that was responsible for Fabrizio Laurentis’ La Casa 4 (1988) with (yikes!) David Hasselholf and Linda Blair, and Aristide Massaccesi’s Anthropophagus (1980) with reliable Tisa Farrow, Door into Silence seems culled from better material, among them Rod Serling’s “The Hitchhiker†episode of The Twilight Zone (which itself was adapted from Lucille Fletcher’s story of the same name), and from Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,†which has provided the basis for innumerable supernatural stories.
A studio error turned out to be a blessing in disguise in March when the Loews Theatre in Jersey City, NJ requested a 35mm print of Lewis Allen’s The Uninvited (1944) and instead was erroneously shipped a print of Charles Guard’s 2009 film of the same name (the film bears no relation other than titular to it’s 65 year-old predecessor, but it is rather a remake of the 2003 Asian film A Tale of Two Sisters).It turned out that there were no known 35mm prints of the film, though this scribe swears that the Film Forum in New York City showed it years ago.The mix-up turned out to be fortuitous as Universal created a new print of the film and it was screened Saturday night.Credit must be given to Paul Ginsburg, Vice President of NBC Universal Distribution, for ordering the new print struck (interestingly, the film is a Paramount Picture).
The film was due to begin at 6:00 pm but was delayed for 25 minutes due to the unanticipated and overwhelming number of people in attendance, the main floor filled almost to 70% capacity.This was a revelation to behold, and I overheard more than a few whispered comments on the ticket line remarking how nice it was to see the large turnout of people for this film which was on a double bill with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940).The lobby sported a table with rare promotional items, such a magazines and lobby cards, used in the original exhibitions of these films.
Once The Uninvited began, the audience applauded at the quality of the new print which was virtually flawless.Having seen films like this on old 16mm reruns on television over 25 years ago, it is a reminder that films even of this age can look as though they were just made.The Uninvited stars a debonair Reginald Alfred Truscott-Jones, better known to audiences as the less tongue-tie-inducing Ray Milland, in a ghost story about a young woman who is drawn to her deceased mother’s Winward mansion estate.Though it cannot hold a candle (sorry, couldn’t resist!) to Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961) or Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) for psychological thrills, The Uninvited, while a bit too talky and a lot less cinematic than one would have hoped, still holds up as a nice little ghost story that isn’t afraid to play it straight.
At a time when summer box office now means over-the-top, special-effects laden adventures, it’s a relief to see that movie-goers of all ages are willing to come see films like this on the big screen.
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