Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s - Columnists

BOOK REVIEW: "OFFBEAT: BRITISH CINEMA'S CURIOSITIES, OBSCURITIES AND FORGOTTEN GEMS"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 05:50:00 -0500

By Adrian Smith

Offbeat: British Cinema's Curiosities, Obscurities and Forgotten Gems

Edited by Julian Upton

Headpress

ISBN: 9781900486835

440 pages

Every so often a book comes my way that I wish I had written. 'Offbeat' is one such title, the byline of which succinctly describes a large proportion of my film viewing since childhood. The book is a collection of film reviews, with titles ranging from 1954 (the animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm) to 1985 (sci-fi dud Lifeforce). With a cover illustration taken from Kenneth Rowles' infamous hitchhiking shocker Take an Easy Ride (1977), the book is clearly aiming for cult credentials, which may explain why the hundreds of forgotten gems before 1954 have been totally ignored. To be fair to the editor, a book which attempted to cover the entirety of Britain's lost and maligned movies would be the length of several encyclopaedias. Indeed, this book does not claim to be definitive. In many ways it perhaps tells us more about the predilections of the various contributors than it does about the decades it covers.

'Offbeat' does raise one fairly depressing point, which is that although there are literally thousands of films at our fingertips these days, there are still titles which are tantalisingly out of reach. Whole swathes of homegrown movies have been shoved to the back of dusty shelves in forgotten archives never to be seen again except in grainy, third generation VHS copies dating from the one terrestrial broadcast thirty years ago. It's a pity that so many of the films in here suffer from a lack of availability, as I guarantee that you will be reading this book in one hand whilst browsing online for DVDs with the other.

Although the book contains dozens of fascinating, occasionally outlandish titles, if you have any experience in the obscurities of British cinema you will still be able to argue about the final selection. Donovan Winter is notable by his absence, and having given the world incestuous lesbian twins in Some Like It Sexy (1969), he surely deserves a nod. There is perhaps the inevitable focus on Hammer, who get several mentions and one begins to wonder whether anyone else was actually making films in the 1960s. There are however plenty of titles in here which even I, a seasoned British cinema fan, was not familiar with. The director whose name seems to arise the most often is Val Guest, one of the unsung heroes of British cinema. Perhaps the time is now right for a full reevaluation of his work. In a career covering sci-fi, horror, social realism and sex comedies, his filmography IS the British film industry from the mid-1950s through to the 1970s in microcosm.

Alongside the reviews are scattered several essays covering various aspects of British cinema, including the swashbuckler, the pop musical, underage sex and the demise of the industry in the 1970s; as scattershot an approach to film history as one could hope for, with the emphasis firmly placed on the psychotronic. Amongst the film titles jostling for attention are classics such as Horrors From the Black Museum (1959), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), The Birthday Party (1968), a rare excursion into British filmmaking from The Exorcist's William Friedkin, and Eskimo Nell (1975), the finest sex comedy this country has ever produced. The BFI's current Flipside range of DVDs and blu rays gets good coverage also, with Herostratus, Privilege (both 1967), Permissive, Bronco Bullfrog, Deep End, (all 1970) and The Black Panther (1977) all coming highly recommended. At least some of the films discussed in 'Offbeat' are not as obscure as they once were.

As with all recent Headpress books the imagery is reproduced in black and white, which is a pity as so many of these films feature wildly colourful, bordering on psychedelic, imagery. The poster art for long-forgotten musical mega-flop Toomorrow (1970) is far more exciting than the film itself! This complaint is quickly forgiven once you discover that 'Offbeat' has a thorough index, something often ignored in similar books. This means you can use this as a great reference book, and each film title includes production details and credits alongside a thorough analysis and review. One may not agree with every opinion shared (Sarah Morgan's dismissal of Hammer's Captain Clegg as "a decent potboiler" is woefully off the mark), but the book does serve its purpose which is to encourage the reader to discover the hidden gems of British cinema. If you can find them that is.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

DEATH WALTZ RECORDS RELEASE CLASSIC AND CULT FILM SOUNDTRACKS ON VINYL!

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 05:44:00 -0500

The Devil Rides Out soundtrack

By Adrian Smith

There has been a gradual yet inevitable demise of analogue formats over the last decade or so, with wax cylinders, eight track and the chrome cassette tape all now relegated to the scrap heap. Yet vinyl is making a comeback. Despite the supposed superiority of the CD and the mp3, there is nothing as satisfying as sliding your 12” LP out of it's card sleeve, carefully placing it on the turntable, and the slight crackle when the needle first makes contact. And many argue that the sound quality remains superior to digital reproduction, particularly when listening to older recordings that were made using analogue equipment in the first place.

One company to truly embrace the vinyl collector culture is Death Waltz Records, founded by Spencer Hickman of Rough Trade in London. They produce exclusive vinyl reproductions of a massive array of cult film soundtracks and accompany them with sleeve notes, newly commissioned artwork and coloured vinyl, and most come with screen prints and posters too. They have recently put out the bizarre electronic scores of Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch, both limited to 300 copies. This release coincides nicely with the recent rerelease of both films on Blu-ray and DVD from Shout Factory.

Halloween III in particular has been much maligned over the years, thanks in no small part to screenwriter Nigel Kneale's much publicised dislike of the film. However you feel about it, the soundtrack is superb. Both of these Halloween releases have splendidly eerie scores which should on no account be listened to in the dark. Both were composed by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth and build on the tones and style that Carpenter developed on the first Halloween movie. Halloween II also delivers a surprise when The Chordettes burst through the synthesised shivers with “Mr Sandman”, an incongruity which fits well with the ending of the movie. Halloween III contains the horrifyingly catchy “Silver Shamrock” jingle, reminding children to make sure they are wearing their new Halloween masks when the 'Horrorthon' starts later that night. Of course, if you have seen the film you will know those are no ordinary Halloween masks, and it is a night that will not end well.

If you are a collector who wants everything in mint condition, the dilemma as to whether you can actually play your vinyl once it arrives is a difficult one. Even if you decide not to play it, each Death Waltz release makes a unique piece of memorabilia.

One recent development at Death Waltz Records will be of particular interest to fans of British horror. They have gone into partnership with Hammer Films and are intending to release several soundtracks on vinyl, some of which have never been released before. Amongst the first will be Twins of Evil (1971) and The Devil Rides Out (1968), Hammer's most successful Dennis Wheatley adaptation. The latter will feature extensive sleeve-notes by James Bernard and all new exclusive artwork. The package will come as a limited edition coloured vinyl with an A2 poster and 12 x 12 lithograph print . It will also contain a download link for an interview with Christopher Lee and two unreleased cues. If you are a vinyl collector, or a fan of Hammer horror, you had better start saving up now!

You can find out more at www.deathwaltzrecordingcompany.com

RESTORED "SAMURAI COP" SCREENINGS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:16:55 -0500

by Todd Garbarini

Samurai Cop, director Amir Shervan's 1989 film starring actors Robert Z'Dar, Matt Hannon and Jannis Farley, has been restored in high definition on DVD by Cinema Epoch and is now available for purchase in a special edition for a limited time on Amazon.com prior to the film's June 4th, 2013 DVD street date. Click here to purchase this new pressing (do not be fooled into purchasing the inferior Media Blasters DVD that was released in 2004). This new version is superior.

While going through boxes last year in a California studio vault, both Cinema Epoch President Greg Hatanaka and Cinema Epoch Producer and Director of Acquisition's Douglas Dunning (he's also a cult actor and voice over artist) discovered the original 35mm camera negative to the late Mr. Shervan's film. It is from this source that the new DVD has been transferred.

Samurai Cop will also be screened at midnight on May 31, 2013 at the Landmark's Nuart Theatre in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. Tentatively scheduled to appear in person at this screening on the 31st are actor/stuntman Gerald Okamura, actors Jimmy Williams and Mark Frazer, film composer Alan DerMarderosian, cinematographer Peter Palian, and Ben Shervan (the late director's son). There will also be a limited number of pre-signed DVDs autographed by actor Robert Z'Dar for purchase at this screening only.

Samurai Cop’s Facebook page can be found here.

Upcoming screenings will also be taking place at:

May 10 & 11 at 12:30m – Egyptian Theatre, Seattle, WA

May 31 & June 1 at Midnight – Uptown Theatre, Minneapolis, MN

June 7 at Midnight – River Oaks Theatre, Houston, TX

June 7 at Midnight – E Street Cinema, Washington, DC

June 7 at Midnight – Ritz at the Bourse, Philadelphia, PA

June 14 & 15 at Midnight – Inwood Theatre, Dallas, TX

June 28 & 29 at Midnight – Sunshine Cinemas, New York, NY

June 28 & 29 at Midnight – Esquire Theatre, Denver, CO

DVD REVIEW: "THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN" (1980) FROM SCORPION RELEASING

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 05 May 2013 05:36:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Rarely has distributor exploitation been as blatant as in the case of Simon Wincer’s The Day After Halloween (1980), a ludicrously-named Australian outing originally optioned under the name of Centerfold, then changed to Snapshot after the producers were unable to secure that title, and was eventually released as One More Minute. It appeared on video shelves here in the U.S. on VHS both in 1983 from Catalina Home Video under the title of The Day After Halloween and in 1985 as The Night After Halloween on Magnum Home Entertainment. The film came on the heels of the John Carpenter-scripted Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) which was set against the milieu of the fashion industry. Filmed in 1978 and released in Australia the following year, The Day After Halloween has absolutely nothing to do with John Carpenter’s seminal holiday suspense yarn, and isn’t even a slasher film. It isn’t even a thriller. At best, it can be considered a mystery that concerns a young woman named Angela (Sigrid Thornton) who lives with her wretched, belittling mother and is trying to fend off the unwanted affections of her obsessed and emotionally unstable ex-boyfriend Daryl (Vincent Gil) who drives an ice cream truck (think Phantasm!). She’s late for work which earns her the condemnation of her hairstylist boss but garners the affections of Madeline (Chantal Contouri), a sophisticate who dresses like Joan Collins who encourages Angela to parlay her natural good looks into a modeling career which lands her topless in Cleo, the Australian equivalent of Cosmopolitan Magazine, in an ad for Bermuda Cool cologne. The ad proves lucrative but also draws the unsolicited attention of lots of tongue-wagging men twice her age in an effort to score with her. A photographer sets up a meeting with her and uses an innocent photo session as a ruse to get her drunk and undressed, but she bails, which leads to a frightening confrontation later on.

Given the cookie-cutter nature of films from this era, it isn’t difficult to realize who really idolizes Angela and wants her the most. The Bermuda Cool photographing sequence goes on much longer than it should (remember that long, wordless sequence in Play Misty for Me set to a Roberta Flack song? That was shorter!). Lacking a cinematic style, the film for the most part is shot in masters and throws lots of red herrings at the audience, but it makes for an entertaining film. The acting is impressive for this sort of story. The score is by the late Australian composer Brian May whose music to George Miller’s The Road Warrior (1981) is one of the best action film scores ever. Prior to this, Mr. May scored Patrick (1978) which was produced by Anthony Ginnane who also acts as producer on this film as well (if you have seen the Italian cut of Patrick, Mr. May’s score was replaced by Goblin’s). Director Wincer has gone on to director more notable and successful films: Phar Lap (1983), D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), Quigley Down Under (1990), Free Willy (1993), and The Phantom (1996).

The film has been released on Scorpion Releasing’s Katarina's Nightmare Theater line, hosted by Katarina Leigh Waters. Ms. Waters proves to be a charming and knowledgeable emcee and provides an amusing introduction to the film. She points out that this is the first time the film is being presented on home video in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic Panavision aspect ratio. The film is transferred from a theatrical print, but it is free of dirt and scratches. The sound is in mono and is passable.

The DVD contains the entire, uncut version of the film with Snapshot on the title card, however there is an extra that contains a portion of the opening credits with The Day After Halloween as the title (the fuzziness of the image and overall lack of quality appears to be sourced from VHS). There is also an extremely informative running commentary with producer Anthony Ginnane moderated by Ms. Waters. A veteran of over fifty films, Mr. Ginnane is a fountain of knowledge and remembers quite a bit about the making of this film which had a very tight production schedule on the order of three weeks shooting time. The DVD cover replicates the original American one-sheet which is a nicely-designed image but is completely misleading – it is simply the wrong cover for this movie.

Click here to order from Amazon

TOM LISANTI PAYS TRIBUTE TO "VILLAGE OF THE GIANTS" (1965)

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sat, 04 May 2013 05:36:00 -0500

On his web blog Sixties Cinema, Cinema Retro columnist Tom Lisanti pays tribute to schlock producer Bert Gordon's 1965 teenbopper exploitation flick Village of the Giants, featuring such cult stars as Tisha Sterling, Joy Harmon, Vicki London and Tony Basil. Click here for the story behind the film as well as original TV ads.

REVIEW: DISNEY'S "WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?" ON BLU-RAY

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:21:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

On Saturday, April 23, 1988, I attended the Official Starlog Festival at the then-Penta Hotel in midtown Manhattan on Seventh Avenue. It was my first time meeting makeup artist Tom Savini and several cast members of Star Trek were also on hand. Film producer Frank Marshall, whom cineastes will know from The Warriors (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Poltergeist (1982), Back to the Future (1985), and most recently The Borne Legacy (2012), also showed up for a few hours to debut footage that director Robert Zemeckis shot for a new upcoming film entitled Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which was based upon the 1981 novel by Gary K. Wolf, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? The footage that we saw consisted of Bob Hoskins interacting with Roger and other animated characters and it looked pretty seemless. When the film opened two months later, I was delighted to see my favorite cartoon characters appear in one film.

The premise is fairly straight forward and owes a huge debt to the film noirs of the Thirties and Forties and there is more than a passing wink at Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) as Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is hired by R.K. Maroon (the head of Maroon Cartoons) to investigate allegations that Jessica Rabbit, the wife of cartoon star Roger Rabbit (both of whom live in Toontown with other cartoon characters who act in movies for real people producers and directors), is having an affair. Eddie hates toons because his brother, Teddy, was killed by one some years earlier. Eddie shows Roger pictures that he took of Roger’s wife, Jessica, playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme. Roger interprets this as his wife cheating on him, and when Acme is killed the next day by a fallen piano, Roger moves to the head of the suspect list. Since toons are pretty much indestructible (they have to be in order for them to be “killed” in their cartoons!), an evil man named Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd), who presides over Toontown, knows that the only way to kill a toon should one of them step out of line is to submerge them into a vat of acid he calls “The Dip”. His minions are sent out to find Roger and bring him back for the murder of Marvin Acme. This leads to a series of action-packed misadventures that are executed in the tradition of most of the beloved Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies cartoons.

This is the film’s first foray on to Blu-ray, and its third go-round on DVD. It comes in a 2-disc set with one Blu-ray and one DVD. The Blu-ray contains the following extras:

Filmmaker’s running commentary (runs in tandem with the film)

The Roger Rabbit Shorts: Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster Rabbit & Trail Mix-Up

Who Made Roger Rabbit (10:55)

Deleted Scene: The Pig Head Sequence (5:30)

Before and After (3:07)

Toon Stand-Ins (3:14)

Behind the Ears documentary (36:37)

On Set! behind-the-scenes (4:50)

The DVD contains these additional extras:

Valiant Files

Toontown Confidential, a feature that can be enabled while watching the film which has facts and trivia

What is missing, and this is something I have never seen on any home video release of the film be it VHS, laserdisc (does anyone remember the controversy surrounding this release?), or previous editions DVDs, is the CBS-TV special Roger Rabbit & the Secrets of Toon Town which aired on Tuesday, September 13, 1988. Its exclusion might be attributed to a rights issue. Fortunately, it can be seen here on Youtube. The quality is not stellar, however it is better than not having access to it at all.

All in all, this Blu-ray is a worthy upgrade to a fun film that has earned its place in movie history.

Click here to order from Amazon

CINEMA RETRO EXCLUSIVE! TODD GARBARINI INTERVIEWS PASHA ROBERTS, DIRECTOR OF "SILVER CIRCLE"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:11:29 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Pasha Roberts is the director of the new film Silver Circle. He obtained his masters in financial engineering, which he describes as “hedge fund math,” roughly ten years ago. His interest was in financial digitalization and how to apply modern computer graphics to high finance. His thesis subject consisted of applying a game-like graphics engine to doing equity trading in finance so that a reasonably intelligent 13-year-old gamer could use it to learn this type of trading. Upon doing this, he realized that what was missing from financial communications was a way of describing complicated concepts from a Ph.D level and bringing it down to a Masters level, essentially reducing the complexity and making it accessible; he did this by working with banks, corporations and think tanks.

Beginning around 2006, he began moving towards more economic-type concepts, and felt that it was important to describe things on more of an economic level rather than a financial level. When the housing and financial crash occurred in 2008, he decided that Silver Circle should really be about a crash and the intrigue around that crash.

Todd Garbarini: Your animation company, Two Lanterns Media, produced a series entitled Save Sonny which concerns a young adult entering the workforce who becomes perturbed to find that some of his paycheck is being deducted by a mysterious entity known as FICA (laughs). Does Sonny personify the average young American in your mind?

Pasha Roberts: At that point, we kind of did that, yeah. That was kind of a South Park-level of humor, there are some farts jokes in there as well. The goal at the time was to take the subject and make it interesting and acceptable for somebody who, when they get their first job, suddenly realizes that they don't get all of their money. They want to know where it goes to, specifically FICA, and why. That was a whole, completely different other style and was not as serious as (our new film) Silver Circle, but kind of tongue-in-cheek and somewhat educational.

TG: The series reminds me of Schoolhouse Rock which endeavored to educate children on science, economics, history, etc. Do you see yourself as an educator for social change and personal financial responsibility through animation?

PR: Yeah, you could say it that way. We were focusing on the story first and therefore tried to make it fun and interesting without trying to be too pedantic about it. That's why Silver Circle isn't full of speeches, although it has one or two that are kind of mixed in. We were interested in working with people who wanted to make a movie with a backbone and a spine and ideas in it. The audience can certainly enjoy it on an intellectual level in that regard, but otherwise they can also enjoy themselves from the movie perspective as we do have some action sequences and a car chase.

TG: Silver Circle posits the financial collapse of the United States economic system roughly six years from now. It is animated in the style of a contemporary video game. Was this your decision from the get-go?

PR: We were actually looking at A Scanner Darkly, actually we did use Maya, we didn't really use cel shading for this but we did look a lot at that. We really wanted to make the characters look less realistic and keep them from looking kind of spooky, and even so I think we could have done more with that. It's kind of a crossover thing, you don't see a lot of animated movies that are not comedies or fantasies, so people aren’t used to seeing this type of animation with something serious.

TG: How long did the process of making the film take, from conception to final product?

PR: Four years. We basically started brainstorming about it the day after Lehman Brothers went down because it was such a big dramatic moment, and I thought this could be a real interesting theme. The screenwriting itself took about a year as there was a completely different concept at first and it took a little while to burn through a couple of screenwriters until we finally settled on Stephen (Schwartz). Then we spent three years on production. The overall budget was roughly $2M. One of the really interesting things about the movie is that the end credits contain the names of about ten core people who really worked on it, compared to an army of animators.

TG: In the film, the Federal Reserve has been tasked with stabilizing the economy, but all attempts have failed and the Rebels illegally mint silver coins hoping to stabilize the financial health of the country. How do you feel this mirrors the current economic situation in the U.S. today?

PR: I think that we are currently heading in the direction that is depicted in the film, although I don't think that it will be as bad. There were a couple of things that are in the movie and were even in the script but hadn't happened yet but actually came true as we progressed through making the movie. For example, there is a guy by the name of Bernard von Nothaus who is currently in prison for making money out of silver, and that’s his crime. His sentencing judge basically called him a domestic terrorist for trying to make money out of silver. So, that was not going on. Then, the Federal Reserve was actually talking about taking over neighborhoods and basically calling them “land banks,” which is of course essential part of Silver Circle’s plot. So, there are angles going on in that direction already and I do believe that marijuana is on its way to being legalized, and this also occurs in the movie. I hope that the movie obviously isn't prescient in terms of being completely true. We looked at a lot of the history of Argentina and Zimbabwe and what happens when a currency begins to die and how people behave as a result of that.

TG: What do you hope audiences will take away from the film?

PR: First off, I hope that they enjoy the story. Obviously, I want them to have a great time. I want it to be a fun, good story for the audience. After that, I hope that people are not only entertained, and but there are also a lot of embedded things in the movie for the so-called armchair economists and conspiracy theorists. I really do hope that it gets people to start to think about money and know that there is this thing out there called the Federal Reserve that is very real and they are not murderous bastards (laughs). I want the audience to not take the concepts of money for granted. Most other countries understand that and the changing of European currency and so on and so forth - things abroad do not appear to be as well-established or as stable as things appear to be here. So, hopefully the audience will think about that. The angle that we're taking is that we really can make an animated movie with a spine of ideas that people will actually appreciate instead of just offering up a whitewashed movie.

Silver Circle Theater Schedule:

4/05 Laemmle’s NoHo – Los Angeles, CA (Buy your tickets here)

4/11 Pollack Tempe Cinema – Tempe, AZ (Buy your tickets here)

4/12 Regal Cinema – Ballston – Arlington, VA (Tickets on sale soon)

4/18 Flix Brewhouse – Round Rock, TX (Buy your tickets here)

Silver Circle’s official website is here.

Click here to read Todd Garbarini's review of Silver Circle

FILM REVIEW: "ROOM 237"; A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT STANLEY KUBRICK'S "THE SHINING"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:23:11 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Room 237 is the title of the excellent new documentary by director Rodney Ascher that takes the points of view of five off-screen individuals who do their best to unmask the purported hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick’s initially disappointing yet subsequently revered 1980 film version of Stephen King’s The Shining. In doing so, they are keeping in line with a motif derived straight from the novel in a sequence wherein Horace Derwent, a former owner of the Overlook Hotel, urges his costumed party-goers to unmask at a lavish celebration, thereby revealing their identities. The human face as a mask is also a common theme throughout all of Mr. Kubrick’s filmography, so it is only fitting that Room 237 takes the approach of removing layers to reveal what might be hidden beneath the surface in order to get at The Shining’s essence.

As a fan of Mr. Kubrick’s film for the past thirty years, I can honestly say that even though I have seen it easily more than fifty times I never noticed the props, visual references or subtexts that these five narrators diligently point out (granted this was difficult to do on archaic home video systems such as CED or VHS due to their significantly reduced image quality, to say nothing of the substandard televisions they were played back on, although the technically superior Blu-ray is a much better medium due to its high definition quality and lends itself ideal for this examination). Nor did I see the various continuity errors, judged as deliberate by Mr. Kubrick from the narrators’ perspectives, such as the carpet that changes direction in the hallway or the chair against the wall disappearing during Jack Torrance’s (Jack Nicholson) emotional outburst after his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) interrupts his writing. An argument can be made that Room 237 is less about the hidden meanings in The Shining than it is an explanation of five different people’s interpretations and experiences of seeing The Shining. There were times wherein the person speaking discussed in great length the strange layout of the Overlook Hotel and I must admit I could not see what they were getting at, however this is just one point that is made and there are numerous theories to go around on other subtexts of the film: the purported significance of the number 42; the architectural impossibility of the window in Mr. Ullman’s office; the ludicrous sexual reference in Mr. Ullman’s first handshake with Jack (this is a bit of a stretch – no pun intended, of course!); the Minotaur motif; the strange layout itself of the Overlook Hotel; the references to the genocide of Native Americans and even the Holocaust, the subject of which Mr. Kubrick later attempted to make a film about but eventually abandoned as he felt he could not do justice to the horror of this bleak period in history.

Director Ascher makes the interesting choice of not showing the faces of the narrators, and this maneuver works to the film’s advantage since so much of it is about pointing out what the narrators see. Cross-cutting between the narrators and the points they want to make would have either reduced the film’s running time (102 minutes, roughly the same as The French Connection (1970), my favorite film) or would have left most of the cogent points on the cutting room floor. I can only hope that the forthcoming DVD will offer up some nice extras in the way of deleted scenes. I am certain that there must have been some discussion about the significance of Jack telling Mr. Ullman that Wendy is a “confirmed ghost story and horror film addict,” yet her artistic escapes consist of reading The Catcher in the Rye and watching Summer of ’42 (there’s that number again!), two classics about the coming-of-age of a young male.

I especially liked Room 237’s framing device of using Lamberto Bava’s Demons (1985) and Demons 2: The Nightmare Continues (1986) as footage of an audience viewing The Shining in a theater and on television, respectively, to make certain points. Ideally, The Shining should be viewed in a movie theater, although realistically that is unfortunately not an option for most of us. The home video revolution saved many a film from inevitable obscurity and this is where the majority of Shining enthusiasts (myself included) had the opportunity to see it and thrill to it to our heart’s content.

The prerequisites for enjoying Room 237 include more than a passing interest in The Shining (it certainly helps to be a rabid fan of the film, thus having tremendous familiarity of it), patience, and certainly a sense of humor. Room 237 succeeds in imparting to the audience just how compelling and frightening The Shining can be to a first-time viewer. It is also a testament to the notion that film viewing is a solitary experience as no two people will see any one film with the same set of eyes. Perhaps, as is the case with The Shining, and many other Kubrick films, multiple viewings of Room 237 will clear up and even reveal more of what the narrators say they see. Whether you consider the film to be completely true or complete bollocks, one thing that can be said is that Room 237 is entertaining, thought-provoking, fascinating and enlightening. It’s my choice for Best Documentary at the 2014 Oscars.

Click here for the film’s official site.

FANS PETITION FOR DVD RELEASE OF "CURTAINS" AND "PROM NIGHT"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 05:48:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Horror films are a hot commodity. Some of the most well-known slasher films of the 1980’s have been re-issued on DVD and Blu-ray by companies looking to cash-in on audiences’ seemingly insatiable appetite for murder and mayhem while also introducing them to a whole new generation of fans with disposable income. Two titles that fans want on DVD and Blu-ray in the way of special editions are Paul Lynch’s Prom Night (1980) and Richard Ciupka’s Curtains (1983), both Canadian productions through Simcom, the former having fared far better on home video than the latter.

Prom Night was originally released theatrically by Avco Embassy Pictures in July 1980. It was distributed on VHS by MCA Home Video in 1981 and again by Virgin Vision, Inc. in 1988. MCA also released a laserdisc pan-and-scan version on their laser rot-prone DiscoVision line in 1981 (curiously, the film bypassed the RCA Select-A-Vision Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) stylus-based format of the early 1980’s, the direct competitor to laserdisc). The film fared better when a widescreen laserdisc sourced from a 35mm interpositive followed in 1997 courtesy of Elite Entertainment. In February 1998, Anchor Bay Entertainment released a widescreen DVD that included the original theatrical trailer (1.85:1 presentation is a must for this title as a boom mike is clearly visible in several shots in the full frame format). After the rights lapsed the film was picked up by Echo Bridge Entertainment and reissued in October 2007, this time dispensing with said trailer. Overall, Prom Night has been released on home video in three different formats no less than six times in the United States alone, not counting the international, non-Region 1 releases around the globe. All of these U.S. versions contain only the film without any additional extras that are practically a requirement to home video now: running commentaries, on-set interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, isolated musical scores, comments from contemporaries, stills galleries, etc.

Curtains, on the other hand, is a thriller that has suffered indignities far too numerous to list. Plagued from the outset by a problematic production, the financing ran out and put the cast and crew on hiatus for over one year. Much of the crew was replaced, and despite having been released theatrically in April 1983 to many respectable movie theaters by the long-defunct Jensen Farley Pictures, Curtains has only appeared on home video twice in the United States: in December 1983 Vestron Video released it on VHS, and in October 2010 Echo Bridge Entertainment released it as part of The Midnight Horror Collection: Bloody Slashers set which also includes Hoboken Hollow (2006), Secrets of the Clown (2007), and Room 33 (2009). In a maneuver regarded as perfunctory by those not in the know, Curtains appears to be lumped in with these three contemporary tales for no better reason than to “round out” the other titles – the original ad slick for Curtains was jettisoned and replaced with an image of a hand parting a curtain.

Curtains was also released in April 2007 on Region 2 DVD in the UK by Black Horse Entertainment. As with the Echo Bridge Entertainment release, the original poster artwork was not used. Again, an uninspired makeshift cover image that fails to represent the film in any way adorns the case. Curtains can be found at horror film conventions on DVD-R sporting its beautiful and atmospheric original one-sheet artwork, but the DVD transfer is sourced from the Vestron VHS cassette and is therefore in dire need of color correction; a 2K/4K high definition upgrade is long overdue.

Prom Night has a creepy score by Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer (he scored a handful of films for Bob Clark, including the classic 1974 film Black Christmas and was also a musical consultant on “Act II” of Curtains). Mr. Zaza also scored Curtains, which might have been a rejected score for Prom Night as several cues that appear in Prom Night also made their way into Curtains. Director Ciupka’s name was also removed from the credits to Curtains; whether or not this has any bearing on the lack of a DVD release is a mystery.

Fans can ponder why these titles are not available in full-blown special editions, and there are probably many legitimate reasons why the current DVDs turn up in Walmart discount bins. The original 35mm film negatives to each respective film may not be available as the whereabouts may be in question, or they may no longer even exist; management might feel that an insufficient number of fans willing to pay for the films exists and there is a fear of losing money on these titles; both films were made as Canadian tax shelter projects and this may also pose a problem. With the glut of far lesser quality horror thrillers available in beautifully designed special editions, the mind reels as to why these two films in particular have been marginalized and seem to be anathema to the royal treatment.

Echo Bridge Entertainment, a DVD company that uses the slogan “The Entertainment Alternative for What the World Wants to See” (not sure where that came from or what it is based upon), is now being approached by fans on an online petition website respectfully asking them to release the rights for these two films to Scream Factory, the Shout! Factory subsidiary that is making a name for itself with beautiful deluxe versions of genre favorites Terror Train (1980), The Funhouse (1981), Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), and the upcoming Deadly Blessing (1981) to name a few. This company would be an ideal organization to release these films as their work thus far has proven that they will spend the time and provide just the proper amount of TLC that these films deserve.

As of this writing, the petition has 300 signatures and is looking for a total of 1200, which is not an impossible number to reach. Click here to sign the petition on Petition Buzz requesting licensing of Prom Night and Curtains.

REVIEWS: CRITERION RELEASES "BADLANDS" (1973) AND "MINISTRY OF FEAR" (1944)

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 05:29:00 -0500

AND THEN THERE WAS… BADLANDS

By Raymond Benson

Terrence Malick fans will rejoice for the newly restored (and director approved, I might add—so apparently he’s not as reclusive as he’s been made out to be), marvelous release of the auteur’s first, and very low-budget, feature film. It was originally screened at festivals in 1973, and released to the public in early ’74. No punches pulled here—Badlands is a masterpiece, and its arrival immediately garnered a fan following for the enigmatic director who has made only five films in so many decades. But as producer Edward Pressman says in the exclusive video interview that The Criterion Collection included as one of several good extras, Badlands was not a success on its first release. Reviews were mixed—as would be the case for any Malick film—and the public didn’t go see it. Pressman also had to fight for Malick to have his own artistic vision, despite complaints and pressure from the backers. The film was properly “discovered” when it started playing on cable television some years later. By then, Malick was making Days of Heaven, and these would be the only two pictures he would make before a twenty-year gap in output. Already his mystique had been established.

Badlands is indeed a remarkable film, not only because of the unique point of view Malick brings to the table, but for the performances of young Martin Sheen and young Sissy Spacek. They are both knock-outs, and they were undeservedly ignored when awards season came around. Sheen, especially, gives a chilling performance of psychopath-as-James Dean, more or less, because the character fashions himself after the famous actor. You can’t help but like the guy. He is utterly charming to the girl he’s chosen to run away with him on a killing spree, and the couple’s love for each other is so real and so oddball that we can’t help but be fascinated by them.

It is Malick’s most “accessible” film, perhaps, for it tells a linear, sweeps-you-along story with characters you can follow through a story arc. If you know Malick only from his recent works (The Tree of Life, The Thin Red Line), you’ll know he didn’t always stick to that format. However, Malick displays many of his signature traits even here. A common stylistic and thematic element of the director’s films is the marriage of nature to whatever story is being told, thus there are striking cinematographic images of plains, bugs, birds, flowers, wheat, and sky, all set to some unusual piece of music from an eclectic palate of recorded works. (The unique soundtrack to Badlands has never been compiled and released, and someone should do it!)

Loosely inspired by the real-life Charles Starkweather case of the late 1950s, Badlands is a road movie that is poetry in motion, haunting and unforgettable. The 4K digital transfer is gorgeous. Other extras include an engrossing forty-minute piece on the making of the film, featuring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek today, reminiscing about the extraordinary experience they had with “Terry.” Associate editor Billy Weber also provides an interview, and a highlight is the 1993 episode of TV’s American Justice about Starkweather.

If you’ve never seen Badlands, take a look at this exquisite Criterion release and experience something beautiful and strange.

Click here to order from Amazon

ALSO NEW FROM CRITERION:

Ministry of Fear, 1944, directed by Fritz Lang, and starring Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, and Dan Duryea, looks fantastic on Blu-ray. It’s one of the best restorations and transfers I’ve seen of a black-and-white film noir of the period. Lang’s German Expressionistic background is classroom-clear in the look of this intriguing spy tale, based on a novel by Graham Greene (The Third Man). The high-contrast light-and-shadow and angled lines are all over the place. Nazi spies in England are the bad guys, and our innocent man on the run (Milland) thinks he knows where a few of them are hiding. The problem is, he’s a former mental asylum patient who served time for mercy-killing his already dying wife. This is a terrific World War II-era paranoia thriller, despite the fact that so many American actors in the picture are supposed to be British, and they make no attempt to sound that way. Still, the story is compelling and the direction is superb. Includes an interview with Lang scholar Joe McElhaney.

Click here to order from Amazon

Continue reading "REVIEWS: CRITERION RELEASES "BADLANDS" (1973) AND "MINISTRY OF FEAR" (1944)"

BLU-RAY REVIEW: JAMES CAMERON'S "THE TERMINATOR" (1984) STARRING ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:56:00 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

James Cameron's The Terminator is a masterpiece of cinematic storytelling, conceived by Mr. Cameron while in Rome with a fever years earlier (the late director Robert Altman had a similar situation that led to the writing of my favorite film of his, Three Women, released in 1977). Shot in early 1984 for roughly $6M (the amount spent solely on the sound mix of the superb $90M sequel seven years later), this futuristic action powerhouse grabs the audience by the throat and takes us on a wild ride. Despite the inexorable pace – much like the titular villain’s nature – the film manages to come up for air and miraculously never feels over-the-top, long-winded or plodding.

The Terminator opened on Friday, October 26, 1984 and yours truly missed out on seeing it, electing to see the horror film greatest hits compilation Terror in the Aisles instead. I had to wait until the end of the school year eight months later to see the film in a classroom on VHS, the small-screen presentation diminishing none of the film’s raw emotional power to my teenage eyes, both of which were glued to the television. The film made Arnold Schwarzenegger a super star and was the surprise sleeper hit of the season, his depiction of a terrifying cyborg with a relentless mission it will stop at nothing to complete solidifying his place as an action icon. Two weeks later Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street was unleashed on unsuspecting moviegoers and cinema hasn't been the same since, introducing a child killer who invades teen-agers’ dreams in his attempts to murder them. The Terminator added “Come with me if you want to live.” and the oft-quoted “I’ll be back.” to the American lexicon and became as familiar as “May the Force be with you.” and “Go ahead. Make my day.” Nightmare, of course, contributed the creepy “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…” children’s song.

Linda Hamilton shines as Sarah Connor, a 28 year-old diner waitress who unwittingly is targeted for termination by the Terminator after it travels from the future, determined to kill her so that her unborn son cannot rise against the machines. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn in a terrific and underrated performance) is the human counterpart sent to intercept and destroy the Terminator so that Sarah may live. What makes the film so brilliant is not only the ideas it presents but how it conveys them to the audience. For the first thirty-five minutes, we are just as in the dark as Sarah (not knowing she’s about to be on the run for her life) and Kyle (since the Terminator looks human on the outside, he has to wait until it moves in on Sarah before he can strike) and are only given little bits of information until Kyle and the Terminator meet face to face at the TechNoir dance club (the shootout in this ultra-Eighties club, followed by the escape, are beautifully edited set pieces that set the tone for the rest of the film).

The film may be low-budget, but it honestly does not feel like it. The story is enthralling and completely believable. Mr. Biehn gives a performance just as compelling as Donald Pleasence did in Halloween (1978). Without his history, conviction and attempts to make those around him believe that what he is saying is true, Kyle Reese, the soldier from the future who comes across time to father John Connor with Sarah, would fall under the weight of the film. There is a level of plausibility to the story that is lacking from other films about the future, heightened by Stan Winston’s special effects work. The flashback battle scenes of the war in 2019 recall Mad Max (1979) and Mad Max 2 (1981) (retitled The Road Warrior for its 1982 US release). The Terminator is the boiler plate for future films about, well. The future!

Composer Brad Fiedel has created a magnificently menacing score, robotic and simplistic like the Terminator. Dick Miller provides a great cameo as a gun store clerk (I just noticed the store’s address as 14329 and its similarity to 14239, the address of the first Sarah Connor the Terminator kills from the phonebook listing – and I have seen the film many times over! Oh, the clarity of high definition!).

The Blu-ray, which was released at least twice before (once in a special version containing a hardcover book), comes with the same extras ported over from the previous editions:

· Behind the scenes – runes about 13 minutes

· Terminator: A Retrospective – runs just over 20 minutes and contains interviews from 1986 and 1992

· A collection of deleted scenes

I wish that this time around the disc included a running commentary with the director at the very least. This is a watershed film that rewrote the book on science fiction action films and it is deserving of more extras than the studios have lavished on it thus far. If you have not yet picked up the film on Blu-ray, this edition will do quite nicely.

The film has been remastered and looks as good as it is going to in 1080P.

Click here to order discounted from Amazon

FILM REVIEW: "SILVER CIRCLE" IS TERRIFIC

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:48:49 -0500

By Todd Garbarini

Most big screen action films feel like video games made for the theatres. The over-the-top, psychotically-edited films of most of Michael Bay’s output of late, specifically the Transformer series, can attest to this fact. While the availability of inexpensive technology that was non-existent twenty years ago has brought tools to those who wish to push the envelope and find new and different ways to tell stories, there is virtually no limit to how filmmakers can realize their vision. We have reached a point in our intake of entertainment wherein movies influence video games and music videos and the lines between these disparate forms of enjoyment are becoming ever less defined.

Video games have experienced a surge in popularity in recent years thanks in part to high definition graphics, powerful home computers and gaming systems, and the ability to play against complete strangers several miles away or across the globe. One of the most profitable series is the Grand Theft Auto game from Rock Star Games, a company that has received flack for their violent and sexual content. The game literally puts the player (or perpetrator, depending upon your point of view) in the driver seat to navigate a dangerous city plagued by vagrants and social undesirables. Your mission is to commit as many crimes as possible as a means to an end. The graphics are high quality and the people are very realistic. It is this style of video game animation that has taken center stage in the terrific new film by Pasha Roberts called Silver Circle.

Set in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. in 2019, the same year as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Silver Circle concerns a world where inflation has run rampant following the financial collapse of the United States. A beer costs $90.00 and a gallon of gas averages $152.00, so $7.00 for a buzz and $3.59 for the precious juice no longer sounds like such a bad deal. But, it’s all relative. Pot has been legal since 2016 (apparently the war on drugs, a roughly $500 billion a year enterprise, is no longer a top priority), the same year that silver and gold was outlawed, and the Federal Reserve, referred to only as The Fed (much like Big Brother) is the country’s third attempt at a centralized banking system and it simply isn’t working. Desperate attempts by the aforementioned entity to stabilize the economy via printing worthless paper money with nothing to back it up except waning public trust is proving disastrous while managing home prices has similar effects.

Jay, an arson investigator, is brought in to determine the party responsible for the destruction of several homes in the Glenwood Homes subdivision which is the property of the Strategic Housing Reserve. He meets the lead realtor at the Cornwall Real Estate office and is intrigued by her assistant, Zoe, who agrees to meet with him later and give him some information off the record. Their meeting proves to be fortuitous as Jay is saved by Zoe when he is ambushed by henchmen looking to throw him off the case. Zoe gives chase in her mini-automobile that would make William Friedkin smile, effectively losing the bad guys. She clearly has some sort of expert training that the average realtor assistant would be oblivious to. It turns out that Zoe is a part of a group that call themselves The Rebels who illegally mint tangible, silver coins (hence the film’s title) in the hopes of stabilizing the financial health of the country.

While it might be easy to dismiss Silver Circle as just a story told through the unorthodox platform of video game animation, the film’s message is very real and serious and most certainly topical. Unlike contemporary action films that hit the audience over the head with cuts so fast that there is little time to process, Silver Circle moves at a much more visually manageable pace. It’s a film that has a message, and it manages to both entertain and inform the audience. The film’s greatest strength lies in getting the audience to think instead of just veg-out.

The film will begin touring the country starting in New York on Friday, March 22^nd. Click here on the film’s official website to see where it is playing and read more about the film, the characters, and the talented animators who brought Silver Circle to life.

BOOK REVIEW: "STAR TREK: THE VISUAL DICTIONARY" BY PAUL RUDITUS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 05:28:00 -0500

Review by Adrian Smith

'Star Trek' has been with us now for almost fifty years. It has spawned five different incarnations on television, ten official movies and soon the sequel to J.J. Abram's successful reboot of the franchise will be in cinemas, titled Star Trek Into Darkness. Gene Roddenberry's vision of an international, interstellar crew aboard a gigantic spacecraft whose mission was simply to explore the universe has touched millions of people and generated some almost alarming levels of devotion and influence. One only has to look at the campaign to build a real Starship Enterprise to see that this show is taken very seriously by many (www.buildtheenterprise.org).

But not everybody is well versed in 'Star Trek' lore. Over the decades of boldly going through the galaxies a massive amount of alien races, mythologies and technology has been devised to keep the shows and movies interesting. Some of these are well known even amongst non-Trekkies, with most people knowing the difference, say, between a Klingon and a Vulcan. What what about the Jem'Hadar? Or the Yridians? Could you name the home planet of the Xindi? Or explain how the Suliban Cabal became genetically enhanced? Thankfully these questions and more can now be answered without needing to trawl back through all those old 'Star Trek' tapes. If you want to be more familiar with the 'Star Trek' universe in time for the new movie, or just want to take a warp speed trip down memory lane, this new book from D.K. guides you through each incarnation of the television series, from the original 'Star Trek' through to 'The Next Generation', 'Voyager', 'Deep Space Nine' and 'Enterprise'. Also included is information from the first ten movies.

Aside from the introduction by John De Lancie, who played the mysterious extra-dimensional Q in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', there is no acknowledgement in here that this is all fictional. The book acts as a glossary providing imagery and information as though it was all real. This is fun for fans who may want to check how to distinguish a Type-1 Phaser from a Type-2 Phaser, but a little frustrating if you are more interested in the history and development of the production from its inception. However, there are plenty of other books out there which cover that side of the story. Where Star Trek: The Visual Dictionary stands out is in its wealth of imagery, plenty of which is quite rare, having only just been released from the CBS archives. The book is well laid out and is something you can quite easily dip in and out of. You can marvel at the intricacies of the designs and the imaginations of the show's creators even if you can't find out who any of them were.

BOOK REVIEW: "URBAN TERRORS: NEW BRITISH HORROR CINEMA 1997-2008 by M.J. SIMPSON

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 05:24:00 -0500

Hemlock Books

ISBN: 9780955777479

Paperback

Price: £17.95

295 pages

Review by Adrian Smith

To paraphrase Jonathan Rigby in his book English Gothic, horror is the one genre that Britain can truly claim as its own. And whilst British horror cinema is inextricably connected to gothic-tinged memories of Christopher Lee, cobweb-strewn castles and buxom scream queens, M.J. Simpson points out in this excellently researched tome that the face of British horror today offers far more.

Simpson appears to have taken on the Herculean task of watching every film that could fit the broad definition of being British (not always easy to tell, with funding and production often involving multiple countries), and being horror, again something of a broad church. A lot of the films he describes, giving not only plot synopses but reviews, production information and interview extracts, sound utterly terrible. He seems to have sat through a staggering amount of punishingly bad films so that we, the readers, don't have to. But along the way he has stumbled across a significant number of excellent films, too, many of which have escaped either critical or commercial attention.

Using the term British Horror Revival, Simpson offers a complete breakdown of the twelve years covered, digging up each film and presenting them in the order they received any kind of release. It is fascinating to see just how difficult some filmmakers have getting distribution, often producing a film in the UK but finding it only coming out on DVD in Japan or Australia. Many films manage a few festival screenings before disappearing into obscurity, so Simpson is to be praised for finding them again. Of course, some of them sound so terrible that it does not seem that much of a pity, but others sound like genuine lost gems. If horror is your thing, this book will have you scouring the internet looking for DVD or download copies.

Amongst the filmmakers discussed are genuine talents like Jake West (Evil Aliens, 2006), Shane Meadows (Dead Man's Shoes, 2006), Neil Marshall (The Descent, 2005) and Danny Boyle, whose brilliant and devastating 28 Days Later (2002) did much to raise the profile of the British Horror Revival around the world. Amongst the more obscure entries you can find Beyond the Rave (2008), a cheap teen-themed vampire horror co-produced by the newly revived Hammer Films, which Cinema Retro covered extensively (and even appeared in briefly!) here: http://www.cinemaretro.com/index.php/archives/387-EXCLUSIVE-REPORT-FROM-THE-SET-OF-NEW-HAMMER-HORROR-FILM%21.html

This is an extremely well-researched book, and M.J. Simpson's occasionally sarcastic and exasperated tone is entertaining, even if it does give the impression that he had regrets about this project once he had embarked on it. He has uncovered some gems and revealed that there is a very active, mostly micro-budget British film industry which gets frequently overshadowed by the Bonds, Harry Potters and Richard Curtis rom-coms. It is a pity that aside from a few pages of colour stills the majority of the imagery in the book is black and white. This is a genre that is frequently soaked in the red stuff. The main gripe however has to be the lack of an index or references. It is impossible to search for a specific title unless you know the year it was released, and even then you have to wade through the chapter concerned. The book could have served as a useful reference guide, but instead it appears to have been designed to be read from cover to cover. However, this is only a minor reservation. If you are interested in the horror genre, or want to find out just how active dozens of British filmmakers have are, this is a great read.

(Click here for on-line index of people mentioned in the book)

(Click here for on-line index of titles mentioned in the book)

INTERVIEWS WITH DISNEY "PETER PAN" VOICE ACTORS KATHRYN BEAUMONT AND PAUL COLLINS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 22:03:42 -0600

By Todd Garbarini

Walt Disney Studios graciously provided me with the opportunity recently to discuss Peter Pan with two of the film’s stars: Kathryn Beaumont, who provided the voice of Wendy, and Paul Collins, who provided the voice of John Darling.

KATHRYN BEAUMONT

Todd Garbarini: Thank you for speaking with me about Peter Pan.

Kathryn Beaumont: Thank you, it’s my pleasure!

TG: I am a big fan of the Disney cartoons as I spent the better part of my childhood seeing them.

KB: I'm so glad! They really are special, aren't they? The Disney cartoons really stand the test of time.

TG: These are some of the earliest movies I ever saw in both movie theaters and drive-ins. I really miss the drive-ins. There are so few of them left.

KB: I know! I miss the drive-ins, too!

TG: I understand that you were born and lived in London. How did you come to enter show business?

KG: I was in On An Island with You (1948) and Challenge to Lassie (1949) and at that point MGM was scouting characters for their new ideas for British classic-like stories, and so they put me under contract and I started working for them. I was with MGM for a while, and as you know a lot of those ideas just never come into being and ended up being put on the shelf. They kept me under contract though and at that time that was when Walt Disney was looking for his Alice in Wonderland. The rest, as they say, is sort of history! Just about the time that my contract was due to be changed over for the next six months, that is a six-month option, at that point there was some sort of negotiation and I went over to Disney and started working on Alice in Wonderland.

TG: Were you familiar with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when you were asked to perform the voice of the titular heroine?

KB: (laughs) It reminds me of when I first met Walt. He greeted me at the door and walked me into the office where everybody was settled because we were going to be signing the contracts. The publicity department was there and all of that. He walked me over to the little table and chairs. He told me that it would be kind of nice for us to go over the original book. He asked if I was familiar with the story. I said, “Oh yes, yes of course, of course!” (laughs) I had had it read to me when I was very young. Everybody in England was familiar with it. Those were the absolute classics. I was familiar with the stories whether I had read them not and by that time I could read them myself. So yes, I was extremely familiar. So, we sat down and he was sort of trying to explain to me what his vision was for the film and how he was trying to bring a little bit of both Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into this new animated feature. So, it was very informative and we had a lot of fun looking through the books and sharing all the things that we knew about the stories.

TG: Like so many of the classic Disney films, Alice in Wonderland was animated by the Nine Old Men, the famous animators who worked on so many of these classics. I met two of them, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, in November 1987 at a local mall when they were promoting their book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. They were very nice to speak with. How did you get along with the animators on the set of the film?

KB: Oh, I was just so grateful to them while I was working there. They just made me feel so much at home. They had me involved in the entire process as they would invite me into their offices at the studio where they were working. They showed me the rough drawings that they had been working on. Later on, they allowed me to go into “Ink and Paint” and told me to walk around and see what was going on and how that process worked. It was from one department to another and so on and so forth. As a result, I really felt that I was a big part of this overall process and I really enjoyed it very, very much.

TG: When it came time to doing Peter Pan, did you act as a live action reference for the animators as the character of Wendy?

KB: Oh yes, I did, as I had had a wonderful experience doing this also on Alice in Wonderland. When I was nearly finished with Alice, the studio was really quite ready to move straight into production on Peter Pan. That was their next animated feature. And so I began right away with the scenes that Wendy was involved with, with the live-action recordings. Right after that was the live action. That process usually consisted of a day or two of rehearsal to sort of map things out to see what they were looking for and determine the motion of the characters. As result, we were very prepared for when the camera was there and so we went through the action. This was done of course to help out the artists who were trying to draw the human figures which were the most natural and also the most challenging part of the process.

TG: Peter Pan has a few short musical numbers, among them “Follow the Leader.” Did you provide any additional voices for any of these subordinate characters for the songs or did you stick strictly to Wendy?

KB: No, I wasn't involved with those. They used a lot of boys for those voices, and I was not involved with any of them. The character of Wendy, unlike Alice, was more of a supporting role and that was the only voice that I provided for the film.

TG: What did you like most about your experiences on Peter Pan?

KB: Well, I would say it was similar to my experiences on Alice in Wonderland and that it was just a wonderful time working with very talented people, people whom I admired so much, and people whom I came to know very well, such as Hans Conreid (who provided the voices of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook). Like myself, he was also asked to provide the live-action as well as the voiceover parts. That kind of experience is what, I think, stands out in my memory. It was such a lovely time for me as a youngster playing these important roles and being able to get to know these creative people involved in this wonderful process.

TG: What was your reaction when you heard your voice in these films?

KB: Oh, I suppose that I viewed the movies I thought, “Oh, that's me!” (laughs)

TG: You became a teacher just after your stint in Hollywood. What grade or grades did you teach?

KB: Well, as it goes as a new teacher you're not high up on the totem pole. You end up changing grade levels every year. So, I have a lot of experience in the upper grades as well as the lower grades. I really did enjoy second grade. I took every opportunity to make my desires known that I really liked second grade. So from that point on until the end of my career, I taught second grade.

TG: What do you think is behind the longevity of such classic films as the movies that you worked on?

KB: I believe that it's the timelessness of the stories, and the stories really have something to say to young children. It came down to Disney's expertise in storytelling and his wonderful team that he worked with. They made the characters so realistic in terms that even adults could identify with them and not just the children in the audience.

Continue reading "INTERVIEWS WITH DISNEY "PETER PAN" VOICE ACTORS KATHRYN BEAUMONT AND PAUL COLLINS "