In 1934, the American film industry initiated a system of self-censorship known as the Hays Code. Eager to avoid an office of government film censorship from being established, the movie studios put in place their own draconian rules when it came to presenting adult content such as sex and violence on the big screen. Ironically, these restrictions were generally every bit as suppressive as any government agency might have applied. Over the course of the code's thirty year run, its impact was lessened as society became more liberalized. However, many great literary works that were brought to the screen were watered-down in an attempt to protect adult viewers from such shocking realities as premarital sex and the existence of homosexuality. The straw that broke the camel's back occurred when Jack Warner refused to make substantial cuts to the 1966 release of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", telling the code enforcers to, in essence, stuff it. Grateful movie-goers made what essentially an art house film in to a monster boxoffice hit. The code was doomed and would soon be replaced by the ratings system.
It may come as a surprise to readers to learn that despite the dreaded restrictions compelled by the code, industrious exploitation film producers found ways to bring nudity to the big screen in the 1930s through a number of cheaply produced movies. These basically fell into two categories: movies with narrative plots and fictitious characters and documentaries that purported to extol the health benefits of a nudist lifestyle. In fact, nudism was becoming quite the rage during this era, with over 300 nudist camps opening in America, attracting an estimated 300,000 members. The fad was, in part, influenced by European interest in the health benefits of nudity. German cinema of the era was far more liberal about presenting nudity on screen, and it was often integrated into the German penchant for movies that centered on love stories that often involved physical fitness as a main ingredient. In order to get around the Hays Code, the U.S. nudist films had to scrupulously avoid any hint of sexual contact. Only good, wholesome activities could be depicted and the hottest the action might get would be a quick kiss or hug between a couple.
Kino Lorber, in association with Something Weird, has released a fascinating Blu-ray featuring two of the more prominent nudist films of the era. First up is "Unashamed: A Romance", released in 1938. This is a drama starring people with little or no experience in the film industry. Rae Kidd (her only screen credit) plays Rae Lane, a secretary who is not so secretly carrying a torch for her boss Robert Lawton (Robert Stanley). Rae's unrequited love for Robert causes her to seek medical attention. Her doctor explains that because she is of mixed race (never defined exactly), she will never be regarded as a "catch" by most men. (Yes, folks, this was mainstream thinking back in 1938). Nonetheless, she convinces Robert, who is a hypochondriac, to join her at a nudist camp where she is a member, on the basis of the belief at the time that nudism was not only good for the psyche but also for a person's physical health. The ploy seems to work and before long she and Robert are romantically involved and engaging in hiking and sporting activities including volley ball, a requisite for any film set in a nudist colony. However, when a runaway aristocrat, Barbara Pound (Lucille Shearer) arrives at the camp to seek solitude from the public, Robert is immediately smitten and cruelly ignores Rae's heartbreak. The final scenes of the film trace Rae's efforts to adjust to having been dumped by her lover and we can't help but feel it was caused in part by his desire to be with a woman who wasn't "tainted" by mixed race heritage.
The film is interesting on several levels but for a fuller understanding, listen to the excellent commentary track by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who provides informative insights into the birth of the nudist film movement as well as this movie's shocking, downbeat ending and a tragic twist that is presented in such a subtle manner that you might otherwise have overlooked it. I should also point out that the film is very creatively photographed by George Sergeant, though this movie appears to be his only cinematic credit.
"Hudson
River Massacre†is a 1965 Italian Western originally titled “I tre del
Coloradoâ€and also released as “Rebels
in Canada,†“Revolt in Canada,†and “Canadian Wilderness.â€In the film, the Hudson’s Bay Company, an
English corporation, is tightening its monopoly on the lucrative fur-trading
business in western Canada in the late 1800s by driving independent French-Canadian
trappers out of business.The
French-Canadians counter with an uprising led by Leo Limoux, played by Franco
Fantasia, a Spaghetti Western regular with a familiar face if not a familiar
name.Trapper Victor DeFrois (George
Martin) resists joining the rebels until his brother is executed for robbery
and murder on charges fabricated by the ruthless Hudson’s Bay trading-post
manager, Sullivan.When that happens,
Victor throws in with the resistance.At
Limoux’s direction, the young trapper kidnaps Sullivan’s sister Anne and holds
her at a remote cabin for ransom.From
there, veteran fans of old-fashioned Westerns can pretty much write the rest of
the script themselves.What usually
happens in these movies when a handsome, stalwart outdoorsman is cooped up with
a genteel, gorgeous woman, and the two begin to rethink their animosity toward
each other?
The
director of “Hudson River Massacre,†Armando de Ossorio, is better known to
Euro-movie fans for his four horror films in the “Blind Dead†series about
undead medieval knights who rise from their tombs as zombies.As director and co-writer, he keeps the
B-Western fistfights and shootouts moving at a fast clip in “Hudson River
Massacre,â€including the relatively
large-scale “massacre†of the title in which the outnumbered rebels clash with
a troop of Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the shadow of snow-capped Spanish
peaks standing in for the Canadian Rockies.The role of the Mounties as Sullivan’s malleable dupes will surprise
older fans who fondly remember Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.The Spanish actor George Martin had a busy
career in Italian Westerns, sometimes playing against type as a bad guy but
more often cast like here, as the hero.He appears to be performing most of his own stunts in “Hudson River
Massacre†without the help of a stand-in, except for the more dangerous moments
of a fight with a bad guy in a rugged stretch of rapids.He’s ably supported by an attractive trio of
European actresses, Giulia Rubini as Anne, Pamela Tudor as a feisty
action-heroine named Swa, a common fixture in today’s movies but unusual for a
1960s Western, Italian or otherwise, and Diana Lorys as Nina, a French-Canadian
saloon girl whose unrequited devotion to Victor has unfortunate consequences.
A new Blu-ray edition
of “Hudson River Massacre†from MVD Classics presents this obscure movie in a
serviceable hi-def transfer.The only
extra is a trailer, but the Blu-ray includes SDH subtitles that will be
welcomed by those who saw unpretentious fare like “Hudson River Massacre†at
the local drive-in as kids, back in the day.Italian Western enthusiasts will be equally happy to see another
hard-to-find title now available on the commercial market.
A long-neglected gem, the 1959 apocalyptic thriller The World, the Flesh and the Devil has finally been released on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive. The movie, which was once routinely shown on TV, has all but vanished from sight in recent years. One of the first serious attempts to examine the implications of Armageddon in the nuclear age, the film was largely over-shadowed by Stanley Kramer's similarly-themed, all-star production of On the Beach. Harry Belafonte stars as Ralph Burton, a construction worker who is investigating a long-dormant underground tunnel when catastrophe strikes. He is trapped by a cave-in and when he manages to emerge from the death trap situation, he discovers the entire population of his town has fled in mass hysteria due to the outbreak of a world war. His research shows that biological weapons were used to kill seemingly everyone on earth. For the sake of dramatic license, the lethal aspects of the weapons are neutralized within a few days, thus making Burton immune from any lingering effects.
Burton makes his way to New York City where he finds the entire
population has vanished and is presumably dead. Driving to New Jersey,
he witnesses an eerie sight: thousands of deserted automobiles stranded
at the Lincoln Tunnel and atop the George Washington Bridge. The impact
is somewhat diluted because Burton never encounters a single dead body.
Like Kramer's On the Beach, this production seems a bit timid
when it comes to showing the actual carnage of a world war. In horror
and suspense films, what you don't see is often scarier than what you do
see, but in this scenario, it becomes rather implausible that there
isn't a trace of a single soul in evidence. Nevertheless, the sequences
remain powerful and haunting. Burton, who conveniently is a handy man
who can tackle even the most daunting tasks, manages to generate
electricity in the luxury apartment he stakes out in Manhattan. While he
enjoys a reasonably lavish lifestyle, he is desperately lonely- until
he encounters Sarah (Inger Stevens), a gorgeous blonde who has also
miraculously survived the devastating event that seemingly has ended all
other human life on earth. The film crosses into the realm of sexual
tension and racial bigotry- bold topics during this era of moviemaking.
The two would logically become lovers in any other scenario, but Burton
balks because of the (then) American taboo on inter-racial
relationships. Sarah is willing but becomes frustrated by Burton's
avoidance of her sexual advances.
The situation becomes even
more complicated when a third survivor emerges: Ben Thacker (Mel
Ferrer). Burton saves his life, but the inevitable comes to pass. When
Ben turns his attentions to Sarah, Burton becomes jealous and the two
men engage in a duel to the death, stalking each other through the
deserted canyons of Wall Street. The World, the Flesh and the Devil is
a poignant film about the human pysche. As absurd as it might seem, the male ego being what it is, one
can well imagine that sexual dominance would result in the last two men
on earth trying to reduce the male population by 50% through murder.
The film is extremely well acted by the three leads, and Belafonte, who
was then riding at the top of the pop charts, even gets to sing a couple
of Caribbean songs. The most memorable aspect of the production,
however, is the impressive camera shots in an around New York City.
While many of the scenes of deserted landmark areas are achieved through
special effects and matte paintings, there are nonetheless some fairly
incredible shots of main thoroughfares completely devoid of any traffic
or pedestrians. (A similar feat would be achieved in Los Angeles for The Omega Man.)
">The World, the Flesh and the Devil is very capably directed by Randall MacDougall, who was primarily known as the screenwriter for such diverse films as Cleopatra and Dark of the Sun. It's a
thinking person's vision of the apocalypse. Some of it is a bit corny and
dated, but time has not diminished the power of the storyline. The Blu-ray offers a superb transfer and includes the original trailer. The disc is region-free.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE.
On the 31st January, Silva Screen released two
excellent BBC vinyl albums from the 1970s. Firstly, Paddy Kingsland was the
first Radiophonic composer to see a solo release of his compositions, even though
he’s not name-checked on the front of the sleeve.“Fourth Dimensionâ€, first released in 1973,
showcased Kingsland’s theme tunes for television and radio while at the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop.The recordings
feature a rock-style backing band and synthesisers including the VCS 3 and
“Delaware†Synthi 100, and the track “Reg†from the album was also released as
the B side to the 1973 single release of the iconic Doctor Who theme tune.
Kingsland remained at the workshop for 21 years, leaving in 1981, during which
time he composed music for much loved TV shows The Changes, Doctor Who and The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy among others.Paddy Kingsland is now part of the newly-revived independent
“Radiophonic Workshop†which has been playing festivals including Glastonbury
and Womad and composing new music including the score for the recent feature
film by Matthew Holness, “Possumâ€. The reissue of the LP has been pressed on
White Vinyl and comes in a limited edition number of just 500 copies. Audio
quality over its 12 tracks still sounds remarkably good, with excellent
packaging and printed inner sleeve. Catalogue Number: SILLP1543
On the same date, Silva Screen also released
Through a Glass Darkly. Peter Howell
joined the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1974, coming from a career in various
psychedelic folk bands, which saw him record five albums with fellow musician
John Ferdinando. He composed his first Doctor Who output in ’75 in the form of
additional incidental music and electronic overdubs for “Revenge of the
Cybermenâ€, and Special Sound for “Planet of Evilâ€. In 1980, he was asked by the
programme’s then new producer, John Nathan-Turner, to update the iconic Doctor
Who theme.The new arrangement appeared
on that year’s “The Leisure Hiveâ€, continuing to be used through Tom Baker’s
remaining series as the Doctor and throughout the Peter Davison period.“Through A Glass Darkly†was originally
released in 1978 as a standalone studio album by Howell in collaboration with
the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.The six
original instrumental compositions (one of which is 19 minutes long) flaunt a
progressive rock influence as well as the distinctive electronic sound of the
RWS. “The Astronauts†(track 5, side 2) appeared again as a B side to the 1980
single release of his version of the Doctor Who theme. The reissue of the LP
has been pressed on Transparent Vinyl and again is strictly limited to just 500
copies. Audio quality throughout its 6 tracks is superb. At just 38 minutes,
it’s a pity Silva Screen couldn’t dig out a few additional bonus tracks as I’m
sure plenty of the same still exits. Like “Fourth Dimensionâ€, the album’s packaging
and printed inner sleeve are of the highest quality. Catalogue Number:
SILLP1544
If anyone still needs to be persuaded to believe that the 1960s was the greatest era for popular music, the documentary "Echo in the Canyon" will provide further evidence. It was a time of such diversity that groups like the Doors and the Rolling Stones could share the top of the charts with Frank Sinatra. Writer/director Andrew Slater traces the emergence of the electronic folk/rock scene that came to life in L.A.'s Laurel Canyon area during the years 1965-1967 when many aspiring young singers and songwriters emigrated to there and inspired each other to create a new sound that transfixed America. Much has been written about Elvis Presley defining rock 'n roll in the 1950s and how the Beatles and other British Invasion bands took the nation by storm in the 1960s. But the highly influential folk/rock scene has rarely been analyzed with the same intensity, despite the influence of the talents that emerged from it. Slater's film finally does justice to this incredible explosion of talent. The film is a patchwork of various interviews that somehow blend together to make a coherent central point: that the artists involved in the folk/rock scene knew they were creating something special. In the film, they discuss how they drew from each other's strengths beginning with the Byrds electronic hit version of Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!". They were competitors on one level, but colleagues on another. When one group or singer came up with a hit, it inspired their friends to redouble their own efforts, occasionally subliminally stealing some aspects of others' songs for themselves.
Contemporary folk rocker Jakob Dylan, son of you-know-who, conducts the interviews as we follow him driving around various Laurel Canyon locations that were central to the movement in the 1960s. Dylan, like his legendary father, wears a somber expression throughout but he does a fine job of eliciting interesting observations from such icons as David Crosby, Michelle Phillips, Ringo Starr, Graham Nash, John Sebastian, Stephen Stills, Roger McGuinn, Jackson Brown, Tom Petty (his last filmed interview), Eric Clapton and legendary music producer Lou Adler. Michelle Phillips discusses her sexually liberated lifestyle while in the Mamas and the Papas and recalls how her husband John, founder of the group, discovered she was having an affair with fellow band member Denny Doherty. Out of frustration, he wrote their hit song "Go Where You Wanna Go" to reflect his wife's aversion to monogamy. (Not mentioned was the revelation in later years that John had been alleged to have carried on an incestuous relationship with his daughter.) Ringo Starr recalls how the Beatles were so impressed with the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album that it inspired them to make "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and David Crosby admits the real reason his friends and colleagues kicked him out of the Byrds was "because I was an asshole." Dylan even coaxes the often reclusive Brian Wilson out of hibernation for some brief, upbeat comments about the glory days of the Beach Boys.
The film shows Jakob Dylan and and his contemporaries (including Fiona Apple, Beck and Nora Jones) performing spirited and reverent cover versions of some of these artist's greatest hits, intermingled with priceless vintage film footage of the original groups playing them. There are also extensive clips from director Jacques Demy's 1969 feature film "Model Shop" that shows star Gary Lockwood in footage in which he is seen in many of the locales where the great folk/rock music was created.
The Blu-ray from Greenwich Entertainment looks great but unfortunately is bare-bones in terms of bonus extras. However, the film is a priceless time capsule of a wonderful era in popular music that we're not likely to experience again any time soon.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON (The film is also currently streaming on Netflix.)
(Robert Conrad (R) with Ross Martin in "The Wild, Wild West".
BY LEE PFEIFFER
Actor Robert Conrad has died at age 84. Conrad's got his first big break with a key role in the 1950s hit TV series "Hawaiian Eye". But it was in the 1960s that he soared to fame in "The Wild, Wild West", one of the more enduring TV series inspired by the James Bond phenomenon. Set in the late 1800s, Conrad and co-star Ross Martin played government agents James West and Artemus Gordon, who employed Victorian-age super gadgets to thwart nefarious megalomaniacs. The show's tongue-in-cheek approach to plots relied heavily on the comedic byplay between Conrad and Martin. The series lasted four seasons and the actors returned in TV movies based on the show many years later. In 1999, the series inspired the poorly-received big screen adaptation starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline. Conrad excelled at stunt work and one of the show's trademarks was his ability to do many of the more dangerous action scenes without a stuntman. He was ultimately afforded the honor of being inducted into the Stuntmen's Hall of Fame. After the series left the air, Conrad remained a regular presence on television, often guest-starring on popular series. In 1976, he scored another hit by starring in the WWII series "Black Sheep Squadron". In 1978, he won praise for his performance in the epic TV mini-series "Centennial". Although Conrad was primarily associated with television, he occasionally appeared in feature films such as "Young Dillinger", "Palm Springs Weekend", "Murf the Surf", "Jingle All the Way" and "Wrong is Right".
In 1967, prominent lawyer F. Lee Bailey had a short-lived 30-minute interview program, "Good Company", on ABC-TV in America in which he would interview prominent people. In this episode, he went to the London home of Sean Connery and got the 36 year-old actor to discuss the James Bond films in-depth. In fact, it's probably the most extensive interview about 007 Connery ever gave. By this point, he was eager to move on and informed Bailey that the recently-released "You Only Live Twice" would be his last Bond film. (As we all know, he did return for two more films between 1971 and 1983.) The interview takes place in Connery's billiard room but, amusingly, he obviously had purchased the billiard table from a local establishment and it requires inserting coins to play for a twenty-minute session. Connery speaks candidly about the pluses and minuses of the films, his satisfaction with making "The Hill" and "A Fine Madness" and his frustration with film producers in general. It must be pointed out that Connery and Bond producer Cubby Broccoli would later reconcile shortly before Broccoli's death in 1996, when the two engaged in a sentimental phone conversation. Broccoli had always said that the only thing he had "done" to Sean Connery was make him a very wealthy man. Nevertheless, it's clear from the interview that in 1967, Connery was not pleased with the contract he had for the Bond films.
It should be noted that the footage seen here, presented the Historic Films web site, is from a raw cut of the interview. It involves two sessions with Connery responding to essentially the same questions twice, though his answers vary quite a bit in some instances.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Israeli producers Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan took Hollywood by storm by unleashing a tidal wave of low-budget exploitation films that were superbly marketed and which made their Cannon Films company the toast of the town. The fare was generally for undiscriminating viewers who were willing to plunk down their money to see movies about breakdancing, sexual slapstick and over-the-top action movies. They made a feature film star out of the charisma-free Chuck Norris and revived Charles Bronson's career after the major studios had pronounced him to be past his sell date. The glory days of Cannon were relatively short-lived as movie fans sought more sophisticated fare. Still, it must be said that occasionally, Cannon did try to move out its comfort zone by producing respectable, mainstream films, one of which was "Runaway Train" in 1985. The movie starred Jon Voight as Oscar "Manny" Manheim, a convicted bank robber and incorrigible inmate imprisoned at a remote penitentiary in Alaska. He's become an idol to his fellow inmates because of his obstinate refusal to conform the draconian rules set in place by the sadistic warden Rankin (John P. Ryan), who tries to break Manny's will be having him chained up within his cell for a period of months. Manny has used legal appeals to force this practice to be stopped and when he prevails in court, the prisoners rejoice, much to Rankin's disgust. Manny isn't content with his temporary victory, however, and soon plots an audacious plan to escape. He ends up allowing a younger inmate, Buck (Eric Roberts), to join him only because he has suffered a severe hand injury and might need Buck's assistance. That doesn't preclude him from constantly insulting and harassing the younger man.
The film follows the convicts' successful escape only to find them facing the harsh winter weather with only a modicum of supplies and clothing. They end up boarding an express freight train with a plan to hitch a ride to wherever the final stop is. Things go awry quickly, however, when the train careens into another locomotive and suffers significant damage. Worse, Manny and Buck are stranded in a freight car and unable to access the engine where they suspect the engineer must have been disabled or died. Their fears are warranted, as the engineer has died from a heart attack. The train is out of control and is blazing along at an unsafe speed. Much of the action concentrates on the men's desperate attempts to access the front of the train and slow it down. They later discover there is one other person on board, a railroad worker named Sara (Rebecca De Mornay), who makes her way to their car and informs them of the dire situation they are all in. If they can't stop the train, it will inevitably crash, killing them all.
Director Andrey Konchalovsky ratchets up the suspense and thankfully the script avoids any cliched sexual interaction between Manny, Buck and Sara, probably because even the horniest guy would find it hard to conjure up erotic thoughts while spiraling toward his doom. Sara proves to be invaluable in assisting the men in making death-defying attempts to access the engine by crawling about outside the train. However, the sheer speed of the vehicle, along with the piercing cold, precludes them from being successful. The action is inter-cut with sequences set in a control room as railroad technicians frantically attempt to utilize "fool proof" safety measures to stop the train, only to find they are uniformly failing. Meanwhile, Rankin is determined to take charge himself. Humiliated by the convicts' escape, he has a helicopter fly him over the train and lower him down so he can confront Manny and settle the score.
"Runaway Train" is a superior prison escape drama, though there are elements that are a bit over-the-top. When the prisoners initially escape, they are submerged in water and, despite the viewer being told earlier that the temperature outside is 30 below zero, they persevere, when, in reality, they would be dead within minutes. It is also distracting that Buck's hair remains carefully coiffed through all this and he looks like he just stepped out of Beverly Hills salon. Additionally, the mano a mano scenario of Rankin make a death-defying landing atop the train is an element that would be more appropriate for Rambo or James Bond film. Nevertheless, when the two antagonists do come face-to-face, the cliches vanish and lead to a poignant and memorable final scene that is refreshingly free of violence.
There's plenty of reasons to recommend the film, not the least of which are the incredible stunt work brilliantly filmed by cinematographer Alan Hume. The performances are all first-rate but the movie belongs to Jon Voight, who is terrific as the very flawed protagonist. The film received very positive reviews but bombed at the boxoffice perhaps because discriminating moviegoers might have been wary of the Cannon connection, whereas Cannon's prime audience might have considered it too lacking in schlock. Disappointingly, the movie's failure seemed to result in Voight losing future opportunities as an "above-the-title" leading man, though he has continued to work constantly in supporting roles in feature films and in television, always providing fine performances.
The Kino Lorber DVD provides a fine transfer but we hope the movie is slated for a much-deserved Blu-ray upgrade from the company. (UK-based Arrow Films did release a Region 2 Blu-ray edition and reader Matt Bowes advises that a limited edition U.S. Blu-ray from Twilight Time has sold out.). The DVD contains the original trailer and trailers for other similarly-themed KL releases.
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
Paramount has issued a 10-DVD collection of Jerry Lewis films, all but one of which pertain to his solo career. ("The Stooge" co-stars Dean Martin). The set is packed with 90 minutes of bonus materials including trailers, commentaries by Lewis and rare archival films and materials. Here is the official press release:
Paramount Home Entertainment has issued a repackaged DVD set containing ten Jerry Lewis feature films. Here is the official press release:
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Relive some of the greatest
film moments from comedy legend and Hollywood icon Jerry Lewis with the
new JERRY LEWIS 10 FILM COLLECTION, arriving on DVD June 12, 2018 from
Paramount Home Media Distribution. Celebrated for his remarkable range of
characters, outlandish antics, and uninhibited physicality, Jerry Lewis’ work
continues to delight audiences around the world and inspire new generations of
comedians.
Featuring 10 of Lewis’ most beloved comedies, the JERRY
LEWIS 10 FILM COLLECTION is headlined by 1963’s enduring classic The
Nutty Professor, which celebrates its 55th anniversary this year.
Considered by many to be Lewis’ finest and most memorable film, The Nutty
Professor was included on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100
funniest American films of all time and was selected for preservation in the
U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2004.
The 10-DVD set includes the following:
The
Stooge (1951)—Features one of Lewis’ earliest pairings
with Dean Martin as a musical-comedy duo
The
Delicate Delinquent (1956)—A “teenage terror†is recruited
for the Police Academy
The
Bellboy (1960)—Lewis plays a friendly but clumsy bellboy in
this slapstick classic
Cinderfella (1960)—Lewis’
take on the classic Cinderella story
The
Errand Boy (1961)—Paramount enlists a bumbling Lewis to spy on
their productions in this hilarious film studio comedy
The
Ladies Man (1961)—A girl-shy man finds work in a women-only
hotel with uproarious results
The
Nutty Professor (1963)—A socially awkward professor
invents a serum that turns him into the handsome but obnoxious Buddy Love
The
Disorderly Orderly (1964)—Lewis wreaks havoc in a private
rest home
The
Patsy (1964)—Lewis directs and stars as a novice
recruited to replace a big-time comedian
The
Family Jewels (1965)—Lewis directs and plays seven
distinct roles in this family inheritance farce
The great Kirk Douglas has died at age 103. Not only did
Douglas have a stellar Hollywood career as an actor, receiving three Oscar
nominations, he also produced some important films. During a period in
Hollywood when studios were still afraid to use blacklisted writers,
Douglas defied the ban and put Dalton Trumbo's name at the top of the credits
for Spartacus, along with his own and director Stanley Kubrick.
That took guts.
Douglas and Stanley Kubrick also made the very
fine anti-war film Paths of Glory (1957. Here is a clip from that
film: Douglas's character, Colonel Dax, commanding officer, 701st Infantry
Regiment (WW1), an attorney by profession, is desperately trying to save
the lives of three of his men who have been unjustly accused of
cowardice and will face a firing squad if convicted.
Kirk Douglas was much more than just a tough guy; he was
a fine actor, a talented producer, and a man of principle. We'll not see
his likes again.
The transgressive effect of Crash
is immediate since the film opens with three sex scenes in succession.
Cronenberg observed the effect first hand at test screenings:
There are moments when audiences burst out laughing, either in
disbelief or exasperation. They can't believe that they're going to have to
look at another sex scene . . . In one of my little test screenings
someone said, "A series of sex scenes is not a plot." And I said,
"Why not? Who says?" . . . And the answer is that it can be,
but not when the sex scenes are the normal kind of sex scenes . . . Those can
be cut out and not change the plot or characters one iota. In Crash,
very often the sex scenes are absolutely the plot and character
development.[i]
The aberrant sex depicted in those many
scenes that drive the narrative, adultery, cuckoldry and other such instances
of polymorphous perversity, is inherently transgressive. To achieve the
transgressive kinetics of those scenes Cronenberg relied on an exceptional troupe
of intellectually engaged actors, among them Deborah Kara Unger, who admitted to
her own transgressive experience with the film in her role as Catherine
Ballard, “When David Cronenberg sent me his script . . . I was shocked, taken
aback, absolutely altered by it – and unprepared for that alteration . . .undeniably
the script impacted me and changed me.â€[ii]
Perhaps the best way to conceptualize Cronenberg's cinematic coups de main
is as a cult rite of passage the viewer must pass through to earn one's
"ticket to ride" in the vehicle known as Crash.
Crash is set in what appears to be the late
20th century North American urban center of magnificent high-rise
enclaves and overstimulated existence. Catherine and James Ballard (James
Spader) are the upper-middle class thirty-something couple of the not too
distant future who delight in sharing the intimate details of their
extramarital exploits. However even this arrangement does not fully satisfy
them since neither Catherine nor James climax during their encounters; "Maybe
the next one . . . " is their household refrain. On one late night commute
down a rain-swept road James loses control of his car and collides head-on with
a vehicle driven by Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter). Their crash effects an
intellectual awakening in both of them to the potential of enhanced erotic
experience. She puts him in contact with Vaughan (Elias Koteas), former
specialist in international computerized traffic systems, now the creative
intelligence behind a car crash cult. Other cult members include Colin Seagrave
(Peter MacNeill) active in the staging of celebrity car crash reenactments and Gabrielle
(Rosanna Arquette) a permanently debilitated car crash survivor in
steel-reinforced leg and hip braces. Crash becomes the journey of James
down the road of discovery in search of a new form of ecstasy that may provide
some vitality to his otherwise disconnected and passionless existence.
The British Film Institute (BFI) deserves praise for continuing to invest in restorations of worthy, but largely forgotten, British films from bygone eras. Case in point: the 1953 crime drama "Cosh Boy" (absurdly re-titled "The Slasher" for American release in order to make it appear to be a "B" horror movie.) Incidentally, a "cosh" is old British slang for a blackjack used by thugs to strike victims over the head. The low-budget B&W production is typical of the film output in post-WWII Britain. Britain was on the winning side but after initial jubilation the reality of living in an almost bankrupt nation set in. Rationing was strict, much of the country was in ruins and crime and juvenile delinquency began to rise. "The Slasher", co-written and directed by Lewis Gilbert, touches on these problems by examining how the delinquency problem was exacerbated in part by the loss of so many fathers during the war. This left suddenly single mothers having to cope with raising families on their own and facing severe financial hardships. The screenplay centers on these challenges through a micro-view of how it affects one family and one neighborhood. Roy (James Kenny) is a bad apple. He looks like Leslie Howard but has the personality of James Cagney's "The Public Enemy". The 16 year-old is the ringleader of a local group of delinquents who prey on the elderly and commit petty crimes to keep their wallets full. Roy is ostensibly being raised by his widowed mother Elsie (Betty Ann Davies) and her live-in mother (Hermione Baddely) but it's really Roy who is running the show. He is cruel and dismissive to his mother and grandmother but can turn on the charm when he needs to because he senses that his mom is actually an enabler who wills herself to believe every ridiculous explanation he gives for his run-ins with the law.
Roy's best mate is Alfie (Ian Whittaker), a dim-witted, wimpy character who seems to have a good heart but who is nonetheless unable to resist following Roy's demands that he join him in committing crimes. Roy makes sure that, to the extent possible, his gang members assume disproportionate risks compared to himself. He is a true sociopath: ruthless, selfish but at able to appear to be likable and sympathetic when it suits his needs. When Roy sets eyes on Alfie's 16 year-old sister, Rene (Joan Collins), he has his gang beat and hospitalize her boyfriend, leaving him free to seduce her, an act that will come back to haunt him later. When Roy is arrested for a crime, the judge goes lenient on him and sentences him to probation and tells him he should frequent the neighborhood youth center to ensure he stays out of trouble. Roy follows the advice, but uses the center as a meeting place to plan future crimes with his fellow thugs. It is there that he is intrigued by the possibility to pull off a big score by planning to rob the boxoffice receipts from a local major wrestling event. (The script takes a decidedly conservative "spare the rod and spoil the child" viewpoint in terms of dispensing justice to juvenile offenders.)
The movie caused some controversy in the UK and is said to be the first film released with an "X" certificate. It certainly is bitingly realistic compared to many other films from the era. The main character has no redeeming qualities and there are frank depictions of vicious crimes and the consequences of unplanned pregnancies in an era in which that would make for devastating personal and social consequences. As director, Lewis Gilbert's work is quite admirable, with nary a wasted frame of film. The seeds of his future success as a major director are sown here and he derives an outstanding performance from James Kenny in the lead role. Kenny is quite remarkable, his disarming angelic looks alternating with his character's vicious and unpredictable tendencies. In viewing the film, I couldn't help but wonder why fortune didn't smile on his career in the way that it did for Richard Attenborough, who vaulted to stardom during the same era also playing a teenage thug in "Brighton Rock". Everyone else in the film is also impressive, with Betty Ann Davies and Hermione Beddedly especially good as the women who have the misfortune of trying to raise young Roy. Baddely's character is not the enabler her daughter is and is wise to Roy's true nature. Joan Collins is very effective as the vulnerable teenage girl who Roy uses and abuses. Robert Ayres appears late in the film as Elsie's new beau, which causes Roy to rebel even further, as he is understandably threatened by having a streetwise older man in the house who could exact some discipline on him.
"Cosh Boy" is a depressing film, to be sure, but a very worthy one. Kino Lorber has imported the BFI restoration for their Blu-ray release the transfer is literally stunning, making the stark B&W cinematography Jack Asher look very impressive indeed. The only extras are trailers of other KL releases (though not for the main feature) and an alternate title sequence from the American release of "The Slasher". (The film has no slashing at all other than a brief scene in which Roy threatens someone with a razor.) This is British "B" filmmaking at its best. Highly recommended.
Originally released in Germany in 2018, “Intrigo: Death of An Author†recently made
its way to U.S. screens. A twisty,
psychological thriller with multiple story lines, deftly directed by Daniel
Alfredson (of “The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the
Hornet's Nestâ€) has almost as many turns as Lombard Street and is just as fun
to navigate.
The film opens with a small motorboat
puttering in the sea at night. From under the waterline we see a heavy object is
dropped with a rope attached. The sky above fades darker then brightens with
the morning sun and the scene cuts to a lone man walking along a rocky shore.
The narrator says:
The
people of the world are more or less the same. Though we may come in different
shapes
and colors we all share the same inheritance and we all have our back stories
and
our secrets. Like this man, let's call him Henry, trying to find his way on a
remote
Greek
island. Even though Evolution might seem to adjure us, there are still parts of
our
brain that belong to our reptile ancestors. Although we have convinced
ourselves
that
Hate, Revenge and Nemesis belong to the past, our ancient ancestor's blood
still
runs
in our veins. Whether we like it; or not.
Henry Martins (played with a magician's
misdirection by Benno Fürmann) has come, with much difficulty, to this remote
island to meet with the famous, reclusive author, Alex Henderson (a
delightfully wily Ben Kingsley) who appears to be the island's sole inhabitant.
MARTINS:
A lighthouse. That's quite something.
HENDERSON:I like to guide people. If they get too close
I turn the light off.
Martins' mission is to get Henderson's advice
on a story he is writing. Is it 'good or interesting enough?' as there are
parallels to one of Henderson's previous novels. He begins to read a bit to
Henderson.
The story is about a couple, David and Eva
Schwartz, who have been married almost eight years. They are on a trip to the
Austrian Alps to ostensibly work on their relationship. It's obvious that there
are problems. At the scenic lodge where they are staying we are illuminated to
the problems and learn that Eva has been having an affair and plans to leave
David. We also learn that her lover is staying in the next valley to her and
David. So does David. He hatches a plan. He tests the road to the next valley
himself and finds that brakes are unnecessary until there's a twisty, steep
downhill road to take. As you're probably guessing, he disconnects the brakes
and on Eva's next trip to Infidelityville...Well, she never returns to the lodge.David is a suspect in Eva's (a perfectly aloof Tuva Novotny)
disappearance but without a trace of the car, a body or even a witness...
HENDERSON:So. This is the end of your story. You must
be joking.
MARTINS:It's actually the beginning.
Henry Martins continues his story. Three and
a half years pass. At home in Paris on a cold March evening, David listens to a
Haydn concerto on the radio. As it ends he hears someone in the audience cough.
He freezes. To him, without a doubt, it is the distinctive cough of Eva. He
believes Eva, from six months ago when the concerto was recorded, is still
alive.
Henderson has gotten very involved in the
tale and trips Martins up when he realizes that Martins is actually David
Schwartz, the man who has been translating Henderson's novels for years and the
David of the story. He also knows David attempted his wife's murder. He also
intends "to hear the rest of your story. Do I make myself clear?"
An assignment comes in from David's
publisher. A mysterious manuscript has been received from the recently deceased
(suicide) Germund Rein. It has very specific instructions to be followed as to
its translation and publication. David see this as an opportunity to also
investigate his wife's reappearance. He'll take the assignment IF he can go to
the city where the Haydn concerto was recorded. This is where the story really
moves ahead.
“Intrigo: Death of An Author†is a
marvelously crafted film. A story within a story within another story. More of
a 'how-done-it' than a 'who-done-it.' Fans of sophomoric comedies or
gratuitously violent action films should probably stay away. But if you enjoy
brain twisting and films that make you match wits with the author you will
enjoy this one.
The widescreen "roadshow" films of the 1950s were so profitable that studios kept grinding out prestigious productions in hopes of making the next "Ben-Hur" or "The Ten Commandments". However, the sad truth is that more of these mega-budget spectacles tended to lose money than fill the studio coffers with profits. Indeed, some films that might have made money if they were shot as standard budget productions ended up being elongated to fill the running time of a roadshow presentation. One such film was director John Sturges' "The Hallelujah Trail", a visually sweeping production released in the Ultra 70 Panavision process and marketed under the banner of a Cinerama movie. (By then, the traditional 3-panel, multi-projector presentation process had been simplified, making such films easier to shoot and screen to audiences.) The story was based on a comedic novel by William Gulick. In addition to the prestige Sturges brought to production, an impressive cast was signed up by United Artists with Burt Lancaster getting top billing. However, Lancaster was dragooned into doing the film as part of financial commitments he owed the studio stemming from losses incurred by his own production company. Consequently, he had to make multiple films for United Artists at the bargain rate of $150,000 per picture. Lancaster was said to be in a rather foul mood during production and the mood was only dampened by the death of a stuntman during a wagon chase, a tragedy that cast a pall over the production.
The story is set in 1867 when the boom town of Denver is going through a crisis. It seems the local miners are rapidly depleting the local supply of whiskey. If they can't get a new shipment, they will have to suffer through the approaching winter months in a dry town until deliveries can resume in the spring. It's decided to make a bold gesture by hiring whiskey magnate Frank Wallingham (Brian Keith) to form a wagon train to deliver the booze to Denver. However, this requires traveling through landscapes controlled by hostile Indians. Thus, Wallingham uses his political connections to ensure that a U.S. Cavalry detachment is sent to meet the wagon train and escort them to Denver. That job falls to Col. Thaddeus Gearhart (Lancaster), who is non too pleased about having his men act as personal bodyguards for a profit-making enterprise. Adding to his woes is the arrival of Cora Templeton Massingale (Lee Remick), a noted feminist and leader of an all-female temperance movement. Cora and her followers insist on accompanying the cavalry unit so they can attempt to dissuade Wallingham from delivering the whiskey. Gearhart is a widower who is trying to raise a sexually precocious teenager daughter, Louise (Pamela Tiffin), who is romantically involved with Capt. Paul Slater (Jim Hutton), a key member of her father's unit. The situation worsens when Louise becomes a convert to Cora's cause. The reed-thin plot line involves all sorts of chaos and slapstick that occurs when the cavalry, temperance protestors and attacking Indians all converge with the wagon train in a big shoot-out in the desert.
"The Hallelujah Trail" is a perfect example of a movie that would make for a suitably entertaining 90-minute comedy. In fact, Sturges did just that with the 1962 Rat Pack western "Sergeants 3". However, it is packed with padding in order to justify its length as a Cinerama production. Consequently, scenes and repetitive comedic situations drag on endlessly. (The filmmakers are were so desperate that a joke involving Cora surprising Gearhart in his bathtub is reversed when he surprises her in her bathtub.) By the time the intermission comes, the battle in the desert (in which thousands of shots are fired without anyone being injured) is the cinematic equivalent of a sleep aid.
"The Hallelujah Trail" isn't an awful film, just overblown. The actors perform gamely throughout and there is a marvelous supporting cast, among which Donald Pleasence shines as a phony oracle who reads fortunes in return for booze and Brian Keith is marvelous grumpy as the whiskey magnate. The usually reliable Martin Landau, however, is saddled with the role of a comically drunken Indian that is literally cringe-inducing to watch. There is a wonderful score and title theme by Elmer Bernstein and cinematographer Robert Surtees impressively captures the magnificent landscapes.
Ordinarily, Olive Films produces very admirable Blu-ray product but they missed the boat on this one. The most charitable description of the transfer is "disappointing", though the average viewer might find it acceptable. Those with more discriminating standards will find it awful. The aspect ratio is wrong and the quality is little better than the old DVD releases. If you're watching it on a large screen, it's even more painful, with washed-out colors and a soft focus look that is quite truly below Olive's generally high standards. The film is no classic so Olive probably went with the best available elements but if this was the case, they should have considered deferring the release of the movie on Blu-ray. Despite the interesting back story, there is no commentary track. In fact, there are no bonus extras except the overture, intermission and a trailer that is so unspeakably bad that one suspects it was transferred from VHS. We rarely say this, but let the buyer beware. Our advice: skip the Blu-ray and make due with the DVD until a more promising release comes along.
In the
music scene of the 60’s you had two bands that stood on their own: the Beatles
and the Rolling Stones. In films of the same period and into the early 70s, Amicus and Hammer were the Beatles and the
Stones of the horror film genre. At their best, both reflected the popular
tastes of era as it pertained to movies of this type. The early 70s saw
creative highlights. With Hammer it was the Carmilla trilogy, Vampire Circus,Captain Kronos and, with Amicus, we had
the splendid portmanteau films which had started with Dr Terrors House of Horrors and reaching their creative peak at the
beginning of the new decade. Two of the company’s best efforts are now released
by Second Sight on Blu-ray as stand-alone discs after appearing as part of a
boxed set last year, The House That
Dripped Blood and Asylum-the keystones on which Amicus based
their famous trilogy of Tales from The
Crypt, The Vault of Horror and From
Beyond The Grave, all of which have huge cult followings to this day.
The
difference between the Beatles and the Stones was that they looked and sounded
very different whereas Amicus and Hammer tended to cross pollinate in the
public perception. This is probably due to the fact that Amicus used many of
the actors who had made their name at Hammer, such as Christopher Lee, Peter
Cushing and Ingrid Pitt, yet it was Amicus that offered Cushing some of
his most memorable roles, which is another one of the reasons why these films
are held in great affection by fans. Who can ever forget Cushing’s
transformation as Arthur Grimsdyke from Tales
from The Crypt, for example? The main difference between the two was that
Amicus was more hex than sex, driven by its producers to make their films more
family friendly, as in The House That
Dripped Blood, though that didn’t make any of the Robert Bloch portmanteau
films any less scary, as in Asylum.
Although The House That Dripped Blood is seen by
many critics as the best of the Amicus portmanteau films, its 1972’s Asylum that has always held a special
place in my heart and is still to this day one of my favourite horror films
ever, mainly due to The Weird Tailor
segment (again featuring Cushing) which simply terrified me as a child, in the
same way the similar- looking Autons had done in Dr. Who. Perhaps it’s just down to the fact that mannequins were
something I’d see in every store front window when my Mum dragged me shopping,
as opposed to vampires or killer plants. It’s the things from the real world
transferred to the reel world that frighten you most when you’re a kid and I
couldn’t walk past our local Burton’s department store windows for ages without
cupping my hands over my eyes to avoid seeing the snappy 70s style suits on
display on those mustachioed tailor’s dummies. (Looking back, I’d probably do
the same, as those big collared and flared nylon suit styles now look just as
frightening without the mannequins!) The main difference with these new Blu-ray
releases, bar the great transfers, is the wonderful artwork that adorns their
covers by legendary horror poster artist Graham Humphreys. These covers also appear
in his latest movie poster book, Hung,
Drawn and Executed, that I recommend all horror fans to add to their
collections. It contains images that will have the collector salivating.
As a horror
poster collector myself, I always found the original 1970s quads and one sheet
posters lacking when it came to these two iconic titles. So with that in mind,
I asked Graham how he approached both of these cult classics when it came to
designing the reversible covers on the new Blu-ray releases.
‘The
House that Dripped Blood’ and ‘Asylum’ are two films that are hardwired into my
brain. Like all the Amicus anthology films, each has its strengths and
weaknesses, but remain totally entertaining, packed with unforgettable images
and characters.
It’s
always a dilemma when presented with such well-loved genre films, how to
approach the subjects to meet the expectations of the customer. In each
instance, the original posters are well known, but my job is to provide an
alternative. With anthologies, you either try to make a visual summary using
the wrap-around theme, or attempt to portray all the content within.
Watching
the films with fresh eyes, it struck me how powerful the character performances
had grown. I wanted to celebrate the raft of fantastic actors that embody all
the breadth and eccentricities of UK acting talent, still towering above the
self-obsessed, surgically enhanced, botoxed mediocrity of current mainstream
screen candy.
Faces
that are etched with pain, abandon, addiction and cunning... these are what
made these films so visceral and compelling, that’s why I decided to focus on
the faces rather than settings, props or symbolism. It’s a dark parody of
‘heads-in-the-sky’ photocomps, delivered in graveyard colours with funeral
pomp.
The avalanche of Batman-inspired toys that came with the surprise success of the 1960s TV series continues to this day but the prime prices for the rarest releases pertain to toys released in the 1970s as well- and some have some very bizarre stories attached to them, as chronicled in an entertaining article presented on the CBR.com web site. Click here to read.
The list of 25 films added to the prestigious National
Film Registry in 2019 includes the 1957 Disney classic Old Yeller, starring Tommy
Kirk, Fess Parker, Dorothy McGuire, and Anthony Corcoran. The story, based on
the novel by Fred Gibson, is about a young boy on the Texas frontier named
Travis Coates (Kirk), who is left in charge of looking after his mother and
younger brother when his father (Parker) goes away on a business
trip. Travis reluctantly accepts a
large yellow dog into the family circle after the
stray follows his little brother (Corcoran) home one day. Despite his
initial doubts, the boy comes to see the dog's value when Old Yeller, as they
name him, proves himself resourceful, loyal and brave. In the course
of the story, he stoutly defends Travis and the family against
a series of life-threating marauders, including a bear, a ferocious pig
and, most significantly, a wolf. The story has a bittersweet conclusion but
ends on a note of optimism. Old Yeller is the friend and companion that Travis
always needed and wanted, but who in the end he must give up. The lessons
"that ol' yeller dog" taught him about friendship and sacrifice
are ones that will remain with him for the rest of his life. Of the many
"family pictures" that the Disney Studios produced in the 1950s and
1960s, Old Yeller ranks among the most memorable and best-loved. As is the case
with all these stories, the plot is simple and straightforward,
with the focus mostly on the action sequences. The human
relationships are largely uncomplicated, positive and close-knit: it is the
family we all wish we had had growing up. Old Yeller’s selection to the Library
of Congress’s Film Registry, a preservation organization that recognizes “culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant films,†is a good one. It belongs
there.
Up until the time Old Yeller was released, Disney hadn't ventured very
far into the live-action genre. Instead, it relied
on its famed animation department to continue cranking out the hits, such
as Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty (another 2019 Registry
inductee). However, the enormous popular success of Old Yeller convinced studio
executives, namely, Walt Disney himself, to put more of them into production,
including Zorro the Avenger (1959), Kidnapped (1960), The Sign of Zorro (1960),
and Swiss Family Robinson (1960), the latter also co-starring Tommy Kirk. All
of these features, as well as dozens of others to follow, proved
to be great crowd-pleasers. The studio's expanding film
vault also provided a rich source of titles for the popular
weekly NBC show, The Wonderful World of Disney. Walt Disney was not
only king of animation during this period, but he also ruled the roost
when it came to providing the public with warm family movie dramas. The
studio was especially adept at producing what came to be popularly known as
"the wilderness adventure,†tales about American frontier families braving
the wilds to build a better life for themselves.
Wonderful World was where I first saw Old Yeller. I had
read the Gibson book and loved it, and the movie version was all I could have
hoped it would be. At the center of it all, besides Old Yeller himself, was
Tommy Kirk's character, Travis, who lived the kind of fantasy boyhood I
could only dream about. Every day seemed to bring a new adventure, one filled
with drama and a cast of colorful characters. Kirk was so likable and
convincing in the role that it was easy to imagine that it was all real.
Thousands of young boys, including me, longed to be him, or if not him
exactly, then at least his best friend. He was brave without
being overly reckless, daring and resourceful, and kind and considerate
without ever coming across as too goody-goody. Whatever defined the myth of the "all-American
boy" in post-World War II America, Tommy seemed to embody it.
A few years later, he co-starred in another Disney hit, Swiss
Family Robinson (1960),the story of a family shipwrecked on a
remote tropical island. Once again, the emphasis was on high
adventure and the importance of family. As he did in Old Yeller,
Tommy brought believability to his character of Ernest, the
impetuous younger brother of Fritz (James MacArthur). Swiss FamilyRobinson proved an even bigger commercial success than Old Yeller.
I once showed SFR to a group of fourth-graders. I wasn't sure how they
would react, given the fact that the movie was, by then, an old one, and the
actors unknown to them. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. The
kids loved the movie and sat glued to the screen from start to finish.
Tommy would go on to appear in other Disney hits, including The
Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. He later reprised his
role as Travis Coates in the Old Yeller sequel, Savage Sam (1963).
He was named a Disney Legend in 2006, a performance hall of
fame which recognizes individuals who have made significant and lasting
contributions to the Disney brand. It was a well-earned honor for an actor who
gained iconic status as one of the studio's most beloved stars.
Writer/director/actor
Bryan Forbes was a major force in the British film industry for several
decades, having started in the 1950s at times as an actor in films and then in other
instances as a screenwriter, and then he moved into directing (his astonishing
directorial debut, Whistle Down the Wind, was released in 1961). Forbes
made several good pictures, the most famous probably being The Stepford
Wives in the 70s.
Forbes
also had connections to the world of James Bond. Forbes’ first screenwriting
duties were for Albert R. Broccoli’s Warwick Films in the 1950s. When Forbes
began writing novels, his literary agent was none other than Peter
Janson-Smith, who had been Ian Fleming’s agent. Astute Bond fans will also spot
other connections in The Whisperers, such as a John Barry score, and the
appearance of Robin Bailey, the actor who, in the pre-credits sequence of You
Only Live Twice, plays the Foreign Secretary mediating between the Russians
and the Americans (“May I ask what motive our Russian friends would have for
wishing to destroy American spacecraft?â€).
The
Whisperers,
released in 1967, was a solid art-house hit starring Dame Edith Evans, earning
her a third Oscar nomination in the four years between 1963-1967, this one for
lead actress, the other two for supporting (for Tom Jones and The
Chalk Garden). While she didn’t win the Oscar for The Whisperers,
she did win the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, the New York Film Critics Award, and
the National Board of Review Award. Evans was a major star of the British
stage, but she made only a few films very early in her career (mostly the 30s)
and late (the 60s).
The
story is rather dreary and harkens back to the “kitchen-sink dramas†of the
late 50s/early 60s that came out of Britain. It’s shot in black and white and
focuses on a poor, working class neighborhood in a small town in the north of
England. Margaret Ross (Evans) is old, lives alone, is on her way to a case of
Alzheimer’s (a term not known then), and is delusional. Every time she enters
her flat, she calls out, “Are you there?†because she hears voices in the pipes
and walls. The place is a dump full of junk, stacks of newspapers and rotting
books, and clutter that would scare anyone away. Her scoundrel husband, Archie
(Eric Portman), ran off two decades earlier, and her grown son, Charlie (Ronald
Fraser), is a crook who is sent to jail shortly after hiding a stash of stolen
cash in his mother’s flat. Mrs. Ross continually lies to the National
Assistance agent, although she probably believes the stories she tells. Her
discovery of Charlie’s money changes things, though, and before long, estranged
husband Archie returns to take advantage of the woman. Things do not go well.
As
a statement on the condition of poverty in England at the time, The
Whisperers is a potent social problem film. Evans indeed delivers a
powerful performance as a paranoid, frightened woman at the end of her rope. Tellingly,
the National Assistance was revamped into the Supplementary Benefit around the
time the movie was made.
Kino
Lorber’s 1920x1080p high definition restoration suitably displays Gerry
Turpin’s monochrome cinematography that illustrates the bleakness of Mrs. Ross’
world. There are English subtitles for the hearing-impaired, as well as an
audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger. The only supplements are
trailers for this and other Kino Lorber titles.
The
Whisperers might
be depressing, but it’s also example of fine British talent in the form of both
Forbes and Evans at the top of their games.
When "Billy Bathgate" went into production for Disney's Touchstone Pictures division, word-of-mouth was that filming was not going well. Today, such rumors would spread immediately but in the pre-internet age, information was largely confined to industry insiders and avid movie buffs who read the trade papers. The rumors were true. The project started out on a promising note, with noted playwright Tom Stoppard adapting E.L. Doctorow's source novel for the screen. Dustin Hoffman would star and the film would reunite him with director Robert Benton. The two men had both won Oscars for the 1979 Best Picture winner "Kramer vs. Kramer". What could go wrong? Turns out, plenty. The esteemed Doctorow let it be known that he felt Stoppard's screenplay didn't capture the essence of his novel and he distanced himself from the film even before production had wrapped. Hoffman and Benton didn't have a sentimental journey on the set, either, with the dreaded "artistic differences" emerging. Disney executives micro-managed aspects of the movie and insisted that a new ending be filmed at great expense, only to have the final cut revert to the original ending. The budget ultimately ballooned to $48 million (before marketing costs were even incurred), an extravagant amount in 1991. When the film opened, it was a major flop with both critics and audiences. There were occasional good reviews for individual contributors but in the aggregate, the movie's international grosses barely exceeded $15 million. Yet, as we've pointed out so many times in the pages of Cinema Retro, the fact that a film died at the boxoffice doesn't necessarily mean that it is an artistic failure and "Billy Bathgate" does have plenty of impressive aspects.
The film opens during the Depression in New York City with a disturbing scenario. A gangster named Bo Weinberg (Bruce Willis) is awaiting a terrible fate. He's on a boat heading into the waters off Manhattan, his hands tied to a chair and his feet encased in cement. Turns out he is the right-hand man to notorious gangster Dutch Schultz (Hoffman), who has found evidence that Bo has double-crossed him. Schultz delights in psychologically torturing Bo before adding insult to injury by forcing his girlfriend Drew Preston (Nicole Kidman) into a bedroom with her to be forced into sex acts. The entire scene plays out before the wide-eyed Billy Bathgate (Loren Dean), an up-and-coming teenager in Schultz's organization and someone who knows and likes Bo very much. But he knows that he will suffer the same fate if he takes pity on Bo. The scene switches into flashback mode. Billy, like most of his friends, is staring into an unpromising future of backbreaking work and impoverished living conditions. Aside from being charismatic and street-wise, he boasts a modest talent for juggling and performing slight-of-hand tricks. A chance encounter with notorious gangster Dutch Schultz allows him to demonstrate his juggling skills, much to Schultz's amusement (he hands Billy a $20 tip.) Encouraged by the opportunity, Billy finds a way to gain access to Schultz's offices, masquerading as a staffer who does janitorial duties. Schultz admires his moxie and offers him a legitimate job. Billy soon recognizes that Schultz has a dual personality. He can be funny, loyal and generous with his underlings, but he is also a sociopath who on a whim can turn into a violent killer. Billy knows that the only way to stay alive is to practice unquestioning fealty to Schultz. That discipline is hard to maintain when Drew, who has stayed on as Schultz's mistress, seduces Billy, leaving him to walk a fine line between indulging in his obsession for Drew and risking having his own feet placed in cement. As Schultz's crime empire begins to collapse due to increased federal investigations and indictments, the gangster becomes even more erratic, posing a threat to Billy and every one around him.
Cinema Retro continues its tradition of helping to publicize worthy independent films. This one really caught our attention, as we imagination it will for anyone who has wasted considerable hours playing foosball without incurring a hint of guilt. Here is the official press release:
It’s one of the world’s most
popular pastimes. You might know it as “table soccer†or
“baby foot†or just simply “foosball.†It’s a decades-Ââ€old,
soccer inspired tabletop game where plastic men
have been fashioned to metal poles
and players must score the ball
in the opposing team’s goal. Simple, right?
Not quite. For the
compulsively obsessed who play foosball
at a professional level, foosball is more like a high-Ââ€speed chess match set inside a boxing
ring. Players are put to the test as they dial in highly mathematical moves
in a battle of strength,
endurance, and wit. Foosball originated in Europe around the turn of the
century, and was brought to the United States in the early 60swhereit
became an instant hit at game
rooms and bars across the country.
As its popularity soared, the game blossomed
into a professional sport.By the mid-Ââ€70s, players could win sports cars and big purses as
they traveled around the country as part of
Tournament Soccer’s
Million Dollar Pro Tour. But
thanks to the video game craze of the early
80s, the foosball market crashed and the
professional foosball scene
has never been the same.
The
current pro tour is a mere copy of a copy
of what it used to be. The turnouts are low, and the payouts are even lower. But for those
who still play the game, the stakes are higher than ever
before. The players today
don’t compete for money or fame. They
compete for the prestige and
honor of being crowned a world champion. Following
the top players from around the United States, Foosballer stakes
a deep dive into the underground circuit
of professional foosball. Not
only will audiences learn how to play
the game (and finally put the ‘can
you spin the rods?’ question to rest), they will get to meet the quirky and passionate players as they prepare for the sport’s biggest event: The Tornado World Championships.
For the first time ever, Foosballers
will finally put a human face to those tiny pieces of plastic.
"Foosballers" will open in select theaters on February 11 and will be available on iTunes on February 13.
The DJs on the Sirius XM satellite music service are especially informative on the channel dedicated to rock songs of the 1960s. You can not only learn fascinating tidbits about the rock artists of the day but also some ancillary information about other aspects of pop culture. For example, DJ Dave Hoffel played the 1963 Four Seasons hit "Big Girls Don't Cry" and informed listeners of its interesting origins. Seems the group had been watching a 1955 Western titled "Tennessee's Partner" starring John Payne, Ronald Reagan and Rhonda Fleming. In one scene, Payne slaps Fleming in the face, expecting her to break down in tears. Instead, she remains dry-eyed and tells him "Big girls don't cry!". So there you have it: Rhonda Fleming was the inspiration for a hit song by the Four Seasons.
Tennesee Williams’s play Orpheus Descending stands out
among his works for being a flop at a time when the playwright could seem to do
no wrong. The seemingly unstoppable commercial and critical success Williams
had enjoyed for more than a decade came to a momentary halt when Orpheus
Descending tanked on Broadway in 1957. Despite the unexpected failure of the
stage production of the play, however, a few years later plans were made to
turn the story into a major motion picture, with up-and-coming director Sidney
Lumet behind the camera, and acting luminaries Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, and
Joanne Woodward playing key roles. Williams, who’d been working on various
versions of the play for close to 20 years, was so thrilled by this development
that he signed on to co-write the screenplay.
But Williams’s beloved tale just seemed to be doomed.
Despite his reputation as a writer, and despite the high quality of the
personnel involved in the creation of the movie, 1960’s The Fugitive Kind was a
box office disaster and a feature not generally loved by film critics of the
time. Why? With Criterion Collection issuing a new, deluxe version of the film,
it’s an opportune moment to explore whether Williams’s tale just wasn’t right
for the big screen, or if moviegoers and critical experts got things wrong in
assessing The Fugitive Kind’s merits.
Like Williams’s play, the movie is set in America’s deep
South, and largely in a dry goods store. Also like Orpheus Descending, The
Fugitive Kind revolves around three social outsiders and how they relate to the
rank and file locals, as well as to one another. Brando is Valentine “Valâ€
Xavier, a snakeskin jacket-wearing, guitar-slinging drifter who winds up in the
town by chance. Val has just turned 30 and he’s a good looking, sullen man who
is irresistible to women, oftentimes to his own dismay, and who just always
seems to find trouble for himself. Val has grown tired of the nightclubbing,
stud for hire lifestyle he’s been leading since he was a teenager and is
looking to settle down. Woodward portrays Carol Cutrere, born and bred in the
small town, and from an upper crust family, but at odds with the other
citizens, and her own kin, because of her hard-drinking, hard-living,
freewheeling and lawless lifestyle. Magnani plays Lady Torrance, whose husband
owns the dry goods and store and who is running the shop while her spouse is
laid up with a potentially fatal health problem. Lady is unhappy in her
marriage and has suicidal thoughts. Also, she’s a woman who’s deeply embittered
about the fact that the small-minded, bigoted locals burned down her late
father’s wine garden because he committed what they saw as an unforgivable sin:
he served black people at his establishment. Lady suspects certain townsfolk of
being responsible for the destruction of the wine garden and for the death of
her father, who died while fighting the fire; and her own estranged husband is among
those she believes were the culprits.
Lady hires Val to clerk at the mercantile store. She is
drawn to him emotionally and physically, and they become involved with each
other, despite the fact that Lady’s ailing, mean-spirited husband is generally
just one floor away from them, in his sick bed in the couple’s living quarters
above the shop. Carol wants Val, too, but he tells her she’s just the kind of
wild child he wants to avoid getting involved with from then on, plus she is
basically banned from showing her face in the town. All the locals keep a close
watch on Val and, not surprisingly, the men folk aren’t overly fond of the
homme fatale and the kinds of responses he tends to draw from women who
encounter him. As Val begins living at the store and spending more and more
time with Lady, as Lady makes plans to re-open a confectionery that she sees as
the rebirth of the spirit of her late father’s wine garden, as Carol continues
to show up and try to drag Val off to a life on the road with her, and as the
townsfolk watch all of this happening, a climax that we’ve seen coming and that
can’t be anything but destructive, is closing in all the time.
OK, let’s start this review by stating an obvious and
oft-repeated criticism.The actress
Maria Montez was a skillful, if somewhat shameless, self-promoter; her primary asset
wasn’t talent but beauty.In her desperate
search for stardom, Montez arrived in New York City from the Dominican
Republic, leaving behind an otherwise uncelebrated life as wife of a bank
manager.Montez did a bit of modeling at
first - even appearing in such widely-distributed magazines as LIFE - but a Hollywood
career remained her primary target.She managed
to secure a screen-test for RKO pictures, but was quickly scooped up by
Universal in 1940 who thought her “exotic†features might prove useful to them.
She mostly appeared as a supporting
player in the years 1940-1941, but emerged in 1942 as a full-fledged star.She became, for a time, the “Queen of
Technicolor,†an honor bestowed on her due to her appearances in a string of sumptuously
photographed, escapist B-movie adventure entertainments.
Her first big taste of success followed her appearance in
Arabian Nights (1942), but while she achieved
top-bill status on the marquee, her on-screen time was unusually brief for a featured
player.There was a reason for this, of
course.The memories of many of the
actors and filmmakers who worked with her would share similar reminiscences.Though they all agreed she photographed
wonderfully, most conceded Montez simply couldn’t act or sing or dance.Her male admirers sitting in darkened
theaters often felt cheated by the brevity of her screen time.But the softball roles assigned to her, to
say it most politely, were purposefully undemanding
as a matter of practicality.What Montez
did possess, aside from her God-given beauty, was a combination of ego-centrism
and moxey that was uncommon… even when measured against the copious self-regard
exemplified by most of Hollywood’s most famous Divas.
With the provocative title of Cobra Woman, aficionados of Golden Age Horror might be seduced into
thinking the flick is a borderline genre film. It most certainly is not,
the film having more in common with the chapter-serials of the 1940s than with
the barrage of 65-minute second-feature chillers and mysteries that Universal would
churn out with regularity. The presence of Lon Chaney Jr. in the cast,
not top-billed but still featured prominently in all of the film’s advertising,
might also lead one into thinking this is a minor – if mostly forgotten -
horror classic. As the mysterious servant Hava, Chaney actually enjoys very
little screen time and is given almost nothing to do aside from appearing menacing
whenever on screen.
Though Chaney flits in and out of the film, it is likely not
a part he was particularly enamored of having been gifted; his character is little
more than a hulking mute here, described as a “giant†by Sabu (Sabu Dastagir).Since he’s mute throughout Chaney is tasked
to gesticulate to convey emotion and intention: it’s fair to say the actor is
unable to convincingly pantomime in the style of his silent film star father,
Lon Sr. This is not Lon Jr.’s fault, really, as his character is strictly
one-dimensional. The actor may have been wasted in this role, but Chaney could
hardly complain. He would appear in no fewer than eight films release by
Universal in 1944… with this one, arguably, being the least.
Though the dashing and handsome Jon Hall is at best dimly
remembered by few others than fans of cult films of the 1940s and 1950s, his
most famous roles were the ones in which he was paired (or, perhaps, saddled)
with co-star Montez. A former free-agent actor contracted by Universal,
Hall was groomed to play the heroic leading man in such films as Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944).
But his most memorable roles were played out here in the studio’s splashy
Technicolor - but budget-strapped - adventure films. He would eventually
be paired with Montez in no fewer than six films.
"Joker" has amassed 11 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, making it the second superhero-themed film to score in this pivotal category. ("Black Panther" was the other.) Other films that fulfilled expectations in terms of nabbing major nominations include "The Irishman", "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and "1917". Click here for more coverage of the nominations. Click here for complete list of nominations.
I admit to having a weakness for the "dirty cop" movies that were all the rage beginning with Bullitt in 1968 and extending through the mid to late 70s. Seemingly every major star wanted to be part of the genre, just as the spy film rage of the mid-1960s had everyone and their grandmother portraying a secret agent. The Super Cops, a 1974 MGM production, came at the end of the era in which stars such as Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Steve McQueen and John Wayne had portrayed anti-establishment law enforcement officers. The Super Cops has the key ingredients common to all these films: wisecracking hero(es), tone-deaf police brass who are either resistant to using innovative methods or are flat-out corrupt and gritty urban backdrops. The Super Cops had the pedigree of being based on fact and a bestselling book by the titular heroes, New York City detectives David Greenberg and Robert Hantz whose daring and unconventional exploits earned them the nicknames of Batman and Robin. (The Batman connection extends into the marketing campaign of the feature film with a one sheet poster that emulated the Pow! Zap! graphics of the 1960s TV series.) The pair became among the most decorated detectives in New York City Police Department history, but if you believe the script, these accolades were given reluctantly from police brass that despised their headline-grabbing antics.
The film benefits from the having been directed by Gordon Parks (Shaft). Parks, a former Life magazine photographer, was the first African-American to direct films for major studios. He was no auteur but Parks did have a true knack for conveying life in troubled urban communities. The film opens with Greenberg (Ron Liebman) meeting Hantz (David Selby) at police cadet school where their wiseguy ways of upstaging superiors alienates them from the powers-that-be and even fellow cops. Nevertheless, their unconventional methods result in high profile arrests- even if the niceties of due process are often ignored. The film rambles from one unrelated incident to another and this lack of a central antagonist or plot device results in a meandering feeling to the story line. Liebman and Selby are no Butch and Sundance but acquit themselves adequately. (Liebman has all the scene-stealing opportunities and Selby is presented primarily as straight-man). Much of the film has the feel of a TV movie, though it could just be that cheesy aspects of the production are simply a product of the time: ugly fashions, ugly haircuts, ugly, boxy cars, etc, all set to an equally cheesy score by the usually impressive Jerry Fielding. In the movie's most creative action sequence, Greenberg and Hantz pursue suspects through a condemned tenement high rise that is being destroyed at that very moment by a wrecking ball. As the film progresses, it takes on a slightly more serious tone that makes for a some more moderately compelling scenes, such as when Greenberg's attempt to infiltrate a drug mob goes awry. The main problem is that there is absolutely no background given to the two heroes. We learn nothing about their motivations or personal lives outside of the police force, which leaves them as opaque and superficial characters. The film does benefit from an inspired supporting cast that includes the always-watchable Pat Hingle, Dan Frazer as an opportunistic police lieutenant who supports Greenberg and Hantz for his own career purposes and Joe Sirola in a fine performance as an arrogant police sergeant. Sheila E. Frazier supplied the only sex appeal as a hooker with a weakness for Greenberg.
The Super Cops is no work of art but if you also have a weakness for dirty cop movies of the 70s, it's worth a look. The region-free DVD contains the original trailer.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
The short-lived 1960s TV series "The Green Hornet" was brought to ABC-TV by the producer of "Batman" in the hope the lightning would strike twice. It didn't. The show lasted but a single season. Whereas "Batman" was played for laughs, "The Green Hornet" was done as a serious adventure series and probably seemed too hokey even in 1966. Still, if one catches the re-runs on various networks today, it remains highly entertaining. The series afforded an early high profile role for Bruce Lee, who tended to occasionally overshadow top-billed star Van Williams. The show has never been released officially on video in the USA or UK, probably due to legal entanglements. (It took literally decades to get "Batman" released.) The dismal look of this rare ABC promo spot isn't much worse than the prints that are being telecast today. So let's hope someone, somewhere can give The Green Hornet and Kato a first-rate release on video in the near future.
When it was published in 1955, John O'Hara's novel "10 North Frederick" became not only a bestseller but somewhat of a "must-read" sensation. Not surprisingly, Hollywood studios began a bidding war for the screen rights. Ultimately, 20th Century Fox prevailed by offering O'Hara the (then) astronomical fee of $300,000 and also agreeing to hire him as a screenwriter for three forthcoming films, though, ironically "10 North Frederick" was not among them. Spencer Tracy was wooed for the leading role and production was delayed to accommodate his schedule. However, he later dropped out of the film in order to star in "The Last Hurrah" for director John Ford. Fox then hired Gary Cooper, who was enthused about taking on one of the most controversial roles of his career.
The film opens (a la "Citizen Kane") with media reporting on the death of a significant man who had wealth and widespread political influence. The year is 1945 and the man is Joseph Chapin (Cooper), a prominent lawyer who had once been feted by the rich and powerful. Chapin was a mover and shaker and held significant sway over politics in the state of Pennsylvania. As dignitaries gather at his mansion to express their condolences to his widow Edith (Geraldine Fitzgerald), a more controversial scene is taking place upstairs in the bedroom of his son Joby (Ray Stricklyn) who is inebriated. His sister Ann (Diane Varsi) is trying to persuade him to join the mourners and express his love and admiration for their father. It's clear, however, that both Joby and Ann hold a substantial grudge against their mother, who they accuse of manipulating their father to improve her own ambitions and social status. The film then switches into flashback mode to unveil a story of an outwardly stable family that is, in fact. beset by dysfunction. Chapin is a soft-spoken, dignified man who is bamboozled by his wife to enter the race for Lt. Governor, calling in favors from the officials he has supported over the years in order to get the nomination. Chapin is in a loveless marriage but is unable to free himself from the willful Edith. Joby is pushed by his family to attend Yale and become a prominent lawyer but the young man rebels, drops out of school and ultimately finds a career in the military, much to the displeasure of his parents. Ann also rebels against the strict social structure her mother has kept her in and ultimately marries a charismatic musician (Stuart Whitman), having become recently pregnant. Edith persuades her husband to intervene and Joe alternately threatens and bribes the new groom into deserting Ann. The problem of her giving birth to a child conceived before marriage poses a problem for Edith's reputation among the lifted pinky set but the situation is resolved when Ann suffers a miscarriage. She ultimately moves into an apartment she shares with her good friend Kate Drummond (Suzy Parker). Things become even more complicated when Kate is seduced by Tom. The couple fall madly in love and Joe promises to divorce Edith before circumstances arise that throw these plans into disarray. The film concludes with Joby's emotional dressing down of his mother and her motives in front of her high society friends.
"10 North Frederick" was directed by Phillip Dunne, who also wrote the screenplay. He was a great enthusiast of O'Hara's novel but was accused of watering down controversial aspects (Ann's loss of the baby was due to an abortion in the book) as well as overplaying the love affair between Joe and Kate, a development that takes up the latter part of the film although on the printed page, it was a minor plot point. This is at heart a soap opera, although an admittedly engrossing one. It is packed with devious, scheming characters and if they all had southern accents, it might fit well into the canon of works by Tennessee Williams. Cooper gives a fine performance, playing against type as a man manipulated by his cold hearted wife. He's a decent fellow at heart who nonetheless doesn't always have the courage of his convictions. A key distraction is the fact that Cooper plays a 50 year-old man. In fact, he was 56 at the time and could easily have passed for being a decade older. The supporting cast is first-rate throughout but the production is hampered by the surprisingly cheesy production values. There are virtually no exteriors and the drab studio settings can't be saved by the crisp B&W cinematography of the esteemed Joseph MacDonald. There was also plenty of drama behind the scenes when Diane Varsi had to be hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, though she did manage to complete the film and managed to provide an excellent performance. For Cooper, the idea of playing a married man in a torrid affair must have brought back memories of his own relationship with actress Patricia Neal, who in real life suffered her own nervous breakdown when Cooper ultimately told her he would not leave his wife.
There are plenty of plot twists and devious goings-on among the principal characters, but "10 North Frederick" never rises to the heights it might have, given the talented people involved, which is why it might have deemed a commercial and critical failure. Still, it's never dull and makes for compelling viewing.
The Twilight Time Blu-ray provides an excellent transfer. The region-free disc has no bonus extras other than an isolated track for composer Leigh Harline's score. There is also an illustrated booklet with fine production notes by Mike Finnegan.
Although Bond and Jill
Masterson famously quaffed Dom Perignon in Goldfinger (right before she
met her “glittering endâ€), Bollinger has been Bond’s go-to on screen champagne
since the early Roger Moore era.
Over the decades since, the
vintner has been canny enough to celebrate their cinematic tie-in by releasing
a number of limited edition 007-themed bottles over the years, usually
coinciding with each new film.
To celebrate the 25th
Bond movie, No Time to Die, Bollinger really went all out, releasing two
special editions – one within the reach of most Bond fans and one for the more,
um, rarified collector…
Champagne Bollinger has
made numerous appearances in the films (as in the pre-credits sequence of The
Living Daylights when Bond drops in on a woman luxuriating on the deck of a
yacht and sipping a glass of Bollinger) so it’s as much a part of the Bond
legend as the tuxedo or Walther PPK.If
you’re interested in snagging a bottle for your cellar… or in-home Bond
display, hurry, they are selling out – although more are on the way, timed to
hit stores right around No Time to Die’s release.
A
naive but principled young guy from the sticks gets embroiled with outnumbered
and outgunned rebels in an uprising against a tyrannical empire, has his life
saved more than once by a roguish outlaw, is menaced by an older relative, and
goes on the run with a spirited young woman of royal lineage, all in a 1970s
movie featuring a talented cast of fresh newcomers and distinguished veteran
British actors.What, “Star Wars�Well . . . yeah, I suppose so . . . but
actually I was thinking of a substantially more obscure picture, Delbert Mann’s
1971 production “Kidnapped,†now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.Mann’s movie was based on the Robert Louis
Stevenson novel, once widely read by teenage boys but now supplanted, I guess,
by “Minecraft†and Japanese Manga.I saw
the film in a nearly empty theater during its U.S. release in early 1972, a rare,
intelligent G-rated costume drama in a season otherwise dominated by the
cynical and hyper-violent likes of “Dirty Harry,†“Straw Dogs,†and “A
Clockwork Orange.â€It hardly made a stir
then, nor is it much remembered today, even among fans of Michael Caine, who
starred as Stevenson’s dashing, 18th Century Scots firebrand Alan Breck
Stewart.If fans remember Caine for any
film from 1971, it’s undoubtedly “Get Carter.â€Caine himself famously disowned “Kidnapped,†pissed because he had to
help bail it out financially when it ran out of money well into filming.“It was an absolute disaster,†he once
said.It’s difficult to fault Sir
Michael -- no actor likes to be stiffed after months of hard work, whatever the
circumstances -- but you have to wonder if some kind words from the popular
star might have given the film greater critical respect and commercial
visibility.
In
the movie’s tidy, thoughtful script by Jack Pulman, incidents from Stevenson’s
1886 novel are combined with others from its relatively obscure 1893 sequel
(titled “Catriona†in Britain and “David Balfour†here) and sieved through the
real-life social issues of the Vietnam and Bloody Sunday era. That doesn’t
particularly date the movie, since similar issues are still with us in today’s
arguments over Trump’s Border Wall, the Middle East, and Brexit.David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas), an orphan,
travels to Edinburgh in 1745 to claim his inheritance from his miserly uncle
(Donald Pleasence).The older man has
David abducted on board a ship to the Carolinas, where he’ll be dumped into
indentured servitude.Off the Scottish
coast, the ship acquires another passenger, the fugitive rebel Alan Breck
Stewart, who’s trying to keep insurgency against England alive after the Scots’
bloody defeat at the Battle of Culloden and the flight of Charles Stuart,
“Bonnie Prince Charlie,†the pretender to the British throne.(The Scots uprising may be familiar today
from Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander†series.)When the treacherous ship’s captain (Jack Hawkins) tries to have Alan murdered
for his money, David helps the rebel and the two are subsequently
shipwrecked.In a trek across the
Highlands, they’re given shelter by Alan’s cousin James (Jack Watson).Unlike the nearly fanatical Alan, James is
tired of throwing away Scottish lives to support Prince Charlie’s dubious
cause.In an attack against James‘s
farmhouse by a rival clan allied with England, the Campbells, their chief Mungo
(Terry Richards) is shot to death by an unknown assassin.James is felled and thought killed, and Alan
and David flee with James‘s daughter Catriona (Vivien Heilbron).Eventually reaching Edinburgh, they learn
that James is still alive and in prison, charged with Mungo’s murder.David knows that James is innocent, because
he was standing beside him when the shot was fired from somewhere else in the
house.He tells the family lawyer
(Gordon Jackson) that he intends to appear at the trial as a witness for the
defense, even if the outcome is a foregone conclusion.Lord Grant, the government’s prosecutor
(Trevor Howard), is sympathetic to David’s stubborn integrity, but he knows
that the Campbells demand a scapegoat, and Campbell support is essential for
preventing more bloodshed and anarchy, even at the cost of an innocent man’s
life.“You live in a simple world,
David,†Grant says, not unkindly.“And
who protects that world?I do.â€Catriona seeks Alan’s help, but the rebel is
inclined to sail to France, raise further support for the Cause, and leave
James to his fate.
In
Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,†Rick Dalton (Leonardo
DiCaprio) accepts an offer to star in an Italian Western out of
desperation.His days of TV fame are
behind him, he needs a gig that will keep his name in lights, and no American
studios are beating down his door.In
real life, Chuck Connors’ lead role in Enzo G. Castellari’s 1968 Spaghetti
Western, “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone,†was less an existential crisis
like Rick’s than one more job in a long, busy career.If Connors was ever at risk of unemployment,
you wouldn’t know it from his resume.Across four decades, he starred in four television series, had recurring
parts in two others, and made prominent supporting appearances in more than a
hundred other movies, series, and made-for-TV films.He was a solid actor who could credibly
portray everything from tough but compassionate cops to the improbably tall,
blue-eyed Apache chief in Geronimo
(1962), to a backwoods yokel named “Superman†who’s comically mistaken for the
real deal in the old George Reeves TV show.
In
Castellari’s film, now available in a Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber, Connors
plays Clyde McKay, a master thief hired by the Confederate high command to
steal a million dollars in gold from a Union fort during the Civil War.In Mission: Impossible style, he’s told that
if he’s caught, he’s on his own.“The
Confederate Army didn’t hire you and knows nothing about you.â€To carry out the job, McKay forms a team of
five outlaws with the usual specialties.Blade is a knife thrower.Dekker
is an explosives expert.Bogard is a
strong man.Hoagy is a crack shot.Kid is so boyish he makes today’s teen-fave
Timothee Chalomet look like Harry Dean Stanton -- but don’t let that fool you,
McKay advises; “he has one virtue -- he likes to kill and he’s good at it.â€Captain Lynch (Frank Wolff), who devised the
big heist, tells McKay that when he finishes the job with his five men, “kill
them all and come back alone.â€This
seems like an odd command, even given the famously unfathomable workings of the
military mind.If you have a crack team
that’s successfully executed one impossible mission, wouldn’t you rather keep
them around in case you need their skills again?But McKay accepts it with a cynical smile,
perhaps confident that he’s wise not to trust Lynch, or maybe he realizes he’s
simply a character in an Italian Western, a genre in which entire movies like
this one were based on everyone in the story double-crossing everyone
else.Anyway, logic probably wasn’t a
big consideration for Castellari’s core U.S. audience of sleepy, stoned
teenagers who would have caught “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone†as the
final feature in an all-night, up-till-dawn quadruple-bill at the local
drive-in in 1968.
For
the rest of us, Castellari keeps the action moving so briskly and flamboyantly
that we have little time to ponder fine questions of wartime ethics, even with
the luxury of pause and rewind on home video.Right out of the starting gate, McKay and his commandos wreak havoc at a
military base by pole-vaulting across roofs, jumping into wagons from second-story
balconies, blowing up supply sheds, knocking other guys through bannisters to
the floor below, and dropping a massive chandelier onto a bunch of troops who
have obligingly congregated underneath.This pre-credit sequence turns out to be the team’s audition for Captain
Lynch, and it’s followed by three other big, blow-em-up set pieces,
interspersed with more fistfights, shootouts, and acrobatics than I could
count.Where most American Westerns (and
their stars) had gotten old and creaky by 1968, “Kill Them All and Come Back
Alone†keeps its crew of stuntmen and stuntmen-turned-actors like Ken Wood
(Blade) and Alberto Dell’Acqua (Kid) on the move.It’s silly and almost as exhausting as an
hour on a Peleton, but not much more childish than the CGI fights in today’s
Marvel Comics movies, even when Castellari’s stunt doubles go flying back from
punches that clearly miss their chins by several inches.
The
new Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents the movie in a superlative 4K restoration at
the 2.35:1 Techniscope aspect ratio.Fans of escapist action movies will appreciate such care for an
unpretentious Italian Western that would have been ignored by most critics,
back in the day, as hardly a notch above a 42nd Street porno loop.The disc contains both the original,
100-minute Italian print (with English-language subtitles) and the dubbed,
99-minute version released to U.S. theaters.The loss of a minute doesn’t really compromise anything, and if you’re
not turned off by the dubbed dialogue for the European actors, you may prefer
the English-language track because there, Connors speaks in his own distinctive
voice.Director and Spaghetti Western
enthusiast Alex Cox contributes a feature-length audio commentary that’s
informative and amusing in equal proportion.Cox notes the cumulative daffiness of the running, jumping, and falling
stunts in the film, but he’s also appreciative of several technically
complicated shots that Castellari and his crew mount with all the skill of a
big-budget, A-list production.The Kino
Lorber Blu-ray can be ordered HERE.
In
Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,†Rick Dalton (Leonardo
DiCaprio) accepts an offer to star in an Italian Western out of
desperation.His days of TV fame are
behind him, he needs a gig that will keep his name in lights, and no American
studios are beating down his door.In
real life, Chuck Connors’ lead role in Enzo G. Castellari’s 1968 Spaghetti
Western, “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone,†was less an existential crisis
like Rick’s than one more job in a long, busy career.If Connors was ever at risk of unemployment,
you wouldn’t know it from his resume.Across four decades, he starred in four television series, had recurring
parts in two others, and made prominent supporting appearances in more than a
hundred other movies, series, and made-for-TV films.He was a solid actor who could credibly
portray everything from tough but compassionate cops to the improbably tall,
blue-eyed Apache chief in Geronimo
(1962), to a backwoods yokel named “Superman†who’s comically mistaken for the
real deal in the old George Reeves TV show.
In
Castellari’s film, now available in a Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber, Connors
plays Clyde McKay, a master thief hired by the Confederate high command to
steal a million dollars in gold from a Union fort during the Civil War.In Mission: Impossible style, he’s told that
if he’s caught, he’s on his own.“The
Confederate Army didn’t hire you and knows nothing about you.â€To carry out the job, McKay forms a team of
five outlaws with the usual specialties.Blade is a knife thrower.Dekker
is an explosives expert.Bogard is a
strong man.Hoagy is a crack shot.Kid is so boyish he makes today’s teen-fave
Timothee Chalomet look like Harry Dean Stanton -- but don’t let that fool you,
McKay advises; “he has one virtue -- he likes to kill and he’s good at it.â€Captain Lynch (Frank Wolff), who devised the
big heist, tells McKay that when he finishes the job with his five men, “kill
them all and come back alone.â€This
seems like an odd command, even given the famously unfathomable workings of the
military mind.If you have a crack team
that’s successfully executed one impossible mission, wouldn’t you rather keep
them around in case you need their skills again?But McKay accepts it with a cynical smile,
perhaps confident that he’s wise not to trust Lynch, or maybe he realizes he’s
simply a character in an Italian Western, a genre in which entire movies like
this one were based on everyone in the story double-crossing everyone
else.Anyway, logic probably wasn’t a
big consideration for Castellari’s core U.S. audience of sleepy, stoned
teenagers who would have caught “Kill Them All and Come Back Alone†as the
final feature in an all-night, up-till-dawn quadruple-bill at the local
drive-in in 1968.
In his 2008 memoir My
Word is My Bond, Roger Moore recalls the fortunes that followed his second
turn as James Bond in The Man with the
Golden Gun (1974). “It seemed I was in demand!†he gushed. “Scripts were
coming in to my agent and offers were being made everywhere.â€Indeed, the success of his first Bond film Live and Let Die was not guaranteed, so
when audiences turned out in remarkable numbers - the film raked in more than
126 million at the worldwide box office - everyone at United Artists and Eon
Productions could breathe a little easier.It appeared that Moore’s interpret as agent 007 had been embraced by James
Bond fans worldwide.Live and Let Die would premiere in June
of 1973 with a massive press campaign. Throughout the summer of 1973 Moore would
work tirelessly on the promotion of the eighth James Bond film.
By September of 1973 Moore was due to get back to work on
his first post-Bond project.He and
former Bond film editor-director Peter Hunt (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) flew directly to Johannesburg,
South Africa, where a team awaited to begin work on Gold (1974).It was a
difficult production, beset by problems both logistical and political.Not the least of which was an uneasy
disagreement with the actor’s union due to the unit’s shooting the film in
apartheid-era South Africa. Moore would admit
to Hollywood columnist Earl Wilson that while he was duly proud of his work on Gold it was nevertheless an exhausting,
laborious and unglamorous shoot.The
actor rued that he and the film crew were routinely dispatched “6,000 feet
underground in a gold mine in South Africa.It was slightly claustrophobic and acrophobic, and [we] were dropping
4,000 feet in two minutes [into] miles and miles of tunnels.â€
Moore would soon be back in daylight.Piggybacking on his new found James Bond
fame, the years 1973-1985 would prove to be the actor’s most productive as the
principal marquee draw in feature films.Due to the commercial success of Moore’s first James Bond adventure, a
decision was made by UA and Eon to go with the momentum and get the announced
follow-up Bond adventure, The Man with
the Golden Gun into theaters as soon as possible. Their reasoning was sound, at least in
theory.They believed a quick follow-up to
Live and Let Die would even more
firmly establish Moore as the quintessential James Bond of the new decade. So it was on this gamble that principal
photography would commence on The Man
with the Golden Gun in April of 1974.It was, by the standards of the Bond franchise, an unusually rushed
production.Though a handsomely produced
film, the box office receipts and reviews for Moore’s second Bond outing were
less spectacular than for his first.The
film was released, somewhat incredibly, a mere eight months’ following the
start of filming.
If the ninth James Bond film fared less well than its
predecessor, it can partly be attributed to the fact that Moore had little to no
time to promote his second turn as oo7 as vigorously as his first.Filming on his next project, That Lucky Touch (1975), was scheduled to
commence in December of 1974, this date neatly overlapping with The Man with the Golden Gun’s hurried Christmas
holiday release.That Lucky Touch was shot on location in and around Brussels,
Belgium, and at Pinewood Studios.The
film was constructed as a romantic-comedy of sorts, Moore’s arms-dealing
Michael Scott falling in love with contrarian journalist Susannah York.But Moore’s fans certainly wouldn’t have
known the film was a Rom-Com had they trusted the misleading one-sheet posters
issued to promote the film.
Capitalizing on Moore’s success as the new James Bond –
or perhaps in recognition That Lucky
Touch as released was a complete dud - the film’s marketing team had done
their best to pass the film off to unsuspecting filmgoers as a new spy
adventure.The most egregious example of
this promotional shell-game was the poster depicting a tuxedoed Moore standing
center, right arm crossed against his chest and brandishing a pistol in the classic
James Bond fashion.He’s flanked on the
poster by two lovelies, the image of a roulette wheel serving as a suitably Bond-ish
backdrop behind them.
Luckily, his association with the James Bond franchise
was enough to keep the scripts and offers coming in.There was plenty of work to keep himself busy
as an army of lawyers moved in to settle Bond’s legal affairs. Moore would appear
in his second film for Peter Hunt, Shout
at the Devil (1976), sharing the starring co-bill with tough-guy Lee
Marvin.Principal photography on that
film would take place from March 1975 through July 1975.Reading through scripts and considering other
offers late into the summer, Moore sat down for an interview with columnist
Joyce Haber of the Los Angeles Times
in September of ‘75.The actor announced
he had chosen his next project.He was soon
to begin an eight-week shoot in San Francisco for an independent film financed
by Italian money.The working title of
the film was The Sicilian Cross.“It’s about the Mafia and I’m mixed up in it,â€
he explained.
Variety reports that Hans Zimmer, the 11-time Oscar nominee, will be the composer for the new James Bond film "No Time to Die". Neither Zimmer or Eon Productions, producers of the Bond series, have confirmed the report but Variety cites "multiple sources" in its report. The film's original composer, Dan Romer, was fired from the production last month, according to Variety, due to "creative differences" with the producers. If Zimmer is on board, he'll have a substantial challenge, as the movie is set for release in early April. Additionally, scores for the Bond movie franchise have finally been getting some due respect in recent years, with the last two films, "Skyfall" and "Spectre", receiving Oscars for their title songs. For more, click here.
A
collection and analysis of Frank Capra’s World War II propaganda films are
available in a Blu-ray collection by Olive Films titled, “Mr. Capra Goes To War:
Frank Capra’s World War II Documentaries.†The title of this collection is an
obvious play on the titles of two Capra classics. The movies on this disc
encompass two of the seven films collectively known as “Why We Fight,†but all were
intended to inform and boost the moral of the troops. Capra felt the movies
should also be seen by the public but the idea was met with disinterest by
movie theater owners due to the length of the short films. Additionally,
Americans were looking for an escape from the war when they went to the movies.
It’s no wonder the series was mostly forgotten after the war.
Prior
to World War II, Capra was one of the most successful directors in Hollywood.
Winner of three Oscars for best director, he was also president of the Motion
Picture Academy. He was a consistent hit maker with movies considered classics to
this day including; “It Happened One Night†(1934) and “Mr. Deeds Goes to Townâ€
(1936), “Lost Horizon†(1937), “You Can’t Take It With You†(1938), “Mr. Smith
Goes To Washington†(1939) and “Meet John Doe†(1941). “Arsenic and Old Laceâ€
(1944) was also a hit which he completed prior to reporting for duty with the
Army in 1942, but was released two years later.
Capra
would head the production of U.S. military training films which was part of the
Army Signal Corps. Capra and the film unit were transferred to the morale
branch of the Special Services Division where he commanded the Army Pictorial Service.
He wasn’t the only Hollywood director to join the military film unit. John
Ford, John Huston, William Wyler and George Stevens would also be actively
involved making movies for the Army and were embedded with the troops. Capra
acted largely as production head in telling the story of the war from a desk in
Washington, D.C. Their story is told in the excellent 2014 book by Mark Harris,
“Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War.†It was also
made into an equally excellent companion documentary.
Challenged
by the success of Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film “Triumph of the Willâ€
(1935), Capra set out to counter the Nazi message with an American series of
documentary propaganda films. It’s difficult to know how much of a hand Capra
had on the movies commonly credited to him and released by the War Department
between 1942 and 1945. Most likely he acted as executive producer and gathered
together found footage and reenactments from the battle front and hired Hollywood
experts such as Walt Disney to create animated maps, Alfred Newman to provide
music and Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) as writer; to piece everything together
into a cohesive story. Five of these movies are included in the Olive Films
Blu-ray collection: “Prelude to War,†“The Battle of Russia†“The Negro
Soldier,†“Tunisian Victory,†and “Your Job in Germany.â€
“Prelude
to War,†the first in the “Why We Fight†series, was released in 1942 with a 52-
minute running time and is narrated by Walter Huston. This is my personal favorite
of the titles on this disc. The narration by Huston makes it feel like a
Hollywood documentary of the era and less like a piece of U.S. government
propaganda. I think it’s a great snapshot to the start of America’s involvement
in WWII and was awarded an Oscar for Best Documentary.
“The
Battle of Russia,†fifth in the “Why We Fight†series, is the longest of the
films here and was broken up into two parts due to its feature length. Released
in 1943, Part 1 has a 36- minute running time with Part 2 lasting 47 minutes.
This film was important due to the unique relationship between Russia’s
relationship with the other Allies, based on mutual necessity following Hitler’s
betrayal of Stalin. In the documentary, Russia is depicted as God- fearing benevolent
allies out to defeat Hitler. In reality, the Soviet Union was not much
different from Nazi Germany as far as freedom and liberty is concerned; not to
mention Stalin and Hitler’s similar propensity for genocide and crimes against
humanity. Scenes from Sergei Eisenstein’s Russian epic “Alexander Nevsky (1938)
were used to drive home the resolve of the Russian people and give Americans a
history lesson. This feature length entry includes what are most likely
recreated battle scenes and it all works well as a war propaganda.
“The
Negro Soldier,†released in 1944 with a 40- minute running time is often cited
as the most acclaimed of Capra’s war documentaries due to the discussion of
race relations in the still segregated U.S. military. Racial segregation in the
U.S. military ended after the war on 26 July 1948 when President Harry S.
Truman signed executive order 9981. The Women's Armed Services Integration Act
was signed by President Truman on 12 June 1948. It’s a pity a film about women
serving in the military wasn’t also a part of this series.
Kino Lorber continues to release titles that were originally telecast on ABC TV in the United States as part of the network's "Movie of the Week" anthology series of original productions. While most of the earlier films in the series, which began in 1969, exceeded expectations, with some becoming classics, by the time 1972 rolled around, the network was cutting back on production costs and some less-than-stellar shows were produced. One of the telecasts shown during this period was "The Daughters of Joshua Cabe", a starring vehicle for Buddy Ebsen, who had become a TV icon through "The Beverly Hillbillies" and who would go on to find great success a few years later as TV detective Barnaby Jones. "Joshua Cabe" was shot between the two series. Ebsen is well-cast in the title role that affords him his familiar persona as a laid-back, soft-spoken man of simple means but admirable values. Josh has been proudly calling a beautiful spread of rural land his own, a dream he shared with his beloved wife who passed away many years ago. He now lives a rustic lifestyle with his best friend, Bitterroot (Jack Elam) and the two men are quite content until they receive the alarming news that a new law affects the ownership of homesteads. In order to be declared the rightful owner of the property, Josh only has weeks to find his three estranged daughters of many years and convince them to settle on his land for a period of no less than one year. It's a tall order but he sets out to St. Louis to begin tracking the daughters down. He only finds one of his offspring, Mary (Julie Mannix), and she is content living the life of a nun. She advises him that her two sisters are now living in New York with their families. Dejected, Josh almost gives up on his quest to qualify for ownership of his land until he gets an audacious inspiration: he approaches three wayward women from the other side of the tracks who are living hardscrabble lives in St. Louis and convinces them to move back with him and pose as his daughters for a period of one year. The young women have diverse personalities but they are all streetwise, cynical and willing to go toe-to-toe against the inevitable lechers who try to seduce them. They are Mae (Lesley Ann Warren, billed here as "Lesley Warren), a prostitute being exploited by a charmless pimp, Mae (Sandra Dee), a pickpocket and Charity (Karen Valentine), a recently paroled thief.
Problems arise when Josh's arch-enemy, Amos Wetherall (Leif Erickson) and his four no-goodnick sons set eyes on laying claim to Josh's land to expand their local empire. Their plans hit a set-back when Josh arrives with his three "daughters" but Wetherall and his boys use violent methods to try to intimidate him, including burning down his precious ranch house that he had built for his wife. Wetherall's tactic only reinforce his determination to claim the land legally for his own. The three young women, who had been indulging in plenty of bickering, become united to try to help him, as he's emerged as a kindly father figure to them. The climax finds a showdown between Josh and Bitterroot and Wetherall and his sons to determine who will possess Josh's land. Guess who comes out on top?
"The Daughters of Joshua Cabe" is directed with workman-like efficiency by Philip Leacock, who had a long resume in TV and films as director and producer. The script by Paul Savage is largely unoriginal and predictable. The main reason for watching the film is the delightful cast. The three actresses playing the "daughters" are all amusing with Warren getting the meatiest role as a prostitute. Ebsen is always a delight to watch and he gets plenty of amusing support from Elam, who seemed to inherit Walter Brennan's roles as crabby, eccentric western sidekicks. Erickson makes for a fine villain and his scroungy, sadistic sons are played by well-known actors, specifically Don Stroud, Michael Anderson Jr, Paul Koslo and William Katt (billed here as "Bill Katt".)
The Kino Lorber transfer is adequate, but no more. That's probably because the source material for the print used was less-than-desirable and no one would expect KL to sink a great deal of money into enhancing this modest, little-remembered title, the production values of which are pretty chintzy. IMDB verifies that it was shot on 35mm film but it's hard to believe that the interiors weren't filmed on video, as they have a soft focus look that resembles an episode of a soap opera from the era. The only impressive action scene involves a stampede. Beyond that, the movie is definitely a 1970s Poverty Row production. Still, it's nice to have these obscure TV movies now available on home video, so regardless of their individual merits, we hope KL keeps 'em coming.
The DVD includes a gallery of other KL western comedy trailers including "Support Your Local Sheriff", "Support Your Local Gunfighter", "Young Billy Young" and "Sam Whiskey".
Marilyn Monroe was among the aspiring actresses who found comfort and safety within the walls of the Hollywood Studio Club.
BY LEE PFEIFFER
In an interesting article for Vanity Fair, Cari Beauchamp explores a fascinating aspect of old Hollywood that most movie fans aren't aware of. It concerns the Hollywood Studio Club, a boarding house with style that was specifically designed to provide a safe haven for young women who had immigrated to Hollywood in the hope of finding stardom. From the earliest days of the motion picture industry, studio executives acted as sexual predators. They held all the cards in their hands. If a fresh, innocent beauty really wanted some good career breaks, they soon learned what the price was. In the silent era, Mary Pickford became the premiere champion of establishing a house where numerous young women could rent a shared room with the knowledge men would not be able to exploit them, at least in their living quarters. Pickford lobbied influential studio executives as well as notorious moralist Will Hays, the film industry czar who would impose draconian censorship standards on the entire industry that would last for decades, to support the concept. She got these powerful men to donate large sums of money to build a more upscale residence for the young women, which would become known as the Hollywood Studio Club. It was not without irony that much of the funding came from lecherous men who were known to sexually exploit women once they set foot outside of their "safe haven". Nevertheless, the concept lasted until the 1970s, by which time reticence to follow the strict rules inside the Club diminished the ranks of young women who were prospective boarders. The place closed in 1975 but left a lasting legacy as an early home to the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Rita Moreno, Nancy Kwan, Kim Novak, Barbara Rush, Barbara Eden and many other actresses who found solace within the walls of the Hollywood Studio Club.
Shout! Factory has released a 40th anniversary steelbook edition of "Rock 'N' Roll High School". Here is the official press release:
Los
Angeles, CA – Gabba hey! It’s been 40 years since we first saw Riff Randall and
the Ramones take the halls of Rock ’N’ Roll High School.
To celebrate this punk rock anniversary Shout! Factory is releasing Rock ‘N’ Roll High School (40th Anniversary Edition Steelbook). Special features include a new 4K
scan from the original camera negative, and a new feature-length documentary
titled “Class Of ’79: 40 Years Of Rock ‘N’ Roll High School†– featuring
Interviews with director/story writer Allan Arkush, co-director/story writer
Joe Dante, actress P.J. Soles, screenwriter Richard Whitley, screenwriter Russ
Dvonch, cinematographer Dean Cundey, editor Larry Bock, and more.
With explosive musical performances from the Ramones, the
outrageous candor of teenage angst and nostalgic reverie of a counterculture
rock movement, Rock ’N’ Roll High School has captured the hearts of many
generations.
Executive produced by Roger Corman and directed by Allan
Arkush (Heroes), Rock ’N’ Roll High School boasts
performances by the Ramones and stars P.J. Soles (Halloween) in the lead role
of Riff Randell, Vince Van Patten (Hell Night), Clint Howard (Grand Theft Auto),
Dey Young (Spaceballs), Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000), Dick Miller (Piranha)
and Paul Bartel (Hollywood Boulevard).
Based on Arkush’s own high school fantasy, the 1979 cult
film takes place at Vince Lombardi High School — the wildest, most rockin’ high
school around! That is, until a thug of a principal, Miss Togar, comes along
and tries to make the school a totalitarian state. With the help of the
Ramones, the students of Vince Lombardi battle Miss Togar's iron-fisted rule
and take their battle to a truly rockin’ conclusion!
Rock ’N’ Roll High School quickly developed a devoted
following after its release in 1979 and became a mainstay of the midnight movie
cult circuit. As with films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, audience
members began to dress up like the cast and the Ramones for screenings.
Arkush, a self-described “unabashed rock ’n’ roll
fanatic,†chose the Ramones to star as the film’s musical heroes, as he felt
they epitomized pure rock ’n’ roll. As Arkush remembers, “We staged a live,
marathon show at the Roxy Theatre that consisted of 22 hours of nonstop
Ramones,†and the tireless quartet also wrote two songs for the film: “I Want
You Around†and “Rock ’N’ Roll School.†The Ramones were fans of Corman as well.
Johnny Ramone said in an interview at the time, “When we found out Roger Corman
was behind the picture, we said, sure, we’ll do it because we knew he had a
reputation and we knew he made good movies.â€
Rock ‘N’ Roll High School (40th Anniversary Edition
Steelbook) Bonus Features
NEW “Class Of ’79: 40
Years Of Rock ‘N’ Roll High School†– Featuring Interviews With Director/Story
Writer Allan Arkush, Co-Director/Story Writer Joe Dante, Actress P.J. Soles, Screenwriter
Richard Whitley, Screenwriter Russ Dvonch, Cinematographer Dean Cundey, Editor
Larry Bock, And More!
Audio Commentary With Allan Arkush, Mike Finnell And
Richard Whitley
Audio Commentary With Allan Arkush And Actors P.J. Soles
And Clint Howard
Audio Commentary With Richard Whitley And Russ Dvonch
Audio Commentary With Executive Producer Roger Corman And
Actress Dey Young
“Back To School: A Retrospective†With Interviews From
Allan Arkush, Executive Producer Roger Corman And More
“Staying After Classâ€: An Interview With Actors P.J.
Soles, Vincent Van Patten And Dey Young
Interview With Roger Corman Conducted By Leonard Maltin
Interview With Allan Arkush Including A Look At Rare,
Behind-The-Scenes Stills
“HITCHCOCK
AND HUMOR: MODES OF COMEDY IN TWELVE DEFINING FILMS†by
Wes D. Gehring
(McFarland;
ISBN 978-1-4766-7356-1 print; 978-1-4766-3621-4 e-book; $39.95 retail)
“THE
MASTER OF DARK COMEDYâ€
By
Raymond Benson
Just
about anything with film historian and media writer Wes D. Gehring’s name on it
will be of quality. A professor of telecommunications at Ball State University
in Indiana and author of the regular column “The Reel World†in USA Today magazine,
Gehring has distinguished himself as an expert on comedy—especially as it has
been utilized in the cinema.
Among
Gehring’s several books that explore humor in film are tomes on Chaplin, the
Marx Brothers, Leo McCarey, Laurel and Hardy, Carole Lombard, W. C. Fields, and
Frank Capra, as well as topical studies on dark comedy and screwball comedy.
Now
comes Hitchcock and Humor, which evaluates the notion that the filmmaker
who earned the moniker “The Master of Suspense,†is also “The Master of Dark
Comedy.†Gehring makes his case by examining the humor in several of the early
British pictures (Blackmail; The Man Who Knew Too Much; The 39
Steps; Secret Agent; and The Lady Vanishes), and several of
the Hollywood delights (Mr. and Mrs. Smith; Shadow of a Doubt; Rope;
Strangers on a Train; Rear Window; The Trouble with Harry;
and North by Northwest). There is also an epilogue with brief comments
on Psycho, which could very well be, as Gehring acknowledges, the most
obvious example of dark humor that Hitchcock presented to an unsuspecting
audience.
Mr.
and Mrs. Smith,
of course, is one of the filmmaker’s few blatant comedies. The picture starred
Carole Lombard, about whom the author has previously written, and Gehring
spends the chapter dissecting the actress’ importance to this wacky romantic
comedy. A general public, however, might not immediately grasp the subtle humor
displayed in the other titles, although film students and Hitchcock aficionados
would surely already be aware of it. Consider this—while The 39 Steps is
a riveting thriller about a wronged man on the run, it also has the hallmarks
of a screwball comedy once Robert Donat meets and is handcuffed to Madeleine
Carroll. The two characters are a mismatched couple thrown together by
circumstances beyond their control, are initially at odds, and slowly gain
affection for each other. Rope is full of gallows humor as the two
killers (played by John Dall and Farley Granger) host a dinner party with the
guests sitting around the “table†that is really a coffin holding their victim.
(The above trailer for North by Northwest amply illustrates Hitchcock's ability to blend thrills and humor.)
As
with most publications from McFarland, the book takes a scholarly
approach—there is little in the way of illustrations (there are a few) and is
mostly dense text (290 pages). While Hitchcock and Humor is intended for
the more serious devotees of cinema and Alfred Hitchcock himself, the book is
quite readable and entertaining.
While
there are many DVD collections (and VHS anthologies before that) of the early British
material directed by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1920s and most of the 1930s, there
are very few that contain decent transfers. The silent films, until recently,
all existed in extremely poor quality, as so did most of the British sound
pictures. Companies like The Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber have begun to
finally restore these classics in high definition Blu-ray. (There is a
long-held belief that these titles are in the public domain, but this is
false.)
The
new 2-disk Kino Lorber set, British International Pictures Collection,
contains a handful of these early movies—The Ring (1927), The
Farmer’s Wife (1928), Champagne (1928), The Manxman (1929),
and the only sound feature in the bunch, The Skin Game (1931). They all display
Hitch finding his way, exploring the possibilities of the medium, and trying to
find his directorial “voice.†He was not yet the “Master of Suspense,†even
though he had made one silent masterpiece thriller, The Lodger (1927),
that kick-started his career. He did not yet have the clout to pick and choose
his projects, so he directed whatever the studio assigned him. Too often, the
titles were melodramas that bore little resemblance to the kinds of things
Hitchcock would make once he had established his nickname.
The
good news is that mostly these are beautifully restored transfers that look
better than any previous iteration this reviewer has ever seen. In fact, the
silent pictures look remarkable—Kino has done a splendid job in the
presentation. (Oddly, the later title, The Skin Game, doesn’t look as
good as the earlier ones, but it’s still more watchable than previous
versions.)
The
bad news is that none of these titles are stellar entries in Hitchcock’s oeuvre.
In fact, only Hitchcock completists will get much out of this set, as admirably
put together as it is.
The
Ring
is unique in that Hitchcock himself is credited with writing the screenplay—the
only time in his entire filmography in which this is the case. Apparently,
Hitch was a boxing fan and wrote the story about a love triangle between two
fighters and the girl for whom they both have the hots. Hitchcock told François
Truffaut in their famous interview that he considered The Ring to be the
second “true†Hitchcock movie (after The Lodger). Personally, this
reviewer finds it to be overly long, melodramatic, and slow.
The
Farmer’s Wife
is one of Hitchcock’s few comedies—a romantic comedy, to boot. It’s
about a middle-aged farmer who becomes a widower and then sets about finding a
new wife. Every woman he asks rejects him, until he realizes that his
housekeeper will do just fine. (Believe it or not, that’s not a spoiler.)
Again, the film is too lengthy and moves too slowly to be a comedy. Certainly
not in the upper pantheon of Hitchcock classics.
Champagne is worse. Also billed
as a “comedy,†it’s about a young woman from a wealthy family who is reckless
and chases after a fellow who seemingly doesn’t want her. The woman’s father falsely
declares bankruptcy to pull in her spending reins, but to no avail. In the end,
the poor schmuck she was after ends up by her side after all (again, not a
spoiler!).
The
Manxman
is so dreary and lifeless that it’s almost impossible to think that such a
great filmmaker as Alfred Hitchcock made it. It’s another love triangle story
in which the “Manxman†(a citizen of the Isle of Wight) goes away to find fame
and fortune in Africa, leaving his beloved under the watchful gaze of his best
friend. You can guess what happens between the beloved and the friend. Again—too
long and too slow. Thank goodness Hitchcock rebounded from this with his first
talkie, Blackmail, and proved that he really could direct a movie.
The
Skin Game was
Hitch’s fourth sound picture. It’s not terrible, but it’s not particularly
good. It’s about two families of different social classes feuding over land.
The richer family learns something scandalous about the daughter of the
less-richer family and threatens blackmail. Edmund Gwenn (who starred in more
than one Hitchcock title) is effective as the indignant head of the less-wealthy
household. Of all the films in this collection, The Skin Game is the
most interesting, and it’s not because it’s a talkie. There is some real drama
going on, it’s just that there’s a lot of “melo-†to it.
Along
with the superb high definition transfers, there are audio commentaries by film
historian Farran Smith Nehme on Champagne and The Manxman, and by
Nick Pinkerton on The Ring. New lovely scores accompany the silents—by
Meg Morley (The Ring), Jon Mirsalis (The Farmer’s Wife), Ben
Model (Champagne), and Andrew Earle Simpson (The Manxman).
Finally, the only supplements are two audio excerpts from the
Hitchcock/Truffaut interview related to the films in question.
Despite
the so-so quality of the films themselves, the British International
Pictures Collection does present outstanding editions of these early Alfred
Hitchcock features—certainly worthwhile for any student and aficionado of the
master during a crucial learning period of his profession.
The 1965 Universal thriller "Mirage" boasts a screenplay by Peter Stone, who excelled in writing witty action films with exotic plots and characters. Stone was coming off the great success of "Charade" for the studio and adopted the strategy of using one-word titles for "Mirage" and a follow-up film, "Arabesque". For "Mirage", Stone, who was a frequent collaborator with director Stanley Donen, had another seasoned film industry veteran, Edward Dmytryk in the director's chair. The film is arguably Stone's most disturbing film in terms of its basic premise, which was adapted from Howard Fast's novel "Fallen Angel", though the credits falsely indicate the book was written by Walter Ericson, which was a nom-de-plume Fast used because he had been blacklisted at the time he wrote the book. Of the story, the less said, the better, 'lest the viewer gets tipped off to the mind-numbing number of twists and turns.
Gregory Peck was plays David Stillwell, a New York City "cost accountant" who goes about his work in a Manhattan high rise office building. The film is only seconds into the plot when we witness a blackout in the building. As Stillwell and countless others stumble around in the darkness, emotions range from concern to opportunism, as a woman suggests he join a group she is quickly assembling to hold an orgy in the dark. When Stillwell gets to the street, the police are present and investigating the apparent suicide of a noted humanitarian, Charles Calvin (Walter Abel), who has plunged to his death from his office window amidst the chaos. Although Stillwell doesn't know the man, the incident will play a significant role in the story. Stillwell encounters some puzzling reactions to his interactions with people he knows well, in that they don't seem to recognize him. He soon comes to believe that he is suffering from a severe form of amnesia but can't explain why. Things get murkier when he is approached by Sheila (Diane Baker, well-cast in a role that Tippi Hedren and Leslie Caron had originally been considered for.) The elegant Sheila informs Stillwell that they were lovers until he jilted her. That's all just for starters in a scenario that would seem appropriate for a "Twilight Zone" episode. Adding to Stillwell's woes is the realization that he is being stalked by two mysterious hit men (Jack Weston and George Kennedy). He seeks psychiatric help but the doctor (Robert H. Harris) tells him that his psychological problems can't possibly be due to amnesia because Stillwell realizes he can't account for key aspects of his life over a period of two years, which the doctor says is not likely with known forms of the affliction.Stillwell finds himself in increasing danger, unable to trust anyone, as he tries to piece together the puzzle of his life over the last two years. There are clues that a "Mr. Big"- like unseen character known cryptically as "The Major" is orchestrating a deadly conspiracy but Stillwell can't understand his place in it.
Director Dymytryk ratchets up the suspense as Stillwell finds himself in the Hitchcockian position of being a protagonist who is caught up in a web of deadly intrigue that he can't possibly explain. Peck is excellent as the reluctant hero and he and Baker have genuine chemistry, with the viewer unsure as to Sheila's motives and allegiances. Walter Matthau (who, along with George Kennedy, appeared in "Charade") has a showy role as a middle-aged amateur private detective and there are welcome appearances by Leif Erickson, Kevin McCarthy and Anne Seymour. Adding to the viewing pleasure is the crisp B&W cinematography of Joseph MacDonald and a fine score by Quincy Jones. Though much of the film was shot at Universal Studios in Hollywood, there are an abundance of welcome on-location scenes filmed in Manhattan.
The Kino Lorber special edition features a commentary track by film historians Steve Mitchell, Nathaniel Thompson and Howard S. Berger that moves at a fast clip and proves to be very informative and entertaining. Mitchell, who once lived in New York, provides some interesting insights into the various Gotham locations seen in the film. The trio also point out some interesting analogies to John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate", though I would also offer that there are additional similarities in style and tone to Frankenheimer's unnerving 1966 film "Seconds". In that film, Rock Hudson played a man who takes a deadly gamble by intentionally living a life that he knows is a lie. In "Mirage", Gregory Peck is a man who is unwillingly courting death by living a life he knows is a lie. There is also a recently filmed interview with Diane Baker, looking as glamorous as ever. She provides some engaging anecdotes about working on the film, saying she adored Gregory Peck but felt a bit uneasy about their apparent age difference. She also discusses working with Alfred Hitchcock on "Marnie". Rounding out the special features are trailer and still photo galleries. Highly recommended.
French model-turned actress Claudine Auger has passed away at age 78. Auger was France's entry in the Miss World contest at age 17 in 1958. She later entered the movie profession and caught the eye of James Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman when they were casting the female lead for the fourth 007 blockbuster "Thunderball" starring Sean Connery in 1965. Auger wasn't their first choice, as Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie and Raquel Welch had been considered, but for different reasons, did not end up playing the pivotal role. In the film, Auger played Domino, the mistress of Spectre villain Emilio Largo, played by Adolfo Celi. Domino seems content with the life of luxury afforded her by Largo but upon being seduced by James Bond, she courageously risks her life to help him thwart Spectre's nuclear threat to Miami Beach. Although Auger could speak fluent English, like several of the early Bond film actresses, she was dubbed in the final cut of the film. Despite the phenomenal worldwide success of "Thunderball", major stardom did not follow for Auger, although she continued to appear in films and television, mostly in Europe. In 1966, "Thunderball" director Terence Young cast her in a major Hollywood film, the WWII spy thriller "Triple Cross" starring Christopher Plummer and Yul Brynner. She also appeared in the 1971 Italian cult hit "The Black Belly of the Tarantula" with Giancarlo Giannini, who she would later star with in the comedy "Lovers and Liars". Auger continued to act until the late 1990s. Married twice, she is survived by a daughter with her late husband Peter Brent, who passed away in 2008. Auger tended to avoid the spotlight and did not participate in most of the retrospective James Bond events and documentaries made over the years since the release of "Thunderball". For more, click here.
In an insightful article for the Hollywood Reporter, writer David Weiner revisits the production of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", which hit theaters 40 years ago this month. The film had a mixed reception from "Trek" fans and critics but the story behind the movie is a fascinating one. The article features extensive comments from William Shatner and visual effects wizard Douglas Trumbull who was dragooned into reluctantly saving the production when the special effects proved problematic. Director Robert Wise was an Oscar winner but he found that the new technologies called for him to step aside and let Trumbull conceive and direct the complex special effects-laden sequences. The result was a film that, although not the blockbuster Paramount had anticipated, proved profitable enough to launch more "Trek" films on the big screen. Click here to read the story.
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the little-remembered 1954 "B" movie thriller "Highway Dragnet". Despite it's modest production values, the film is a textbook example of how efficiently films in this genre were made and how much action and plot devices can be worked into a movie with an abbreviated running time (70 minutes, in this case.) Young Roger Corman wrote the story upon which the screenplay was based and also served as one of the producers. That's about the only aspect of the film that one could point out in terms of separating "Highway Dragnet" from countless other crime dramas shot in a similar style. That isn't meant as a criticism. We're rediscovering how cleverly made so many of these micro-budget flicks were and this one is one of the better examples. The film opens with a brief segment in Las Vegas. Richard Conte is Jim Henry, who has just returned from the conflict in Korea and is now looking to enjoy civilian life. He's on his way back to his family home in the Salton Sea area in California when his pit stop at a Vegas casino results in a tense encounter with an abrasive blonde at the bar. The two publicly quarrel and Jim leaves the premises. The next day he is on a desert highway hitchhiking when cops pull up and arrest him. Turns out the sassy dame was found strangled in her bed and Jim is the prime suspect. He has an alibi that he was out with a friend all night but due to some convoluted plot reasons, the tale can't be easily substantiated. Jim resists the arresting officers, steals one of their guns and makes a getaway in the squad car. A full dragnet is in place when he ditches the police car when he comes across two stranded women who are trying to fix their broken-down car. Jim jumps to the rescue and gets the vehicle working, but also insists on traveling with them, as it gives him cover from the police. His new companions are Mrs. Cummings (Joan Bennett), a fashion photographer and her model Susan Willis (Wanda Hendrix). The women are en route to photo shoot at a local desert resort hotel. When they arrive there, they learn that Jim is wanted for murder. He takes off with them into the desert where the car breaks down and they are at the mercy of the relentless sun. Mrs. Cummings is determined to kill Jim if she has the opportunity but Susan, who is clearly enamored of the ex-serviceman, argues that she thinks he is innocent. The cat and mouse game continues as Jim desperately tries to make it back to his family home, where the man who can exonerate him is supposed to be waiting.
"Highway Dragnetl" is a fun romp, especially if you like the old style of crime movies in which the hero is nonplussed by events and seems to have Bondian abilities to escape every trap. Richard Conte makes a good, stalwart hero and his female co-stars are equally impressive. The climax of the film, shot on location amid flooded homes in the Salton Sea area, is quite atmospheric and impressive, even if the resolution of the crime is bit thin and far-fetched when it comes to revealing the real murderer. Director Nathan Juran wisely eschews studio-bound shots in favor of capitalizing on the desert locations and they add considerably to the quality of the production. "HighwayDragmetl" isn't a film noir classic but it's well-made and thoroughly enjoyable. Recommended, especially since you'll only need 70 minutes to experience it.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray offers a pristine transfer and a trailer gallery of other "B" crime movies available from the company.
It is curious that so few major films have depicted the Spanish Civil War, given the fact that it was one of the most significant conflicts of the 20th century. The war began in 1936 and ended in 1939, the same year WWII would erupt. The consequences of the Spanish Civil War were enormous. A coup had been launched against the government and was headed by influential generals, one of whom was Francisco Franco. Tens of thousands of foreigners traveled to Spain to fight with whatever side represented their values. Adolf Hitler backed the revolutionaries and supplied critical weaponry and air power to ensure their victory. (By doing so, he gained valuable combat experience for his forces, knowing they would be used later in the year to invade Poland.) The outcome of the war was significant to the world. Franco emerged as the strongman leader of Spain and would retain power until his death in 1975. By having an ally in Spain, Hitler could count on not having to deal with a military threat when he sought domination over much of Europe. The end of the Civil War saw countless thousands from the losing side frantically immigrate to neighboring France, 'lest they suffer the fate of so many others who died in genocidal executions.
In 1964, acclaimed director Fred Zinnemann ("High Noon", "From Here to Eternity") adapted fellow filmmaker Emeric Pressburger's novel "Killing a Mouse on Sunday" to the screen as "Behold a Pale Horse" (the title has biblical implications.) The movie opens with some documentary footage of the Spanish Civil War, though the brief narration does little to provide facts or context to those who were not familiar with the history of the conflict. Manuel Artiguez (Gregory Peck) is a fighter who finds himself on the losing side. He grudgingly crosses the border into France. The story then advances to the late 1950s. Artiguez is living in miserable exile in a dank apartment in a tiny border town. We are introduced to Vinolas (Anthony Quinn), a powerful and corrupt police commissioner across the border in Spain who has established his own fiefdom where he rules with an iron fist. Vinolas has only one blot on his record: his failure over the last twenty years to capture or kill Artiguez, who periodically sneaks into Spain to commit acts of sabotage and violence. Thus, he has established himself as a legend among friend and foe alike. When Vinolas discovers that Artguez's beloved elderly mother (Mildred Dunnock) is terminally ill, he has her placed in a hospital under guard, presuming that Artiguez will have to make a daring attempt to see her on her death bed. However, his mother gives a young priest, Francisco (Omar Sharif), a letter to deliver to him in France warning him that it is a trap and to stay away. Much of the middle section of the film traces Francisco's determined mission to discover Artiguez's whereabouts and deliver him the letter. He leaves it in the care of a child who idolizes Artiguez and the boy destroys the letter so that Artiguez will not be tempted to make the journey. Tension builds when the ill-tempered Artiguez tries to discern whether the letter really existed and he eventually tracks the priest to Lourdes, where he is making a pilgrimage. However, no one can dissuade Artiguez from taking up the challenge of somehow seeing his dying mother, even if the quest costs him his life.
Actor Danny Aiello has passed away at age 86 following a brief illness. Aiello didn't start acting until age 34 but when he did, he became a reliable and popular character actor. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", playing the owner of a pizza parlor trying to navigate boiling racial tensions in the neighborhood. He also had a memorable role in Norman Jewison's "Moonstruck". Other films include "The Godfather Part II", "The Front", "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Radio Days" (the latter three with Woody Allen), "Fingers", "Fort Apache the Bronx", "The Cemetary Club", "Ready to Wear", "The Professional", "Once Upon a Time in America" and "Prince of the City". Although Aiello worked with some of the most legendary directors, his one regret was not having been cast in a Martin Scorsese film. For more click here.
Squeezed in between the seemingly endless barrage of cinematic "tent pole" action and super hero franchises and tasteless comedies are some exquisite smaller films that traditionally get overlooked. One film that deserves plenty of accolades and a wide audience is director Francois GIrard's "The Song of Names", a Canadian production that is being released by Sony Classics. I first saw the film at the Sony screening room in New York City in September and was completely absorbed and moved by it from the opening frames. It's always a danger that a critic, in trying champion a film, might reveal too many details and thus compromise the impact of the movie for potential viewers. "The Song of Names" is one such film. Based on the novel by Norman Lebrecht, the script by the estimable Jeffrey Caine is steeped in religious dogma but it is not a film that is primarily about a religion, in this case Judaism. Rather, the religious component provides the catalyst for what is an intriguing mystery that begins in 1951 and extends into the mid-1980s.
The story opens with Martin Simmonds (Tim Roth), a middle-aged man in London, who has been haunted since the 1951 inexplicable disappearance of Dovidl Rappaport, who he grew up with and considers to be his brother in every sense. The story switches back in time to 1939, with Nazi Germany gearing for a possible invasion of Poland on the basis of a false justification. A Jewish family from Poland arrives in London and pleads with Gilbert Simmonds (Stanley Townsend), a respected music publisher, to act as mentor for their young son Dovidl (Luke Doyle), who is described to Gilbert as a musical prodigy. His family wants to ensure that his genius is nurtured in a safe place, which Poland most decidedly is not. Gilbert has reservations, but agrees, thus bringing stress into his household, particularly for his own nine-year old son Martin (played at this time by Misha Handley), who understandably rebels at having a rival for his parent's attention sharing a bedroom with him. The story chronicles the abrasive relation between the two boys as they gradually warm to each other and become brothers in every practical way. Gilbert's attentions to Dovidl's talents have yielded dividends and he is becoming known as a master violinist. When war breaks out, Dovidl is uncertain as to the fate of his family, who returned to besieged Poland and the human catastrophes that would follow. This will form the basis of a separate mystery that plays a crucial aspect in the events that will unfold over the course of the story.
After the war, Gilbert continues to nurture Dovidl's extraordinary talents on the violin. In 1951, he decides the now 21-year old prodigy (played now by Jonah Hauer-King) deserves a high profile showcase for his talents. He uses all of his financial resources to stage a much-publicized concert at a prestigious London concert hall to serve as Dovidl's formal debut before the city's most influential citizens. However, on the evening of the big event, Dovidl does not show up, leaving both Gilbert and Martin (now played by Gerran Howell) perplexed and panicked. The debacle costs Gilbert his entire fortune as well as his revered reputation and he dies shortly thereafter a heartbroken man. Martin, too, is scarred for life. Why did Dovidl not appear? The question continues to haunt him over the coming decades to the point that he becomes obsessed with finding the answers, despite the strain it places on his relationship with his tolerant but long-suffering wife, Helen (Catherine McCormack.) He embarks on a years-long international odyssey to discover Dovidl's fate, spurred on by intriguing rumors that he has been seen alive. I won't say much more about the mystery other than Martin locates and focuses his attention on a man (Clive Owen) who is a member of the Hasidic community who may actually be Dovidl.
Ordinarily, I'm not fond of the recent trend in movies to stray from relating the plot through a linear timeline. All too often, jumping back and forth in time can lead the viewer to become confused and at times it can appear to be gimmicky. But screenwriter Jeffrey Caine manages to thread the needle successfully, as does director Girard, who has the obstacle of having Martin and Dovidl each played by three different actors at different stages of the character's lives. What emerges is a compelling and highly moving story with major components involving the Blitz of London and the Treblinka death camp in Poland (where the producers were granted extraordinary access to shoot a moving scene at the Treblinka memorial). The sweep of the film is impressive (it was shot in England, Hungary, Poland and Canada) and production designer Francois Seguin deserves great credit for transporting the viewer to various locations and time periods in a very convincing manner by reflecting the respective time periods in a thoroughly convincing manner. The title of the film derives from a religious song that commemorates the name of every known victim who died at Trebilinka. It's a fictitious invention but heeds closely to the Jewish tradition of remembering through song. The scene in which a central character performs a solo violin performance set to the singing of the victims' names may well move you to tears. In reality, the song was an original creation of composer Howard Shore, whose work in this film deserves an Oscar nomination. All too often today, studios consider the contributions of composers to be rather perfunctory components of films. Shore reminds us of how crucial musical composition is the emotional resonance of any movie. The performances are all superb, with Roth and Owen delivering their best work in many years and the actors who portray their younger incarnations are also outstanding. Director Francois Girard, who specializes in films about music as well as directs operas and musical stage productions, is in top form here, deftly weaving a tale of mystery, loss and the human condition as it applies to two men who are haunted by the past.
It took nine years to bring this remarkable story to the screen. Kudos to producer Robert Lantos for succeeding in doing so. The film opens in New York and L.A. on Christmas Day and will have a staggered expansion to other theaters on January 3 and January 24. Seek it out...my guess is that you will find it a very rewarding experience.
In 1969, the American television network ABC launched their "Movie of the-Week" concept. The anthology series proved to be an immediate hit and ran until 1975. The format was to enlist the talents of well-known stars and cast them in 90 minute original productions that were often used to test audience reactions to see if certain telecasts merited being extended to weekly TV series. The costs were minimal-$350,000 per movie, on average- which wasn't a great deal of money even in those days. The series presented a diverse number of genres ranging from comedies to thrillers and horror. Before it finally ran out of steam, the Movie of the Week concept produced at least four TV classics: "The Night Stalker", "Brian's Song", "Trilogy of Terror" and "Duel", the film that was so well-received that it launched Steven Spielberg's entrance into directing theatrical feature films. There were also numerous Westerns made as Movies of the Week including the 1972 production, "The Bounty Man", which has now been released on DVD by Kino Lorber. Clint Walker stars as Kinkaid, a much-feared bounty hunter who is known for ruthlessly pursuing his prey. He's earned the respect of his peers, but some of them also resent him because he inevitably collects the biggest rewards by bringing in the most wanted men dead or alive. When we first see him, he has caught up with two wanted men, one of whom he guns down and the other he delivers to the local sheriff. Upon collecting his bounty, Kinkaid is unmoved to learn the young man is scheduled to be hanged the next morning. He then turns his attention to tracking down bigger game: escaped bandit and murderer Billy Riddle (John Ericson), who has also been sentenced to hang. Kinkaid locates the man in a backwater hellhole of a "town" that is so dangerous it doesn't even have a sheriff. Kinkaid gets the drop on Billy but finds him in the company of his slavishly devoted girlfriend Mae (Margot Kidder) and must bring her along, too, 'lest she round up a gang to rescue Billy.
The briskly-paced film follows the trio as Kinkaid must bring them on a three-day journey back to local authorities. Along the way, Billy pulls out every psychological tool to manipulate Mae into helping him affect an escape- including seducing the bounty hunter. Until this point, we no nothing about Kincaid's background but over a campfire chat, Mae gets him to divulge that his silent and sullen demeanor is due to tragic circumstances that affected his wife and young son. Mae, on the other hand, dismisses Kincaid's warnings that she is nothing but a sexual plaything to Billy and that he will drop her if he escapes instead of marrying her, as he has promised. She explains Billy had rescued her from a life of prostitution and she feels he has earned her trust. In addition to the challenge of keeping his two trail mates under constant watch, Kincaid is also being hunted by a group of murderous bounty hunters who are intent on killing Kincaid and his prisoners and then collecting the reward for turning in Billy's body to the sheriff.
"The Bounty Man" could have been a run-of-the-mill "B" western but it's
elevated in quality due to a smartly written, believable script by Jim
Byrnes and the more-than-competent direction by John Llewelyn Moxey, who had scored a massive ratings hit a couple of years earlier with "The Night Stalker". He milks some genuine suspense leading to a somewhat unexpected ending that avoids the cliches you are waiting for. The performances are all first-rate. Walker, sporting a mustache, has a lean and mean presence. He was generally cast as amiable big lugs but here he exudes a constant sense of menace. Ericson is excellent as the charismatic bad guy and Kidder displays the kind of likable on-screen persona that would lead her to stardom on the big screen. The most startling and impressive performance is by Richard Basehart as the leader of the skanky, almost insanely violent group of bounty hunters who makes their peers in "The Wild Bunch" look like they just stepped out of "Downton Abbey". Basehart usually played sophisticated men of authority but here he is unrecognizable in filthy clothes, stubble on his face and and bottle of booze perpetually carried in his hand.
The Kino Lorber DVD contains a valuable interview with John Llewelyn Moxey filmed shortly before his death earlier this year. He discusses his career in general and has good memories of making "The Bounty Man". The film may have been largely forgotten but Kino Lorber's release will please anyone who enjoys a good Western.
Los
Angeles, CA – This holiday season, every Universal
Pictures film from the most popular comedy duo of all time comes home
when Abbott and Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection
hits Blu-rayâ„¢ for the first time from Shout! Factory.
The Complete Universal Pictures Collection comes loaded
with bonus features, including 10 new audio commLentaries, a collectible book, and
a bonus disc with more than eight hours of content. Celebrating the 80th
anniversary of Abbott and Costello’s first film One Night in the Tropics, the
massive 15-disc set is the ultimate tribute to two of the funniest and most
enduring comedians in contemporary history.
Get ready to laugh out loud as this collection comes packed
with all 28 of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello’s iconic films from the height of
their popularity at Universal Pictures, spanning 1940-1965. Featuring their
most popular movies such as Buck Privates, Who Done It? and Abbott and Costello
Meet Frankenstein, this set is filled with some of the most hilarious routines
of all time including “Who’s on First?â€!
Long
before a carcharodon carcharias wreaked havoc on Amity Island in New York over
the July Fourth weekend in the 1970s, atomic blast activity in the 1940s
disrupted Mother Nature’s natural chain of events and Hollywood was all too
willing to jump on to the atomic admonition bandwagon, churning out fantastic
tales of miniscule creatures ballooning to hundreds of times their original
size and going medieval on their human counterparts. Gordon Douglas’s Them!
(1954) is my favorite film from this era and I find the overall tone of the
film to be creepy even today. I was eleven when I first saw it and the sight of
oversized, monstrous ants (resulting from nearby military atomic bomb tests) terrorizing
LA from deep within the Los Angeles Riverbed was truly unnerving. James
Whitmore impressed me in his role as the police officer who was determined to
save two small boys captured by the formidable Formicidae. Years later I found
myself smirking when he appeared in the Miracle-Gro lawn ads in the early
1990’s, imagining that the substance would bring these creatures up from the
grass.
Although
the film runs a mere 69 minutes, and the titular monster appears 31 minutes
into the film and stomps around for roughly the remaining 20, there is a great
of deal of dialog and explaining of the scenario at hand. Much of this “actionâ€
is slow in nature, the tell-tale signs of a film on a very low budget. The
acting is what one would expect from a B-movie. Desperate fishermen complain of
dead fish at the height of the season and demand that an answer for the crisis
be forthcoming. Karnes and Bickford are portrayed as intelligent, well-meaning
and earnest investigators determined to unravel the mystery that is plaguing
the area. When the word “radioactive†is used, my thoughts harken back to The
Firm’s 1985 top 40 hit of the same name. The film makes a good double feature
with the aforementioned Beast if for no other reason than to compare the
two.
Few would argue that George C. Scott was one of the greatest actors of stage and screen. His presence in even a mediocre movie elevated its status considerably and his work as the nutty general in "Dr. Strangelove" was described by one critic as "the comic performance of the decade". When Scott won his well-deserved Oscar for Best Actor in "Patton" (which he famously refused), he seemed to be on a roll. His next film, the darkly satirical comedy "The Hospital" predicted the absurdities of America's for-profit health care system in which the rich and the poor were taken care of, with everyone else falling in between. The film earned Scott another Best Actor Oscar nomination despite his snubbing of the Academy the previous year. From that point, however, Scott's choice of film roles was wildly eclectic. There were some gems and plenty of misfires that leads one to believe he was motivated as much by commerce as artistic expression. One of his worst films, the 1974 crime comedy "The Bank Shot", has been released on Blu-ray with a gorgeous transfer by Kino Lorber. If only the film itself lived up to the quality of the transfer. It's pretty hard to bungle a comedic crime caper. Alec Guinness used to knock out classics like "The Lavender Hill Mob" , "Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "The Ladykillers" seemingly in his sleep. In the 1970s Hollywood studios were enamored of the works by novelist Donald E. Westlake, whose books provided ample fodder for lightweight caper comedies such as "The Hot Rock" and "Cops and Robbers", both of which had much to recommend about them. Not so with "The Bank Shot". Not having read the novel, it's possible that it had plenty of merits, but suffice it to say that the film's director, Gower Champion, and his equally estimable screenwriter, Wendall Mayes, needed to provide a light hand in transferring it to the screen. Instead, they ended up with a lead foot.
Scott plays Walter Ballentine, a notorious and famous heist master whose last caper went awry. When we first see him he's serving a life sentence in a desert prison camp run by his arch nemesis, a lawman named Streiger (Clifton James, essentially recreating his role as dopey Sheriff J.W. Pepper from "Live and Let Die", with the addition of constantly smoking foot-long Churchill cigars.) Ballentine receives a brief visit from one of his confederates in crime, Al Karp (Sorrell Booke), who informs him that he has a plan to help him break out of the prison camp with the intention of joining his new gang. He sneaks Walter the plans for an audacious caper in which the gang will put a small Los Angeles bank on a set of wheels and literally steal it by attaching it to a truck and driving it away. In the first of many preposterous scenes, Ballentine manages to break out of prison using a Caterpillar earth mover and despite the fact that the vehicle moves about fast as a real caterpillar, the police are unable to catch up with him. He meets up with El (Joanna Cassidy), a bored rich beauty who is financing the caper seemingly out of boredom. She and Ballentine meet up with Karp and several other misfits who will work together to pull off the robbery. In order for even a nutball comedy premise to work it has to have its roots in some sense of believability. However the screenplay asks us to believe so many far-fetched premises that is never remotely believable. As with all similar films, the initial stages of the caper go well only to have unexpected twists of fate threaten to thwart the best laid plans of the lovable culprits. Why George C. Scott chose to be involved in this modest enterprise is anyone's guess but it may have been the rare opportunity to work with director Gower Champion, a legend for his work on Broadway. Champion only directed two feature films in his life (the other being the little-remembered 1963 romantic comedy "My Six Loves") and its equally puzzling as to why "The Bank Shot" lured Champion back to the film industry after a full decade. In any event, Champion is the main culprit for the film's failures. He seems determined to recreate the screwball comedies of the Keystone Cops era. Supporting characters dress absurdly, wear ludicrous disguises and the actors who portray them are encouraged to chew the scenery with over-the-top performances. (Among the other talents victimized by Champion's direction is young Bob Balaban.) Even Scott doesn't emerge unscathed- he sports exaggerated eyebrows that make him resemble Leonid Brezhnev. Champion goes for belly laughs but most fall embarrassingly flat, like that drunk at a party who tries to get laughs by dancing about with a lampshade on his head. You desperately want to like "The Bank Shot" and occasionally there are a few genuine chuckles to be found amidst the debris, which is all set to a jaunty score by John Morris. However the only crime worth remembering from this caper is that people wasted their money to see it in theaters.
The Blu-ray release contains an original trailer that features original footage of Joanna Cassidy in a bathtub that plays up the sexual aggressiveness of her character in the film. There is also a trailer for the far superior "Cops and Robbers", which is also available from Kino Lorber. Kudos to the company for retaining the wonderful poster art by Jack Davis for the sleeve.
It's that time of year, Cinema Retro fans! We're about to enter our 16th year of publishing with issue #46, which for the first time boasts a Duke Wayne cover. Now is a great time to support the world's most unique film magazine by subscribing or renewing for issues #46, 47 and 48 so you can enjoy a full year of our in-depth look at films of the 1960s and 1970s. Issue #46 ships to subscribers in the UK and Europe this month and in January to all other parts of the world.
