BY LEE PFEIFFER

Actor Rip Torn has died at age 88. He was a volatile figure in the entertainment industry, known for his sometimes bizarre behavior as well as his brilliant performances. A native Texan, he gravitated to  New York City in the 1950s where he studied under Lee Strasberg at the legendary Actors Studio. He was championed by director Elia Kazan, who gave Torn high profile roles in his stage and film productions. Torn gained major acclaim with a Tony-nominated performance on Broadway in "Sweet Bird of Youth", a role he would reprise in the 1963 film version. Torn's film career occasionally saw him attain leading man status but he remained a highly acclaimed supporting actor throughout his career. His feature films include "A Face in the Crowd", "Baby Doll", "The Cincinnati Kid", "Pork Chop Hill", "King of Kings", "Beach Red", "Coming Apart", "Tropic of Cancer", "Crazy Joe", "The Man Who Fell to Earth", "Coma" and the 1983 film "Cross Creek', for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. For the 1968 thriller "Sol Madrid", Torn was called upon at the last minute by MGM to play the villain opposite David McCallum after John Cassavettes, who had originally filmed the role became very ill the day before shooting the finale, thus causing all of his scenes to be reshot with Torn. Later in his career, he made a splash with his appearances as the quirky intelligence chief in the "Men in Black" films and won fine notices for Albert Brooks' comedy "Defending Your Life". In the 1990s, Torn's television career soared to new heights with his recurring role on HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show", which would see him nominated for six Emmys. He would later earn more Emmy nominations for his role on the "30  Rock" sitcom. Roles earlier work in television included "Playhouse 90", "Ben Casey", "Combat!", "Dr. Kildare", "Rawhide", "Bonanza", "Mannix" and "Columbo". He had one of his most memorable roles in a 1965 two-part episode of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E" titled "The Alexander the Greater Affair" in which he played a villain who wants to attain power by systematically breaking each of the Ten Commandments in order.

(Above: Torn on the set of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." with Dorothy Provine and David McCallum.) 

Despite his success in the entertainment business, Torn was a man who had many personal demons that affected his life and career. He was originally cast in the role that gained Jack Nicholson stardom in "Easy Rider" but he had a falling out with the film's star and director, Dennis Hopper, who stated publicly that Torn lost the role because he had pulled a knife on him over dinner, an accusation that Torn refuted and ultimately won a libel case over. However, he was known for erratic behavior and in a bizarre 2010 incident he was arrested after breaking into a bank. Nevertheless, Torn's legacy as one of the most reliable and interesting character actors of his generation remains intact.

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In the 1960s and 1970s there was an explosion of sex in the cinema as filmmakers, making the most of new-found freedoms, tried to compensate for decades of self-censorship in the industry. Much of the sex depicted on screen was pure exploitation, to be sure, but some of it was profound and resulted in the first truly adult looks at sexual relationships to be shown to mainstream audiences, at least since the silent and early sound era before the dreaded Hays Code of censorship was imposed. Films such as Last Tango in Paris, The Night Porter and The Devils were extremely controversial in their day with some critics acclaiming them as cinematic classics while others denounced them as high class pornography masquerading as art. Nevertheless, sexual content in films has traditionally pushed the envelope. However, in recent years- with a few exceptions primarily seen in art house releases- it has diminished in major studio releases. Ann Hornaday, film critic for the Washington Post, is not happy about it. She posits that studios are concentrating on big blockbusters that present sex in a pure vanilla, watered-down manner that is calculated not to offend. She misses films such as Body Heat and Fatal Attraction that combined compelling plots with sensuality. She says that when filmed with skill, sex scenes can play a key role in making movies not only memorable but artistic as well. Click here to read.

BY TODD GARBARINI

The year 1976 was a phenomenal time for films that went into production. George Lucas’s space opera, Star Wars began principal photography in March; Steven Spielberg, fresh off the success of Jaws, was given carte blanche to bring Close Encounters of the Third Kind to the screen and began shooting in May; and Dario Argento, who became emboldened by the financial success of his latest and arguably best film to date, Profundo Rosso (known in the U.S. as Deep Red), embarked upon Suspiria, a murder mystery involving a dance school hiding in plain sight while housing a coven of witches, which began filming in July. Horror author Clive Barker once described this supernatural extravaganza as what you would imagine a horror film to be like if you weren’t allowed to see it. I believe that this is a good description of what is unquestionably one of the most frightening, entertaining and colorful horror films ever made. Suspiria was edited for its American theatrical exhibition due to some graphic violence that many would have considered shocking for its day. Distributor 20^th Century Fox was reportedly so embarrassed by the film that they created a subsidiary company, International Classics, to release it three months after their phenomenally successful Star Wars, another film they had no faith in.

Suspiria opened in New York on Friday, August 12, 1977 at the long-gone Criterion on 45^th and Broadway before branching out to additional theaters. It’s the first in a trilogy concerning the nature of Death (Inferno (1980) and The Mother of Tears (2007) are the second and third parts, respectively). The film’s quad-syllabic title quite understandably leaves those who attempt to say it tongue-tied (it’s pronounced sus-PEER-ee-ah). The word itself has its origins in Latin and roughly translates into “sighs” or “whispers” and the film is based upon the writings of British essayist Thomas De Quincey. His most famous work, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, was published in 1822. Twenty-three years later he published Suspiria de Profundis which is Latin for “Sighs from the Depths” and is a collection of essays, the most famous of which is Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow which Mr. Argento used as the source material for his trilogy.

In Suspiria, Suzy Bannion, played by doe-eyed Jessica Harper (who was Woody Allen’s girlfriend at the time and passed on Annie Hall because she wanted to go to Italy), arrives in Frieberg, Germany to begin dance lessons at the famous Tanz Academie (the architecture is copied from Haus zum Walfisch in Freiberg). From the film’s opening frames, we already know that we are in uncharted territory as the images are bathed in diffused primary colors. Upon her arrival at the airport, things are already not what they seem. Once she leaves the premises and the glass doors close behind her, she enters a fairy tale in the form of an unusually violent thunderstorm. Hitching a ride from a taxi driver played by Argento regular Fulvio Mingozzi (min-GOATS-see), who worked for the director no less than ten times in both film and television episodes, she makes her way to the school (as a side-note, eagle-eyed viewers can see the director’s reflection in the glass partition in the taxi 3:31 minutes into the film and it lasts for two seconds. He appears, with a large smile on his face, in the lower left-hand corner of the screen).

Just as she arrives, a hysterical woman, Pat Hingle (Eva Axen), appears on the school’s doorstep and makes an unintelligible proclamation before bolting into the deluge-swept streets. Suzy carps with a woman on the intercom, pleading for entry and refuge from the torrential rain. When she’s denied, she re-enters the taxi and rides through the Black Forest, catching a glimpse of Pat as she runs, attempting to make her way past the trees. What could possibly have set her off on such a perilous journey?

Pat makes her way to her friend Sonia’s (Susanna Javicoli) apartment, hesitant to disclose what she has come to learn about the school. In what is considered Argento’s finest hour and the film’s most disturbing and celebrated sequence, Pat is violently stabbed by some inhuman creature with hairy arms and long black fingernails and is thrown through a stained-glass window, the shards of which also kill Sonia. It’s been compared with the shower scene in Psycho (1960) for pure shock effect, though this one is much more graphic.

The calm following the storm reveals a strange faculty staff consisting of lead ballet teacher Ms. Tanner (Alida Valli), headmistress Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett), pianist Daniel (Flavio Bucci), and Pavlos (Giuseppe Transocchi) the handyman. Suzy is told by the headmistress that one of their expelled students, Pat, was murdered by a madman the night before. Wouldn’t that be enough to send one packing their bags? The same scenario plays out for Jennifer Connelly in the director’s other macabre coming-of-age horror film, Phenomena (1985), and the information in that film is met with nothing more than a smile and silence. Unbeknownst to Suzy, the school is a front for a coven of witches who hold black masses within the massive building’s stealthy labyrinths. Her suspicions that all is not right with the school become confirmed when people around her suddenly disappear or are killed off. Like previous Argento protagonists, Suzy plays sleuth to gain insight into the bizarre goings-on, especially the teachers’ concerted effort to hide the directress’s presence from her. When she teams up with Sarah (Stefania Casini) to find out more about one Helena Markos, more people begin to die as Suzy learns of a shocking secret that lies behind an imperceptible door.

Suspiria’s simple premise permits Mr. Argento to stage some of the most shocking and elaborate death sequences of his career, all performed in-camera (that is without the use of opticals or blue-screen technology used later in post-production). The Italian progressive rock band Goblin provides a phenomenal score that, unbelievably, was composed before filming began and was played on the film’s soundstages during shooting to maximize the effect on the performers. It’s an astonishing concoction with shrieks, whispers and wails, which I always assumed to be non-diegetic in nature, acting almost as a macabre precursor to the far more relaxing Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos that have taken YouTube by storm.

Mr. Argento has also put together an eclectic cast, the bulk of whom are women. Joan Bennett, who appeared in Fritz Lang’s coincidentally titled Secret Beyond the Door… with Michael Redgrave (1947) as well as her stint on Dark Shadows, provides the proper amount of sinister air that the film requires. Alida Valli is terrific as Miss Tanner, the “stern and surly” ballet teacher, arguably the most memorable in the cast. Jessica Harper, fresh off her role as Phoenix in Brian DePalma’s wildly entertaining Phantom of the Paradise (1974), appears naïve but turns out to be anything but as she goes to greater-than-usual lengths to uncover The Big Secret.

Suspiria is unique in that it was shot on Eastman Kodak film but printed using the now-defunct three-strip Technicolor dye transfer process which divided the negative into three individual color bands of red, green, and blue. By manipulating the intensities of these primary colors both on the set and in the lab, cinematographer Luciano Tovoli was able to create some truly horrific and stunning images. The set design is garish, colorful and must be seen to be believed. The color scheme seems to have been inspired by Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) and dance film aficionados will likely also think of Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell’s stunning 1948 technicolor film The Red Shoes and their follow-up, 1951’s The Tales of Hoffman (George A. Romero’s favorite film), but the story seems inspired by Chicho Ibáñez-Serrador’s La Residencia, a terrific horror opus from 1970 which pits the borstal’s headmistress, Senora Fourneau (played brilliantly by Lilli Palmer), against a school of young women in need of reform. There is a predatory air about Fourneau that carries over to Ms. Tanner in Suspiria. A case might even be made that Ms. Tanner is a psychological cinematic equivalent of the malevolent and sadistic Mrs. Wakehurst in Peter Walker’s House of Whipcord (1974). La Residencia has appeared under such titles as The Finishing School, The Boarding School and here in the States as The House That Screamed when it was released on a double-bill with Anthony M. Lanza’s The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant in July 1971.

BY JOHN M. WHALEN

Kino Classics and the film preservationists at France’s Lobster Films have dug up three interesting, if obscure, old “classics” that, if nothing else, definitely would have qualified for presentation on Art Fern’s old Tea Time Movie skits from Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show". Names like Helen Twelvetrees, William Farnum, J. Farrell MacDonald, Lowell Sherman, Wade Boteler, Louis Wolheim, and Evelyn Brent appear in the films gathered together here on one disc under the title, “RKO Classic Adventures.”

The first is “The Painted Desert” (1931) starring Helen Twelvetrees and Bill Boyd (who at this early date had not yet played Hopalong Cassidy, and went by Bill rather than William). The story starts out as a cross between John Ford’s “3 Godfathers” and Sam Peckinpah’s “Ballad of Cable Hogue.” Cash Holbrook (William Farnum) and Jeff Cameron (J. Farrell MacDonald) are two cowboys who discover an abandoned wagon in the Arizona desert containing a baby boy. The two argue over who will take care of him, with Holbrook pulling a gun on his partner and riding off with the infant. Cameron intends to stay put on the spot where he found the boy because it’s got the only water between town and the railroad. Years go by and the two men become bitter enemies. Cameron married and had a daughter, Mary (Helen Twelvetrees), while Holbrook raised the boy, now called Bill. You don’t need much imagination to figure out what’s going to happen with this set up. However, a complication arises, when Clark Gable, in his first talkie appearance, shows up as a drifter named Rance Brett and takes a job on Cameron’s spread. He has eyes for Mary. There’s an interesting subplot regarding a mining operation that unites the two old enemies temporarily only to have it blow up in their faces, literally.

“The Pay-Off” (1930) is, as Kino’s liner notes say, “a cool-minded gangster movie directed by and starring Lowell Sherman as an honorable mobster in a dishonorable racket.” Sherman was a popular star in the silent era and on stage, often playing suave villains. He directed films starring Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo. In “The Pay-Off,” he’s Gene Fenmore, the head of a jewelry heist ring. His main problem is keeping control of his gang. His leadership is being challenged by younger and ruthless rival, Rocky (Hugh Trevor). Rocky has no scruples about robbing a young couple he accosts in a park when he learns they have $250 they intend to use to get married. The kids turn the tables on him however because they recognize him and follow him to Fenmore’s apartment where the gang is meeting (Pretty nervy of them, I’d say!) The kids bumble the attempt to get their money back and Rocky wants to waste them but Fenmore has a soft spot for the youngsters and takes them under his wing. Things go bad when Rocky, unknown to Fenmore, turns the young couple into the fall guys in a jewelry store heist. It’s a lot of sentimental hooey from there, but has a certain charm.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Writing on the site Pocket, Ian Frazier presents a short but insightful article about the mysterious things that bond people together in fear. Sensibly, he posits that no matter how awful crimes may be, we can ultimately learn to deal with their aftermath because we can make sense of them. They have been committed by a person or people. But what of those things that go "bump" in the night? Frazier's article doesn't relate to films but the point he makes is easily transferable to an appreciation of the horror/suspense film genres. Most contemporary movies achieve depicting horrible images but they are not necessarily suspenseful. For my money, films such as Robert Wise's The Haunting and Jack Clayton's The Innocents deliver the goods because there is an ambiguity about what we see or don't see. Both films are classic haunted house tales but we are never quite certain whether the allusions to the supernatural are simply illusions. Once in a while, the film industry still gets it right, as in the case of The Blair Witch Project, which tantalizingly leaves any sensible explanation for the horrific events shrouded in mystery. Even those of us who are skeptics about the existence of the supernatural will have to confess that there are times when we have let our imagination get the better of us. Who among us can't relate some eerie circumstance that we have yet to find a way to deal with? If you are home alone late at night during a bad storm (speaking of cliches!) and you hear a thumping coming from the attic, it's only a bothersome noise if you recall there was a loose shutter on the window that you keep forgetting to repair. However, if there isn't a loose shutter, the sound can represent something more ominous precisely because it is what you can't see or explain that really scares the bejesus out of us. Click here to read Ian Frazier's article.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

BURT LANCASTER, a four-week, 37-film festival spotlighting one of the 20th century’s brightest stars, will run at Film Forum from Friday, July 19 to Thursday, August 15 – kicking off with a one-week run of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers, starring Ava Gardner and Lancaster, playing in a new 4K restoration, July 19 – 25.

Burt Lancaster (1913-1994), a street kid from East Harlem, got a late start in pictures in his mid-30s – after a brief stint in the circus, serving in World War II, and appearing on Broadway (where he was discovered by agent and future producing partner Harold Hecht) – but his star personality, among the most powerful in film history, was there from the beginning: from the doom-laden twisted hunk in films noir (The Killers, Brute Force, I Walk Alone, Sorry, Wrong Number, Criss Cross, Desert Fury); to the grinning hot dog in spoof adventure films (The Flame and the Arrow, Trapeze, The Crimson Pirate, Apache); to the sleaziest of con men (The Rainmaker), Nazi collaborator (Judgement at Nuremberg), and tabloid columnist (Sweet Smell of Success); to a stalwart leader of men (Twilight’s Last Gleaming); to an idealistic fanatic (Elmer Gantry); to a supremely dignified icon of another age.

Ranked among the top box office stars of the 1950s and 60s, Lancaster was also a pioneering independent producer. Forming Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions in 1948 gave him the ability to choose his own projects (including Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, The Flame and the Arrow, The Crimson Pirate, Apache, Trapeze, Sweet Smell of Success, Run Silent, Run Deep, The Young Savages, Birdman of Alcatraz, and more). Nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for Elmer Gantry, Lancaster’s successful five-decade career placed him at #19 on AFI’s list of the 50 Greatest Male Screen Legends.

“His vitality was more than cheerfulness or strength;
he seemed charged with power.”
– David Thomson

BURT LANCASTER has been programmed by Bruce Goldstein,
Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming.

Click here for programming information.

 

In contemporary cinema, it would appear that virtually every major action film is based on super hero from the comic book universe. Yet, decades ago, superhero flicks were considered to be a dicey bet by most major studios, despite the success of Christopher Reeve Superman films, which had been deemed as having run out of steam. All of that changed with the 1989 release of Tim Burton's dark, revisionist interpretation of Batman. Writing in The Washington Post, Michael Cavna explores how the success and influence of that film led to the glut of superhero blockbusters we are seeing today. Click here to read.

“A PINT OF BRITISH NOIR”

By Raymond Benson

Film noir wasn’t just relegated to American Hollywood films of the forties and fifties. It was something of an international movement, albeit an unconscious one, for it wasn’t until the late fifties that some critics in France looked back at the past two decades of crime pictures and proclaimed, “Oui! Film noir!”

Britain was doing it, too. Carol Reed’s 1947 IRA-thriller-that-isn’t-an-IRA-thriller Odd Man Out is one of the best examples of the style. Robert Krasker’s black and white cinematography pulls in all the essential film noir elements—German expressionism, high contrasts between dark and light, and tons of shadows. Other noir trappings are present, such as stormy weather, night scenes, exterior locations, bars, shabby tenements, a lot of smoking, and a crime. And, for a movie to be “pure noir,” there must not be a happy ending. Odd Man Out fulfills that last requirement with shocking bravura.

James Mason stars as Johnny, the leader of “the organization” in an unnamed Northern Ireland city; it isn’t difficult to connect the dots and assume the organization is the IRA and the city is probably someplace like Belfast (where much of the second unit photography was done on the sly; the rest of the film was shot in studios and locations in England). Johnny escaped from prison a few months back and has been in hiding, secluded in a house with his girlfriend Kathleen (the beautiful Kathleen Ryan) for months. He has gathered a small gang to rob a mill for money to support their cause. The problem is that Johnny has gone a bit “soft,” and isn’t properly prepared for the job. Nevertheless, the four men pull off the caper, but of course it goes wrong. Johnny is shot in the shoulder, he unwittingly kills a man in self defense, and he is separated from the other gang members. The rest of the film is a D.O.A.-style story of the next twenty-four hours or so as Johnny eludes capture from the police on the streets, all the while losing blood and his life. So we know he’s probably not going to make it and we wait for the inevitable—but what happens until that fateful ending (which manages to surprise us anyway with an unexpected twist in how it’s done) is incredibly suspenseful.

Odd Man Out is one of the most engaging and thrilling British films of the 20th Century. Period. It certainly rivals Reed’s The Third Man, which is also an excellent model of British noir. Mason is terrific as he stumbles around the streets, delusional and suffering, practically bouncing from one obstacle to another with no safe haven in sight. Other familiar British and Irish faces crop up—Robert Newton, Cyril Cusack, Dan O’Herlihy, F. J. McCormick—and Kubrick fans might recognize a younger Paul Farrell (the tramp from A Clockwork Orange) as a bartender named Sam.

Criterion’s high-definition digital restoration looks marvelous, naturally. Once again, the company’s mastering for Blu-ray outdoes the competition. The image is sharp and without blemishes for the most part, and appears as if the film was made yesterday. Extras include a new interview with British cinema scholar John Hill on the picture; “Postwar Poetry,” a new short documentary; a new interview with music scholar Jeff Smith about composer William Alwyn and his gorgeous score; a nearly-hour-long 1972 documentary featuring James Mason revisiting his hometown in Ireland; and a radio adaptation of the film from 1952, starring Mason and O’Herlihy. The essay in the booklet is by critic Sara Smith.

All of these supplements are very good, but the reason to run out and buy this Blu-ray release is the film itself. Odd Man Out is a landmark crime picture with wonderfully eccentric Irish characters, lush atmosphere, and film noir traits galore. Highly recommended.

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Writing on the Thrillist web site, Jennifer M. Wood presents an excellent article outlining 50 major films that were initially rated X but which were not pornographic. Her analysis dates back to the early days of the American ratings system when "X" initially just meant adult fare that children could not be admitted to view. Acclaimed films such as "Midnight Cowboy" and "Last Tango in Paris" were released under the "X" rating but ultimately the porn industry made the "X" synonymous with hardcore sex films. Eventually, the studios adopted the "NC-17" rating in the hope that it would revive interest in mainstream, adult fare that had an edge to it, but ultimately the strategy largely failed. Some of the classic movies initially rated "X" or "NC-17" were ultimately re-rated to "R" including a 1994 re-release of "The Wild Bunch"!

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Writing in the Washington Post, Sonny Bunch mourns the loss of Blockbuster Video and similar "box stores" that were reviled in their day for driving smaller businesses into oblivion. True, the mom and pop video rental stores begat Blockbuster, which dominated neighborhoods by presenting thousands of videos for rental. No small corner video shop could compete. Then streaming services rendered Blockbuster obsolete, just as Amazon did the same to local, independent book stores. But Bunch makes a poignant case to look back on the box store era with some degree of nostalgia. He points out that without browsing aisles of videos and books, consumers are largely unaware of interesting titles that are available. Gone is the day of the "impulse buy". He also extols the sheer pleasure of walking down aisles packed with titles of interest and perusing whether you should take one home. It's the nature of public sentiment to long for eras that have passed. Yes, streaming is here to stay...but I wouldn't rule out a comeback for neighborhood video stores. Remember, vinyl was deemed to be dead when the CD was introduced and the CD was deemed to be dead when streaming music entered the picture. Instead, vinyl is enjoying the kind of success it hasn't seen since the 1970s and Wal-Marts and Target stores still have racks packed with thousands of CDs.  Click here to read the article.

BY MARK MAWSTON

The title for this in-depth documentary couldn’t be more apt. Is there anyone who can’t remember the impact the famous chest buster scene had on them when it first burst (pun intended) onto the screen in Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien before those indelible images became etched into cinema folklore? I doubt it.

We all know that this is the key scene and idea that one takes away from Alien and the premise of which literally got the film green light to go into production. However, although MEMORY: The Origins of Alien spends a great deal of time dissecting this scene, it’s the back stories that fascinate, especially those regarding the film’s original writer Dan O’Bannon. O’Bannon has been the subject of several reappraisals of late regarding the franchise, especially in regard to how much he contributed to the style of the film. The look is total Ridley Scott but the words on which Scott based his visuals are those of the onetime John Carpenter collaborator. Of that, the documentary proves, there is no doubt (at least in the opinion of this writer). O’Bannon’s involvement on the unfinished Jodorowsky version of Dune is explored in this highly academic documentary. The film looks at the lyrical inspirations that made Alien such a classic; from Lovecraft to Shakespeare, from Francis Bacon to the inimitable H.R. Giger, whose Necronomicon book read like a storyboard for Alien and served as an inspiration for the movie’s young, visionary director.

The documentary’s pacing matches that of the initial films and mirrors the fact that we have taken time to get to know these characters and what makes them tick before they embark into the unknown. Scott is seen memorably, albeit briefly, as the artist but its O’Bannon and Giger who come across as the poets of the piece. My one complaint, which could also be taken as a compliment, is that the film seems to end all too abruptly after the in-depth coverage of the said chest buster scene. I’d really have liked to have seen more regarding this scene both in front of and behind the camera. This detailed examination of a specific scene is obviously director Alexandre O. Philippe’s strong point, as evidenced in his excellent film 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene. But I’d really have liked to have seen more on what the chest buster evolved into; a creature that took its place in the upper echelons of horror along with the likes of Frankenstein. Saying that, however, it’s hard to fault this documentary as it brings new pathos to the Alien franchise and shows us all that Alien, both the creature and the film, is the sum of many parts. The film has always held a special place in my heart as it was the first X cert I saw at the cinema (underage and overexcited after seeing the film’s amazing teaser trailer a few months before). To have such an in-depth and concise documentary on this milestone is like being handed the missing piece from the jigsaw that took so long to build but was left on a shelf until the full picture could be seen. Anyone who is a fan of the franchise should see this, as should any serious scholar of the art of the moving image. I’ve always said that the original Alien was more of a ghost train ride than an out and out horror or science fiction movie but this film shows just how much work goes into setting that ride up. This really is a treasure chest(buster) of a documentary that all fans should see.

(MEMORY: The Origins of Alien arrives in UK cinemas on 30 August and on-demand 2 September.)

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" was based on his own hit Broadway play that opened in 1971 and ran for two years. It starred Peter Falk and Lee Grant. The play resonated with audiences of the era even though it was an unusually dark piece for Simon, reflecting the social decay of New York City during this period. Those factors were still very much in evidence in films of the era when Simon rather reluctantly agreed to bring his play to the big screen in 1975. He felt the material was too disturbing for his core audience but conceded to write the screenplay himself. He also trusted Melvin Frank as director, as Frank had a long history of helming hit comedies with broad appeal. Simon was also enthused about the decision to cast Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft for the film version. Two of his greatest screen successes- "The Odd Couple" and "The Out ofTowners" - had starred Lemmon and Simon was looking forward to working with Bancroft for the first time. In many ways, "Second Avenue" resembles the latter film in that the script steamrolls over the city that Simon called home at a time when there was a malaise among Gotham's residents due to soaring crime, financial instability and racial divisions. In "The Out of Towners", Lemmon and Sandy Dennis played a couple visiting New York City who are besieged by a series of potentially tragic accidents and crimes that Simon deftly plays out to comic effect. In "Second Avenue", Lemmon and Bancroft deal with essentially the same scenarios from the standpoint of proud New Yorkers who refuse to relent to the on-going urban chaos even as it encroaches on their day-to-day existence.

Lemmon is cast as Mel Edison, a middle-aged executive for a failing corporation, who copes with the depressing atmosphere of a company in which everyone is sitting around waiting to be fired. He's already high-strung and perpetually whining about the deteriorating conditions in the once tony apartment he shares with his loyal and ever-patient wife Edna (Anne Bancroft). The elevators to their 14th floor apartment conk out routinely, the water supply is erratic, as is the air conditioning, the doorman (M. Emmet Walsh) is greedy and inept, two female flight attendants next door keep Mel and his wife awake all night by having noisy sex with their lovers and Mel is constantly in a verbal feud with his upstairs neighbors who he shouts at from his balcony below. Topping it all off, their apartment is ransacked and robbed.  All this unfolds amidst a summer heat wave. Mel's depression goes into overdrive when the inevitable happens and he gets fired. Unable to find work, Edna has to return to her profession as an assistant for theatrical productions, something that further diminishes Mel's sense of self-worth. (This was the mid-1970s, after all, the era of Archie Bunker ruling the roost.) Adding to Mel's woes are periodic interactions with his older brother Harry (actor/director Gene Saks in a deft comedic turn), who ostensibly wants to help Mel. However, Harry can't help reminding Mel about how much more successful he is than his kid brother, thus opening old wounds between the two that extend back to their troubled childhoods.

There's a lot going on in "Second Avenue" in terms of exploring relationships and dealing with social issues on a far deeper basis than one might expect from a Neil Simon comedy. For much of the film, Lemmon's Mel is an unsympathetic whiner who engages in verbal tirades against the long-suffering Edna while also indulging in endless bouts of self-pity. Moping around the apartment alone, he turns to talk radio and becomes an adherent to the wacky political conspiracies espoused by crackpot show hosts, thus proving that some things never change. Just when the character becomes insufferable, Simon's script cleverly reverses the situation by having Mel calm down after seeking psychiatric care and Edna become a monstrous, whining presence in the house when she has to absorb the full burden of long work hours and financial responsibility. Ultimately, we see these are two good, loving people just trying to survive in the urban jungle and there is an uplifting ending (sorta).

“A MESMERIZING BATTLE OF WILLS”

By Raymond Benson

Some say the year 1939 was the “greatest year of cinema,” and, sure, there were many memorable titles released then that remain classics today. I argue, though, that 1962 was even better. Lawrence of Arabia. To Kill a Mockingbird. Dr. No. The Longest Day. The Manchurian Candidate. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The Music Man. Jules and Jim. And there was also Arthur Penn’s The Miracle Worker.

Based on the stage play by William Gibson (who also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay), The Miracle Worker contains two of the most astonishing performances ever put on celluloid. Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke both deservedly won Oscars for their roles, respectively, as the teacher Annie Sullivan and the remarkable Helen Keller as a young girl. The pair light up the screen in intimate, physically-demanding scenes that become a mesmerizing battle of wills—which is what it took for Sullivan to teach Keller the fundamentals of communication.

The play was based on Keller’s own autobiography; as far as we know, the play and film are accurate depictions of what really happened. For those who are unaware, Helen Keller was born in the late 1800s and contracted scarlet fever, rendering her deaf and blind. When she was seven years old, a tutor for such afflicted children, Annie Sullivan (who was also partially blind), was hired by the family to perform what certainly became a miracle.

The process was long and grueling. Most of the story is made up of literal fights between the two, as the stubborn Keller rebels and the equally tenacious Sullivan brawls back. In one celebrated scene around a dining table, the set is completely wrecked—but as Sullivan tells the Kellers afterwards—“her napkin is folded.” The scene took five days to film.

One reason that the actors are so good in the picture is that they had just completed a two-year run of the play on Broadway. They thoroughly knew the script and each other. The studio, at first, wanted to recast the role of Sullivan with a “bigger star” because Bancroft wasn’t one. They even offered a larger budget to Penn if he would cast Elizabeth Taylor. Even Duke’s participation was in question because by the time the film was made, she was sixteen. Penn, who was nominated for a Directing Oscar, kept to his guns and insisted that the Broadway cast be in the film or he wouldn’t do it. He got his way and history was made. Sure, one can quibble that Patty Duke was too old for the part, but in the end, who cares. She’s magnificent.

Olive Films has presented a new restored Blu-ray in a no-frills package that includes no supplements—just the film and a subtitle option. But seriously, it’s all you need.

Although it’s been remade twice as television movies (one with Duke playing Sullivan), the original Miracle Worker is a monumental achievement of writing, directing, and especially acting. It’s a must-see, must-have, must-relish motion picture.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

Film producer, director, and sometime actor Ewing Miles Brown, who was known affectionately to legions of performers and crew members in the industry as “Lucky” Brown, passed away from respiratory failure on Monday, May 27, 2019 at the age of 97 according to his personal friend of forty years, actor and film historian Douglas Dunning.

After making his acting debut in bit parts in the Our Gang shorts (which were later titled The Little Rascals for syndication), Mr. Brown followed up with a stint as the head editor at Emperor Films and was personally recruited by film producer and movie theater owner Robert L. Lippert to head up production. Dissatisfied with working for others, Lucky branched out on his own in the late 1950’s and started his own motion picture film company called Movie Tech Studios which he built from the ground up. It was one of the oldest independent movie studios in the United States which ceased operations last year just prior to his 97^th birthday. Lucky’s father, in fact, was the eponymous Dr. Brown, who was a personal doctor to the stars in the 1920’s through the 1940’s. He delivered Howard Hughes!

As an actor, Lucky’s career was extremely varied and far more extensive than the truncated list than the Internet Movie Database will lead one to believe. In 1976 he produced and directed A Whale of a Tale, the only family-oriented film that William Shatner made in his career. The film also starred Marty Allen and Andy Devine.

Lucky’s last film credit is in the unfinished production of Terror of the Gorgon which he directed as well as appears in. Mr. Dunning has stated that he will finish the film as a tribute to Lucky.

Lucky was also the last surviving cast member of George Stevens’s Shane (1953). He was a saddle buddy to Alan Ladd in the cattle drive sequence which ran an hour in length but was cut shortly after the film was previewed in 1953, reducing the film’s original three-hour running time to 118 minutes.

Lucky, a true Hollywood legend, will be sorely missed by those who knew him.

“SIM SIM SALA BIM!”

By Raymond Benson

If you were a young boy in America in 1964, you were probably glued to the television set on Friday evenings to watch the groundbreaking, imaginative, and superbly entertaining action-adventure science fiction animated prime time series, Jonny Quest. Okay, I’m sure some girls liked the show, too (my next-door neighbors did). Given the shortage of female characters on the show, though, Jonny Quest was a program that I would bet appealed mostly to boys.

Jonny Quest is an 11-year-old all-American boy who has an awesome life. He is the son of Dr. Benton Quest, a brilliant scientist who works for the U.S. government and has a laboratory, home, and compound on an island off the coast of Florida. Their bodyguard is “Race” Bannon, an American equivalent of James Bond, sort of, although he also acts as Jonny’s tutor. Hadji, an Indian boy the same age as Jonny, has been adopted into the Quest family. He is adept at exotic magic tricks and illusions (one of his frequent incantations is “Sim Sim Sala Bim!”). Rounding out the team is the pet bulldog, Bandit, who is more energetic than any bulldog I’ve ever seen. Whatever happened to Jonny’s mother is never explained. The only female characters are in minor roles (flight attendants and such) except for Jade, an exotic Asian spy who was apparently Race’s girlfriend at one time. She appears in only two episodes, though.

Launched by the team of Hanna-Barbera as their fourth prime time show (their first was The Flintstones), Quest broke all the norms of cartoons by presenting stories set in the real world with realistic human characters, gee-whiz technology, and pulp adventure tales. The series blended various genres—science fiction, horror, and mystery—as it followed the Quest family around the globe on exciting, government-sanctioned missions that brought them in contact with monsters, robots, villainous organizations, pirates, cannibals, and spies.

While Hanna and Barbera are credited as producer-directors and creators of the show, it was really comics artist Doug Wildey who came up with the concept and overall look of the series. His vision was inspired by the likes of Terry and the Pirates, Tom Swift, and even the first James Bond film, Dr. No. It was also firmly based in 1960s Cold War sensibility, and often the villains in the series reflected this attitude.

The gadgets, vehicles, and weaponry rivaled anything one might see in a Bond film at the time. Wildey apparently used popular science magazines from which to cull ideas for settings and props. The locales included faraway but real places that taught youngsters about Thailand, China, Egypt, or the Arctic. The writing was top-notch; the scripts were lessons in how to write a half-hour adventure story with a classic three act structure. The music by Hoyt Curtain was especially remarkable. For the first time, a kids animated show employed dynamic orchestral jazz with electric guitars and sassy brass—very much akin, again, to the Bond sound.

Although Jonny Quest was critically acclaimed and received good ratings, the show lasted only one season on ABC and was cancelled after 26 dynamic, beautifully rendered episodes. The series subsequently found new life in syndication on other networks, and later spawned spin-offs and sequels. But the original 1964-1965 edition will always remain the best and most innovative version.

When Warner Home Video released the series on DVD in 2004, there were some problems. For one, some episodes were censored by deleting dialogue that might today be deemed “politically incorrect.” Granted, when Tarzan-style Amazonian natives are about to eat Dr. Quest and a friend for dinner, and Race Bannon calls them “savages” and “monkeys,” that’s considered a bit racist.

Warner Archive now presents us with a high definition remastered and restored Blu-ray set that is the show as originally aired. In fact, a disclaimer on the back of the jewel case says that the series is “intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children.” Really? Even though 99% of its audience in 1964 were children? The show is 55 years old. Sensibilities were different then. One must place a classic program, be it a television series or a motion picture, within the context of when it was first seen. Aside for the 2 or 3 instances of “politically incorrect” dialogue, the 26 episodes of Jonny Quest is entirely suitable for kids.

The 1080p picture quality is outstanding. Colors are bold and beautiful, and the DTS-HD Master Audio sounds great in English 2.0 Mono. There are optional English subtitles.

The supplements are ported over from the earlier DVD set—featurettes on the making of the series and all the elements that made it a hit, and a pop-up trivia version of the episode “Double Danger.” There is also the rare vintage “PF Flyer Sneaker” Commercial that tied-in to the show. These are not in high definition.

My only nitpick with the new set is that there is no insert. The package could have used a booklet or one-pager listing all the episodes or other information. All you get are three disks and the jewel box.

That said, this is a marvelous set—for the, ahem, Adult Collector—that is a definite improvement over the DVD release. Jonny Quest will bring back fond memories for the Baby Boomer in all of us.

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Cinema Retro's columnist Adrian Smith examines the fascinating tales behind the late producer Enzo Rispoli's troubled "dream productions" dealing with Genghis Khan and a classic Russian novel, "Quiet Flows the Don". Along the way, Rispoli had wooed such disparate talents as Ken Annakin, Charlton Heston, Ernest Borgnine, Sergei Bondarchuk and Marcello Mastroianni. However, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and an unsteady situation with finances led to severe problems with both productions. "Quiet Flows the Don" was ultimately transformed into a mini-series for Russian television after receiving the approval of President Putin but Rispoli's son Nicholas is attempting to create a version of the film that will be more suitable for international audiences. He also hopes to be able to source financing that will allow him to finish the Khan project as a six-part television production so that the epic film will finally be seen by the public. Adrian Smith interviews Nicholas Rispoli and you can access the article by clicking here.

Cinema Retro has received the following press announcement:

Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in Los Angeles will be presenting the 45^th anniversary screening of Roman Polanski’s 1974 film Chinatown which itself takes place in the City of Angels. The film will be screened on Thursday, June 27^th, 2019 at 7:00 pm. Starring Jack Nicholson in one of the many classics that he made during that phenomenal decade, the film co-stars Faye Dunaway, John Houston, John Hillerman, Diane Ladd, and Bruce Glover. The film runs 131 minutes.

PLEASE NOTE:

The following cast/crew member(s) are scheduled at press time to appear in person, with the potential for more to be added to the list, so please check the Royal website link at the bottom for updates as the screening day draws closer:

Actor Bruce Glover (Hard Times, Walking Tall, Diamonds Are Forever, Ghost World)

Assistant director Hawk Koch

Author Sam Wasson

From the press release:

CHINATOWN

Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.

CHINATOWN (1974)
45th Anniversary Screening
Cast and Crew Q&A
Thursday, June 27 at 7 PM
Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of one of the most memorable films of the 70s, the neo-noir mystery thriller, Chinatown. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards in 1974 (including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor Jack Nicholson and Best Actress Faye Dunaway), the film won the Oscar for the original screenplay by Robert Towne. Although it was set in a beautifully recreated 1930s universe, the film reflected the bitter cynicism and disillusionment of the Vietnam and Watergate era.

Towne was a Los Angeles native, and he had long been fascinated by the history of the city, where the sun-dappled beauty belied the underlying greed and corruption. The inspiration for the story were the water wars that had shaped the modern life of the place. These struggles over the city’s natural resources had taken place in the first decade of the 20th century; Towne moved the setting up to the 1930s, partly in order to combine this scorching social commentary with the spirit of classic detective novels penned by authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Nicholson plays J.J. Gittes, a private eye who specializes in sordid cases of marital infidelity. But he gets himself into deeper territory when an investigation into a civic leader’s extramarital affair leads to the discovery of a massive conspiracy by big business interests to seize control of the city’s oveted water supply. Gittes’s sleuthing also leads him to uncover shocking cases of sexual abuse among the city’s elite. Dunaway plays a variation on the classic femme fatale of noir cinema, a beautiful heiress who is commanding on the surface but is secretly and tragically damaged by events in her past. John Huston plays her corrupt father, and the supporting cast includes John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, Diane Ladd, Burt Young, Bruce Glover, and James Hong.

Robert Evans, the successful head of Paramount Studios at the time, backed Towne’s screenplay and decided to make the film his first venture as a producer. When Evans took over as head of the studio in the 60s, one of his early successes was an adaptation of Ira Levin’s best-selling novel, Rosemary’s Baby, which became the first American movie of European director Roman Polanski. That film was a smash hit, and Evans hired Polanski again to direct Chinatown. Polanski had been reluctant to work in Hollywood since the murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, by the infamous Manson family in 1969. But Evans persisted and Polanski brought his knowledge of the underside of Hollywood to his depiction of the city’s past, even changing the ending of Towne’s screenplay to reflect his own deep pessimism.

The film’s technical team—including cinematographer John Alonzo, production designer Richard Sylbert, and costume designer Anthea Sylbert—helped to realize the writer and director’s vision of decay beneath the elegant surfaces of Southern California. Jerry Goldsmith’s sultry score, highlighted by a melancholy trumpet solo, clinched the mournful mood.

Variety praised the achievement: “Roman Polanski’s American-made film, his first since Rosemary’s Baby, shows him again in total command of talent and physical filmmaking elements.” Derek Malcolm of the London Evening Standard wrote, “Polanski’s telling of his tale of corruption in L.A. is masterly—thrilling, humorous and disturbing at the same time—and brilliantly played by John Huston and Faye Dunaway as well as Nicholson.” The film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1991.

Our panel to discuss the film will include actor Bruce Glover (Hard Times, Walking Tall, Diamonds Are Forever); assistant director Hawk Koch (who went on to produce such films as Heaven Can Wait, The Idolmaker, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Wayne’s World, and Primal Fear and later served as president of the Motion Picture Academy); and author Sam Wasson (who wrote the biography of Bob Fosse that served as the basis of the highly acclaimed miniseries, Fosse/Verdon, and is writing a new book on the seminal films of the 70s).

Director: Roman Polanski
Writer: Robert Towne
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, Burt Young, Bruce Glover, James Hong, Diane Ladd

The 45th anniversary screening of Chinatown will take place at the Royal Theatre, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025 on Thursday, June 27^th, 2019 at 7:00 pm.

Click here for tickets.

BY HANK REINEKE

When the revered folksinger and author Woody Guthrie passed away on October 3, 1967 – following a long, tragic battle with Huntington’s disease – his friends and colleagues were moved to celebrate his life and legacy with a tribute concert. The manager of Guthrie’s business affairs, Harold Leventhal, commissioned the blacklisted novelist and screenwriter Millard Lampell to re-work an old script he had earlier fashioned from Guthrie’s bountiful catalog of songs and prose. Lampell was well suited to the task, not merely an outsider looking in. In 1941 Lampell would co-found the Almanac Singers, the agit-prop folk music ensemble that featured Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and several others.

That original program, Woody Guthrie’s California to the New York Island, first broadcast on CBS-TV’s Camera 2 program in December 1965, would serve as the template for the proposed memorial Tribute to Woody Guthrie. The tribute concert would be staged twice with afternoon and evening’s performances at New York City’s Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1968. The Carnegie tributes would have likely sold out quickly without any impetus beyond the simple desire of celebrating Guthrie’s life and work. But when Leventhal announced that that the reclusive Bob Dylan – not seen on a concert stage since May 1966 – would be included on the tribute bill, both shows would sell out within hours of the ticket on-sale. Even without Dylan’s participation, the bill at Carnegie was formidable and featured the finest folksingers from the New York City scene: Seeger, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Odetta, Richie Havens and Tom Paxton. The evening program at Carnegie Hall was recorded from the venue’s house system and shelved away for the possibility of a future LP release. Sadly, neither of these Carnegie Hall shows was professionally filmed.

While this tribute was originally conceived as a standalone memorial program, Guthrie’s colleagues and admirers on the west coast were feeling, not without justification, slighted. Guthrie’s earliest successes were, after all, on radio station KFVD out of Los Angeles. And Woody, a radical balladeer and refugee from Oklahoma’s dust bowl, was quickly embraced by those in L.A.’s progressive political circle. So much so that Guthrie was offered a gig as an occasional columnist for the mostly doctrinaire west coast Communist Party newspaper People’s World.

Guthrie’s Manhattan-based heirs were sympathetic to their west coast brethren’s disappointment. So it was a relief when it was announced that on September 12, 1970, there would be a Pacific coast Tribute to Woody Guthrie concert staged at the Hollywood Bowl. Dylan, to the disappointment of many, would not perform at this second concert. But several of Carnegie’s musical guests would return: Seeger, Havens, Odetta, Arlo Guthrie, and Jack Elliott. At the Hollywood Bowl, folk-diva Joan Baez would replace Judy Collins. Also joining the cast for the first time were Country Joe McDonald and an old colleague of Woody’s from the days of People’s Songs, Earl Robinson.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

"The Deadly Affair", directed by Sidney Lumet, is the 1967 film based on John Le Carre's 1961 novel "Call for the Dead". Le Carre was riding high during the Bond-inspired Bond phenomenon of the 1960s. Unlike the surrealistic world of 007, Le Carre's books formed the basis for gritty and gloomy espionage stories that were steeped in realism and cynicism. The film adaptation of Le Carre's "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" had been released the previous year to great acclaim. Lumet, who made "The Deadly Affair" for his own production company, rounded up top flight British talent including screenwriter Paul Dehn, who had written the film adaptation of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and  co-wrote the screenplay for "Goldfinger".

As with all Le Carre film adaptations, the plot is complex to the point of being confusing. There are many intriguing characters of dubious allegiance to one another, a scarcity of violence in favor of people talking in back alleys and living rooms and a desire to paint the world of Cold War espionage as a tawdry environment in which the good guys are indistinguishable from the bad guys. James Mason plays Charles Dobbs, a veteran British Intelligence agent who takes a leisurely walk through St. James Park with a civil servant, Fennan (Robert Flemyng),who is aspiring to get a promotion to the Foreign Office. Dobbs informs him that there is a bit of concern about his security clearance because an anonymous person has tipped off MI6 through a letter that states Fennan's may have a dual allegiance to the communists. Dobbs considers the matter somewhat trivial and tries to assure Fennan that his name will probably be cleared. The men part on seemingly upbeat terms but the next day Dobbs is told by his superiors that Fennan has committed suicide. Dobbs is flabbergasted and insists the man showed no signs of instability. Nevertheless, Dobbs feels he is being made to be the fall guy for failing to see obvious weaknesses in Fennan's personality. That's not his only problem. Domestically, his young wife Ann (Harriett Andersson) is causing him great distress by taking on numerous lovers under his very nose. (Dobbs is even instructed to phone her before he comes home in case she has a bed mate in their house.) Dobbs is humiliated at playing the role of cuckold but can't bring himself to divorce Ann- even when it is revealed that his old friend Dieter (Maximilian Schell), a German Intelligence agent who is visiting London, has also been seduced by her.

Dobbs smells a rat at MI6 and doubts Fennan committed suicide. He starts his own investigation into who killed him and why. An interview with Fennan's widow (Simone Signoret) only makes matters more complex when he begins to suspect she might be a Soviet agent. Dobbs enlists the only two colleagues he can trust: agent Bill Appleby (Kenneth Haigh) and the semi-retired agent Mendel (Harry Andrews). The trio find that as they get closer to the truth, the trail is getting more dangerous with numerous murders occurring and their own lives in danger.

To bring Le Carre's novel to the screen, certain recurring characters from his books, such as legendary spy George Smiley, had to have their names changed because Paramount had the rights to "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and the characters appeared in the novel and screen version. Paul Dehn's screenplay is confusing but never boring and by the end you can pretty much figure out what is going on even if some of the peripheral characters' significance remains a bit vague. Sidney Lumet was the ultimate "actor's director" and could always be counted on to get top-rate performances from his cast. "The Deadly Game" is no exception, with James Mason in fine form as a man who has been disgraced professionally and personally but who still has enough pride to attempt to clear his name. Lumet hired two fine actors who appeared in his 1965 masterwork "The Hill"- Harry Andrews and Roy Kinnear- to reunite for this production and they have a great scene together. (Andrews must be one of the most under-rated actors of all time.) Maximilian Schell only appears sporadically but his role is pivotal and he is typically impressive, as is Simone Signoret as a woman of doubtful allegiance. Harriett Andersson, whose proficiency in English was limited, is occasionally difficult to understand (she was reportedly partially dubbed because of this). She accepted the role at the last minute when Candice Bergen had to back out of the film. She is suitably sultry and her character is quite interesting, professing to love her husband even as she revels in submitting him to sexual humiliation. The only humor in the film is provided by a very amusing Lynn Redgrave in a small role as Virgin Bumpus (!), an inept set designer for a Shakespearean theater production. Quincy Jones provides a fine jazz score that fits in well with the lounge music craze of the era and Freddie Young's cinematography depicts London as an ominous, rain-spattered place that adds to the chilling atmosphere of any Le Carre story.

"The Deadly Affair" was highly acclaimed in Britain, having been nominated for five BAFTA awards but it was largely overlooked amidst the tidal wave of other spy movies from the time period. It's a first-rate thriller and Mill Creek Entertainment has included it with five other Cold War films in a collection that features "Man on a String", "Otley", "Hammerhead", "The Executioner" and "A Dandy in Aspic". The DVD transfer is excellent but unfortunately there are no bonus features. Highly recommended.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Franco Zeffirelli, the acclaimed Italian director of opulent films and operas, has died at age 96. Zeffirelli's passion for cinema and opera led him to often find ways to combine the two into his works. As the Hollywood Reporter points out, his operas were often cinematic in staging and his films were sometimes presented in an operatic manner. Zeffirelli's most notable cinematic work was his dynamic presentation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in 1968. Previous versions were scoffed at for casting actors who were too old in the titular roles but Zeffirelli cast real-life teenagers Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting and his screenplay presented their love affair in a manner that took advantage of the screen industry's new sexual freedoms. Zeffirelli received an Oscar nomination for Best Director. The previous year, Zeffirelli had directed Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in a lively screen version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". He returned to the Bard's classics in 1990 with his screen version of "Hamlet" that raised eyebrows with his casting of Mel Gibson in the title role. However, the film and Gibson received favorable reviews. Not all of Zeffirelli's mainstream films were successful, however, with his 1979 remake of "The Champ" and the movie "First Love" among his boxoffice disappointments.

For more about Zeffirelli's remarkable career in film and opera, click here.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

In 1971, director Blake Edwards took a career diversion by venturing outside the comedy genre into Westerns with the release of "Wild Rovers", for which he also authored the screenplay. The film was a highly personal project for Edwards who had earlier in his career made some effective non-comedies that included "Experiment in Terror" and the highly acclaimed "Days of Wine and Roses". The film marked a brief and unhappy two-picture association with MGM, which was then under the control of the universally despised James Aubrey, who was nicknamed "The Smiling Cobra". Aubrey had a habit of second-guessing esteemed directors in an era in which few filmmakers retained the right of final cut. Consequently, Aubrey was known to eviscerate films to conform to his personal views regarding their commercial value. The year before, he took the scissors to "Kelly's Heroes" and cut out what star Clint Eastwood felt was the emotional heart of the film. (The missing footage has never been found and Eastwood never made another film for the studio.) Aubrey would do the same to "Wild Rovers", which had a leisurely-paced running time of 136 minutes that included an intermission. Aubrey had it cut to 106 minutes, thus outraging Edwards, who was known for his mercurial temper. Making matters worse, Aubrey also cut Edwards's follow-up film for MGM, "The Carey Treatment". Edwards had suffered a similar fate when Paramount chief Robert Evans had made cuts to Edwards's 1970 big budget musical "Darling Lili". Ultimately, Edwards sought revenge with his 1981 film "S.O.B." a scathing take-down of studio executives who interfere with the artistic visions of film directors.

"Wild Rovers" is lyrical and at times tender story that depicts the unlikely friendship between two ranch hands: middle-aged Ross Bodine (William Holden) and Frank Post ((Ryan O'Neal), a young twenty-something upstart with a cocky manner. They are both employed by Walter Buckman (Karl Malden), a stern but honorable rancher who owns an impressive cattle empire. Ross is getting weary of a back-breaking life and Frank fears following in his footsteps. Impulsively, they decide to rob the local bank which they manage to do successfully by holding the bank manager's family hostage. Not exactly a noble act, but Edwards mitigates the moral consequences by having Ross leave enough money to be given to Buckman to pay his ranch hands. It's a sign of sentiment on Ross's part but upon his departure, the banker and his wife decide to not tell Buckman about the gesture and keep the money for themselves. The script finds the outraged Buckman sending his sons (Joe Don Baker and Tom Skerritt) to raise a posse and relentlessly pursue the robbers. The film then morphs into a road trip story with Ross and Frank bonding and learning to respect each other. Ross is inspired by the younger man's zest for life and Frank learns to control his impulsiveness. The nagging flaw with Edwards' script, however, is that while Ross retains a sense of nobility and decency, Frank is trigger happy and occasionally cruel, a fact that Edwards attempts to mitigate by showing us Frank's sentimental attachment to a puppy, a plot device that plays out as pretentiously as it reads. Although "Wild Rovers" never achieves the classic stature that Edwards had envisioned, it is a very good film that has many attributes, not the least of which is a very fine performance by William Holden, who- like most actors- became more interesting as he aged. As for O'Neal, he was always competent as an actor but not very compelling. This is one of his better performances because Edwards provides him with an interesting character to absorb. Malden is always very good but his screen time in "Wild Rovers" is frustratingly limited. The film boasts superb cinematography by Philip Lathrop and a great score by Jerry Goldsmith, filling in for Edwards' usual composer-of-choice, Henry Mancini.

The film tanked at the box office and with critics. Edwards blamed it on MGM's virtual destruction of his vision for the final cut. Not helping matters was the bizarre ad campaign that featured O'Neal and Holden on the same horse with O'Neal giddily embracing a rather uncomfortable looking Holden. For a hard-bitten, action-filled Western, it was all wrong and implied a "Brokeback Mountain"-like relationship in an era that was far less enlightened, to put it mildly. Happily, the Warner Archive has released a restored version of the film and provided a gorgeous transfer. They've even included the original intermission and entr'acte so you can appreciate Jerry Goldsmith's score even more. Bonus extras include a very good vintage "making of" documentary that makes it clear how Holden and O'Neal did a lot of impressive stunt work and wrangling themselves. There is also a rather murky trailer that will make you appreciate how good the main feature looks on Blu-ray.

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(For full analysis of the making of "Wild Rovers", see Frank Aston's article in issue #40.)

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Twilight Time has released the 1965 WWII espionage thriller "Morituri" as a region-free, limited edition (3,000 units) Blu-ray edition. The film represents yet another gem from Marlon Brando's "lost decade" of  films that were bookended by the massive failure of "Mutiny on the Bounty" in 1962 and his triumphant starring role in "The Godfather" ten years later. During those years, Brando's films were largely disparaged by critics and ignored by his former fans. Ironically, many of these productions were very good indeed and Brando often gave some of the most intriguing performances of his career. "Morituri" paired Brando with Yul Brynner, another Hollywood legend with a penchant for being difficult to work with. Brynner was known for making demands of producers that rivaled that of the King of Siam while Brando engaged in a penchant for making last minute changes to the script that often put him at odds with the cast and crew. Such was the case on this film, which is a moody, B&W production that is by necessity claustrophobic in nature as virtually all of the action takes place aboard a ship. The film opens with Robert Crain (Brando) being paid a visit by a British Intelligence office, Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard, who reconciled with Brando after griping about his work habits on "Mutiny on the Bounty"). Crain is posing as a Swiss national and living out the war in India,  leading a carefree life of leisure. He also happens to be a munitions expert and Statter reveals that the Brits are aware that Crain is actually living under an assumed name, having deserted the German SS a couple of years before. He offers Crain a proposition: agree to go on a possible suicide mission or be placed in the hands of German forces who are eager to have him in custody in return for the release of a high-profile British prisoner. Crain's mission is to pose as an SS man and board a German freighter that is carrying a precious load of valuable raw materials to occupied France. The Allies want to capture the goods or at least destroy them before they can reach the Germans. Crain is to try to somehow disable the explosive devices hidden within the ship that are designed to scuttle the craft in the event of capture, thus allowing the Allies to intercept the vessel and take the cargo. Left with a Hobson's Choice, Crain reluctantly agrees.

The captain of the freighter is Mueller (Brynner), a career sailor whose reputation has been tarnished due to a scandal. The German high command have given him another chance for redemption by ordering him to deliver the goods to France by navigating through waters that are filled with Allied submarines on the prowl. Mueller considers himself to be a loyal German (his son is an esteemed naval captain) but he balks at the brutality of the Nazi regime. Thinking Crain is actually an SS officer, he takes an immediate dislike to him and suspects he is there to spy on his movements for the German brass. Crain immediately sets out to disable the scuttling systems on the ship but finding the hidden boxes proves to be an arduous and dangerous task. Meanwhile, an unexpected boarding by two German naval officers results in their expressing skepticism about Crain's real identity. With his mission and life in mortal danger, Crain attempts to rally disaffected crew members to take control of the ship in alliance with some American prisoners who are also being transported.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Probably no genre illustrates the rapid advance of cinematic screen freedoms than the biker movie. The genre debuted in 1953 with Marlon Brando in "The Wild One". The film, which chronicled the virtual takeover of a small California town by a wild motorcycle gang, was considered extremely controversial at the time. The biker film remained largely dormant until the release of Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels" in 1966, which became a surprising boxoffice and media sensation. Only a year or two before, teenage audiences were being fed a steady diet of white bread rock 'n roll films that bore little resemblance to real life. Suddenly, the biker film blatantly presented raging hormones, gang wars, drug use and group sex without apology. Young people patronized these films in droves. With social constraints falling by the minute, the biker films- cheaply made as they were- spoke to the emerging generation that would be defined by hippies, drop-outs and protesters. Suddenly, Elvis movies seemed like entertainment for their parents and grandparents.  With the success of "The Wild Angels", imitators galore sprang onto drive-in movie screens across America. The biker films were like any other genre in that some of the entries were poorly done efforts designed to reap a few fast bucks at the box-office, while others had a certain crude efficiency about them. Such a film was "The Glory Stompers", one of the better entries in the biker movie genre. Made in 1967, the film was released by (surprise!) American International, which reaped king's ransoms by producing low-budget exploitation movies. Make no mistake, "The Glory Stompers" is indeed an exploitation movie with little redeeming value beyond it's interesting cast. Dennis Hopper, in full psycho mode, top-lines as Chino, the leader of a brutal biker gang known as The Black Souls. After being dissed by members of the rival Glory Stompers gang, Chino and his posse track down a Glory Stomper, Darryl (Jody McCrea) who is with his gorgeous blonde girlfriend Chris (Chris Noel). Chris is badgering Darryl to leave the biker lifestyle and do something meaningful with his life. They are interrupted by the arrival of the Black Souls, who beat Darryl mercilessly. Believing him to be dead, Chino orders the gang to kidnap Chris to prevent her from filing murder charges against them. Chino advises the group that they will transport her by bike several hundred miles into Mexico, where he has arranged to sell her into white slavery. Unbeknownst to them, however, Darryl recovers from his wounds and immediately sets out to rescue Chris. Along the way he meets a former fellow Glory Stomper, Smiley (former Tarzan star Jock Mahoney), who agrees to join the rescue effort. The eventually pick up one other ally and his girlfriend and head into Mexico in hot pursuit of the Black Souls.

The film features a good deal of padding with extended shots of the bikers cruising down highways or navigating over sandy desert roads. There's also a good deal of footage devoted to sexploitaiton, with topless biker women riding rampant through drug-fueled orgies and the requisite cat right between jealous biker "mamas". This was pretty shocking stuff back in the day and gives the movie a relatively contemporary feel (even though today's Hell's Angels are primarily known for organizing charity fund raisers.)  The cast is rather interesting and it's apparent that Hopper's presence in films like this clearly gave him street cred when he decided to make "Easy Rider". Chris Noel is quite stunning as the kidnap victim who must use psychology to avoid frequent attempts by her captors to rape her. She's also a good actress who brings a degree of dignity to the otherwise sordid on-goings. Jock Mahoney is the grizzled biker veteran who puts loyalty above his personal safety and it's refreshing to see him wearing attire that goes beyond a loin cloth. Jody McRae, son of Joel McRae, is a bland but efficient hero. The supporting cast includes ubiquitous screen villain Robert Tessier and future music industry phenomenon Casey Kassem (!), who co-produced the movie. The direction by Anthony M. Lanza is uninspired but efficient and the cinematography by Mario Tosi (billed here as Mario Tossi) is surprisingly impressive, which explains why he became a top name in "A"-grade studio productions. The rock music tracks, produced by Mike Curb, are awful. Curb was a Boy Wonder at the time, producing memorable music scores for American International films such as "The Wild Angels" and "Wild in the Streets". Here, he's clearly slacking. Curb composed the score with Davie Allan but the duo insert jaunty, upbeat tunes during moments that call for suspense-laden tracks. Nevertheless, the film remains consistently entertaining and stands as one of the better entries in this genre. 

MGM has released "The Glory Stompers" as a burn-to-order DVD. Despite some initial artifacts present in the opening sequence, the print is crisp and clean. There are no bonus extras.

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James Bond double features used to be so popular that they would routinely out-gross many new films. The first double feature took place in 1965 with a team-up of Dr. No and From Russia With Love. By 1980, the double features were starting to fade but United Artists did put together this combo of two Roger Moore blockbusters: Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me. Cinema Retro's  Hank Reineke kindly provided this rare newspaper advertisement from a long-defunct New Jersey drive-in theater that presented the double bill in 1980.

It may be hard to believe, but there are apparently a few people left on earth who don't have "The Godfather" trilogy on home video. Paramount is launching a new edition of the films as a Father's Day promotion. The films have hours of previously-released bonus materials plus some new collectibles: three portrait cards for the films and a frame you can display them in plus a Corleone family tree sheet that gives capsule descriptions of each individual.

Here is the official press announcement:

An ideal gift for Father’s Day, this new 4-Disc Blu-ray collection of director Francis Ford Coppola’s epic masterpieces beautifully packages all three films along with previously released special features and new collectibles, including a Corleone family tree, original theatrical art cards, and collectible portraits with frame.   

Francis Ford Coppola’s masterful adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel chronicles the rise and fall of the Corleone family in this celebrated epic. Collectively nominated for a staggering 28 Academy Awards®, the films won nine, including two for Best Picture for The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. To this day, the saga is rightfully viewed as one of the greatest in cinematic history.

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By Hank Reineke

On the eve of the November 1963 release of TWICE TOLD TALES, the British actor Sebastian Cabot would tell a reporter from the Copley News Service, "They've been after me to do more of the horror pictures with Vincent Price. I wouldn't mind that a bit, though I must say I wouldn't want to do them exclusively." He intimated that he and his co-star had discussed a possible future pairing in " light comedy" motion-picture. Alas, it was not to be; the two actors would not work together again. Cabot, of course, would soldier on and enjoy success as both a television personality and a recognizable voice-over actor. Following the passing of Boris Karloff in 1969, Vincent Price would reign as the big-screen''S uncontested "King of Horror". Cabot'S estimation of Price as an actor as "extremely adept at light-comedy" was incisive. Throughout his long and fabled career, Vincent Price;s on-screen ghoulishness would nearly always be mitigated with a wry smile and twinkle in the eye.

TWICE TOLD TALES is the second of two quickie vehicles in which Price starred for Robert E. Kent's Admiral Pictures, Inc. (1962-1963). For their first pairing, DIARY OF A MADMAN (released in March 1963 and distributed through United Artists), Kent mined the imagination of the great French short-story writer Henri-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant. That film’s ballyhoo proclaimed it “The Most Terrifying Motion Picture Ever Created!” It most certainly wasn’t, but the film still managed to be a worthwhile psychological thriller - though one that didn’t particularly resonate at the box-office. In what was obviously an attempt to capitalize on the low-budget but big commercial success of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations for A.I.P, Kent quickly changed course and ambitiously turned to the short stories and novels of Nathanial Hawthorne for material.

Though a descendant of John Hathorne, the unrepentant magistrate who presided over the fate of several innocents during Salem, Massachusetts’s celebrated witch trials, Nathanial Hawthorne was a romanticist: he was not prominently a writer of mysteries or of fantastic fiction. Having said that, Hawthorne was not averse to penning a good ghost story or two and his talent had won him the praise of contemporaries. One such fan was Edgar Allan Poe himself. In his review of Hawthorne’s two volume collection of short stories TWICE TOLD TALES for Graham’s Magazine in May of 1842, Poe unabashedly pronounced the New Englander as “a man of truest genius… As Americans, we feel proud of this book.”

Of course Hollywood producers have always somehow managed to take great creative liberties with the acknowledged classics. Stories of cigar-chomping producers passing on tracts of classic literature so their stable of writers might “give ‘em a polish” are legion. Though Roger Corman’s series of Poe films both successfully and artistically mined the great man’s work for their tortured characters, grim atmosphere and elements of plot, Corman himself rarely offered filmgoers a straight-forward re-telling of any of the doomed author’s fabled tales.

Producer-writer, Robert E. Kent seems to have taken a similar, albeit far less successful, approach with his production of TWICE TOLD TALES. Only segment two of this trilogy film, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” closely resembles Hawthorne’s original story, and even that diverges when at odds with cinematic expectations. In “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” a sinister love-triangle between Dr. Carl Heidegger (the corpulent Sebastian Cabot), Alex Medbourne (Price) and the recently revived but still exquisite corpse of Sylvia Ward (Marie Blanchard) is re-engineered as to feature an original - if salacious - back-story. This “Virgin Spring” elixir-of-eternal-youth morality-fable plays out with little fidelity to the original tale.

Such creative-license is stretched to the breaking point with the film’s final episode, “The House of the Seven Gables.” This segment bears little resemblance to Hawthorne’s celebrated novel, but it has borrowed elements from the better known – and far more lavish – 1940 Universal film of the same title. The Universal film, perhaps not coincidentally, also featured Vincent Price in a starring role, though this tale, too, strayed far from Hawthorne’s original. Though I recall no physical blood-letting in the Hawthorne novel, in TWICE TOLD TALES the sanguine red fluid pours freely– and mostly unconvincingly, it must be said - from ceilings, walls, portraits, and lockets. The Pyncheon’s family’s metaphorical skeleton-in-the-closet becomes all too real in this rather uninspired re-working.

Part of the film’s original marketing stratagem was the offer of “FREE COFFEE in the lobby to settle your nerves!” One might suggest, with a measure of cynicism, that such brew was a necessary component in helping to keep audiences awake. TWICE TOLD TALES is, to be generous, a very good ninety-minute film. The problem is that the filmmakers stretched this ninety-minute film to an interminable two-hour running time.

This is a “sitting room” or “parlor” film; most of the action (as it is) takes place in mildly claustrophobic confines of small home settings with long stretches of unbroken dialogue. There are very few provocative set-pieces employed over the course of three segments and the most ambitious of these, the deadly and poisonous garden of Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini (Price), is only experienced in sun-soaked broad daylight. This supposedly lethal garden is both terribly over-lit and ill-disguised in its construction (the seams of the faux-grass mats are clearly visible). As such, this potentially visual and cinematic garden of death portends little of its intended menace. If only love-struck suitor Giovanni Guasconti (Brett Halsey) could have encountered the beautiful but lethal Beatrice Rappaccini (Joyce Taylor) in a blue-swathed moonlight setting, the garden’s mysterious atmosphere would have been instantly heightened.

Kent’s too-wordy screenplay suffers occasional patches of purple prose, but it’s serviceable. There are a couple of great moments: Cabot’s toast of the glass prior to his experimental drinking of a fluid that may or may not kill him (“To eternal youth, or just eternity?”). In “Rappaccini’s Daughter” we’re not sure, at first, of who is a prisoner to whom. Is it the estranged daughter to the father, or the father to the daughter? When all is made clear, we can better understand the poisoned daughter’s bitter complaint, “The only difference from being dead is that this house is bigger than a grave.”

TWICE TOLD TALES is no classic, but it’s not unworthy of one’s time. Vincent Price is, as always, brilliant in all three of the villainous roles he inhabits. The supporting cast is mostly great as well, and Kent, unashamedly, brings aboard several of the familiar players who earlier worked with Corman on the Poe series. Director Sidney Salkow was, sadly, no auteur. Though he had been directing and writing films – and bringing them in under or on budget - for both independent and major studios as early as 1936, it’s clear he was most interested in producing a satisfying checkmark in the company’s profit ledger and not terribly concerned with film-as-art. Though Salkow’s films are never less than competent, they’re generally pedestrian and not particularly memorable. As helmsman, Salkow simply possessed none of Corman’s visual-style or displayed any ability to stage an impressive production on a shoestring budget.

To be fair, Corman had advantages. His gothic films were European in design: his settings were of torch-lit gloomy and brooding castles, of misty streets of cobblestone and black twisted tree-limbs. Two of the TWICE TOLD TALES, on the other hand, are set in the non-atmospheric repose of 19^th-century small-town America. With the small exception of a creepy sequence in which a thunder and lightning-storm disturbs a tomb that had been sealed for thirty-eight years (and sits, inexplicably, just to the rear of Dr. Heidegger’s back-door), the dressing that surrounds TWICE TOLD TALES demonstrates little of the macabre ingredients necessary for mounting a successful horror film.

This release from Kino-Lorber Studio Classics presents TWICE TOLD TALES for the first time in the U.S. in a Blu-Ray edition. The film is presented in Technicolor and in its original 1.66:1 ratio. Bonus features include an optional commentary from film scholars Richard Harland Smith and Perry Martin, as well as trailers for the title film as well as Corman’s TALES OF TERROR and BLACK SABBATH. A brief “Trailers from Hell” segment is also included, courtesy of Mick Garris.

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BY HANK REINEKE

Sir Christopher Lee left us in 2015. In doing so he left even his most rabid fans to spend a good portion of their lives trying to track down all of the films he appeared in since 1946. This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu-ray release of director Kevin Connor’s Arabian Adventure (1979) will be a welcome one to his many devotees, especially as it sports a transfer superior to the old Televista DVD issued in 2007. This new transfer is colorful and bright, with very few issues of scratches or speckling and with just enough authentic film grain.

Though a near life-long fan of Christopher Lee’s work, I somehow managed to miss this film when on U.S. release in 1979. I vaguely recall a feature cover story on the film in a very early issue of Fangoria magazine but, perhaps since Arabian Adventure was marketed as a “family film,” my then too-cool nineteen year old self chose to skip it. Or maybe my friends weren’t interested in seeing it; or maybe it didn’t play at a theater near me. I simply don’t recall the circumstances. Lee historians Robert W. Pohle and Douglas C. Hart (The Films of Christopher Lee) suggest that the failure of this Arabian Nights-styled fable at the U.S. box office was due to it having been released during the Iranian hostage crisis. Perhaps. Or maybe it was too whimsical and anachronistic a film to usher out the 1970s, a decade of often seamy, violent, and envelope-pushing cinematic tropes.

The film was largely photographed at Pinewood Studios, the fabled home base of the James Bond series. Eagle eyed viewers will catch glimpses of some familiar Pinewood faces, character actors who have contributed to the 007 franchise in small but meaningful ways: veterans Shane Rimmer (You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever, The Spy Who Loved Me) and Milton Reid (of The Spy Who Loved Me and several Amicus Productions). There’s even a youthful appearance of a future ally of agent 007, Art Malik (billed here under his actual first name Athar), “Kamran Shah” from The Living Daylights.

Of the aforementioned three, Reid has the most memorable role as a hulking, intemperate genie tasked in the guarding of the “Sacred Rose of Elil.” Otherwise, the other aforementioned actors share roles barely above cameos. Another connection of this film to the Bond series is the bright and colorful cinematography courtesy of veteran Director of Photography Alan Hume. Hume would go on to be EON’s DOP of the 80s, handling principal photography on three successive Roger Moore-era adventures (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill).

The film also boasts two “Special Guest Appearances” featuring a pair of on-screen personas far more familiar to casual movie-going audiences. The genial Peter Cushing makes two brief appearances in the film, but is sadly underused here, relegated only to a small role and one semi-extended scene as Wazir Al Wuzara, the deposed ruler of Jaddur. More disappointingly to fans of his work in the Hammer Horror film franchise is that Cushing and his frequent on-screen nemesis Lee do not share a single scene.

If it’s any consolation to Cushing’s fans, at least the beloved actor gets a few lines of dialogue. The same cannot be said of the film’s second special guest, Mickey Rooney. The diminutive, aged Rooney has an unusual and wordless role as the Steam-Punk marionette master to a trio of fearsome, fire-breathing, gilded gold steel-plated gargantuan dragons. It’s an amusing scene, but his presence here amounts – again – to little more than a cameo.

BY TIM MCGLYNN

Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (Paramount 1970) introduces the title character, scarred by an acid attack, as she leaves the hospital and rents a dilapidated house in small town Massachusetts. Her roommates are Arthur, an introverted epileptic and Warren, a paraplegic who is also gay. Otto Preminger’s 1970 film, based the novel by Marjorie Kellog, has been missing in action until Olive Films’ Blu-ray and DVD release.

Liza Minnelli stars in this charming story as Junie Moon, physically and emotionally damaged by a horrific encounter with a psychotic lover. Actor-Director Robert Moore (Murder By Decree, The Cheap Detective) is Warren, who will not be limited by his wheelchair in the pursuit of love and happiness. Ken Howard (1776, The White Shadow) is the shy Arthur, who suffers from seizures that seem to be brought on by stress.

After renting a small bungalow from the eccentric Miss Kellog (Kay Thompson), the three set up house and learn to survive by leaning on each other in various times of need. Arthur is offered a job at a local fish market by Mario (James Coco), but is fired when a nosy neighbor claims Arthur is a child molester. Mario, realizing his mistake, befriends the trio and offers them a vacation at a seaside resort.

While on their trip to the ocean Arthur declares his love for Junie, and Warren, much to his surprise, spends the night with a woman. The three are befriended by a local man played by Fred Williamson (Hammer, Black Caesar), who acts as their host. Along the way there are comic encounters with resort guests, hotel clerks and beachcombers. While short on plot, the movie is a wonderful character study concerning the importance of friendship and the overcoming of life’s obstacles.

Junie Moon is a marked departure for the usually bombastic Preminger in that he is more laid back and subtle in his observations of society’s problems and inequities. There are several flashback scenes exploring each character’s history including the use of hallucinations that Arthur experiences before his epileptic attacks.

BY TODD GARBARINI

I love Asian cinema. During the 1990’s I discovered a whole other cinematic world in the form of Hong Kong action films at some great Chinatown movie theaters in lower Manhattan, such as the long-gone Rosemary Theater on Canal Street which is now a Buddhist Temple. Even the Film Forum, with its gloriously narrow and Quasimodo posture-inducing seats, also sported its fair share of Hong Kong festivals with screenings of Siu-Tung Ching’s beloved A Chinese Ghost Story trilogy, the Swordsman trilogy, and the follow-up to Jonnie To’s Heroic Trio from 1993. Independent video stores situated in Asian and Indian neighborhoods also offered up these amazing Eastern adventures on VHS and the low picture quality and poorly displayed white subtitles mattered little to those of us enthralled by the action onscreen. I was lucky enough to locate a store that rented imported laserdiscs with letterboxed versions of these amazing films. No one, however, can have a serious discussion about this genre without including the inimitable Jackie Chan, a powerhouse of a stuntman who also acts in and even directs much of his own work.

Jackie Chan is known in the United States through only a handful of films, the first being Hal Needham’s 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run and its 1984 follow-up Cannonball Run II. He garnered greater exposure in 1995 with Rumble in the Bronx and his comedic team-up with Chris Tucker in the three Rush Hour films that he appeared in between 1998 and 2007, and a fourth is now rumored to be in the works. His Hong Kong-based work, though highly prolific, is much less available here and this is a great shame as these films are wildly entertaining and even flat out hilarious, easily lending themselves to repeat viewing. Getting his start in the Hong Kong film business following the void left by the untimely death of the late martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Mr. Chan worked his way through many roles and its his turn as a police inspector in 1985’s Police Story wherein his stunt work really shines.

Mr. Chan portrays an undercover police officer, Chan Ka-Kui, working for the Royal Hong Kong Police Force attempting to arrest crime lord Chu Tao (Chor Yuen). Naturally the deal goes sour and his cover is blown, and this results in some truly amazing stunts involving cars, a huge shanty town, and a double-decker bus (we learn later on that these dangerous stunts weren’t stunts at all, but rather mis-timed mistakes that were left in the film!). Later his bosses, Superintendent Li (Kwok-Hung Lam) and Inspector Bill Wong (Bill Tung), give him a tongue-lashing for the destruction caused by the investigation and so he’s placed on another assignment: to protect Selina Fong (Brigitte Lin), Chu Tao’s secretary. Her demeanor is blasé at best and after she shrugs off an offer of police protection, Ka-Kui convinces a subordinate to pretend to be a killer, sneaking into Selina’s apartment with the attempt “to kill her” in a very humorous sequence that illuminates Mr. Chan’s comedic talents when he “comes to the rescue”. Selina changes her mind, agreeing to testify against her boss in open court. Ka-Kui’s girlfriend May (the wonderful Maggie Cheung) comes into the picture when she surprises Ka-Kui at his apartment for his birthday and notices Selina who is afraid to remain at her own apartment following the attack. A series of miscommunications and misadventures ensues to give way to some truly spectacular set pieces. Selina inevitably discovers that her apartment “attack” was choreographed and embarrasses Ka-Kui in court the following day in a very amusing sequence.

Crime lord Chu Tao is released on bail and threatens to kill Selina, though a double-cross by a dirty Police Inspector who intends to frame Ka-Kui for murder leads Ka-Kui to take Superintendent Li hostage, but he is eventually freed. In one of the cinema’s first instances of blackmail via computer files that I can recall, Selina decides to breach her former boss’s computer system by downloading incriminating files. As a front, his office is in a shopping mall, and one of the craziest sequences of shopping mall carnage following John Landis’s The Blues Brothers (1980) ensues involving some top-notch stunt work. The film’s ending is abrupt and gives way to the sequel, Police Story 2 (1988).

BY TIM MCGLYNN

“It’s the desert. It gives people wonderful ideas.” John Agar, as town doctor Matt Hastings in Desert Rock, AZ, makes this remark after returning from delivering twin babies at the home of one of his patients. Another one of those wonderful ideas results in a 100-foot tall spider that terrorizes the small community.

Scream Factory, the horror arm of Shout Factory, has released the 1955 Universal science fiction classic Tarantula on Blu-ray for the first time. Universal, the leading producer of monster classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein, turned to atomic age terror during the 1950s with a multitude of creatures and humans adversely affected by radiation. Along with Warner Bros’ Them, Tarantula was one of the best giant bug features of this era. While not directly a result of atomic bomb testing, the spider running loose in Desert Rock was no less horrifying. What made this movie work, aside from strong direction and a good script, was the fact that just about everyone could relate to a fear of normal, everyday spiders. A giant arachnid the size of a house might be too much for many audience members to endure.

Leo G. Carroll, playing Dr. Gerald Deemer, has the best of intentions when attempting to increase the world’s food supply by developing growth hormones. He has hopes of raising crops and cattle in a matter of days rather than months. After his assistant is found dead in the desert, Dr. Hastings determines the cause of death as a rare disease that normally takes years to advance. This affliction turns out to be a side effect of the growth formula. After a fire at Dr. Deemer’s lab allows a tarantula injected with the experimental serum to escape, people and livestock start turning up dead with only their skeletons remaining. Dr. Hastings and Deemer’s pretty new assistant Stevie, played by Mara Corday, soon determine that a humongous spider is the cause and that everyone in town is in danger.

Leo G. Carroll was well known for his portrayal of Topper in the American sitcom, but the kids from my era identified him as Mr. Waverly, the head of the secret spy organization U.N.C.L.E. in the popular NBC series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. Carroll even gets a mention in the Science Fiction Double Feature song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Director Jack Arnold, Universal’s go-to director for science fiction, keeps the tension high by not giving the audience many glimpses of the tarantula until the latter part of the film. The first half is more of police procedural as clues are gathered as to the cause of all the killings. When the spider finally appears, there are no miniatures, puppets or stop motion models. Special effects technician Clifford Stein makes use of a real spider, matte photography and forced perspective to create the monster. While a couple of errors with the matte effects are visible, this technique is quite effective. A mechanical claw is used in two scenes featuring close-up attacks and a large model spider was used for the final scenes.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The daffy 1969 British spy comedy "Otley" features Tom Courtenay in an amusing performance as a young slacker in mod London who gets caught up in a Kafkaesque espionage adventure. He's a homeless drifter and grifter who makes the rounds looking for a place to spend the night after the landlady evicts him for not paying the rent. (But she does so only after they have a night in bed.) Otley attends a party where he meets Imogen (Romy Schneider), a beautiful but mysterious young woman. He also runs into an old friend, Lambert (Edward Hardwicke), who owes Otley a favor. He reluctantly allows him to spend the night on his couch. However, while Otley is blissfully sleeping, Lambert is assassinated in his kitchen. Otley then inexplicably wakes up in a field adjacent to Gatwick Airport, his mind numb and devoid of any idea about what happened or how he got there. This is the beginning of his bizarre odyssey that sees him kidnapped by various spies on both sides but he's never sure who is really working for who. All of them are convinced that he is a spy himself and that he has information about the murder of Lambert. The witty screenplay by director Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, based on a novel by Martin Waddell, takes the old Hitchcock concept of presenting a protagonist who is an everyday man swept up in deadly events that he can't convince anyone that he knows nothing about. You can also add a healthy dose of Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" in that he is never sure which side is holding him captive at any given time and he is constantly being pressed to provide information. The character of Imogene keeps appearing and disappearing with no indication as to whether she is friend or foe.

The film becomes so mind-boggling and confusing that at a certain point it's best to just go with the joke and sit back and enjoy this madcap romp, deftly enacted by Courtenay as a bewildered man who simply wants someone to explain who is who and what is going on. Ultimately, he ends up getting drafted into an MI5 mission- but are his bosses really with MI5? There are some wonderful location shots of London and its surroundings including a rather eerie scene in Notthing Hill Gate tube station that is inexplicably vacant and adorned with posters of movies from the era ("Romeo and Juliet", "Thoroughly Modern Millie", "The Charge of the Light Brigade"). The cast is peppered with marvelous character actors including Leonard Rossiter as a benign and comforting cold-blooded killer, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Fiona Lewis, Freddie Jones, Ronald Lacey and Geoffrey Blaydon. There's also a wacky score by Stanley Myers and impressive cinematography by Austin Dempster. In all, "Otley" is one of the better spy spoofs of the 1960s.

Mill Creek Entertainment has included "Otley" with five other Cold War films in a collection that features "Man on a String", "The Deadly Affair", "Hammerhead", "The Executioner" and "A Dandy in Aspic". The DVD transfer is excellent but unfortunately there are no bonus features.

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Here's a rare one from the archives: Roger Moore horsing around in New Orleans in 1972 as filming began on "Live and Let Die", Moore's first James Bond movie. The film ushered in a new era in the franchise following Sean Connery and George Lazenby in the role. Concerns that Moore might not "click" with audiences were quickly forgotten when the boxoffice returns indicated moviegoers were very happy with Moore. He would make six more Bond films before retiring as 007 after "A View to a Kill" in 1985.

Writing in the New York Times, Wesley Morris chronicles the rise and fall of a Hollywood staple: the romantic comedy (rom-com for those of you who are hip.) Morris bemoans the fact that the traditional films in this genre are rarely found in today's studio line-ups. Click here to read.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The 1970s was a good time period for Richard Dreyfuss. He made a splash early impression in the decade with "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz", which begat a leading role in "American Graffiti", which begat "Jaws" and then an Oscar-winning turn in "The Goodbye Girl" and then "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Dreyfuss was so popular that no one even noticed his off-beat, X-rated flop "Inserts". He gave another good turn in "The Big Fix", a 1978 updating of the traditional film noir detective movie set in contemporary times. The lighthearted thriller finds Dreyfuss cast as private dick Moses Wine (we love the name!). He's a modern day variation of the loner private eye: he's divorced and has a fractious relationship with his ex (Bonnie Bedelia), whose new live-in lover enjoys humiliating Moses by reminding him he's his former wife's new bed mate. He has two young sons who he spends as much time with as possible and to increase efficiency, he often takes them on his assignments. Despite this modern spin on an old style of hero, Moses has something in common with his predecessors: he's flat broke and living on the razor's edge in an economic sense.  One day, a former lover, Lila (Susan Anspach), appears out of nowhere and entices him to take on a case with political overtones. She persuades him by reminding him of his one-time late 1960s roots as a liberal activist- and by appealing to his reawakened sexual interest in her. Lila is associated with  the campaign of a progressive gubernatorial candidate named Hawthorne, who is being victimized by bogus flyers and posters being circulated that show Hawthorne embracing Howard Eppis (F. Murray Abraham), a notorious fugitive from justice who is wanted for high profile crimes in the late 1960s. (The character is obviously based on real-life radical Abbie Hoffman.) Lila and Hawthorne's campaign manager, the high strung Sam Sebastian (John Lithgow), maintain that the photo has been doctored and that Hawthorne never met or posed with Eppis. They suspect the forgers are with the campaign of Hawthorne's rival and they hire Moses to help prove it. In order to do so, he must track down Eppis to get the real story. It's a quest that has some deadly surprises associated with it. 

Like many a good private eye mystery, "The Big Fix" is complicated and confusing- not "The Big Sleep" extreme of confusing- but confusing enough to make you wonder at times how all the disparate collection of characters might be interconnected. Dreyfuss shines in the role, dispensing the requisite gumshoe wisecracks and proving to be something less than the perfect hero as the plot turns to murder and a major potential terrorist bombing of the L.A. freeway system. Moses is an interesting character especially when his reunion with Lila reawakens his interest in political activism. There is a poignant moment in which he becomes teary-eyed while watching news footage of the protest era. The late 1970s was a sobering time for liberals. President Jimmy Carter's popularity was foundering and the soon-to-be elected Ronald Reagan would usher in a sweeping era of conservative political power. The film was obviously in production before any of this happened but the left wing could see the writing on the wall and their diminishing clout is evident in the frustration of Moses and Lila, who is going through the motions of backing an anemic candidate because he is the lesser of two evils.

The film boasts a witty screenplay by Roger L. Simon, based on one of his own Moses Wine detective novels and the direction by Jeremy Kagan is also spot-on, with Kagan using the L.A. locations to good effect. Neither Kagan or his cinematographer Frank Stanley attempts to provide an innovative look to the film, which is visually unremarkable in contrast to the (then) recently-released film noir homage "Farewell My Lovely". Stanley does, however, manage some impressive aerial shots in the climatic scenes on the L.A. freeway system. There is an interesting supporting cast with John Lithgow especially good in a dramatic role, Fritz Weaver as an eccentric millionaire, Rita Karin in a funny turn as Moses' obnoxious aunt and F. Murray Abraham as Eppis, who turns out to have been living the good life under an assumed name, having foresaken his political ideals of years past. Look out for Mandy Patinkin in his big screen debut as a kooky delivery man in a tiny but amusing role. 

The Twilight Time Blu-ray has an excellent transfer and is limited to 3,000 units. The region-free disc provides an isolated track for Bill Conti's jaunty score, a collector's booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo and the original trailer. If you like Richard Dreyfuss, this one is a must as it showcases the actor at his best.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

When one thinks of the canon of films made by John Ford, it becomes apparent that he made very few overt comedies. To be sure, Ford always included plenty of humorous vignettes even in his most dramatic films but he rarely made movies that were played entirely for laughs. It's also true that most cinephiles tend to ignore Ford's work in the years prior to his groundbreaking 1939 Western classic "Stagecoach" despite the fact that he made very worthy films during his early days in the industry. Such a movie is "The Whole Town's Talking', released in 1935 and which is rarely discussed or screened today. It's a pity because the film is a delight from start to finish and features Edward G. Robinson in one of the best performances of his career. He plays Arthur Ferguson Jones, a meek office worker in a big city news organization that treats employees like necessary evils rather than valuable assets. Arthur's mundane existence is thrown into chaos when he is mistaken for the notorious criminal Killer Manion. The cops have been on a nationwide hunt for Manion and his gang and they are convinced they've nailed him when they come across Arthur, who is a dead ringer for the wanted man (and with good reason, as Robinson plays him in a dual role.) The cops have a grandiose press conference at which they parade the hapless Arthur as a killer now in custody- but when he is able to prove his real identity, they are forced to release him and give him a letter from the police commissioner attesting to his real identity just in case he gets arrested again. Among those monitoring the developments is Manion, who surprises Arthur by breaking into his modest apartment and informing him that he intends to take advantage of their resemblance. Manion tells Arthur that he can continue to go to work every day but when he comes home, he is to turn the passport letter over to him so he can go about his criminal activities with impunity by claiming he is really Arthur.

The film affords Robinson the opportunity to give a tour de force performance, deftly switching from milquetoast to killer with impressive skill. It must be said that, given the crude technologies of the era, the scenes in which both Arthur and Manion share the same film frame are skillfully accomplished. Adding to the fun is the casting of Jean Arthur as Arthur's co-worker Wilhelmina, a vivacious blonde who is his antithesis in terms of Arthur's personality. She is the ultimate liberated woman who talks back to her bosses and dispenses wisecracks and sarcasm with equal abandon. Arthur is madly in love with her but she treats him more like a brother, offering friendship and protection against office bullies. The plot heats up when Arthur's opportunistic boss suspects that Arthur has a secret source who informs him of Manion's activities without realizing that Arthur is literally living with Manion. He cajoles Arthur into allowing the newspaper to print sensational and fictional personality profiles of Manion under Arthur's by-line even though the articles are being ghost-written by staffers. Soon, the circulation of the paper soars and Arthur is rewarded by joining snooty corporate executives in enjoying expensive booze and fine cigars. But Manion doesn't like the stories one bit and plans to do away with Arthur.

Ford's direction in the crime comedy genre is spot-on and he gets top notch performances from all involved. He also presents the urban office environment as an Orwellian nightmare and the city landscape as beset by teeming crowds and humorously preposterous caravans of speeding vehicles. It's no wonder he would seek make so many of his films in the expanse of the wild West.  The film's climax is  both satisfying and cynical and the movie is a delight throughout.

Twilight Time has released "The Whole Town's Talking" on Blu-ray with a very fine transfer. The region-free disc has no extras but it does have the usual informative liner notes from Julie Kirgo.  The sleeve art features the original poster which curiously-and absurdly- tries to market the film as a serious crime drama with nary a hint that it is a broad comedy. The release is limited to 3,000 units. Click here to order.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

The 1965 adventure film "Sands of the Kalahari" was the follow-up project for star Stanley Baker and writer/director Cy Endfield, who had triumphed the year before with Zulu. The plot centers on a small group of strangers in a South African airport who are frustrated when their plane is delayed for mechanical reasons. They opt to charter their own flight to Johannesburg, which mandates that they fly over the vast Kalahari Desert. A swarm of locusts disables the engine and the plane ditches in a remote area, far from civilization. The survivors are a diverse lot. There's Stanley Baker as an alcoholic who suffers a severe leg injury. Stuart Whitman is a macho All American with a passion for rifles, hunting and making sure he gets the advantage in every situation. Theodore Bikel is a timid, kindly doctor. Harry Andrews is an aging German with knowledge of the terrain and Nigel Davenport is the pilot. The lone female is (naturally) a stunner with strong sexual desires. She's played by Susannah York, one of the most beautiful British actresses to emerge during the 60s.

The survivors find shelter in a cave and, using their ingenuity and Whitman's rifle, manage to sustain themselves. However, they are in midst of a band of savage baboons who pose a constant threat. It doesn't take long before the small group devolves into petty feuds and sexual jealousy, with Whitman emerging as a self-centered villain intent on keeping the food supplies and the woman for himself. The film, which is similar in content to Flight of the Phoenix, boasts an impressive screenplay by Endfield, who does yeoman work as director.  He presents the landscape in such a harsh manner that you'll run for a cold glass of water the second the film ends. The performances are all excellent, with Whitman particularly good as the charismatic villain. His last scene in the movie is one that will haunt you. There are many memorable sequences in the film but to divulge them would spoil the fun of watching this superior, testosterone-driven adventure. Make this one another "must" for your video library.

Although Olive Films has done justice to this magnificent looking film with a fine Blu-ray presentation, there are no bonus extras included.

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“SEE ROME AND FIND A HUSBAND!”

By Raymond Benson

The title of this review is admittedly facetious, but let’s be honest—it’s what this movie is about!

The time is 1954, the Eisenhower years, and America is at the crossroads of remaining in a conservative, sexually repressed era in which women, regardless if they had a career or not, were supposed to be more interested in finding husbands. Things wouldn’t change until the revolutionary 1960s. Hollywood mainstream pictures perpetuated this notion in the 50s with fare like Three Coins in the Fountain, an extremely popular romantic comedy upon its release. In fact, it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

Three American women, Frances (Dorothy McGuire), Anita (Jean Peters), and Maria (Maggie McNamara), all have jobs working for an American company located in Rome, Italy. One would think that would be fulfilling enough… but, no, all three women are on the hunt for husbands. Frances has her eyes set on an older American expat writer (Clifton Webb—really??), Anita is understandably attracted to the Italian “nice guy” (Rossano Brazzi), and Maria is taken with the Italian “bad boy” Casanova and prince (Louis Jourdan, who’s really French, but never mind). The story follows the three couples’ ups and downs, their travels around Rome seeing the many sights, and the inevitable break-ups and reunions.

It’s all very pleasant and vapid and corny, with decent performances by all performers, despite struggling with a paper-thin script. I’m sure it was a great date movie back then. Three Coins in the Fountain has, in fact, been remade three other times,as a feature film (The Pleasure Seekers, 1964), another as a television movie (same title, made in 1966 but not broadcast until 1970), and thirdly as yet another feature film (When in Rome, 2010).

What makes this picture worth watching today is the gorgeous Oscar-winning cinematography and travelogue aspects. The picture’s locations hit all the major tourist stops around Rome and the countryside around the city. You’ll see them all—the Museo Nazionale, Trastevere, the Galleria Borghese, the Roman Forum, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, and, of course, Trevi Fountain, the “star” of the film. And there are no problems with parking, traffic, or crowds of people! (It was rather amazing that the ladies in the story could drive right up to the fountain, park beside it, and admire it with no one else around.)

And, of course, there’s the music. The title song by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn (and sung by an uncredited Frank Sinatra) won the Oscar for Best Song and became a standard.

The new Twilight Time Blu-ray is a restored 1080p high definition transfer that looks marvelous and shows off the Oscar-winning cinematography by Milton R. Krasner and the breathtaking sights of Rome and its environs. As a visitor to that great city in the past ten years, it’s remarkable that the landmarks look exactly the same now as they did in 1954. There’s a choice for audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 4.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, or 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio. Film historian Jeanine Basinger provides an audio commentary, and there’s also an isolated music track.

Other supplements are a brief newsreel item of the Academy Awards ceremony as Three Coins wins the Cinematography award (with Bette Davis, the presenter, wearing a very wacky hat!), the original theatrical trailer, and other Twilight Time trailers.

As usual, Twilight Time produced a limited edition of only 3,000 units, making the disk a collector’s item upon its release! So, make it a 1950s date night, cuddle up with a significant other and a bottle of Chianti, enjoy the tour of Rome, and throw Three Coins in the Fountain.

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Tim Conway, a legend of American comedy, has passed away at age 85. Conway soared to fame as the bungling Ensign Parker on the hit 1960s TV series "McHale's Navy". He later enjoyed great success as a regular player on Carol Burnett's variety show series. Conway also appeared in numerous feature films including Disney's "Apple Dumpling Gang" films. His final years were marred by serious health issues and family strife regarding who would represent his interests. For more, click here.

BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

I love European genre cinema. For example, the Spanish horror films of Paul Naschy and Amando de Ossorio, the British Hammer and Amicus films; not mention the many British, French and Italian Eurospy films, and, of course, the Italian giallos and spaghetti westerns, just to name a few. In Italy, directors such ase Sergio Leone, Dario Argento and Mario Bava are legends. However, there were several Italian directors who may not have been as well-known as these three artists, but who still created many entertaining and worthwhile films. One of these directors was Antonio Margheriti, who dabbled in various genres including spaghetti western, peplum, Eurospy and horror. Some of his well-known horror films are The Long Hair of Death, Seven Death’s in the Cat’s Eye and the beloved Cannibal Apocalypse. But in 1971, Margheriti directed a film that some horror fans may not be familiar with. Others may have heard of it, but may not have ever seen it. That film is Web of the Spider.

Directed with style by Margheriti, here using his American-sounding pseudonym Anthony M. Dawson, Web of the Spider revolves around journalist Alan Foster who accepts a bet from legendary author Edgar Allan Poe to spend one night in Blackwood Castle; a structure that Poe believes to be haunted, but Foster does not. Moments after arriving at the dusty, cobweb-covered Victorian castle, Foster begins hearing and seeing strange and frightening things. Is it a hoax perpetrated by Poe or is Blackwood Castle really the home of something supernatural?

Written by Bruno Corbucci (James Tont operazione U.N.O. aka James Tont-Operation Goldsinger), Web of the Spider is a color remake of Margheriti’s and Corbucci’s 1964 black and white, gothic horror film Castle of Blood which starred the legendary Barbara Steele (Black Sunday, The Pit and the Pendulum). Due to Castle performing poorly at the box office, Margheriti decided to remake it six years later; this time in color. The director would later say that this was a mistake as he felt that the color robbed Web of the Spider of its atmosphere. Although I somewhat agree with him, I still think it’s an interesting film and I’m glad that it was made. Clocking in at 93 minutes, Web moves along at a fast enough pace (for me, anyway), and, although it would have been more atmospheric in glorious black and white, conjures up quite a bit of gothic mood. The sets are wonderful and are dressed beautifully and the look of the movie reminds me very much of a Night Gallery episode crossed with a Roger Corman Poe film. The period costumes are also quite lovely looking and the eerie musical score, by prolific Italian composer Riziero Ortolani (The Valachi Papers, The House on the Edge of the Park), adds immeasurably to the film.

The movie also features two very well-known actors. The first is Anthony Franciosa (A Hatful of Rain, Tenebrae) who stars as Alan Foster and convincingly shows us a man who goes from happy confidence to frightened madness. The second is Klaus Kinski (For a Few Dollars More, Slaughter Hotel, Nosferatu the Vampyre). Although Kinski’s role as Edgar Allan Poe is brief, it is also extremely memorable and one of the highlights of the film.

We also have lovely French actress Michèle Mercier (Black Sabbath, Angélique, Marquise des Anges) who does well with her role of the seductive Elisabeth Blackwood while recognizable faces such as Peter Carsten (Mafia Connection, Mr. Superinvisible), Silvano Tranquilli (The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, Castle of Blood), Karin Field (Cave of the Living Dead, The Mad Butcher) and Raf Baldassarre (A Fistful of Dollars, Eyeball) only add to the well-made movie.

Web of the Spider has been released on Blu-ray in region 1, 2 and 3 from the fine folks at Garagehouse Pictures. The film, which is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, looks gorgeous. The audio is also superb and the disc is overflowing with special features such as the German theatrical trailer, a deleted scene, an art gallery, the German Super 8 movie digest, and the uncut Italian version in standard definition which is also presented in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio and runs over seventeen minutes longer than the American version. We are also treated to not one, but two audio commentaries. The first is by George Reis, the editor of DVD Drive-in and writer/director Keith Crocker. These knowledgeable guys tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Web of the Spider while, in the second commentary, screenwriter Stephen Romano, who is also a crazy talented artist and contributed the beautiful, eye-catching artwork featured on the Blu-ray sleeve, provides much info about the film, as well as about extremely interesting subjects such as filmmaking and pre-home video film distribution. Rounding out these excellent special features are fifteen minutes of Antonio Margheriti trailers. If you’re a fan of 1970s Euro horror films, Klaus Kinski or Antonio Margheriti, this disc is an absolute joy.

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(Ernie Magnotta is the author of "Halloween: The Changing Shape of an Iconic Series"). Click here to order from Amazon.)

BY FRED BLOSSER

As a new Arrow Films Blu-ray edition of his 1972 Italian Western “The Grand Duel” reminds us, Lee Van Cleef was once a familiar screen presence. In the 1950s you could hardly watch TV or go to the movies without seeing his hawkish face, usually peering out venomously from under a stetson as a Western heavy. Following personal setbacks and changes in industry trends, Van Cleef’s roles became fewer, slighter, and harder to land in the early 1960s. And then Sergio Leone came calling. Leone wanted to pair Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name with a second American actor in “For a Few Dollars More” as a rival bounty hunter named Colonel Mortimer. Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, and Lee Marvin all turned down the role. By default, Leone approached Van Cleef. It was a providential choice for both men. “For a Few Dollars More” was a smash hit in Europe on its December 1965 release, and Italian producers quickly queued up to offer Van Cleef starring roles in other Spaghetti Westerns while Leone brought him back for another high-profile part as Angel Eyes, the “Bad” one in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

After the Leone films opened with stunning success in the U.S. in 1967 and the other Spaghettis followed on the lucrative drive-in circuit a few months later, Van Cleef was a highly bankable star and American producers made their own overtures. For a time, Van Cleef pursued a transatlantic career in Westerns, starring in further Italian pictures like “Sabata” (1969) and “Return of Sabata” (1971) and international co-productions like “Bad Man’s River” (1971) and “The Stranger and the Gunfighter” (1974), while filming three American movies: “Barquero” (1970), “El Condor” (1971), and “The Magnificent Seven Ride!” (1972). The American pictures were dull and talky, and even though they gave Van Cleef star billing, shared with Jim Brown in “El Condor,” the roles were lackluster. In “The Magnificent Seven Ride!”, he’s stuck with a bad toupee and looks so disinterested that you expect him to fall off his horse from boredom any minute.

Ironically, through big studio backing, the dismal American productions received healthy advertising play, while “The Grand Duel” from the same period barely registered in the U.S., although it was greatly superior. Directed by Giancarlo Santi and scripted by the prolific Ernesto Gastaldi, it passed quickly through drive-ins and second-run theaters in 1974. Theoretically “The Grand Duel” wasn’t a bad handle as a literal translation from the Italian title, “Il grande duello.” The phrase suggests both the battle of wills between the good guys and the bad guys that drives the plot. and in a literal sense the shootout that decides the contest in the end. Still, the picture might have had more attention here under a catchier, more clearly Western title. With the advent of VCRs a decade later, its home-video visibility was a little more robust if comparably underwhelming. The movie appeared on the collectors‘ market and budget VHS shelves under several titles: “The Grand Duel,” “The Big Showdown,” and “Storm Rider.”

Santi had worked as Leone’s assistant director on two films, and like most of Leone’s other Italian successors and emulators, he had absorbed a lesson from “For a Few Dollars More” that the American filmmakers apparently failed to recognize. The ideal starring role for Van Cleef was the “man in black” template embodied in Colonel Mortimer, that of an aging, almost superhumanly proficient gunman, usually dressed in formal, funereal attire. The character is defined by steely authority, a mysterious history, an elusive sense of sadness, and an air of menace. Circumstances throw the character into partnership or rivalry with a younger, more impetuous man who may become either his protege or his prey -- the outcome hangs in the balance until the final reel. The contrast with the headstrong, less seasoned younger partner underscores the wisdom, experience, and patient cunning of the Van Cleef character.

Cinema Retro has received the following press announcement from the BFI relating to this UK video release :

A mature treatment of sex and class, Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top is a landmark of the British New Wave. Winner of two Academy Awards®, from six nominations, including Best Actress for Simone Signoret and Best Adapted Screenplay (from John Braine’s novel), this kitchen-sink classic is made available on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK to mark the film’s 60th anniversary this year. Released by the BFI in a Dual Format Edition (Blu-ray & DVD) and on iTunes on 20 May 2019, it is packaged with numerous extras including a new feature commentary and a selection of archive films of West Riding, Yorkshire, where the film is set.

In 1950s industrial Yorkshire, social climber Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) woos the boss’s daughter as he sets out to reach the top of his profession. But when his working-class background hampers his efforts, Joe seeks solace with the unhappily married Alice (Simone Signoret) – an affair that will have dire consequences.

Special features

Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition

The Visit (1959, 35 mins): Jack Gold’s quietly devastating drama portraying the everyday life of a working-class single woman

The West Riding in Archive Film: Bradford Town Hall Square (1896, 2 mins); Bailey's Royal Buxton Punch and Judy Show in Halifax (1901, 3 mins); Tram Ride into Halifax (1902, 4 mins); Halifax Day by Day (1910, 2 mins); We of the West Riding (1945, 22 mins); This Town (1969, 8 mins): everyday Yorkshire life captured across a century of dramatic change

Original trailer

Feature commentary by Neil Sinyard (2009)

Feature commentary by Dr Josephine Botting (2019)

Image galleries

Product details

RRP: £19.99/ Cat. no. BFIB1343 / 12

UK / 1959 / black and white / 117 mins / English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles / original aspect ratio 1.66:1 // BD50: 1080p, 24fps, 1.0 PCM mono audio (48kHz/24-bit) / DVD9: PAL, 25fps, Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio (48kHz/16-bit)

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