By Cai Ross

To TV fans of a certain age, the acronym ITC instantly invokes memories of spies, guns, girls, espionage, memorable theme tunes, lush sideburns, flared trousers, almost continuous smoking, purple flock wallpaper and grand, globe-trotting adventures.

Actually, the wide-ranging TV shows made by Lord Lew Grade’s pioneering company have fans of all ages, with shows like The Saint, The Champions, The Persuaders! and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) (US. My Partner The Ghost) still appearing in television schedules to this day, nearly 70 years after Grade scored his first hit in 1955 with The Adventures of Robin Hood.

And so it’s everyone from grandparents to grandkids who have been tuning in in their droves to hear ITC Entertains The World, a podcast that celebrates all things ITC. Fronted by devotees Jaz Wiseman, Al “Smudge” Samujh and Rodney Marshall, the podcast casts an eye at the output of this much-loved stable, from whole-series overviews to individual episodes. They also look at the movies made under the ITC banner (films like Blake Edwards’s The Tamarind Seed and Peter Sellers’s career-reviving The Return of The Pink Panther).

I spoke to Rodney Marshall about the podcast and his love of all things 1960s, starting with the genesis of the podcast.‘Like a lot of podcasts, ours started in lockdown. Jaz approached me and suggested that we did one based on the little-known ITC show Gideon’s Way, which I hadn’t actually seen. I watched them all and thought it was fantastic. You have all those great 1960s guest actors, the Anton Rodgerses, Peter Bowleses and Annette Andres. I thought the podcast would be very niche but it proved surprisingly popular.

‘I’ve known Jaz for a long time through my late father. Jaz interviewed him for lots of DVD commentaries when The Avengers came out.’ Rodney’s father just happens to be Roger Marshall, a very familiar name to fans of vintage espionage television shows. The creator of popular UK dramas like Travelling Man, Zodiac and Floodtide, Marshall Sr also co-created the highly regarded and influential private detective show Public Eye in 1965, starring Alfred Burke as down-at-heel gumshoe Frank Marker.

He was also a regular contributor of scripts for the likes of The Avengers, writing 15 episodes of the iconic 1960s series.

After the success of the Gideon’s Way podcast, they were encouraged to broaden their scope and cover the entire range of ITC shows, but to do that they needed a new recruit. ‘We thought that in terms of voices, three is better than two. Jaz got in touch with his old friend Smudge, who is very much into the history of Elstree studios, into Hammer films and of course, ITC shows. I think all three of us bring something different to the podcast. Jaz is into things like music and titles, Smudge is very into things like directors and direction, talking about fish-eye lenses and the like. I’m more into the scripts, probably because of dad.

‘It was a learning curve for me because these two guys are ITC-mad. They probably have huge tardis-sized rooms full of all things ITC. If I said to one of them, “Do you have a copy of the scripts for The Persuaders! that my dad wrote for?” and they’d probably have three different copies of it.’

We bemoaned the fact that following the sad demise of the distribution company Network, it now seems unlikely that long-running shows like The Saint will receive the BluRay treatment and be discovered anew in pristine condition. It’s a huge shame since the likes of The Prisoner and Man in a Suitcase have enjoyed BluRay remastering and look breathtakingly fresh and vibrant as a result.

(L to R: Rodney Marshall, Jaz Wiseman and Al Samujh.)

'Man in a Suitcase is very much a shared love. I discovered it in the early nineties when BBC started showing it again during the school holidays. In my early misguided smoking days, I used to copy McGill’s habit of standing my cigarette up on the table between puffs. Naturally, I wasn’t able to pull it off with the same je ne sais quoi as Richard Bradford.

Marshall is very much an admirer of the US actor. ‘Bradford’s performance is astonishing. When you put him up against someone like Colin Blakely or Jacqueline Pearce, Bradford is dynamite. He has an incredibly magnetic presence. A lot is made of the fact that there was a lot of tension between him and the actors and stuntmen, but the main directors on the show absolutely loved him. Peter Duffell who was one of the main directors was our next door neighbour and one of dad’s mates, and he raved about Bradford.

‘He may have overdone the Marlon Brando thing; he would race around the set four or five times in order to look breathless before a take, but he really invested himself in his performances. Like Patrick McGoohan, he was a lead actor who wouldn’t take bullshit. If an actor came along and just wanted a quick cheque, they wouldn’t put up with it. Bernard Lee turned up drunk for an episode of Man in a Suitcase, and Bradford walked up to him and said, ‘I’m not putting up with this crap.’ Bernard Lee immediately switched onto acting-mode and suddenly there were no problems.’

Marshall’s other great ITC love is one of its earlier hits, Danger Man (or Secret Agent in the States), a popular and innovative pre-Bond spy series that made a global star out of Patrick McGoohan. ’I think what kept McGoohan engaged with Danger Man for so long is the fact that he’s undercover in so many different roles. One week he might be playing a roaring drunk, the next week he’s a timid school-teacher in glasses, sending someone into a nervous breakdown by stalking them! That variety made him feel like he was back in his old rep company in Sheffield.’

Danger Man was one of several ITC shows that, like ABC’s The Avengers, made the shift from black and white to colour in the mid sixties, when the US networks made it mandatory. Marshall however, believes that something was lost after the transition.‘I still think that The Prisoner, Man in a Suitcase and the amazing Strange Report aside, the best ITC series are from earlier in the decade like Gideon’s Way, Danger Man and The Saint, which I much prefer in black and white.

‘I always felt that when a show went from black and white to colour, you lost a lot of the subtlety. Take an episode of The Saint like ‘Scorpion’ with Dudley Sutton, who rides around on a motorbike bumping people off and even tries strangling his girlfriend. Perhaps its something to do with the shadows, but you can pull off a kind of darkness in a monochrome episode which doesn’t quite work in colour. Jaz recorded a DVD commentary for the Avengers episode ‘Town of No Return’ with Brian Clemens and director Roy Ward Baker, and they both said, ‘you know, black and white is more…real.’

The podcast casts its net wide to cover not just the big, popular hits but some of the ITC gems that may have faded from the public consciousness. ‘Man of The World from 1962 is very interesting, with Craig Stevens from Peter Gunn playing a photo journalist travelling the world getting himself into scrapes. It actually started in colour then went back to black and white after its budget was slashed.’

Intriguingly, The Sentimental Agent starring Carlos Thompson started off as an episode of Man of The World. The powers that be were so impressed with Thompson that they span it out into a whole series. Marshall explains, ‘Carlos was like a continental Roger Moore, very good looking, very charming, very flirty. But suddenly he fell ill, and they had to make the rest of the series with this humourless guy who was none of the above.’

The podcast, like the work it celebrates, is a labour of love and it’s benefitted from some Lew Grade-style serendipity that brought exactly the right three people together to extol the many virtues of a series of entertainments that are still adored by millions.

‘We’re lucky,’ concludes Marshall,‘because Jaz has access to a library of things like the music and a lot of interviews and DVD commentaries that he’s done with the likes of Richard Bradford and Sir Roger Moore, who was hilarious. On the commentary for The Saint, they debunked the theory that Patrick McGoohan turned down the role. He was interviewed for it, but producer Bob Baker thought he was unsuitable for the role as he refused to do any romantic scenes. They said to Roger, ‘we knew that kissing ladies on screen wouldn’t be a problem for you,’ and he replied in that most Roger Moore way, ‘Indeed not!’

(ITC Entertains The World is available to listen to across all streaming platforms.)

By Todd Garbarini

Paramount Home Video has released a set of five horror films in 4K UHD format. Here is a breakdown of the films included in the set.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

I was in the minority of those left unimpressed by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), based upon the 1967 novel of the same name by Ira Levin. I never saw what the fuss was about and could not find it even remotely scary when I originally saw it in the 1980s on VHS. I rewatched the film when the Criterion Collection released it on the now-out-of-print Blu-ray in October 2012 (if you have that version, hold on to it) and I realized that I had an incorrect reading of it. I believe that the terror that oozes from the screen is directly attributed to Rosemary Woodhouse’s (Mia Farrow) new life in the enormous Dakota Apartments (made famous by Mark David Chapman following his murder of John Lennon in December 1980) which is surrounded by people who initially make her feel safe and welcomed, but slowly begin to reveal their true natures which are malevolent and evil. Her husband Guy (maverick independent film director and actor John Cassavetes) is a struggling actor who understudies for a Broadway play and is suddenly fast-tracked to the lead role by the inexplicable blindness that befalls the play’s lead actor (portrayed by an off-screen Tony Curtis over the phone) following a discussion with two nosy neighbors (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon as Roman and Minnie Castavet, respectively) who ingratiate themselves into their lives. Coincidence? Guy is often short-tempered with his wife, but midway through the film he suddenly has a burst of fatherhood when he suggests to her that they have a baby. Overwhelmingly happy, Rosemary soon becomes suspicious of the people around her during her pregnancy. They are revealed to be a coven of witches, and Rosemary is carrying Satan’s child during a disturbing sequence of supernatural impregnation that she believes was just a dream.

Rosemary’s Baby is the ultimate gaslighting movie. It is also a movie that, I would imagine, would work to great effect on the psyche of female audience members for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is due to knowing what the outcome of Rosemary’s pregnancy is, and knowing that no one, not even the doctor (Charles Grodin) she has foolishly and naïvely confiding in regarding her suspicions regarding the coven, can or is even willing to help her. The film is set against a backdrop of complete normalcy, and when that normalcy is slowly eroded by the Devil’s minions in sheep’s clothing, it’s too much for us and Rosemary to bear. It’s also a film about betrayal, and it’s shocking to see how Guy willingly confesses to her that he had no problem selling her out to this life inorder to make an easy life for themselves, something he sees as a bonus. Her reaction to him and to the (offscreen) face of her baby is complete disbelief, and Ms. Farrow is more than capable of carrying the film. Rosemary’s horrifically contorted face when she sees her baby for the first time, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (sorry, Walt…), is all that the audience needs to know that the evil has come full circle.

Rosemary’s Baby turns 55 this year. Filmed in the final four months of 1967 and released on Wednesday, June 12, 1968, it takes place in 1965 and 1966. Ruth Gordon won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time, and it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2014. The film spawned a TV-movie follow-up in 1976 with Patty Duke.

(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)

The new package contains the film in 4K UHD on one disc, and the film on a standard Blu-ray, the latter boasting the following extras:

Rosemary's Baby – A Retrospective – this piece, originally shot in 2000 for the DVD, runs just under 17 minutes and includes comments from the late film producer Robert Evans, the late production designer Richard Sylbert, and Roman Polanski.

Mia and Roman – this piece runs roughly 23 minutes and contains a lot of nice behind-the-scenes shots taken during filming on location in New York City, with input from actress Mia Farrow and director Roman Polanski.

Theatrical Trailer

50th Anniversary "Redband" Trailer

This is a nice upgrade to 4K that will make you feel as though you’re watching it in a cinema again, though the lack of a feature-length commentary by film historians is disappointing given the film’s stature in the genre, making one wonder if the director is just against this sort of thing. Steven Spielberg and David Lynch do not offer commentaries on their works, sadly.

NOTE: It has come to Paramount’s attention that there is an error on this pressing, and they are going to correct it with a disc replacement program. Apparently there is a line of dialog missing from the film! When you purchase this box set, click on this link to request the replacement discs which should become available in the next several months.

Pet Sematary (1989)

Stephen King published two frightening and best-selling novels in 1983: Christine and Pet Sematary. Attempting to sandwich these massive tales into films that ran less than two hours is a near impossible task and neither film, the former directed by John Carpenter and the latter by Mary Lambert, is completely successful in this regard. Lensed between August and November 1988 and released on Friday, April 21, 1989, Pet Sematary begins with a familiar nod to Dan Curtis’s creepy Burnt Offerings (1976) as Dr. Louis Creed and his wife Rachel (Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby) leave the Windy City and arrive at their new Ludlow, Main home with their young daughter Ellie (Blasé Berdahl) and even younger son Gage (Miko Hughes). The house is located right in front of a major road that trucks whiz by at a high rate of speed, setting up the roadway as the imminent threat. Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne), the family neighbor, takes them to the Pet Sematary and explains how children bury their pets there. This proves convenient when the family, sans Louis, visit Rachel’s parents for Thanksgiving, and Ellie’s cat Winston Churchill (“Church” for short) is killed by a truck. Jud takes Louis to a location beyond the Pet Sematary called the Micmac Burying Ground dating back to ancient Native American days. Buried pets have come back to life, though their personalities are different, and this is no exception with Church. The idea is to save Ellie the grief of losing him.

Following Ellie’s displeasure of the now-reanimated Church’s smell, Gage finds himself in the path of a truck and, following his death, Louis digs up his corpse and heads for the Micmac Burying Ground despite verbal warnings from Jud. Unfortunately, Gage comes back as a meanie, killing those around him until a final showdown with his father.

Despite being written by author King, the screenplay never really manages to get above the level of a gross-out horror film. The subject of grief is best left to serious dramas (think Ingmar Bergman) as director Mary Lambert can only give us what’s on the written page as a truncation of an oversized novel, is fairly schematic at best. Whereas the novel is more of a deep-rooted mediation on the nature of the overwhelming emotion of grief over the death of a child, the film focuses more on the horrific aspects of the deaths at hand. It does seem to be enough, however, to satisfy genre fans.

Bonus Content (on both 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray Disc):

Feature-length commentary by director Mary Lambert

Pet Sematary: Fear and Remembrance – this piece is in high definition and runs about 7 minutes. Select members of the film’s cast and crew look back on the film and its reception.

Pet Sematary: Revisitation – this piece is in high definition and runs about 10 minutes. The director discusses the film’s production, how she came to direct the movie, and restoring the film.

Still Galleries – this is in high definition and consists of a large selection of photos separated into four sections.

Storyboards Introduction by Mary Lambert – this intro runs 1 minute in length. She explains how they derived the new transfer from the original camera negative and how the storyboards came to be.

Storyboards – this feature is extensive and recalls the image galleries of the laserdisc days. By using the left and right buttons on the remote control, you can navigate what is essentially a visual representation of the film. Very cool!

Behind the Scenes – this is a stills gallery that, like the storyboards, can be navigated in a similar fashion, showing images on the set of shooting during the summer of 1988.

Marketing – nice section of stills containing the marketing of the film for both theatrical and home video exhibition.

The following extras are only on the standard Blu-ray, though I will never understand why they do not replicate all extras on both discs as there is more than enough room to do so:

Stephen King Territory – this is a nice piece from 2006 that is shot in standard definition for the then-DVD release and runs about 13 minutes. It discusses the autobiographical genesis for the story, which really happened to Mr. King’s family and daughter.

The Characters – also from 2006 and shot in standard definition, this runs 13 minutes and looks at the motivations behind the characters and the cats used on the set. They had an ingenious method of making the cat’s eyes glow maniacally with an attachment to the Panavision cameras.

Filming the Horror – running 10 minutes, Mary Lambert discusses how the script came to her and while she read Stephen King’s novels, she did not consider herself to be a horror film director. Miko Hughes, who was two-and-a-half-years old when he played Gage, appears to have had a fun time on the set!

Smile (2022)

David Sandberg’s 2013 short film Lights Out is a brilliantly frightening, just-under-three-minute film about a woman seeing a strange creature in her kitchen and bedroom. It is widely available on Youtube and is one of the scariest movies I have seen in my 42 years of watching horror films and thrillers. It provided the basis for an unnecessary, feature-length film of the same name three years later, also directed by the same person, who has gone on to direct Annabelle: Creation (2017), as well as other projects. Likewise, Parker Finn is a director who made a short film called Laura Hasn’t Slept (2020), starring Caitlin Stasey and Lew Temple as her somnologist. It’s the second short he made after his impressive and creepy The Hidebehind (2018), a nearly ten-minute now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t bit of computer trickery that will make you think twice about trekking solo in a forest. In Laura Hasn’t Slept, which is just under twelve minutes, Laura tells her therapist that she has a recurring nightmare wherein a frightening man is constantly smiling at her. While I appreciated the effort of this film and experienced no difficulty in determining the ending, the prospect of sitting through the theatrical version entitled Smile simply did not sit well with me. My disappointment with Lights Out nearly made me pass on Smile, and I am glad that I reconsidered.

Unlike most of the horror films marketed today, Smile is every bit as terrifying as its marketing campaign has professed. Like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Smile feels like the sort of film that would emotionally bifurcate the audience into those who love it and those who hate it. In terms of genre tropes, the film’s most obvious cinematic antecedent is David Robert Mitchell’s superb It Follows (2014), and a nod to the film’s title can be further traced back to the malevolent chauffeur, played with icy stillness by the late Anthony James in Dan Curtis’s Burnt Offerings (1976). While it is true that familiarity can often breed contempt, this does not make Smile any less frightening. There is credence to the notion that although the film might offer up a less-than-compassionate view of mental illness and handle the subject flippantly, the movie should ultimately be judged for what it sets out to do: scare you. It may not be completely original, but it is no less frightening.

Sosie Bacon, the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, gives a bravura performance as recently engaged Rose Cotter, a psychiatrist who meets a new patient, Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey, the actress from the short film), who fails to convince Rose that she is being chased by a demon that possesses people by smiling at them. Rose’s training misinterprets this as an episode of some sort of psychosis until Laura screams and reacts violently to something in the examination room invisible to Rose. Laura’s terror suddenly turns inexplicably serene wherein she effortlessly cuts her own throat with a broken plant’s pot while smiling maniacally at Rose, who reacts with complete terror. Unbeknownst to Rose, a terrible curse that plagued Laura has now been transferred to her. It takes Rose a while to make this realization. In the interim, she blames what she experiences on overworking, reluctantly taking a week off at the urging of her manager. Her fiancée (Jesse T. Usher) wants to help her but feels powerless. Rose begins to have hallucinations, and as the audience we see what she sees. Her mother’s painful death becomes a force that she needs to reckon with and is a major reason why she works as hard as she does. The hallucinations become more and more unnerving. With the aid of her ex-boyfriend cop Joel (Kyle Gallner), she begins looking into murder cases wherein people having died by suicide that they committed in front of another person, and they themselves have also witnessed a suicide. A turning point occurs when Robert Talley (Rob Morgan of Netflix’s Stranger Things, in a small but powerful role), a murderer currently in prison, managed to escape the clutches of the entity. With Joel’s help, Rose goes to the prison to see him. He tells Rose that the entity feeds on other people’s trauma. Apparently, the only way to relieve oneself of this curse is to murder someone else in front of a witness to thereby transfer the trauma on to them (again, similarly like in It Follows). Rose attempts to do this, yet it turns out to be another hallucination. By the end of the film, Rose confronts her childhood trauma at her now-abandoned childhood home in an unsatisfactory ending that paves the way for a sequel.

Thematically similar to Rosemary’s Baby in that the protagonist knows the truth and cannot seem to convince anyone around them that they are not crazy, Smile, while certainly not original, manages to take a familiar horror genre trope and seriously make it its own, packing a powerful emotional punch with several genuine jump scares nearly on a par with Gary Sherman’s Death Line (1972) and William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist III: Legion (1990). In order for a film like this to work, the performances need to be believable and they are all spot-on.

Bonus Content (on 4K Ultra HD Disc):

Audio Commentary by director Parker Finn – this is a feature-length discussion by the film’s director who speaks about the movie scene by scene regarding what he wanted in the scenes and what he got. I normally shy away from such commentaries as I am not interested in a blow-by-blow description of the film, but the director speaks so intelligently about it that he is a constant pleasure to listen to.

Something's Wrong with Rose: Making Smile (HD) – at just under 30 minutes, this is a behind-the-scenes look at what it took to make the film in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Flies on the Wall: Inside the Score (HD) – Smile has one of the creepiest scores that I have ever heard, and it was composed by Cristobal Tapia de Veer. In under nine minutes, we are treated to his vast studio and his methods of creating ungodly sounds for the film.

Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by director Parker Finn – there are two scenes provided here with an optional commentary and add depth to Rose’s character. These run just under 12 minutes. I would have loved to have had these scenes added as an optional cut of the film viewable through seamless branching.

Laura Hasn't Slept – Original Short with Introduction by director Parker Finn – this is the short film that Paramount scouts saw at South By Southwest in Austin, TX that paved the way for Smile. It runs about 11 minutes.

“A VISCERAL LIFE IN LITTLE ITALY”

By Raymond Benson

Although he had made two previous feature films and several shorts, it was Mean Streets that placed Martin Scorsese into the minds of discerning filmgoers. This low budget independent picture (released by Warner Brothers) proved, as filmmaker Richard Linklater states in a Directors Guild of America interview with Scorsese from 2011 (presented here as a supplement), that artists who wanted to make a movie could go out and find the means to put their vision on the screen without interference from studio brass. Indeed, that’s what Scorsese did.

At the time, Scorsese was trying to make it in Hollywood. It was John Cassavetes who had urged him to stop working for Roger Corman (for whom Scorsese had made 1972’s Boxcar Bertha) and “go back to his roots.” Well, Scorsese’s roots were in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City. He had grown up there. He had friends there. He knew the life there, all the “goodfellas” and wannabe tough guys and low level (and some high level) gangsters. So the filmmaker crafted a screenplay with fellow NYU film school alumnus Mardik Martin, cast guys he knew such as Harvey Keitel in the lead (he had starred in Scorsese’s first feature, Who’s That Knocking at My Door from 1967, retooled and released in 1968 and again in 1969) and Robert De Niro (who had also grown up in the neighborhood and had known Scorsese when they were younger; this was Scorsese’s first collaboration with De Niro, then an actor who had done some Roger Corman films and was still attempting to up his game). Other familiar faces that have appeared in Scorsese’s oeuvre were also cast—Victor Argo, Harry Northup, David Carradine, and Murray Moston—but also other notable actors who have been in mob-related pictures such as David Proval, Richard Romanus, and Cesare Danova. Amy Robinson, who later became a producer (she co-produced Scorsese’s After Hours in 1985) was cast as the female lead.

Mean Streets features the hallmarks of what we would come to know to be in a “Martin Scorsese Film,” especially when he focuses on the underworld, a topic to which he has returned many times: brotherhood, loyalty, friendship, betrayal, guilt (lots of guilt), Catholicism, sex, drugs, rock and roll, crime, and violence. This life in Little Italy is edgy, gritty, dangerous, and quite self-contained. There isn’t a moment in which an audience might think—oh, this couldn’t happen… because Scorsese convinces you that it can and has.

Charlie (Keitel) is a small time hood in Little Italy. His uncle is Giovanni (Danova), a big time Mafioso. Charlie acts as a big brother figure to his friend, Johnny Boy (De Niro), who is reckless and not the brightest bulb in the socket, and who owes money to several gangsters, including Michael (Romanus). Charlie secretly dates Teresa (Robinson), who is Johnny Boy’s sister. She suffers from epilepsy and is an outsider to the closed-knit Italian culture of the neighborhood. Giovanni wants Charlie to get away from Johnny Boy, but Charlie can’t do it. Eventually the debtors come to get Johnny Boy to pay up, and Charlie must make decisions that will tear him apart. And that’s when the violence erupts.

What’s truly amazing about Mean Streets is that, according to cinematographer Kent Wakeford, only 6% of the film was actually shot in Little Italy (this reviewer believes it is slightly more, but certainly not as much as 10%). The rest was all shot in the Los Angeles area! Scorsese and his design team managed to find locations in California that somewhat resembled New York City, and nearly all of the interiors were shot in real spaces (existing bars, hotels, and apartments). No sound stages were used. For decades, critics and film historians have touted Mean Streets to be one of the “great New York films, shot on the streets” when, in fact, it wasn’t! That’s not to say that it’s not a great New York film, because it is.

Mean Streets is a rough and ready, visceral, fast moving, in your face crime picture with unsavory characters and a vibe that will make you nervous. You might ask, well, is it entertaining? You bet your life it is. But with these ne’er-do-wells, your life may not be worth much.

The Criterion Collection presents a new 4K digital restoration approved by Scorsese and frequent collaborator/editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who was not involved with the film), with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. After several home video releases in the past on DVD and Blu-ray, this one is obviously tops.

Supplements include the excellent previously mentioned discussion about the film between Scorsese and Richard Linklater at the DGA; an audio commentary by Scorsese and Amy Robinson on specific scenes from the film; a new, observant video essay by Imogen Sara Smith about the picture; an interview with DP Wakefield; excerpts from a documentary about co-writer Mardik Martin; a vintage promo video from 1973 about the making of the film (the only supplement ported over from previous home video releases); and the theatrical trailer. The package booklet contains an essay by critic Lucy Sante.

Mean Streets is a must-have for fans of Martin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and New York City mob movies. Get it now… just remember to pay your debts!

Click here to order from Amazon

By Lee Pfeiffer

"Some Kind of a Nut" is yet another obscure movie from the late 1960s (1969, to be precise) that is available through Screenpix, which is an ancillary subscription channel through Amazon Prime. The film is not currently available on home video in the U.S. and I don't know if it ever was. I was aware that the movie didn't make any impact upon its initial release but, given the amount of talent involved in it, I thought it was time to invest 90 minutes of my life to see a collaboration between star Dick Van Dyke and legendary writer/director Garson Kanin. Van Dyke was a hot property at the time, having left his classic TV sitcom "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to concentrate on a career in feature films, where he initially found considerable success. Van Dyke was busy with so many projects at the time that "Some Kind of a Nut" had a bizarre shooting schedule to accommodate him. According to the TCM web site, some of the film was shot in May of 1968 with the rest filmed in January 1969. The logistics of arranging this with a full cast and crew must have been challenging but Van Dyke's presence in the film led United Artists to agree to the terms. The company had recently released "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with Van Dyke in the starring role. The studio was also seeking a long-term relationship with Garson Kanin and signed him to a four-picture deal arranged by producer Walter Mirisch, but none of the other projects came to fruition and Kanin retired from making feature films after "Some Kind of a Nut".

Van Dyke is cast as Fred Amidon, a mousey bank teller who works in a busy branch in the heart of mid-town Manhattan. He and the other employees suffer in an Orwellian atmosphere under the thumb of a priggish, humorless boss who demands complete conformity with conservative banking policies. Fred is also carrying the weight of his pending divorce from his wife Rachel (Angie Dickinson) which will be finalized in a few weeks time. His one pleasant diversion is his romantic relationship with fellow bank clerk Pamela Anderson (no, not that Pamela Anderson) played by Rosemary Forsyth. While enjoying a precious lunch hour together in Central Park, Fred is stung on the chin by a bee. The painful sting proves to be stubborn and won't go away even when the couple leave on a cross-country vacation. Frustrated by the unsightly wound on his chin, Fred decides to grow a beard. (For a bank with prison-like working conditions, the institution must have a very liberal vacation policy, as Fred and Pamela have enough time to drive to San Francisco and back and for Fred's beard to come into full glory.) Upon returning to the bank, his new appearance causes a scandal. His boss insists that he shave it off, as beards are against bank policy. When Fred refuses, he is summarily fired. His stance earns him the respect of his fellow employees and when the media learns of his situation, he becomes a cause celebre. Before long, Fred becomes a reluctant hero to everyday people who are fed up with having to conform to outdated policies in society. He is particularly embraced by the counter-culture movement, making him an unlikely figurehead for local hippies. He has more problems: his soon to be ex-wife Rachel reconnects with him because she is impressed by his new-found courage. This complicates things with Pamela, who detests the beard and the symbolism it represents. She's under the influence of her two meddlesome brothers who seek to compromise Fred's status as a cult figure. Meanwhile, Fred starts to dabble in Eastern mysticism and begins consulting an Asian guru in one of the film's funniest scenes. Beyond this, however, Kanin's script is anything but unpredictable and you can pretty much guess the outcome of the movie long before it arrives.

"Some Kind of a Nut" was filmed under the working title "The One with the Fuzz". It was a dud with critics and audiences, as was often the case when older filmmakers tried to be relevant to the anti-Establishment crowd of the era. (All the hippies are safe, joyous and satisfied carrying protest signs that are about as controversial as "No Trespassing". There isn't a hint of the Vietnam War and civil rights protests that defined the era, let alone any expletives. The film paints a Brady Bunch-like depiction of a time that never was. Nevertheless, the script does have something to say about the price of conformity, expressed in comical fashion through the inimitable talents of Dick Van Dyke, who makes otherwise unfunny scenes amusing. Angie Dickinson has a rather bland role and her screen time is limited, though director Kanin ensures there is a scene set at a swimming pool for no other reason than to present the welcome sight of Dickinson in a bikini.The film also has the virtue of presenting some nostalgic scenes shot on location in Manhattan. For Dick Van Dyke, the movie would be the first of two feature films released in 1969 that were ambitious in content but failures at the boxoffice and with critics, although the second film, Carl Reiner's comedy/drama "The Comic" has earned respect over the years in certain quarters. Van Dyke would only star in one more comedy on the big screen, "Cold Turkey", released in 1971. That film proved to be quite popular. Thereafter, he would not star in a feature film for another eight years, when he appeared in the leading role in Stanley Kramer's admirable but under-appreciated final movie "The Runner Stumbles", in which Van Dyke gave a fine dramatic performance. He returned to the medium where he had originally found success: television and his late career series "Diagnosis: Murder" would prove to be a major hit that ran for many seasons.

("Some Kind of a Nut" is currently streaming on Screenpix, available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional $2.99 a month.)

By Nicholas Anez

The incentive for this 4^th volume in my Celluloid Adventures series was a dismissive review in a reference book of the 1956 film version of George Orwell’s novel, 1984, calling it “a great disappointment and a lackluster adaptation of the briliant novel.” This derogatory opinion remains the general consensus among many critics. I disagree with this assessment, in part

because the movie remained in my memory long after I first saw it. Furthermore, I had read the novel so I knew that, though the adaptation was definitely a loose one, it was actually faithful to Orwell’s ideas. So I wanted to redress this negative opinion of the movie and proceeded to write about it. This led to my considering other movies in the science fiction and horror genres that, I believe, are also underrated. Thus was born the concept for Celluloid Adventures 4: Science Fiction Thrills….Horror Chills.

I should state at this point that I became a fan of science fiction and horror movies in my adolescence. I also loved Westerns (Shane is my all-time favorite movie) and it has always upset me when a good movie, particularly in my favorite genres, fails at the box-office. Thus, my objective in the first three volumes was to bring overdue attention to some of these movies. In these books, I discuss films within several genres while I devote individual chapters to science fiction and/or horror movies. For this fourth book, I decided to focus only on science fiction and horror because the ascendancy of these genres that began with Star Wars (1977) and The Exorcist (1973) relegated to relative obscurity many fine movies that preceded this dominance along with a few that followed. And it is some of these films that I wanted to retrieve from anonymity for this book. (Not coincidentally, my devotion to the genres more or less ended in the late 70s, coinciding with this ascendancy, but that’s another story.)

It was very rewarding for me to research the movies in Celluloid Adventures 4 because I discovered numerous interesting details about their development and production that I hope will make this book equally interesting. For instance, here are just a few of the many intriguing facts that I learned:

The director of one movie fired his own brother who had written the screenplay.

One movie is based upon a legend of the birth of a deformed monster.

One movie was made by a married couple that later engaged in an acrimonious divorce.

One movie failed upon its original release but played to enthusiastic audiences in New York

and Los Angeles 65 years later.

The screenplay for one movie is based upon actual inhumane experiments conducted in

prestigious universities.

The producer of one movie was forced to cast the actor who starred in it.

The director of one movie considers it among his worst.

One serious movie suffered because its studio promoted it as an exploitation movie.

The 14 movies that I highlight cover a period of three and one-half decades, from 1943 to 1978, and I would speculate that the average moviegoer today has not heard of most of them. With one exception, they were financial failures or disappointments, a fact that contributes to their obscurity. However, I believe that they still deserve the recognition and praise that they did not receive upon their original release. In my estimation, these are all excellent films but yet most of them did not attract wide audiences.

These movies include a wide variety of subjects. In Son of Dracula (1943), the main character is a woman who is not only eager to die but is also willing to kill the man that loves her. In Alias Nick Beal (1949), Lucifer is determined to condemn an innocent man him to eternal suffering. Both The Power (1968) and The Medusa Touch (1978) portray men with superior brains that have the capability to either save or destroy the entire world. One of them will choose destruction because he hates humanity with a passion.

Very few people have heard of the movie, Who? (1974), and those who have heard of it were probably confused by the title. And yet it is a poignant story of an altruistic man who is victimized by futuristic technology. The protagonist of The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972) also endures tremendous suffering from another type of futuristic technology. The future of the aforementioned 1984 (1956) is extremely frightening because it depicts a world in which a sweet-looking child will betray her own father to be tortured and perhaps killed.

I am hoping that this book will encourage people, including some of you who are reading this, to view these movies. They are all entertaining and, in some respects, provocative. For instance, after seeing The Maze (1953), you might actually sympathize with a monstrous amphibian. If you believe that a brain is lifeless once it is removed from its body, Donovan’s Brain (1953) may change your mind. You might also discover how fragile our brains are after viewing The Mind Benders (1963), a story about the cruelty of pitiless scientists. If you view Crack in the World (1965), you will witness how the earth is almost destroyed by a scientist with abundant hubris. Upon viewing Journey to the far Side of the Sun (1969), you will witness a benevolent scientist lose his sanity because of his extraordinary discovery.

There are moments of pure excitement and suspense as well as pure terror in these movies. Viewers of Capricorn One (1977) will inevitably break out in ecstatic applause at the sight of a rickety biplane suddenly appearing on an isolated desert road. This is the only movie among the 14 in this book that was a success – with the public if not the critics. In contrast, The Mummy’s Shroud (1967) played the bottom-of-the-bill of double features and was unnoticed upon its release. But I believe it deserves some kind of awareness.

So I hope that I have piqued your curiosity enough to encourage you to read about the making of these movies. But even if you choose not to buy the book, for your own safety, I implore you to please heed this warning: Beware the beat of the cloth-wrapped feet!

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By Adrian Smith

For international audiences, the words “Australian comedy” probably conjures up images of Dame Edna Everage, or the sexual adventures of Alvin Purple. What may be less familiar is the work of the comedy group Double Take, led by former child actor Des Mangan, who began performing live in the mid-eighties in cinemas, screening the schlock horror classic Astro Zombies (Ted V. Mikels, 1968) whilst lip-syncing an entirely new script. What had begun as a group of friends throwing funny lines at the TV during late might screenings of B movies developed into a successful series of live screenings that spread in popularity throughout the country, and eventually overseas with an appearance in 1987 at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 1989 they began a new show using the relatively obscure Italian peplum film Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili (Samson and the Mighty Challenge, Giorgio Capitani, 1964). This was coming from the tail end of the sword and sandal boom that had begun with Le fatiche di Ercole (Hercules, Pietro Francisci, 1958) a few years and hundreds of films earlier, and as such was already almost spoofing the conventions, particularly in having mythological heroes from different backgrounds (Greece, Israel and Rome) fight each other. Double Take, by this time consisting of just Mangan and comedian Sally Patience, took this already amusing film and drastically rewrote the story so that Hercules, a Sinatra-style crooner, falls in love with the beautiful Labia, whose mother runs the Pink Parthenon nightclub in Climidia, and, well, you get the point. It’s smutty, politically incorrect and hilarious.

The success of the ‘Double Take Meets Hercules’ live show encouraged an American business and wannabee film producer to provide funding to turn the whole thing into a movie, so Mangan wrote a wraparound story about Brad (David Argue), a disillusioned cinema executive who quits his job with one of the major distribution franchises to restore and open his own reparatory cinema. With publicist Lisa (Mary Coustas) and projectionist Sprocket (the legendary Bruce Spence, a man so tall he probably wouldn’t fit in a real projection booth), they plan a gala black tie event opening screening featuring the last film to be screened at the venue before it closed down – Hercules. It is not until the guests arrive that they realise the print they have been sent is in Italian, so Brad and the gang must dub the film live, much the great delight of the audience. This set-up is obviously just the excuse needed to be able to present large sections of the original Hercules film with the new dubbing, and it works very well. Unfortunately, despite successful film festival appearances around the world, Hercules Returns did not stick around in cinemas for very long and was largely forgotten. The Double Take team went back on the road with shows based around, among others, Morgan the Pirate, (André De Toth & Primo Zeglio, 1960) and Starcrash (Luigi Cozzi, 1978), and later Mangan became a well-known face on Australian television through presenting film screenings and Eurovision coverage.

This new, fantastic blu ray release from Umbrella Entertainment features not only the restored Hercules Returns, but also the full English-language version of the original film, Samson and the Mighty Challenge. This is a very entertaining and funny film in itself; a sort of Italian Carry On film. However, the jewel in the crown of this release is the full original recording of ‘Double Take Meets Hercules’. Whilst much of the script was used in the rerecorded version for Hercules Returns, in my opinion this version is purer and funnier, uninterrupted by the new narrative segments required to make the Hercules Returns story work. It is witty and frequently outrageous, and it’s easy to forget that there are only two people doing all the voices. There is also a new audio commentary for Hercules Returns with the cast and crew, which raises the slightly meta prospect of watching the film, which is mainly a commentary, with another commentary over the top. This deluxe, limited-edition package also comes a book which tells the complete story of Double Take, the making of the film and the critical reaction, as well as a copy of the wraparound story script. Housed in a hardbox with fantastic new artwork, it also contains a complete set of lobby cards and a reversible poster.

This Collector’s Edition of Hercules Returns is only available from the Umbrella Entertainment webstore, and is highly recommended.

By Ernie Magnotta

Nick Martin (Joey Travolta, Hollywood Vice Squad, Normal People Scare Me), the leader of a gang called the Nightcrawlers, dreams of moving his girlfriend, mother and two brothers out of Sunnyside, Queens, but becomes involved in a violent war against a rival gang called the Warlocks.

Beautifully directed by Night Gallery’s Timothy Galfas (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff King from a story by King and Robert Schaffel), and released by American International Pictures, Sunnyside is an engaging and entertaining drama/love story that carries an important message. Although it never reached the popularity of other gang films like Walter Hill’s The Warriors, Sunnyside is still an extremely well-done movie that I not only feel is underrated, but that should definitely be seen.

Besides Travolta’s solid and likeable performance, the movie also features an amazingly talented cast of actors such as John Lansing (More American Graffiti), Stacey Pickren (Runaway Train), Andrew Rubin (Police Academy), Michael Tucci (Grease), Talia Balsam (The Kindred), Chris Mulkey (The Hidden), Joan Darling (The Troublemaker), Jonathan Gries (The Monster Squad), Peter Kwong (Big Trouble in Little China), Eric Laneuville (A Force of One), John Megna (To Kill a Mockingbird), Thomas Rosales, Jr. (The Hunter), Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump), John Alderson (Against All Flags), Grand Bush (Colors), Billy Jacoby (Bloody Birthday) and Robert Dryer (Savage Streets).

Sunnyside has been released on a Region 1 Blu-ray and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The film looks great and the audio is also superb. Special features include a terrific interview with actor Chris Mulkey, the original theatrical trailer as well as trailers for Dirty O’Neil; Checkered Flag or Crash, and Walk Proud.

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From TCM: "In this episode of Film 101, we're focusing on three from the charming duo of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant--Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), and The Philadelphia Story (1940).” 

The segment also goes into the draconian decency rules that were imposed on older films and how studios managed to get around topics such as sex and infidelity.  

By Fred Blosser

“The Hands of Orlac,” a 1960 U.K.-French co-production, was the third movie version of “Les Mains d’Orlac,” a sensational 1920 novel by French writer Maurice Renard. Like many of the other horror pictures released in 1960, it was filmed in black-and-white. The director, Edmond T. Gréville, was a veteran French-born filmmaker who had worked in both France and England. His previous picture, “Beat Girl” (1960), had featured Christopher Lee as a strip club impresario in an exploitative story about beatniks, aspiring rockers, and strippers. Lee and other British actors filled most of the major supporting roles in “The Hands of Orlac.” Exterior scenes were filmed on the French Riviera, interiors at Britain’s Shepperton Studios. An American actor, Mel Ferrer, was cast in the lead. Ferrer was a reliably familiar leading man for the all-important U.S. market. His name lent box-office appeal in those days when foreign movies were suspect in small-town America, as it did for another offbeat horror production in which he also starred that same year, Roger Vadim’s “Blood and Roses,” a French and Italian co-production. But U.S. distributors apparently saw no pressing need to slip Gréville’s film into American theaters, since it didn’t open here until 1964. By that time, a promotional still from the movie had appeared in the October 1963 issue of “Famous Monsters of Filmland” magazine, in a preview of upcoming horror and fantasy releases.

In the story, a celebrated concert pianist and composer, Stephen Orlac (Ferrer), flies from London to France to visit his fiancee, Louise (Lucile Saint Simon). His small plane wrecks in a fog, and Orlac’s hands are “burnt to the bone” in the crash. After his ambulance passes through a police checkpoint where a condemned murderer, Vasseur, is being transported to the guillotine, Louise prevails on a famous surgeon, Dr. Volchett (Donald Wolfit), to operate in an effort to save her lover’s badly injured hands. Coming out of the anaesthetic, Orlac finds his hands encased in huge, unsightly plaster casts. Worse, he sees the front page of a newspaper that juxtaposes a report about Vasseur’s execution with one about his own injuries. To his groggy eyes, the stories gradually merge into one under the headline, “Stephen Orlac Receives the Hands of Vasseur, the Murderer.” Lifting the grotesque casts, Orlac flies into hysterics. This was the publicity still that intrigued us young readers of “Famous Monsters” in 1963. It was also the centerpiece of the movie’s lobby-poster art.

Did the newspaper actually display the stories that Orlac read, more or less as he interpreted them? Was he hallucinating? Was there even a newspaper at all? No matter, the high-strung pianist becomes convinced that the surgeon found his hands irreparably damaged, amputated them, and replaced them with Vasseur’s, especially since, as he mourns, “They feel as if they no longer belong to me!” After the casts come off, he can’t get his fingers to strike the right notes on the keyboard.

The obsession grows stronger when Orlac and Louise make love. His fingers unconsciously tighten around her throat, and she begins to choke. That incident and others convince the pianist that Vasseur’s hands have a violent will of their own, and his fiancee’s life is in danger as long as they’re together. He checks into a sketchy Marseilles hotel under an assumed name, where he encounters a small-time stage magician named Nero (Christopher Lee, returning from “Beat Girl” as an even sleazier character). Nero senses an opportunity for blackmail; obviously, “Mr. Stephen” is a well-off guy who wouldn’t be holed up in a dump unless he had something to hide. Nero pimps out his pouty assistant and mistress, Li-Lang (Dany Carrel), to cozy up to Orlac and get him to talk.

Orlac’s self-imposed exile doesn’t last long. After Louise tracks him down, he decides to straighten up, return to England, marry Louise, and resume his career. But he continues to brood over his persuasion that his hands are no longer his own. Discovering “Mr. Stephen’s” true identity, Nero and Li-Lang follow. Nero sets about to feed Orlac’s paranoia, reasoning that the unhinged pianist will kill someone sooner or later, opening himself to big-time extortion.

To the extent that film enthusiasts take notice of “The Hands of Orlac” at all, they mostly judge it seriously inferior to the previous movie versions of Renard’s novel. Robert Wiene’s “Orlacs Hände” (1924), also called “The Hands of Orlac” in English-language prints, was a classic of German silent cinema, with Conrad Veidt as the title character amid feverish Expressionist sets. Following in 1935 from MGM, Karl Freund’s “Mad Love” with Colin Clive as Orlac draped the story in sadism and sexual perversion, to the extent Freund could do so under the vigilant eyes of the Hays Code censors.

Gréville’s remake dialed back on Wiene’s and Freund’s extravagance, accounting for some of its lacklustre press from critics who like to see the gothic thriller envelope pushed further than Gréville pushed it, at least in their opinion. It’s very much a product of 1960, emphasising the psychological aspect of Orlac’s dilemma and stepping into film noir territory once the intimidating Nero and Li-Lang enter the plot. It even evokes the emerging New Wave of French cinema with its documentarian exterior shots on the Riviera. Claude Bolling’s musical score includes light jazz for a scene in which Orlac tools around in a vintage sports car, and rinky-tink cabaret music for Li-Lang’s sultry song-and-slink routine following Nero’s magic act, juxtaposed with Beethoven and Liszt in the concert scenes that open and close the movie. Mel Ferrer lacks Conrad Veidt’s eye-popping hysteria and Colin Clive’s furrowed anxiety, his Orlac repurposed for 1960 as a sophisticate in shades, pullover sweater, and tailored slacks for casual wear, and an expensive suit for business occasions. If you’re a retro-fan of JFK-era men’s fashions, you probably won’t mind. You may even prefer Ferrer’s interpretation over his predecessors’. Like other British horror films of the time, such as “Jack the Ripper” (1959) and “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” (1960), “The Hands of Orlac” promises plenty of sex appeal courtesy of Lucile Saint Simon’s filmy negligees and Dany Carrel’s showgirl outfits. In truth, this stuff is pretty tame by 2023 standards, but it was a draw for male filmgoers at a time when even the centrefolds in “Playboy” were often modestly posed.

For most of the picture, we don’t know whether Orlac’s obsession has a basis in reality, since we don’t actually see the operation itself. Were the killer’s hands really grafted onto his wrists, or is the pianist suffering from a morbid neurosis? An explanation is made toward the end that for may find satisfying or frustrating, depending on your tastes. It doesn’t help that Orlac is surrounded by oddball characters who only compound his unease. Nero is the only one who is overtly menacing, but others are unsettling in their own ways. In his few minutes on screen, Donald Wolfit’s Dr. Volchett is brusque and possibly alcoholic; his decision to save (or replace) Stephen’s damaged hands seems more a whim than a humanitarian impulse. His unnamed assistant (Anita Sharp Bolster) is a starchy spinster who wears rimless glasses with impenetrably thick lenses, like Albert Dekker’s in 1940’s “Dr. Cyclops.” When Orlac tries to call Dr. Volchett to either confirm or relieve his suspicions, the assistant tells him the surgeon is on professional travel—to Moscow!—and unreachable in that era before cellphones and Zoom. She brightens up as she enjoys a chance to extol her boss, but her comments only deepen Orlac’s fears: “Dr. Volchett is a magician,” she declares. “Your case was his greatest triumph.” In a small but bravura appearance, Donald Pleasence plays Coates, a sculptor who wants to use Orlac’s hands as the model for those of Lazarus in a biblical tableau of Lazarus raised from the dead. “All we see of Lazarus is his hands—your hands, Orlac!”, he exclaims, seizing the pianist’s wrists. Given Stephen’s state of mind, the sculptor’s fervor is more invasive than flattering, like the irritating stranger who latches on to you at a party and won’t let go. As he makes his pitch with growing enthusiasm, Orlac stares at his hands (poised exactly as he had scrutinized his grotesque casts earlier in the story), and runs off in panic.

“The Hands of Orlac” isn’t the best horror thriller of 1960. That would be Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” with “Blood and Roses” and Georges Franju’s “Eyes Without a Face” as close seconds. But it’s better than its obscurity would imply. In the U.S., “Eyes Without a Face” was dumped onto double bills as “The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus” and generally ignored by critics, much as “The Hands of Orlac” was. Now, it’s widely regarded as a classic. It’s surprising that Gréville’s picture hasn’t received similar reappraisal, given the renewed interest in neglected horror films in the home video era, and the movie’s value as an early showcase for Christopher Lee and Donald Pleasence. The problem may lie with the fact that an official DVD or Blu-ray edition for fair evaluation doesn’t exist in the U.S., the U.K., or anywhere else as far as I can tell. DVD-R versions are sold on the collector’s market, with caveats about their visual quality.

We discovered this presentation of the film on YouTube, apparently sourced from tape, perhaps one of two competing VHS releases in the 1990s, or a videotape from a long-ago television broadcast. The image is better than you might expect, if inferior to the hi-def transfers we’ve come to expect nowadays. It’s also the easiest way to find the movie, at least until we can hope to see original elements unearthed, if they still exist, and a better print prepared for Blu-ray or one of the major streaming platforms.

(To watch in full screen format, click on "Watch on YouTube".)

By Doug Gerbino

Flicker Alley’s recent Blu-Ray release of “Laurel & Hardy Year One-The Newly Restoed 1927 Silents” is the start of a ground-breaking project which is a joy for all film fan,s especially Laurel & Hardy aficionados. Produced by film historians and restoration specialists Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange in conjunction with Lobster Films, Blackhawk Films and The Library of Congress, this 2-disc set contains the first 15 extant films that feature Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in the casts. A number of the films can just boast having Laurel & Hardy in the same film-not yet a team.

Many of these films are being seen in their most complete versions thus far due to the collaboration of various film archives and collectors. This is the seminal period of the teaming of Laurel & Hardy. They are not quite a team in the earliest films in this collection. This set gives us the opportunity to study their evolving partnership.

In typical Flicker Alley fashion the set is chock full of wonderful bonus materials. Each film has newly recorded audio commentary by Laurel & Hardy scholar Randy Skretvedt. There are three documentaries: Restoring Laurel & Hardy, Laurel & Hardy on Location & Hats Off!-a slide show presentation of the only completely lost Laurel and Hardy film. There are Multiple Image Galleries, additional music scores for three of the shorts and a very informative 35-page booklet.

If you have seen any previous Flicker Alley releases, you know the image quality is superb. This initial release is an exciting start to a multiple year project. Year Two (1928) is next. We will have the opportunity to watch the teaming of one of the greatest comedy teams mature into legends. Very much recommended.

Films included in the set:

Lucky Dog (1921)

45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926)

-1927-

Duck Soup

Slipping Wives!

Love ‘Em and Weep

Why Girls Love Sailors

With Love and Hisses

Sailors, Beware!

Do Detectives Think?

Flying Elephants

Sugar Daddies

The Second 100 Years

Call of the Cuckoo

Putting Pants on Phillip

The Battle of the Century

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By Hank Reineke

Roger Corman had, over a relatively short period of time, directed and/or produced more than a half-dozen pictures since his entry into the movie industry in 1955. His first efforts were modest successes, but the filmmaker firmly broke into a dependably bankable stride within two years’ time. Though already having helmed two low budget science-fiction pictures with some success (Day the World Ended (1955) and It Conquered the World (1956) his reputation in Hollywood - as a budget-minded money-spinner - was properly recognized following the box office counting of his 1957 chiller combo: Attack of the Crab Monsters/Not of This Earth. Variety noted the package – each film made on a “slenderized bankroll of $85, 000,” had brought in an impressive domestic gross of $800,000. By early November of ’57, that package, distributed through Allied Artists, had earned back the entirety of its production and marketing costs within twelve weeks of its release.

Through the remainder of the 1950s and well into the early 1960s, Corman continued to grind out a dizzying array of feature films, not all of the horror and sci-fi variety: there were plenty of exploitative teenage rock n’ roll pictures and crime dramas offered as well. But from 1960 through 1964, Corman worked primarily – though not exclusively – producing and directing an impressive slate of upscale horror classics. He had already given fans such soon-to-be low-budget cult favorites as Bucket of Blood (1959) and Little Shop of Horrors (1960). But in 1960 he more famously scored with House of Usher, the first of his iconic and moody cycle of Poe and H.P. Lovecraft adaptations - many featuring Vincent Price in roles as both tormentor and tormented.

One of Corman’s most important collaborators in his early years was screenwriter Charles B. Griffith. Griffith would receive screenwriting credit – or co-credit – on no fewer than eight of Corman’s earliest films 1956-59. The writer would later recall for Beast from Haunted Cave he had been commissioned by Corman to essentially rework the storyline of an earlier film they had crafted together – Naked Paradise (1957) aka Thunder Over Hawaii. Naked Paradise, of which Griffith was brought on late to the project for a re-write, was essentially a South Seas crime-drama set in a pineapple plantation under the umbrella of a glistening sun.

Since that film had done well enough, Corman wanted to revisit the scenario of Naked Paradise for the reimagined crime drama titled Beast from Haunted Cave. There would be a new twist: the new scenario was to take place in and around a gold mining community nestled in the dead winter snow of South Dakota’s Black Hills. Oh, and Corman advised Griffith that he also wanted a genuine cave-dwelling monster thrown in for good measure - that sort of thing was still selling. That was essentially all the background material given to Griffith to get started on the project.

Despite its menacing title Beast from Haunted Cave appears more a crime-drama than horror flick in the course of its 65-minute running time. The story revolves around the criminal doings of a circle of bandits: chain-smoking mastermind Alexander Ward (Frank Wolff), his two minions Marty Jones (Richard Sinatra) and Byron Smith (Wally Campo) and Ward’s oft- inebriated “secretary” Gypsy Boulet (Sheila Carol). The thieves have gathered in the snow-capped mountain winter of the pioneer town of Deadwood, South Dakota. Their plan is to plant an explosive in an abandoned cave in the early hours of a quiet Sunday morning. The explosion is set merely as a strategic ploy to distract authorities for a time, enabling the thieves’ free reign to steal gold bars from an unattended payroll office of a local gold-mining company.

Unfortunately, their plans don’t run smoothly. Ward’s dissatisfied and affection-starved lover-secretary, Gypsy, has a bit of a drinking problem. She complicates matters when she falls hard for ski instructor and trail guide Gil Jackson (Michael Forest), a swarthy, dark-haired gentleman of gentle temperament. (As an aside, I occasionally had a bit of trouble understanding actress Sheila Carol’s dialogue in this film: her diction seemed a perplexing amalgam of drunken slurred words and a faux Katherine Hepburn accent). The cold Ward takes notice of his woman’s wandering eye but is unworried. He has plans to kill Jackson once the skier - unwittingly - guides this gaggle of crooks on a cross-country trail run to a remote location.

Ward had plans to rendezvous with a waiting plane to ferry his gang - and their misbegotten treasure - off to safe sanctuary in Canada. But this plan too is scuttled by an unwelcome blizzard passing through the mountains. (As a second aside, Ward’s cross-country ski scheme is surely the most ineffectual escape route ever mapped by criminals carrying weighted gold bars in rucksacks. They really would have done better just hightailing it out of town in their rented car). To complicate matters further – and this is where the horror finally comes in - their explosive mine charge has awakened the titular beast, sort of an upright walking, giant spider that collects his victims by webbing them against cave walls and drinking their blood at his leisure. Let’s just say the moral of the story is a familiar one: essentially, crime doesn’t pay.

In Corman’s attempt to make their chilly time in the Black Hills more productive and worthwhile (i.e. profitable), the filming of Beast was to be produced back-to-back on location in Deadwood with yet another Charles B. Griffith script, Ski Troop Attack. This second film was to be a somewhat more ambitious project, a snow-bound WWII action-adventure pitting American ski-troopers against their wintry Nazi counterparts. The Corman team would use the same primary on-and off screen talents featured in the cast and credits of Beast for Ski Troop Attack.

The scenario of Ski Troop Attack referentially takes place in the snow-capped mountains of Germany’s Hürtgen Forest, circa December 1944. A small American band of ski-troopers are the only remaining Allied force active in this Nazi-controlled region, hiding themselves behind enemy lines so they can spy and report on SS ski-troop movements. The level-head Lieutenant Factor (Forest), a graduate of the Army’s Officer Candidate School, wishes to stay clear of engaging in active combat with the enemy. As the only team of Allied forces positioned inside the Nazi-controlled German-Belgian border, it is Forest’s belief his outfit should purposely avoid direct contact. He instead wants to concentrate his efforts on secret reconnaissance missions. By acting as the covert eyes of the good guys behind enemy lines, his outfit would be able to transmit vital information on Nazi troop movements back to HQ.

But Factor is at loggerheads with tough-talking Sergeant Potter (a mustache-less Wolff, again cast in a “heavy” role). Potter is described by Factor as an old school “regular army guy,” a man of pure fighting spirit but someone strategically short-sighted. Potter desperately wants to engage the Nazi ski-troopers in active combat and is mostly dismissive of the Factor’s civilian background and wartime decision-making capabilities. Potter does get a number of chances to engage in hand-to-hand combat. The film actually offers no shortage of brutal on screen violence with competing ski-troops ambushing and beating one another with fisticuffs, rifles butts, bayonets, knives and machine-gun fire.

Ultimately, the American’s decide to blow up a strategic railroad bridge that Allied air powers are unable to access and target. But while attempting to get to the base of the bridge to set off their detonators, they must first successfully climb an ice-covered vertical cliff side. If this isn’t problematic or dangerous enough, they must also fend off a team of six pursuing Nazi ski-troopers hot on their trail. The German skiing contingent, incidentally, is led by the badly-dubbed Roger Corman himself. The film’s climactic ending is, somewhat surprisingly for this type of adventure, more bleak than celebratory.

Griffith’s screenplay is actually far more nuanced than it is given credit for in the film’s original round of reviews. The sensitively written dialogue is mature – the scene where soldier Grammelsbacher (Sinatra) sits around a campfire musing if somewhere out there there’s still “a bullet with my name on it” – is particularly gripping. The better written dialogue also brings out better acting performances of all involved – including Shelia Carol who appears midway through the film as a spiteful German captive of the Americans.

The film does plod a bit. There’s a lot of wartime newsreel footage interlaced throughout, and no matter how beautiful the mountain settings are photographed, there’s far too many time-filling shots of ski-troopers silently trudging cross-country style through the tundra. Having said that that, there’s also some well-executed ski chase scenes captured on screen, such action-footage surprising for a film shot on a threadbare budget. The soundtrack of the film is riddled with the sound of machine-gun fire and a decent score courtesy of composer Fred Katz – though fans of Corman’s earliest films will surely recognize a good number of Katz’s recycled musical motifs are in play.

As both projects were to be shot on tight schedules, Roger’s brother, Gene, stepped in as the de facto producer of Beast. Once a Hollywood agent, Gene Corman was co-founder (with Roger) of their company Filmgroup, Inc. Gene’s earliest entries as producer would include a number of exploitative sci-fi efforts such as Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959). With Roger set to both produce and direct Ski Troop Attack, the directorial duties of Beast were given to first-timer Monte Hellman - whose only previous film experience was having worked as an apprentice editor at ABC-TV.

In his entertaining memoir, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime (Random House, 1990), Roger Corman recalled the wintertime location shooting in and around snowbound Deadwood as “unbearable” and “a very tough challenge.” When shooting was to commence on the peak of Mount Terry, Corman recorded temperatures of a frigid thirty-eight degrees below zero. In the recollection of script supervisor Kinta Zertuche, her primary job was simply “to find ways to keep the film warm enough so it wouldn’t get brittle and crack.” She was also deigned to find ways of keeping the production cameras from freezing – not always successfully.

Production assistant Paul Rapp recalled he had been tasked to drive the parsimonious Corman – and an automobile-filled cache of film props - from Los Angeles to Deadwood, so the director “could save on airfare and have an extra car on location.” When filming one downhill ski sequence, Corman accidentally set off a small avalanche by shouting “Action!” too loudly through a bullhorn. Rapp recalled while the incident scared him half-to-death, Corman quickly realized the potential visual impact of what the camera was capturing. So the team was commanded to continue to roll film, Corman exhorting via bullhorn that his terrified skiers try their best to “Stay Ahead of the Avalanche!”

In March of 1959, there was a trade announcement that “Corman’s distributing outfit, The Filmgroup,” was planning to release Beast from Haunted Cave nationally (paired with The Wasp Woman) as early as June 1, with Ski Troop Attack (to be paired with Task Force 38) a little more than a month later, July 13. But neither of those prospective release dates would actually roll out as planned, even though the films themselves were ready to roll. Beast would come closest to realizing its projected release date, appearing on some screens in July 1959.

As early as February of 1960, Variety reported that the steamroller that was Filmgroup was optimistically planning to roll out eight feature films a month between March and June of 1960. Ski Troop Attack was to see release on the very tail end of that schedule. The Hollywood Reporter suggested Filmgroup’s plan as more ambitious than even originally announced: the company was planning on issuing no less than twenty-four features over a year’s period, with eleven of those titles already in the can and ready to go.

The company was also interested in testing international markets. It was reported that the usually closed-to-outsiders Soviet film market was interested in importing four Corman titles – including Beast and Ski – assuming whether or not Irving Allen, president of Canada’s Astral Films, could finalize a deal while visiting London. Later in May of 1960, it was reported Filmgroup had sealed another deal to distribute eight films – again, including Beast and Ski - throughout the Philippine islands. Finally, in August of 1960, Continental Distributors would obtain rights of Filmgroup product for European markets.

But the U.S. market was of most concern to the filmmakers. On March 16, 1960, there was a very belated press screening of the Beast and Wasp combo at the Hollywood Theatre. Variety was generally impressed with Hellman’s Beast, but suggested the film’s scenario was completely illogical. The critic also pondered that perhaps interest in horror films was generally on the wane. He opined, audiences were growing “inured to monsters and hardly blink when this one guzzles its customary quota of blood.” The review of Wasp was likewise middling in praise. The trade noted, while the film was certainly an “exploitable” passable entertainment, “it’s pretty slow and not very frightening.”

The “official” premiere of Beast from Haunted Cave was to take place at dual locations in South Dakota: Rapid City’s State Theatre and the Hile-Hi Drive-in outside of Deadwood: the latter venue was to enjoy a four day night run of Beast beginning August 2, 1959. This was obviously a nod of acknowledgment to the folks living in the area of the Black Mountain Hills who hosted and assisted the film’s production. But no matter how well-intentioned the “premiere” honor, Beast from Haunted Cave and The Wasp Woman had already been projected on screens in the mid and southwestern U.S. as early as July of ’59.

Earlier that spring, director Gene Corman had written Allan “Birdie” Arnold of Deadwood’s Chamber of Commerce City Council, a champion of the film shoot. “We saw a rough cut of our picture, it is very good and I’m sure everyone who helped, especially you, will be proud and pleased,” Gene wrote, adding, “I plan to make it a full length picture and hope to release it in the summer.” For their assistance, both Arnold and Mayor Ed Keene of Lead, South Dakota, were given “Technical Advisor” credits on Beast.

By Lee Pfeiffer

A film that became a legendary bomb, the 1977 Western The White Buffalo has been re-evaluated by movie fans in recent years and many consider it to be an underrated classic. Count me out of this assessment. The film is certainly unique: an ambitious attempt to blend the Western and horror film genres, but it falls short on most counts.The United Artists production stars Charles Bronson as Wild Bill Hickcok, who- for reasons never adequately explained- is haunted by terrifying nightmares involving him in a life-or-death confrontation with a giant white buffalo. I didn't know that buffalo come in colors, but I'll cede the point. (Given the dreadful styles of the 1970s, it's surprising the film wasn't titled The Plaid Buffalo.) Simultaneously, Chief Crazy Horse (Will Sampson) is having his own white buffalo problems. Seems the actual rampaging beast wreaked havoc on his village and killed his child. In order to restore his pride and stature among the tribe, he must hunt down and slaughter the animal- or be stuck with the monicker of "The Worm" henceforth. (This must be the Indian equivalent of "nerd".)

The two men are on obsessive journeys and are destined to meet up - but both feel they have the singular right to kill the buffalo. Hickcok meanders through some cow towns under an alias and hooks up with a mountain man geezer (Jack Warden, channeling the ghost of Gabby Hayes) who decides to accompany him on his quest. When Hickcok and Crazy Horse do meet up, they end up saving each other's life in respective ambushes and declare themselves blood brothers. Despite this, each man is determined to be the one who slays the white buffalo.

The film is moody and atmospheric and at times is offbeat enough that, if it weren't for the Colorado scenery, one might suspect this is an Italian Western. Nevertheless, the screenplay by producer, screenwriter and director Richard Sale (based on his novel) is erratic and contains many disparate elements that never blend together in a satisfactory manner. The film is peppered with welcome appearances by many Western favorites (Stuart Whitman, Slim Pickens, John Carradine) but their characters are superfluous and smack of gimmicky cameos. Clint Walker shows up briefly, well-cast and playing against type as a villain. There is also the rather odd presence of Kim Novak in a nothing role as a good-hearted hooker who suffers the humiliation of being rejected by Hickcok even as he shares her bed. (This must be the first case of erectile dysfunction caused by a white buffalo.)

The movie was an attempt by producer Dino De Laurentiis to exploit the dying Western genre by finding a way to incorporate elements of Jaws. De Laurentiis seemed to have a fixation on giant, mythic animals taking vengeance on mankind, as he produced "King Kong", "Orca" and "The White Buffalo" all within a two-year period. Despite the prestigious cast and the fact that this was a United Artists production, the budget was clearly skimpy. The film abounds with shoddy rear screen projection shots and some amateurish sets, particularly in the mountain sequences set at night. There's plenty of plastic snow and the sets are somewhat less realistic than a Christmas window display at Macy's. Then there is the titular character of which much has been written in movie lore. Apparently devoid of anything other than a $20 bill for special effects work, the white buffalo is generally shot in extreme closeup in very brief cuts to mask its ludicrous appearance. Although the buffalo is seemingly immortal and can crash through mountains of snow and cave walls, it never looks any more menacing than a slightly perturbed mountain goat. The analogies to Moby Dick also become a bit too obvious especially when Crazy Horse rides atop the beast, flaying at it with a knife. (just like Ahab and the whale- get it?) All of this is set to an atmospheric if somewhat low-key score by John Barry that fits the proceedings well.

Perhaps the most unintentionally amusing aspect of the movie is the initial meetings between Hickcok and Crazy Horse. The two men face each other and gesture with elaborate Indian sign language- despite the fact they are simultaneously speaking to each other in perfect English! This is as practical as using signal flags to communicate with a dinner companion and seems more suited to an episode of Police Squad.

Despite all of these criticisms, there is something admirable about the concept of The White Buffalo in that the film at least tries to be an original take on an age-old genre. It also represents one of the last movies in which Charles Bronson at least tried to stretch his acting muscles. With his saggy eyes and droopy mustache, he's perfectly cast as Hickcok. The failure of this film seemed to discourage his professional ambitions. With a couple of exceptions (Telefon, Death Hunt) Bronson went happily into B movie hell, churning out low-rent but profitable potboilers aimed at inner city and drive-in audiences. The shame of it is that he also encouraged once respected directors like J. Lee Thompson and Michael Winner to go along with him.

The White Buffalo was one of those major failures that initiated the virtual end of the Western film genre, and it was Heaven's Gate three years later that nailed the coffin shut. The Bronson film has grown in stature as a curiosity in the ensuing years and apologists claim that the chintzy set pieces must have been intended in order to convey the dream-like quality of the plot. Much the same has been said of Hitchcock's Marnie, which was also heavily criticized for its abysmal sets, rear screen production work and use of matte paintings. However, in both cases the hypothesis seems unlikely. They were simply troubled productions overseen by directors who seem to have lost interest in their respective projects. Universal ended up losing money on the Hitchcock drama while United Artists was forced to pick up the tab for the buffalo bill, if you'll pardon the pun.

The White Buffalo has recently been re-released by  Kino Lorber Studio Classics. The transfer is superb, which only makes the white buffalo look even phonier, but that just adds to the fun.  An original trailer is included and this time around, a commentary track has been added by Paul Talbot, author of the terrific "Bronson's Loose" books. Talbot admits he's obsessed by Bronson and his films and provides a master class on the making of The White Buffalo. His track is highly informative, if lacking in humor, as he discusses the career credits of virtually every actor who appears in a speaking role. Talbot's contribution makes the film worth obtaining, even if you had the earlier version.

Bloomsbury Academic

April 2023

Paperback

Illustrations: 26 BW images

ISBN: 9781350265127

RRP: £28.99

Review by Adrian Smith

The 1980s was a fun time to be a child. The monster kids of the 1950s and 1960s may have had Forrest J. Ackerman and his Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, but we had full-blown horror content in films ostensibly made for a young audience, from the melting Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark or the terrifying library apparition in Ghostbusters, to a melting Stripe in Joe Dante’s equally hilarious and scary Gremlins. In this new book dedicated to horror films aimed at children, Catherine Lester begins by drawing on early examples such as Frankenstein’s murder of the little girl by its titular monster, along with other pre-code horrors that primarily drew a young crowd, through to its modern, reanimated version, Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. The book then takes a deeper look at the ‘horrific’ childlike gremlins who both commit violent acts and then have violence acted upon them (along with the aforementioned Stripe, who can forget the gremlin in the microwave?). What happens to the representation of children in the horror film when children are the audience? Did the children in the audience take sympathy with the gremlins, who let’s not forget, just happily sit watching Disney films with childlike wonder when the adult world just leaves them alone? The violence combined with the Looney Tunes tone of Gremlins caused some issues for the MPAA, something which the book also goes into. Ultimately it led to the introduction of the PG-13, apparently suggested by Steven Spielberg, the film’s producer, who described the new rating as “PG with a little hot sauce on top.”

Lester also draws on another eighties staple, The Monster Squad, a sort of The Goonies meets The Lost Boys via Universal’s horror canon. By introducing the concept of the ‘Crazyspace’, a space in which child characters are able to be the prime agents in dispatching evil forces in the complete absence of adult supervision, the book explores the way in which many films present children as autonomous and often superior to even the most masculinised models of authority; in this case the kids defeat Dracula and his fellow monsters before the US Army arrive, something which would have been very different in the 1950s monster and science fiction movies, where it was usually the army who saved the day.

Bringing the discussion into the 21^st Century, Lester also looks at the animated children’s horrors ParaNorman (one of this reviewer’s favourites), Coraline and Monster House, along with Joe Dante’s return to the children’s horror genre with 2009’s live action The Hole. By covering almost a century of children's horror films, this book makes for an insightful and entertaining examination of the horrific child and the cathartic nature of the genre. For this reviewer, as a child horror was an escape from the terrors of the real world, and as such it is a rewarding experience to be able to read this major contribution to the study of these strange and wonderful films. Horror Films for Children is highly recommended, both the book and the films themselves!

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(Photo: Cinema Retro Archives.)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Richard Roundtree, whose portrayal of New York City private eye John Shaft made the character an iconic pop culture symbol, has passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 81. Roundtree was not the first actor to elevate the the image of Black male characters on the big screen. Stars such as Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Jim Brown and Fred Williamson preceded him. However, Roundtree had his own inimitable style as Shaft: brash, self-assured and cocky. Poitier's detective Virgil Tibbs was also a ballsy man of action but, as a police officer, he still had to stay within the system. Roundtree's Shaft had his own rules and code of ethics. The success of "Shaft"  for MGM in 1971 also was a milestone for director Gordon Parks, making him the first Black director of a highly successful big studio film. Isaac Hayes's Oscar-winning classic title song also helped elevate the film's success. The MGM production inspired two sequels: "Shaft's Big Score" and "Shaft in Africa" as well a a short-lived TV series starring Roundtree. The actor would also appear as the same character in spin-off feature films released in 2000 and 2019. However, there was far more to Roundtree's talents and career and he worked consistently in TV and films before and after the release of the original Shaft film. Click here for more.

By Todd Garbarini

I hated William Friedkin’s 1985 police thriller, To Live and Die in L.A., when I first saw it. The mixture of Eighties-style pop music by Wang Chung and the disreputable characters were, I felt, meretricious and off-putting. Even the car chase seemed lackluster. I also hated Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972), James Toback’s Fingers (1978) and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) during my first viewings. Revisiting these titles soon afterwards made me realize that I failed to fully appreciate or understand them. My ignorance of film was evident!

To Live and Die in L.A., which opened nationwide on Friday, November 1, 1985 to lukewarm notices and underwhelming box office despite being championed by a four-star review by Roger Ebert, is a highly stylized, dark, and uncompromising crime thriller that boasts a then-unknown cast with a story and a pace that feels more suited to the 1970s. It also contains what I consider to be the greatest car chase ever filmed and edited for a major motion picture, which took no less than five weeks to plan and shoot.

Having seen Mr. Friedkin’s brilliant Oscar-winning East Coast police thriller The French Connection (1971), this West Coast-based yarn centers on a Secret Service agent, Richard Chance (William Petersen), whose best friend and partner Jim Hart (Michael Greene) has been murdered in cold blood by artist/currency counterfeiter Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe) just days prior to his retirement. This plot device occurred before it became a familiar film trope, and this is easily one of the best films of the 1980s. Chance has one goal: to put Masters away for life with no regard for how he has to do it. Truthfully, he would prefer to kill him. This causes many issues for his new partner John Vukovich (John Pankow) whose familial lineage of law enforcement officers and his “by the book” methodology conflicts with Chance’s no-bullshit headstrong attitude. Vukovich’s unwillingness to go outside the boundaries of acceptability is tested when: Chance surreptitiously removes crucial evidence from a crime scene in order to get to Masters; Chance, without Vukovich’s knowledge, springs a prisoner friend (John Turturro) of Masters to get him to testify; and most notably forces Vukovich to go along with a plan to obtain cash needed to get closer to Masters while nearly dying in what is arguably cinema’s most exciting getaway car chase sequence. What makes the chase work so well is that it’s physical, it’s possible (though highly improbable), and it’s not done in a Fast and the Furious, over-the-top sort of way. Nor is it perfunctory as it comes as a result of an important plot point, nearly besting the director’s own French Connection subway/car chase with a headlong ride straight up the 710 Long Beach Freeway while driving in the wrong direction against traffic.

Chance also beds a willing parolee (Darlanne Fluegel) who gives him information on current convicts in return for money to provide for herself and her son Christopher. Like the inexorable Popeye Doyle in The French Connection who will stop at nothing to put drug dealers and users away, Chance, like his surname, will stop at nothing to capture and punish Masters. The difference between the two films is that the former paints Brooklyn and New York City as gritty and almost despairing cities whereas the latter bathes the frame in a Los Angeles that we have not seen before or since. While also gritty, grimy and dark, this is a Lotus Land that is also highly glossy and enticing, with beautiful people who are about as real as the counterfeit bills that Masters manufactures. The overall theme and central conceit of To Live and Die in L.A. is fraudulence. People use each other for their own personal gains. Masters is an artist but hates what he paints and burns his work in frustration. Since he cannot find joy or satisfaction in his own originality, he resorts to copying others, in this case $20, $50, and $100 bills in a procedure that is painstaking, difficult, and now archaic.

Like The French Connection, To Live and Die in LA is also based on a book of the same name, this one a novel written by former Secret Service Agent Gerald Petievich. What makes the film remarkable is the opening sequence which features a martyr who shouts “Allahu Akbar” just before blowing himself up on the roof of a hotel where then-President Reagan is giving a speech. This scene made little sense to me upon my maiden viewing but is eerily prescient of the religious extremism that has made its way to America’s shores.

The performances are excellent all around. William Petersen, whose film debut was as a bar bouncer in Michael Mann’s Thief (1981), is terrific as Chance and plays him as a daredevil whose cowboy nature seals his fate and makes him a dangerous person to be around. This is established in an early sequence wherein Chance bungee jumps off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, CA. In addition to the martyr sequence, this could also be one of the earliest instances of this now highly popular activity’s depiction in a film. John Pankow is also quite good as Chance’s conflicted partner. The stand-out is Willem Dafoe as Masters, fresh from Walter Hill’s 1984 outing Streets of Fire. His icy expressions and demeanor can change on a moment’s notice without warning. Darlanne Fluegel, who heartbreakingly left us far too soon following an early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, is mysterious as Chance’s muse. I first saw her in Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). Debra Feuer is striking as Masters’ girlfriend and confidante. The late Dean Stockwell is great as Masters’ lawyer - you can almost see him prepping himself for the role of Ben in David Lynch’s aforementioned and masterful Blue Velvet the following year. Steve James is an actor I always liked ever since I first saw him in the “Night Vigil” episode of T.J. Hooker in 1984. He started in the industry as a stunt man in films as diverse as The Wiz (1978), The Wanderers (1979), The Warriors (1979), Dressed to Kill (1980), and He Knows You’re Alone (1980) prior to onscreen acting. Here he plays Jeff, one of Masters’ clients and his performance, though small, shines. He also appeared in the William Friedkin TV-movie C.A.T. Squad in 1986, which was also written by Mr. Petievich. His premature death in 1993 from what is rumored to be the medical treatment that he received after a cancer diagnosis is a tremendous loss to the entertainment industry.

To Live and Die in L.A. has been released on home video many times in the United States and is now available on 4K UHD Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The extras, which are ported over from the 2016 SHOUT! Factory Special Edition Blu-ray and the 2003 MGM/UA Home Video DVD, are all included and are as follows:

Disc One:

- 4K UHD Blu-ray remastered from the original camera negative.

- Audio Commentary by Director William Friedkin from 2003 – this runs the full length of the film and is the only bonus to be included on both the 4K UHD disc and the standard 1080p Blu-ray.

Disc Two:

- Standard 1080p Blu-ray down-converted from a 4K remastering from the original camera negative.

- Audio Commentary by Director William Friedkin from 2003.

- Taking a Chance: Interview with Actor William Petersen (20:42, in high definition, from 2016) – Gary Sinise read for the role of Richard Chance with the casting director, but the role instead went to William Petersen after he read for it at William Friedkin’s New York City apartment. A second reading with actor friend John Pankow solidified their roles.

- Renaissance Woman in L.A. Interview with Actress Debra Feuer (14:56, in high definition, from 2016) – Ms. Feuer reminisces about how wonderful the experience was for her. Despite the sexual angle of the film which made her uncomfortable, the cast and crew made her receptive and accepted on the set. Her role is small but important and I would love to see her in more films.

- Doctor for a Day: Interview with Actor Dwier Brown (08:53, in high definition, from 2016) – Dwier Brown talks about his excitement over reading for the film. He would later go on to appear as Phil Sterling in Mr. Friedkin’s 1989 druid-horror film The Guardian, and humorously recalls how the director forgot that he was in To Live and Die in L.A.

- So in Phase - Scoring To Live and Die in L.A. Interview with Composers Wang Chung (12:44, in high definition, from 2016) – It’s amazing that Mr. Friedkin heard Wang Chung’s 1984 album Points on the Curve, in particular the song “Wait,” and explained that that was the vibe that he wanted from the album for the film score. While there is a soundtrack album available for this film, it’s incomplete, and I hope that one day a full soundtrack album, remastered from the original master tracks, will be issued. Wang Chung recalls some interesting anecdotes in this onscreen interview.

- Wrong Way - The Stunts of To Live and Die in L.A. Interview with Stunt Coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker (35:39, in high definition, from 2016) – The famous stunt man discusses the intricacies and challenges of filming one of the most dangerous car chases ever mounted for a film. The director was all about disorienting the audience, and that notion comes into play here in how the chase was staged and ultimately executed.

- Counterfeit World - The Making of To Live and Die in L.A. Documentary (29:52, in standard definition, from 2003) – This is a fun look behind the scenes with mini interviews from many of the cast and crew involved, with discussions regarding the characterizations as portrayed by the actors and actresses to filming the famed car chase.

- Deleted Scene and Alternate Ending with Introductions (13:07) – this is the ridiculous ending that the director shot to please the studio executives and thankfully was never used. You won’t believe it when you see it.

- Radio Spot (01:04)

- Trailer (2:08)

All in all, a great package of a great movie.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Although the practice is all but obsolete today, for decades radio spots were used to promote new films to American audiences. For many of us, this was an era where you felt like your social status had improved immeasurably if your latest used car had the ability to pick up FM radio stations, even if the vehicle could be relied upon to break down several times a week. Radio spots generally ran in a variety of lengths ranging from 60 seconds to 10 seconds. Because they lacked visual elements, the producers of the tracks often used sensationalistic tactics to gain the attention of listeners, often stressing the most comedic or shocking elements of the film depending upon its subject matter. As with all things nostalgic, there is a passionate interest in radio spots among some retro movie fans who collect the vinyl discs. Most were released on 45 RPM but in earlier versions from the 1950s,  they were usually on 33 1/3" records.

Here is an original 1973 radio spot for William Friedkin's "The Exorcist".

Presented in two parts, here is an appearance by Clint Eastwood on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" from 1973. In the first segment, Eastwood discusses having to fill in for an absent Charlton Heston at the Oscars and also discusses making the "Man with No Name" films in Spain.

In the second segment, Eastwood joins in a comical debate about pigs and horses and makes some comments about the violence in his films.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

"Fans can plumb the depths of the horror genre with this collectible box set featuring five unforgettable movies, all in eye-popping 4K Ultra HD, along with over four hours of legacy special features and exclusive collectible items. Housed in deluxe packaging, each of the following films is presented in a special sleeve with artwork exclusive to the collection— Rosemary's Baby (1968) · Pet Sematary (1989) · Smile (2022) · Crawl (2019) · and a special mystery title making its 4K Ultra HD debut. The PARAMOUNT SCARES VOL. 1 Limited-Edition 4K Blu-ray Box Set also boasts collectible items, including an exclusive, full-size Fangoria magazine produced especially for the release. This special edition of the celebrated publication—"first in fright" since 1979—features a curated selection of new and classic articles from the magazine's archives. The set also includes a Paramount Scares enamel pin, unique stickers, and access to a Digital copy of each film. • Rosemary’s Baby (1968) • Pet Sematary (1989) • Crawl (2019) • Smile (2022) • “Mystery” Exclusive 5th Feature."

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Sam Peckinpah made some great movies but even the best of them were often associated with unpleasant aspects during production and in the release of the films. Peckinpah's maverick personality, hard drinking and drug use resulted in big problems with studio brass. Sometimes his films would be severely edited against his wishes. By 1974, Peckinpah's personal problems were worsening, as were his relationships with the studios.  Yet, he found great satisfaction with his bizarre crime film "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia". The movie received mixed reviews at the time and wasn't a major hit, but Peckinpah enjoyed the rare artistic freedom he was given by the studio to make the film his way. The movie has since become a cult favorite among retro movie fans- and even if it doesn't appeal to you, it's never boring and you can relish Peckinpah pal Warren Oates in a rare starring role. (Lee Pfeiffer)

By Fred Blosser

As a kid, I watched “Bourbon Street Beat” (1959-60), a Warner Brothers TV series starring Richard Long and Andrew Duggan as two private detectives in New Orleans, Rex and Cal. Even in those days of generally undemanding audiences, most grown-up viewers probably realized something I didn’t as a nine-year-old. “Bourbon Street Beat” was produced on nickels and dimes like every other Warner Brothers PI and Western series of the day, and authentic New Orleans backdrops were limited to a fleeting street shot of the French Quarter, taken from stock footage. Everything else was filmed on the Warners backlot in Burbank, including a partial exterior set representing the Absinthe House at 240 Bourbon Street where the two private eyes supposedly held down their office. With a quick switch, the detectives’ window looking out on the Vieux Carre could be transformed into a window looking out on Waikiki, once this week’s episode wrapped and filming began tomorrow for “Hawaiian Eye.” The most authentic element of the show may have been Arlene Howell, a gorgeous model and former Miss Louisiana who played Rex and Cal’s secretary, Melody Lee. Certainly, she was a better reason to tune in than the archival footage.

Fast-forward to 1986 and “The Big Easy,” a crime drama with on-location street scenes and Crescent City atmosphere in abundance. Budgets and audience expectations had come a long way since “Bourbon Street Beat.” The movie, directed by Jim McBride, is available from Kino Lorber Studio Classics on Blu-ray. It opens with Detective-Lieutenant Remy McSwain (Dennis Quaid) investigating the murder of a hit man that he and his fellow officers in the New Orleans Police Department quickly attribute to a war between rival organized crime gangs, one commanded by an aging mafia capo (Marc Lawrence) and the other by a Black kingpin, Daddy Manton (Solomon Burke). The theory begins to unravel when Assistant District Attorney Anne Osborne (Ellen Barkin) looks into the case and calls McSwain’s conclusion premature. She is as strait-laced as the half-Irish, half-Cajun McSwain is uninhibited, and offended by his offhand acceptance of free meals at restaurants and other gratuities as perks that go with his badge. So naturally, in the usual Hollywood formula prizing sexual chemistry over logic, the two quickly get a thing going. But duty intrudes. Remy is caught in an Internal Affairs sting operation, and Anne faces him in court as the chief prosecutor. Meanwhile, additional mob gunmen are murdered. McSwain examines new clues with a more critical eye as they begin to pile up, and he comes to agree with Anne. A gang war isn’t as air-tight an explanation as he’d first thought.

Well-cast with Ned Beatty, John Goodman, and Charles Ludlam in supporting roles, “The Big Easy” was a respectable hit, even launching a 1996-97 TV series executive-produced by Daniel Petrie Jr., who wrote the script for the movie. Quaid and Barkin, both rising talents, were a big draw, as were McBride’s plentiful scenes of zydeco parties, crawfish boils, dinner at Antoine’s, and other exotic rituals in those days before the Mardi Gras Week marathons on the Travel Channel and the Food Channel. For fans of detective films who want scripts to cut to the chase, though, there may be too much of Remy’s toothy flirting with Anne and too much jambalaya in the first half of the movie, which begins to drag. But the pace picks up in the second half with clever plot twists and a couple of crisply directed action scenes, in which Quaid appears to do his less dangerous physical stunts. Full disclosure, I have three degrees of separation from Dennis Quaid, through someone who knows members of the Quaid family, but fuller disclosure, I’ve never met the actor and I’m sure, never will.

The Kino Lorber release of “The Big Easy” presents a rich image at the 1.85:1 aspect and informative audio commentary from Jim McBride, moderated by filmmaker Douglas Hosdale. McBride offers interesting behind-the-scenes anecdotes, including an explanation of how the great R&B singer Solomon Burke was cast as Daddy Manton. Burke is one of two surprise faces in the cast. The other is former New Orleans district attorney and Kennedy conspiracy theorist Jim Garrison, who held a Louisiana state appeals court judgeship from 1978 until his death in 1992. Garrison plays Judge Jim Garrison, who presides over Remy McSwain’s bribery trial, much as the Beatles, Nicholas Cage, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Alan Freed, John Malkovich, and others have played “themselves” on the screen.

The Blu-ray edition of “The Big Easy” also includes trailers for several other Kino Lorber crime movies and SDH captions for those of us old enough to remember who Jim Garrison was.

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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

By Ernie Magnotta

In 1984, James Cameron’s immortal classic The Terminator—a film about an almost unstoppable killer cyborg—was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public and it quickly became a critical and commercial success. Three years later, Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop—which told the story of a seriously wounded police officer being put back together with robotic parts and brought back to active duty—flooded theater screens and, just like The Terminator, became a phenomenal success. That same year saw the release of a low budget, sci-fi actioner titled Programmed to Kill which not only borrowed heavily from both films, but also pre-dated 1992’s Universal Soldier; a movie with a similar plot.

Written by Robert Short and directed by Allan Holzman, Programmed to Kill tells the tale of ruthless Middle Eastern terrorist Samira (Sandahl Bergman) who, after completing a horrible mass shooting at a marketplace in Greece, is stopped and seriously injured by former CIA agent Eric Matthews (Robert Ginty). Samira is then taken to the United States where she is transformed into an obedient cyborg killing machine. Programmed to wipe out her elite team, she is then sent back to the Middle East. However, after completing her mission, Samira regains her memory and begins violently assassinating her CIA enemies. Is there anyone who can stop her out-of-control bionic rampage?

Also known as The Retaliator, Programmed to Kill is a fun, low-budget 80s action film with a gripping, if derivative, story; a solid cast and exciting action sequences (well-handled by director Holzman). At a brief 91minutes, the movie never overstays its welcome. If, like me, you’re a fan of 80s action flicks, Robert Ginty, Sandahl Bergman or all three, you won’t be disappointed.

Programmed to Kill has been released on a Region One Blu-ray and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The film’s brand new HD master from a 2K scan of the 35MM interpositive looks fantastic. The special features include an informative audio commentary by director Allan Holzman (moderated by filmmaker Douglas Hosdale); an interview with screenwriter Robert Short; an alternate opening credit, and the theatrical trailer. The Blu-ray also comes with a very cool-looking slipcover, and reversible artwork featuring the movie’s alternate title The Retaliator. Fun stuff. Check it out.

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By Ernie Magnotta

To hardcore horror fans, the filmmaking team of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter is well known. The dynamic duo first appeared on the horror scene in 1982 when they directed the cult slasher film The Dorm That Dripped Blood aka Pranks, a movie that featured the big screen debut of actress Daphne Zuniga and, thanks to a murder scene involving a drill, was put on the UK’s infamous “Video Nasty” list. Obrow and Carpenter’s sophomore effort would be 1984’s The Power, a supernatural tale about a man who becomes possessed by an evil Aztec doll. Recently, the creative team’s third film, a creature feature titled The Kindred, was released on Blu-ray.

The Kindred (1987)concerns scientist John Hollins (David Allen Brooks) who, at the behest of his dying mother—a molecular scientist played by Kim Hunter—returns to her home with Melissa Leftridge (Amanda Pays) and several of his friends in order to destroy the “Anthony Journals”; his mother’s notes detailing her genetic experiments. However, evil scientist Phillip Lloyd (Rod Steiger) desperately wants the journals so that he can continue the unholy experiments himself. But there’s another problem—John’s murderous “brother”, Anthony, a horrible-looking, tentacled creature born from genetic experimentation, is lurking somewhere in their mother’s old house and he’s not a happy camper.

Besides once again directing, Obrow and Carpenter also co-wrote The Kindred (along with John Penney, Earl Ghaffari and the legendary Joseph Stefano) while Obrow produced and Carpenter handled the cinematography. Shot in California, this is a well-made and enjoyable 80s horror flick with lots of amazing, gooey special effects (one of the main reasons to watch the movie) by Academy Award winner Matthew Mungle, and a decent-looking creature. The film’s talented cast also includes Talia Balsam, Peter Frechette and Julia Montgomery, and there’s a memorable musical score by Oscar nominated composer David Newman.

The Kindred has been released on a region 1, 2 and 3 Blu-ray by Synapse Films and it is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The 4K HD remaster of the unrated version is flawless and it has a new 5.1 English stereo surround remix as well. (The original 2.0 mono theatrical mix is also included along with optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.) The disc not only contains an informative audio commentary by directors Obrow and Carpenter (moderated by horror journalist Steve Barton), but it also features a terrific, all-new 52 minute documentary titled Inhuman Experiments-The Making of “The Kindred”; an interesting 18 minute featurette showing effects artist Michael McCracken Jr.’s never-before-seen on-set footage, as well as a still gallery, storyboards, trailers and TV spots. Pure 80s fun. Recommended.

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The following press release was received from The History Press.

“The 007 Diaries: Filming Live and Let Die” (Fine Press Edition) By Sir Roger Moore KBE

9781803992600 240 pages
4 October 2023, £350

· Will feature a new foreword from actress Madeline Smith (Agent Caruso in Live and Let Die) as well as an existing foreword by the late, great David Hedison (Felix Leiter)

· James Bond is synonymous with luxury, high-end products, and Bond fans typically seek these out (see 007store.com for examples)

· Live and Let Die is a much-loved and iconic Bond film, which lends itself to this format · Will include some more rare images from the filming of Live and Let Die

· The book will be individually numbered, beautifully produced, complete with slipcase

Out of print for over forty years, The 007 Diaries introduces Roger Moore’s James Bond Diary to a new generation of fans. To tie in with the release of his first James Bond film, Live and Let Die, Roger Moore agreed to keep a day-by-day diary throughout the film’s production, which would be published just ahead of the premiere in July 1973. From his unveiling as the new 007 in 1972 through to his first scenes on location in New Orleans and his final shot in New York, Moore describes his whirlwind journey as cinema’s most famous secret agent. Taking in the sights of Jamaica before returning to Pinewood Studios, Moore’s razor wit and unique brand of humour is ever present. With tales from every location, including his encounters with his co-stars and key crew members, Moore offers the reader an unusually candid, amusing and hugely insightful behind-the-scenes look into the world’s most successful film franchise.

AUTHOR DETAILS

SIR ROGER MOORE KBE had an extraordinary career that spanned seven decades, from early television to the golden age of Hollywood and on to international superstardom. Dashing, handsome and every inch the archetypal English gentleman, he was unforgettable as the title character in The Saint and as Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders! But it was as James Bond where he made his mark, playing the most debonair of the 007s in seven blockbusting films.

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By Darren Allison

Film Masters is a new classic film restoration and distribution company formed by industry veteran and film historian Phil Hopkins. The company launched on September 26th with an impressive, region-free Blu-ray release. For decades, dating back to the humble early beginnings of the home video cassette, these two public domain favourites seemed to once flood the market. Often struck and scanned from poor quality 16mm prints, the process and distribution hardly helped the reputation of these two low-budget slices of fifties science fiction. Of course, there’s no getting away from the fact that The Giant Gila Monster (1959) and The Killer Shrews (1959) were ever going to be regarded as stunning examples of quality science fiction, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t be considered as hugely entertaining and enjoyable vehicles.

Both films (directed by Ray Kellogg) were originally released as a drive-in, double-bill feature in 1959. Bringing both films together here, each with their own dedicated disc, not only makes perfect sense, but offers a nice form of symmetry – giving the overall package additional logic and weight. It’s a decision that also offers a degree of ‘worth’ for fans and collectors. Fans are an appreciative group of people, so this collective form of package will only help Film Masters in gaining a healthy reputation and a certain degree of loyalty.

Beginning with what appears to be the leading feature, The Giant Gila Monster opens with a young couple, Pat (Grady Vaughn) and Liz (Yolanda Salas), parked in a bleak, rural locale overlooking a ravine. A giant Gila monster attacks the car, sending it into the ravine and killing the couple. Later, several friends of the couple assist the local sheriff (Fred Graham) in his search for the missing teens. Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan), a young mechanic and hot rod racer, locates the crashed car in the ravine and finds evidence of the giant lizard. However, it is only when the hungry reptile attacks a train that the authorities realise they are dealing with a giant venomous lizard. By this time, emboldened by its attacks and hungry for prey, the creature attacks the town. It heads for the local dance hall, where the town's teenagers are gathered for a hop.

Filmed near Dallas, Texas, the film was budgeted at $175,000 and was produced by Dallas drive-in theatre chain owner Gordon McLendon who wanted co-features for his main attractions. McLendon shot the film back-to-back with The Killer Shrews. In exchange for providing the special effects, Ray Kellogg was allowed to direct the film, while Curtis allowed his lead Don Sullivan to pick and perform three songs. The reasoning not only helped in padding out the action but also served in targeting the healthy teenage market. Don Sullivan, a veteran of several low-budget monster movies, proves to be confident in both his role and surroundings, while Lisa Simone (a former French contestant for the 1957 Miss Universe contest) is arguably a little more wooden and uncomfortable.

For the best part, Ray Kellogg’s special effects work adequately well. With such a low budget, there was little consideration for an established name such as Ray Harryhausen and his stop-motion animation. So instead, a live Mexican beaded lizard was shot against scaled-down model landscapes and sets. This technique wasn’t anything new, iguanas and chameleons were also being used the very same year over at 20^th Century Fox for their adaptation of Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959). The Giant Gila Monster (naturally) was not afforded the same budget, it was simply a locally made film that was marketed and sold in a very clever way, making sure it received both nationwide and foreign distribution. But above all, it remains hugely enjoyable and serves as a reminder of far less serious times in terms of filmmaking on a shoestring.

As for the video’s quality, this new 4K scan from original 35mm material, looks incredibly good. Sharpness, contrast and sound are all highly impressive. Film Masters have provided a new level of respect for this minor league classic, and the results have really raised its once questionable profile. There is also an option of watching the film in either a TV ratio (standard 1.33:1) or a theatrical version (1.85:1). I opted for the theatrical version for reviewing which works perfectly well.

Film Masters have also provided some very nice bonus features. Heading these is a full-length audio commentary by Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan, and Matt Weinhold from The Monster Party Podcast. As the name suggests, this is a light-hearted overview but nevertheless thoroughly enjoyable. The group offer a cheekily mocking level of critique but never in with a cruel intension. The common denominator is obviously a shared love for the film. The group manage to unearth some excellent production detail and history, often quoting from original source material such as pressbooks and publicity from its time of release.

There is also a restored and remastered original theatrical trailer and a very enjoyable archival audio interview with star Don Sullivan (1929- 2018). Asking the questions is author Bryan Senn, who digs deep in extracting as much detail as possible. Sullivan appears happy to answer anything he can recall, and the interview is relaxed and unhurried. Despite the audio quality which occasionally wavers (the source sounds to be via a telephone) it remains interesting throughout and offers a unique, first-hand insight.

Next up is The Killer Shrews (1959), again directed by Ray Kellogg and utilising most of the same production crew. The story follows a group of researchers who are trapped in their remote island compound overnight by a hurricane and find themselves under siege by their abnormally large and venomous mutant test subjects, the shrews. Captain Thorne Sherman and first mate Rook Griswold deliver supplies by ship to a research compound on the remote island. The station inhabitants (scientist Marlowe Craigis, his research assistant Radford Baines, Marlowe's daughter Ann, her fiancé Jerry Farrel, and a servant Mario) give them a cold welcome and direct them to unload the ship and leave immediately. Marlowe explains he has been trying to isolate the genes responsible for growth and metabolism in order to shrink humans to half their size so as to reduce the impact of human overpopulation. He uses shrews as test animals due to their short lifespan, allowing him to track results over multiple generations. However, Marlowe's experiments have created a batch of mutant wolf-sized shrews which have escaped. The group barricade themselves inside their compound every evening before the sun sets due to the creatures' nocturnal feeding habits. They have not contacted the coast guard so that they can complete their research, predicting that the shrews will cannibalize each other once they have consumed all other food on the island.

And so begins this really enjoyable little romp. Catching up with this film once again reminded me of just how good this film really is. In fact, I’ll come right out and say it – I still think this is the superior film when compared to The Giant Gila Monster. The whole concept of a group of people trapped in a secluded and isolated locale is one that still proves effective. The film is often compared to that of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead made some 9 years later in 1968. If you take that concept, replacing the zombies with wild, oversized, very hungry shrews, then you get the general idea. Yes, one could argue that (on paper) the whole idea sounds rather ludicrous. But the film has some really creative and effective moments, especially for 1959. Considering that the ($123,000) budget for The Killer Shrews was even tighter than that of The Giant Gila Monster, the results are even more impressive.

Ray Kellogg makes exceptional good use of his special effects background. OK, so the shrews were in actual fact large coonhound dogs dressed up with long carpeted hair and Saber fangs. And close-up shots were nothing more than mere hand puppets! But somehow, the effects still work. Good use of sound effects also provides an eerie warning of the shrews’ imminent arrival. Clever quick editing also adds to the film’s overall sense of tension and drama. In fact, there are also some cleverly constructed jump shock moments and some particularly gruesome scenes – not to mention a ludicrously ingenious escape plan! So, The Killer Shrews has a great deal of positives in its favour and is well worth a re-evaluation – especially in this sparkling new transfer.

As with The Giant Gila Monster, Film Masters have afforded The Killer Shrews with another equally high-quality transfer. I thought it looked quite faultless actually, a nice clean, crisp transfer with lovely deep black tones and contrast. The audio again is also clear and sharp throughout its duration. Again, there is an option to view in either 1.33:1 or in 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

The bonus features are very enjoyable, consisting of another full-length audio commentary this time provided by author Jason A. Ney. This commentary offers a more scholarly, academic approach which is both informative and enjoyable in equal measure. Ray Kellogg – An Unsung Master is a fascinating Ballyhoo motion pictures documentary exploring the life and career of the director. And to round off the disc is a large collection of original radio spots for each movie courtesy of Gary L. Prange. Inside there is also a full colour, 22-page booklet with essays by Don Stradley and Jason A. Ney.

Overall, Film Masters have delivered a very impressive debut package. With the hope of producing similarly styled releases on a monthly basis, there’s certainly a great deal more to look forward to and their efforts should be applauded.

(Darren Allison is the Soundtracks Editor for Cinema Retro.)

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“ONE OF US”

By Raymond Benson

Step up, step up, don’t be shy! Come one, come all, to the fabulous and terrifying sideshow!

Just in time for Halloween, Cinema Retro enthusiastically welcomes The Criterion Collection’s new 2-disk Blu-ray box set release, Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers, which is a triple feature extravaganza containing a highly anticipated high definition presentation of the classic and controversial 1932 pre-code horror film, Freaks, and two earlier rare silent films, The Unknown (1927) and The Mystic (1925). All three have in common the circus/carnival/sideshow milieu in their stories, and all have similar themes focusing on the concept of “the other.” Interestingly, all three are more relevant today than ever.

When approaching this marvelous set of pictures, one must understand a little about the director, Tod Browning. Thankfully, we have as a supplement the immensely listenable and entertaining interview with acclaimed author and TV showrunner, the erudite Megan Abbott, who gives us in thirty minutes a comprehensive character study of Browning and comments about the three films. As Abbott explains, Browning was someone who actually did “run away to join the circus” as a young man, and he spent a great part of his life in that world. It is no surprise, then, that many of his films deal with that universe and the beings who inhabit it. Abbott’s presentation here is practically worth the price of admission… except that we have a three-ring circus of significant and wondrous motion pictures also in the box.

Freaks, of course, is the main attraction, as it has never been released on Blu-ray in America or the UK prior to now (Warner Brothers released a DVD years ago). Considered one of the most unusual movies ever produced in Hollywood, as well as one that has been banned in many territories, pulled from release, re-issued, chopped up, and once held as an example of Tinsel Town’s depravity and exploitative nature, Freaks is actually a masterpiece of cinema. (Is there anyone who has seen Freaks who hasn’t ever recited the famous line, “Gooba gobba, gooble gobble, one of us, one of us!”?)

The story concerns Hans (Harry Earles), a little person who works in the sideshow of a traveling circus. He is engaged to be married to another little person, Frieda (Daisy Earles, in real life Harry’s sister), and he happens to have an inheritance of some value. Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) is, as Hans calls her, a “big person.” She is a beautiful trapeze artist, and Hans has an unrealistic crush on her, much to Frieda’s displeasure. Cleopatra’s beau, though, is Hercules (Henry Victor), the strongman. Cleopatra and Hercules conspire to bilk Hans out of his fortune, first by Cleopatra seducing Hans and getting him to propose to her. After the marriage, they will poison him, and she will inherit the money; then Cleo and Hercules can run away together and leave behind the circus life. Friends of the sideshow people, clown Phroso and seal trainer Venus (Wallace Ford and Leila Hyams), are a romantic couple (also “big people”), try to look out for Hans’ interests, but fail. The other sideshow personnel decide to get revenge for Hans, and the results are not pretty.

Browning, who knew and worked with real sideshow performers, cast them in the movie. Besides the several little people, there are a few individuals with microcephaly (then known by the derogatory term “pinheads”), a “human skeleton,” conjoined twins, a bearded lady, men and women without limbs, an “intersex” person, and others. Back in the old days of circus sideshows, audiences paid money to view these “freaks of nature” to be horrified and thrilled. Sadly, practically the only way these individuals could make a living was by displaying themselves in such a fashion.

When Freaks was first released, the reaction from audiences was exactly what it would have been at a circus sideshow—one of horror and revulsion. As a result, MGM, the studio that released the picture, realized that they had a bomb on their hands and pulled it from release. In the late 1940s, exploitation film distributor Dwayne Esper bought the rights and re-exhibited it as an exploitation film, which didn’t help the movie’s reputation. Freaks was terribly misunderstood for decades and remained so until the 1960s, when the era of youth rebellion and the collapse of the Production Code allowed for more freedom of expression in art and from audiences. Once the long-haired young people began referring to themselves as “freaks” and having “freak outs,” suddenly a film entitled Freaks had new meaning. The movie was reissued to play on college campuses and as a midnight movie in art houses—and it found new life and support.

Browning’s picture was never really meant to cause disgust in the audience. His intent was for the audience to empathize and root for the “freaks.” This is a film in which the actors with disabilities and “otherness” are the heroes, battling for the dignity and respect they deserve from the conniving and evil “normal” people who are criminals. Browning simply used the thriller genre as a means to tell the story. But in 1932, audiences could not get past the sideshow aspect of what they were looking at. They didn’t get it.

Thankfully, now we do. Yes, Freaks is hailed as one of the great horror films, but it is also a respectful look at congenital disabilities and a compassionate, endearing examination of the human condition (which leads to the question—is it really a horror film?).

Criterion’s new 2K digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack) looks gorgeous (except for the final one-minute epilogue, which, due to poor quality source material, could not be improved). There is a new commentary by Browning expert and film scholar David J. Skal (different from the one on the former Warners DVD). Supplements pertaining to Freaks are all of those that appeared on the Warners disk (an hour long documentary on the making of the film, a look at the alternate endings, and the excised exploitation-release prologue), plus a new video gallery of many stills and portraits from the film, and the 2019 audio podcast of Kristen Lopez’s Ticklish Business.

The Unknown was a 1927 silent picture by Browning starring the great Lon Chaney in one of his most acclaimed performances as a sideshow performer with no arms. His pretzel-like feats in the film to achieve this illusion are masterful, but we learn from the commentary and Megan Abbott’s interview that Chaney had help from a real life sideshow stunt double. Nevertheless, Chaney is marvelous in this tale about Alonzo, a criminal who is hiding from the law by strapping his arms underneath a costume and pretending to be armless. He falls in love with ring assistant Nanon (a young Joan Crawford). Strongman Malabar also loves Nanon, but she rejects him because she has a phobia about hands touching her—therefore she is partial to have a platonic relationship with Alonzo. However, when Nanon finally decides to break free of her fear and marry Malabar, Alonzo does something drastic—with tragic results.

For a 1927 silent film with a new piano score by Philip Carli, The Unknown is quite engaging, especially due to the terrific performances by the entire cast. Why it’s called The Unknown is a head-scratcher, but the roughly hour-long picture is riveting. It comes with a new introduction and commentary by David J. Skal.

The Mystic, from 1925, is apparently one of the rarest of Browning’s films. Running at 72 minutes, it’s the story of a sideshow fortune teller “mystic,” Zara (Aileen Pringle), her father, the impresario Zazarack (Mitchell Lewis), and assistant Anton (Robert Ober). Con man-criminal Michael Nash (Conway Tearle) recruits the trio to come to America to swindle wealthy patrons. As noted by Abbott, the plot is very similar to that of the 1947 film noir, Nightmare Alley… but the visuals, storytelling, and acting are all surprisingly compelling for this silent picture. The score, by Dean Hurley, vastly helps with the movie’s allure. David J. Skal also provides an introduction to the film.

Criterion’s packaging is superb, and the enclosed booklet comes with an essay by film critic Farran Smith Nehme.

Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers is highly recommended for fans of the director, Freaks, silent movies, Lon Chaney, and the unique sensibilities of pre-code Hollywood. Gooba gobba!

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By Fred Blosser

Released on June 29, 1966, “Nevada Smith” was well-received by audiences who still flocked to A-list Westerns in those days, earning $14 million in ticket sales—about $132 million in today’s value. Produced by Joseph E. Levine and directed by Henry Hathaway, it starred Steve McQueen in the title role, as a young half-Indian man, birth name Max Sand, who determines to track down the three outlaws who murdered his parents. The movie was a spinoff from a previous Levine release, “The Carpetbaggers,” a sensational hit in 1964 based on a Harold Robbins novel. There, in his final role, Alan Ladd played the older Nevada Smith, a reformed gunfighter turned B-movie cowboy actor in the 1930s. Thus the 1966 release was a prequel, as we’d now call it, based on a lengthy section from Robbins’ novel. The reviews for the 1966 production were mostly positive, except for two opinions that observers continue to raise in on-line and print discussions about the film. At 35, they argue, McQueen was too old and seasoned to play a kid supposedly in his late teens. And with blond hair and blue eyes, nobody would mistake him for anyone with Native American genetics. Does either point of view stand up to examination? We McQueen fans would say, not really. Movies are all about illusion anyway, in case anyone forgets all those John Hughes films of the ‘80s starring actors in their twenties as high school kids. At this late date with McQueen’s iconic status firmly established, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing the part. (Although someone else tried, not counting Alan Ladd as the older, more sedate Nevada in “The Carpetbaggers.” Cliff Potts essayed the role in a 1975 TV production also titled “Nevada Smith,” designed as a direct sequel to Hathaway’s picture. Filmed as a hopeful pilot for a TV series, it’s pretty much forgotten now. Cliff Potts was a good actor, usually cast as charming but devious characters, but he was no Steve McQueen.)

In Hathaway’s movie, three drifters, Fitch, Bowdre, and Coe, ride up to young Max Sand and claim to be friends of his father’s. The actors in the roles were Karl Malden, Arthur Kennedy, and Martin Landau. Try to find a trio of that caliber in any 2023 release. Helpfully, Max tells the strangers to find the homestead, immediately getting a bad feeling when they speed off, yelling and firing their pistols. The three drifters know the elder Sand all right, but they’ve really come to demand the gold they believe he’s found in a nearby mine. When he says the mine is worthless, and all it ever yielded was a $38 nugget, the intruders don’t believe him and work themselves into a rage. Coe draws a knife, cold-bloodedly cuts Sand’s Kiowa wife, and threatens to skin her alive if the miner doesn’t tell them where he’s supposedly hidden his riches. By the time Max reaches the cabin, he finds his parents’ mangled corpses, and the killers are long gone.

Max sets out to avenge the murders, but inexperienced and naive, he isn’t cut out for the job—at first. “If you want to find those men, you’ll have to look in every saloon, hog farm, and whorehouse you come to,” warns a chance acquaintance, Jonas Cord (Brian Keith), a friendly traveling gunsmith. “You’ll have to become what they are, and wallow in the same garbage they do.” Realizing he can’t persuade Max to call it quits, Jonas teaches him the essential skills he’ll need to survive: draw fast and shoot straight, learn to play poker, do everything you can not to give yourself away, and don’t trust anybody, “not even your friends.” Working his way up through Coe and Bowdre, he finally locates Fitch. Calling himself “Nevada Smith,” he joins the outlaw’s new gang in a plan to rob a gold shipment, bringing the story, neatly, full circle. Fitch knows Max Sand is after him, but he doesn’t remember what Max looks like; regardless, he grows suspicious and paranoid about Nevada Smith as the day of the robbery approaches.

Filmed at locations in California and Louisiana (where Max robs a bank to get himself sentenced to a prison farm, next to Bowdre), “Nevada Smith” impressed audiences in 1966 with McQueen’s athletic performance against scenic outdoor backdrops, beautifully composed by Hathaway and his cinematographer, Lucian Ballard. This may not seem to be a remarkable achievement until you revisit the old TV Westerns of the ‘60s, which still run every day on streaming platforms like GritTV and Cinevault Westerns, and remember their tired stock-in-trade of aging stars, repetitive storylines, meager action, and generic backlot sets standing in for Dodge City, the Ponderosa, and the Big Valley. A new Blu-ray edition of “Nevada Smith” from Kino Lorber, in a 4K scan of the original camera negative, reproduces the vistas in stunning detail and richness, a long overdue boost for viewers who may have seen the movie only in edited, pan-and-scan TV prints. C. Courtney Joyner, Mark Jordan Legan, and Henry Parke offer a fine ensemble audio commentary, pointing out—among other elements—the legion of fine character actors in the supporting cast. Normally, I pride myself on that sort of Hollywood trivia, but Joyner, Legan, and Parke put me in my place. They pointed out some faces I would have missed otherwise.

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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)

By Todd Garbarini

Something happened to me while watching John Cassavetes’s film Gloria that, to my knowledge, has never, ever happened before and probably will never, ever happen again. Towards the end of the film, the titular heroine exits a cab and asks the cabbie for the time, and she replies, “It’s 9:20.” Unbelievably, this was the exact time of day that it was on my clock as I watched the film in the evening. In films, people give the time to others when asked (Charles Martin Smith is told that it’s “a quarter to twelve” when attempting to purchase alcohol in George Lucas’s 1973 film American Graffiti), but the phenomenon of the onscreen reel time being in synch with the offscreen real time is something that I have not experienced before, and it got me to thinking about how certain things happen by mere happenstance.

The cinema of John Cassavetes is an acquired taste as he was a maverick who made many films on his own terms. If the general audience loved his work, it would infuriate him and he would recut the film, as was the case with 1970’s Husbands, a film that was released, critically acclaimed, pulled out of release and re-cut into a completely different film, culled from roughly 240 hours of raw footage. Co-star Ben Gazzara stated that his favorite version of the film ran four-and-a-half hours. The director often employed members of a small but loyal acting troupe headed by his wife, Gena Rowlands, who portrays the titular heroine in this film, shot between July and September 1979 and released in New York on Wednesday, October 1, 1980. She received her second Oscar nomination for her performance here, the first being for A Woman Under the Influence in 1974, also under the direction her husband.

Gloria is a film mired in Manhattan, Harlem and the Bronx in New York. The film opens with nighttime establishing shots of the New York skyline to the music of Bill Conti best known for the theme to Rocky (1976). The Statue of Liberty and several bridges are luminescent and invoke Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie filmed there two years earlier. The daylight exposes the filthy streets and the people who inhabit them. A six-year-old Puerto Rican boy, Phil Dawn (John Adames), narrowly escapes being killed by the Mafia following his mob accountant father’s (Buck Henry of all people) involvement with them turned sour. Phil is saddled with a copy of the Bible, which in reality is incriminating evidence that the Mafia wants back in their hands. His parents and siblings all become collateral damage as he and the family friend, Gloria, bolt and attempt to get away. Gloria is part of the Mafia. She possesses street smarts and packs heat, unflinchingly firing upon her enemies in broad daylight, though no cops appear to be anywhere in sight. Like the interior of Marcellus Wallace’s suitcase in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), this Bible proves to be a MacGuffin to keep Gloria and Phil on the run.

Initially, Gloria and Phil cannot stand one another, and the former appears to be reluctant to be saddled with the latter despite her promise to Phil’s parents to take care of him. Eventually, they grow on one another and, dare I say it, even develop a mutual affection. John Adames proves himself to be a capable actor though, to my knowledge, this is his sole screen credit. The film, despite reportedly being disparaged by its director (who probably would have been happy to completely recut it), is a showcase for its leading actress, who is always fascinating to watch.

Gloria was released on Blu-ray in August 2018 by Twilight Time and that pressing contained an isolated musical score. There is a new pressing of the film, this time by Kino Lorber, and the results are unspectacular. This is not a carp about Kino,since they always do a bang-up job on their Blu-ray releases. The film image is dark at times, especially in the beginning scenes in the apartment building (look fast for Tom Noonan as a Mafia soldier), and it looks as though it was transferred from a theatrical print, minus the reel-change cue marks. I am only assuming this to be the case (though I am probably incorrect), or perhaps this was how it was either photographed or developed as the liner notes are absent of the usual declaration boasting a high-definition transfer from the film’s original camera negative.

The only extras to speak of on this pressing are theatrical trailers for Gloria, Sidney Lumet’s Gloria remake from 1999, Gorky Park (1983), 52 Pick-Up (1986), Code of Silence (1985), Number One with a Bullet (1987), and Lonely are the Brave (1962).

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Don Knotts came to fame with his trademark comedy style of portraying a meek, excessively nervous character. He was Woody Allen before Woody Allen was Woody Allen. Knotts honed his skills on Steve Allen's show in the 1950s, with his "man on the street" Nervous Nellie routine sending audiences into fits of laughter. He co-starred with fellow up-and-comer Andy Griffith in the hit Broadway production of "No Time for Sergeants" and the subsequent film version. When Griffith landed his own TV series in 1960 in which he played the sheriff of fictional small town Mayberry, Knotts imposed upon him to write a small, occasional part he could play as Barney Fife, Griffith's inept but loyal sheriff. Griffith complied and the role made Knotts an icon of American comedy, allowing him to win an astonishing five Emmys for playing the same character. Five years into the series, Knotts was offered a multi-feature deal by Lew Wasserman, the reigning mogul of Universal Pictures. Knotts took the bait and enjoyed creative control over the films to a certain degree. He could pretty much do what he wanted as long has he played the same nervous schlep audiences wanted to see. The films had to be low-budget, shot quickly and enjoy modest profits from rural audiences where Knotts' popularity skewed the highest. His first feature film was The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, released in 1966 and written by the same writing team from the "The Andy Griffith Show". (Griffith actually co-wrote the script but declined taking a writing credit.) The film astonished the industry, rolling up big grosses in small markets where it proved to have remarkable staying power. Similarly, his next film, The Reluctant Astronaut also proved to be a big hit, as was his 1969 western spoof The Shakiest Gun in the West.  Within a few years, however, changing audience tastes had rendered Knotts' brand of innocent, gentle humor somewhat moot. By the late 1960s audiences were getting their laughs from the new film freedoms. It was hard to find the antics of a middle-aged virgin much fun when you could see Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice cavorting in the same bed. Still, Knotts soldiered on, providing fare for the drive-in markets that still wanted his films. In 1969 he made The Love God?, a very funny and underrated film that tried to be more contemporary by casting Knotts as an innocent ninny who is manipulated into fronting what he thinks is a magazine for bird watchers but, in reality, is a cover for a pornography empire. Knotts' traditional audience balked at the relatively tame sex jokes and for his final film for Universal, How to Frame a Figg, he reverted back to his old formula. 

Released in 1971, Figg casts Don Knotts as the titular character, Hollis Figg, a nondescript wimp who toils as an overlooked accountant in a basement of  city hall. The film is set in a Mayberry-like small town environment but any other similarity ends there. In Mayberry, only the visiting city slickers were ever corrupt. The citizenry may have been comprised of goofballs and eccentrics, but they were all scrupulously honest. In Figg's world, however, the top government officials are all con-men and crooks. They are ruled by the town's beloved paternal father figure, Old Charley Spaulding (Parker Fennelly), a decrepit character who hands out pennies to everyone he encounters, with the heart-warming greeting "A shiny penny for your future!" In fact, Old Charley  has plenty of those pennies stashed away. He and his hand-picked fellow crooks, including the mayor and police chief, have been systemically ripping off the state by grossly inflating the costs of local building projects and secretly pocketing the overages. Concerned that the accountants might get wind of their activities, they summarily fire them all except for Figg, who is deemed to be too naive to ever catch on. They justify the firings by saying it's fiscally prudent and replace the accountants with a gigantic computer that is supposed to be even more efficient. Through a quirk of fate, Figg and his equally naive friend, Prentiss (Frank Welker), the janitor for city hall, discover exactly what is going on. Figg dutifully reports his findings to the mayor (Edward Andrews), who convinces him to keep it secret while he launches his own investigation. Old Charley, the mayor and their cohorts decide to make Figg the fall guy for the corrupt practices. They give him a big promotion, a new red convertible and even hire a private secretary for him. She's Glorianna (Yvonne Craig), a leggy femme fatale who wears mini skirts and oozes sex. When her attempts to seduce Figg leave him paralyzed with fear because of his allegiance to his new girlfriend, the equally virginal waitress Ema Letha (Elaine Joyce), Glorianna gets Figg drunk, takes some embarrassing photos of him and then proceeds to have him sign a stream of incriminating documents that he has not bothered to read. Before long, Figg is blamed for all the missing funds and faces a jail sentence- unless he and the dim-witted Prentiss can figure out how to use the computer to thwart the real crooks. 

Review: Clint Eastwood: The Iconic Filmmaker and his Work, by Ian Nathan, White Lion Publishing; 1st edition (7 Sept. 2023), Hardcover, 176 pages.

Clint Eastwood, one of the original stars to emerge from the ‘cool’ era of the Sixties, continues to demand the status of cultural icon on a worldwide basis. From the lone man with no name in the ‘Dollar’ movies to Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry franchise, bare knuckle fighter Philo Beddoe to an ageing Korean War veteran in Gran Torino and The Mule - his roles exemplified an undeniable screen magnetism and a masculine sense of command.

Eastwood was born in 1930 at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. An introverted child (by his own admission), a personality trait that probably surfaced due to an unsettled childhood which saw him constantly travelling wherever his father’s work would take him. He was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War where he became a lifeguard at Fort Ord. On his return he made a few appearances and given minor roles by director Jack Arnold in B pictures such as Revenge of the Creature and Tarantula. His big break came as Rowdy Yates in the TV Saga Rawhide, an hour-long western series which ran for over 7 years. It was during Rawhide that Eastwood accepted an offer to travel to a remote region of Spain in order to make a low-key western for a relatively unknown director, Sergio Leone. It turned out to be a smart move on Eastwood’s part and one that would catapult him to one of the leading lights of Hollywood.

Author and Film Critic Ian Nathan’s new book, Clint Eastwood, The Iconic Filmmaker and his Work (part of the Iconic Filmmakers Series) (ISBN-13?: ?978-0711283657), explores, in detail, Eastwood’s phenomenal Hollywood career as actor, director, producer and composer. As a leading actor in some of the biggest and most respected films to hit the cinema screens, Nathan breaks his book down into several linier chapters which makes for an easy-to-read timeline of events. But the author has also been smart enough to include other important departures such as his tenure as Mayor of Carmel and his move into directing. The transcendence from major box office sensation of the Seventies into more personal film projects of the Eighties and Nineties is smooth and seamless and never misses a beat. The book charts his maturity, examining certain myths and more challenging subjects as a filmmaker. The book explores Eastwood as he gradually moved more behind the camera as opposed to in front of it while maintaining a healthy respect from both fans and his peers.

I also like Nathan’s footer timeline. Appearing at the bottom of certain pages, it works well as a nice guide which keeps you on track during certain periods of his career. Of course, Eastwood’s career is long and distinguished, often making editing a real nightmare of a task. There’s a fine line between examining too deeply or not examining deep enough – especially in a career spanning nearly 70 years (and counting). But Nathan gets the balance just about right here. It covers all the important aspects of a very rich and varied career, and with just the right weight in terms of detail. I doubt if seasoned fans will find anything particularly new within its 176 pages, but they’ll certainly want to add it to their collection, regardless. Anyone wishing to examine Eastwood’s career, perhaps for the first time in book form, couldn’t really go far wrong with this as an entry point. It’s also lavishly packaged. A solid hardback edition which is also housed within a matching hardshell slipcase matching that of the book’s cover is as appealing as they come – and a particularly nice touch - as well as serving as a great form of protection.

Published by White Lion Publishing and released on 7th September, 2023 – this book also contains a wealth of impressive images, from rare posters, production shots and a wonderful collection of stills ranging from the early Universal years right up to Eastwood’s latest release, Cry Macho. Overall. it’s a lavishly detailed publication which I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending. It’s a book in which everyone involved should feel a genuine sense of pride and accomplishment. Darren Allison

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(Darren Allison is the Soundtracks Editor for Cinema Retro. He also runs The Clint Eastwood Archive web site.)  

(Photo: Lee Pfeiffer/Cinema Retro)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Only a week after we congratulated David McCallum on his 90th birthday comes the sad news that he has passed away from natural causes in New York City, where he resided. I have nothing but wonderful memories of the time I spent with him. Like most boys who grew up in the spy rage of the 1960s, I became a big fan of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", though I had admired his work in "The Great Escape" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" even before then. His portrayal of Judas in the latter film was particularly haunting because he played him as a tragic and sympathetic figure. The success of "U.N.C.L.E." unexpectedly thrust David and his co-star Robert Vaughn into becoming international teenage idols. It was a distinction neither man had sought. At the height of the mania, David was to appear at Macy's in New York to promote his record album. The event was besieged by screaming teenage girls to such a degree that the police had to call the event off and hide David until the crowd had dissipated. The show ran from September, 1964 through January, 1968. Although David and Robert enjoyed their time on the series and were grateful for the fame and  fortune they gained from it, both men were eager to move on. David worked steadily in feature films and in live theater. Many years later, he landed the role of pathologist "Ducky" Mallard on the hit CBS series "NCIS". As the years went by, David joked to me that he kept trying to quit the series due to his advanced years but the producers always found a way to keep him on board. He seemed to love every minute he worked on the series.

What many people don't know is that David, the son of an acclaimed conductor in his native Scotland, was also a talented musician, arranger and composer who had some acclaimed albums in the 1960s. In recent, years he tried his hand at writing novels and found success in that endeavor, as well. At one point, I reunited David with my good friend, actor Joe Sirola, who had played a villain on a couple of episodes of "U.N.C.L.E." It gave me great pleasure to see them reignite their friendship and David would show up at Joe's legendary summer party on the terrace of his New York penthouse. When Dave Worrall and I began publishing Cinema Retro 20 years ago, David was a contributor. He was always reluctant to talk about himself and his career, but after one interview session he said he found it "therapeutic" to recall so many wonderful times in the acting profession that he had not thought about in many years. A very special evening occurred in 20009 at The Players, the legendary club for the arts in New York City. I was hosting a black tie dinner in honor of Robert Vaughn. During the cocktail hour he said, "I only wish David could have been here." Shortly thereafter, David and his wife Katherine did show up, causing many sophisticated middle-aged women to gasp with delight. David had told me he couldn't make the event but at the last minute he found a way to attend. It was a wonderful evening, especially when David gave a marvelous and touching speech about his former co-star. Years later, it would pain me to have been the one to break the news to David that Robert had passed away.

(L to R:) Lee Pfeiffer, David McCallum, Robert Vaughn and Joe Sirola at The Players dinner for Vaughn in 2009. (Photo: Tom Stroud)

David was first married to actress Jill Ireland and the couple had three children: Paul, Jason and Valentine. After they divorced, David met and married Katherine Carpenter in 1967. They had two children: Peter and Sophie. David adored his wife and family and always spoke of them with great pride. 

While I mourn David's passing, I take solace from the fact that he did not suffer and was surrounded by laughter and love for most of his life. In an increasingly cynical age, David represented the vanishing attributes of graciousness and modesty. I had left him a phone message on his 90th birthday and had planned to get together with him soon. That won't happen but I can appreciate the time I spent with him over the years. He was a talented actor and musician, a good family man and a person who left his mark on the profession he loved. Thanks for the memories, David.  

By Lee Pfeiffer

If something seems too good to be true, it's probably going to turn out to be too good to be true. Amazon Prime's streaming service has offered an exceptional library of new, original series and films as well as a treasure trove of retro movies that can be streamed commercial-free. That will come to an end in early 2024 when "ad-free" streaming will now command an additional monthly fee of $2.99 in the USA for customers who currently pay $14.99 a month. International customers will presumably be charged the approximate amount in local currency. There will be no increase in fees if you're willing to see classic movies interrupted by advertisements. If you're reading Cinema Retro, you're probably as snooty as we are about how we watch the movies we love. However, the truth is that the general public is very undemanding when it comes to movie viewing. That's how American cable TV channels can still find people who will sit through a telecast of  censored versions of "Apocalypse Now" or "Jaws" along with many other classics with accompanying ads for everything from cars to hemorrhoid medicine. While it isn't our intention to carry water for Amazon, the increased price still seems reasonable for gaining access to so many films including plenty of titles that are not available on home video. For more, click here. 

By Sheldon Hall

*SPOILERS*

The problem with McVicar (1980) as a biopic is that the part of its subject’s life I most wanted to know about is covered in a brief caption at the very end. A closing intertitle informs us, if we didn’t already know, that John McVicar (1940-2022), a career criminal handed consecutive prison sentences totalling 23 years, eventually left behind his life of crime to gain a first-class honours degree while still behind bars and become a successful journalist and author. Indeed, he co-wrote the screenplay, based on his published memoir. But this fascinating turnabout is not part of the film’s story, which ends in 1970 after he is put back inside following a prison break and violent bank robbery.

What we have instead is a conventional tale of porridge and solitary on the inside, awkward family life on the outside. Although McVicar is competently played by The Who front man Roger Daltrey (who co-produced the film and also performs some songs on the soundtrack), there is little here to suggest that beneath the hard-man surface lay an articulate intelligence with a sharp understanding of the social causes of criminality. The script prefers to revel in the aggressive bravado with which he taunts prison officers, instigates riots, tunnels out of the shower block and risks re-arrest after escape. McVicar’s attempts to bond with his young son are sentimental rather than sensitive, all the film’s energy coming from its criminal elements.

Directed by Tom Clegg, a specialist in TV crime shows who also made Sweeney 2 (1978), it has a surface authenticity slightly belied by the high-definition transfer on Fabulous Films’ Region B Blu-ray, which makes the photography look more glossy than it probably did on first release in cinemas (where it achieved substantial commercial success, placing twelfth among UK general releases of 1980). In the scenes set in Durham Prison, the actors playing the screws try slightly too hard with their Geordie accents (all ‘bonnie lads’ and ‘kiddas’) but this makes for an effective clash with the mainly cockney prisoners. Cheryl Campbell’s role as McVicar’s wife is predictably thankless but Adam Faith (another pop star turned capable actor), Billy Murray, Steven Berkoff and Ian Hendry all fulfil their generic requirements admirably.

(Photo: Fabulous Films)

The extras, on what has been dubbed ‘Break-out Edition’, are an informative making-of, with contributions from the genial Daltrey, co-producer Bill Curbishley and music composer-arranger Jeff Wayne, and a short interview by actor Keith Allen (who is not in the film) with the real McVicar, recorded late in his life. He tells a sad and fascinating tale, more interesting than anything in the main feature.

(Sheldon Hall is the Copy Editor of Cinema Retro magazine.) 

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(Photo: Liane Brandon)

By Todd Garbarini

The first time that I heard of the name Nat Segaloff was in 1990 when I purchased his new book at the time, Hurricane Billy: The Stormy Life and Films of William Friedkin. I eagerly read through it in no time as The French Connection, Mr. Friedkin’s Oscar-winning film for Best Picture and Best Director among others, is my favorite film. It was his fifth feature as a director, and it put Mr. Friedkin on the map following the disappointing box office performance of his first four films. However, the critical praise and box office success of this real-life-inspired police drama which contains two of cinema’s greatest action set pieces would not truly prepare audiences for his follow-up film.

Mr. Friedkin’s The Exorcist, a film adaptation of the best-selling 1971 William Peter Blatty novel of the same name, opened theatrically on Wednesday, December 26, 1973 on no less than twenty seven theater screens, one of which was the Cinema 57 which was part of the Sack Theatre chain in Boston, MA. Mr. Segaloff was a publicist and was tasked with playing door guard to a top-secret pre-arranged screening of the film on Christmas morning to a handful of critics who were there to get their reviews in their respective papers earlier than usual. This incident is recounted in his preface to his latest book, The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear, the title of which brings to the forefront the shocking revelation of just how many years have transpired since Regan MacNeil’s head spun around. The film is something that I had heard about for years prior to becoming a fan of scary cinema and I was unsure how much of it was rumor or fact. I recall purchasing The Exorcist on VHS in February 1986 seven months before I saw The French Connection. It was in the oversized clamshell box by Warner Home Video and while I was impressed with it, it did not scare me in the slightest. However, I have spoken to other people who saw the film in their teenage years and refused to view it ever again. A September 1996 viewing of the film to a sold-out screening at Radio City Music Hall, introduced by both lead actress Ellen Burstyn and the director in-person, solidified the film’s stature as a masterpiece in my mind. The release of the film on DVD in a 25^th anniversary edition whetted the appetite of those who would see the film theatrically two years later when The Exorcist: The Version You’ve Never Seen was released which would include changes and additional footage. The Blu-ray of the film in 2010 in the extended director’s cut was by no means the final word, as in 2013 a 40th anniversary Blu-ray added a nice documentary and extended interviews with the author. Just in time for the 50^th anniversary, the film is now bowing in 4K UHD.

Following a foreword by John A. Russo of Night of the Living Dead fame, Mr. Segaloff begins his book, which is comprised of sixteen chapters and lasting just over three hundred pages in length, from the correct presumption that the film is a misunderstood classic. He agrees with the assessment by both Mr. Blatty and Mr. Friedkin that the film is many things except the horror film that it is widely revered as since the time of its release, though audiences have other opinions. We are treated to many interesting tidbits: the hilarious story of how Mr. Friedkin met Mr. Blatty and how the former’s honesty solidified a working relationship and lifelong friendship with the latter, with Mr. Friedkin being the sole director that Mr. Blatty wanted from the get-go; Warner Brothers’ initial reluctance to hire Mr. Friedkin until the release of his brilliant The French Connection in 1971 garnered sudden critical and financial success and changed the game completely; the original 1949 real-life case of a young possessed Maryland boy; Mr. Blatty’s writing of the novel; the making of the film; a multitude of issues that beset the film’s production giving way to the supposed “curse” on the set; the controversy surrounding the release of the film; in-depth looks at the much-maligned Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and the superior The Exorcist III (1990), the latter both written and directed by Blatty; the prequels and television series, and the little-known The Ninth Configuration. If you’re even just a passing fan of the film, the book is a must read.

Mr. Segaloff was gracious enough to speak with me from his home in Los Angeles by phone regarding the book. Unfortunately, the day I contacted him about the interview was the same day that Mr. Friedkin had passed away, a fact that I was unaware of until an hour later. Mr. Segaloff wanted to press on with the interview, however, which amazed me as he knew Mr. Friedkin for nearly fifty years.

Todd Garbarini: Where are you from originally?

Nat Segaloff: I was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is a good long way from Cottage City, Maryland, where that little boy was possessed in 1949. We were not possessed in Silver Spring. Silver Spring was a very strange place. It was the nation’s largest unincorporated city, about one hundred thousand people, and nobody taking out the garbage.

I was able to leave and go to school in Boston, and there, I not only ran the major movie program on campus, I also insinuated myself into both the city’s professional film scene and the then-burgeoning underground film scene. Of course, we’re talking the 1960’s.

When I graduated from college, I started doing publicity for the film companies in town and, after a while, moved to New York to do it there, then moved back to Boston and became a critic. All of that served as fodder for the books I’ve written and for the people I’ve met because I’m a kind of a demimonde. A lot of people remembered me from when I was a publicist, but then when I became a reporter, they thought I was still a publicist, and they trusted me. It’s a very odd combination, and I sometimes had to tell people, “You know, I’m a reporter now.” I was able to keep close to a lot of people that I’d met doing publicity, like Robert Altman, James Bridges, Paul Mazursky, and John Milius.

TG: A lot of people I’ve spoken with who work in the film industry didn’t go to the movies or even see films on television until they were much older. Did you do the same thing, or did you get into them later?

NS: Back when I was a pod, the only way to see an old movie was on late-night television. I stayed up till one-thirty in the morning to view The Jazz Singer on Washington television because there was no way I was otherwise going to see it. There was no video, and you couldn’t even rent a 16-millimeter print of it. Later, there were revival theaters in Washington where I attended occasionally, but you still had to wait for something to appear. Only when I went away to school and ran the film program was I seeing movies every weekend, because I had to make sure people weren’t smoking in the theater. That was my job. I was managing the campus theater. I saw a lot of movies in class and in theaters, and it was wonderful. Between that and being a critic, I must have spent thirty years watching a couple of movies a week, and then I just burned out completely.

TG: As much as I love watching movies, I don’t know that I would be able to do that! Do you have an all-time favorite movie?

NS: The easy answer is Citizen Kane. It certainly is the source of so much inspiration and technique for everybody who makes movies. I don’t think it’s possible to cite one particular film. Whatever pleases you at the time that you’re open to, it’s a film that becomes your favorite. I also like His Girl Friday. No connection between those, except they’re both about newspapers.

TG: Are you drawn to movies about reporters and publicists?

NS: It turns out that I am drawn to movies about reporters. Certainly, Sam Fuller’s Park Row is a movie that makes me cry, not because it’s sad, but because it reminds me of the days when I was writing for real newspapers. No, I don’t find myself glomming onto any particular kind of film, be it science fiction, horror, drama, musical, or anything else. I just like a good movie.

TG: So, you don’t consider yourself partial to certain genres?

NS: I think that so many genres, particularly horror or suspense films, seem to have a playbook, and I don’t like films that go where you know they’re going to go. I remember something Jonathan Demme said about the script for his film Something Wild. He said you literally didn’t know from one page to the next what was going to happen. I like to see that on the screen. I like films that have what I call an “Oh, shit!” moment. The first one I remember was, of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey, just before the intermission, when we realized that HAL was reading the astronauts’ lips, and that was the moment where the whole audience sort of exclaimed, “Oh, shit!” [laughs]. There are also other movies like A Beautiful Mind with that kind of moment, or a movie that very few people remember that Stephen Fears made called Dirty Pretty Things.

TG: Yes, that’s with Audrey Tautou from Amelie.

NS: Yes. I was watching it in a small theater, and not only did we all say, “Oh, shit,” but we all stayed through the credits and then stood up and congratulated each other after the movie for seeing that film.

TG: You’ve written and published a good number of books on The Towering Inferno, the Scarface films, the Hollywood Code, John Milius, William Friedkin and Harlan Ellison. Your latest book, The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear, is quite an accomplishment. It begins on Christmas Day in 1973. You were working for the Sack Cinema 57 on Stuart Street in Boston.

NS: Yes. I was their publicity director in 1973 when The Exorcist was scheduled to be released on Wednesday, December 26^th. One of our critics, Stuart Byron, who knew the industry really well, was able to inveigle William Friedkin to permit a day-before screening so that the weekly papers, which catered to the young audience, would be able to meet their deadlines. So, I hosted this greeting of The Exorcist on Christmas morning.

For some reason, the critics had no problem leaving the bosom of their families to come and see a movie about a little girl whose head spins around. I didn’t see the movie that day. I was standing in the lobby guarding the door so the people who weren’t invited couldn’t get in. Nobody got sick. We didn’t know we were supposed to throw up. Of course, the Technicolor yawns began the very next day.

TG: Did you have any inkling what that film was like? Based upon the lobby cards, the marketing of the film by Warner Brothers, did you have any idea what was going on behind those doors?

NS: I had no idea what was going to be going on, “on this street in that house in a little girl’s bedroom.” [laughs] I had read the book, of course. The only glimpse we had was a teaser trailer that went 30 seconds with the narration I just did for you. It was simply a shot of the poster of Max von Sydow standing outside of the house. That’s all anybody knew. There were no pictures, nothing. In fact, there was an embargo on anything from the film. I think it was either Time or Newsweek who ended up sued by Warner Brothers because somebody sneaked into the theater and got a picture of Regan in makeup and ran it. That was considered a breach of copyright, a very secret thing. The audiences, as you know, would file out ashen. The audiences waiting to get in would know that something weird was going on in there, and it became an emotional rollercoaster for them.

TG: Now, I of course, didn’t live through this. Was this a similar reaction like when Psycho came out? Psycho had been a novel first, and then the film was released and it was all hush-hush, “don’t give away the ending.”

NS: I wasn’t old enough to see Psycho when it came out. I do know, of course, that Hitchcock specified that nobody be allowed in once the film had started. That made a certain groundswell of public opinion. The film that was closest to The Exorcist when I was that age was Night of the Living Dead, which had a reputation for being gross, scary, and horrifying. The fact that it was shown at midnight to a bunch of kids who were probably high made additional impressions on people. A black and white film with blurry pictures from an indie source in Pittsburgh was not the same thing as a beautifully photographed color film from Warner Brothers. Incidentally, John Russo, who co-wrote Night of the Living Dead, wrote the forward to The Exorcist Legacy.

TG: What was your introduction to William Friedkin’s work? Had you seen any of his previous films?

NS: I had seen The Birthday Party. It was on a sneak preview where Walter Reade’s Continental Releasing was trying to get a booking for it, and I saw it in Boston. That wasn’t the film that I was there to see. The Birthday Party was just stunning. Robert Shaw, Patrick Magee, I mean, just a beautifully contained job. I’d also seen The Night They Raided Minsky’s, and thought it was lovely, but I didn’t really realize it was a William Friedkin film. I had missed Good Times with Sonny and Cher, which I’ve seen since then. Then of course, The French Connection came out. I was late seeing The Boys in the Band because I was in school at the time when it played in theaters. I caught it later. The French Connection naturally was the one that galvanized everybody. In fact, at the theater that showed it in Boston, which is where I was working at the time, people would come in early when they knew that the car chase was going to start, and they’d see the chase and stay through to watch the film all through again so they could get in and see the chase twice. We had to clear the theater. It was remarkable with that on a huge screen. The vertigo was just phenomenal. It was just a staggering effect because I don’t think anybody had ever mounted a camera on the bumper of a car before Billy did it.

TG: That’s what blows me away about his cinema. He did things that we had never seen before.

NS: Yes, including racing through the streets of New York without permits. Randy Jurgensen will tell you one thing. Sonny Grosso would tell another. Billy Friedkin would tell you something else. There’s no agreement. From what I understand, and I trust Randy, is that they simply ran the car. They didn’t have any siren on the car to warn people because, as Randy said, if you put a siren on the car, people look at the car and they don’t want people looking at the car. Billy sat in the back, Bill Hickman drove, and they just tore ass through Brooklyn. If anybody stopped them, Randy said he’d just flash his badge saying, “Fellow officer, let us go.” You could do that then. You could get away with it.

TG: So much of what you could get away with, you can’t do now because of small security cameras and the Internet.

NS: Yes. We’re living, as John Milius said, under the booted foot of the lifeguard state.

TG: How did this book about The Exorcist Legacy come about? When did you start thinking about it? Had it been something gestating in your mind for some years? Had you started writing it a long time ago in anticipation of the 50th anniversary?

NS: I could tell you my publicity line, which is that I’ve been possessed by The Exorcist for 50 years, but in fact, I’d acquired a wonderful new agent, Lee Sobel, at the end of 2020. We were thinking what kind of books we could possibly sell. Anniversary books seemed to work well. What film was having a 25th, a 40th, or a 50th anniversary? We figured, well, with a year and a half or two of lead time, that makes it 2023. I said, “The Exorcist is going to be 50.” Bang, he sold it in a matter of days.

TG: Did you approach John Russo specifically to do the forward?

NS: John Russo was approached by my editor, James Abbate, who knows him and has worked with him. He very graciously did the forward to the book.

TG: Yes, John is very nice. I go to horror conventions that they have and most of the cast of my favorite horror films come and speak about them. Night of the Living Dead was one of them. I got to meet John there and talk with him at length about the films and all. I just love the behind-the-scenes stories that you haven’t read and haven’t been published. It gives you a real look into the film, a new appreciation, of the movie, whatever that movie may be.

NS: There are some very good people out there. The great thing about writers is that we tend to help each other. Whenever I need an author’s query or information, it’s always the writers who come through first, like yourself.

TG: As far as The Exorcist Legacy is concerned, who was the first person you spoke to? Did you go straight to Billy?

NS: I didn’t go to Billy at all for The Exorcist Legacy. There was a reason for that, which is that I had all the answers I needed back in 1988 to 1990 when I wrote his biography. In those days, The Exorcist was merely a hit. It wasn’t a classic yet. The stories, I believe, were closer to the source. I also had the good fortune to speak to Ellen Burstyn, whom I adore, and who I believe is our finest American actress of our generation.

TG: I agree, she’s phenomenal.

NS: She’s amazing. I had spoken to William Peter Blatty at great length. We’d been friends and kept in touch over the years. A lot of his material in the book is material that I could not publish while he was alive. He was very frank about his relationship with film studios. As he hand-wrote on the side of a transcript that I sent him for approval, as you do, he said, “Nat, don’t print this. I’ve got enough problems.” He was a warm, funny, and wonderful man. I’ve become friends with his oldest son, Mike, since the book came out. In fact, I saw him at a signing the other day. He happened to be in town. I’m very happy to keep up my connection with the Blatty family.

TG: Oh, sure. Whom did you speak to at great length for the book?

NS: I did it two years ago and it was with Terry Donnelly, who was the first assistant director and unit manager. I had worked on a film with Terry years ago. We picked up where we left off and he was able to tell me about the behind-the-scenes facets. I spoke to Craig McKay, who is a film editor. He cut The Silence of the Lambs among other films. He’s very good. He was a kid when he was starting out on The Exorcist, there to pick up pieces. He had some wonderful stories. I did speak to Jeremy Slater, who was the showrunner for the Exorcist television series, and of course, David Gordon Green, who has a new Exorcist film coming out. I had a lot of the material from when I wrote Hurricane Billy (Billy’s biography). I was able to use that. What can I say, covering all these films, two sequels, two prequels, and each of them was recut? It was a lot to write about.

TG: How do you keep track in your head just of all these different versions of these movies? As much as I love films, I really find it so hard to be able to keep track of the director’s cut, or the original cut, and this one runs this number of minutes, etc. I’ve always admired Tim Lucas’s review of movies in Video Watchdog for that reason because it’s encyclopedic, the amount of information that he has on all these films and how he would do all the video comparisons. How did you find doing that? Was that something that came easily to you because you had seen the film so many times in different versions?

NS: Tim Lucas is one of the people in the book, as is Mark Kermode. We’ve known each other for so many years that we don’t even think about it. With the different versions of The Exorcist, which I’m not very happy with, I guess, three of them, or maybe four, depending on if you count one of them twice, I think the original is the best version, except for a couple of scenes that are put in “The Version You’ve Never Seen,” so it’s very hard. I would like to do my own fan edit, but I think I’ve watched The Exorcist enough by now.

TG: Was there anybody you wanted to interview for this book whom you weren’t able to interview because they either passed away or you were unable to contact?

NS: Linda Blair.

TG: What was the first Billy Friedkin film that you were on the set of?

NS: The Brink’s Job in the summer of 1978. I was there for Evening Magazine, which was the version of PM Magazine that was run on the stations that were owned by Westinghouse.

TG: Oh, I remember PM Magazine. That’s where I first saw Matt Lauer.

NS: Billy allowed our cameras on the set, which is funny because he just kicked the publicity cameras for Paramount and Universal off the set, and he let us on. We had wonderful footage of Peter Falk and the cast. Dean Tavoularis had done a reconstruction of the Brink’s system as it was in 1951 when the robbery took place. It was a magnificent set. There was an incident where some local tough guys broke into the editing offices, took footage, and wanted to hold it for ransom to shake down the production. As it happened, I had the only footage of Brink’s and I was with a TV station, but I couldn’t get my TV station to run their own footage because we had shot non-union. That was Westinghouse. That’s why they’re not around anymore. Westinghouse was the Pazuzu of television. I was also on the set of one of Billy’s films in Montreal when I was writing the book (the 1988 TV-movie C.A.T. Squad: Python Wolf). You don’t learn a whole lot on a set. William Goldman is right. The most exciting day of your life is your first day on a movie set, and the most boring day of your life is your second day on a movie set.

TG: I’ve seen a handful of films being shot. It’s fairly boring, I must say.

NS: I will correct you on one thing. Billy Friedkin didn’t allow chairs on his sets. You stand around.

TG: Christopher Nolan is like that. He doesn’t allow them either.

NS: He’s right! James Cameron has a nail gun (like in No Country for Old Men), and if anybody’s cell phone rings, he nails it to a prop.

TG: Holy Jeez! Is there anything that I haven’t covered that you wanted to say about the book?

NS: The book goes into not just the original Exorcist, but the sequels and prequels. That’s something that people don’t consider because nobody ever intended The Exorcist to be a franchise. It became a franchise when Morgan Creek bought the rights from Bill Blatty, and they are now trying to revive it, of course, with the October release of The Exorcist: Believer.

TG: Have you seen that?

NS: No, I haven’t seen it yet. I’m looking forward to it. I do know that I really like David Gordon Green, who was very kind to me. He probably shouldn’t have been talking about the film. He did because I had a year and a half lead time for the book, and it’s in there. I was disappointed in the prequel, both Dominion, which was Paul Schrader’s version, and Exorcist: The Beginning, which was Renny Harlin’s. Although I think there’s a lot in Paul Schrader’s version, I’ve been saying the difference between them is that Paul Schrader made a film where Renny Harlan made a movie. I think that both films had trouble because people expect an exorcism Exorcist movie and what they got was CGI. That’s not the same thing. CGI is not the real thing. That’s what distinguishes The Exorcist; what made The Exorcist work was that it was real. The things that happened in front of the camera actually happened. Linda Blair really floated, the bed really shook, doors really cracked, things really fell over. Curtains really blew on closed windows. They didn’t happen because anybody was possessed. They happened because Dick Smith created brilliant makeup and Marcel Vercoutere had incredibly complicated mechanical effects, but they all happened in front of the camera so that it looked real. That’s the documentary nature of Billy’s filmmaking and why he believes in reality. That, I believe, will be his ultimate legacy on film, which is that he made the movies look real. Of course, now most of the movies look like fantasy. We’ve lost that.

TG: Yes. Steven Spielberg would agree with that statement. He likes to see everything real in front of the camera. He does realize that in today’s day and age, you do have to use computer graphics, and that’s really came to fruition with Jurassic Park. Before that, he wondered how they were going to make the dinosaurs run.

NS: It’s true. He tried stop motion, but he didn’t want to make Jurassic Park until he could do it right. Not everybody has that. They’ll say, “Well, the audience won’t know.” No, no, they know. The audience doesn’t know what’s called the uncanny valley, but it is the uncanny valley.

TG: I want to thank you very, very much for taking the time to speak with me about the book.

NS: Thank you so much. I do want to say something about Billy who, as you know, died just twenty-two days shy of his 88th birthday. He was a friend for fifty years and an inspiration, not just for his films, but for his personality: he didn’t cotton to bullshit which, of course, is the coin of the realm in Hollywood. Billy was a very brave man because I can’t think of many other directors, except maybe Brian De Palma, who let somebody write a book about them while they were still working. He did that for me and launched my career as a writer. I love him and I miss him. And thank you, Todd and Cinema Retro, for giving me the chance to say that on the record.

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RETRO-ACTIVE: FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

By Lee Pfeiffer

Although I have a weak spot for Italian westerns of the 1960s and 1970s, most can be appropriately evaluated by paraphrasing Longfellow: "When they were good, they were very, very good, and when they were bad, they were horrid." "Blindman" is a curiosity from 1971 that I previously panned after viewing an allegedly "remastered" DVD edition that looked barely better than a VHS transfer.  The film fits rather comfortably into the latter part of Longfellow's famous nursery rhyme. Although the movie has a devoted fan base, when I first reviewed it I call it "a pretty horrid experience and inexcusably amateurish in execution, given the well-seasoned people involved". The good news is that Abkco Films has released a truly remastered DVD version that considerably improves one's perception of the film. As the title implies, it's about...well, a blind man. He's played by Tony Anthony, who did rather well for himself as a sort of Clint Eastwood Lite character known as The Stranger in a series of Euro Westerns (Any similarity to Eastwood's Man With No Name must have been purely coincidental). Anthony went on to star in any number of lucrative, low-budget action films, the most notable being "Comin' At Ya!, a 3-D flick that has also built a loyal cult following.  His co-star in "Blindman" is Ringo Starr. More about him later. The film was based on a Japanese movie titled "Zatoichi" about a blind samurai hero. As with "The Magnificent Seven", which was based on Kurasawa's "Seven Samurai", the story has been transplanted to the American west. When we first see the Blindman (whose name is never mentioned), he rides into a one-horse town and confronts his former partners. Seems they had a lucrative contract to deliver 50 mail order brides to some horny miners. However, a better offer was made from a Mexican bandito named Domingo (Lloyd Battista), who has exported them South 'O the Border to force them into prostitution. Blindman apparently has a sense of honor in terms of fulfilling the original contract. He manages to kill his former partners and sets off to Mexico to rescue the women, presumably so they can sold into another form of prostitution. At first the premise of this film intrigued me. How, after all, can you logically present a story about a blind gunslinger? The answer is you apparently can't. You could get away with it if the film was a satire, but there is surprisingly little overt humor in "Blindman". Yes, in true Eastwood fashion, the hero sometimes makes some snarky quips before, during and after dispatching his adversaries, but for the most part, the film takes itself far too seriously. 

How does the Blindman find his way around? Well, he has his own "wonder horse" who seems more like a companion than a beast of burden. The hoofed hero is always at his disposal and seems to be able to do everything but read a map for him. Speaking of maps, Blindman gets to various destinations by running his finger over maps that engraved in leather...sort of a braille system. Given the fact that he has to navigate the state of Texas, then Mexico, one would think he would require maps the size of rolls of kitchen linoleum, but somehow he gets by with navigational tools that fit neatly into his pocket.  When Blindman arrives in Mexico, he has numerous confrontations with the brutal Domingo and his army of thugs. He suffers the ritualistic beatings of any hero in the Italian western genre, but always manages to get the better hand by his deadly use of the rifle that he uses as a walking stick. Somehow the Blindman can use instinct and an uncanny hearing ability to gun down his would-be assassins with uncanny precision, though occasionally he does impose on some allies for advice. He also confronts Candy (Ringo Starr), Domingo's equally sadistic brother, who is keeping a captive woman as his mistress. What follows is a seemingly endless series of  chases, confrontations and the obligatory imitation Morricone score, all of it under the pedestrian direction of Ferdinando Baldi, who has a revered reputation with some fans of the genre and does manage to set off some impressive explosions. (Amusingly, the concept of showing the "50" mail order brides must have taxed the limited budget so we only get to see them in small clusters.). There are a couple of sequences that stand out in terms of creativity. One involves the surprise slaughter of a barroom filled with Mexican soldiers. The other has a bit of suspense as the Blindman is served a food bowl that he doesn't realize contains a deadly snake. The finale of the film finds Blindman wrestling with Domingo, who has been blinded by a cigar! (Don't ask...) It's supposed to be a tense confrontation, but the sight of the two blind guys rolling around in the dirt looks like an outtake from a Monty Python sketch.  The most intriguing aspect of the film is what led Ringo Starr into appearing in it. He had considerable on-screen charisma that he parlayed into a successful acting career. Here, however, his role is colorless and bland. He doesn't even play the main villain, but rather a supporting character who disappears from the story before the movie even reaches the one-hour mark. Starr supposedly was looking to jump-start his film career and worked with Tony Anthony to develop this production. While he acquits himself credibly, he might have at least given his character some memorable lines or characteristics. 

The previously reviewed version of the film pointed out that the packaging had indicated the film had a running time of 105 minutes, which matches with the original timing cited on on the IMDB site. However, the screener we reviewed ran only 83 minutes and it looked like it had been edited with a meat cleaver. The ABCKO version is the actual 105 minute cut and the transfer is excellent, a vast improvement over the muddy mess we had previously reviewed. Seeing "Blindman" again under these conditions has allowed me to reevaluate my opinion of the film. While it certainly never rises to the standards of a Sergio Leone production, the movie's quirky premise and the amusing performance by Tony Anthony made the experience far more enjoyable the second time around. 

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By Lee Pfeiffer

In the wake of their success co-starring in John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, Warner Brothers realized they had captured lightning in a bottle with the teaming of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. The studio quickly paired the two character actors again in the Bogart films Casablanca and Passage to Marseilles. In 1944, Warners decided to give Greenstreet and Lorre what amounted to starring roles in the thriller The Mask of Dimitrios, based on the Eric Ambler novel and set in pre-WWII Europe. (Lorre received fourth billing in the film behind Greenstreet, Zachary Scott and Faye Emerson, but in terms of screen time, he is the star of the movie.) Lorre plays Cornelius Leyden, a mild mannered crime novelist who is visiting Istanbul, where he becomes intrigued by the murder of a man named Dimitrios, who was a local legend in terms of his criminal activities. Dimitrios's body has washed ashore, as shows evidence that he has been stabbed to death. Sensing a good story in the murder, Leyden pursues the man's background and finds out he was known throughout Europe for his audacious crimes. Leyden decides to track down those who interacted with Dimitrios, including jilted partner and abandoned girlfriends. All agree that he was a charismatic cad who worked his way up from petty crimes in Istanbul to being an integral part of Europe's pre-war espionage activities. Leyden is followed in his footsteps by Peters (Sydney Greenstreet), an affable man of mystery who is also obsessed with tracking down Dimitrios's acquaintances and activities leading up to the man's death. After a rocky introduction at the point of Peters' gun, the two men forge an alliance and travel through Turkey, Yuguoslavia and finally Paris in their quest. Along the way, they determine that Dimitrios is very much alive and well, having used another man's murder as an opportunity to fake his own death. Peters is determined to use that information to blackmail Dimitrios and thus ensure acquiring enough money to afford a comfortable retirement. 

Much of the story is told in flashbacks as various individuals relate their experiences with Dimitrios to Leyden and Peters. As played by Zachary Scott, Dimitrios lives up to his legend as handsome womanizer and persuasive businessman, though each of his friends and partners ends up being abruptly jilted in some manner, as Dimitrios moves on to his next scam. (Jack Warner had high hopes for Scott becoming the studio's next great leading man, but his interest in promoting Scott seemed to wane and the actor never really acquired the stardom that his role in this film would seem to have assured.) Leyden and Peters also meet Irana, an entertainer in a squalid Istanbul cafe, who relates how Dimitrios became her lover and ensured that her fortunes improved. However, when she loaned him her savings, he abandoned her, never to be heard from again. Although nursing a broken heart and bearing resentment for the man on one level, she admits she still carries a torch and his abandonment of her left her in a depressed state of mind that still continues. (Apparently, once you've experienced Dimitrios, no other man comes to close as a lover.) As Leyden and Peters close in on their prey, the stakes become higher - and they realize their lives are very much at risk.

The Mask of Dimitrios, ably directed by Jean Negulesco, is a joy to watch. It doesn't have the artistic pretensions of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, but it is a thoroughly entertaining movie. Lorre and Greenstreet's "Mutt and Jeff" act continues to present them as essentially the same character in film after film, but that doesn't in any way compromise the delight of watching these two eccentric actors at the peak of their careers. The supporting performances are also equally delightful and the film bares all the rich artistic hallmarks of a WB release from the era. 

The Warner Archive has released the film on DVD. The transfer is excellent. An original trailer is included that features specially-filmed footage of Greenstreet and Lorre addressing the audience. The DVD is region free but it's time for a Blu-ray release! 

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By Lee Pfeiffer

When Lillian Helllman's "Toys in the Attic" debuted on Broadway in 1960, it was not unanimously acclaimed but it did win enough acclaim to secure major Tony nominations and enjoy a healthy run that lasted over one year. The show was an important career boost for up-and-coming Jason Robards, who played the male lead. In 1963, United Artists brought the play to the screen, directed by future Oscar winner George Roy Hill. It was Hill's second major film following "Period of Adjustment" the year before. In the 1950s and early 1960s, studios were enamored of moss-dripping family dramas set in the deep South. That's because this sub-genre often derived from the works of acclaimed authors such as Hellman, Tennessee Williams and William Inge. Some memorable films resulted: A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Baby Doll and The Long Hot Summer among them. Although these stories diverge in terms of plot, there is a commonality: they generally deal with an emotionally-wrought woman or women who are devoted to a manipulative and generally charismatic cad."Toys in the Attic" is firmly entrenched in this scenario. Dean Martin plays Julian Berniers, a ne're-do-well hunky young man who returns to his family home in New Orleans with his new bride, Lily (Yvette Mimieaux). The house is occupied by Julian's two spinster sisters, Carrie (Geraldine Page) and Anna (Wendy Hiller), both of whom live in self-imposed isolation, largely removed from the outside world. Julian's reputation as a man with big dreams and small results precedes him. He has lost a valuable factory and is presumed in bankruptcy. However, he appears in a jubilant mood bearing expensive gifts for his bewildered sisters. Carrie is especially overjoyed to see him, having harbored incestuous feelings for Julian for many years. She takes an instant dislike to the affable but naive Lily, largely due to personal jealousy. Julian is loaded with cash after concluding a mysterious $150,000 business deal that he won't reveal the details of. He assures his sisters that their days of financial challenges are over and even books them on a European cruise. However, there are consequential aspects to the secrets that Julian keeps and as they are eventually unwoven, a web of lies, deceit and betrayal are unveiled with devastating consequences for all.

"Toys in the Attic" probably works better as a stage production. Director George Roy Hill, confined by a modest budget, doesn't try to "open up" the tale, as there are very few exterior shots in the film. In some cases, this proves to be a wise choice when transferring a stage production to the screen, as evidenced by "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". However, "Toys in the Attic" simply looks like a cheapo production despite the impressive cast. Dean Martin registers well in the role of Julian, a serial exaggerator and braggart who is finally trying to elevate himself from being known as a loser. Martin had already established himself as a serious actor in the wake of his breakup with Jerry Lewis, giving powerful performances in "The Young Lions" and "Some Came Running". Nevertheless, critics were rather cruel to him in regard to his casting in this film, but no one emerged unscathed except for Wendy Hiller, who is the only cast member whose performance is somewhat understated. Mimieux radiates wide-eyed innocence as Julian's child-like bride, but her whining and dependency grow weary to view. Coming off worst is Geraldine Page, who director Hill encourages to play her character in an over-the-top manner that comes close to Piper Laurie's lunatic mother in "Carrie". Gene Tierney makes a brief appearance as Lily's rich-but-shallow mother who Lily suspects of having paid Julien to marry her. There's also an interracial romance hinted at  between Tierney's character and her Black servant, played by Frank Silvera. Apparently, this relationship was watered down from the stage production version. James Poe's screenplay is a muddled affair filled with some many eccentric characters concerned about so many scandals that the story becomes difficult to follow. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote "With an eye for more melodramatics than for contours of character that might make plausible its story of two spinster sisters' odd devotion to their brother, Mr. Hill has allowed this turgid drama and his avid actors to get completely out of hand and run wild in a baffling confusion of theatrical bursts and attitudes." Other critics followed suit and the movie was a financial failure that seemed to diffuse Hollywood's belief that films about Southern scandal-scarred families meant good results at the boxoffice. Fortunately, all involved would move on to more impressive work.

"Toys in the Attic" is available on DVD through MGM.There are no bonus extras. Click here to order DVD from Amazon.

Bloomsbury Academic

June 2023

Paperback

Illustrations, 26 bw images

ISBN: 9781350194489

RRP: £28.99

Review by Adrian Smith

Shocking Cinema of the 70s was a collection of essays originally published in 2002, and the intention here was to republish those alongside some new chapters. However, the field has changed so much in the following twenty years that instead we get an entirely new collection of essays covering a wide range of fascinating and important topics related to this influential, shocking decade.

The book tackles films that have been considered controversial, or that dealt with difficult subject matters. Whereas the first volume primarily covered horror, which is still represented here, this new collection also includes chapters on Japanese ‘Pinky Violence’ films, rape-revenge TV films, women in prison, films about the Manson Family and the hardcore ‘roughie’, porn films with a focus on S&M, kidnapping and sexual abuse. There is also a broader international approach, with chapters on Polish auteur Walerian Borowczyk and an in-depth examination of ‘Canuxploitation’, the exploitation cinema of Canada which was in part funded by taxpayers, of whom David Cronenberg was perhaps its most high-profile filmmaker.

It is not only the films which caused a stir amongst more conservative audiences which are included here: Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974) and Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) both came across to some liberals as celebrating a form of vigilantism and outraged the left-wing, and whilst we may appreciate those films now as classics of the decade, it is fascinating to consider their initial reception. The book also looks at the murderous child, such as Jodie Foster’s character in The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane (Nicholas Gesner, 1976), who kill adults because it’s fun; it’s play. Still as disturbing a concept today as it was in the 1970s.

Shocking Cinema of the 70s offers a range of opinion and insight on films which caused public outcry, upset the critics, or troubled governments. Whereas some of these films, looked at almost fifty years later, might make that seem like an overreaction, others might still make for uncomfortable viewing today. This collection enables us to understand what a ‘Shocking’ film is, and what there still is to learn from them. Highly recommended.

You can order Shocking Cinema of the 70s from Bloomsbury: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/shocking-cinema-of-the-70s-9781350194489/

By Lee Pfeiffer

If there is any doubt that Richard Burton was one of the world's great orators, just experience this marvelous clip from a testimonial event for Frank Sinatra. I became mesmerized by Burton and his inimitable speaking style when I was just seven years-old. My parents took me to see Burton and Peter O'Toole in "Becket", a talky, non-action film that greatly impressed me largely because of Burton's command of the screen.  A few months later, my parents took me to see John Huston's film version of "The Night of the Iguana".  Like "Becket", an adaptation of a quirky Tennessee Williams play was hardly deemed to be popular fare for a young kid, but fortunately my parents never followed the norms when it came to exposing me to a wide range of cinematic fare. Richard Burton's skills as an actor fascinated me at this early age and my enthusiasm for his work only increased over the years from his triumphant performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" through some of his lesser films, which he always elevated the quality of. I did have the pleasure of seeing him on stage in the revival of "Camelot" at Lincoln Center in the early 1980s. It was a truly a thrill to experience his work in a live theater setting.

In this beautifully written and delivered tribute to Frank Sinatra's humanitarian work, it's all there on display.

"BLAST FROM THE PAST: FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES"

By Lee Pfeiffer

"Saturday Night Live" spawned many a memorable comic character, some of whom were exploited in feature films. While "The Coneheads" proved to be  popular on the big screen, other TV-to-cinema transfers of iconic "SNL" pop culture figures proved to be duds. Al Franken's memorable incarnation of Stuart Smalley was the subject of "Stuart Saves His Family", a 1995 production directed by Harold Ramis that received some surprisingly favorable reviews but ended up with a North American boxoffice gross of less than $1 million. That ranks as a major success compared to "It's Pat: The Movie", released the prior year and starring Julia Sweeney as the androgynous character that proved to be a popular staple of "SNL" during this period. Pat was a visually unattractive figure with an obnoxious manner of speaking that repulsed his/her coworkers, who were constantly striving to discover whether Pat was a male or female. Inevitably, Pat would provide unintentionally ambiguous answers to leading questions that would only heighten the mystery and thwart those who were seeking to unveil Pat's genetic makeup. As the subject of five-minute comedy sketches the concept worked great and Sweeney's Pat became a popular staple of the show. Then Hollywood came knocking. Fox approached Sweeney to turn the concept into a feature film. Sweeney admitted she couldn't envision how Pat could remain interesting to viewers in any format other than TV skits. After putting some development money into the film, Fox agreed and backed off only to have Disney's Touchstone Pictures ride to the rescue and give the production the green light. The result was a disaster. The film was given some sporadic openings only to be pulled within a week due to complete rejection by audiences. The movie's boxoffice gross in North America stands at $61,000. Although modestly-budgeted, the movie still had cost more than $10 million to make. Time has not been kind to dear Pat, as it boasts a Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%. Now those brave souls at Kino Lorber have released a Blu-ray of "Pat: The Movie" and, consequently, it's time to revisit the film.

The plot (such as it is) opens with Pat alienating everyone in his/her orbit with obnoxious behavior. A local store owner gives Pat items for free just to expedite his/her departure. Pat tries various career moves but inevitably loses every job due to ineptness. Just when things seem hopeless, Pat finds love with Chris (Dave Foley in a role originated by Dana Carvey on "SNL"), another androgynous individual. The two set up house together and live as a normal couple, though both seem blissfully unaware that their sexuality is a mystery to those around them. Are they a straight couple? A gay couple? Two men? Two women? A subplot is introduced in which a hunky new neighbor, Kyle (Charles Rocket) and his wife Stacy (Julie Hayden) find their lives disrupted by Kyle's increasing obsession with Pat. He is sexually attracted to him/her, much to the alarm of Stacy, and that attraction turns into a psychological mania that finds Kyle dressing like Pat and even stroking a doll that resembles him/her. Meanwhile, the hapless Pat blunders into some successful career steps by making an appearance with a rock band that leads to him/ her becoming a media sensation. When he/she drops by a radio station to visit a friend, Kathy (Kathy Griffin), who hosts a popular romantic advice show, Pat unintentionally upstages her and gets the hosting gig. Pat's success has alienated Chris, who breaks up the relationship and decides to move abroad. The finale finds Pat coming to grips with his/her faults and making a mad dash to a cruise ship line to prevent Chris from leaving the country.

The animosity extended to "Pat: The Movie", which was directed by Adam Bernstein, is a bit difficult to understand. It isn't very good, to be sure, but it's amusing at times and never veers into the overtly offensive gross-out humor that characterizes many of today's comedies. One of the main problems with the film is that there are no sympathetic characters. I don't recall Pat being an overt narcissist on the "SNL" sketches but here the character is mean-spirited, self-centered and devoid of any likable behavior. Kyle is even more repulsive and barely looks up when his wife leaves him. Now this is an absurdist comedy, to be sure, but the best comedies allow the audience to relate to the protagonists on some level. Jerry Lewis and Jim Carrey played klutzes but they were klutzes you could cheer for. Not so with Sweeney's Pat. Additionally, Sweeney's fears that the one-note concept could not be sustained over the course of a feature film proved correct. Even with the running time of 77 minutes, the movie plods. Still, there are some genuine laughs, most of them centered on the traditional gag of those around Pat becoming increasingly frustrated by their failure to determine his/her sex. When Pat and Chris are presented with a gift of a sexy corset, they both smile wryly and say "We'll enjoy this!" There is also some genuine amusement in Pat's physical appearance, a kind of grotesque version of Jerry Lewis's Prof. Kelp from "The Nutty Professor". But the laughs are too few even for the abbreviated running time. There also some annoyances that are due to simple sloppiness: when Pat tries to escape a pursuer, she randomly enters a building only to find the place is a night club hosting a packed, on-going, ear-splitting rock concert taking place apparently in the middle of the afternoon. Such absurdities leave one to think that the film was slapped together quickly in order to make a fast buck.

Julia Sweeney tragically faced more challenges than the complete failure of "It's Pat" with critics and the public. Around the time of the film's release, her brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. After caring for him, she was diagnosed with cancer. Sweeney beat the disease and made lemonade from the lemons life had handed her when she wrote and starred in her acclaimed one-woman play, "God Said Hah!" which chronicled her personal trials and tribulations through a comedic lens. (The play would later be the basis for a documentary.) Her co-star Charles Rocket fared worse, committing suicide in 2005. However, most of those associated with the debacle of "It's Pat" found their careers survived. Director Adam Bernstein went on to a highly successful career in television. Dave Foley continues to work steadily in TV and films and Kathy Griffin emerged as a popular standup comedienne and pundit on CNN until her increasingly foul-mouthed rants backfired, topped by sending around an image on social media depicting her holding the bloody, severed head of President Trump. That stunt achieved the distinction of being denounced by even the president's most ardent critics and Griffin lost her CNN gig.

"It's Pat" opened and closed before the age of E mail and social media had taken the world by storm. It's failure today would have been the stuff of snarky jokes and cynical criticisms of all those involved. However, because the film wasn't highly anticipated, it's failure occurred without much notice or damage to anyone's personal reputation. There's plenty of laughs left in dear Pat but they can mostly be found in the original "SNL" skits. Ironically, with transgender issues now the topic of current debates, the film might have found a more receptive audience today.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray has an impressive transfer, a teaser trailer for the film and a gallery of other comedies available through the company.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

In this clip from the 1970 Academy Awards ceremony honoring films from 1969, glamorous Elizabeth Taylor announces the controversial choice of "Midnight Cowboy" as the Best Picture, the only X-rated film to be so honored. Producer Jerome Hellman gives one of the shortest acceptance speeches on record, using his time to thank United Artists head of production David V. Picker, who provided financial backing for the film when other studios wouldn't.

Here's the 1973 trailer for the second of five Dirty Harry films starring Clint Eastwood, "Magnum Force". It was an era for renegade cop movies. Only a couple of months later, John Wayne's "McQ" would open, which also featured our hero battling corruption in the police department. 

Here is rare footage from the 1962 Oscars ceremony in which the winners for Best Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay are awarded by "Days of Wine and Roses" co-stars Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon.

By Lee Pfeiffer

"A Twist of Sand" is a 1968 production currently streaming on Amazon Prime. You can be forgiven if you are not familiar with the film, as it was one of many made in this era that was not intended to be a blockbuster or win awards. It was made on a modest budget with the expectation of making a modest profit. The plot is the same time-worn scenario that had been seen in countless films: a group of misfits band together on a dangerous quest for gold. Even by 1968, the concept had enough moss on it to make penicillin but there is a reason the concept has repeatedly been recycled: it works. There is always dramatic tension among the participants and this particular tale is no exception.

The film opens with gunrunner Geoffrey Peace (Richard Johnson) and his partner and first mate David Garland (Roy Dotrice) smuggling a large batch of valuable rifles through the straits of Malta. They are intercepted by a British patrol boat and forced to dump the weapons into the sea to avoid arrest and prosecution. The ploy works but they are now destitute with their boat as their only asset. Along comes Harry Riker (Jeremy Kemp), a German fortune hunter who is accompanied by Johann (Peter Vaughan), a hulking, largely mute henchman. Riker spins a tale about having information that might lead them to a cache of priceless diamonds that is buried in an old shipwreck from hundreds of years ago. The shifting of the sands has now placed the vessel somewhere in the middle of the desert off the Skeleton Coast in South West Africa. Peace has an immediate dislike for the men but is desperate enough to agree to the expedition- and they are accompanied by Julie Chambois (Honor Blackman), whose late husband was a prospector who claimed to have unearthed and hidden the diamonds, revealing to her the exact location on the wreck. Adding to the drama is a sub-plot that reveals in flashback that Peace had been commanding a British submarine off the Skeleton Coast during WWII. A German U-Boat was disabled in a firefight and the crew was slaughtered by an errant member of Peace's submarine command who wielded a machine gun to kill all but one man, Johann, who has sworn to somehow take vengeance on the British sub commander. This rather contrived plot point is intended to add tension to the story but we all know that simply by introducing it, Johann will ultimately discover the truth and square off against Peace. 

The disparate group of fortune hunters navigate through the treacherous waters off the Skelton Coast and director Don Chaffey manages to ring some momentary tension out of these scenes. I kept waiting for the cliched scenario that inevitably arises in any of these desert adventure films in which a lone attractive woman causes sexual tension among her male companions. However, screenwriter Marvin H. Albert keeps the characters rather disappointingly chaste. There's more lust to be found in an old Tarzan film than there is here. The movie improves when the motley group lands on the African coast and discovers the wreck of the ancient ship they are looking for now firmly settled into the desert sands. These are the movie's best scenes as the men desperately dig inside the wreck, facing death from being buried by sand or struck by a falling timber. The production design by John Stoller is especially impressive. Naturally, this part of a treasure hunter adventure is always when the double-crosses are introduced and this is no exception. 

The script never directly divulges what year the story is taking place in, thus the viewer would be forgiven for thinking it was in contemporary times. I wondered how we were to believe that the characters would not have aged at all over a period of about 25 years. However, late in the film there is a reference to the fact that it is six years after the war, which would place the timetable sometime in the early 1950s.  The rights to  the novel "A Twist of Sand"  by Geoffrey Jenkins had originally been obtained by Nunnally Johnson, who intended to write the script for a production starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr but for some reason the production never materialized. Instead, the film would eventually be made as this "B" movie production. Director Don Chaffey does a decent job, considering the budget constraints and he has a good cast. Richard Johnson plays against type as a grumpy and humorless protagonist. In real life, Johnson was one of the most humorous and charismatic people this writer has ever known. Jeremy Kemp steals his scenes as his scheming partner. Honor Blackman has very little to do and was obviously cast simply to add a bit of sex appeal. 

"A Twist of Sand" is the kind of movie from this era that a I have a soft spot for. These films were competently made and entertaining, if rather forgettable. To my knowledge, the film has never been released on video in the USA, so its presence on Amazon Prime is especially appreciated. 

1000 copies only!

The next four Carry On Films come to Blu-ray in one Limited Edition Box, with an exclusive 112 page booklet featuring reproductions of the original pressbooks for the first twelve films. 

Includes the worldwide Blu-ray premiere for Carry On Spying!

Carry On Spying (1964)

Worldwide first on Blu-ray! Carry On favourite Barbara Windsor makes her debut in this outrageous send-up of the James Bond movies. Fearless agent Desmond Simpkins and Charlie Bind, aided and abetted by the comely Agent Honeybutt and Agent Crump, battle against the evil powers of international bad guys STENCH and their three cronies.

Carry On Cleo (1964)

Two Brits—inventor Hengist Pod, and Horse, a brave and cunning fighter—are captured and enslaved by invading Romans and taken to Rome. One of their first encounters in Rome leaves Hengist being mistaken for a fighter, and gets drafted into the Royal Guard to protect Cleopatra.

Carry On Cowboy (1965)

Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a ‘sanitary engineer’ named Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal. Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids—revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise.

Carry On Screaming! (1966)

The sinister Dr Watt has an evil scheme going. He’s kidnapping beautiful young women and turning them into mannequins to sell to local stores. Fortunately for Dr Watt, Detective-Sergeant Bung is on the case, and he doesn’t have a clue! In this send up of the Hammer Horror movies, there are send-ups of all the horror greats from Frankenstein to Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde.

Special Features:

• Limited Edition 112-page booklet containing reproductions of the original pressbooks of the first 12 films (1000 copies)
• Carry on Spying Audio Commentary by Bernard Cribbins and Dilys Laye
• Carry on Cleo Audio Commentary by Amanda Barrie and Julie Stevens
• Carry on Cowboy Audio Commentary by Angela Douglas
• Carry on Screaming Audio Commentary by Angela Douglas and Fenella Fielding
• Carry on Spying Textless Titles
• Theatrical Trailers
• Photo Galleries
Imprint limited editions tend to sell out quickly. Click here to  PRE-ORDER. (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use  a currency converter to see what the price is in your local currency.) The Blu-ray set is Region-Free. 

PASOLINI 101—a monumental collection of nine films by one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century. Collected together for the first time in celebration of the Italian iconoclast’s daring vision of cinema as a form of resistance.

One of the most original and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century, Italian polymath Pier Paolo Pasolini embodied a multitude of often seemingly contradictory ideologies and identities—and he expressed them all in his provocative, lyrical, and indelible films. Relentlessly concerned with society’s downtrodden and marginalized, he elevated pimps, hustlers, sex workers, and vagabonds to the realm of saints, while depicting actual saints with a radical earthiness. Traversing the sacred and the profane, the ancient and the modern, the mythic and the personal, the nine uncompromising, often scandal-inciting features he made in the 1960s still stand—on this, the 101st anniversary of his birth—as a monument to his daring vision of cinema as a form of resistance.

NINE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION COLLECTOR’S SET FEATURES

• Nine feature films: Accattone, Mamma Roma, Love Meetings, The Gospel According to Matthew, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Oedipus Rex, Teorema, Porcile, and Medea
• New 4K digital restorations of seven films and 2K digital restorations of Teorema and Medea, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• Two shorts made by director Pier Paolo Pasolini for anthology films: La ricotta (1963) and The Sequence of the Paper Flower (1969)
• Two documentaries made by Pasolini during his travels
• New program on Pasolini’s visual style as told through his personal writing, narrated by actor Tilda Swinton and writer Rachel Kushner
• Audio commentaries on Accattone and Teorema
• Documentaries on Pasolini’s life and career featuring archival interviews with the director and his close collaborators
• Episode from 1966 of the French television program Cinéastes de notre temps
• Interviews with filmmakers and scholars
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: Deluxe packaging, including a 100-page book featuring an essay and notes on the films by critic James Quandt, and writings and drawings by Pasolini

Click here to order from Amazon

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Fabulous Films regarding the Region 2 Blu-ray and DVD releases of "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters", which are being released on 28 August. 

One of Woody Allen’s best-loved films, Hannah and Her Sisters, won three richly deserved Oscars and is considered a joy from start to perfectly-judged finish.

The films ensemble cast includes Max von Sydow, Carrie Fisher, Sir Michael Caine, Diane Wiest, Lloyd Nolan (who died 4 months before the film's release), Mia Farrow and Daniel Stern. Caine won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role while Wiest won Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Allen won Best Screenplay (beating Crocodile Dundee, My Beautiful Laundrette, Platoon and Salvador). Max von Sydow and Barbara Hershey received a standing ovation from the crew after they finished filming their characters' break-up scene.

The film has some great one-liners, with a philosophical discussion about the nature of good and evil getting shot down with “How should I know why there were Nazi’s, I don’t even know how the can opener works”

Synopsis: Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a devoted wife, loving mother and successful actress. She’s also the emotional backbone of the family, and her sisters Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest) depend on this stability while also resenting it because they can’t help but compare Hannah’s seemingly perfect life with theirs. But with her husband Elliott (Michael Caine) becoming increasingly interested in Lee, it’s clear that Hannah might have problems of her own.

Cast: Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Carrie Fisher, Barbara Hershey, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen O’Sullivan, Daniel Stern, Max von Sydow, Julie Kavner, Richard Jenkins, Fred Melamed, Lewis Black, Joanna Gleason, John Turturro, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Dianne Wiest.

Extras: Theatrical Trailer

Click here to order from Amazon UK

“One of (Woody) Allen’s most enduring accomplishments” - BoxOffice

Nominated for two Academy-Awards® Manhattan is a wry, touching and finely rendered portrait of modern relationships set against the backdrop of urban alienation. Sumptuously photographed in black and white (Allen’s first film in that format) and accompanied by a magnificent Gershwin score which includes Rhapsody in Blue.

Released in 1979. Manhattan won Best Film and Best Screenplay at the BAFTAs. Mariel Hemingway aged 16 years old earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards for her performance. Woody Allen and Marshall Brinkman were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Synopsis: Forty-two-year-old Manhattan native Isaac Davis (Allen) has a job he hates, a seventeen-year-old girlfriend, Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), whom he doesn’t love, and a lesbian ex-wife, Jill (Meryl Streep), who’s writing a tell-all book about their marriage...and whom he’d like to strangle. But when he meets his best friend’s sexy intellectual mistress, Mary (Diane Keaton), Isaac falls head over heels in lust! Leaving Tracy, bedding Mary and quitting his job are just the beginnings of Isaac’s quest for romance and fulfilment . In a city where sex is as intimate as a handshake - and the gateway to true love...is a revolving door.

Cast: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep, Anne Byrne.

Extras: Theatrical Trailer

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By Hank Reineke

If we are to use history as a guide – as we should – Earl Derr Biggers’ creation of Charlie Chan marked the first occasion of a fictional Asian detective (Chinese-American to be precise) to be received warmly by not only a U.S. audience but by filmgoers worldwide. Biggers had published no fewer than six Chan mystery novels in the years 1925-1932. The author may have even continued the series had he not died young, age 48, in the spring of 1933. Though there had been preceding Chan film adaptations – the first being a 1926 serial - it wasn’t until Swede Warner Oland’s assumption of the role in 1931 that the character became an iconic totem of detective cinema.

Though Oland had a clear lock on the public’s perception of the inscrutable, unflappable Asian detective, the literary Chan was now moribund. Sensing a vacuum, yet another American author, John P. Marquand, would create the friendly (and obviously pre-war) Japanese spy Mr. Moto. The missions of that character were first serialized in issues of the Saturday Evening Post (1935-1938), those stories soon turned into novels by Boston’s Little Brown & Co. Following Daryl F. Zanuck’s licensing of character rights for 2oth Century Fox in July of 1936, the studio issued no fewer than eight Mr. Moto mystery films (featuring Peter Lorre) in the years 1937-1939.

Whether it was Lorre who chose not to renew his Fox contract, or whether Fox decided the series had simply played out or whether it was the actions of an increasingly belligerent and aggressive Japan (who would formally align with the Axis Powers in September of 1940), Mr. Moto’s final pre-WWII film adventure, ironically titled Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation, was released in summer of 1939. Whatever the reason, it was the success of the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series that allowed Colliers magazine to coattail introduce Hugh Wiley’s Chinese-American James Lee Wong series of detective stories in 1934.

In September of 1938 a California newspaper reported that author Wiley had “just sold four of his detective stories, centering about the character of James Lee Wong, to Monogram Pictures.” The proposed film series was purportedly to feature Boris Karloff – just off production of Son of Frankenstein (Universal) – as the film’s title character. Technically, this character licensing report was old news. In February of 1938, there were already reports that Monogram’s Scott Dunlap was looking for the right actor to cast as Mr. Wong. There was one sensible suggestion that the studio was hoping to find a “Keye Luke” type. Luke was now approachable as Oland’s incarnate of Charlie Chan had recently come to an abrupt, sad end. When Oland passed in August of 1938, Luke was passed over for consideration as a successor. The part ignobly went to Sidney Toler, yet another actor of European ancestry.

Keye Luke was already a familiar figure to cinemagoers – he popularly played the “Number One Son” to Oland’s Chan in a number of films in that popular series. Luke chose to exit the Chan franchise following Oland’s passing: but while now available to Monogram he was not considered a guaranteed box office draw. The Los Angeles Daily News reported on April 14, 1938 that, following negotiations on a long-distance phone call, Dunlap had secured the promise of Boris Karloff, age 50, to star in the proposed series. Shortly following that news, snippy Hollywood gossiper Louella Parsons sniffed that Karloff was exhibiting more than a bit of courage should he expect to “muscle in on the territory so triumphantly held by Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto.”

On April 26, 1938, Variety reported that the Monogram president had been “conferring” with producer Scott R. Dunlap, looking to rush into production for the “1938-1939 releasing season” four new feature films, one of which was Mr. Wong, Detective. On 10 May Variety reported that Richard Weil, “the author of the Charlie Chan radio adventures” had been tasked to write the screenplay for the film. But whether due to a “conflict of interest” concern or simply a scheduling issue, Weil soon fell out and scripting duties went to Houston Branch, a Monogram dependable. In any event, it wasn’t until late August of 1938 that the trades announced that Monogram’s Mr. Wong film - suggested as the “first of four whodunits” all to star Boris Karloff - was to go into production in a week’s time. Industry trade Box Office made further note that the four Wong serial mysteries slated for production were Mr. Wong, Detective, Mr. Wong at Headquarters, Mr. Wong in Chinatown and The Mystery of Mr. Wong.

There would be no shortage of Asian detective melodramas in 1938. Monogram’s Mr. Wong was to compete directly against 20^th Century Fox’s Mr. Moto series and the Chan films still touring the regional circuit. And all three would feature non-Asian actors as the title characters. Karloff, of course, was no stranger to accepting East-Asian roles, having already appeared in such films as The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) and, more recently, West of Shanghai (1937). On June 20^th, the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News offered while a complete script had not yet been turned in, cameras were set to roll on Mr. Wong, Detective in three weeks’ time. That deadline was apparently missed, as the first day of shooting on Mr. Wong, Detective would not start until late August (the 25^th according to one contemporary newspaper accounting, the 24^th according to this film’s audio commentary).

We do know that on 3 September 1938, a journalist visited Monogram’s Mr. Wong set. The writer had chosen to sit through a portion of Karloff’s grueling three-and-a-half hour session in the makeup chair of Gordon Bau. Karloff was no stranger to make-up applications, but admitted to the reporter that such wearying sessions weren’t the favorite part of his day. “It’s lovely to get up and go to the studio at 6:00 A.M., stretch out in a barber chair and have somebody with hobnailed boots crawl in and out of your eyes.” Bau defensively parried that such applications were necessary evils, admitting his work on applying rubber cement near Karloff’s eyes to create epicurean folds proved the most challenging part of the actor’s physical transformation.

Karloff agreed the eye make-up applications were the most wearying to endure. “By the time you get done,” Karloff sighed, “my eyeballs are pressed, my vision is off focus and I walk around all day in a haze.” Turning his attention to the visiting journalist, Karloff sniggered, “And when finally he gets through with me, he’s proud of what he’s done. He thinks it is a work of art.” For the most part, Karloff’s reimaging is surprisingly subtle: a slick of pressed black hair, a slim moustache and thickened eyebrows, slight eye folds often disguised behind a set of reading glasses.

If Bau’s reasonably understated make-up appliance was a work of art, critics were divided on whether or not Mr. Wong, Detective was. The story itself concerns a cabal of spies working in interest of an unnamed foreign power and trying to steal a poison gas formula for nefarious ends. The first of Monogram’s Mr. Wong pictures, shot in a mere few weeks’ time, was set for October 5, 1938 release – a mere month following Karloff’s session in Bau’s make-up chair.

Upon the film’s release Variety couldn’t help but comment on the film’s rushed, bargain basement appearance, citing the production as ranging at best from “standard to skimpy.” The Variety critic blamed director William Nigh and scripter Houston Branch for the film’s shortfalls: “First picture suffers from directorial and writing troubles, plus a combination of careless acting and haphazard casting,” the reviewer sighed. Despite such criticism, it was noted that Karloff did the best with the lackluster material given. Fighting “vigorously” against the odds, the scribe conceded that Karloff had at the very least proven his utility as an actor: his presence was enough to prove he needn’t have to affix “grotesque makeup to register.”

Other reviews were kinder. London’s Picturegoer was less critical of the picture, describing Karloff’s Mr. Wong as “a serious rival to Charlie Chan.” But exhibitors were more cautious, split in their opinion of the film’s merit: when one described Mr. Wong Detective, “Worthy of a top spot on a double,” a second complained, “Where does Monogram get the idea this is good? Awful – slowest moving thing I have seen in years.”

Slow or not, by late January of 1939, Monogram was already into production of the second of the series, The Mystery of Mr. Wong. W.T. Lackey took over producing duties from Scott Dunlap, and scripter Branch was relieved of scenario duties, screenwriting credit given to W. Scott Darling. Darling had been the screenwriter of Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) which, interestingly, pitted Oland’s detective against a villainous Boris Karloff.

This second Wong was more of a pedestrian and routine parlor murder mystery, one concerning the theft of a rare and expensive sapphire. By March of 1939, The Mystery of Mr. Wong was already reported as being in the “cutting room.” The film would be released in April of 1939. Though this second entry of the series fared a wee better than its predecessor in critical analysis, this sophomore effort too was faulted for its “lack of action,” the weaving of too many obvious red herrings into the script, and an appreciable number of wooden performances by the cast.

The lukewarm reviews were of little consequence. That same April, it was announced that scripter Darling was to return and write the series’ third entry, Mr. Wong in Chinatown (aka Mr. Wong’s Chinatown Squad). At Monogram’s sales convention at Chicago’s Drake Hotel in spring of 1939, it was evident - despite the lackluster reviews - that studio bosses were pleased with the box office takes of the first two Wong serials. They promised four more titles were already in the pipeline: Mr. Wong Vanishes, Mr. Wong in Havana, Mr. Wong’s Chinatown Squad and Mr. Wong in New York.

By June of 1939 Mr. Wong in Chinatown was already well in production, screenwriter Darling reported mid-month to have already begun scripting duties on what would be the fourth of the series, Mr. Wong at Headquarters. The scenario for Mr. Wong in Chinatown concerns his investigation into the murder of a royal princess who had been visiting the United States on a mission to purchase airplanes for defense of her country against a hostile nation-state.

When Mr. Wong in Chinatown was previewed in July of 1939, the reviews remained consistent with the first two, tagging the film a “slow whodunit.” Though the picture was lacking in any appreciable action, there was a concession that enough, “color and mystery [was] attached to the proceedings to attract fair trade” – well, if exploited properly. One exhibitor agreed, reporting good box office receipts and anointing Mr. Wong in Chinatown, the “Best of the Wong series” to date.

The blandly titled Mr. Wong at Headquarters went into production in November of 1939, and was already in the cutting room by December’s end. By January of 1940 the film’s working title was officially changed to the more mysterious and exotic The Fatal Hour and scheduled for a January 15, 1940 release. This time Wong is called to investigate the waterfront murder of a fellow detective, the scenario intertwined with a bit of a smuggling subplot. New York’s Daily News thought it a not particularly “absorbing of murder mysteries, although it is filled with enough complications to make a Philadelphia lawyer’s head spin.”

In late January of 1940, the Los Angeles Times reported, erroneously, that a fifth Mr. Wong serial - tentatively titled Chamber of Horrors – was in the works, Dorothy Reid cited as readying a script. Some months later the trades reported, far more reliably, that William Nigh was, for a fifth time, signed to direct a Mr. Wong mystery. Though Reid would not be associated with this final Karloff Mr. Wong effort, there was no reason to disbelieve the Times initial report: Reid had served as a producer and writer at Monogram and had previously collaborated with Nigh on such productions as A Bride for Henry (1937) and Rose of the Rio Grande (1938). There was in fact a Monogram horror flick titled Chamber of Horrors produced in 1940, but this was a Norman Lee film, based on the creaky Edgar Wallace novel of 1926, The Door with Seven Locks. Neither Reid nor Nigh was publically connected to that film’s production.

When the final Karloff Wong film, Doomed to Die (aka Mystery of the Wentworth Castle from a script penned by series’ newcomer Ralph G. Bettinson), played Manhattan’s Rialto Theatre, the Hollywood Reporter caustically reported the picture was, if nothing else, “aptly named for it died within a few days” of its showcase. The Baltimore Sun coldly piled on with a bad notice of its own: “The direction, writing and acting are slipshod beyond the limit of that large tolerance accorded this extravert type of drama.” Still more harsh criticism of the picture lie ahead. “Charlie Chan would shake with professional pity,” wrote the New York Herald Tribune, sighing that the great Karloff “has never had a duller, more unexacting role.”

It was the last of Karloff’s involvement in the Mr. Wong series. There was really no reason for the actor to continue on in the role as he certainly did not need the work – nor did he need the piling on of bad notices that continued to accumulate. In 1940, the year that Doomed to Die was released, Karloff would star in no fewer than nine additional features for Columbia, Warner Bros., Universal, RKO Radio and Monogram. He would certainly survive his departure from the role. But would Mr. Wong?

That question was answered in June of 1940 when Monogram announced Keye Luke as Karloff’s successor in the role. It was a sensible progressive move on Monogram’s part, a UPI correspondent writing a glowing tribute to Keye Luke who would now serve – at long last – as “cinema’s one and only genuine Oriental detective.” Though Monogram signed the actor to a four-picture “Mr. Wong” deal, the only entry produced with Luke in the detective role was Phil Rosen’s Phantom of Chinatown, released in November of 1940. The change of actor (and director) was mostly seamless and arguably refreshing: Luke did bring a bit more energy and excitement to the role. (Karloff was often cited by critics as a miscast who, largely unchallenged, chose to sleepwalk through the role). Most reviews of Luke’s Wong were complimentary, echoing those of a Variety critic who thought Phantom of Chinatown “worthy of the average ‘B’ thriller of this type.”

There was some industry talk in January of 1941 that Paul Malvern (an associate producer of Doomed to Die and the producer of Phantom of Chinatown) was preparing Luke’s return as Mr. Wong for the actor’s second outing, provisionally titled Million Dollar Mystery. Had that film been produced, it would have been the seventh in the Monogram series. But no such film was greenlit (perhaps due to Malvern’s 1941 defection to Universal) making Phantom of Chinatown the last of Monogram’s Mr. Wong series. Luke would fulfil his four-pic Monogram contract in a waste of his talent making small appearances in The Gang’s All Here, Bowery Blitzkrieg and Let’s Go Collegiate, all released in 1941.

It’s of some disappointment that Phantom of Chinatown was excluded from this new Kino Lorber Blu-ray collection. Perhaps Kino is planning a standalone release of the title sometime in the future… at least I hope so. In the meantime, I suppose sad Completists will have to hang on to their copies of VCI’s Mr. Wong Detective: The Complete Collection DVD set for a bit longer. (Luke’s Phantom of Chinatown can be found on that 2008 set in far better quality than you can find any of those bargain-priced PD multi-film “mystery collection” type collections… although the DVD issued by Film Detective in 2015 is also a worthwhile seek out).

The five films featured on this Kino Lorber Studio Classic Blu-ray issue of their Boris Karloff: Mr. Wong Collection are all presented in 1920x1080p, in 1.37:1 aspect and DTS monaural sound. The films have been sourced from new Hi-Definition masters made from 2K fine grain scans. The films are not visually perfect. There are moments of flickering, and scratches and print damage, but this is likely the best we’ll ever get of these dimly-recalled throw-away programmers. I’m certainly not complaining.

Other than the usual removable English subs, the Kino set includes only a single feature – an audio commentary for Mr. Wong, Detective courtesy of Tom Weaver and Larry Blamire. On first pass, it might seem the inclusion of only a single commentary on a five-film set is sparse and ungenerous. But the behind-the-camera artisans of Wong series were a particularly insular if clever and creative cabal: William Nigh, director of all five Karloff entries, actor Grant Withers as “Captain Street” in all five as well, William Lackey, an associate producer of four, and W. Scott Darling the screenwriter of three. The contributions of these and others in front of and behind the camera are duly noted on this set’s single but informative and engaging commentary.

Weaver suggests at the commentaries front end that his plan is to “keep things fun,” and he most certainly does. Both Weaver and Blamire have done their homework, digging out practically every morsel of historical information they could source for these uncelebrated Monogram quickies: this includes their deep dig into (less reliable) information gleaned from ballyhoo appearing in the film’s pressbook and other publicity materials, alongside contemporary reviews from the Hollywood trades and newspapers. Blamire has really gone the extra mile, choosing to preemptively read twelve of the twenty Hugh Wiley’s Mr. Wong short-stories so he might pick out the moments and small bits the filmmakers used for the series.

I wasn’t as admiring of the “actor re-creations” of interview transcripts of Karloff and others scattered about the commentary. It seems unnecessary and distracting - a simple “quote/unquote” recitation of such material is preferable to badly-mimicked vocal imitations. The (thankfully) occasional insertion of MST3K-style sound effects and dubbed-in jokey one-liners were also unnecessary IMHO, but I’m admittedly a grouch. If you prefer your Wong with a dash of irreverence then have at it. Weaver and Blamire also sidecar their commentary with several detours touching on the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series, all fair game. All in all, the commentary track serves as an excellent primer for fans wishing to learn a bit more about Mr. Wong on page and film. To summarize, this excellent package from Kino Lorber is a “must-have."

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By Todd Garbarini

“Bueller…Bueller…Bueller…Bueller…”

These four words…sorry, this single word spoken four times…by the inimitable Ben Stein in the late John Hughes’s highly popular teen comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off while reading off the attendance roster to his near catatonic high school class has worked its way into the American lexicon to the point that it has become recognizable to anyone even remotely familiar with the film. Like its predecessors, the “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” ad-lib from Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), and Jack Nicholson’s quirky yet somehow terrifying “Here’s Johnny!” from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), one need not have seen the film to know from where it originated. The adults in this film are all depicted as somehow less smart than their adolescent counterparts and all seem to be easily duped and manipulated. Why are they depicted this way? Was the director, who was also the writer of Mr. Mom (1983), National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Weird Science (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986), simply not a fan of the adult world, a modern-day J.D. Salinger?

Ferris Bueller, the titular hero, is a Northbrook, Illinois high school student two months shy of his high school graduation and commits a crime that all students have at one time or another – he feigns serious illness to stay home from school. However, it is not for nefarious purposes: he wants to get his best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck), out of the doldrums. His parents are complete dolts for believing him, though his sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey) and Principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) both see right through this common ploy and the latter, whose small-mindedness and lack of stature outside of his role of an authoritarian, drives him to catch Ferris in the act at any cost. He goes to great lengths to catch Bueller, breaking the rules, and even some laws, that find him in the Bueller household, face-to-face with a vicious dog.

Playing hooky for the day with a reluctant Cameron and Ferris’s girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) whom he gets out of school posing as her father in a get-up not dissimilar from the accoutrements he would later don as the titular Inspector Gadget he would play in the 1999 film of the same name. The trio finds themselves in a series of misadventures throughout Chicago via Cameron’s upscale father’s 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder which occupies much of the film’s running time, the most significant of which is the film’s famous and highly celebrated moment when Ferris commandeers a float during a parade and leads the onlookers through an impromptu lip-synch of The Beatles hit “Twist and Shout.” It is not all fun and games, however, when we learn of Cameron’s contempt for his father’s car which the latter supposedly cares more about than his own son. He sublimates his anger in a highly volatile and emotional scene that proves cathartic for Cameron and, in a way, for Ferris as well. It would explain why Cameron is always uptight and unable to relax, something that the carefree Ferris hopes to change. In many ways, Cameron and Jeanie are not dissimilar from one another, as they both find teen life to be insufferable, and that makes them the most realistic characters in the film.

Ferris is unusual in that he is not only a free spirit, but just about everyone in his high school, regardless of their grade level, likes him. Why? He has proven that he can get away with just about anything. He’s also willing to help others out of their predicaments. This mindset is what makes him elusive from Principal Rooney, a self-appointed Truancy Officer determined to catch Ferris in the act of cutting school because Rooney’s identity outside of high school appears to be non-existent. He is the Coyote to Bueller’s Road Runner, and he takes the whole situation personally.

The film, which opened nationwide on Wednesday, June 11, 1986, differs from most comedies in that it breaks the fourth wall in the tradition of Woody Allen’s great Annie Hall (1977) when Ferris addresses the audience directly during much of the action. In the pantheon of teen comedies, Ferris Bueller is clearly de rigueur viewing and, given that it was lensed between September and November in 1985, feels very Eighties and inspired by Matthew Broderick’s David Lightman computer geek from John Badham’s entertaining 1983 film WarGames with Ferris’s ability to remotely change his sick days in the high school computer right before his principal’s very eyes. Ferris rigs his room and front door intercom with an ingenious array of general solutions anticipating most common eventualities that could undo his plan to keep his parents thinking that he is sleeping off illness.

Ferris Bueller did exceptionally well at the box office, easily becoming an iconic Eighties Comedy, the film that essentially made Mr. Broderick a star following his screen debut in Herbert Ross’s Max Dugan Returns several years earlier and playing opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in Richard Donner’s Ladyhawke (1985). Cameos abound by a fifteen-year-old Kristy Swanson just before she became Wes Craven’s Deadly Friend, Richard Edson, Charlie Sheen just before he made Platoon with Oliver Stone, and comedian Louie Anderson. With the exception of some on-set studio shots in Los Angeles and Ferris Bueller’s house location in Long Beach, CA (eight houses away from the home that Richard Kelly’s 2001 cult classic Donnie Darko is set in), the film is shot nearly entirely in Illinois, the director’s home state.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has been released on 4K UHD Blu-ray by Paramount Home Video. This is the best that the film has ever looked on video, easily besting all previous releases. It also comes loaded with previously released extras:

There is a feature-length audio commentary by director Hughes, the only one that he ever recorded for his any of his films, ported over from the 1999 DVD release. Glaringly missing from subsequent DVD and Blu-ray editions of the movie (reportedly at the behest of the director who probably got tired of Hollywood and moved back to his home state to keep a low profile), its inclusion here is welcome, appreciated, and more than likely included for two reasons - a response to the director’s untimely demise and to compel die-hard fans to fork over their disposable income for this latest upgraded edition. It is pretty much scene-specific with very minor tangents. It stays on-topic, and Mr. Hughes had a very monotone and droll delivery.

The following are all ported over from the 2006 special edition DVD “Bueller…Bueller” and 2009 Blu-ray editions:

Getting the Class Together: The Cast of Ferris Bueller's Day Off – this piece runs 27:45 in standard definition and the interviews were shot in 2005. The film’s casting directors, Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson, begin this piece feeling that Matthew Broderick or John Cusack would be great in the lead role. Mr. Broderick was in Biloxi Blues on Broadway with Alan Ruck when he was offered the role and their chemistry transferred over from real life to the stage, and then to the audition when the latter was offered Cameron. Mia Sara, Jennifer Grey, Lyman Ward, Cindy Pickett, Jeffrey Jones, Edie McClurg, Ben Stein (a very humorous tidbit), Richard Edson, Kristy Swanson, and Jonathan Schmock all add their two cents on their experiences.

The Making of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off runs 15:29 and really should be much longer and for what it is, it includes some footage shot during the filming in addition to recent interviews taking a look back at the film, such as Jeffrey Jones and Edie McClurg and their “Help, Hinder” game; Alan Ruck talks about the Ferrari and how three replicas were made for the film; Matthew Broderick talks about the parade sequence and how it was a one-shot deal and how knee surgery from years earlier affected him in the sequence.

Who is Ferris Bueller? runs 9:12 and collects cast members and their responses to the question from 1985-87 and 2005. Alan Ruck talks about the wardrobe fittings and how there was no chemistry between the characters and being put at ease by the director. Ferris is a guy who does whatever he wants and has the self-confidence that his friends lack.

The World According to Ben Stein runs 10:50 and is comprised of comments from Mr. Stein in 1986 and 2005 talking about his experiences following the success of the film, with funny tidbits about Kurt Cobain and even President Bush (the first one) having seen the film on Air Force One.

Vintage Ferris Bueller: The Lost Tapes runs 10:16 and provides outtakes from the expurgated restaurant scene of Cameron ordering pancreas that the director refers to in his commentary.

There was a Class Album gallery that appeared in the previous releases, but it is inexplicably dropped from this release.

The film’s original theatrical trailer is also missing for unknown reasons, though you can see it here and a later trailer to promote the Blu-ray at the time.

The ending of the film recalls Paul Brickman’s Risky Business from 1983 (think of Tom Cruise landing on his parents’ couch when they walk in from their trip) when Ferris makes it home just in time to get into bed as his parents head into his room. Ferris, addressing the audience, says, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This line, which is far more upbeat than the plaintive final sentences of J.D. Salinger’s classic novel of adolescent angst The Catcher in the Rye (1951), rings true for people more today than it did when it was filmed. Social media, computers, and cell phones all conspire to divert our attention from the meaningful things in life.

One can only imagine what sort of mischief Ferris would create today with the World Wide Web and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Perhaps a remake is in order?

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Friedkin directing Gene Hackman in "The French Connection". (Photo: Cinema Retro Archives.)

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Turner Classic Movies.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will celebrate the life and career of director William Friedkin with a programming tribute this September and November. Friedkin, who died August 7 at the age of 87, started his career by directing one of the last episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He went on to be known as one of the iconic directors of New Hollywood in the 1970s with such hits as The Exorcist (1973) and The French Connection (1971), which won him the Academy Award® for Best Director. William Friedkin was a great friend to Turner Classic Movies and he attended the TCM Classic Film Festival several times, most recently in April 2023.

TCM Remembers William Friedkin Part 1 – Thursday, September 14
8:00 PM – The French Connection (1971) – Two New York narcotics cops set out to bust a French drug smuggling ring.
10:00 PM – To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) – A Secret Service agent becomes obsessed with tracking down a notorious and dangerous Los Angeles counterfeitor.
12:15 AM – The Boys in the Band (1970) – A gay birthday party turns into a night of soul-searching when the host's straight college roommate turns up by mistake.

TCM Remembers William Friedkin Part 2 – Sunday, November 26
8:00 PM – Friedkin Uncut (2018) – TCM Premiere – In this documentary, William Friedkin is interviewed about his career, alongside a number of his colleagues and industry admirers.
10:00 PM – The Exorcist (1973) – A priest battles to save a young girl possessed by demons.

Here is a special treat: Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz interviews director John Boorman and cast members Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty about the making of the 1972 classic "Deliverance"