Acclaimed character actor Robert Loggia has passed away at age 85. Loggia was a familiar face to TV viewers throughout the decades and starred in the short-lived 1960s crime caper series T.H.E. Cat, playing the titular character. In the ensuing years, Loggia became one of the most sought-after actors for high profile supporting roles in feature films. His major credits include "Big" in which he memorably performs a dance routine with a rejuvenated Tom Hanks in the F.A.O Schwarz toy store in Manhattan; "Jagged Edge" for which he received an Oscar nomination, "Scarface" (1983), "Prizzi's Honor", "Che", "S.O.B" and "Independence Day". For more click here.
The year 1969 was a particularly good one for Glen Campbell. With America under siege by a tidal wave of bad news about Vietnam, race riots, revolts on campus and other seemingly endless divisive issues, there was a niche for wholesome entertainment that Campbell was able to fill. He had recently proven he could cross over from the country and western charts to general audiences. Seemingly everyone loved his music. Campbell even appealed to younger audiences and he shared the top ranks of the pop music charts with acts The Rolling Stones and The Kinks. With his good looks, down-home gentle humor and songs about unrequited love, Campbell provided the perfect salve for America's wounds. He even made a notable splash on the big screen that year with a very credible acting debut as John Wayne's co-star in the classic "True Grit". Adding to his success, CBS signed him to host a weekly variety show titled "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour". The program was successful and ran for three full seasons. Seemingly, Glen Campbell could do no wrong in 1969.
Shout! Factory has released two full Christmas specials from "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" which aired in 1969 and 1970. Both episodes provide a reflection back on an era in which television was still resisting the new-found freedoms that Hollywood was embracing. In 1969 such groundbreaking films as "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", "Easy Rider", "Midnight Cowboy" and "The Wild Bunch" had explored sex and violence in a manner that would have been unthinkable even a few years before. However, the TV industry in America was still playing it safe, catering to family-oriented fare and inoffensive sitcoms. The dam would break the following year with the premiere of Norman Lear's "All in the Family", but the three major networks had to be coerced into relevancy. For all of that, the sludge pile that represents most programming on network TV today makes one pine away for this more innocent era. At least the shows were good and one misses the complete absence today of the traditional variety show, which "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" represented. If you didn't like one song or comedy sketch, just hang in there as there were plenty more coming your way. Of the two programs presented on this DVD, the stronger entry is the 1969 Christmas show. The guest line-up reminds us of how many larger-than-life entertainers used to populate the medium in an era before cheesy "reality" shows defined television. In the 1969 show, Campbell's guests include such icons as Andy Griffith, Cher and Paul Lynde. Campbell presides over the festivities with charm and self-confidence, never attempting to upstage his guests. As was the case with variety show sketches from this period, the ones on the DVD probably seemed a lot funnier back in the day than they do today. The skits are too long and weakly written, though it is undeniably fun just to see these entertainers together on screen. Griffith and Lynde limp through a couple of comedy bits including one now predictable premise of a disgruntled Santa Claus in the throes of self-pity, complaining that no one appreciates him in the "younger generation". Griffith is a sympathetic bartender who keeps serving Santa doses of milk. The show is at its best from a musical perspective. Cher, looking gorgeous, performs a soulful rendition of Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" while Campbell presents some terrific versions of haunting beautiful hits like "Galveston" and "Wichita Lineman". He even knocks out a credible version of Mason Williams' superb acoustical hit "Classical Gas". Later in the show, he introduces his wife and young family as well as his troupe of regular singers and dancers. They all gather around and sing traditional Christmas carols as a finale. (Keep an eye on the final credits- yes, this was from an era when shows actually had credits- and note that one of the comedy writers was an aspiring comic named Steve Martin!). The 1970 Christmas show pretty much follows the same format: a mix of comedy sketches, hit songs and traditional carols. This time, however, Campbell also introduces his mom and dad who do a fine job performing "Crying Time". Then Campbell's three sisters also join in and prove to be fine crooners in their own right. This episode features guest stars Anne Murray, Mel Tellis, Jerry Reed, Shecky Greene, George Gobel and Larry McNeely. The comedy sketches are as lame as the ones on the 1969 show, though Greene and McNeely do perform a rather nice, silent tribute to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The finale finds the giant cast gathering in a living room setting to sing carols. The sheer warmth and good will of the segment makes you momentarily feel as though you actually are in a neighbor's living room (assuming your neighbor's living room has klieg lights and Shecky Greene).
The Shout! Factory DVD presents these long-unseen programs uncut and in pristine condition. Today, Glen Campbell's very public, courageous battle against the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease has made him the subject of a great deal of attention, including a feature length documentary. However, this DVD release reminds us that the man's legacy should not be that of a victim but, rather, of a major entertainer who had a long and remarkable career.
Just
when everyone thought director Brian De Palma’s work couldn’t get more
controversial than 1983’s Scarface,
out came 1984’s Body Double, which
was simultaneously praised and reviled. Just as they had with 1980’s Dressed to Kill, feminist groups
protested Double with even more
vitriol due to the picture’s perceived violence against women. Many critics and
audiences dismissed the movie as merely a small step above porn, given the fact
that much of the plot does deal with Hollywood’s “other industry†that was soaring
to new heights in the mid-80s thanks to the rise of home video and VHS. And
yet, Body Double is now a certified
cult classic, a De Palma fan favorite, and, frankly, in this reviewer’s
opinion, one of his most accomplished and stylish efforts.
Still
working in full Hitchcock Homage Mode, De Palma borrowed some of the plot of Vertigo, in which a killer uses a
look-alike woman to fool our hapless and naive protagonist into believing the
lady is someone else. With Pino Donaggio’s lush orchestral score accompanying
the action, one is indeed reminded of Bernard Herrmann’s romanticism from that
1958 film. The suspense is plotted and paced in the manner of the Master of
Suspense, and the picture also contains much of Hitch’s penchant for dark humor
and satire.
Craig
Wasson (remember him?) plays Jake, a struggling Hollywood actor who is recently
separated from a cheating wife. He’s also claustrophobic, which of course plays
into the plot. He meets another actor, Sam (Gregg Henry) at an audition; Sam
graciously allows Jake to house-sit at a fancy home in the hills while Sam goes
on tour. The bonus for Jake is the eye candy that can be viewed with a
telescope—every night, a woman across the way performs a tantalizing striptease
in a window. Jake falls for the woman (former Miss USA, Deborah Shelton) and he
also unwittingly witnesses her brutal murder.
Enter
Holly Body, a porn star (winningly played by Melanie Griffith in one of her
first major roles), who might be somehow involved with the killing. Naturally,
Jake sets out to solve the crime and insinuates himself into Holly’s world in
order to do so. As we learn on the disc’s supplements, De Palma had considered
casting a real porn star in the part—but Hollywood would have turned its back
on him. Griffith convinced him that she could
do the required “moves,†and her casting is a revelation.
Thus,
this is a story about voyeurism and victims, reality and illusion, truth and
trickery. Hitchcock often explored the same themes; in De Palma’s hands, Body Double becomes an exercise in visual
style and storyline thrills. It’s also a scathing and humorous poke in the eye
at Hollywood itself, especially the world of cutthroat auditioning and casting.
The
film is very explicit; apparently De Palma once again had to fight the censors
for the film to receive an “R†rating. Griffith unabashedly did her own nude
scenes, even the celebrated peep-show dance through the telescope (which is set
to Donaggio’s mesmerizing trace music).
Body Double got an extra
publicity boost with the inclusion of the hit song “Relax†by Frankie Goes to
Hollywood; a music video running regularly on MTV at the time contained tied-in
clips from the film.
Twilight
Time’s Blu-ray looks and sounds fabulous. Stephen H. Burum’s cinematography is lavish
and colorful, very conducive to the HD format (1080p). Shot in and around
Hollywood, the locations are familiar, such as scenes in the famous restaurant,
Barney’s Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard, the Beverly Center, and the Rodeo
Collection mall on Rodeo Drive.
Supplements
include four well-done featurettes on the making of the film, with interviews
with De Palma, Griffith, Shelton, and Dennis Franz, who plays a film director
molded on De Palma himself. There’s also an isolated score track; Pino Donaggio
collaborated several times with De Palma—Body
Double may be his best team-up with the filmmaker. The audio is 5.1 DTS-HD
MA.
Twilight
Time’s release of Body Double is
limited to 3000 copies.
(Note: this title is sold out at the Twilight Time web site. However, it is available from dealers on both Amazon and eBay.)
The
works of famed director Akira Kurosawa are mostly associated with the samurai
film—pictures set in the time of feudal Japan, and usually starring the
brilliant actor Toshiro Mifune (Rashomon,
Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden
Fortress, Yojimbo, among others).
However, Kurosawa made other kinds of movies that are probably not as well
known in the West except to film historians and true cinephiles—and fans of the
excellent DVD and Blu-ray label, The Criterion Collection. Some of Kurosawa’s
early work was made up of film noir gangster
and crime pictures (e.g., Drunken Angel,
Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well), but also, surprisingly, heartfelt social
dramas set in contemporary Japan—about ordinary people. Ikiru is one of the latter, and it’s a movie that Roger Ebert once
called Kurosawa’s “greatest film.â€
Ikiru is set in Tokyo in
the early fifties. Kanji Watanabe (played by the wonderful Takashi Shimura) is
a middle-aged bureaucrat in City Hall, the chief of “Public Works.†He has
spent the last thirty years behind a desk, stamping endless pieces of paper
with his little seal, never causing trouble, and pawning off problems to other
departments, which, in turn, direct them to yet more departments. Bureaucracy
at its dullest and most inefficient. At the beginning of the story, several
women bring in a complaint about a mosquito-infested cesspool in the middle of
their district that should be covered or turned into a park or whatever. But no
one at City Hall wants to accept the responsibility of doing anything about it,
including Watanabe, and even the egotistical mayor.
Contributing
to Watanabe’s stagnation are the attitudes of his grown son and his wife, who
live with him in the same house. All they’re waiting for is the inheritance
that will one day come their way (Watanabe’s wife is long dead). Then the
ultimate insult occurs—Watanabe discovers he has stomach cancer and has six
months to live. After the initial shock and depression, the news inspires him
to undergo a drastic change.
Watanabe
suddenly wants to make something of his life while there’s still time. He
befriends a young female subordinate and attempts to experience Tokyo’s
nightlife, but that doesn’t satisfy him. Finally, he embarks on taking it upon
himself to do something about that cesspool and turn it into a children’s
playground before he dies.
But
there is more going on in Kurosawa’s film—the director has something to say that
is universal regarding a) government bureaucracy; b) working for years in a job
that provides no pleasure; c) gossip among co-workers and family about things
for which they don’t bother to learn the truth; d) the medical profession’s
reluctance to tell a patient the hard facts; e) and, finally, how important it
is to find something in one’s life that is fulfilling. Ikiru means “to live†in Japanese.
This
brings me to the lead actor, Takashi Shimura. While Toshiro Mifune usually gets
all the accolades of being “Japan’s greatest actor†etc. etc., and while I
don’t begrudge Mifune-san this praise, I believe Shimura-san had a longer,
deeper, and more varied career as an actor. If you’ve seen Rashomon or Seven Samurai,
then you know who he is—Shimura played the leader of the seven samurai, and he
was the woodcutter in Rashomon. In
fact, Shimura, was in twenty-one of Kurosawa’s thirty films (Mifune was in
sixteen). Shimura also appeared in Gojira
(Godzilla, 1954, and its American
cut, Godzilla—King of the Monsters,
1956) in a major role of a paleontologist. The actor appeared in several other
Toho Studios monster movies released worldwide. In fact, Shimura was in over
200 films between 1934 and 1981 (he died in 1982 at the age of 76). Than man
was a genius. One only has to compare the actor’s performances in both Ikiru and Seven Samurai to appreciate the diversity this talented actor
possessed. Takashi Shimura is Japan’s greatest unsung cinema thespian.
Criterion
has re-issued Ikiru with a new, very
good-looking restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural
soundtrack. There is an audio commentary from 2003 by Stephen Prince, author of
The Warrior’s Camera: The Cinema of Akira
Kurosawa. Supplements include a 90-minute documentary from 2000 about
Kurosawa that features interviews with the director; a lengthy documentary from
2003 on Ikiru featuring interviews
with Kurosawa, one of the script writers, other members of the crew, and
Takashi Shimura. There’s a new English subtitle translation, and the obligatory
trailer. An essay by critic and travel writer Pico Iyer and a reprint from
critic Donald Richie’s book The Films of
Akira Kurosawa are included in the booklet.
Ikiru is a movie about
humanity, life, and death, and it’s perhaps Kurosawa’s most personal film. That
means it’s a must for connoisseurs of foreign cinema.
Lucas put on a happy face when he sold his rights to "Star Wars" to Disney in 2012. Since then, he's made his frustrations public about not being able to further the original story lines he had envisioned for the series, which he describes as a "soap opera".
BY LEE PFEIFFER
Don't invite George Lucas and Mickey Mouse to the same cocktail party. The "Star Wars" creator was not at all happy with negative feedback from fans in relation to the last trilogy of films in the series that he had creative control over. Lucas, in an interview with CBS News, states that he was frustrated by the perception that the series should be about "space ships" instead of human relationships. Thus, Lucas threw in the towel, sold his rights to Disney, took his billions in profits and went home. He's basically washed his hands of "Star Wars" and realizes that the Disney vision will be about fan perceptions of the series, not his original story lines. Lucas says he still wants to direct, but prefers to work on the kinds of experimental movies that "will not be shown anywhere". In essence, Lucas is about to embark on creating prestigious home movies ever made. Lucas isn't alone in his disdain for the modern film industry. His colleague Francis Ford Coppola hasn't made a major studio film since "The Rainmaker" in 1997 and spends much of his time either tending to his successful wine business while occasionally directing films that give him personal satisfaction even though they have very limited commercial appeal. Today's film industry is about developing "tent pole" series that can spawn numerous sequels. Seemingly every other movie in release features a spy or a guy in tights. Still, every year finds a crop of worthy art house movies that often find their intended audiences and win awards. One would hope that Lucas and Coppola might some day find a happy medium and direct films that have at least some commercial appeal. The caveat, of course, is that both men are used to having complete creative control over the projects, a demand that would generally fall on deaf ears today. For more click here.
In a relatively infamous review, a film critic from the
Atlanta Journal dismissively sniffed
that Dont Look Back (that’s not a typo, there is, mysteriously, no apostrophe
in the title) was little more than “the neighborhood’s biggest brat blowing his
nose for ninety minutes.†This harsh
sentiment was echoed by a critic from the Cleveland
Plains Dealer who added the film was “certainly not for moviegoers who
bathe and/or shave.†Time, of course,
has proven such histrionic appraisals of this very significant film to be entirely
wide of the mark. Most film scholars now
regard Donn Allen (D.A.) Pennebaker’s gritty and grainy opus as the first true masterwork
of rock music documentary filmmaking.
Though some of the earliest reviews were clearly nonplussed
with Pennebaker’s maverick “direct cinema†style of filmmaking, most of the critical
scorn was reserved for the movie’s principal figure, Bob Dylan. Even such early believers as Israel G. “Izzyâ€
Young, a folk-music enthusiast who took a chance in November of 1961 and chose
to produce Dylan’s first New York City concert, thought Dont Look Back, “A sad
event. Dylan surrounded by machinations,
appearing wherever he is told to, and resenting it. He is abusive to interviewers. Why? He didn’t have to agree to it.â€
In defense of his detractors, both friendly and
antagonistic, it is true that few of Dylan’s Dont Look Back challengers are
spared the artist’s stony silence or mocking ridicule. In the course of the film the strikingly
young but already revered folksinger appears, at any given time, to be aloof,
condescending, or downright rude to those who might dare touch the hem. The devoted pilgrims, uncomprehending
journalists, and dullards who crowd and distract the musician in dressing rooms,
hotel suites, press conferences or out on the street are ceremoniously – and
sometimes painfully – put-on or put-off by this enfant terrible. Pennebaker’s
shoulder-held 16mm newsreel camera is seemingly always at the ready to capture every
glorious – and cringe-worthy - moment for posterity, all in a dispassionate and
non-judgmental manner. Since his two-camera
team rolled nearly continuously, Dylan himself opines on a supplement from this
magnificent new Blu-ray issue from Criterion, “After awhile you didn’t notice [the
cameras] anymore.â€
What Dylan’s harshest critics totally miss is that the
singer’s perceived boorishness is reflexively defensive; it’s his dilettantish
but not too un-understandable coping mechanism to navigate the maelstrom encircling
him. Throughout Dont Look Back, the camera
establishes - in stark black and white imagery- that by 1965 Dylan was already caught
uncomfortably in the cross-hairs of the emerging culture-war. Dylan’s gift at word-play and his brilliant,
thoughtful songs brought him deserved attention; but they also managed, perhaps
accidentally, to tap into the zeitgeist of the brimming ‘60’s revolution. The singer’s mysterious persona, his wounded
singing-style, his elemental guitar-playing, and his haunting word-images were not
simply embraced. They were soon imbedded into the psyches of those most
deeply moved: academics, politicos, folk-music aficionados, devoted followers
and gossipy news gatherers. Viewing this
phenomenon through the prism of today’s prevalent cynicism is difficult; it’s not
easily explainable why Dylan’s most ardent admirers expected that this skinny, twenty-four
year old youngster – one with less than optimal social skills no less– had the
ability to impart wisdom befitting that of an ancient, wizened sage. Throughout the film the singer is pressed to share
the secrets of the universe that everyone presumes he’s holding close to his
chest. Though Dylan makes several
sincere attempts to explain, “I’m just a guitar player. That’s all…,†his protestations go unheeded.
There is one archival flashback near the film’s
beginning that provides a window of context for such deification. Upon a BBC journalist’s query “How did it all
begin for you, Bob?,†Pennebaker flashes to a civil rights rally where – in a
strikingly invasive full screen and spit-flicking close-up – Dylan brays out
the verses to one of his best “finger-pointing†songs, “Only a Pawn in their
Game.†The song, which would see issue
a half-year later on his seminal The
Times They Are A-Changin’ album, brashly charges not only the genuine
assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, but a morally corrupt police
force, government officials, and court justices as malleable co-conspirators to
the murder. To the best of my knowledge,
this is the only footage in Dont Look Back that is not the product of
Pennebaker’s own set of voyeuristic cameras.
The rally footage came courtesy of Edmund Emshwiller, a
celebrated visual artist and illustrator who would dabble in experimental
filmmaking in the early 1960s. Carrying
along a single 16mm wind-up Bolex camera, Emshwiller followed a troupe of
Greenwich Village folk-singing activists (Dylan, Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel,
and the Freedom Singers) in July of 1963 to a Voter Registration Rally on the
farm of Silas Magee in Greenwood, Mississippi. Emshwiller’s resulting short film, Streets of Greenwood, a reference to
the small town that was, at the time, a hotbed of racial discrimination and
KKK-vigilante violence, would, sadly, not see wide release. Pete Seeger would later suggest it was likely
Dylan’s inclusion in the finished experimental-film that doomed Streets of
Greenwood to near-oblivion. He was
right.
An extremely limited release of this obscure agit-prop short
film had, reportedly, been blocked by Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman. Grossman was a major figure in the early
1960s folk-music revival, a tough and calculating business manager by
reputation; his table stable of clients would eventually include Peter, Paul,
and Mary, Janis Joplin, Odetta, Ian and Sylvia, Phil Ochs, and Richie Havens
amongst others. In 1962, Dylan signed a
ten-year exclusive contract with Grossman, an opportunistic move that in three
years time would swiftly transform the scruffy singer from little-known folksinger
to pop-music icon. It was also a
temporary alliance of strong personalities predestined to end acrimoniously.
Turner Classic Movies has released a major DVD boxed set that is comprised of the most complete collection ever assembled of James Dean's television appearances. Here is a list of the contents:
Before East Of Eden (1955), Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956) turned James Dean into an international icon, he honed his craft on television, appearing on such shows as Studio One, Lux Video Theater and Hallmark Hall of Fame—many broadcast live and thought to be lost. This is the most complete collection to date of Dean’s television legacy featuring 19 full episodes, 2 original commercials and 2 clips featuring Dean, all meticulously re-mastered for picture and sound quality from the best available sources.
This box set also includes a commemorative booklet featuring a comprehensive essay focusing on the actor’s personal life and television career, and featuring rare stills, episode credits and descriptions.
Bonus Material - The documentary Fairmount Today, exploring Dean’s hometown in Indiana - Episode introductions by James Dean’s cousin, Marcus Winslow, Jr., head of the Dean Estate - 3 photo galleries from world famous photographers Roy Schatt, Frank Worth and Sanford Roth - A video demonstration illustrating the restoration and preservation process
Episodes Family Theater: Hill Number One (1951) Trouble With Father: Jackie Knows All (1952) Westinghouse Studio One: 10,000 Horses Singing (1952) Lux Video Theater: The Foggy, Foggy Dew (1952) Westinghouse Studio One: John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln (1952) Hallmark Hall Of Fame: Forgotten Children: A Historical Biography (1952) The Kate Smith Hour: The Hound Of Heaven (1953) Campbell Sound Stage: Something For An Empty Briefcase (1953) Westinghouse Studio One Summer Theater: Sentence Of Death (1953) Danger: Death Is My Neighbor (1953) The Big Story: Rex Newman (1953) Kraft Television Theatre: Keep Our Honor Bright (1953) Campbell Sound Stage: Life Sentence (1953) Kraft Television Theatre: A Long Time Till Dawn (1953) Armstrong’s Circle Theater: The Bells Of Cockaigne (1953) Robert Montgomery Presents: Harvest (1953) Philco Television Playhouse: Run Like A Thief (1954) Danger: Padlocks (1954) General Electric Theater: Sherwood Anderson’s I'm A Fool (1954) General Electric Theater: The Dark, Dark Hour (1954)
Twilight Time has released Fox's 1970 box-office disaster The Only Game in Town as a Blu-ray limited edition (3,000 units). The film is primarily remembered for reasons its creators would never have desired. It was the last movie of legendary director George Stevens and represented his re-teaming with Elizabeth Taylor, with whom he had made two genuine classics: Giant and A Place in the Sun, both which featured two of her most acclaimed performances. In fact, by the time this movie went into production in 1970, Stevens' clout in Hollywood had been somewhat diminished by his obsessive quest to bring his dream project, The Greatest Story Ever Told to the screen. He finally succeeded in doing so in 1965, only to have the film become a politely-acclaimed epic that ended up losing United Artists a fortune. Nevertheless, in those days past reputations still helped keep older filmmakers in high regard, so Fox executives saw plenty of potential in the third teaming of Stevens and Elizabeth Taylor. To add additional boxoffice clout, the studio signed Warren Beatty as the male lead. Beatty had been kicking around the industry for a decade but had only recently become red-hot due to the success of Bonnie and Clyde. Beatty was so eager to work with Stevens that he passed on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, another Fox property that would have a considerably more positive fate.
The Only Game in Town was written as play by Frank D. Gilroy, who was riding a wave of acclaim for The Subject Was Roses. Fox was so eager to land the rights to the story that they paid a (then) astronomical $500,000 to Gilroy, even though the play had not yet been performed. Fox was in for a rude awakening. When the play opened on Broadway, it had a very abbreviated run and closed shortly thereafter, having been deemed a major flop. Left with a costly investment, Fox felt the same fate might not befall the screen version, given the involvement of Stevens, Taylor and Beatty. However, as with any project involving La Liz, the studio found itself being held hostage to her costly demands. Although the story is set entirely in Las Vegas, Taylor insisted that it be shot in France (!) where hubby Richard Burton was filming Staircase, a movie that was set in London. Go figure. It appears the Burtons had a fetish for demanding that movies be shot in places other than their actual locations. Thus, what should have been a modestly-budgeted romance with only two major characters (there are only four actors credited for the entire movie) ballooned into an $11 million production, with much of the cost going into costly production design in order to recreate "Vegas" in France. This was achieved in a fairly unconvincing manner. Remember those old B&W movies in which someone's arrival in Paris is indicated by the fact that the Eiffel Tower (usually a matte painting) is directly visible from the window or balcony? Well, the same principal applies here. Liz lives in an apartment on the outskirts of the Strip but the casinos are glaringly visible over the sand dunes from her window. However, the effect is not even remotely convincing. The garish still life suggests anything other than a bustling tourist center. For understandable reasons (Liz was a few thousand miles away from the real Vegas), no traffic or people can be seen on "The Strip". Thus, the backdrop takes on an eerie air as though it is an effect from a long lost episode of The Twilight Zone.
The story opens with Fran Walker (Taylor), a chorus girl in a big casino stage extravaganza calling it quits for the night. (Critics cruelly noted at the time how unsuitably cast Taylor was for the role of a chorus dancer. Although she was only 37 years old at the time, she seemed far older. Director Stevens tries to deal with this challenge by confining scenes of Fran at work to one "blink-and-you-miss" intense closeup of Liz bopping up and down a bit, all too apparently not in the presence of any of the "real" dancers shown in the establishing shot.) Seemingly bored and despondent, Fran stops into a local gin mill near the Strip to have nightcap. The joint features a tuxedo-clad pianist who warbles for the sparse crowd in between making cynical jokes and comments. He's Joe Grady (Beatty), a handsome hunk who immediately meets cute with Fran. Before you can say "Dickie Burton", the two of them are canoodling under the covers at Fran's apartment (with sleep being impossible, given the blinding lights from the garish phony Vegas set outside her window.) The script goes nowhere fast with Fran and Joe bickering, making up, bickering again... Fran confesses she is the mistress of a wealthy business executive who assures her he is leaving his wife to marry her. Joe cautions her that she has fallen for the oldest con game practiced by cheating husbands and her assurances that she believes in the man's integrity seem increasingly shaky. However, just when Fran and Joe are about to set up house together, Fran's lover, Lockwood (Broadway actor Charles Braswell) turns up unexpectedly and -dammit all- he turns out to have been a man of his word. He wants to marry Fran immediately and take her away from Vegas for a globe-trotting life of luxury. Trouble is, Fran is now smitten by Joe. Who will she choose? The uber-successful businessman or the down-and-out lounge singer? Joe has other problems beyond his finances. He's a compulsive gambler who squanders away his savings every time he manages to put a little aside. In fact, the sequences with Beatty sans Liz (some of which were actually shot in Vegas) are the best in the film, as we see Joe constantly weaken in his vow to stay away from the craps tables. The scenes of him blowing his hard earned money on rolls of the dice are emotionally effective and, at times, cringe-inducing. What doesn't add up is why the charismatic Joe would be so smitten by Fran. Granted, she looks like Elizabeth Taylor, but she's a moody, whining, generally unhappy person who spends most of her time kvetching about every aspect of her life. Although essentially miscast, Taylor plays the role as effectively as one could hope. However, the generally glamorous Liz is attired in array of bland costumes that makes her look uncharacteristically dowdy. It's Beatty who surprises. He's long been one of the least interesting screen presences among iconic leading men and- with a few notable exceptions- he generally delivers performances that are so low-key they border on being boring. However, as Joe Grady, he's more lively than usual and he displays the charisma that would attract any sane, heterosexual woman. (There is one scene, however, that is a bit too cute: love-struck Joe warbling Some Enchanted Evening in the corridor outside of Fran's apartment.)
The Only Game in Town is a bizarre film and is compromised by the fact that the two lead characters have a relationship that never rings true to the viewer. In her Oscar winning performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Taylor was able to actually play an every day person in a believable manner. Martha, the protagonist of that film, may have been a human spitfire, constantly insulting and berating her long-suffering husband George, but she had charisma and was a sexual dynamo. In George Stevens' film, we are too aware of the fact that we are watching a movie star trying desperately to play an ordinary woman. The ploy simply doesn't work. The fact that the movie lacks any interesting supporting characters (even Braswell is bland and boring) gives the entire production a claustrophobic feeling. The score by Maurice Jarre, certainly one of the great composers, also feels out of place here with inappropriate cues coming at inappropriate times. In the wake of the film's poor box-office performance, Beatty emerged unscathed and went on to become an Oscar-winning director. Taylor, however, lumbered through a number of other major studio productions, all of which flopped. It was the end of her reign as a boxoffice draw.
The Twilight Time Blu-ray features a very nice transfer (though some artifacts are noticeable here and there), an isolated score track and the original trailer. It is region-free and can play on any international system. Julie Kirgo provides the usual insightful background notes in an illustrated collector's booklet. The movie is not quite as bad as critics indicated at the time of its initial release but it falls far short of its potential, given the talent involved. Its sad legacy is, ironically, the prime reason we can recommend retro movie lovers to check it out and form their own conclusions.
At some point in the career of seemingly every porn movie director there comes the desire to aspire to something more meaningful. The problem is that most such directors don't possess the know-how or have the opportunities to become auteurs. Thus, they work within the parameters of their own genre in an attempt to elevate it to something more than just mindless rolls between the sheets. One of the more ambitious directors of 70s and 80s adult fillms was Chris Warfield, a former actor whose 1980 production of "Champagne for Breakfast" has been released on DVD by Vinegar Syndrome. It's easy to dismiss any porn flick from any era but we at Cinema Retro try to objectively evaluate even these lesser contributions to the film industry because, as with mainstream cinema, there are vast differences in the quality of productions- and retro porn represents an important aspect of pop culture, even if you are among those who loathe such films on a moral basis. "Champagne for Breakfast"- a title I never heard of prior to reviewing it on DVD- apparently made a splash back in the day for being one of the first such films made to appeal to couples instead of the usual audience, which consisted of creepy guys sitting in fleapit theaters. It's hard to recall an era when porn movies had to be enjoyed publicly but in those pre-home video days, that was largely the case. The only option was to get 8mm "loops" that could be purchased for home viewing. The quality of these was about as erotic as taking a bath in a tub of ice water. For women who wanted to enjoy cinematic erotica, going to an X rated theater alone was virtually out of the question. Even escorted by a male companion, it had to be an uncomfortable experience not only because of onerous atmosphere inside of such theaters but also the social stigma that came with being seen entering or leaving one. Thus, it was rare for a production company to produce films that might appeal to female viewers. In that sense, "Champagne for Breakfast" was somewhat groundbreaking because there is an attempt to tell a relatively engaging story in a humorous manner from a young woman's point-of-view.
Champagne fulfills one of her fantasies: erotic role playing.
The film opens in the board room of a major cosmetic company in San Francisco. Champagne (Leslie Bovee) has impressed the president of the company with her business know-how and he announces that he has promoted her to VP position in marketing. Champagne is delighted but as soon as the room clears out, the boss's daughter, Peggy (Bonnie Holiday) who is also an executive at the company, has a shocking life lesson for her. She tells Champagne that now that she is in management, she has an obligation to use her power to sexually manipulate men in the manner women have been manipulated for centuries. She proves her point by calling in a waiting sales rep who very much wants to sign a big contract with the cosmetics firm. In front of Champagne, she informs the shocked salesman that the only way he'll get the contract is to service her right there on the boardroom desk. He willingly complies but Champagne is disgusted and leaves the room. Before long, her star rises in the company but she realizes that she is a workaholic with little free time and no significant other in her life. Frustrated, she makes a bold decision to take two weeks off and indulge in hedonistic fantasies. To enable her to do so, she calls an employment agency and requests a body guard to accompany her on her potentially dangerous journey. Answering the call is Harry (John Leslie), a charismatic young man with a chip on his shoulder. He's living on poverty row but every time he takes even a low end job, his good looks result in female bosses wanting to sexually harass him. Sensing that Champagne might be intimidated by a hunky young guy as a bodyguard, he adopts Warren Beatty's character's strategy from "Shampoo" and pretends he is gay. His flamboyant mannerisms ensure he gets the job but frustration soon encroaches when he is forced to drop Champagne off for various sexual liaisons, including a male bordello. Knowing his new boss is sex-crazed but having to act disinterested drives Harry to the breaking point. Things only worsen when Champagne asks him to start giving her daily nude massages. Harry's cover is almost blown when he has to interrupt a fling Champagne is having with a beefy construction worker who begins to abuse her. Harry rides to the rescue and beats the man to a pulp, which doesn't enhance his attempts to play a meek, mild guy. At least Harry doesn't have to suffer the frustration of observing his boss's most daring and promiscuous encounter: an orgy with three male prostitutes. There is also the obligatory lesbian sequence, with Champagne being seduced by an aggressive young woman. The film suffers a bit from some unrealistic aspects of Harry's character. When he is seduced by the female manager of a strip club he has applied for a job as a bouncer in, he becomes outraged when another woman wants to join in the action. He storms out of the bedroom when the two women start entertaining each other, claiming that lesbianism is a perversion. Yeah, right. On the more realistic side, the film's feminine viewpoint results in some role reversal situations. Woman wield most of the power in this film, whether its in the boardroom or the bedroom, though the film does take a sympathetic twist on what males often go through in trying to pick up members of the opposite sex. When the sexually frustrated Champagne enters an upscale bar and tries to seduce an older man, she is shocked that he rebuffs her.
"Champagne for Breakfast" benefits from relatively expensive production values (they even had use of a Rolls Royce!) and a director who can ensure that the cinematography isn't the jittery mess found in other erotic movies of the era. There is even an attempt to provide a romantic love song over the opening credits, even though it sounds more like one of those Sinatra parodies Mel Brooks sings in "High Anxiety". The performances are relatively accomplished and both Leslies- Bovee and John- have real on screen chemistry together. The somewhat amusing plot goes off the deep end in the final act with Harry discovering he has millions of dollars in stocks but they are in the name of a former brother-in-law who has power-of-attorney and won't relegate them back to him. This situation is resolved predictably and abruptly but the entire plot device of a pauper having access to millions in stocks is weak even by porn movie standards when it comes to credibility. Still, the sex scenes do sizzle and there are some genuine laughs. "Champagne for Breakfast" is indeed a cut above most films of this genre.
Vinegar Syndrome's DVD boasts a great transfer, the original trailer (which has tag-on reviews from erotic magazines that tout the film as being virtually the "Citizen Kane" of the porn genre) , a trailer for a softcore version and some deleted scenes. I presume the bizarre box art is taken from the original film poster. For some reason, the main focus is not gorgeous Leslie Bovee but a cartoon of some dork who doesn't even appear in the film, which provides proof that, despite appearances to the contrary, not all lousy film posters are contemporary. Still, you can't judge a porn film by its DVD sleeve and this one is considerably better than the promotional art would have you believe.
They were Hollywood's seemingly least compatible power couple. Charles Bronson was noted for avoiding interviews and publicity while Jill Ireland relished the opportunities to promote her films. The couple had a rather convoluted start to their relationship. Ireland was married to David McCallum when the up-and-coming British/Scottish couple moved to Hollywood to further their ambitions. It worked. McCallum would become a major star within a few years and his career helped give his wife exposure as well. However, behind the scenes the marriage was becoming strained. McCallum and Ireland had formed a close friendship with Charles Bronson when they filmed "The Great Escape" together. When the McCallums moved to Hollywood, Bronson did a lot of socializing with them. But behind the scenes, Bronson and Jill began a tempestuous affair that led to her divorce from McCallum, who went on to marry model Katherine Carpenter (they are still together today). Bronson and Jill married as well and began a long time collaboration of appearing in films together. Initially, Jill had minor roles but as Bronson's star power increased he used his influence to get his wife co-starring roles. In all, they would appear in over a dozen films together before her untimely death from cancer in 1990.
Calling all Charlie Chan fans! If you are not aware of it, Warner Home Video released a 4 DVD set of Chan rarities in 2013. Here is the information from the original press release.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment brings back the legendary
master of crime in the Charlie Chan Collection -- four beloved
films making their DVD debut, and now available for the first time, newly
remastered, as a single collection. Included are Shadows Over Chinatown, starring
Sidney Toler in one of his last Chan films, plus Docks of New Orleans,
Shanghai Chest, and The Golden Eye starring Roland Winters, the
last actor to play the detective on film.
Writer Earl Derr Biggers created Charlie Chan, a fictional
Chinese-American sleuth, in a series of printed tales beginning in 1923. As
early as 1926, the first of more than 48 Charlie Chan films was put on the
silver screen. Actor Warner Oland, born in Sweden, began a popular run for Fox
in 1931 in Charlie Chan Carries On. After its success, Fox would
produce 15 more Chan films starring Oland. Not surprisingly, the films became
the most popular in 1930s China.
After Oland died, Sidney Toler, an American actor with
Scottish roots, took on the Chan role. Toler starred in 22 Chan films, first
for Fox and later for Monogram Studios. After Toler's death, Roland Winters
became Chan in six more films. The character has also been featured frequently
on radio, television and in the comics.
ABOUT THE FILMS
Shadows Over Chinatown
Charlie Chan heads to San Francisco on a murder case when he
encounters a mother trying to find her daughter who’s gone missing. Chan also
meets a young man, searching for his missing girlfriend. Charlie determines
they’re both looking for the same person and soon uncovers a murder gang, which
has been illegally benefiting from life insurance of the dead.
Docks of New Orleans
Charlie is asked to investigate after the mysterious demise
of a New Orleans chemical company magnate, because even though the police
believe the death was caused by a heart attack, a series of unexplainable
deaths follow. Only Charlie Chan can solve the mystery!
Shanghai Chest
Three people are murdered in San Francisco – a judge,
District Attorney and a juror. The fingerprints of a deceased man are found at
all three murder sites, but could it really be possible for a dead man to be a
serial killer? Again, leave it to Charlie Chan..!
The Golden Eye
An Arizona gold mine is suddenly making a ton of money. The
mine’s owner, instead of delighting in his newfound wealth, confides to Charlie
that something is wrong and he fears for his life. Charlie and “friends†go to
the mine, pretending to be just visitors. They soon discover that the mine is
being used as a cover up for some major crimes and that, indeed, somebody will
soon be murdered.
(Although not mentioned in the press release, the set also includes an abundance of special features.)
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FEATURES FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
Don't you miss those wonderful old comic book tie-ins to major motion pictures? We unearthed this one in the seemingly bottomless vaults of the Cinema Retro archive. It was a tie in from Dell Comics for director John Sturges' 1965, big budget misfire The Hallelujah Trail that managed to squander the talents of Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton and many other popular actors. However, we still have a soft spot for the comic book, which is far more entertaining than the padded, seemingly endless film upon which it is based!
Having grown up in the 1960s I can recall the "sword and sandal" rage that swept the cinematic world during that era. Modestly budgeted Italian epics thrilled young audiences with tales of Hercules and other mythical heroes. The king of this short-lived genre was American body builder Steve Reeves, who became synonymous with these films based on his highly successful starring role as "Hercules". Producer Joseph E. Levine had the foresight to release the film in American and British cinemas and reaped phenomenal profits. Like the spaghetti western fad that would come a few year later, the sword and sandal flicks varied widely in terms of quality. I'll admit I had little interest in revisiting these films of my childhood until I edited writer Denis Meikle's article "Blood, Sweat and Togas" in issue #30 of Cinema Retro. Meilke gave the most honest and objective appraisal of the films imaginable and pointed out that many of these movies were drastically underrated in their day. I thought I'd form my own opinion by checking out one of Reeves' films that I had very vague memories of seeing way back in '62. "The Slave" was also known as "Son of Spartacus" largely because the Italians were masters at capitalizing on whatever big movies had been recently released in the English language cinema. With Kirk Douglas' acclaimed epic still playing in theaters, director Sergio Corbucci quickly started his production with Reeves in the title role.
The story centers on Randus (Reeves), a loyal army commander to Julius Caesar (Ivo Garrani). Caesar is at the height of his power but he fears an attempted coup might be in the works due to the opportunistic Crassus (Claudio Gora), who administers the Roman Empire's control over Egypt. Randus is sent on what is supposed to be a good will mission to serve under Crassus. However, Crassus immediately suspects the truth: that Randus is there to spy on him and inform Caesar of his activities and any suspicious behavior. The tension and false politeness between the two men is broken when Randus decides to return to Rome to report to Caesar. En route, however, his galley encounters a disastrous storm and Randus and an Egyptian slave girl, Saide (Ombretta Colli) are washed overboard and presumed dead. They manage to get to shore only to captured by a passing group of sadistic slave traders. They mock Randus for his claim that he is Caesar's right hand man and subject him to humiliation and punishment. The miserable cargo of slaves is forced to march under the desert sun, all the while being beaten and abused by their captors. Randus is shocked when one of the older slaves recognizes an amulet around his neck. Randus says it was inherited by him from the father he never knew. The older man informs him that the amulet was worn by Spartacus, the great hero who led a doomed but noble slave rebellion against Rome. Randus now realizes that he is the son of Spartacus. He uses his incredible strength to escape from his chains and lead the other slaves in killing their captors. However, he is now faced with a moral choice: does he return to Rome and serve the empire that continues to oppress his own people and who crucified his father? He opts to serve the slave population against Rome, adopting a plan whereby he returns to Crassus but uses inside information to launch successful attacks against Roman forces. Wearing a mask and keeping his identity secret, he becomes a legend among the slaves for his daring military strategies. He arranges for Saide to become handmaiden to Crassus's demanding wife, thus sparing her from possible execution. In the course of carrying out attacks against Roman forces, Randus inspires a new uprising, just as his father did. However, he is ultimately captured and faces certain death- unless the slave population can save him first.
I was genuinely surprised at how well made and accomplished this production is. The sets are impressive and the script is compelling and exciting, even if Reeves becomes an Egypt-based predecessor of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The action sequences are extremely well-staged and there is genuine tension in several key scenes. It's impossible to gauge Reeves' skills as an actor because his voice is dubbed despite speaking English as his native language. (The same awkward fate befell Todd Armstrong, star of "Jason and the Argonauts".) Nevertheless, Reeves more than fits the physical requirements of the role and when Saide ends up inevitably swooning over him you can understand why. The direction by Sergio Corbucci is especially impressive and he would fittingly go on to make major contributions to some of the more memorable spaghetti westerns.
"The Slave" is surprisingly effective throughout. Highly recommended.
The
hallmark of any James Bond film has been the opening gun barrel sequence. It
sets the tone for what's to come, and always sends a shiver up the spine in
anticipation of what is about to unfold. However, since Die Another Day this tradition has been revoked and (much to the
annoyance of millions of fans around the world) relegated to the end of the
films. Not with SPECTRE. It is now
back in its rightful place. Yes, folks, James Bond is back - and how. The
customary pre-title sequence is a stunner, and quite violent. There's no messing around. A lot of people die in this film.
Once
again, Sam Mendes has brought us a film full of excitement, tension and
sexuality that retains a freshness and
vitality in a similar vein to what he did with Skyfall. Although there are many spectacular chases and set pieces
(the stunts and SFX by regulars Gary Powell and Chris Corbould, are well up to
standard), Mendes maintains a sense of reality and plausibility, even though
there are visual 'nods' to the films of the past. It's clever, but not pastiche.
There is just the right level of humour, too, which Craig handles really well.
Refreshingly, I didn't once notice any over-the-top references to products
either!
The
casting is impeccable, and Craig, as usual, is superb. This really is his film. Christoph Waltz makes for a
perfect villain - a complex character who is equal (or even superior) to Bond,
which is as it should always be. As for the "Bond Ladies", Mendes has
triumphed once more. Monica Bellucci, who is mature in her years, is (for me)
the sexiest woman to ever grace Bond's on-screen adventures. Then again, I've
always been a sucker for a woman in a basque and stockings and suspenders. Sadly,
her part is woefully short. Lea Seydoux
is equally engaging and attractive, but not in a drop-dead-gorgeous superficial
way that we have come to expect from earlier Bond films, and thankfully her
character is integral to the plot, and not just eye candy. David Bautista, who
I assume the producers wanted on board as an Oddjob-type villain, does an
admirable job, and has a sinister and mean on-screen presence, although his
role was totally unnecessary. Likewise, all the ballyhoo surrounding Bond's
Aston Martin DB10 was wasted on me. The chase through the streets of Rome is not one of the
series best by any measure. Mi6 'regulars' Ralph Fiennes, Ben Wishaw and
Naomie Harris really come to the fore in this film, but I cannot comment
further without revealing plot details!
On the
technical front, the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoyetema (shot on 35mm film,
not digital) is as good as Roger
Deakins' efforts on Skyfall, and the
vistas of Rome, Mexico, Austria and Morocco looking stunning. London also plays a major 'role' in
the exciting finale where Bond races against the clock whilst dealing with
ghosts from the past. Brilliant! Editor
Lee Smith (director Chris Nolan's regular cutter) has creatively paced the film
, and easily justifies the film's 148 minutes running time, which seemed to fly
by.
Finally,
the music. Sam Mendes' composer of choice, Thomas Newman, returns. Whilst his
score for Skyfall was excellent, he
didn't 'arrange' enough subtle cues of the James Bond theme throughout. This
time around he rectifies that, with a superb score that also revisits Skyfall as well as using an instrumental
rendition of Sam Smith's title song 'The Writing's on the Wall' .
So there
you have it. Mendes' second Bond film, the 24th in the series, is top-notch
entertainment that will thrill audiences around the world - and also please the
'die hard' OO7 buffs who are so critical of their favourite secret agent's
on-screen antics. Oh, and there is a
'money shot' at the end of the film which totally threw me. I'm still reeling.
We hate to brag but sometimes we just have to. Our own intrepid columnist, Raymond Benson, is enjoying some very exciting news. His acclaimed series of books based on The Black Stiletto character has been optioned by actress Mila Kunis's production company which is developing the property as a TV series for ABC. Kunis will executive produce the series, which centers on a female hero who, in the tried-and-true tradition, keeps her real identity a secret. Raymond has been a contributor to Cinema Retro since issue #1, way back in '05. His column of "Top Ten Films" of specific years has already covered the entire 1960s and 1970s and is now focused on films of the 1950s. (If he doesn't slow down, we'll soon be covering the greatest hits of Wallace Beery as fodder for his column.) Raymond also writes reviews of the latest DVD and Blu-ray releases, many of which can be found in his own column on this page and in the Criterion Corner section. His contributions to the success of Cinema Retro have been immeasurable so we take great pleasure in congratulating him on this major achievement.
Full disclosure: I’m a Mac evangelist and have been since the
1980s. (The boxy Macintosh Plus was the
first model I used.) I idolized Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and this brilliant
movie from director Danny Boyle doesn’t change that. What it does do is explain Jobs as much as a
force of nature like Steve Jobs can be explained. The film, written by Aaron Sorkin, tells
Jobs’ story through three pivotal product launches –1984’s Macintosh, the
ill-fated Next in 1988 and his triumphant 1998 return with the revolutionary
iMac. Most of the action takes place in
the tension-filled backstage crucible before each event, where Jobs terrorizes
staffers and programmers and deals with the inconvenient truth of a very
dependent ex-girlfriend (played by Sam Waterston’s daughter, Katherine) who is
also the mother of his child. A child he
refuses to acknowledge, conclusive paternity test or no.
Michael Fassbender is
nothing short of amazing as Jobs, a man so convinced of his own rightness that
he can’t acknowledge a shred of humanity or empathy. Although Fassbender doesn’t look like the
mercurial tech rockstar, he’s able to channel him. Kate Winslett turns in another stellar
performance as Jobs’ harried marketing chief, the one woman he does confide in
– as much as Jobs was capable of confiding. Seth Rogan puts his usual stoner persona aside
as the real brains behind Apple, co-founder Steve Wozniak. “Woz†is seemingly Jobs only friend but his
relentless perfectionism pushes their relationship to the limit.
Flashbacks illustrate
major points in Jobs’ career –the birth of Apple in a silicon valley garage, wooing
Pepsi head John Scully (Jeff Daniels) to be Apple’s CEO, and the crushing
boardroom battle where the indispensible Jobs suddenly found out that he was
totally dispensable. Along the way Jobs
hints at the reasons behind his iron will and propensity to lash out at anyone
who doesn’t live up to his impossible standards – rejection by his first set of
adoptive parents who literally gave him back. Instead of coming to grips with it through therapy or discussion, he
walled it off, along with most human emotions.
Cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler’s
tight camerawork is centered on the actors moving through various backstage
settings as the product launch tensions ramp up and ever so slightly, Jobs
acknowledges the fatherhood he’s denied. Sorkin’s Oscar-bait dialogue crackles throughout. For example…
Jobs
to a stressed-out engineer: “You had three weeks, the universe was
created in a third of that.â€
The
stressed-out engineer: “Well, someday you’ll have to tell us how
you did it.â€
Because Apple products are
so ubiquitous and four years after his death, Jobs has passed into legend; we
think we know him. We think he’s
ours. But behind the iconic products,
there was an intense, ruthless and occasionally cruel man. This film helps explain why and does what
Jobs himself never could – it helps humanize him.
Steve Jobs opens October 9th
from Universal Pictures.
By the 1920s there was already a fear that the age of great adventure and adventurers was rapidly coming to a close. Flight had been conquered and lands that seemed mythical were rapidly being explored by white men. The great white whale that had remained unconquered was the summit of the world's tallest mountain, Everest. Today, the mountain is scaled almost routinely but it still is underestimated by climbers who lose their lives it their quest to ascend it. As late as the 1920s, many considered it be an impossible quest to reach the summit. However, courageous (or foolhardy) souls are often drawn to such seemingly quixotic goals, and so it was that in 1924 a major British expedition was formed with the intent of achieving what many felt was the last great challenge: to reach the summit of the fabled mountain. The expedition was headed by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. Typical of the Brits, the venture was undertaken on a grand scale with a small army of participants, including Tibetan sherpas. Captain John Noel asked if he could accommodate the expedition so that he could document it on film. Mallory and Irvine were reluctant to do so, reminding Noel that they were motivated by scientific exploration, not becoming Hollywood stars. Nevertheless, Noel was given permission to join them- on the proviso that he minimize filming of the people involved and concentrate on the landscapes. Thus, Noel- armed with an amazing array of state-of-the-art film cameras of varying sizes- did indeed spend most of his energies shooting the spectacular scenery. Although there are only fleeting glimpses of the British members of the expedition, Noel did have the foresight to realize how exotic images of the local Tibetan culture would be for Westerners. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to film tribal members and their customs, thus providing the most complete depiction of Tibetan life seen by the outside world.
One of the most impressive aspects of the documentary is Noel's seemingly superhuman ability to keep cameras steady in dangerous situations. The vast regions of ice and sky look just as beautiful and intimidating today as they must have when he filmed them. The movie has an almost mystical quality to it that sets it uniquely apart from any other documentary I have seen. Noel captures the mundane and boring aspects of the expedition as well as its most majestic moments- all leading up to a failed quest and a tragic loss of life. The final images of doomed men setting of to reach to the summit was captured on film by Noel, who kept shooting them even as they faded into figures in a landscape, never to be seen again and whose precise fate remains unknown to this day. Noel successfully marketed his film to appreciative worldwide audiences, but upon his death the elements were allowed to deteriorate. The British Film Institute was given the raw materials by Noel's daughter Sandra and a major restoration project was undertaken that saw the movie returned to its original glory, including some very impressive color tinting. The newly-commissioned score has been brilliantly realized by Simon Fisher; it is both beautiful and occasionally eerie and foreboding. Kino Lorber has imported the BFI restored print for the American Blu-ray release. Extras include interviews with Sandra Noel and other scholars and featurettes about the restoration of the film and the scoring process.
"The Epic of Everest" is a landmark film that has retained all of its emotional power thanks to a brilliant restoration.
Released
by Universal in 1967, “Tobruk†opens with the feel of a 1960s spy thriller. Rock
Hudson is Major Donald Craig, a Canadian prisoner of war on board a German
transport ship anchored somewhere off the North Africa coast in late 1942. A
group of frogmen surface near the ship and sneak on board with silencers fixed
to their guns in order to capture Craig. The frogmen are led by Captain Bergman
(George Peppard) who reveal themselves to be part of a team of German commandos.
The
commandos take Craig to a German airfield and fly him to a desert landing
strip. They’re unexpectedly greeted by a group of British soldiers led by Colonel
Harker (Nigel Green). It’s revealed that Bergman is the leader of a
German-Jewish commando unit attached to a group of British commandos operating
in North Africa. They secured the rescue of Craig due to his expertise as a map
maker needing his expertise in navigating a mine field and access to the German
occupied port at Tobruk, Libya, so they can destroy it in time for a British
sea invasion.
The
movie is based on an actual, although unsuccessful, attack on Tobruk in
September of 1942 which did include German-Jewish soldiers and fake British
POWs. Just like the actual events, the British commandos in the movie pretend
to be POWs in order to get to their ultimate destination undetected... or at
least in an inconspicuous way that will arouse little attention. During the
journey through the Sahara, the group encounters the German and Italian Army as
well as local horseman seeking money for captured British hostages and aerial
staffing from British aircraft.
Directed
by Arthur Hiller, the movie appears at first glance to be an unusual choice for
the director who would be synonymous with message movies and romantic comedies.
However, interspersed between the usual action and military battle scenes, the
British and German-Jewish commando team deal with serious issues of bigotry and
anti-Semitism with Hudson caught between the two camps as the outsider caught in
the middle as they make their way across the desert.
Hudson
is very good in “Tobruk†and broke away from being stereotyped as a leading man
of about a half dozen very popular romantic comedies to star in more serious
films including heroic military parts in “Tobruk,†“Ice Station Zebra,†“The
Undefeated†and “Hornet’s Nest.†In the 1970s he settled into a hybrid role
which combined elements of his romantic comedies and the heroic leading man as San
Francisco police commissioner in the popular TV series “McMillan & Wife†which
ran from 1971 to 1977.
Peppard,
no stranger to tough guy roles, plays a German soldier for the second time in
“Tobruk†following his performance as aviator Bruno Stachel in the WWI classic
“The Blue Max.†Prior to this he appeared in the WWII adventure “Operation
Crossbow†which was preceded by a string of high profile big budget movies.
Like Hudson, Peppard found success in television with the TV series “Banacekâ€
which ran from 1972-1974. His acting career was hit or miss in the late 1960s until
he landed the lead in “Banacek†and faltered again in the 1970s until he found
success in the popular TV series, “The A-Team,†which ran from 1983-1987.
Nigel
Green is a standout as Col. Harker, the leader of the commando unit. One of the
great character actors of British cinema, Green is memorable in just about
everything he appeared in a career cut short by an accidental overdose of
sleeping pills. He played a similar character in another North Africa set WWII
movie, “Play Dirty,†as Col. Masters.
“Tobrukâ€
features a cast filled with many of the great British character actors including
Jack Watson, Percy Herbert, Norman Rossington and Leo Gordon as well as
American Guy Stockwell and Irishman Liam Redmond included in the mix. Gordon
did double duty in “Tobruk†as screenwriter as well as a rare good guy role.
Released
early in 1967, “Tobruk†is overshadowed by the blockbuster success and
popularity of “The Dirty Dozen†which premiered that summer. “Tobruk,†like
“The Dirty Dozen,†falls into the genre of “Men on an Impossible Mission,†but
doesn’t pack quite the same punch as movies like “The Dirty Dozen†and “Where
Eagles Dare.†The movie comes close with a satisfying plot, terrific
performances and plenty of action. It is violent, to be sure, including an abundance of graphic deaths via
flame thrower which become more a convenient distraction to move the story
along.
“Tobrukâ€
is made-to-order via Universal’s Vault Series and has a run time of 110
minutes. The DVD offers no extras, but the movie sounds and looks very nice
preserving the Techniscope widescreen image. The movie is a welcome addition for
fans of 60s war movies.
For fans of Sixties retro TV, DC Comics is providing news that will have them pinching themselves. The legendary comic company has announced a major new project titled "Batman '66 Meets The Man From U.N.C.L.E.". The two-issue adventure will be released this December and if this teaser artwork is any indication, we might see comic incarnations of Adam West, Burt Ward, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, all of whom are alive, well and working. The only icing on the cake we can hope for is if DC gets them all together for a promotional event. Meanwhile, the emphasis on U.N.C.L.E. might lend some steam to on-going grass roots efforts to get Warner Brothers to commit to a sequel to director Guy Ritchie's recent big screen reboot, which under-performed at the boxoffice but has built a loyal following of fans. For more click here.
The mid-to-late 1960s saw such sweeping and rapid changes in politics, sexual mores and popular culture that the mind still reels when thinking about it. Hollywood studios, ever opportunistic, desperately tried to tap into the dramatically changing youth culture. A few years earlier, sanitized Elvis Presley musicals and lame beach comedies satiated younger movie goers. By 1967, Frankie and Annette had been abruptly made irrelevant by Bonnie and Clyde. Suddenly aging studio executives were throwing money at virtually any project that would prove they had their fingers on the pulse of the increasingly important demographic that represented the future of the film industry. In 1969 alone there was a sea change in the types of films that were bringing in big boxoffice. Wife swapping was played for laughs ("Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"), drug dealers were presented as tragic heroes ("Easy Rider") and an X-rated film would go on to win the Best Picture Oscar ("Midnight Cowboy"). Even the main staple of the traditional studio release- the Western- was often rendered unrecognizable as veteran stars engaged in unprecedented blood-letting in Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" and the anti-Establishment tone of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Fox, like other studios, grappled to stay relevant. There was still plenty of business for old-fashioned studio fare that was deemed non-threatening, but the wind was clearly in the sails of those movies that pushed the envelope in terms of making social statements. And so it was that an ill-fated project titled "Che!" went into production at the studio.
"Che!" was very much a "Ripped From Today's Headlines!" film. Ernesto "Che" Guevara had only been killed two years previously and had already become an iconic symbol in international revolutionary movements. The proud communist was born in Argentina but had joined up with Fidel Castro's movement in 1956 that was dedicated to toppling the seemingly indestructible dictatorship of corrupt Cuban president Fulgencio Batista, who was widely deemed to be a bought-and-paid for puppet for American mobsters who had widespread financial interests in the island nation. Che, who started as a lowly medic for Castro's 82 man guerilla movement, quickly rose in stature following a massacre that found the group reduced to only 12 fighters. Incredibly, within a relatively short period of time, Castro's ragtag band regrouped and won almost fanatical support among the general population. In a stunning turn of events, Batista was abruptly forced to resign and flee the country. Castro triumphantly entered Havana and the rest is history.
The Fox production of "Che!" primarily resonates a bit today only because Cuba is back in the news. Castro, who has been on his "death bed" seemingly for twenty years, is still stirring controversy with the recent decision by the Obama administration to loosen restrictions on Cuba. Though widely supported by public polls, the policy is taking a hit in some quarters because of Castro's predictable penchant for tossing insults at the USA during the most sensitive period. He claims that America owes Cuba many millions of dollars in reparations for damage inflicted on the nation through the 55 year embargo. The seeds of all these issues are addressed in "Che!" but only in the most superficial manner. The film presented the titular firebrand, played by Omar Sharif, as the brains behind Castro's successes. Castro, played by Jack Palance, is seen as a relatively benign figure here; a man who becomes almost completely dependent on the political and military advice offered by his younger protege. Upon taking power, however, rifts come between the two "comrades". Castro installs himself as a ruthless dictator in much the manner that Batista was. Che opposes his cozy relationship with the Soviet Union that saw Cuba become the mistress of the Russians, accepting the placement of nuclear missiles in return for the easy financial supplements that Castro became increasingly dependent on. The Bay of Pigs invasion is mentioned almost in passing and the Cuban Missile Crisis is covered almost entirely through some brief newsreel footage of Adlai Stevenson publicly challenging the Soviets to admit the presence of the missiles during a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting that became infamous. The long-term implications of such momentous events are swept aside. Instead, we see the perpetually brooding Che as a man who is impossible to please. While Castro is content to have won power in Cuba, Che is restless to spread the revolution to other nations. While Che is critical of Castro's abuse of power, he falls victim to his own demons as well, justifying mass murders of former government and military officials on the basis that doing so will satiate the public, which is demanding retribution for years of oppression under Batista. All of this is powerful fodder for a dramatic screenplay, but "Che!" is schizophrenic in its structure. It waivers between being a psychological study of a complex man and being an overview of important political events that were still relatively recent at the time of the movie's release. In the end, the film is unsatisfactory on all levels. Worse, it has a rushed look to it and, despite some fleeting atmospheric scenes shot in Puerto Rico (doubling for Havana). Many of the other sequences were all too apparently shot at the famed Fox Ranch set in Malibu. The movie, which fortunately is at least never dull, begins with Che already dead, having been killed in a gun battle in Bolivia, where he made the ill-fated decision to try to launch a revolution in a country that was not demanding one. His story is then told through flashbacks by the normal competent director Richard Fleischer, who uses the awkward device of having friends, colleagues and enemies of Che relate anecdotes by breaking the "the fourth wall" and addressing the viewer directly. It's a hokey tactic that more than once elicits some unintentional giggles.
When the film opened, it was universally panned and helped derail Omar Sharif's status as a bankable leading man. He had made some major hits over the years: "Lawrence of Arabia", "Doctor Zhivago" and, more recently, "Funny Girl". But there were the high profile bombs "Mayerling" and "Mackenna's Gold". With "Che!", both Sharif and Jack Palance found themselves ridiculed by critics who savaged their performances. Ironically, it is only their performances that seem to have withstood the test of time. Not only do they both bear remarkable physical resemblances to the historical figures they are playing, both also give quite credible performances. Sharif is appropriately a brooding, humorless figure and Palance, who was known to chew the scenery, is quite restrained and content to chew some fine Cuban cigars instead. Director Fleischer had assembled an impressive cast of character actors including Cesare Danova, Robert Loggia and Barbara Luna but gave them nothing of any consequence to do. They serve primarily as window dressing. Even the great Woody Strode is bizarrely cast in an almost wordless role that sees him reduced to marching through the jungle and firing machine guns. The screenplay never digs beneath the surface to examine either Che or Castro's motives for their actions. The abuse of the Cuban people by Batista is all but ignored, for example, and the film takes an agnostic attitude towards the actions of Che and Castro, probably because passing judgment one way or the other might well have alienated the intended audience. The strategy didn't work. "Che!" became a notorious bomb at the time of its release and its reputation remains tarnished though it's attributes are probably more apparent today than they were back in the day. This makes the new Twilight Time limited edition (3,000 units) Blu-ray release all the more welcome. In viewing the movie in retrospect, it still resonates as a misfire but doesn't seem nearly as awful as critics made it out to be in 1969. The transfer looks great and there are some bonus features: an interesting vintage "making of" featurette, a TV spot and the original trailer. There are also the usual excellent liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo, who points out the irony in the fact that to today's generation, Che is primarily known as an anonymous image on bestselling T shirts that have made a fortune for capitalist hucksters. One hopes that the company might reissue this title some day and include commentary tracks by political historians in order to separate fact from fiction.
Last week actor Dean Jones passed away at age 84. Jones was the affable star of many Disney live action films in the 1960s and 1970s including "That Darn Cat!", "The Love Bug", "The Ugly Dachshund" and "Monkeys, Go Home!" among numerous others. Jones was given a lifetime achievement award by the Disney company in recognition of his many contributions to major films produced by the studio. Jones became increasingly adamant that he would only appear in family-oriented films. However, early in his career he had supporting roles in such mainstream adult fare as "Tea and Sympathy", "Torpedo Run", "Never So Few", "Ten Thousand Bedroom"s", "Ash Wednesday" and starred in the 1965 cult horror film "Two On a Guillotine". Jones was also a proficient stage actor and received great acclaim for his starring role in Stephen Sondheim's "Company" in 1970. However, he was tormented by the divorce he was going through and ended up leaving the production after only two weeks. Larry Kert took over the plum role and received a Tony nomination. In later years, Jones, a devout Christian, became increasingly involved in faith-based projects and founded the Christian Rescue Committee, a charitable organization. For more click here.
Although I was barely ten years-old, I
remember feeling terrified while watching horror master Wes Craven’s 1978 made-for-TV
thriller Summer of Fear (under its
alternate title Stranger in Our House)
as well as thoroughly enjoying his adaptation of the comic book Swamp Thing four years later, but it
wasn’t until November of 1984, while viewing the trailer for some new horror
flick called A Nightmare on Elm Street,
that I recall hearing and remembering the name Wes Craven. After being thrilled
by this masterpiece which, in my opinion, is Craven’s greatest work, I certainly
wanted to learn more about this extremely talented filmmaker. After doing a bit
of research, I quickly discovered that I had already seen Craven’s original and
very interesting Deadly Blessing (1981)
and, also, his other masterpiece (in my opinion): 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes. Whenever someone mentions Wes Craven, I
immediately think of Nightmare and Hills, so, due to hearing the very sad
news of his passing, I’d like to focus this article on those two masterworks
because if any movies from his amazing filmography show Wes as a
writer/director to be reckoned with, they are, without a doubt, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Craven’s first movie as writer/director
(and editor) was 1972’s controversial, but important The Last House on the Left. The disturbing film, which was inspired
by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960)
and produced by Sean Cunningham (Friday
the 13th), was made during the height of the Vietnam War and
seemed to be Craven’s outcry against the rise of violence in the United States
at the time. It also rightly depicted that violence as brutal and horrific
instead of glamorizing or sanitizing it. Lensed in New York and Connecticut for
only $87,000, the film’s poster featured the immortal tagline ‘To avoid
fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie…only a movie…only a movie…’, dealt
with revenge, booby traps and a civilized family vs. an uncivilized one. The
last two would show up again in Craven’s next film.
Five long years later, Craven would write
and direct again and it was definitely worth the wait. On July, 22nd,
1977, The Hills Have Eyes was
released upon an unsuspecting public. The $230,000 budgeted film dealt with the
Carters; an average, middle-class family whose car breaks down near a deserted
bomb range in the Nevada desert while driving cross-country. Once stranded,
night falls and the Carters are repeatedly attacked by an uncivilized,
cannibalistic, mutant family who live in the hills and have been surviving in
the desert for years by feeding off of anyone foolish enough to cross their
path. The cannibals, who go by names such as Mars, Mercury, Pluto and Papa
Jupiter, brutally murder Mr. and Mrs. Carter, their oldest daughter Lynne, and
Beauty, one of their two dogs. The deranged mutants also kidnap Lynne’s infant
daughter, Katie, leaving only Lynne’s younger siblings, Bobby and Brenda, along
with Lynne’s husband, Doug, and their second dog, Beast, to face the crazed
family, hopefully rescue little Katie and survive.
Although still a hardcore piece of horror
cinema, The Hills Have Eyes is a more
enjoyable experience than The Last House
on the Left. Where Last House went
for and achieved stark realism, Hills
deftly balances realistic, identifiable, likeable characters with somewhat
over-the-top/comic bookish, but still terrifying, villains (who Craven based on
the supposedly real-life, 16th century, cannibalistic Sawney Bean
family). The film chillingly shows that in a life and death situation, an
intelligent, passive, civilized person may have to become just as uncivilized
as his or her attackers. The film’s memorable tagline, “A nice American family.
They didn’t want to kill. But they didn’t want to die.â€, pretty much sums up
the entire movie.
The cutting edge, low-budget film, which
introduced the world to future horror movie icons Dee Wallace (The Howling, Cujo) and Michael Berryman
(Deadly Blessing, The Devil’s Rejects),
went on to gross $25 million and quickly became a cult classic, further
solidifying Craven’s name as a major and original talent in the world of horror
cinema.
Over the next seven years, Craven would
work in both film and television and, with the exception of the aforementioned Swamp Thing, would always direct films
in the horror genre. Immediately following Swamp
Thing, Craven completed an original horror screenplay which he
shopped all over Hollywood. Every studio
felt that the script didn’t have potential and passed on it. With almost no
money to his name and just about ready to give up on the project, Craven
finally saw a glimmer of hope as a tiny, independent company called New Line
Cinema gave the film a green light. New Line head Robert Shaye, whose company
dealt mostly in distribution, but had recently moved into production by making
a few low-budget films including an underrated 1982 horror called Alone in the Dark, believed in Craven’s
script and production immediately began with Wes once again in the director’s
chair. The screenplay’s title was A
Nightmare on Elm Street.
The frightening film tells the tale of a
group of four teens who all begin having nightmares about the same creepy,
burnt-faced man who skulks in the bowels of an old boiler room and wears a
dirty red and green sweater, a beat-up, old fedora and a self-made glove of
sharp “finger-knives.†When her friends begin dying one by one, intelligent
teen Nancy deduces that if this mysterious figure kills you in your sleep, then
you die for real. After getting almost no help from the adults around her,
Nancy does some digging and finds out that the murderer’s name is Fred Krueger
and that his motive is to kill the Elm Street kids as an act of revenge in
order to punish their parents who burned him alive ten years earlier due to him
being a filthy child murderer. Armed with only her wits and a few self-made
booby traps, Nancy prepares to face Krueger in a desperate battle for survival.
Made for under $2 million dollars, the
expertly crafted film was released on November 9, 1984 and, little by little,
gained momentum as horror fans slowly began to discover what an unexpected gem
it was. After all, the trailer made it seem as if it was just another in a
seemingly endless cycle of formulaic dead teenager flicks still being released
due to the massive success of both Halloween
(1978) and Friday the 13th (1980).
But A
Nightmare on Elm Street was different. It was something special. More of a
psychological thriller than a by-the-numbers slasher film, Elm Street’s extremely original story, much like The Hills Have Eyes, was partly
influenced by real-life events. Wes Craven read a series of articles in the L.A. Times which detailed several young
men who were afraid to go to sleep and tried everything in their power to stay
awake. When they inevitably nodded off, they died. Craven immediately thought
“What if a person, like a boogeyman, was killing them in their dreams?†With
the story now in place, Wes then began to construct his soon-to-be iconic
villain. Craven based him on a scary childhood incident where, one night, while
little Wes was looking out his bedroom window into the alley below, a creepy
man wearing an old hat continued to stare up at him with a look of evil. Craven
then took the name Fred Krueger from a school bully who constantly tormented
him (he did the same thing twelve years earlier with The Last House on the Left; naming one character Fred and the other
Krug) and decided on Elm Street because it was a street close to the school
where he used to work as an English teacher as well as being the name of the
street where JFK was, unfortunately, assassinated on. Wes said that he wanted a
name/place that evoked pure Americana. Craven then chose the razor-sharp glove
because he was thinking of what early man may have feared and thought of the
claws of a bear. He also wanted Freddy to be a painful, optical effect, so he
decided on red and green for Freddy’s sweater after learning that they were the
two colors which were the most difficult for the eye to see side by side.
Lastly, Craven decided that Freddy would be very different from the plethora of
mute, masked, cinematic psycho killers which were inundating theaters at the
time. Freddy would talk (including a few darkly humorous lines of dialogue)
and, although covered in burnt scar tissue, remain unmasked. The chilling
monster would also take great pleasure in terrifying his victims-to-be.
By the late 1950s, the late French novelist Jules Verne was considered good boxoffice, with smash hits such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days having been adapted from his books to the screen. Fox wanted to jump on the bandwagon and made plans to film one of Verne's most popular novels, Journey to the Center of the Earth. The studio had allocated a substantial budget, most of which went into production design and special effects. The project began with Clifton Webb attached at the star, but James Mason ultimately took over the key role of Sir Oliver Lindenbrook, as esteemed Scottish scientist who receives tantalizing evidence that one of his legendary peers, who disappeared two hundred years earlier, may have found a way to explore the deepest regions of the earth's nether regions. Obsessed with replicating this quest, Lindenbrook takes along Alec McKuen (Pat Boone), one of his most promising students. The expedition arrives in Iceland, where Lindenbrook also enlists the aid of Hans (Peter Ronson), a strapping young local man whose physical strength will prove to be useful in the ordeals to come. Unexpectedly, Lindenbrook finds himself having to rely on the support of Carla Goteborg (Arlene Dahl), the widow of a rival scientist who Lindnebrook had mistakenly confided in, only to find the man was trying to use the information to make the historic journey himself. The team is well-equipped for the dangerous mission, but once inside the bowels of the earth, they discover that yet another rival, Count Saknussem (Thayer David), is also competing to race them to the actual center of the planet- and he is willing to use deadly force to ensure he gains all the glory. The film is utterly delightful throughout, thanks in large part to the winning cast. Mason is perfect as the cranky, eccentric professor whose obsession for the mission inspires him to lead the team into the most dire circumstances. Most surprising is the performance of Pat Boone, who Scottish accent comes and goes on a whim, but who exudes genuine appeal on the big screen. (Boone also produced the movie, an investment that still pays him substantial dividends.) At the time, casting singing teenage idols in major film roles was a gimmick that often didn't work and proved to be a distraction. However, Boone acquits himself well throughout and limits his crooning to only one romantic number early in the film. Dahl is the ultimate liberated woman, insisting on holding her own amid some vile threats and Thayer David exudes icy menace as the cold-hearted explorer willing to murder for glory. Young Diane Baker plays Alec's fiancee, who spends most of the film back in Edinburgh worrying about the fate of her betrothed. (Although a few scenes were shot in Scotland, the principal actors never left the United States. Much of the footage was shoot at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, as well as Lone Pine, California). Veteran director Henry Levin proved to be an inspired choice to helm the production, as he is equally adept with the human elements of the story as he is with the spectacle.
Twilight Time had previously released the film in 2012. However, this "new, improved" edition features new cover art, isolated score track of Bernard Herrmann's bombastic, impressive score and an audio commentary by Diane Baker and film historians Steven C. Smith and Nick Redman. There is also an original trailer and the usual informative collector's booklet with liner notes by Julie Kirgo. The limited edition (5,000 units) Blu-ray that does justice to the amazing set designs and special effects. While these aspects of the movie may seem quaint and retro in the age of CGI, they will amaze more sophisticated viewers who realize that they represent the work of true craftsmen who labored to come up with the incomparable look of the film. The climactic attack by an army of super-sized, flesh-eating lizards is especially impressive and downright chilling. This is one exotic Journey that is worth the investment.
Warner Home Entertainment has recently released their
special edition DVD of director Joe Dante’s “Innerspace†on Blu-ray. The 1987
film is a sci-fi comedy that afforded Martin Short and Meg Ryan early career leading roles in a tale of inspired lunacy. The premise of the script centers on a narcissistic former military test pilot Tuck Pendelton (Dennis Quaid) who volunteers for an unprecedented scientific experiment. Doctors have the technology to shrink him and inject him into the body of a rabbit. They also obviously have the ability to bring him back into the outside world where he can resume his normal activities at his normal size. The purpose of the experiment is to allow medical technicians to eventually inject operatives into human beings so that they can perform miracle surgeries. However, there are some bad guys who are looking to benefit from the amazing technology by selling it to the highest bidder. After Tuck has been reduced inside a hypodermic needle, there is an altercation between the villains and scientists. A chase ensues that extends outside of the laboratory. By happenstance, Jack Putter (Martin Short), a nondescript grocery store clerk, is injected by the needle. The result is that Tuck is now floating around the bloodstream of an unwitting, innocent man. The laughs result from Tuck's ability to communicate with Jack and convince him of what is happening. Drawn into the mix is Tuck's girlfriend Lydia (Meg Ryan), who Jack befriends at Tuck's urging. In the zany antics that follow, Lydia is finally convinced of the fantastic scenario after she has become targeted by the head villain, a zillionaire named Scrimshaw (Kevin McCarthy). By then, there is a desperate race against time to get Tuck back into the real world before he becomes a permanent part of Jack's DNA.
"Innerspace" is a throwback to an era when major studios would routinely turn out family friendly comedies that were devoid of today's mandatory gross-out jokes and mean-spirited pranks. The entire cast seems to be having a blast under Dante's direction, perhaps because his films are glorious evidence that he has never grown out of the wonder of the types of films that appealed to him as a kid. The movie is a particular triumph of sorts for Martin Short, who proved he could carry a major budget production as a leading man. The special effects hold up extremely well even today (no surprise the film won an Oscar in this category).
We caught up with Dante all these years later to ask him to reflect on his thoughts about "Innerspace".
CINEMA RETRO: How do you feel the film holds up into today's modern age?
JOE DANTE: I've always liked it and I had a lot of fun making it. I think you can tell when you watch it.
CR: It's especially evident listening to the commentary track on the Blu-ray. It's no secret that you have been heavily influenced in your work by the classic and cult horror and sci-fi movies of your youth. Is it fair to say that "Innerspace" was a satire of "Fantastic Voyage"?
JD: I can't vouch for that because I wasn't in on the creation of it. When I was first offered it, the script had no comedy at all. I didn't think it worked that way so I went off and did something else. When I came back, they had a new writer and he approached it as comedy from the concept of what would happen if we shrank Dean Martin down and injected him inside Jerry Lewis. That was a concept I could relate to.
CR: Steven Spielberg executive produced the film. Was he involved before you were?
JD: Actually no, because I was offered the picture by Peter Guber when it was in its serious incarnation. During the time I went off to do something else, Spielberg had become involved. He was probably an impetus for turning it into a comedy.
CR: Did he have any constraints on you regarding your vision of the film?
JD: The atmosphere at Amblin was pretty free. The thing Steven would do is protect you from the studio and sometimes from the other producers. It was a very filmmaker-friendly atmosphere over there. You got all the best equipment and all the best people and all the toys you wanted to play with. Plus you had somebody on your side who was also a filmmaker and they knew exactly what you were talking about when you had a problem or you had a question.
CR: In terms of casting, you seemed to have your own stock company of actors you liked to work with: Dick Miller, William Schallert, Rance Howard, Orson Bean, Kathleen Freeman and even Kenneth Tobey.
JD: I think when you look at a director's filmography, you see the same faces popping up all the time because these people are copacetic and sometimes they become your friend. You originally hire them because you like their work and you like to watch them do their stuff so, whether it's Ingmar Bergman, Preston Sturges or John Ford, they have "go to" people that they put into almost every one of their pictures. The only down side comes when you have made a lot of movies and now you have a lot of people you want to include but, of course, you don't have parts for them.
CR: That tradition doesn't seem to be as prevalent today.
JD: That's because the business has changed so much. The movies aren't made in one locale anymore. There are less opportunities for an actor to shine over and over in a supporting role because when a movie goes to Canada or Australia, you have to use their local people. All those people who built up followings from television and movies and sometimes even radio were constantly being seen by people. Today there's just no opportunity to do that. Not only are there less movies, there are fewer roles and most of the films aren't made in Hollywood any longer.
CR: With "Innerspace", were the leading roles already cast before you got involved? Did you rely much on the casting director?
JD: No, once you are involved with a movie, you're in on all those decisions. The good thing about casting directors is that you can tell them who you want to see and they have the ability to make that happen. They make deals, they make contracts. I was using Mike Fenton, who was one of the best casting directors in the business at the time. Many of my best pictures were cast by Mike. Today, it's a little more piecemeal because so many of the movies aren't made here. So you have dual casting directors. You have the Hollywood casting director and the Canadian casting director. When it gets down to the smaller roles, they almost always cast in the locality you are shooting in. I made enough movies in Vancouver that I actually started to build up a Vancouver stock company because the talent pool there isn't that vast. I sort of bemoan the fact that actors don't have the opportunity for that kind of career longevity. When they decided to start giving all that money to the stars it came out of the casting budget. All of a sudden there wasn't much money for the supporting actors.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
getTV
ADDS RARE TV SERIES ‘NICHOLS,’ ‘HONDO’
AND ‘A MAN CALLED SHENANDOAH’ TO SATURDAY WESTERNS BLOCK STARTING IN SEPTEMBER
Channel
will Air Mini-Marathon of One Series Each Week Starting Sept. 12 at 12 PM ET
CULVER
CITY, CA –– Monday, August 24, 2015 - Acclaimed movie diginet getTV introduces classic TV series to its
lineup for the first time by adding a block of rarely seen Western series
starting Saturday, September 12 at 12 p.m. ET. The brand new block is a
part of the network's popular ongoing all-day Saturday Westerns lineup,
and will debut with five episodes of the 1971 series NICHOLS, starring
beloved leading man James Garner and a young Margot Kidder, in one of her first
major roles.
Additionally,
getTV will present five episodes of the wandering gunslinger series HONDO,
starring Ralph Taeger and Michael Pate, on September 19; and 10 episodes
of 1965’s A MAN CALLED SHENANDOAH, starring Robert Horton,
on September 26; both starting at Noon ET. Following several
weeks of mini-marathons, all of the newly added Western series will join the
regular Saturday lineup on a weekly basis.
On
September 12th, James Garner is a man looking for a fresh start in NICHOLS, set
in small-town Arizona in the early 1900s. Having left an 18-year career in the
military, Garner as Nichols finds himself blackmailed into the role of town
sheriff by the villainous Ketcham Family, who run the town. Riding a motorcycle
instead of a horse, and forsaking guns in favor of more peaceful resolutions,
the newly-crowned lawman takes on bandits, manages town bullies and woos
beautiful bar maid Margot Kidder...all with his own unique style. Created by
Oscar®-winning screenwriter Frank Pierson (DOG DAY AFTERNOON, COOL HAND LUKE,
MAD MEN), with episodes directed by such notables as John Badham and Ivan
Dixon, Nichols also featured Garner’s eventual THE ROCKFORD FILES co-star
Stuart Margolin and included such guest stars as Tom Skerritt, Scatman
Crothers, THE WALTONS’ patriarch Ralph Waite, Alice Ghostley, and Ricardo
Montalban, and was well-known for being one of James Garner's favorite
television roles.
hondo
Then,
on September 19, Ralph Taeger and his faithful canine sidekick Sam hit the
road in 1967’s HONDO. Based on the 1953 John Wayne drama of the same
name--which, in turn, was inspired by Louis L'Amour's sixth novel--HONDO stars
Taeger as a former Confederate officer who lived with the Apaches. Tasked with
preventing more violence from occurring between settlers and the remaining
tribes, Hondo embarks on a quest to avenge his Indian wife's death, while
battling dastardly land-grabbers, nosy reporters, and other outlaws, in the
process. Famed movie villain Michael Pate also stars, reprising his big screen
role as Apache Chief Vittoro, and the series features such guest stars as Ricky
Nelson, Fernando Lamas and Annette Funicello. Noah Beery Jr. (who played
James Garner’s father in THE ROCKFORD FILES) co-stars in this series.
The
month wraps up on September 26, with WAGON TRAIN’s Robert Horton in
10 episodes of the well-regarded half hour Western drama A MAN CALLED
SHENANDOAH. Horton stars as a man who wakes up after being brutally attacked,
with no memory of who he is or why anyone would want to harm him. Searching for
clues to his past life, the man dubbed "Shenandoah" travels through
the desert, running afoul of lynch mobs, dodging false charges, facing off
against violent criminals, and doling out Old West justice along the way. In
addition to Horton, the series boasted a number of impressive guest stars,
including Oscar® winners Cloris Leachman, Martin Landau, and George Kennedy,
and nominees Bruce Dern, Sally Kellerman, Nina Foch, John Ireland, and Arthur
O’Connell.
A MAN CALLED SHENANDOAH
"At
getTV, our fans love when we dig into the vaults and find something they
haven’t seen in awhile – or maybe ever. So, in addition to uncovering
hard-to-find movies, we also wanted to deliver our fans some rare TV series,â€
said Jeff Meier, getTV’s senior vice president of programming. “One of
our most popular programming blocks on the channel is
our Saturday lineup of Westerns, so we’re especially proud to be able
to present lesser known gems from legends like James Garner and Robert Horton
that haven’t been seen on TV in decades. Although each of these series
originally had a short run, they all feature classic Old West action that will
have viewers agreeing that they were cancelled far too soon.â€
About
getTV
getTV is
a digital subchannel dedicated to showcasing Hollywood’s legendary movies and
is available over the air and on local cable systems. The network, operated by
Sony Pictures Television Networks, launched in February 2014. It features Academy Award® winning films and
other epic classics titles. getTV distribution is close to covering nearly
70 percent of all U.S. television households across 65 markets, including 40 of
the top 50 designated market areas (DMAs). The network is broadcast by
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Univision Television Group and Cox Media Group owned
stations and others. For information, visit get.tv
and connect with the network on Facebook
and Twitter @getTV.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
July 28th, 2015. Actor-turned-filmmaker Michael Lee Stever, (Super Force, Broadway; The Golden Age) and revered stage actress
and Academy Award nominee Piper Laurie (The
Hustler, Twin Peaks, Carrie) recently joined Scares That Care founder Joe Ripple and his
entire team in Williamsburg, Virginia for the second annual Scares That Care Weekend film festival and
convention.
Scares That Care is changing
the face of the American film festival, and you can bet things are starting to
heat up in a major way. With hundreds of film festivals and genre events
scattered from coast to coast, it's not unreasonable to maintain that the
'festival scene' could use a serious cage shaking and Scares That Care is doing
just that. To date they are one of the only festivals in the United
States that are donating all net proceeds to the families of their 2015 Campaign. Additionally, with this
year’s convention, the Heritage Humane Society
will have a booth setup to collect money and items for the animals under
their care. A gauntlet hopefully more festivals, and horror conventions might
be inspired to pick up.
All of this because Joe
Ripple, a retired police detective, was motivated to find a way to raise money
for families experiencing medical hardship after witnessing first hand the
financial and emotional struggle his partner faced when his 4-year-old-daughter
was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.
Beloved actress and horror
icon Piper Laurie was on hand for a
screening of Michael Stever's 2012
documentary short film, 'Resurrecting Carrie.' The doc
features Laurie herself as well as a host of other industry professionals who
share thoughts on how Stephen King's classic novel, Brian DePalma's legendary
film, and Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore's cult hit musical influenced,
inspired and helped steer their paths. A
fascinating Q&A with Stever and Laurie followed immediately after the
screening.
Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs)
has become one of the most celebrated, respected actors of our time and is the
recipient of numerous awards. Originally a product of the early studio contract
player system, she finally broke free from stringent, limiting contractual
obligations and has proudly helmed a career that has spawned countless iconic
roles on stage, in film and on television. In 2012 she published her much
anticipated personal memoir, 'Learning To Live Out Loud' which has
garnered raves for its insightful eloquence, wit and blistering candor.
Michael Lee Stever has
worked steadily in the business for nearly thirty years. First as an actor,
singer and dancer and now as full time filmmaker, cameraman, editor and writer.
His first foray into indie film was as UPM on the critically acclaimed
documentary, 'Broadway; The Golden Age.'
He's since produced a handful of engaging documentaries all focusing on
various facets of the thriller/horror genre; 'Saturday Nightmares; The Ultimate
Horror Expo,'featuring George Romero, Tom Savini & Adrienne
Barbeau, 'Jan
Broberg's Guide To Thespians, Sociopaths & Scream Queens'
featuring Elijah Wood, and most recently'Heather's Freddy Cut Nightmare' featuring
iconic 'Nightmare On Elm Street'
heroine, Heather Langencamp.
Other celebs that appeared
at this year's Scares That Care were David Naughton, (American Werewolf in London) Kim Coates, (Sons of Anarchy) Sid Haig, (Jackie
Brown) Larry Drake, (Dark man)
Ginger Lynn, (The Devil’s Rejects)
and many more.
Piper Laurie and Michael Stever.
Be sure and visit www.scaresthatcareweekend.com to get tickets
and learn more about the convention. Visit www.scaresthatcare.org
to learn more about the charity itself.
For press inquiries and interview requests with
Stever, Laurie or 'Scares That Care' founder Joe Ripple, contact Stever
directly at;
MichaelLeeStever@gmail.com
or via cell @ 917 407-8250
There's a tasteless old joke that defines "mixed emotions" as the reaction you would have upon hearing that your mother-in-law just drove off a cliff in your new Jaguar. As a die-hard fan of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." TV series, I admit to having expectations of experiencing mixed emotions at last Monday's world premiere of Guy Ritchie's feature film version of the show at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York. For those of us who grew up during the spy craze of the mid-1960s, espionage movies are always close to our hearts. With Bond, Bourne and Mission: Impossible still big box-office, it's clear that the younger generation is in synch with our passion for this genre. The Bond films have earned respect for enduring for more than 50 years with six different actors giving vastly different interpretations of Agent 007, each successful in his own way. However, Bond has never been out off the big screen for a period of more than five years (those dark days between the release of Licence to Kill in 1989 and GoldenEye in 1995), whereas some of the other classic spy sensations of the 1960s were brought back many years after their initial success. The classic Get Smart TV series begat a woeful big screen version called The Nude Bomb in 1980, a decade after the show last aired. The 2008 version with Steve Carell was only good by comparison. The Avengers begat the universally-scorned big screen version. The success of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise masks the fact that the films have nothing to do with the classic TV series that inspired it. That show's premise was to showcase a team of special agents, each of whom had their own unique special talents. Cruise's films tossed out the team concept and even made the show's leading hero, Jim Phelps into the main villain in the first big screen edition. (Blasphemy! It's like remaking Gunsmoke and having Marshall Dillon turn out to be a bank robber.) The Wild, Wild West (inexplicably re-titled Wild, Wild West) was a dreadful 1999 concoction that served as a vanity piece for Will Smith. The less said about the big screen version of I Spy starring Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson, the better. Following the distortions big screen versions of beloved spy TV series perpetrated on the movie-going public, those of us who are long time U.N.C.L.E. aficionados sometimes felt that the long-planned theatrical version of the show might best be left undeveloped. Indeed, it seemed as though fate agreed. There have been so many efforts made to bring the franchise to movie screens that one loses count of them all. Suffice it to say that scripts have been floating around major studios since the mid-1970s when the show's original stars, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, were deemed essential to star in it. In 1983, we did get Vaughn and McCallum in the CBS TV movie Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. but plans to revive the series fell through. Over the decades, high profile names like Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh had all expressed enthusiasm about making a feature film version of the only to have plans inevitably go up in smoke. Finally, director Guy Ritchie managed to overcome the curse with the long-awaited film that has just opened. Ritchie seemed to throw cold water on the project in the eyes of many fans of the show when he announced he was ditching most of the key ingredients that were considered to be main staples of the U.N.C.L.E. story lines. Thus, it was with an open mind but a bit of trepidation that I entered the theater to experience the film, comforted by the knowledge that at least the lavish after-party at the Bowery Hotel was sure to be sensational. (It was.)
I'm please to say that not only did I enjoy the new feature film version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. but so did several die-hard, long-time admirers of the show who alsoattended the premiere. The first order of business in regard to the film is to understand that director Ritchie has started the concept of the franchise from scratch. Fortunately, Ritchie did keep one integral aspect of the show intact: it is set in the Cold War. In this version Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) is a charismatic international smuggler of fine art who is avoiding a lengthy jail term by doing high stakes undercover work for the F.B.I. Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) is a psychologically troubled Soviet agent with a hair-trigger temper and almost supernatural physical strength. He is a loyal agent to the Red cause partly because he feels an obligation to restore his family's honor, as his father had been denounced by Stalin's regime as a traitor. The film opens with Solo sneaking into East Berlin to make contact with Gaby (well-played by Alicia Vikander), a sexy young woman who is nonetheless relegated to working as a mechanic in a dreary auto repair shop. Solo informs her that her estranged father, an esteemed nuclear scientist, has been kidnapped by forces unknown. The fear is that he may be forced to develop a nuclear weapon for an unstable regime. (At least the plot line is timely, given the current debates that are on-going about the Iran nuclear deal.) She agrees to help him track down her father through trying to contact an equally estranged uncle who may know his whereabouts. All of this entails the minor obstacle of getting over the Berlin Wall. In the course of attempting to do so, the pair is relentlessly attacked by Kuryakin, who seems impervious to pain and impossible to slow down, let alone stop. The ever- dapper Solo, however, is unfazed by any number of near death situations and he and Gaby make a daring escape in a manner that is suspiciously similar to that used by James Coburn in the 1967 flick In Like Flint.
The plot threatens to become predictable when Solo and Kuryakin are forced to work together by their respective intelligence agencies, a device that already had moss on it back in 1977 when Roger Moore found himself in the same situation with an albeit beautiful Soviet spy (Barbara Bach) in The Spy Who Loved Me. After a brutal, knock-down, drag 'em out fist fight, Solo and Kuryakin make a temporary truce to ensure the success of the mission. If will not be revealing any astonishing "spoilers" to inform the reader that the duo ultimately come to respect each other, even while engaging in typical male ball-busting put-downs. Things heat up when they discover that the missing scientist is in the hands of a group of international, filthy rich criminals (are there any other kind in spy flicks?) Fortunately, these baddies are of Bondian caliber and the most intriguing of them is Victoria (Elizabeth Debicki in a sensational performance). There are numerous plot twists, some surprising and some predictable, and quite a few extravagant action sequences. This time around, Ritchie shows more restraint than usual by minimizing the number of action scenes that are shot in today's de rigeur style of blurry images and fast cuts that undermine the impact of such sequences, although a major chase scene involving an ATV falls victim to the cliche. If the film is about anything, it's costume and production design and both aspects are highly impressive. For those of us who still cling to fond memories of the 1960s, it's wonderful to see so many stylish fashions on the big screen once again. Some of the scenes are staged to look like layouts for a fashion magazine of the era and the result is rather delightful, especially in scenes in which Vikander wears some striking mod numbers that recall Stefanie Powers as The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. I should also point out that in today's world of grungy male screen heroes, it's refreshing to see Solo stride proudly around wearing well-tailored three-piece suits. Ritchie also deserves credit for including imaginative opening and ending credits, which in itself represents a rarity today. The film contains any number of highly amusing sequences, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny, yet it never goes full throttle over-the-top into the world of Get Smart, Austin Powers or even that much-derided, camp-filled third season of the TV series. It's also fun to see a movie set in an age where sophisticated spies must use "high tech" gadgets that look positively primitive by today's standards. Obviously, there are no cell phones, computers or other modern distractions.
Don't look for Del Floria's tailor shop entrance to U.N.C.L.E. HQ. In fact, don't look for U.N.C.L.E in the new feature film- it's a code word, not an organization. However, the anticipated sequel seems to remedy that.
There are some gnawing disappointments. One would have hoped that there would have been a few more overt nods toward the impact of the original TV series, which remains quite popular today. Why no cameos from Robert Vaughn and David McCallum? Composer Daniel Permberton provides a fine, innovative score but why is the only acknowledgement of Jerry Goldmith's legendary main theme relegated to a brief joke when Solo hears a few strains of Hugo Montenegro's cover version on a car radio? Why has the famed pen communicator (which foreshadowed the mobile phone by decades) been left absent from the script? At least there are some glimpses of the beloved U.N.C.L.E. rifle and Hugh Grant may not make us forget the great Leo G. Carroll's interpretation of Alexander Waverly, but he does bring energy and wit to the role. Most of the credit must go to Cavill and Hammer for overcoming the unenviable task of inheriting their roles from two TV icons. Cavill does seem to intentionally channel Vaughn's perpetually flippant style as Solo but Hammer's Illya is far removed from McCallum's interpretation. To their credit, they show considerable chemistry together. Much has been made over advance word that U.N.C.L.E. is not even an organization in this film and there is no mention of its evil counterpart Thrush. However, if you stay for the closing credits (which the vast majority of the audience at the world premiere did not, as they were eager to get to the after-party and all that free booze) you will find that the emergence of U.N.C.L.E. as an organization seems in the cards if a sequel materializes. In fact, the movie ends as though a continuation is an inevitability. I asked director Ritchie about this and he said all concerned are ready, willing and eager for a sequel, but it all depends upon the box-office for this film. Here's hoping it happens. Those of us who have waited for forty years for an U.N.C.L.E. feature film can't wait another forty. The film does not make you forget the classic original series but in its own way compliments it. For those involved it's a case of mission accomplished.
François
Truffaut had an all too short but certainly brilliant career as a filmmaker. He
began in the world of film criticism in France, but in the late 1950s he
decided to make movies himself. Truffaut quickly shot to the forefront of the
French New Wave in the late 1950s and early 60s, alongside the likes of
Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, and others. By the time the 70s
rolled around, Truffaut was a national treasure in France and a mainstay in art
house cinemas in the U.S. and Britain.
The
title refers to a technique used in Hollywood pictures to create night scenes
shot during the day by using a special filter. In France “day for night†was
also known as “American night,†because it was an inexpensive and less
complicated method to achieve the effect.
The
title is entirely appropriate because the movie is about making a movie.
Truffaut plays a director named Ferrand (the filmmaker often acted in his own
pictures; most non-French audiences will remember his major role in Spielberg’s
Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The film he is making is a trite melodrama
about an older man falling in love with his soon-to-be daughter-in-law—which is
a plot that might very well have been in a real Truffaut movie. In fact,
several of the talking heads in the disc’s supplements suggest that Truffaut
was slyly making fun of his own 1964 melodrama, The Soft Skin (reviewed here),
which at the time of its release was a financial and critical disappointment
for the filmmaker.
Bisset and Truffaut
The
“plot,†as it were, of Day for Night is
nothing more than a freeform documentation of the movie’s shoot, particularly
focusing on the actors and crew and the on-screen and off-screen relationships
they have while on location—who’s falling in love, who’s breaking up, who’s
sleeping with or cheating on whom, and so on. In fact, mimicking the love
triangle that’s in the film-within-the-film, two of the lead actors, Julie
(Jacqueline Bisset) and Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Leaud) have an affair, jeopardizing the actress’
marriage, especially when Alphonse becomes enraged with jealousy when Julie
decides to reconcile with her husband when the man visits the set. There are
other dalliances among crew members... at one point a wife visiting her
henpecked production manager husband shouts at the entire production staff, “What
is this movie business? Where everyone sleeps with everyone! Everyone lies! Do
you think it's normal? Your movie world...I think it stinks. I despise it!â€
Yes,
it’s a romantic comedy, and there are quite a few laughs and whimsical moments.
Truffaut was often guilty of injecting sentimentality into his films, and it’s
here in abundance. This is not a bad thing, for the director did this thing
well. Day for Night is indeed very light, its buoyancy aided by Georges
Delerue’s sparkling score. It’s a quintessential Truffaut picture in that it
hits his various auteur thematic signatures—love affairs, infidelity,
reconciliation, pathos, and even cinema history. In fact, the picture is in
itself an homage to the art of making motion pictures. A key recurring sequence
is when Ferrand has fitful dreams at night, picturing himself as a young boy
desperate to steal lobby cards and press photos from the local cinema. As the
American movie posters claimed in the tag line, “it’s a movie for people who
love movies.â€
The
cast is sensational. Besides Truffaut, Bisset, and Leaud, Jean-Pierre Aumont
plays the older screen idol who is nearing retirement, Valentina Cortese is an
Italian screen idol whose major earlier work was “with Fellini†(and this is
true for Cortese herself!). Other Truffaut “regulars†such as Dani, Alexandra Stewart, and Nathalie Baye, make
appearances.
The
picture was shot at the legendary Victorine Studios in Nice, France (now called
Riviera Studios), the site where many noted films were made, such as To Catch a
Thief, Children of Paradise, Lola Montes, Mon Oncle, And God Created Woman, and
more. These photos depict what the grounds looked like in 2000, when I visited
the location while researching my James Bond novel, Never Dream of Dying (the
studios were used as a model for a setting in the book). While I walked around
the grounds, I mostly thought of Day for Night, for Truffaut’s movie had stayed
with me for decades since I first saw it on its initial release.
Photos taken by Raymond Benson at the filming location in 2000.(Photos copyright Raymond Benson. All rights reserved.)
Day
for Night is easily one of François Truffaut’s best films. If you haven’t seen
it, you owe it to the movie lover inside you to pick up this one.
The 1969 comedy The Maltese Bippy has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive. What is a bippy? If you're of a certain age and grew up in the 1960s, you need not ask. A bippy was an undefined thing that nevertheless, it was insinuated, had a rather naughty or distasteful element to it. The phrase was coined by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin on their hit TV series Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. The show is rarely discussed today but there is no underestimating its impact on American popular culture when it premiered in January of 1968, replacing The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which had been canceled after three and a half seasons. The premise of the show capitalized on the youth movement and sexual revolution that characterized the era. There was no structure to the show, which largely consisted of rapid fire one-liners and short comedy sketches that often pushed the limits of network censorship. Rowan and Martin had been a popular comedy team that had nonetheless not reached the top rungs of their profession. That would change with the premiere of the show. Their shtick was not unlike those of other comedy duos: Dan Rowan was the sophisticated straight man and Dick Martin was the naive, goofy partner who got most of the laughs. The two men were improbable hosts for what became TV's hippest "must see" comedy show. Not only were they middle-aged, but they adhered to the then popular tradition of hosting their show while clad in tuxedos. Nevertheless, Rowan and Martin introduced envelope-pushing humor that became a sensation. The Smother Brothers had tried the same thing on CBS and got canceled for their efforts largely because they were so sarcastic about LBS's Vietnam War policies. But Rowan and Martin skewered all of the politicians and even included some of them on the show as part of its tradition of showcasing unlikely people spouting one-liners. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels may have had a hit record titled "Sock It To Me, Baby", but it was Laugh-in that immortalized the phrase. In fact, it played a role in the 1968 presidential election. Richard Nixon, back from the political graveyard, was the Republican nominee for president, squaring off against the Democratic nominee Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The Democratic convention in Chicago had been a disaster, marred by riots and police brutality. Nixon had based his campaign on a calm, law-and-order message that resonated with middle class, white voters. However, he was notoriously lacking in humor or personalty. When his advisers convinced him to make a five second cameo on Laugh-In in which he phrased "Sock it to me" as a question, voters saw a side of Nixon they didn't know existed. Whether he ever knew the relevance of the show or not, his poll numbers started to rise and he eeked out a narrow victory over the surging Humphrey in the November elections. Other phrases popularized on the show included "Here comes da judge!", "Veerrry interesting" and "You bet your sweet bippy", which was routinely used as a retort to almost any question posed to Dick Martin. The show's impact over its five year run included making household names of then unknown actresses Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin. Seemingly all the major stars wanted to film cameos for the show. These included such eclectic talents as Johnny Carson, Jack Benny, Henny Youngman and John Wayne. The show also made a short-term superstar of eccentric crooner Tiny Tim.
In 1969, MGM signed Rowan and Martin to a feature film, The Maltese Bippy. This was not their first time on the big screen. In 1958 they appeared in a forgettable comedy, Once Upon a Horse. The Bippy movie did not replicate their success on television and vanished rather quickly, though it has developed a cult following over the decades. The Maltese Bippy begins amusingly enough with footage from a sword and sandal movie that then morphs into Rowan and Martin doing their standard stand-up routine! You have to give the writers credit for at least thinking outside the box. The film proper begins with partners Sam Smith (Rowan) and Ernest Gray (Martin) trying to eek out a living by convincing a busty, 18 year old airhead to appear in a sexlpoitation film with Ernest as the leading man. The amusing sequence finds them filming this "epic" in the confines of a small office with incredibly shoddy pull down paintings serving as scenery. The office is raided and they are evicted for non-payment of rent. Back at Ernest's Victorian era house, his only remaining financial asset, the pair snipe at each other as they try to come up with some other method of making a living. From this point, the story goes into very bizarre directions. It would be pointless to try to connect all the disparate plot angles. Suffice it to say that over the course of the remaining running time, we are introduced to a series of eccentric supporting characters. These include Robin (Carol Lynley), a young college girl who is boarding at the house. Ernest has the hots for her but her innocent nature may be a ruse and she appears to have an ulterior motive for her presence in the house. This could be rumors that the place holds an ancient treasure that is the motivation for less scrupulous characters to pay visits to Sam and Ernest. These include Mischa Ravenswood (Fritz Weaver), a menacing Romanian nobleman who is always in the company of his mentally deranged sister Carlotta (Julie Newmar). They seem to be after the treasure that the household is said to contain. Added to the mix is another wacky boarder, Axel (Leon Askin of Hogan's Heroes). Then there is Ernest's long-suffering housekeeper Molly (Mildred Natwick) who may not be what she seems. An unrelated subplot has the victim of a vicious murder discovered near Ernest's house. It appears the dead man may have been killed by an unknown animal and this results in extended sequences and gags in which Ernest begins to believe that he is actually a werewolf!
The film lumbers along under the direction of veteran Norman Panama but every now and then a genuinely funny gag comes along that makes you laugh in spite of yourself. The film's greatest asset is the spirited performances and the film provides a treasure trove of goofy characters for well-established actors to have fun with. (It's great to see Fritz Weaver in a rare comedy role.) Ironically, the movie mostly comes alive in the final act in which virtually the entire cast kills themselves off. It's a bizarre but funny premise and is well-executed. Despite its flaws, The Maltese Bippy is an enjoyable romp.
The failure of The Maltese Bippy at the boxoffice ensured that Rowan and Martin never appeared on the big screen again. Dick Martin, who had already established himself as a successful supporting actor and comedy director, had a thriving career until his death in 2008. Dan Rowan retired in the early 1980s partly due to health problems. He passed away in 1987 at age 65. Is it safe to say that Rowan and Martin's legacy as major influences on American comedy in the 1960s is secure? You bet your sweet bippy.
Kino Lorber is releasing a five film collection of British film noir gems on August 25. See details below from press release.
BRITISH NOIR: Five Film Collection (The Assassin / The
Golden Salamander / The OctoberMan / They Met in the Dark / Snowbound) (DVD only)
Directors: Ralph Thomas, Ronald Neame, Roy Ward Baker,
Carl Lamac, David MacDonald
Cast: James Mason, John Mills, Trevor Howard, Herbert
Lom, Richard Todd, Anouk Aimee, Robert Newton
Film Noir/1943-1952/NR/470 minutes
Synopsis: While the film noir movement may seem like a distinctly
American phenomenon, British studios embarked on their own shadowy thrillers,
laced with postwar cynicism. This five-DVD collection assembles some of the lesser-known
Brit noir titles from the Rank Studios, featuring such major talents as actors
James Mason, Trevor Howard, and John Mills; and directors Ronald Neame and Roy
Ward Baker.
THEY MET IN THE DARK (1943): Discharged for treason, a former Navy Commander
(James Mason) sets out to expose the espionage ring that destroyed his career -
Directed by Carl Lamac.
THE OCTOBER MAN (1947): After a traumatic brain injury, a young engineer
(John Mills) tries to repair his life. But his recovery is thwarted when a
woman (Kay Walsh) is found strangled-and he becomes the prime suspect -
Directed by Roy Ward Baker.
SNOWBOUND (1948): A British Army vet (Dennis Price) exposes a plot by
ex-Nazis to reclaim a stash of gold bullion hidden at a ski resort. This
edition was derived from a master suffering from moderate deterioration and is
presented in a less-than-ideal condition - the stellar cast included Robert
Newton, Herbert Lom and Stanley Holloway - Directed by David MacDonald.
THE ASSASSIN (aka Venetian Bird) (1952): A private eye (Richard Todd)
arrives in Venice in search of a fugitive, but soon discovers that the city's
winding waterways hold dark secrets - Directed by Ralph Thomas.
Winston Churchill once said of the Soviet Union "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". The same could be said of Marlon Brando, that most rebellious and unpredictable of acting legends. He could be selfish, nasty, charming, seductive and completely dismissive. If you have even a modicum of interest in Brando's life and career, don't miss director Stevan Riley's new documentary feature "Listen to Me Marlon". The offbeat title is meant to suggest the stream of consciousness that is based on the main premise of the film: audio tapes of Brando engaging in self-analysis. Ironically his intention was to use these recordings, which were made over decades, as the basis of an autobiographical documentary that was obviously designed to give his side of the story as it related to his life and career. As with many quixotic projects Brando became involved with, the film never became reality. However, director Riley (who helmed the acclaimed James Bond documentary "Everything or Nothing") received cooperation from the Brando estate to fulfill the actor's quest to refute certain urban legends about his life through his own words. The film is laid out in a fascinating manner. It is non-linear in the sense that it doesn't strictly adhere to the timetable of the momentous events of Brando's life. The movie zig-zags through the decades with photos and footage of his younger years with those from his final tortured days, beset by personal family tragedies. There was always a sense that Brando was consistently aloof and unconcerned about the public's perception of him. This proves not to be true. In the audio tape segments that define the premise of the movie (there is no narrator, only Brando himself), we find that this was a man who cared very much about being the target of bad press, especially when he was convinced the stories were not true. However, there is also an introspective admission that he considered himself to have major failings as a father and family man, a fact evidenced by the dramatic events in the latter part of his life that saw one of his sons, Christian, incarcerated for shooting to death his daughter Cheyenne's boyfriend and the subsequent suicide of Cheyenne several years later. It becomes clear through are photos and home movie footage that one aspect of Brando was that he truly loved his family, yet he was too self-absorbed with his own life and career to have been anything other than an occasional presence in their lives. In heartbreaking public trial footage, we see Brando, that most private of men, break down in tears as he bemoans his failings as a father. The movie shows that Brando himself was subjected to a strained relationship with his own father, a cold and unfeeling man who could never praise his son even after he had achieved international fame. In one awkward on-camera interview from the 1950s, the father is almost dismissive of his son's achievements. Brando later reflects compassion for his father, however, pointing out that he, too, had lived a very difficult life and was a product of those experiences.
Brando on the set of Last Tango in Paris with director Bernardo Bertolucci and co-star Maria Schneider, 1972.
The film provides no interviews with critics or colleaguesbut does present riveting vintage interviews in which we see Brando at his most playful. On a press junket (perhaps the only one he did in the 1960s) for the underrated WWII spy thriller "Morituri", Brando is far more concerned about seducing the attractive female journalists than he is in extolling the virtues of the film. The audio segments also indicate his bitterness over his experience on the 1962 remake of "Mutiny on the Bounty" which almost sank MGM. Brando took the lion's share of the blame for the film's enormous cost over-runs and was publicly chastised for selfish and irrational behavior on the set. His side of of the story is that they needed a scapegoat and he was it, pointing out he felt the film had major script problems from the beginning. The film also addresses the strained relationship between Brando and director Francis Ford Coppola, who resuscitated his career with "The Godfather". Brando laments that fact that Coppola bad-mouthed him for being unprepared on the set of "Apocalypse Now" and says he was hurt by this public flogging by a man he considered a friend. The documentary is peppered with film clips from key Brando movies, all of which are presented in gorgeous transfers, indicating Riley had a sizable budget for this film. (Many documentary film makers use VHS transfers of movie clips in order to get free usage under U.S. copyright laws.) There is also some truly rare color, on-set footage from "On the Waterfront" that left this viewer clamoring to see more. Brando's classics are represented and so are his bombs, so as the infamous "A Countess From Hong Kong", Charlie Chaplin's big screen comeback that landed with a thud. There are also the late career artistic triumphs such as "The Godfather" and "Last Tango in Paris", though on the latter Brando clearly resents his relationship with director Bernardo Bertolucci who he felt manipulated him into unveiling too many of his personal inner demons. Throughout the film, we see Brando represented by a digital 3D image of his head which he posed for in the 1980s and which fascinated him. He predicted that the future of film making would be revolutionized by digital technology- a predication that has come true. The statue-like, free-floating head of Brando serves as an anchor for his narration and perhaps, fittingly, reminds one of his appearance as Jor-El in "Superman". The movie also covers his social activism beginning with the civil rights movement of the 1960s. We see him among a Hollywood contingent in Washington D.C. as part of Martin Luther King's landmark protest. The film also traces his well-known devotion to equal rights for Native Americans. The movie includes the legendary Oscar ceremony footage of a mystery woman named Sacheen Littlefeather, in full tribal dress, refusing Brando's Best Actor statuette for "The Godfather" in protest of Hollywood's treatment of Indians on screen, much to the incredulity or perhaps amusement of presenters Liv Ullmann and Roger Moore. It was the kind of bold, in-your-face move that epitomized Brando as a rebel but it was also a missed opportunity. Why didn't he appear himself to make the speech? Laziness? Cowardliness? We'll never know. Like many of Brando's causes, however, these seemed to burn brightly but briefly.
The movie covers Brando's failed marriages and tempestuous relationships with women, none of which ended satisfactorily. Despite his late career fun appearances on Larry King's chat show, we get the feeling that he died feeling lonely and frustrated, haunted by what he perceived to be his own failures. If "Listen to Me Marlon" has a flaw is that it leaves us hungry for even more. Some key films and events are glossed over or ignored, perhaps for reasons of running time. Brando's "One Eyed Jacks", the only film he ever directed, is tantalizingly glimpsed in clips but not even identified by name. He created a fine movie after taking over from director Stanley Kubrick, who found he could not work with Brando. The film went far over-budget and caused angst at Paramount, adding to the growing belief that Brando might be more trouble than he was worth. However, we never hear a word about his views on directing or what happened on the set of the film. Perhaps he never addressed this in the audio recordings that Riley was given access to, but it will frustrate Brandophiles to not have the film covered in any detail. There are other snippets that also leave us desiring more: his dismissal of the first "Superman" movie, which he concedes he did strictly for money (but did he really think it was a bad movie?) Brando bragging that he rewrote the script for "Apocalypse Now", whereas others said he was just fudging because he was too lazy to read the script. The movie also covers Brando's increasing reliance on cue cards and other devices to remind him of his lines. Over clips from "The Formula", we hear him brag that he insisted that his character wear a hearing aid so that his lines could be fed to him. We see that the only place Brando truly feels at piece was in his beloved atoll in Tahiti. Home movies indicate this was a place where he could find peace and solace, away from studio executives, fawning fans and intrusive journalists.
"Listen to Me Marlon" is a remarkable film and is a fitting analysis of a man who personifies the old cliche "They don't make stars like that any more".
(The film opens July 29 for a two week run at the Film Forum in New York City.)
Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale The Hound of the Baskervilles is a thrilling
story that has stood the test of time. Featuring London’s super sleuth Sherlock
Holmes, this adventure sees him travel to Dartmoor’s Baskerville Hall where Charles
Baskerville has been found dead and under mysterious circumstances. As cinema’s
most filmed character of all time - Sherlock Holmes movies have acquired
something of a unique place in history. One might perhaps think back to the
days of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in order to recapture their first
encounter of this classic filmed adventure. Hammer Studios had begun to revisit
these classic horrors and thrillers throughout the mid to late Fifties, with
filmed projects such as The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula. So it was
perhaps no surprise that the studio picked up The Hound of the Baskervilles and
splashed it with their own distinctive and original blend of Hammer style.
There
is a wonderful, vintage feel about the film, it not only bubbles away with
Hammer’s unique sense of atmosphere, but it benefits from an ‘old time’ pacey
narrative. Director Terence Fisher never seems to let the film fall short; he
keeps it tight without ever letting momentum wain. There is a healthy vitality
about Hammer’s remake, helped undoubtedly by composer James Bernard's energetic
score which bristles along nicely. Despite the diversions away from Conan
Doyle's original novel, the story is respectfully handled and works
exceptionally well. It has certainly withstood the test of time andl remains a
hugely enjoyable piece of entertainment. Is it as good as Rathbone’s 1939
version? That’s a tough question, and for me, the jury is still out. I would
certainly sleep easier placing them side by side and treating them with the
equal respect they both deserve.
Hammer’s
The Hound of the Baskervilles was the first filmed version to be shot in vivid
colour. Everything is bathed with sumptuous textures from hunting red riding
costumes to splendid tweed suits and rich wooden panelling. So with all things
considered, there was perhaps an overall expectancy that this should look
positively beautiful after being afforded the Blu-ray treatment. Well, in some
ways the upgrade works, but not without some minor troubles.
Arrow’s
Blu-ray is still probably the best I have seen on any home video format, but
that shouldn’t really surprise anybody. However, like a lot of recent Hammer
films to emerge on the Blu-ray format, the image does remain a little on the soft
side, not perhaps as soft as The Curse of Frankenstein but nowhere near as
crisp or sharp as say Quatermass and the Pit. Whilst a great deal of the movie
takes place at night, even interior lit scenes also tend to be a little on the
dark side and lack any real vitality. Viewers may well be left questioning why
this couldn’t have been corrected or improved during the mastering process, but
it simply remains a little too bland and muted on the eye. Added to this problem
was a fairly large amount of white speckle which seemed to haunt the picture
throughout.
This
is an area that I still find generally unacceptable, especially in consideration
of today’s technology; the process of eliminating such flecks and particles is
a fairly easy (albeit) time consuming element of restoration. Today, with any
Blu-ray purchase, there is arguably a degree of basic requirements that one
would like to expect, including a fairly good, cleaned up picture. With The
Hound of the Baskervilles, it became something more than just a minor
distraction and instead fell into the category of unavoidable hindrance, and that
is a genuine shame. If a company can produce for example, a near spotless print
of Frankenstein (1931) is there any reason why a 1959 movie shouldn’t look just
as clean? I don’t believe that’s too much to ask.
Thankfully,
the bonus features on this disc appear to balance out and make up for the
film’s minor quality issues. Firstly there is a super new audio commentary featuring
the always reliable Hammer experts Marcus Hearn along with Jonathan Rigby. For
the purist of Hammer fans, there is also an Isolated Music and Effects track.
Listen carefully to this during the opening scenes and your ears will certainly
reveal how background conversation tracks are most definitely looped…
Release
the Hound! Is a brand new 30 minute documentary looking at the genesis and
making of the Hammer classic, featuring interviews with hound mask creator
Margaret Robinson, film historian Kim Newman and actor/documentarian and
co-creator of BBC’s Sherlock Mark Gatiss.
The
Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes is a 1986 documentary looking at the many
incarnations of Conan Doyle’s celebrated character and is narrated and
presented by Christopher Lee. It does have a typical television look about it
and clearly shows the limitations of video tape, on which it was clearly shot.
Nevertheless, it’s fairly enjoyable in its own right.
Actor’s
Notebook: Christopher Lee – an archive interview in which the actor looks back
on his role as Sir Henry Baskerville. This is a nice little piece dating back
to around 2003, wherein Christopher Lee also speaks fondly and movingly about
his friendship with Peter Cushing.
The
Hounds of the Baskervilles excerpts read by Christopher Lee. A couple of
passages are included in this section. Plus there is also an original theatrical
trailer (b/w) and an extensive gallery featuring over 140 images including
photos, posters and lobby cards.
The
packaging includes a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly
commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper and a collector’s booklet featuring new
writing on the film by former Hammer archivist Robert J.E. Simpson and
illustrated with original archive stills and posters.
If
you are prepared to be tolerant of the films minor imperfections – you will no
doubt be happy with the overall package. Frankly, it still remains the best
version currently open to the market.
Until the sexual revolution of the mid-to-late 1960s was embraced by the film industry, the subject of homosexuality was dealt with in schizophrenic manner by studios. There were some bold attempts to address the subject in a serious and sympathetic manner, but fine movies like The Trials of Oscar Wilde and Victim were relegated to art-house hell and never enjoyed a wide audience. Indeed, it was the complete financial failure of the former film that motivated, in desperation, producer Cubby Broccoli to dust off the idea of adapting the James Bond novels for the screen. In other cases, the movies were more high profile (i.e Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Children's Hour) but studios forced the directors to substantially water down overt references to homosexuality. Within a few short years, however, the situation had changed dramatically. While many characters were often presented as comical stereotypes, there were other bold attempts to address more realistic approaches to the traumas faced by gays and lesbians. Going one rung further, a few films actually took on such issues as cross-dressing and transsexuals. One of the more notable films of the era was The Christine Jorgensen Story, released in 1970. However, as well-meaning as the movie was, it was generally regarded as an exploitation movie with a good dose of shlock and some unintended laughs. (Click here for review)
Far more impressive was the 1972 British film I Want What I Want...To Be a Woman starring Anne Heywood in a daring performance as an effeminate young man who secretly desires to be a woman. Unlike the real-life Christine Jorgensen, this story is not based on fact, but a novel by writer Geoff Brown. Roy is a sensitive twenty-something man who is living a nightmarish life. He's the son of a macho, ex-army officer (the always brilliant Harry Andrews) who spends most of his time drinking with high society types while he seduces their women. Roy and his father have a fractious relationship as the old man refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that his son looks more like the daughter he never had. He tries to force Roy into macho behavior by having him escort women on fraudulent dates and making him sit with other men in drawing rooms to argue politics over cigars and brandy. Meanwhile, all Roy wants to do is explore his feminine side. Eventually he can't resist the urge to dress as a woman and is caught in the act by his appalled father, who slaps him around and humiliates him. Distraught, Roy leaves his home to establish a new life in a far away town. This represents his first public appearance as a woman and the film conveys the anxiety cross dressers must feel when they make such a "debut". Although Heywood makes a head-turning woman, we have to remember she's supposed to be a man. As such, she gives a riveting performance and demonstrates the inevitable paranoia that might accompany such a bold lifestyle decision. Roy is convinced that everyone he passes on the street knows his secret.
For those of us who are hopelessly addicted to spy movies of the 1960s, the Warner Archive provides a gift: the first DVD release of "The Scorpio Letters", one of the more obscure 007-inspired espionage films of the era. Produced by MGM, the movie was shown on American TV in early 1967 before enjoying a theatrical release in Europe. It seems the studio was trying to emulate the strategy that it was employing at the time for its phenomenally popular "Man From U.N.C.L.E." TV series. That show had proven to be such a hit with international audiences that MGM strung together two-part episodes and released them theatrically. (Three films were released in America but a total of eight were shown in international markets.) As "The Scorpio Letters" was produced with a theatrical run in mind, it has a bit more gloss than the average TV movie, which was then a genre in its infancy. Nevertheless, it still has all the earmarks of a production with a limited budget. Although set in London and France, you'd have to be pretty naive to believe any of the cast and crew ever got out of southern California. Grainy stock footage is used to simulate those locations and there is ample use of the very distinctive MGM back lot, which at times makes the film resemble an episode of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." What the movie does provide is some nice chemistry between its two lead actors, Alex Cord, who had recently acquitted himself quite well in the underrated 1966 big screen remake of John Ford's "Stagecoach" and Shirley Eaton, then still riding the wave of popularity she enjoyed as the iconic "golden girl" from the Bond blockbuster "Goldfinger". The two play rival spies in London, both working for different British intelligence agencies, though whether it is MI5 or MI is never made clear.
The film is based on a novel by Victor Caning that had been adapted for the screen by the ironically named Adrian Spies, who had a long career working primarily in television. (Curiously, his one credited feature film was for the superb 1968 adventure "Dark of the Sun" (aka "The Mercenaries".) There is nothing remarkable about his work on "The Scorpio Letters". In fact, Spies provides a rather confusing plot. The film opens on a jarring note with a man taking a suicidal plunge from his apartment window in London. Turns out he was a British intelligence agent and the reasons for his suicide are of great interest to the higher ups in the spy business. Alex Cord plays Joe Christopher, an American ex-cop who now does work for one of the intelligence agencies run by Burr (the ever-reliable Laurence Naismith). Burr orders him to get to the bottom of the suicide case and in doing so, Joe gains access to the dead man's apartment just in time to encounter a mysterious man stealing a letter addressed to the dead agent. A foot chase ensues that ends with both men getting struck by a London double decker bus (yes, MGM had one of those laying around the back lot.) Still, Joe manages to steal back the letter the man had swiped and finds it is obviously a blackmail attempt made against the dead agent by a mystery person who goes by the name of Scorpio. From there the plot gets rather confusing and becomes one of those thrillers that is best enjoyed if you stop trying to figure out who is who and just sit back and enjoy the ride. Joe flirts with Phoebe Stewart (Shirley Eaton), who works in another intelligence agency. It appears her boss and Joe's boss are constantly trying to undermine each other in the attempt to solve major cases. Phoebe makes an attempt to seduce Joe, but he correctly suspects that she is trying to compromise him for information he knows about the case. Inevitably, a real romance blossoms but the love scenes are pretty mild, perhaps due to the fact that this film was made with a television broadcast in mind. (The plot invokes the old joke of having the would-be lovers get interrupted every time they attempt to get it on.)
Joe gets a lead that takes him to Paris where he discovers that Scorpio is the man behind a shadowy spy network that uses agents employed as waiters in an upscale restaurant. I imagine the reason for this is explained somewhere along the line but it's just one more confusing element to the script. Joe infiltrates the spies/waiters gang in the hopes of finding out who Scorpio is. Meanwhile, in the film's best scene, he is exposed, captured and tortured. There is even a modicum of suspense as there appears to be no logical way he will get out of this particular death trap. Refreshingly, Joe is no 007. He makes miscalculations, gets bruised and beaten and often has to rely on the intervention of others to save him. (In the film's climax, finding himself outmanned and outgunned, he actually does the logical thing and asks someone to call the local police for help.) Ultimately, Scorpio is revealed to be one of those standard, aristocratic spy villains of Sixties cinema. In this case he is played by the very able Oscar Beregi Jr. If you don't know the name, you'll know his face, as he excelled in playing urbane bad guys in countless TV shows and feature films of the era. There are numerous kidnappings, shootouts, double crosses and red herrings and one bizarre sequence that is ostensibly set in a French ski resort in which the ski lift is inexplicably in operation even though it's summer. Additionally, the California mountains look as much like France as Jersey City does.
Despite all of the gripes, I enjoyed watching "The Scorpio Letters". It's an entertaining, fast-moving diversion, directed with unremarkable efficiency by Richard Thorpe (his second-to-last film). Cord makes for a very capable leading man, tossing off the requisite wisecracks even while undergoing torture. Eaton possesses the kind of old world glamour you rarely see on screen nowadays. Together, they make an otherwise mediocre movie play out better than it probably should. (A minor trivia note: this represents the first film score of composer Dave Grusin, who would go on to become an Oscar winner.)
The Warner Archive DVD transfer is very impressive and the film contains an original trailer, which presumably was used in non-U.S. markets.
"Signpost to Murder", which has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive, is the kind of modest production that major studios used to routinely produce in the hopes of generating some equally modest profits in quick playoff situations. The MGM production was made in 1964 and ostensibly takes place in England. However, the British countryside is represented by small village set shot on a Hollywood back lot, along with one of the most unconvincing matte paintings ever created. Fortunately the film is a claustrophobic affair that all too obviously betrays its origins as a stage play, thus relegating most of the action to an elegant country home that adjoins a giant water mill wheel. The film opens in an asylum for the insane where we find the protagonist, Alex Forrester (Stuart Whitman), as a reformed inmate who had been incarcerated for the murder of his wife. His progressive psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Fleming (Edward Mulhare), makes a plea for his patient's release back into general society but the request is refused. Driven to severe despair, Alex clunks the doctor over the head and uses his clothing as a disguise to escape the prison. With a manhunt under way, he makes tracks for the mill house residence, which he has long admired from years of gazing out of his cell window. Once there, he secretly enters the home just in time to see it's sole resident, Molly Thomas (Joanne Woodward), sauntering around the home modeling bathing suits for a forthcoming village fashion show. (Who said timing isn't everything?) Alex gets a hold of a shotgun and forces Molly to tell visiting police detectives that all is well. In reality, she is awaiting the return of her husband from a business trip to Amsterdam- a fact that unnerves Alex. Because of the film's abbreviated running time (a scant 78 minutes), events move along at an improbably fast pace. In the course of the evening, Molly ends up using Alex as her own de facto shrink and confides that she isn't overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her husband. Turns out he's been cold and inattentive. For his part, Alex confides that he isn't even sure that he ever murdered his wife due to the shock of seeing her body in a bathtub. From that point, his memory of the evening in question blanked out. Before long, these two lonely people are making goo-goo eyes at each other and there is an implication things go even further. Molly believes in the innocence of her "house guest" and continues to hide his presence from all visitors, of which there are quite a few. In fact, for a remote country house, the place seems to have more people ambling about than Victoria Station. Events go into overdrive, however, when Alex believes he sees the body of Molly's husband revolving on the giant water wheel. Naturally, when she goes to look, the body isn't there. She assures him that it was all in his imagination, but Alex begins to doubt his own sanity and wonders if he may have murdered yet again. When Molly's husband does turn up dead, the story becomes one of those typical British drawing room mysteries in which all the principals gather in the living room while some red herrings are dismissed and some astonishing facts are revealed.
Although the production boasts some genuine and fine British character actors (Mulhare and Alan Napier among them), the film has an odd feel to it because the two leads are so obviously American. Whitman initially injects his manner of speech with a half-hearted attempt at a British accent, but it inexplicably disappears. Woodward doesn't even go that far. A simple line of dialogue explaining that she is an American would have helped, but lacking that, one can't help but be distracted by her "California Girl" mannerisms and speech. Woodward's presence in this low budget black and white production is a bigger mystery than the murder plot, given the fact that she was already a major star and an Oscar winner by this point in her career. Yet, she and Whitman do have considerable chemistry together- and if the prospect of a woman falling for a presumably psychopathic killer sounds far-fetched, just consider that major jail break in New York state in which a female prison employee helped two murderers escape because she thought they were in love with her. Under the capable direction of George Englund, the film moves at a brisk pace and is a pleasing time-killer. I suspected one major plot device from the beginning but I do admit that a second one came as a bit of a surprise. As a trivia note, fans of 1960s spy movies will probably recognize the mill house set as the exact location of the opening sequence of the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." feature film "To Trap a Spy".
The Warner Archive DVD features an original trailer in which the narrator refers to the star as "Joan" Woodward!
Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who broke through barriers to become a major international star, has died in Cairo from a heart attack at age 83. In recent months, he had been battling the onset of Alzheimer's Disease. Sharif and Peter O'Toole were virtual unknowns when they were cast as the leads by director David Lean in his 1962 masterpiece "Lawrence of Arabia". Both received Oscar nominations for the film and went on to become two of the biggest stars to emerge in the 1960s. Sharif reunited with Lean for another blockbuster, the 1965 production of "Doctor Zhivago" in which Sharif played the title role. He also co-starred with Barbra Streisand in her Oscar-winning 1968 film "Funny Girl" and appeared with her in the 1975 sequel "Funny Lady". Other prominent films Sharif appeared in during the 1960s include Samuel Bronston's ill-fated but underrated "The Fall of the Roman Empire", "Behold a Pale Horse", the star-packed production of "The Yellow Rolls Royce", "The Night of the Generals" (with Peter O'Toole), "Mayerling", "More Than a Miracle" and "Genghis Khan". Two his career missteps occurred in films he made in 1969: the critically lambasted "Che!" in which he played communist revolutionary Che Guevara and "MacKenna's Gold", a bloated Western that is more remembered for its poor rear screen projection shots than its magnificent landscapes. During the 1970s Sharif made some good films that were underrated ("The Last Valley", "The Horsemen", "The Burglars", "Juggernaut") and quite a few forgettable ones. As his boxoffice popularity went into decline, he began to appear in more obscure films or play small roles in larger productions. He increasingly concentrated on his real passion: perfecting his game of bridge. In fact, Sharif was regarded as a world-class player and wrote a syndicated newspaper column regarding techniques for playing the game. For more click here.
CINEMA RETRO: What drew you to this particular project?
JOE DANTE: It's based on a short film by the screenwriter Andrew Trezza, which I haven't seen. He gave me a script a few years ago and I responded to it because I thought it was funny and I liked the characters. I also think it's a situation that the audience can relate to. I think most people have been in a similar situation. They are in a relationship that isn't good for them and they don't know how to get out of it. They stick around longer than they should. I thought that to expand on that concept and make a screwball comedy out of it was a great idea.
CR: As someone who has been involved in editing, screenwriting and even acting, did you have much input into the final screenplay?
JD: Sure. We worked on it together. It was originally a little longer than it needed to be, I thought, and so we pared it down a little bit. You know, over a period of years when you're working on a project, you can't help but doodle in the margins and try to improve it. But it's still pretty much the script that I originally read. It's better for the fact that we had a little bit longer to work on it.
CR: Is it true that you shot the entire movie in twenty days?
JD: Yes. I think of it as a return to my roots.
CR: How long were the shooting days?
JD: We couldn't go over twelve hours. There was no overtime in the deal. So we just shot until we couldn't. On a film like this it's really important that you get the shots so you don't have to go back on a location. There aren't that many locations. In fact, they're all within seven blocks of each other. You have to adjust your schedule when you're working on a low budget.
CR: What are the pros of working on an indie film compared to a major studio production?
JD: The pros are that you are pretty much left alone. There's not a zillion dollars riding on the movie so there's not that kind of panic in the executive suites. You know, worries that, God forbid, the picture might be too offbeat or have too many rough edges or it might alienate a segment of the audience. You don't have to worry about any of that because it's not that big of an outlay. Unfortunately, to get that kind of freedom, you have to give up the bells and whistles and do without some of the tools you would usually have to make the movie. You also have to do it very quickly and you have to make decisions fast. But sometimes this lends a certain energy to these movies that a long schedule, big budget movie might not have.
CR: How involved were you in the casting process? The four leads are very impressive young actors. Did you rely mostly on the decisions of the casting director, Brad Gilmore?
JD: Well, Brad has been on the movie as long as I've been. We've been looking for casts for years because this picture was gestating for such a long time. Then all of a sudden it came together. There was a certain amount of money available for a certain time frame and it meant we had to make the movie right away- and we had to make it in twenty days. So the cast came together in one week, believe it or not. Serendipitously, it happened to come together with the exact same people we wanted in the exact right roles to the point that I didn't have to do a lot of directing. To me, the fun of the movie is the cast.
CR: It's also a typical Joe Dante film in the sense that there are many homages to the cinematic past, from Dick Miller's appearance to vintage movie art. Who else would have an Italian poster for "The Pit and the Pendulum" in a modern film?
JD: Who else has one?
CR: Yes, I'm afraid that many of us who are obsessed with older films are living, breathing examples of arrested development. I suppose we hope we never really grow up. By the way, what do you think of today's horror films compared to those you honor from the distant past?
JD: I think there is a lot of talent out there. The hurdle that they have to overcome is that the audience they are making the films for is so steeped in the details of how these movies were made before that it becomes very difficult to try to surprise and shock them with something new that they haven't seen. Unless you want to go to the lengths of "The Human Centipede", there really isn't a great deal you can to shock people.
CR: I'd like to see directors, including yourself, make movies like the original version of "The Haunting", in which the horror element is suggested rather than blatantly illustrated with special effects.
JD: I think those are the kind of horror films that work the best. They're also the ones I think have the longest legs because movies that rely on showing things very clearly can date very quickly. Whereas a movie like "The Innocents" or "The Haunting" or "Dead of Night" are still intensely creepy because of things that you don't see. There are things you think you see because the director and director of photography make you believe you are seeing them. To me, that's the best kind of horror movie. Those are my favorite ones. The current ones, I think, tend not to be very psychological, although there have been some very good ones. "The Orphanage" was quite good and so was "The Devil's Backbone", for example, is a very good horror film. This genre used to be considered a "B" movie genre but it's now an "A" movie genre and some of the subtlety has disappeared.
CR: The makeup effects in "Burying the Ex" are particularly impressive, given the limited budget and production schedule...
JD: Well, Gary Tunnicliffe, our makeup guy, had his work cut out for him because of our limited shooting day. There was only so much time to put the makeup on and to take the makeup off. That had to all be coordinated very carefully so we wouldn't lose time. We also didn't shoot it in sequence so he had to have a chart to remind of how decomposed Evelyn would be. That was also hard for Ashley Greene because, when you are building a character- especially a crazy character who has mood swings- you have to be careful about what you did yesterday and how does that fit into the movie.
CR: Speaking of the character of Evelyn, do I have to even ask if her name is derived from "The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave"?
JD: Of course!
CR: Let's talk about your Trailers From Hell web site. What inspired you to create it?
JD: I started making trailers when I first go into the business. I've always loved movie trailers. I had a collection on 35mm and there was a lot of cool stuff but it was just sitting in a vault. I was never showing it to anybody so I thought, "This is crazy. These things need to be out there." I thought that just putting them on the internet wouldn't be exciting in itself. So I thought about doing commentary tracks for about five of these trailers. So I did and I put them up on the internet where they sat unnoticed for a while. Then my friends started to see it and they would say there were movies they wanted to talk about. So it just grew. I think John Landis and Edgar Wright were among the first contributors. It just became a thing to do and now we have over a thousand trailers on our site. There are fifty different commentators, all talking about what the movies meant to them and trying to get you to see the movie. Today, when there are so many movies available to see than there ever was in my lifetime, there needs to be some curating factor that tells people that this is a good movie, that this is a movie that you never heard of, this is a director that you've never heard of, this is an actor you should know. It's very rewarding to me when people come up to me and say, "I just saw this movie that I found on this site and it's a great movie and I'm going to see other movies by this guy now." That's what it's all about.
CR: Are you still toying with the concept of doing a Roger Corman biopic?
JD: I wouldn't say "toying"...I'd say slogging, trying to get somebody to finance the movie for about the last ten years. But I haven't given up and I still think it's a great project and we're looking at all sorts of alternate ways of getting it done. It's a funny movie about Roger doing "The Trip". Everything in it is true, which makes it even funnier. We came within a hair of making it twice. I think if we can get that close twice, we can get that close again.
CR: One last question. It's regarding the recent passing of Sir Christopher Lee, who you worked with. Would you care to share any thoughts about him?
JD: It's very sad but on the other hand, the man lived to be 93 years old. He went out at the top of his game, singing heavy metal, for God's sake. He's probably more famous now than he was in his Hammer heyday because of the breadth of his career. I know he was having health problems. He couldn't travel because he couldn't bear to sit in an airplane seat. So the factor of age was really encroaching quickly but it didn't slow him down. He's still got unreleased movies. He was a real character in person and a wonderful guy to be with. He was so amusing and so the opposite of his public persona.
Since he made his one and only on screen appearance as James Bond in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in 1969, George Lazenby has discussed his dramatic experiences before and behind the cameras many times. As any Bond fan knows, Lazenby was plucked from obscurity to replace Sean Connery, who had quit the 007 series after "You Only Live Twice" in 1967. Lazenby was a well-known Australian model but he had no acting experience. Midway through the film, he told producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman that he had decided to quit the role after this one film. Not even he temptation of a mega salary could convince Lazenby to sign on for more films. He became convinced Bond could not thrive into the 1970s. Ultimately, Sean Connery returned to the role for "Diamonds Are Forever" and would be followed by Roger Moore's long run as 007. Lazenby's acting career never took off but over the passage of time, he has had the satisfaction of seeing his movie regarded as one of the best by both enlightened critics and fans. He has discussed his trials and tribulations on the film set many times, acknowledging that he was sometimes egotistical and demanding, but also denying many other rumors regarding his behavior. In this rare 1970 interview, Lazenby discusses the controversies while the movie itself was still in general release. The uncredited interview is refreshingly intelligent and Lazenby is candid and honest about his opinions. He admits his suggestions for making Bond more contemporary were justifiably ignored but also denies reports that he did not get on well with the crew. He also says that his refusal to cut his hair and shave his beard cost him a studio-paid tour of America, so he paid for his own publicity tour. The documentary is one of the few that acknowledges that the film was a major boxoffice success, despite inaccurate initial reports that it was a bomb. Given the fact that he is critical of aspects of the production, it's rather surprising that Eon Productions allocated so much footage for use in this interview.
It's easy to look back on the Blaxploitation film craze of the 1970s as a short-lived period that spawned some cinematic guilty pleasures. However, time has been kind to the genre and if retro movie buffs view some of the films that emerged during this era they will undoubtedly find more artistry at work than was originally realized. Case in point: "Truck Turner", a 1974 action flick released at the height of the Blaxploitation phenomenon. I had never seen the film prior to its release on the new Blu-ray special edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. It's a violent, brutal film filled with ugly characters and "heroes" who deserve that moniker only because they aren't quite as abhorrent as the cutthroat antagonists they face. Yet, there is something special about "Truck Turner". Amid the carnage and frequent, extended action sequences, there is real talent at work here. Most of it belongs to Jonathan Kaplan, the director who had recently emerged as yet another promising protege of Roger Corman. In fact, Kaplan had just recently completed filming another Blaxploitation film, "The Slams" with Jim Brown, before being drafted into "Truck Turner". The idea of a white, Jewish guy directing a Blaxploitation film may seem weird today but at the time, most of the creative forces behind these movies were white guys, an indication of just how few opportunities existed in Hollywood for black filmmakers in the 1970s. The movies were also largely financed by white studio executives who benefited the most financially. Yet, it cannot be denied that the genre went a long way in opening doors for a lot of talented black actors and musicians, who often provided the scores for the films. Until the release of "Shaft" in 1971 (which was directed by a black filmmaker, Gordon Parks), most of the action roles for black characters seemed to be hanging on the durable shoulders of Sidney Poitier, Jim Brown, Harry Belafonte and the great character actor Woody Strode. Suddenly, there were a great number of opportunities for black actors and actresses to display their talents on screen. The vehicles in which they toiled were often low-budget potboilers, but it did increase their visibility and name recognition. More importantly, black action characters became commonplace henceforth.
"Truck Turner" has emerged as a genuine cult movie in the decades since its initial release. The movie's oddball appeal begins with the casting of the titular character, who is played by legendary soul musician Isaac Hayes in his screen debut. While Laurence Olivier probably never lost sleep over Hayes's decision to enter the movie business, his casting was a stroke of genius on the part of the executives at American International Pictures, which specialized in exploitation films for the grindhouse and drive-in audiences. Hayes had recently won the Academy Award for his funky "Theme From 'Shaft'" and had an imposing and super-cool physical presence. He also proved to be a natural in front of the camera. His emotional range was limited but he exuded an arrogance and self-confidence that the role required. Turner is a skip tracer/bounty hunter employed by a bail bond agency in the slum area of Los Angeles. A stunning opening shot finds literally dozens of such agency dotting the urban landscape- an indication of how out of control crime was in the city during this period. Turner and his partner Jerry (Alan Weeks) agree to take on an assignment to track down a local notorious pimp and crime kingpin named 'Gator' Johnson (Paul Harris), who has skipped bail, thus leaving the agency's owner Nate Dinwiddle (Sam Laws) on the hook for the money. Turner and Jerry pursue 'Gator' in one of those requisite high octane car chases that were seemingly mandatory in 70s action movies. This one is quite spectacular and features some dazzling stunt driving. 'Gator' is ultimately killed by Turner and this leads to the main plot, which concerns his lover, Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols). She was 'Gator's partner in a lucrative prostitution business. The two pimped out beautiful young women who they keep as virtual prisoners on a large estate. Dorinda is the Captain Bligh of madams, routinely abusing her stable of girls and demeaning them at every opportunity. She is enraged by Turner's slaying of 'Gator' and offers a bounty for his murder: half of her stake in the prostitution ring. The offer draws more than a few professional assassins to her doorstep, all of whom promise they can kill Turner. However, the only one who seems to have the ability to do so is Harvard Blue (Yaphet Kotto), a soft-spoken but vicious crime boss who would like nothing more than to make easy money from a major pimping operation. With a small army of assassins, he sets out to make good on his promise to kill Turner.
Like most action movies of this genre, the plot points are predictable. As with Charles Bronson's character in the "Death Wish" films, virtually every person who befriends Turner comes to great misfortune. This kind of predictable emotional manipulation is par for the course when you're watching 70s crime films and doesn't overshadow the fact that there is a great deal of style evident in "Truck Turner". The dialogue is saucy and witty. For example, Dorinda describes one of her "girls" as "Kentucky Fried Chicken" because "she's finger-lickin' good!" and another as "Turnpike" because "you have to pay to get on and pay to get off." If you think that's politically incorrect, consider that every other line of dialogue has somebody calling somebody else a nigger. Then there's the character of Truck Turner, who - like his fellow cinematic tough ass crime fighters of the era ranging from Dirty Harry to 'Popeye' Doyle to John Wayne's McQ- seems oblivious to the fact that he is endangering an abundance of innocent people in his obsession to get the bad guys. Turner engages in carjacking and threatens the lives of people who he feels aren't cooperating fast enough. He also has a sensitive side, though, as we see in his scenes with the love of his life, Annie (Annazette Chase). She's recently completed a jail term and only wants to settle down with Turner to live a quiet, normal lifestyle. Good luck. When the contract is put out on Turner, she becomes a potential victim and is terrorized by Harvard Blue and his gang. The film concludes with some terrific action sequences, the best of which has Hayes and Kotto going mano-a-mano inside the corridors of a hospital. They chase and spray bullets at each other amid terrified patients in wheelchairs and on gurneys and in one scene, carry the shoot out into an operating room with doctors in the midst of working on a patient! The finale, which centers on Kotto's last scene in the movie, is shot with such style that it almost approaches being (dare I use the term?) poetic. The supporting cast is first rate with Alan Weeks scoring strongly as Robin to Turner's Batman. Annazette Chase is excellent as the ever-patient object of Turner's desire and, of course, Kotto is terrific, as usual, managing to steal scenes in his own unique, low-key way. The most enjoyable performance comes from Nichelle Nichols, who is 180 degrees from her "Star Trek" role. As the ultimate villainess, she seems to be having a blast insulting and threatening everyone in her line of vision. Her final confrontation with Turner makes for a memorable screen moment, to say the least.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is up to the company's usual high standards in all respects. Old Truck never looked better on screen and there are some welcome bonus materials. Director Kaplan provides a witty and highly informative audio commentary, relating how American International was more interested in the soundtrack album they would be able to market than the film itself. (Hayes provides the impressive score for the film, including some "Shaft"-like themes.). He also said that he was originally drawn to the project because he was told the film would star either Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine or Robert Mitchum! Nevertheless, he speaks with great affection for Hayes and his colleagues and points out various character actors his used in the film including the ubiquitous Dick Miller, James Millhollin, Scatman Crothers and even Matthew Beard, who played "Stymie" in the Our Gang comedies. Another welcome bonus is director Joe Dante,obviously an admirer of the film, in discussion at a 2008 screening of "Truck Turner" at the New Beverly Cinema in L.A. He's joined by director Kaplan and stuntman Bob Minor. The reaction of the audience indicates this film enjoys a loyal following. There is also a segment from Dante's popular "Trailers From Hell" web site that features director Ernest Dickerson introducing and narrating the original trailer for the film. The trailer is also included in the Blu-ray, as well as a double feature radio spot ad for "Truck Turner" and Pam Grier as "Foxy Brown". In all, an irresistible release for all retro movie lovers.
Biker films have been around for decades.
Although most cinephiles cite Marlon Brando’s The Wild One (1953) as the first great biker movie, it wasn’t until
the mid-1960s and the release of the 1966 Roger Corman-directed classic The Wild Angels that biker films really
exploded onto the scene. Made for $360,000 and grossing close to $16 million, The Wild Angels started a cinematic
cycle trend that lasted well into the 1970s.
Noticing that other enterprising filmmakers
were cashing in on their film’s success, legendary studio American
International Pictures quickly decided that another biker flick was in order.
They gathered Corman (to produce); Wild Angels
scribe Charles B. Griffith (Rock All
Night, A Bucket of Blood, The Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000) to
write and, together, came up with the next biker extravaganza, 1967’s Devil’s Angels aka The Checkered Flag.
Directed by Daniel Haller (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The
Wild Racers, Dunwich Horror), Devil’s
Angels concerns a group of rebellious, anti-establishment bikers called the
Skulls who are searching for a police-free place they’ve dubbed Hole-in-the-Wall.
They roll into the small town of Brookville and are immediately ordered to
leave by the intimidated mayor (Paul Myer). The Skulls’ leader, Cody (played by
independent filmmaking icon; the late, great John Cassavetes), informs the
sheriff (Tobruk’s Leo Gordon) that
they’re not looking for trouble and that he, his girl Lynn (the beautiful Beverly
Adams from How to Stuff a Wild Bikini)
and the rest of the posse just need a place to crash for the night. The sheriff
decides to give Cody a chance and agrees to let the group spend the night on
the beach if they promise to remain there and then leave first thing in the
morning. Cody gives his word and the bikers take off along with a local beauty
contestant (Mimsy Farmer from Four Flies
on Grey Velvet) who’s infatuated with the group. The mayor berates the
sheriff for letting them stay in town, but the lawman doesn’t budge. While at
the beach, the group gets the girl high, teases her a bit and sends her running
back to town in fright. The mayor lies by telling the sheriff that the Skulls
raped the unharmed girl and Cody is arrested. When the sheriff learns the
truth, he immediately lets Cody go, but orders him and his friends to leave
town. Meanwhile, the Skulls, who don’t like being accused of rape, decide that
the town needs to be taught a lesson. With the help of a larger group of bikers
called the Stompers, they ride back into town (against Cody’s wishes),
completely take it over and put the authorities on trial. The mayor’s lie is
revealed and he is sentenced to a public beating which Cody goes along with.
The Skulls also feel that, because they were accused of rape, they are owed a
rape. Cody is totally against this. He tries his best to stop it, but all hell
winds up breaking loose. As the Stompers and the Skulls (including Lynn) tear
Brookville apart, Cody, realizing that his Hole-in-the-Wall doesn’t exist,
quits the group and rides off alone before the state police arrive.
With only a $4 million gross, Devil’s Angels may not have been a major
hit for AIP, but it’s still an
interesting and well-done biker film which features several highly recognizable
faces from 1960s/70s cinema and television such as Marc Cavell (Cool Hand Luke), Russ Bender (Bonanza), Buck Taylor (Gunsmoke), Bruce Kartalian (The Outlaw Josey Wales) and Mitzi Hoag (Deadly Game).
Although not nearly as well-remembered as the
Dennis Hopper/Peter Fonda 1969 classic Easy Rider nor as hard-hitting as Al
Adamson’s Satan’s Sadists from the
same year, Devil’s Angels is a solidly-made,
quirky and enjoyable exploitation film that benefits most from a wonderfully
complex performance by the legendary John Cassavetes as well as an entertaining
and thoughtful screenplay by the extremely underrated Charles Griffith. There’s
also a terrific musical score written by Mike Curb and performed by Sidewalk
Productions. Not to mention a catchy theme song by Jerry and the Portraits with
additional music courtesy of Dave Allen and the Arrows.
As far as the Skulls go, they’re mainly
benign (but not as cool as the goodhearted bikers from 1976’s Northville Cemetery Massacre) andjust looking for a place to be free.
The havoc they cause (with the exception of an accidental death) is mostly
light (and presented humorously) and they’re never really violent until the
very end, so if you’re looking for an intimidating band of evil hell raisers,
look elsewhere. As for me, I thoroughly enjoy this film; always have. It’s a
fun biker flick with a strong cast and a thought-provoking story. If you’re a
biker film fanatic or just a fan of AIP/Roger Corman in general, I definitely
recommend checking it out.
Devil’s Angels has been released
as a DVD-R from the MGM Limited Edition Collection. The film is presented in
its original 2:35:1 aspect ratio and, although it’s far from Blu-ray quality,
the movie is more than watchable. Also, the audio is clear, and the DVD’s
sleeve and menu feature the original and very cool-looking poster artwork.
If
you are like me, you probably have a nostalgic heart. The fact that you read
Cinema Retro is a major clue. Have you ever yearned to spend an evening in the
past, a la Gil (Owen Wilson) in Woody Allen's “Midnight in Paris?†What if I
told you how to experience an evening with Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Marion
Davies, Will Rogers and Florenz Ziegfeld for a show at his famous theater that
is hosted by Eddie Cantor? Would you go?
While
real life can not actually bring you back in time to do so, Cynthia Von Buhler
can, and has, with her new iTheater production “Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolicâ€
current running on Friday and Saturday evenings at the Liberty Theater on 42nd
Street in NYC. Cynthia's previous interactive and immersive shows
“The Bloody Beginning†and “The Brothers Booth†were wonderful productions that
brought audience members into the cast playing famous (and not so famous)
characters that interacted with the show and cast members. The Frolic takes you
one step closer and one step beyond.
The
show centers around the tragic death of Olive Thomas, a small town girl who
moved to NY in 1914 to seek her fame and fortune at 17 years old. She started
out as a model and won the title of “Most Beautiful Girl in NY.†The following
year she starred as a Ziegfeld girl in one of his most risque shows held late
nights in a smaller stage at the top of The New Amsterdam Theater. She had a
four-year film career and married Jack Pickford, the younger brother of film
star Mary Pickford. She died, under mysterious circumstances, in Paris, in 1920
when she drank mercury bichloride. It was one of the first heavily publicized
celebrity scandals.
Syrie
Moskowitz and Joey Calveri shine as the doomed couple and perform some
wonderful stage numbers. Delysia La Chatte is Josehine Baker incarnate. Chris
Fink as Eddie Cantor controls the show as emcee. Other standout performers are
dancer Brianna Hurley, Heather Bunch as “the down and out lady†and Erica
Vlahinos as Fanny Brice who will knock you out with her songs. The music is all
1920s but there are a couple of rearranged recent hit songs given a jazz era
arrangement that will pleasantly surprise you. Did I mention the aerialists?
Amazing. How they do it with so little clothing on is a wonder.
“Ziegfeld's
Midnight Frolic†is running under a well-deserved extension for the next two
weeks. I hope it will continue its run. I know I'm going back to see it again.
I didn't get to see everything - there is so much to see and do, so many nooks and
crannies to visit, too many flirtatious flappers, well, you get the idea. To
learn more visit speakeasydollhouse.com where you can also purchase tickets.
There is also a prix fixe dinner option available. I did not eat the night I
attended but people I spoke with enjoyed the meal. It must, however, be reserved in advance.
Details are available on the website.
Cynthia's
web-site disclaimer: “PLEASE BE ADVISED: THIS SHOW CONTAINS JAZZ, LIQUOR
& FAST WOMEN†is well-deserved. So are all the rave reviews this show
has received.
Artist Jeff Marshall created this tribute to Sir Christopher Lee, which was presented to him by Cinema Retro publishers Lee Pfeiffer and Dave Worrall.
BY LEE PFEIFFER
Sir Christopher Lee, the acclaimed British actor, passed away last Sunday in London. He was 93 years old. The family waited to make the announcement until all family members could be notified. Lee was an early contributor to Cinema Retro magazine and periodically provided interviews and personal insights into the making of his films. We, along with movie lovers everywhere, mourn his loss. Lee was more often than not associated with the horror film genre, a fact that often frustrated him. He would routinely point out that he made many diverse films and played many diverse roles in movies of all genres, from comedies to westerns. For many years he was most closely associated with the films of Hammer studios, the British production firm that revitalized the horror film genre in the 1950s. Lee starred in seemingly countless Hammer productions, often appearing opposite another British film legend, his friend and colleague Peter Cushing. In the late 1950s, the two co-starred in the first color version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (released in America under the title of "Horror of Dracula"). The film, which was controversial because of its use of sex and violence, was nevertheless a major hit and spawned numerous other Hammer appearances with Lee as Dracula. He would later tell Cinema Retro that he did some of them reluctantly because the quality of the scripts had deteriorated over time. In one film, he found the dialogue was so poor that he insisted that the play the role without speaking. Nevertheless, the films remained popular and added to Lee's status as a legend of the modern horror film genre. In 1962, Lee was proposed to play the villain Dr. No in the first James Bond movie by Ian Fleming himself (the two were distant relatives.) Lee was not available and the role went to Joseph Wiseman. However, in 1974, Lee was cast as the Bond villain Scaramanga opposite Roger Moore in "The Man With the Golden Gun." In 1973, he starred in the original version of "The Wicker Man" playing a larger than life villain that became legendary in cult film circles. The film was not a hit on initial release but over the decades has been considered as a classic of British cinema. Lee's extraordinary achievements were often overlooked because he also appeared in many films that were low-budget and sub-standard. However, he brought grace and dignity to every role he played. As the years passed, he found he had outlived most of his contemporaries. Of the other great horror icons he knew, he once lamented to this writer "I'm the last one left". He said he particularly missed Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, both of whom he considered to be among the most fascinating people he knew. He said that they would often speak by phone and had a long-running gag in which they would try to deceive each other by posing as a crank caller.
Christopher Lee with Cinema Retro publishers Dave Worrall and Lee Pfeiffer, years before the start of the magazine. The photo was taken at the offices of Eon Productions in London where Lee was signing some limited edition Bond lithographs by artist Jeff Marshall.
Christopher Lee saw a resurgence of appreciation for his talents from a younger generation of filmmakers who had literally grown up on his movies. He worked several times with Tim Burton. Peter Jackson cast him in "The Lord of the Rings" films and George Lucas gave him a high profile role as a villain in the reboot of the "Star Wars" franchise. He also worked with Steven Spielberg on the big budget 1979 WWII comedy "1941". In his public life, Lee was regarded as a serious man, not generally associated with humor. However, in private he was an outstanding raconteur with a wonderful sense of humor. Joining him for lunch or drinks would inevitably become a Master Class in some worthy subject. When in London, Cinema Retro co-publisher Dave Worrall and I would occasionally invite him to lunch at his favorite restaurant, Drones. Lunch with Lee was never a simple affair: you would be taught about what wines to order and the history of certain cuisine. The man seemed to be a walking textbook. He also loved classic cinema and discussing older films, which he had an encyclopedic knowledge of. Sometimes his conversations about film making led to unexpected humorous results. On one occasion, we were discussing Howard Hawks' 1959 western "Rio Bravo" and we both agreed that Walter Brennan stole the movie from John Wayne and Dean Martin by playing a cranky and amusing deputy. I then sought to impress Lee by doing what I thought was a spot-on impersonation of Brennan in the film. Lee scoffed so I challenged him by saying, "I suppose you could do a better Walter Brennan impression?" He said, "In fact, I can" and then proceeded to do so. The sight of the distinguished Lee doing impressions of Walter Brennan should have been captured on film but, alas, it was a moment lost in time. On another occasion, we met with Lee at Drones. I was attired in a jacket and necktie, but typically Dave Worrall decided to go casual. When we got to the restaurant, Lee looked disapprovingly at Worrall and drolly said, "If I knew we were dressing for the beach, I would have worn my bathing costume." Inside the restaurant, there was a very long mirror near our table. Lee turned abruptly and almost bumped into it, causing a nearby diner who had recognized him to quip, "That's understandable- you don't have a reflection!", a reference to his appearances as Dracula. Lee stared the man down and said, "As though I've never heard that one a hundred times before!"
Lee Pfeiffer introduces surprise guest Christopher Lee at a Cinema Retro movie tour event in London, 2006.
Lee was a private man who valued time with his wife Gitte, with whom he was married to for over 50 years. (They had one child, Christina). However, he would always make time to see Worrall and I when we were in London. On one occasion, I was meeting friends for afternoon tea at Harrods. On a whim, I called up Lee and asked if he would join us. He said yes and, to amazement of all, he turned up as a surprise guest and regaled us with wonderful stories. He also had a hobby that was passionate about: collecting patches from the various branches of the British military, which he once proudly showed us in his apartment. Lee served in WWII in the fight against Rommel in Africa. He rarely talked about his experiences because he said he was still technically under the Official Secrets Act. I would try to pry information from him by pointing out the unlikely scenario that Germany and England were about to go to war again, but he wouldn't budge. "When I give my word, I keep it", he would say. Indeed he did. I never got to hear much about his duties in helping to defeat The Desert Fox. Lee was also a sentimentalist, which might surprise many of his fans. He was especially saddened at the loss of Peter Cushing in 1994. The two men led very different lives. Cushing lived in the countryside and Lee preferred city life in London. They spoke often and would see each other occasionally. He told me that the last time he saw Cushing occurred shortly before Peter's death. The two actors were reunited for an interview session for a television program. Lee said that Cushing was clearly in poor health and near the end of his life. Both men knew it but didn't acknowledge it. They laughed and told stories as they usually did. However, when Cushing got into the car that was taking him home, Lee came to the realization that he would never see his best friend again. As Cushing looked back, Lee waved and said, "Goodbye, my friend". He said it was one of the most heart-wrenching moments of his life. Lee would say that he never again enjoyed the kinds of friendships he had with Cushing and Vincent Price, although he had the highest respect for Johnny Depp, with whom he worked on several films directed by Tim Burton.
Christopher Lee holding court as a surprise lunch guest at Harrods, 2002.
Lee was so devoted to his craft and so grateful for the opportunities afforded him that he seemed unaware of the aging process. Once Worrall and I had lunch with him when he had just returned from filming the first of his "Star Wars" appearances in New Zealand under the direction of George Lucas. In one pivotal scene, he had a light saber duel with the character of Yoda. Lee explained that there really wasn't a Yoda there, nor was there any light from the saber. They would be added later by a digital process. As an actor, he said this was particularly challenging. Yet he told George Lucas that he would do much of the scene himself to minimize the use of a stuntman. Lucas cautioned him but Lee reminded him that had been deemed a master fencer his youth and prided himself on his dueling skills. The scene proved to be very arduous and sure enough, later that night Lee began to feel some chest pains. He discretely visited a local doctor who asked him if he had done anything unusually strenuous. Lee initially said no but when the doctor heard he had been filming fencing scenes at his age, he informed him that most people would find that to be unusually strenuous. Lee admonished the doctor and told him that he had done all of his own fencing scenes in the "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers". When the doctor reminded him that was thirty years earlier, Lee said it was the first time that he realized he really was getting old. Yet, he never acted old. He was a living, breathing example of how leading an interesting life can help you avoid many of the ravages of old age. Lee remained up to date on all aspects of the motion picture industry and was also very interested in politics. He was a loyal Tory and was also a devoted royalist who had disdain for those who wanted to do away with the British monarchy. Fittingly, he was knighted by Prince Charles in 2009 for his "Services to Drama and Charity". In the latter part of his career, Lee embarked on releasing audio CDs that featured him crooning famous songs as well as contributing to hard rock concepts.
Dave Worrall and I last saw Sir Christopher Lee in October 2012 at the royal premiere of "Skyfall" in London. We had a chance encounter in the cavernous Royal Albert Hall. He looked quite frail but still cut a handsome figure in his tuxedo. As we parted, I had the feeling that, as with his experience with Peter Cushing, we might not see him again, which added poignancy to this brief encounter. Then again, the thought of the world without Sir Christopher Lee was unthinkable. On a certain level, I think I had convinced myself that he would outlive all of us.
To fully encompass Sir Christopher Lee's contributions to the world of cinema would require a thesis-like study. Suffice it to say that he was not only a major talent but a larger-than-life personality. He was also a great friend as well as a that rarest of species today, a true gentleman. The world will still turn without his presence. It just won't be nearly as much fun, nor nearly as interesting.
"Goodbye, my friend".
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Few actors had the screen and stage presence of Yul Brynner. There never was an actor quite like him and there hasn't been since. Like most thespians, Brynner had his share of good movies as well as those that fell considerably short of their potential. Nevertheless, the man never gave a false performance. He came across as supremely self-confidant even when he must have suspected the material he was given proved to be far below his considerable talents. Much of his self-confidence seemed to stem from an inflated ego. Robert Vaughn once told me that when Brynner arrived on the set of "The Magnificent Seven" in Mexico, he was still firmly in the King of Siam mode that had seen him win an Oscar. Vaughn said he carried himself as though he were real life royalty at all times. You didn't chat with him casually. Rather, he would grant you an audience. As Brynner's stature as a top boxoffice attraction began to wane, he returned over and over again to his signature role in stage productions of "The King and I" and found his mojo and star power were still very much intact when it came to touring in front of live audiences. His exotic look and manner of speaking were invariably intoxicating. Given Brynner's enduring legacy as a Hollywood icon it's rather surprising to remember that he had very few major hits. "The King and I" in 1956 was his star-making vehicle and his role in "The Ten Commandments", released the same year, helped build on his success. However, with the exception of the surprise success of "The Magnificent Seven" in 1960, Brynner proved to be more of a reliable boxoffice attraction than a powerhouse draw in the way that John Wayne, Cary Grant and Burt Lancaster were regarded. For most of Brynner's screen career, he top-lined in major studio releases that were relatively modest in terms of production budgets. Since this was during an era in which a decent profit for a film made it a success, Brynner remained popular for many years. By the 1970s, however, his clout had diminished considerably. He would have only one memorable big screen success during the decade- his brilliant appearance as the murderous robot in "Westworld" (1974). He would concentrate primarily on stage work until his death in 1985.
"Invitation to a Gunfighter" is the kind of mid-range vehicle that defined most of Brynner's career in Hollywood. Released in 1964 by Stanley Kramer's production company, the film is a perfect showcase for Brynner in that it lacked any rival star power and afforded him a smorgasbord of scene-stealing opportunities. The story opens in the wake of the Confederate surrender that marked the end of the Civil War. Matt Weaver (George Segal), a veteran of the Confederate army, is making an arduous journey home to his Texas ranch on foot through the desert. When the exhausted man finally reaches the small town he calls home, he gets a rude welcome. His ranch is now occupied by another man who claims he bought the deed from the township. Matt soon learns that he is despised by the locals because he is the only man to have served in the southern army. He is notified by the town's political kingpin, Sam Brewster (Pat Hingle), that a technicality has been used to seize ownership of his ranch. He also advises him to move on out of town because he is no longer welcome there. Matt, however, is not about to be cheated. He confronts the new owner of his house and is forced to shoot him dead in self-defense. Brewster manipulates the facts and accuses Matt of being a murderer. Matt takes possession of his ranch and uses firepower to hold off the townspeople. He is surreptitiously visited by his former lover Ruth (Janice Rule), who admits that she could no longer bear waiting for him to return from the war. She reluctantly married Crane Adams (Clifford David), a local union war veteran who lost an arm in the conflict. Since then, Crane has become an alcoholic with a violent temper and his relationship to Ruth has devolved into a loveless marriage of convenience.
Unable to lure Matt from his besieged homestead, Brewster takes the step of announcing to the town council that he will hire a gunslinger to kill him. Coincidentally, a man with the exotic name of Jules Gaspard d'Estaing overhears the offer. He is just passing through on a stagecoach ride but is immediately intrigued. d'Estaing convinces Brewster that he is a master gunfighter and demonstrates his prowess with a pistol. Brewster hires him on the spot but d'Estaing is in no hurry to carry out the mission. Instead, he sees the townspeople for what they are: cowardly hypocrites and delights in humiliating Brewster in front of them. d'Estaing is an intimidating presence to the townspeople. They can't pinpoint his ethnicity and know nothing of his background. He dresses immaculately, speak fluent French, plays the harpsichord and chain smokes Churchill cigars (though I wonder what they called them in this era before Churchill was born.) Ever provocative to his hosts, he stirs the pot even further by moving into the house of Crane and Ruth Adams. Predictably, it isn't long before Ruth is entranced by this larger-than-life man of mystery who dresses like a dandy and is highly cultured- the very opposite of her own husband and Matt. Tensions rise as Crane correctly suspects a romance may be brewing. d'Estaing insists he intends to carry out his mission to kill Matt, despite Ruth's protests, but he later makes it clear to her that he intends to manipulate the situation so that Matt is spared and Brewster is dragged down in disgrace.
The film, directed with admirable if unremarkable competence by Richard Wilson, is a slow-moving, talky affair that leads to some intelligent discussions about race relations and the horrors of bigotry. (This was, after all, a production financed by Stanley Kramer, who never heeded the old adage, "Leave the messages to Western Union!"). What saves the movie from devolving into a completely pedantic affair is the charisma of Yul Brynner. It also helps that he is playing an interesting character with a mysterious background and the revelations he makes to Ruth about his life only make him even more intriguing. This is a "thinking man's" western that touches on social issues as well as the desperate plight of women in the old West, when their survival often saw them entering dreadful marriages simply for financial security and protection. Brynner gets fine support from Janice Rule and rising star George Segal and Pat Hingle plays the town's pompous boss with appropriate, sneering superficial charm. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray boasts an excellent transfer and includes the original theatrical trailer.
"Invitation to a Gunfighter" is by no means a classic but it does afford viewers to spend some time with Yul Brynner and that is always time well-spent.
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Richard Johnson (far right) in the 1963 supernatural masterpiece "The Haunting" with Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn and Julie Harris.
BY LEE PFEIFFER
Cinema Retro mourns the loss of our friend, actor Richard Johnson, who has passed away at age 87. Johnson was a classically trained actor, having attended RADA and was also one of the founding members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His acting career was interrupted by service in the Royal Navy during WWII but Johnson resumed his profession at the end of the war. He alternated between playing small parts in feature films and leading roles in stage productions. In 1959, he got his first significant screen role starring with Frank Sinatra and young Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in the WWII film "Never So Few". He was initially offered the role of James Bond but turned down the opportunity. He later told Cinema Retro that he had no regrets because he felt that he would not have made the series the international success it was. He claimed that "I was so right for the part, I would have been wrong. Sean (Connery) was so wrong for the part, he turned out to be right for it." He starred in director Val Guest's underrated thriller "80,000 Suspects" in 1963. That same year he got what many consider to be his most memorable screen role as the leading man in director Robert Wise's classic chiller "The Haunting". Johnson played an academic who conducts an experiment with three other people to see if an ancient mansion house is actually haunted. The experiment meets with terrifying and tragic consequences. Johnson also had a significant role in the 1966 WWII thriller "Operation Crossbow" as well as a major co-starring role opposite Charlton Heston in "Khartoum" that same year. In 1967 he played famed detective/adventurer Bulldog Drummond in "Deadlier Than the Male", which spawned a sequel, "Some Girls Do". He teamed with Heston again in 1970 to play Cassius in the star-packed remake of "Julius Caesar". He also starred with his friend Heston in three high profile TV productions: "A Man for All Seasons", "Treasure Island" and the Sherlock Holmes film "Crucifer of Blood", in which he played Dr. Watson. Over the decades, he appeared in many top British TV series, most recently playing recurring roles in the shows "Spooks" , "Midsomer Murders", "Doc Martin" and "Silent Witness". His more recent feature film appearances include "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider", "Snoop", "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and his last film, "Radiator" which was produced in 2014. Johnson had been married several times, once to actress Kim Novak with whom he co-starred in the 1965 comedy "The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders". He is survived by his wife Lynne, who he married in 2004, and four children.
(Cinema Retro will be reflecting on the personal side of Richard Johnson in a future article.) For more click here.
For most of its running time, "The Sleepwalker" is a very compelling and intriguing mystery/drama. It centers on a young couple, Kaia (Gitte Witte) and her boyfriend Andrew (Christopher Abbott), who are attempting to do major restorations on a rural house that Kaia has inherited from her father. At first glance, the two lead a normal life: they laugh, engage in minor disputes, make love and, in general, seem to be in a stable relationship. Their lives become unbalanced, however, with the unexpected arrival of Kaia's half-sister Christine (Stephanie Ellis), a wayward soul with a free spirit and a quirky, unsettling personality. She arrives in the dead of night and announces to Kaia that she is pregnant. Christine makes herself at home in the house she once shared with Kaiva. It becomes clear that both young women, who have different mothers, have very diverse opinions of their deceased father. Kaia is defensive of him while Christine denounces him as a bully and implies he might have engaged in abusing the girls on some level. With Christine's arrival, Kaia takes on the role of mother, as much as older sister, and tries to control Christine's unpredictable behavior and impulses. Christine is outspoken and feels free to critique those around her, regardless of how inappropriate her comments may be. Andrew is clearly disturbed by her presence and wants her out of the house as soon as possible. However, things become more complicated with the arrival of Ira (Brady Corbet), Christine's exasperated boyfriend and father of her forthcoming child. Ira is as much a parental figure to the immature Christine as he is her lover. He and Andrew take an immediate dislike to each other. Andrew, who has a blue collar background, resents the highly educated Ira for what he feels to be his condescending attitude toward him. The two men have an awkward relationship that is made even more strained by Ira and Christine's request to extend their stay at the house. The situation becomes even more tense as Kaiva tries to deal with Christine's psychological problems which include an eerie habit of sleepwalking and engaging unknowingly in shocking acts such as masturbating in front of others. Kaia is well aware of Christine's mental problems, but her obsession with protecting her seems to go beyond that of a concerned sister. In fact, the two seem almost uncomfortably close in the physical sense. They doff their clothes in front of each other and they snuggle together in the same bed in a manner that approaches a mutually erotic attraction. In terms of the group dynamics, the two young couples attempt to have fun through dancing and drinking, tensions continue to mount. The relationship between Andrew and Ira leads to a shocking act of violence that coincides with Christine's mysterious disappearance from the house. Kaia, Ira and Andrew search frantically for her and even notify the police, but it's all to no avail.
"The Sleepwalker" has many admirable aspects. It represents an impressive feature film directing debut for Mona Fastvold, who previously directed music videos. Fastvold has an eye for composing tension-filled situations and gets top performances from a supremely talented cast of largely unknown actors. The film also boasts some very impressive camerawork by Zack Galler and a haunting musical score by Sondre Loche and Kato Adland. However, it is Fastvold the screenwriter who runs into problems. Working with a script co-written by Brady Corbet, who plays Ira, the compelling story line waivers between a Gen X version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (i.e couples reveal uncomfortable truths about themselves and each other during a tension-filled evening of socializing) and a potential slasher film, as we gird ourselves for what we believe will be some unpredictable act of violence caused by Christine, who is a menacing presence throughout the film. However, the movie's merits are undermined by a completely unsatisfactory ending that leaves most of the key questions unanswered and is so ambiguous as to be incomprehensible. (After watching the final scene several times, I actually consulted other reviews of the film to see if I was simply too stupid to "get it". I found that other reviewers had the same reaction I had.) This seems to be a trend in modern movie-making: leave the audience feeling frustrated and cheated. Ambiguity in the finale of a film can be an attribute. A perfect example revolves around the motivations of the seemingly crazed music teacher played by J.K. Simmons in "Whiplash". Everyone I know who has seen it likes debating whether his final actions in the film were an act of retribution or benevolence. However, there are other films, such as "The Sleepwalker", wherein the ambiguity looks like pretentious gibberish. The movie ends so abruptly that one might suspect that the financing dried up and they had fifteen minutes in which to wrap up the entire production. By taking this tact, the screenwriters negate many of the admirable aspects of the film, which are plentiful. "The Sleepwalker" isn't the only movie to feature a completely unsatisfying ending. "No Country for Old Men" rides along brilliantly until the final scene, which appears to have been the result of a wrong reel having been inserted into the film. Up to that point, it is a brilliant piece of work but its impact is severely negated by a boring and seemingly "out-of-left-field" ending that many viewers complained left them cheated. There are numerous other films that have been indulging in this trend, which is baffling. Why would a director want to leave an audience resentful and unsatisfied, feeling that they have just wasted their time watching an otherwise admirable movie?
"The Sleepwalker" serves as a showcase for some impressive up-and-coming talent. It's too bad they didn't close the deal and produce a movie that lived up to its potential. The film has been released on DVD by MPI Home Video. The edition features a creepy original trailer and some truncated interviews with the director and cast culled from some footage shot for the film's screening at Sundance. Perhaps appropriately, the interviews- like the film itself- end too abruptly to be satisfying.
On June 16, the Warner Archive will release the 1975 screen version of Neil Simon's comedy classic "The Sunshine Boys" as a Blu-ray special edition. The film stars Walter Matthau and George Burns as Lewis and Clark, a legendary vaudeville comedy team who have not been on speaking terms since they broke up their act eleven years ago. For their work in the film, Matthau was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, George Burns won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Richard Benjamin, who co-stars as Matthau's harried nephew and agent who tries the Herculean task of reuniting the team for a television special about comedy greats, won a Golden Globe award. Cinema Retro had the opportunity to speak with Richard Benjamin about his memories of working on the film.
Cinema Retro: "The Sunshine Boys" must have had a very personal meaning to you, given the fact that your uncle, Joe Browning, was popular vaudeville entertainer.
Richard Benjamin: Not only that, but here I had grown up listening to Burns and Allen on the radio and all those shows- and in those days, parents and children listened to the same programs. So it was Burns and Allen, Jack Benny and all that. So when we were filming ""The Sunshine Boys", George Burns used to ask me to go to lunch every day, which was a thrill. One day, walking with him to the commissary, I asked, "Did you know my uncle? He was in vaudeville" and he said, "What was his name?" I said, "Joe Browning". He said, "Not only did I know him, but I know his act. Do you want to hear it?" He started to do my uncle's act! It was incredible. I mean here I am walking between sound stages with George Burns and he's doing my uncle's act. He said, "You know, he was a headliner. We weren't the headliners on some of those bills, your uncle was." It was amazing to hear all that. Obviously, the movie is a love letter to vaudeville and all those guys, so it had a lot of meaning for me.
CR: You also got to meet another legend of comedy, Stan Laurel. How did that come about?
RB: When I went to see my uncle, who lived at the Beacon Hotel on Broadway and 74th Street, which was a block away from where we were shooting "The Sunshine Boys", he had a one bedroom suite in his hotel. There was a trunk in the middle of the living room, right as you walked in. It was a big steamer trunk with his initials on it: "JB", and the "J" and the "B" were intertwined, you know the way they would do that? He was ready to go! If he got a call, he was ready. So anyway, years and years later, my friend who I went to Northwestern with was out here at UCLA doing a master's thesis on Laurel and Hardy. One day he said to me, "I'm going out to interview Stan Laurel. Do you want to come?" I said, "Are you kidding?" So he and I went out there. Stan Laurel and his wife were in a six story apartment building facing the ocean in Santa Monica. This was a place that Jerry Lewis had put them into because they evidently had no money at all. People never knew it but Lewis did things like this, but he never broadcast it. He set them up in that apartment. When we got there, there was a buzzer downstairs and my friend Jerry buzzed it. A voice came on and said, "Yes? (imitates Stan Laurel). We told him who were were and he said, "Come right up!" I thought, "My God! Through this little speaker, I'm hearing Stan Laurel! This is unbelievable!". So we went upstairs and there in the center of his living room is his trunk with the "S" and the "L" intertwined. He was ready to go, too, just like my uncle. Those guys had a motto: "Have Trunk, Will Travel". It was life to them.
CR: Prior to working on "The Sunshine Boys", you already had a working relationship with Neil Simon...
RB: Yes, they were casting the national company of "Barefoot in the Park" with Myrna Loy. Fortunately, a friend of mine who I went to school with, Penny Fuller, said she was understudying Elizabeth Ashley. I mean, listen to how these things work...She asked if I was reading for the national company. I said, "For what?" I didn't know anything about it. She said, "Your agent didn't tell you about it?" I said, "No". So I called my agent at that time and asked, "Can you get me a reading for this? I'm really right for it." He said, "Oh, Oh, sure...that's a good idea." But it never would have happened had Penny not told me. So I went in there and I did a scene- actually I did it with Penny- and Mike Nichols was casting it. I had never met him but I recognized his laugh from his comedy records with Elaine May. After the reading, he came up to me and said, "Well, that's fine." I didn't know what that meant. When I was walking out, my agent was there and he said, "You've got it! They're casting you!". So that was my introduction to Neil, through being cast in the national company. Then he and Mike cast me in the national company of "The Odd Couple" with Dan Dailey. Then Neil asked me to do "Star Spangled Girl" with Tony Perkins on Broadway. So there was a ten minute audition and I'm working for three years and doing all these other things with Neil. I mean, if Penny didn't tell me that, I don't know if you and I would be talking today. You could just miss something by inches, you know? That's the thing about this business. You really never, never know. Anything you plan on never happens but something else happens.
CR: Prior to filming, you had also worked previously with director Herbert Ross on "The Last of Sheila" (1973).That must have put you into a pretty good comfort zone going into "The Sunshine Boys".
RB: Yes, I was. Also the material was just fabulous and funny. Being with Herb again was great.
CR: Jerry Lewis always said of Dean Martin that being the straight man was the hardest job in all of comedy. In the film, you're the straight man between Walter Matthau and George Burns. You obviously found the formula for not overshadowing the stars while not being overshadowed yourself, especially since you won the Golden Globe for your performance.
RB: You couldn't be in a better environment. I mean, all these people and the experience they all had. With that material and being at MGM and having everything that you needed, it was pretty special- and I knew it at the time. I was grateful to be in it. It was really great and Herb was terrific.
CR: As you know, neither Walter Matthau or George Burns were originally envisioned for the film. Phil Silvers had auditioned for the role of Willy that Matthau ended up playing and Jack Benny had been signed to play Al but he dropped out when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. (Screen tests and make up test of Silvers and Benny appear on the Warner Archive's Blu-ray release of the film.) I presume you weren't involved with the production in these early stages...
RB: No, no, I wasn't. I saw on this new Blu-ray those tests but I wasn't on the film at that time.
CR: When George Burns took over the Jack Benny role, you, Matthau and Herb Ross got together with him to go over an initial reading of the script. Can you relate what that experience was like, especially since Burns hadn't made a movie in over thirty years?
RB: His character doesn't appear until about fifteen or twenty pages into the script. So he was just sitting there, kind of looking off into the distance. We were wondering why he hadn't opened his script. It was right in front of him in a folder. Well, we're flipping pages and reading and every once in a while we would look over at George and think, "Well, he should be opening that pretty soon." Then we started to worry that maybe he was just out of it and didn't quite know what was happening here. He didn't touch the script. He was just staring out the window. Finally, we got to his first page and we thought, "If he doesn't open it now, it's going to be kind of sad." I had the line before his so I said my line and without missing a beat he said his line. Then he said the next line, then next and next and next and next. He was just ripping those lines out there. He's not missing anything and he's very funny. So Walter says, "Wait a second! What the hell is this???" So George said, "Aren't you supposed to learn the script?" Walter said, "Yeah, yeah- but you don't have to learn the whole thing!" So George said, "Well, don't you know your lines?" I thought, "We're in for it now! We'd better be on our toes because there's no fooling around with him!"
CR: I understand you were on the set every day, even when you weren't required.
RB: Yes, because George wanted to go to lunch with me every day.
CR: As a native New Yorker, you must have appreciated all the locations that were used in the film.
RB: It was right where I grew up. But the scenes in Willy's apartment were a set. We shot that in California.
CR: It's really a terrific piece of work. It really looks like an apartment, right down to the set decorations. Al Brenner, the production designer, did a great job.
RB: Yes, that's the brilliance of Brenner and people like him. He was just fabulous. I think the lobby was the Ansonia in New York but the apartment was all a set. It was a tremendous amount of work. You know, the play is set all in the apartment except for the scene where they go to the variety show. The New York locations were great- like going to the Friars Club and the street scenes and Willy going to that garage when he is lost and where we shot the commercial for Frumpy's potato chips.
CR: I never realized F. Murray Abraham was in the garage scene.
RB: Yes, he was the mechanic who gives Willy directions.
CR: He was a decade away from winning a Best Actor Oscar for "Amadeus".
RB: I know. Isn't that incredible?
CR: A unique aspect of the film is that there is no musical score.
RB: Only that vaudeville scene that opens the credits- and then I think there's something at the end, but there is no music throughout the film. That's because nothing needs to be emotionally enhanced. It's all real.
CR: As an established director in your own right, don't you find it fascinating that there was a time when you could make a major commercial film that contained so many long sequences of nothing but dialogue?
RB: It would be a challenge to find actors who could do it. We had Walter from the stage and George from vaudeville who could both do long, long takes. What's great about that is that you build up power during those takes. It's like being out on a wire because if anybody screws up, you have to go back to the beginning. Stage actors love the challenge but there are other actors who can't do it. They can only little short things. You don't trust anybody when all they can do is all those little quick cuts because it's not life real life.
CR: It must have pleased you when the film opened at Radio City Music Hall.
RB: It was great because my wife's (Paula Prentiss) first picture, "Where the Boys Are", opened there. That was the first time I saw her on the screen. That was- and maybe still is- the biggest screen in the world. The theater seats thousands so it was quite something. Having grown up in New York and having walked past that theater my entire life and then having all that happen was thrilling. It's still thrilling to me.
CR: You've said that "The Sunshine Boys" is a valuable filmed record of a bygone era - vaudeville- that might otherwise be forgotten.
RB: I don't know if people even know what that era is any more. Those people lived more on stage than off. They did eight shows a day, seven days a week. They were on the road for fifty weeks or something like that. They knew audiences better than anybody because of that tremendous experience. There's nothing like it today. What gives anybody that kind of experience? But Neil wrote an extraordinary play. He's quite extraordinary. I think it was Walter Kerr who once said about Neil, "Yes, they are jokes but why they are so funny is because the truth is in them."
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(Thanks to Carol Samrock of Carl Samrock Public Relations for her assistance in arranging this interview.)
One of the most rewarding byproducts of reviewing movies for a living is that you will often encounter some prominent gem that somehow managed to escape your attention previously. In certain cases, it's arguable that a film might well be more appreciated many years later than it was during its initial release. Such a case pertains to the 1965 crime drama Once a Thief. Directed by the under-rated Ralph Nelson, the film successfully invokes the mood and atmosphere of the classic black-and-white film noir crime thrillers of the 1940s and 1950s. Although this movie was widely credited as being Alain Delon's first starring role in an English language production, he was among the all-star cast seen the previous year in the big budget Hollywood production of The Yellow Rolls Royce. It is accurate to say, however, that Once a Thief afforded him his first opportunity to be the male lead in a major American film. The film was also significant in that it provided Ann-Margret with her first opportunity to show her skills as a dramatic actress. Her meteoric rise to fame had resulted from her roles in the musicals State Fair, Bye Bye Birdie and, most recently, opposite Elvis Presley in the smash hit Viva Las Vegas. In 1964, she made her dramatic film debut in Kitten with a Whip playing a deceitful "bad girl" in a film so bad it ultimately ended up being "honored" as a segment on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Another dramatic role the same year in The Pleasure Seekers was similarly unimpressive. However, 1965 proved to be her breakout year in terms of earning critical respect with back-to-back impressive performances in Bus Riley's Back in Town, Once a Thief and The Cincinnati Kid. Over the course of a few years, Ann-Margret would prove she was much more than just a talented singer and dancer. The decision to team her with Alain Delon proved to be an inspired one, as they practically smolder on screen together.
The film opens in a hip jazz club. Over the credits, we watch an astounding drum solo by Russell Lee, the likes of which had not been seen on screen until last year's Whiplash. The viewer is immediately impressed by the camerawork of veteran cinematographer Robert Burks, who had shot numerous Hitchcock classics in the 1950s and, most recently, The Birds and Marnie. The crowd at the jazz club indicates before we even see an exterior shot that we are in a very progressive place. At a time when the American South was still deeply embroiled in attempting to practice segregation, we see that the customers of the jazz club consist of both black and white patrons, all grooving almost hypnotically to an African American musician, whose drum solo almost transcends what seems to be humanly possible. We soon learn that we are in San Francisco, the American city that would most prominently embrace the on-going cultural revolution. The scene quickly shifts to a couple of thugs who rob a liquor store and needlessly murder its owner, a middle-aged Chinese woman, in front of her horrified husband. The scene switches again, as we are introduced to Eddie Pedlak (Delon), a handsome young immigrant from Trieste who drives the same classic sports car and wears the same sheepskin coat that were identified with the gunman in the liquor store robbery. Still, if Eddie is hiding his participation in such a heinous crime, he is able to put on the ultimate poker face. He eagerly greets his gorgeous wife Kristine (Ann-Margret) and their young daughter Kathy (Tammy Locke). Although they live in a modest apartment in a poor neighborhood, Eddie is eager to show his wife and daughter a major investment he has just made. Driving them to the bay area, Eddie proudly brings them aboard a small private boat that he says he has just managed to put a down payment on. When Kristine asks how he could afford to do so, he says he had been secretly squirreling away money from his modest paycheck as a truck driver. Yet, the viewer is suspicious. We have just seen a man who seemed to match Eddie's description rob a liquor store. Could the funds have come from those ill-gotten gains? Veteran detective Mike Vido (Van Heflin) certainly thinks so. He is convinced that Eddie is the man who once shot him in the stomach some years earlier when he attempted to thwart a robbery that was in progress. Since then he has haunted Eddie and refused to believe that he has gone straight. Vido is convinced Eddie was the man behind the liquor store robbery and murder, though his boss, Lt. Kebner (Jeff Corey), chides Vido for allowing his personal obsession with nailing Eddie for a crime to cloud his better judgment.
For much of the screenplay by Zekial Marko, who adapted the script from his own novel, the story plays like a modern version of Hugo's Les Miserables, with Eddie as the Jean Valjean character- a once minor criminal now trying to go straight- and Vido as the relentless detective Javert, who is determined to prove he is still engaged in illegal activities. Marko's script rings with a feel for street life and has an authenticity not found in most crime movies of this era. (Marko also turns in a sterling supporting performance as a career criminal who is acquainted with Eddie.) Vido's constant harassment of Eddie costs the young man several jobs, including his latest occupation as a trucker. In the film's most poignant sequence, he applies for unemployment insurance and must deal with an emotionless bureaucrat who tries to deny him benefits based on his criminal past. It's a moving and very emotional sequence and it's superbly played by Delon, who demonstrates that Eddie is a man at the end of his rope. The film takes an unexpected turn when he is acquitted of the liquor store robbery/murder, but his career is in ruins and he is distraught at his inability to provide for his family. Against his wishes, Kristine takes a night job as a waitress. This being 1965, Eddie is shamed by the fact that his wife has become the family breadwinner. He barely tolerates the situation until he learns that Kristine is actually employed by a nightclub and is being forced to pose as a single woman and wear a revealing uniform. He goes into a rage and forces her to quit. Their once happy marriage is now a shambles. At this point, fate intervenes with the unwelcome appearance of Eddie's older brother Walter (Jack Palance) who tries to enlist him in a major robbery of platinum from an industrial complex where Eddie recently worked. Walter estimates the haul to be worth over a million dollars but he and his sleazy henchmen need Eddie's knowledge of the place. At first Eddie heeds Kristine's pleas not to get sucked back into the world of crime, but with financial pressure building and no prospects for a legitimate job, he reluctantly consents to help plan the caper. The latter part of the film depicts the enactment of the plan, which is imaginatively staged and is filled with suspense. As these things generally turn out in crime movies, the robbery is a success, but double crosses between Walter and his henchmen prove to have disastrous consequences. Eddie finds himself marked for death and must enlist the most unlikely of allies- Detective Vido- when he learns that his daughter has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom until he turns the platinum over to his former partners.
Once a Thief offers a treasure trove of superior performances. In addition to Delon's impressive work, Ann-Margret excels as the young wife and mother who simply wants a "normal" life. We see her transformed from a happy-go-lucky woman who is both a doting mom and vibrant woman with a healthy love life (she is married to Alain Delon, after all) to a nerve-wracked emotional basket case who must cope with her husband being marked for death even as he frantically promises to get back their kidnapped daughter. Van Heflin brings understated dignity to the role of the world-weary detective and Palance does what Palance did best: play a charismatic heavy. The real scene-stealer is character actor John Davis Chandler as Walter's chief henchman, James Sargatanas. He is creepy to look at, with a slim build, premature white hair and omnipresent sun glasses. He resembles the guys from the hit team played by Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager in Don Siegel's 1964 version of The Killers - - only he's somehow even more menacing than those psychopaths were. This should have been a star-making role for Chandler, but it was not to be. Another familiar face among the crooks is Tony Musante, who would go on to appear in many memorable crime flicks. A special word about young Tammy Locke, who plays Kathy. She was only six years old when she appeared in the film and gave an amazingly accomplished performance. Director Nelson always possessed a skill at emphasizing the human aspects of his films and this one is no exception. You care deeply about the protagonists and their individual dilemmas. The film ratchets up the suspense in the final moments and Nelson manages to avoid a cliched happy ending.
The Warner Archive DVD boasts an excellent transfer and includes the original trailer and a very interesting production short in which we see composer Lalo Schifrin discussing with Ralph Nelson his theories for scoring the film. During an era in which film composers were largely taken for granted, it's nice to see the spotlight on Schifrin, who has been responsible for some of the most memorable TV and film scores of all time. Put this title on your "must-have" list.
By the early 1970s, America's cities seemed to be on a permanent downward spiral. The middle class was fleeing the inner cities in droves for the safety of suburbia while the major urban centers deteriorated rapidly into an abyss of crime. This trend, of course, was realistically reflected in such films as "Taxi Driver", "Mean Streets", "Death Wish" and "The French Connection". The latter became the Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1971 and helped set in motion the "dirty cop" movies that characterized this era of filmmaking. Gene Hackman's performance as New York City detective "Popeye" Doyle seemed to inspire any number of other memorable celluloid cop heroes who didn't waste time worrying about constitutional rights. Instead, they took matters into their own hands in order to bring criminals to justice- by whatever means necessary. Clint Eastwood had a smash hit employing such behavior on screen as Dirty Harry and before long, seemingly every major male star was lining up to play cops who routinely gave the middle finger to police brass as they set out to use vigilante methods to ensure the successful resolution of cases. Producer Philip D'Antoni had struck pay dirt with one of the first maverick cop movies, "Bullitt", in 1968. The title character, memorably played by Steve McQueen, routinely ignored orders from his superiors but wasn't exactly as "dirty cop", as he pretty much respected suspect's rights in the course of his assignment. However, D'Antoni's second crime classic from the era, "The French Connection" was the epitome of celebrating the notion that the end justifies the means when it came to law enforcement. The film was such a major hit that D'Antoni decided to do a follow-up titled "The Seven-Ups".
Released in 1973, "The Seven-Ups" shameless borrows on key elements of both "Bullitt" and "The French Connection", but at least does so with a considerable amount of style. D'Antonio hired "French Connection" co-star Roy Scheider and justifiably cast him in his first lead role. D'Antonio then came up with a winning recipe for another gritty urban crime film: cast numerous actors from both of his previous films in supporting roles then add a spectacular car chase as in "Bullitt", sprinkle in a driving, hard-hitting score by "French Connection" composer Don Ellis, then enlist real-life "French Connection" detective Sonny Grosso as a writer and consultant and - presto!- you have another winner. To make sure the project didn't stray too far from the formula, D'Antonio directed the movie himself. Ironically, despite obviously plagiarizing his own films, D'Antonio did emerge with a winner. Although "The Seven-Ups" is certainly not of the same caliber of "Bullitt" and "The French Connection", it does stand as a highly polished, engrossing action film. More importantly, it proved that Scheider was a credible leading man, a fact that undoubtedly lead to him being cast as the star of "Jaws" a couple of years later.
Scheider, who gives a yeoman performance, plays New York city detective referred to only as "Buddy". He heads up a top-secret four man unit called "The Seven-Ups", so-known because all of the suspects they arrest end up doing at least seven years or more in jail. The squad employs blatantly illegal methods to obtain whatever information they deem necessary from the low-lives that populate the crime-ridden areas of the city. It turns out that prominent, affluent loan sharks are being systematically kidnapped by two rogue cops and being held for ransom. The Seven-Ups are assigned to the case and Buddy relies on information from Vito (Tony Lo Bianco), a childhood friend with a shady past who leaks relevant scuttlebutt to him about the case. In the course of the investigation, however, the kidnappers prove more resolute than Buddy had imagined. Before long, one of his team has been murdered and Buddy finds himself employing increasingly desperate methods to track down the corrupt cops. The film is packed with realistic street-wise dialogue and convincing performances including real life stunt man Bill Hickman, who performed much of the driving in the "Bullitt" car chase; cult actor Joe Spinell, Ken Kercheval and Richard Lynch. Director of Photography Urs Furrer convincingly captures the gritty feel of New York's streets during this era, though much of the film was shot in the outer boroughs. The highlight of the movie (fully exploited in the trailers) is the spectacular car chase. It's a truly thrilling sequence that rivals the chases in "Bullitt" and "The French Connection", though die-hard "Bullitt" fans will recognize certain scenes from that film's chase carried over virtually intact into "The Seven-Ups".
There is a sobering aspect to watching dirty cop movies like this today. With crime rates in America having plunged dramatically over the decades and most of the cities having undergone an amazing Renaissance, the tactics employed by our "heroes" in these films suddenly look especially distasteful today- especially in light of recent high profile cases in which some "bad apple" cops have clearly violated civil rights. The trailers for "The Seven-Ups" rather sickeningly play up the fact that "you can't tell the cops from the killers", as though this was an attribute for a police officer. These "heroes" dispense with due process, break and enter suspects' homes and in one case threaten a man's innocent wife with with disfigurement. It's hard to imagine anyone who has evolved beyond Neanderthal status in these more enlightened times cheering such behavior. Nevertheless, one must view such films as products of their time- and as such, "The Seven-Ups" reminds of a less-than-glorious period in American history, one that has thankfully been replaced by better times.
The Fox DVD is poorly designed. One side of the disc contains the film in widescreen format with two bonus extras: the teaser trailer and full length trailer. The DVD sleeve indicates there is also an original production featurette but you'd have to be Sherlock Holmes to discover that you have to turn the disc over to the apparently blank "B" side (there is no writing or graphics) and deduce that if you insert this into your DVD player, you will get access to the film in cropped, full screen format along with the production featurette. The featurette, though extremely grainy, is quite interesting. It details the considerable logistics of filming the movie's signature car chase sequence, as planned by D'Antoni and Bill Hickman. It's nice that Fox included this but it's puzzling as to why they made it a challenge to locate it.
When it was announced that producer Elliott Kastner had succeeded in signing both Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson for the 1976 Western, The Missouri Breaks, the project was viewed as a "can't miss" at the international box-office. This would be Brando's first film since his back-to-back triumphs in The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris and Nicholson had just won the Best Actor Oscar for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The two Hollywood icons were actually neighbors who lived next door to each other, but they had never previously teamed for a film project. Kastner, whose prowess as a street-wise guy who used unorthodox methods to get films off the ground, had used a clever tactic to sign up both superstars: he told each man that the other had already committed to the project, when, in fact, neither had. With Brando and Nicholson aboard, Kastner hired a respected director, Arthur Penn, who had worked with Brando ten years before on The Chase. He then chose an acclaimed novelist, Thomas McGuane, who had recently made his directorial debut with 92 in the Shade, to write the screenplay. What emerged from all these negotiations was a seemingly "can't miss" boxoffice blockbuster in the making. Alas, it was not to be. Upon its release, critics emphasized the "Miss" aspect of the The Missouri Breaks, with most reviewers citing the opinion that the film was a long, slow slog interrupted up a hammy, over-the-top comic performance from Brando, who Penn apparently exercised little control over when it came to the actor's penchant for improvisation.
The film opens with cattle baron David Braxton (John McLiam) "hosting" a lynching for a rapt audience of his ranch hands. Seems the intended victim has rustled some of his cattle and McLiam is determined to put an end to the thievery, which has reduced his overall business income by 7% per year- a statistic he never tires of griping about. McLiam's hardball tactics against the rustlers don't sit well with his otherwise adoring daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd), an independent-thinking young woman who has acted as her father's most trusted companion since her mother left him for another man years ago. The victim of the lynching was a member of a rustling gang headed by Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), who befriends Braxton on the pretense that he wants to purchase a plot of land on his property to establish a small farm. In reality, he wants to utilize the land to temporarily house stolen horses which his gang has gone to Canada to obtain in a daring operation against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's stables. Meanwhile, Jane- who lives a life of relative isolation on her father's estate-is immediately smitten by the charismatic Tom Logan and when she insists that he become her first lover, he finds it impossible to resist. Thus, Logan is now in a romantic relationship with a girl who is the daughter of a man he is deceiving and stealing from. David Braxton goes all-out in his obsession with thwarting the rustlers. He hires Lee Clayton, a renowned "regulator", which is a polite term for bounty hunter. Clayton is an eccentric man with a bizarre personality who speaks in a heavy Irish brogue, but also at times utilizes other accents. He is at times charming and amusing and at other times fiery-tempered and unpredictable. Upon being introduced to Tom Logan by Braxton, Clayton immediately suspects he is not a farmer, but a rustler. The two men play a cat-and-mouse game, each one employing double-entendres in their conversations. When Logan's men return from Canada empty-handed after being thwarted by the Mounties, Clayton becomes an omnipresent figure, observing their every move from afar through binoculars. One by one, he systematically murders the members of the rustling gang, always preceding their horrendous deaths by chatting with the doomed men in disarmingly friendly tones. Clayton becomes so frightening a figure that even Braxton becomes intimidated by him and attempts to fire him, but Clayton says the money is irrelevant and that once he commits to a job, he sees it through. The stage is set for a mano-a-mano confrontation between Logan and Clayton that both men realize will see only one emerge alive.
Brando and Nicholson on the set in Montana.
It's easy to see why The Missouri Breaks didn't catch on with audiences. Much of the film moves at a glacial pace, but McGuane's script is intelligent and the dialogue often witty. Brando's outrageous antics easily overshadow anyone else in the film, even though his appearances are fleeting and the lion's share of the screen time is dominated by Nicholson. Brando seems to be having a field day and there seems to be no limit to his improvisations. (At one point he is dressed as a Chinese peasant and in another he is inexplicably attired as a woman, complete with apron and bonnet.) He also has a penchant for making some uncomfortably romantic overtures to his horse. Thus, the character of Clayton proves to be a distraction from the otherwise somber, realistic tone of the film. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Brando's appearances are both amusing and somewhat mesmerizing, even if out of place. The movie boasts a first rate supporting cast that includes Harry Dean Stanton, Frederic Forrest and a young and slim Randy Quaid. Kathleen Lloyd holds her own against the considerable star power of Brando and Nicholson, which could not have been an easy feat. Alas, stardom was not to follow for her, though she still occasionally appears as a guest star in popular TV series. Where the movie disappoints the most is in its climax. The audience has been led to expect a memorable confrontation between Logan and Clayton, but when one of them gets the upper hand on the other, it's done very abruptly and rather unimaginatively, leaving the viewer feeling cheated. The movie boasts a low-key but appropriately atmospheric score by John Williams and impressive cinematography by Michael Butler. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks sensational in the outdoor sequences but the dimly lit interiors have a degree of grain to them, which may have been intended by Butler. An original theatrical trailer has been included.
After The Missouri Breaks, Brando seemed uninspired and went on automatic pilot in terms of his film roles. He was paid a relative fortune for what amounted to extended cameos in Superman and Apocalypse Now, and while he was a significant physical presence in both films, no one made the case that he exerted himself dramatically. He would find occasional enthusiasm in certain roles (an Oscar-nominated turn in the little-seen A Dry White Season and a hilarious performance recreating his Don Corleone role for The Freshman), but his enthusiasm seemed to diminish in direct proportion to his increase in weight. Sadly, he would never totally recapture the mojo he once enjoyed as a screen icon. Yet, time has been kind to The Missouri Breaks. The film's literate script and direction are a reminder of an era in which such projects would be green-lit by major studios who appealed to the intellect of movie audiences. Today, the project would never have seen fruition no matter who starred in it.
