CINEMA RETRO ISSUE #56 NOW SHIPPING WORLDWIDE!

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Highlights of issue #56 include:

Simon Lewis and Dave Worrall go behind the scenes of "A Bridge Too Far" in an 18-page "Film in Focus"- don't miss Dave's special report based on his experiences on the set!

Nicholas Anez explores the two versions of "The Cincinnati Kid" starring Steve McQueen.

John P. Harty revisits the trials and tribulations of bringing "55 Days at Peking" to the big screen.

Lee Pfeiffer revisits the infamous bomb "The Legend of the Lone Ranger"..was it really that bad?

Brian Davidson celebrates the sexy but-short-lived stewardess-ploitation films.

Tim Greaves recalls how Sophia Loren made a splash in her first Hollywood film, Boy on a Dolphin.

By Adrian Smith

Cesare Mori grew up in an orphanage in the 1870s but rose to power and influence through the military, then the police, and finally as a Prefect in Mussolini’s Fascist Party. He was dispatched to Palermo in Sicily in the mid-1920s with the specific task of destroying the power and influence of the Mafia, who held a vicious and all-controlling stranglehold on the island. The Mafia were responsible for hundreds of brutal murders every year, bribed officials, and were a prime reason why so many lived in poverty. Mori was a man on a mission, and would stop at nothing to break this criminal organisation. He was extraordinarily successful. His reasoning was that it was not enough to simply arrest people: The citizens of Sicily had to see that the authorities could help them and that they no longer needed the Mafia for protection.

Following his promotion to the senate, where ultimately he fell afoul of Mussolini after expressing concern over Italy’s relationship with Hitler, he wrote his memoirs about the role he played in breaking the Mafia, and it was this that inspired the 1977 production of The Iron Prefect, starring Giuliano Gemma in the title role. Gemma was well-known to audiences thanks to his role in such Spaghetti Westerns as A Pistol for Ringo (1965, Duccio Tessari) and Day of Anger (Tonino Valerii, 1967) and he would even appear in Dario Argento’s Tenebrae a few years later in 1982. Despite being around twenty years younger than the actual Mori, he creates a believable, authoritative character, and one can see why the Sicilian police were willing to follow his sometimes-unorthodox methods. The film features Claudia Cardinale in a supporting role as the struggling mother of a young boy whose father was an influential leader of the Mafia, but having had enough, she wants to try and secure a better life for the boy away from Sicily. It was ably directed on location by Pasquale Squitieri, who was himself no stranger to the Western, and had also made other films about organised crime and the Mafia, including Camorra (1972) and The Climber (1975).

It’s an easy comparison to make, but one can’t help but think of the Sicilian section of The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), and this film makes an excellent companion piece to that: Sicily is hot, dry and crumbling, where peasants are armed with shotguns and the authorities are powerless to do anything about the criminal gangs who brazenly murder entire families to maintain control, until Cesare Mori arrives of course. The Iron Prefect has been restored in 2K from the original negative and is available here from new boutique label Radiance Films with new and archival extras. As Squitieri and Gemma are sadly no longer with us, an archival interview with them both recorded in 2009 provides fascinating insight, and there is also a new interview with Squitieri’s biographer Domenico Monetti. My favourite bonus feature here is an appreciation of Giulliano Gemma by writer, director and western fan Alex Cox who goes into detail and brings wit and style to the piece. If Alex Cox, host of the important Moviedrome series of film screenings on British television in the late nineties, could shoot videos like this for all of Radiance’s releases, I for one would be very happy. The limited edition of The Iron Prefect comes with a booklet featuring new writing by Italian cinema expert Guido Bonsaver and an original article on the real-life Cesare Mori and his Mafia raid as depicted within the film.

This is another excellent release from Radiance, who have rapidly become a popular and collectible label with an eclectic mix of world classic and cult cinema. Cinema Retro recently interviewed founder Francesco Simeoni about the label. You can read it here.

You can order The Iron Prefect direct from Radiance by clicking here.

By Lee Pfeiffer

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. 

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By Todd Garbarini

In honor of Al Pacino’s 83^rd birthday this past April, Cinema Retro looks at the new double-disc Kino Lorber 4K Ultra High Definition and standard Blu-ray release of Sidney Lumet’s 1973 police drama Serpico, a film that is based upon the real-life exploits of retired New York Police Detective Frank Serpico. Serpico is an early entry in Mr. Pacino’s film roles and also one of his most riveting. He got his start in feature films by playing a potential suitor to Patty Duke at a party in Fred Coe’s Me, Natalie (1969) and then played the lead opposite Kitty Winn in Jerry Schatzberg’s The Panic in Needle Park (1971), a cautionary tale of heroin addicts in New York City. Following his transformation from a discharged military soldier into cold-blooded family head Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), he reteamed with Mr. Schatzberg for the heartbreaking Scarecrow (1973) -opposite Gene Hackman- as Lionel Delbuchi, a man who attempts to right past wrongs with his ex-wife. In Serpico, Mr. Pacino’s fifth film, he teams with veteran director Sidney Lumet to portray the real-life police detective who not only uncovers corruption in the ranks but takes the department to task for accountability and change.

Serpico begins at the end and is told in flashback leading right up to the start of the film when our hero is shot in the face by a small caliber pistol. Mr. Pacino gives a powerful and deeply nuanced performance of a man who knows right from wrong but feels trapped withing the workings of the police department and needs to proceed cautiously. As Serpico is rushed to the hospital and is met by Police Chief Sidney Green (John Randolph), the full weight of all he has been through shows on his face, his circumstance taking him back, in flashback, to his graduation from the police academy. In his early days, Serpico is an idealistic and happy young man who eschews donning the police department’s standard-issue plainclothes accoutrements in favor of dressing like a civilian to improve the relationship between police and the community. A burglary attempt nearly proves fatal when responding officers open fire on him in his unrecognizable getup. He meets and courts Leslie (Cornelia Sharpe), a ballerina, and her acquaintances back away when they learn of his profession. Their romance suffers, as does his superior’s (James Tolkan) perception of him.

Serpico comes face to face with police corruption and initially treads lightly as officers he works with take money from criminals to look the other way. From their behavior, it is just another day at the office. When he attempts to report this to his superiors, he is laughed off. Future busts with other officers results in him being offered his “take” which he refuses to the shock and dismay of his peers, especially Tom Keough (Jack Kehoe) who wants the gravy train to continue and does his best to ingratiate himself and warns Serpico to comply and not to go against the others. He begins to wonder who is worse: the rapists and robbers or his fellow officers?

Serpico entrusts the aid of an associate, Blair (Tony Roberts), who knows the right people. They go straight to the mayor’s office, but the initial meeting leads to more disappointment as the case is tabled, making life miserable for both Serpico and his new girlfriend who loves him and desperately wants children with him, but she eventually terminates their relationship. He then takes on a mobster, an unrecognizable Richard Foronjy who would appear opposite Mr. Pacino in Brian DePalma’s Carlito’s Way twenty years later in another elliptical narrative wherein the lead is shot and the story is told through flashback. The arrest and confrontation is Mr. Pacino at his most explosive in the film, his fury directed at both the mobster but more at his fellow officers who joke around with this man who was previously jailed for killing another police officer. Things take a dangerous turn when he goes outside of the department to report the corruption and brings his findings to the New York Times. Serpico finds himself transferred to a terrible neighborhood busting drug addicts, leading him to the near fatal shot to the face, after which he testifies before the Knapp Commission regarding the corruption.

Serpico opened in New York City on Wednesday, December 5, 1973, almost three years shy of the actual murder attempt in Williamsburg. It was Mr. Pacino’s first time working with producer Martin Bregman and he would collaborate over the next twenty years on Sidney Lumet’s Dog Dag Afternoon (1975), Brian DePalma’s Scarface (1983), Harold Becker’s Sea of Love (1989), and Brian DePalma’s aforementioned Carlito’s Way (1993). Serpico’s mother is played by actress Mildred Clinton. I have only seen her in one other film, Alfred Sole’s Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) wherein she played Mrs. Tredoni. She is deeply affecting in her small but significant role. The remaining cast is a smorgasbord of players you will recognize from the terrific roster of New York character actors that includes Tracey Walter, Tom Signorelli, Kenneth McMillian, Tony LoBianco, Judd Hirsch, Sam Coppola, Sully Boyar, F. Murray Abraham, M. Emmet Walsh, and Sal Corollo. Cornelia Sharpe, who was producer Bregman’s girlfriend at the time (later his wife), is given less screen time than she deserves. She went on to play the role of Nancy Stillman in Peter Collinson’s 1974 film Open Season, a bizarre film that has never seen the light of day on home video in the United States (but is finally available to download on Vudu) reportedly because producer Bregman wanted it keep out of circulation, but that’s another story.

Serpico is an example of the great New York 1970s filmmaking style that I miss so much, and the film is an authentic product of its time. There is no way to fake 1970’s New York convincingly today. There are too many details to capture, although HBO’s The Deuce did an admirable job of it.

The new Kino Lorber release of the film contains the following extras:

Disc One: 4k Ultra High Definition (UHD)

The first disc is a triple-layered pressing of the film in 4K UHD with the film image scanned from the original camera negative and color-corrected.

Exclusive to this release is an audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. This is an extremely informative and entertaining piece, including a discussion of great New York filmmakers (think Woody Allen, Spike Lee, and Sidney Lumet). John G. Avildsen, who would go on to direct Rocky for United Artists and win the Best Director Oscar, was the original director, and he did not see eye-to-eye with producer Martin Bregman and Dino De Laurentiis, leading to his dismissal. The film was edited by the late great Dede Allen, who would also work with Mr. Lumet on Dog Day Afternoon (1975, one of her greatest accomplishments) and The Wiz (1979). Filmed on a low budget, scheduling was challenging as Paramount also needed Mr. Pacino to return for The Godfather Part II.

Disc Two: Standard Blu-ray

In addition to the new transfer and running audio commentary, there are the following extras:

Sidney Lumet: Cineaste New York – this piece runs 30:24 and is ported over from the special edition Studio Canal standard Blu-ray release from 2010. Mr. Lumet, in a 2005 interview, talks about his time growing up in New York City during the Depression; the changing nature of what the city has to offer; how safe the city was at the time of the interview; how he uses very little violence in his films; shooting on location in the city, and how his characters relate to their environment.

Looking for Al Pacino – this piece runs 30:38 and is also ported over from the special edition Studio Canal Blu-ray. It includes onscreen interviews with directors Jerry Schatzberg, Michael Radford, and Jack Garfein, who all speak very highly of Mr. Pacino and his method of acting.

Serpico Reel to Reel – this piece runs 09:58 and is ported over from the Paramount DVD from 2002 and includes onscreen interviews with Martin Bregman and Sidney Lumet and how the film came together once they were all onboard.

Inside Serpico – this piece runs 12:55 and is also ported over from the Paramount DVD and focuses on the astonishing way that the film was made. It began shooting in July 1973, was shot in reverse continuity, edited during principal photography, and premiered five months later. Absolutely unreal for a film of this caliber.

Serpico: Favorite Moments – this piece runs 2:37 and is also ported over from the Paramount DVD. Mr. Bregman talks about his favorite scene, which comes near the film’s end when Serpico refuses his gold shield. Mr. Lumet’s favorite scene is at the Hell’s Gate Bridge when Serpico unleashes on his superior about going to outside investigative agencies.

Photo Gallery with Commentary by Director Sidney Lumet (4:24) is also from the Paramount DVD. It focuses on Mr. Lumet’s desire to have no music in the film, something that Mr. De Laurentiis completely disagreed with. Mikis Theodorakis was then contracted to write a theme for the film that appears sporadically throughout the film but is never overpowering.

The following trailers are also included: Serpico, Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974), John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man (1976), Michael Cimino’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), Richard T. Heffron’s Newman’s Law (1974), Peter Hyams’s Busting (1974), Stuart Rosenberg’s The Laughing Policeman (1973), Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957), Sidney Lumet’s The Group (1966), and Sidney Lumet’s A Stranger Among Us (1992).

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"Ralph Vaughan Williams, 49th Parallel - The Complete Music Written for the Film"

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed in a wide variety of genres, and film music became a significant part of his output in the latter decades of a long and distinguished career. He viewed film scores as more than just ephemera, seeking to “intensify the spirit of the whole” in wartime productions such as “49th Parallel” (CDLX7405).

Dutton Epoch presents the world premiere recording of the complete score. “49th Parallel” (aka “The Invaders”) has been constructed from the original manuscripts by Martin Yates in 2022. This new recording by The BBC Concert Orchestra is conducted by Martin Yates and offers a soaring re-birth it has long deserved.

It all began in 1940 when conductor Muir Mathieson approached Ralph Vaughan Williams about writing the score for this film. The movie was part of the government’s wartime policy to use cinema to rally up the support from the nation. The patriotic Vaughan Williams was only too happy to oblige, and the score became his first of eleven for film. Originally, The London Symphony Orchestra, (conducted by Mathieson and George Stratton), were used to record Vaughan Williams’ music for the production.

The music, of course, remains a stirring and remarkable achievement. The Prelude is the first piece of music heard in the film, and has remained perhaps the most popular piece from the score. The marrying of strings and brass set up the score perfectly as a repeated theme which is peppered throughout the soundtrack - but is delivered in its full glory within the Prelude. Vaughan Williams’ provides a rich and varied score, which makes good use of timpani rolls, bold brass and a variety of comforting woodwind.

“49th Parallel” is, and will quite probably remain, a quintessentially British classic. It has the ability to be both uplifting and emotionally charged. As one who has attended the odd concert of Vaughan Williams music, I can honestly say that there is almost a collective intake of breath amongst the audience once they are alerted to the opening chords of “49th Parallel” – and there’s not many pieces of music which command that degree of attention and general awe.

Spread over 23 tracks, the production team of Neil Varley, Emma Syrus and Executive producer Michael J Dutton have delivered perhaps the most comprehensive edition of Williams’ masterful score. The CD is also boosted by a super 12-page booklet which features detailed notes and photos – all of which is edited by Oliver Lomax. As with any of the Dutton SACD Hybrid Multi-Channel CD’s, all tracks are also available in stereo and playable on any standard CD player.

Charles Gerhardt National Philharmonic Orchestra – “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Star Wars”

In recent years, Vocalion have been instrumental in the remastered reissues of the highly enjoyable Charles Gerhardt albums of the Seventies, most of which were released on the RCA Read Seal label, a quality and highly respected label back in the day. Vocalion have chosen wisely in picking up and renewing these titles, often popular with budding young soundtrack collectors, they also retain a nostalgic, childhood charm and many original LPs can still be found in various collections. Vocalion’s latest offering in their SACD Hybrid series is the wonderful 1978 album “Charles Gerhardt National Philharmonic Orchestra – Close Encounters of the Third Kind And Star Wars” (CDLK4642).

Recorded in London’s Kingsway Hall on December 23, 1977, the album proved to be a very popular with fans of both films and were quite happy to welcome this piece of vinyl to sit alongside their original John Williams LPs. Some 45 years on from that original release, Vocalion’s Michael J. Dutton has remastered and remixed the recording in quadraphonic form from the original analogue tapes, and it’s a glorious piece of work.

I initially wondered if this particular release would be worth the upgrade. I still own the RCA Red Seal CD (RCD 13650) from 1983, and despite its gathering years, I always maintained the view that it still sounded rather good. However, popping this newly polished edition into the CD drawer, it soon became apparent that there was in fact a world of difference. The audio is much more expansive and completely envelopes you with a newly found level of richness, clarity and warmth. The CD sticks to its original sequencing of 6 tracks from “Star Wars” (totalling some 33 minutes) and is followed by the “Close Encounters” suite at 21-minutes. It’s great that Vocalion have again stuck to the original album art, a feature that collectors certainly respect and goes a long way in cementing their memories of enjoyment and nostalgia. The 8-page booklet contains Charles Gerhardt’s original (and quite extensive) liner notes and is illustrated nicely throughout.

“Charles Gerhardt’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars” is an impressive release and well worth the upgrade if quality ranks high on your list of priorities. Vocalion seem to have a reliable knack of delivering on quality and they appear to do it with a justified sense of pride – long may it continue.

https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk

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

"Author's Corner": Cinema Retro invites authors to contribute a first-hand account of how they were inspired to write their book. Our guest contributor today is Julian Schlossberg, author of "Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer's Life" (Beaufort Books). (Click here for Cinema Retro's review of the book.)

A producer had better be working on several things at the same time.  As they say, throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and hope that some of it sticks. But in 2021, with the pandemic raging, nothing was sticking. I felt the need to put all my projects on hold. So what is a producer to do with all of that free time and energy?  He looks back.  He shares stories. Prior to that, whenever I would share some anecdote related to my sixty years in show business, I was often asked “are you writing a book?”  I had always answered truthfully that I was too busy.  Well, now, with the pandemic, busy, I wasn’t. So I sat down and wrote just one chapter.  It was a story I had told for years and that had made my wife Merryn laugh, even though she had heard me tell it countless times.  I then wrote another. And another.  I would read each new chapter to Merryn and two women who are my frequent collaborators and, have become, like sisters to me, Marlo Thomas and Elaine May.  These three women were very important to my process.  Eventually Elaine would contribute the foreword to my book. 

The past started flooding back and I found myself downloading incidents I had forgotten.  The more I wrote, the more I began to realize that I had many reasons for bring my story to the page. In looking back, I wanted to transport readers of my generation back to a time that will never come again. I wanted to share my experiences with a younger generation that might enjoy reading about a totally different world that once existed. This was a time when there was only three television networks.  A time when people still dressed up to go to the movies (especially if it was a musical!). A time when I thought I could do anything, because I was still young and inexperienced enough to have not considered the alternative.

Beyond the nostalgia, I knew that I wanted my story to entertain, and perhaps, even inspire.  Having produced movies, television and theater, I wanted to write about my personal experiences working in all three mediums. I would recount in some detail how a play, a movie and a television show is produced from the ground up.  I would share my experiences learning the trade from the ground up, and recall my collaborations, encounters and, in some cases, friendships with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Shirley MacLaine,  Bruce Springsteen, Elia Kazan, Sid Caesar, Orson Welles, Al Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Lillian Hellman, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Bob Hope, Ethan Coen, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Steve Allen, Larry Gelbart and many others. 

Just writing such a list humbles me, and looking back, I am still amazed by my unexpected trajectory. When I was just starting out, I drove a taxi for a living.  To keep alert while picking up late night fares, I would listen to comedy legends on the radio; talents like Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Woody Allen and Alan Arkin. I dreamed that I might one day meet them and tell them how much I admired their talent.  The fact that I ended up producing for them, to this day, boggles my mind. 

But before I became a producer, my first showbiz job was working at the ABC-TV network.  There, I decided to learn all I could about the entertainment business.  I didn’t have a medical, accounting or law degree.  But I knew knowledge was power, and if I could attain knowledge perhaps I could attain some power.  So I became my own kind of hyphenate.  I was a TV network executive—motion picture syndicator—V.P. of a theater chain— V.P. of a major film studio—owner of a production and film distribution company.    

And after that, my list of hyphenated job titles grew to include producer—director—radio host—TV host—co-owner of a record company—talent manager—producer representative—lecturer-teacher.    

And, now, finally, I can say that I’m an author too. Who would have thought that the cabbie from the Bronx would one day author a memoir titled Try Not To Hold It Against Me – A Producer’s Life?  Who’d have thought that anyone would want to read it?  Certainly not me. But with the book having sold out on Amazon within days of its initial release, and a second printing on order, I guess people are reading. I’m awe-struck and I couldn’t be more pleased or grateful. 

Since this is a cinema site, I’ll close with a memory that I include in the new book.  I describe my experience of working, distantly, with Martin Scorsese and Federico Fellini. I close that particular chapter with this recollection: “It meant a lot to me to present a Fellini film with Scorsese.  I was proud to be associated with both of them.  But I also knew how to answer the question often posed in elementary school tests, ‘which one doesn’t belong’.”

I suppose, despite my 60 years in the business, I will always see myself as the kid from the Bronx who wanted to get into show business …but try not to hold it against me.

(PR contact for Julian Schlossberg: Brett Oberman at Keith Sherman & Associates: brett@ksa-pr.com)

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

On May 30th Rain Man, the winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow), Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman) and Best Director (Barry Levinson), makes its 4K Ultra HD format debut with a new restoration (a just completed 4K high definition 16-Bit Scan of the original camera negative) approved by Levinson and presented in its original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio in Dolby Vision / HDR.  

Rain Man stars Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise as estranged brothers on a road trip unlike any other across America. Charlie Babbitt (Cruise) has been given the news that his recently deceased father has left his entire fortune to his autistic brother Raymond (Hoffman), who he did not know existed. In a crass bid to grab some, if not all of the inheritance, Charlie abducts Raymond and what begins as a money-making scheme for Charlie turns into a journey of discovery between brothers who are worlds apart. 

The two-disc 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray 35th Anniversary Edition is packed with supplemental material including three audio commentaries (one with director Barry Levinson, one with co-writer Barry Morrow and a third with co-writer Ronald Bass). Along with the commentaries, there are several making of / behind the scenes featurettes including: The Journey of Rain Man featurette, Lifting the Fog: A Look at the Mysteries of Autism featurette, a deleted scene, and the original theatrical trailer.  

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By Lee Pfeiffer

Jim Brown, one of America's most legendary athletes and an iconic film star, has passed away at age 87. No cause of death has been announced as of this writing. Brown was an American sensation on the football field during his nine seasons as a fullback with the Cleveland Browns. When he left sports, he transcended into a successful acting career in the mid-1960s. It was a time when bankable Black stars were few in number. Brown was immediately accepted by movie audiences of all races and backgrounds. He exuded the kind of tough, dignified characters that resonated with film audiences in movies such as "Rio Conchos", "The Dirty Dozen", "Ice Station Zebra" and "Dark of the Sun " (aka "The Mercenaries"). In the 1969 Western, he and Raquel Welch caused a sensation (and a scandal in some quarters) with their steamy interracial love scenes in the Western "100 Rifles", a film that boasted an ad campaign that seemed specifically designed to cause racists sleepless nights. Brown benefited from the so-called Blaxploitation film craze of the 1970s that was initiated by the success of director Gordon Parks' 1971 film "Shaft", although like his colleague Sidney Poitier, he refused to play characters that were exploitive or undignified. Both men recognized they were symbols for a new generation of young Black people and-like it or not-they were also role models, even if Brown occasionally played a charismatic character on the other side of the law.

By the 1980s, Brown's status as a leading man began to diminish but he never went out of style. He began to appear in supporting roles in films made by a young generation of directors such as Tim Burton and Spike Lee. Brown's success didn't prevent him from enduring some messy periods in his personal life, mostly concerning his interactions with women. He once opted to spend months in jail rather than settle a domestic misdemeanor charge with his wife. Brown prided himself on his role as an activist for civil rights. In 1988, he founded an organization dedicated to keeping young people away from the lure of street gangs.

Jim Brown had a low-key persona onscreen but there is no overstating his achievements in real life.

For more about his life and career, click here.

By Patrick Humphries

Where does a book begin? In my case, with Cleopatra it came when my dear late mother found out that Elizabeth Taylor had been recently seen in the pub in South East London where we used to go to celebrate family occasions.

This would have been in 1963/64, when the very idea of a screen goddess, a genuine film star, a bona-fide legend like Elizabeth Taylor would inhabit the same universe as us!

Thirty years later and I am Film Editor of Vox, a monthly UK music and film magazine. I wrote a feature for the 30^th anniversary of Cleopatra, and tried pitching it as a BBC radio documentary. So over the years I accrued a filing cabinet drawer and shelf full of material about that legendary 1963 film.

Few of the film’s stars survived into the 21^st century, so I had to rely on cuttings, biographies and film histories. As you might expect for a film on the scale of Cleopatra, that in itself was quite a challenge. But the more I dipped into it the more amazed I became: stars signed up for 10 weeks hanging round for 18 months in Rome. The battles Darryl F. Zanuck fought to gain control of 20^th Century Fox. The Burton family’s determination to keep Richard’s marriage together…

I suspect that my inspiration for a book was based on Steven Bach and Julie Salamon’s books on Heavens Gate and Bonfire Of The Vanities – brilliant books about terrible films. And for all its grandeur, Cleopatra is a terrible film. But what a story in how it made it to the cinema screen.

It was a five year journey: 20^th Century Fox were keen to cash-in on the success of MGMs Ben-Hur, and so dusted down a 1917 script about the Queen of the Nile. It was intended as a $2,000,000 vehicle for Fox contract player Joan Collins with a 64-day shoot.

The fact that the Theda Bara Cleo was a silent film didn’t seem to worry the studio unduly. Five years later, and at a budget twenty times the original estimate, Cleopatra premiered.

Elizabeth Taylor accounted for $1,000,000 of that budget, the first star to ask for – and get! – that legendary seven figure sum. There was no finished script, but the UK offered generous tax breaks, so Fox decided to construct a massive set of the ancient port of Alexandria at Pinewood Studios. Shooting began in September 1961, the beginning of the English autumn. Some days it rained so heavily you couldn’t see the other side of the set. Other days it was so cold, vapour was coming out of the extras’ mouths. The imported pine tress had to be constantly replaced because of the wind. The enormous sea tank containing a million gallons was overflowing because of the rain.

The original cast of Peter Finch (Caesar) and Stephen Boyd (Marc Antony) had to quit due to existing commitments. The sky remained grey and gloomy. Trying to conjure up Mediterranean grandeur was proving problematic. Ancient Alexandria in rural Buckinghamshire suddenly seemed not such a good idea.

Eventually, after two months the decision was made to pull the plug on the UK shoot. Eight minutes of film ended up in the finished film, at a cost of nearly $8,000,000. The question was: to write off such a sum (half of what Ben-Hur cost!) Or get a new director, script and stars and relocate to begin filming again in Rome. At least in Italy you could be guaranteed good weather, besides, what else could possibly go wrong?

As Cinema Retro readers will know it all went horribly wrong. Once in Rome, Cleopatra was far removed from the Hollywood studio. In those pre-fax, email and text days, it was a cumbersome business to arrange phone calls and telexes. The story of the romance between Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor was only one of the factors which delayed the production of Cleopatra. Poor writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was shooting by day and writing the script by night. His original vision for the film was two films, but the studio wanted something – anything – out to cash in on the Burton/ Taylor romance.

On its release, Cleopatra was the most successful film of 1963, but it took years to claw back its costs, and 20th Century Fox was only saved by a modest little musical, The Sound Of Music, which came in at a sixth the cost of Cleopatra!

Like many, I was of an age to be beguiled by the big-screen releases of the early 1960s. It's a cliché, but with only two UK black & white TV channels, colour was a big deal. Especially in all its Todd-AO, stereophonic majesty. I’d already lapped up The Alamo, Barabbas, King Of Kings, Ben-Hur, El Cid, How the West Was Won, The Guns of Navarone, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Lawrence of Arabia, PT109, The Longest Day, Mutiny on the Bounty, Spartacus, and Taras Bulba. Then came The Great Escape, Fall Of The Roman Empire, 55 Days At Peking, 633 Squadron… The glory days.

Finally seeing Cleopatra was a disappointment. It has spectacle, but is somehow just not… spectacular. And beware the Ides of March, because once Rex Harrison is gone, the film dips. Over the years when I began reviewing and writing about films professionally, I kept coming back to Cleopatra. How could they have got it so wrong? And didn’t they learn from their mistakes? Obviously not as flops like Dr Dolittle, Star! and Hello Dolly were overtaken by the likes of The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, Easy Rider…

You’d think by now, the studios would have learned from their mistakes, but no, only last year Warners announced that they’d written off their $100,00,000 Cat Woman. There is something rather magnificent in the folly of Cleopatra. But it is a hard watch. Far more enjoyable was The VIPs, made to cash-in on the infamy of the Burtons.

For those of a certain age, those epic films were emblematic. They were school holiday treats at the London Astoria, the Dominion, the Metropole… Souvenir brochures and Kia-Ora in hand as we sat open-mouthed as the screen was filled with thousands and thousands of costumed extras, besieging the Alamo or Peking. Even rewatching them on CD or Blu-Ray, the scale of those productions is jaw dropping – and those were all humans occupying those Roman forums and besieged cities, not generated by a computer. And here’s a thought… a profile of that maverick producer Samuel L. Bronston is long overdue.

Cleopatra all but finished the career of J.L. Mankiewicz, it took the studio to the cleaners, and was a body blow from which the old Hollywood never really recovered. It is hard to be fond of it as a film, but what happened offscreen gave me a fantastic opportunity to recall those extravagant days. When even a film as flawed as Cleopatra was made on a scale which had to be witnessed with an audience. At a cinema near you…

There is little left to marvel at in the Marvel Comic Universe.

There just aren’t stars like Burton and Taylor today. For all its manifold flaws, there is something compelling about the legend of Cleopatra. Not so much in the finished film, but my memories of cinema-going when a film like that was an event. For all its follies, a film like Cleopatra could almost be said to end an era of cinematic innocence. My research into what went on off the screen, and what it took to get it into cinemas was fascinating. They have done it with The Godfather, so maybe a TV series about the making of Cleopatra. Now that would make a great movie.

"Cleopatra & The Undoing Of Hollywood" is published by The History Press, £20.00, ISBN 9781803990187

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Film Chest.

The film noir genre, which became a staple for movie fans during its heyday in the 1940’s & 50’s, was based on a tough and gritty environment and revolved around those who lived it. It was raw, without much margin for how things went down or who would end up surviving the fallout.Films stylized with elements of film noir have surfaced over the years and perhaps one of the best is the Mickey Spillane stories of Mike Hammer, which offered a more contemporary version of the format.Mike Hammer, Private Eye brings us to the late ‘90’s.

Stacy Keach plays the wiser, tougher, more sarcastic and blunt-worded private eye who offers a salute to the early years with his felt fedora. A bevy of beautiful women still abound in his world, and over-the-top measures with the use of his fists, wits, and savvy tenacity against deceptive enemies are the norm. Still, there is a balance, with Keach managing his character that’s both serious and, at times, more lighthearted with some campy humor.

This 26-episode series (along with the original trailer and episode synopses) includes a new sexy blonde secretary (Velda) played by Shannon Whirry and the introduction of a sidekick (Nick Farrell) played by Shane Conrad. Kent Williams returns with a strong portrayal of Deputy Mayor Barry Lawerence and Peter Jason plays Hammer’s closely aligned police captain, Skip Gleason.Stacy Keach has spent a career making Mike Hammer his own character, and without question, he has succeeded. Private Eye (1997-1998) is a fast-paced, no nonsense Hammer series that will delight the many fans of Mickey Spillane’s character and again prove that STACY KEACH IS MIKE HAMMER!

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By Hank Reineke

This Kino Lorber 4K Restoration Blu ray of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame is likely as good as we’re going to get. Universal Studio’s official 1923 program heralded Hunchback as Hugo’s “Mighty Epic of a Mighty Epoch” and, truth be told, director Wallace Worsley’s film never delivers less than promised. It is, above all, a spectacle. In August of 1922 when announced Universal-Jewel was to begin lensing the film, newspapers reported it had been Lon Chaney’s “life’s ambition” to bring Hugo’s tale – and the story of the novel’s titular tortured soul Quasimodo - to the big screen.

Chaney’s Hunchback would not be the first cinematic adaptation of the famed 1831 novel. Esmeralda, a ten-minute long French adaptation was brought to the screen as early as in 1905. Albert Capellani’s 1911 French silent (Notre-Dame de Paris) would also precede the Universal version, but that film too was a modest production running a mere twenty-six minutes in length. The first feature length-effort was Fox’s romantic The Darling of Paris (1917) featuring silent-screen-siren Theda Bara. A British version of 1922 preceded Chaney’s by only a year – though, again, only as a short of some thirteen minutes. All but the 1911 version are now presumed lost.

If Universal was not the first to bring the epic to the screen, producer and studio co-founder Carl Laemmle promised a production unmatched in size and scope. Universal would front a budget of some $1,250,000, bringing in some 2800 artisans to work on the film’s massive sets. The centerpiece was to be the cathedral of Notre Dame, built practically to scale. Universal promised, “The cathedral at Notre Dame is an exact replica in every infinite detail of the cathedral as it looked in 1482, an extraordinary feat and an archeologic, historical and technical triumph.”

Such an ambitious project was going to require an ambitious production team. In October of 1922, gossips whispered the studio was “anxious to have D.W. Griffith direct” Hunchback. On the surface, Griffith would seem a natural choice. He had, after all, helmed such pictures as Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), both showcase spectacles of large scale and huge casts. In the end, Universal would announce, January 1923, that Worsley would direct – with assists by “ten assistant directors and twenty-eight field captains.” Worsley and Chaney already had a good working relationship: the two having already combined their talents on The Penalty, The Ace of Hearts and The Blind Bargain. This new collaboration would spend six months in pre-production and one year in filming.

Everything was crafted bigger-than-life. The make-up appliances for Quasimodo, the film’s monstrous bell-ringer, were painstakingly crafted by Chaney in a series of three-and-a-half hour sessions. The September 1923 issue of Pictures and Picturegoer magazine enthused Chaney had promised “something even more startling than usual in the way of make-up.” Alongside that of Erik, The Phantom of the Opera (1925), the twisted and feral Quasimodo remains the most iconic example of Chaney’s make-up artistry.

Biographer Michael F. Blake’s Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Thousand Faces (Vestal Press, 1990) and A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney’s Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures (Vestal Press, 1995) remain the two most essential reference books on the man and his films, but they weren’t the first. There were earlier “serious” circulating books on the actor: Robert G. Anderson’s Faces, Forms Films: The Artistry of Lon Chaney (1971) came first, N.L. Ross’s Lon Chaney: Master Craftsman of Make Believe following more than a decade later. That said, Blake’s sister volumes remain the most reliable and error free sources of Chaney marginalia. Blake occasionally proffers stern judgements, some fair and some maybe not so, on preceding Chaney biographers, but all books mentioned above are worthwhile reads and contain excellent bibliographies.

Blake opens his 1995 study with the declaration “Lon Chaney was not a “horror actor.” Though this is essentially true, Blake – who contributes seven pages of booklet notes to this new Kino Blu – sighs the actor’s association with the horror genre is terribly overblown. He argues this mistaken union was due to the actor’s famous ghastly make-up creations. It’s doubtful the audience of eleven and twelve year-olds who sought out these cheap newsprint monster movie magazines of the 1950s and ‘60s had actually ever saw a Lon Chaney silent film. But the reproduced published stills would fire imaginations, giving Chaney Sr. instant cult status as a “horror film” icon. At the very least, I think it’s fair to say that the genre mags were instrumental in keeping Chaney’s legend alive at a time when few other outlets were interested.

It was that way for me at least. I’m not sure when I first learned the name “Lon Chaney.” But it was likely through photographs or an article in the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. I had become obsessed with Famous Monsters when chancing upon a used copy of their May 1967 issue at a school “white elephant” sale. The magazine sent me scouring the listings in TV Guide in search of the films I was first introduced to in the pages of “FM.” It was through Famous Monsters I was first introduced to silent films – many of which I find even today to be as fascinating as any talkie.

In trying to learn about silent films, I discovered Daniel Blum’s A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen (1974) at my local library. It was an oversize hardcover held in the reference section. Since I couldn’t bring it home to read at leisure, I spent hours in the library looking through the hundreds – maybe thousands of stills – reproduced therein. My knowledge of and interest in film history really began there. While combing through the pages for Chaney info (there wasn’t a lot, if I recall), I discovered Chaplin, Keaton, Pearl White, Fatty Arbuckle, the Keystone Cops and hundreds of others.

It was around this time I also managed to catch Robert Youngson’s affectionate silent-era doc Days of Thrills and Laughter on television. As with Blum’s book, I don’t believe Chaney, again to my great disappointment, was even mentioned in the doc. Youngson’s emphasis was mostly on the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, “Fatty” Arbuckle,” Snub Pollard and Ben Turpin. Though a rare, brief clip of Boris Karloff in King of the Congo (1929) further fueled my interest in early cinema, Chaney – frustratingly – would remain a man of mystery.

Knowing what I know now, the notoriously private and reclusive actor – non-ceremoniously interred following his passing, age forty-seven, in a Glendale sepulcher – would have likely preferred it that way. At age nine I finally had the opportunity to catch Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame on WNET-13, Manhattan’s PBS-TV affiliate. Hunchback was the last title to be featured on the network’s “The Silent Years” series (each segment introduced by Orson Welles) in September of 1971.

OK, I apologize. I have digressed. I will also confess it’s taken me quite some time to finally getting around to view this Kino issue of Hunchback. I was gifted a copy back in the autumn of 2021 but chose to put the Blu-ray aside – for the time being, anyway. I had already planned to attend a genuine film element screening of Hunchback at a local cinema that October, one complete with live organ accompaniment. That night, sadly, proved to be a projection booth disaster. The theater ran the last two reels in reverse so inter-titles appeared Cyrillic and completely unreadable. God bless Ben Model, the silent film historian/organist accompanying the program. He calmly and expertly navigated through this maelstrom with amazing poise and finesse, salvaging what would have been otherwise a completely disastrous evening.

There’s no point in discussing here the plot of Worsley’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s a more-or-less faithful rendering of the Hugo novel. This is a century old film, one I find as entertaining today as it was a hundred years ago. Yes, the acting often is – as was the order of the day – visually exaggerated and overly emotive, but the story remains a compelling one. The scenario really revolves around Esmeralda, the soft-hearted street dancer, and not the tragic Quasimodo. To his credit, Chaney – though top-billed – recognizes this and admirably serves as an essential member of the ensemble, not as the film’s principal player.

This Kino release has been cobbled together from the best existing prints available, so there are temperature and tinting changes from section to section. But it’s a beautiful 4K restoration and while surviving element damage is not totally absent, the film looks remarkable all things considered. This edition also features a lively and original musical score. This new soundtrack is composed and performed by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Laura Karpman, both Julliard-trained artists and the previous recipients of Grammy and Emmy Award nominations/victories.

Over this millennium, The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been re-made on any number of occasions. The best recalled of these are RKO’s 1939 version featuring Charles Laughton or the French-Italian 1956 version featuring Anthony Quinn and Gina Lollobrigida. Folks of my generation might better recall these two post-Chaney re-tellings, especially if they have little interest in silent cinema. Younger folks were likely first introduced to the tale via Disney’s 1996 animated musical adaptation – a film whose cartoon Quasimodo most resembled Laughton’s pitiful, less grotesque caricature. Having said that, Chaney’s Quasimodo, despite age, will forever remain the most iconic.

A few notes on this generous bonus materials supplied on this set. Included is a vintage, silent Life in Hollywood newsreel that features a birds-eye view of the massive Universal City lot, described on an inter-title card as “the strangest city in the world.” Once on soil, we watch as a procession of Universal’s silent-era stars and starlets’ parade out of a studio canteen. Most of these names are now sadly lost to the memory of all but a small cabal of film historians. The newsreel, running approximately eight and a half minutes in length features a small clip of Chaney – sans costume and make-up - demonstrating a bit of acrobatics on the exterior of the Notre Dame structure.

The set also features a thirteen-minute silent reel of “Mabel and Bill Dumphy’s Visit with Hazel and Lon.” This is sourced from 16mm footage shot during the couple’s visits with Chaney, his wife Hazel, and their wire-haired terrier Sandy, at rest during the family’s residencies in Soboba Hot Springs and Saratoga. The Soboba footage is primarily interesting in its moody capture of the former’s Riverside County hamlet’s Spanish mission-styled architecture and terraced landscapes. There’s not much Chaney in the Soboba footage, aside from Lon looking out pensively over the hillside, or playfully tugging at Sandy the dog’s tail in another.

The Saratoga footage documents additional glimpses of the Chaneys at home. We watch as Chaney and guests mill about a backyard garden, the reclusive actor letting down his guarded reserve. We watch as Lon playfully wrestles a giggling Hazel on the lawn or smoking and drinking with friends. The latter clip is of interest due to the recognizable presence of Lon’s son, Creighton (strategically “re-christened” Lon Chaney Jr. following his father’s passing), smiling as he too puffs away on a cigarette in the background. The set also features an audio-commentary track by Farran Smith Nehme, a film historian and critic whose work has appeared in such publications as Film Comment, The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice and New York Post. The set rounds off with a generous gallery/slideshow of publicity materials and production stills.

One hundred years following the date of its production, Worsley’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame admittedly puts the “retro” in Cinema Retro. But despite the film’s age, its heart still beats soundly. Anyone interested in film history should visit this film at least once in their lifetime, and this Kino Blu-ray might just be the best conduit for one to do just that.

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By John M. Whalen

“PROUD MARY, KEEP ON BURNIN’” –JOHN FOGERTY

I reviewed the Universal print-on-demand DVD of “The Mississippi Gambler” (1953) for Cinema Retro eight years ago. I didn’t give the film, starring Tyrone Power, Julia Adams, and Piper Laurie, very high marks. Now Kino Lorber has released it anew on Blu-Ray. Aside from an audio commentary by film historian Toby Roan, and better color because it’s Blu-Ray, it’s basically the same experience. I can’t think of much new to say about it, so here’s some of what I wrote back when, along with some final thoughts on the current state of the home video market.

Here’s the original review I wrote 8 years ago:

I watched The Mississippi Gambler (1953) DVD from Universal while recovering from a root canal, hoping a good rousing Tyrone Power flick and three fingers of Kentucky bourbon, would cure my pain. Boy, was I wrong. Watching this slow, soap opera-ish movie, with a cast of characters that belong in an old Carol Burnett Show sketch, was like having the root canal all over again. Admittedly, the Technicolor was good, and Julie Adams was great (which she always was) but the script by Seton Miller was a complete turnoff with one of the worst endings I've ever seen. The characters were mostly boring and despicable. The plot was ham-fisted melodrama served with a mint julep. Direction by Rudolph Mate’ was lethargic and unimaginative.

Basically, it's one of those stories about four people all in love with the wrong person. But Miller added some very weird touches to the familiar story line. Piper Laurie plays Angelique Dureau, a snooty, neurotic iceberg who is way too close to her brother Laurent (John Baer) for comfort. She uses him as a shield against intimacy with any other man, as Tyrone Power, playing the titular gambler Mark Fallon, explains to her. For no comprehensible reason at all, other than the plot demands it, Fallon falls madly in love with her. Why? She's a pouty, petulant, porcelain imitation of a woman.

Her brother, Laurent, is a miserable weasel, a man with no honor and thus a perfect foil for the upright and honorable Fallon, who is not only good with a deck of cards, he's also the son of one of New York's finest fencing masters. (Zorro rides again!). The three of them meet on a Mississippi riverboat named The Sultana. Pardon a digression while I note that this was the same paddle boat on which Yancy Derringer, a few years later, would ply his poker skills in the CBS television series starring Jock Mahoney.

Fallon's goal is to run an honest gambling table and eventually open his own casino. He teams up with Kansas John Polly (John McIntyre), a seasoned veteran of many a three card Monty game. In a game of poker, Laurent loses his sister's diamond necklace to Fallon. Fallon tries to give it back to her later, but she pretends she told her brother to wager it. In the next scene she confronts the weasel and cries, "How could you do it without asking me?" This obviously gets the star-crossed- lovers off on the wrong foot. Fallon wins big that night but he and Polly barely escape being killed by a gang of crooked gamblers and have to jump off the boat when the captain gets near the riverbank. They walk to New Orleans, after losing all their winnings in the river. But they have a good laugh about it.

At about the second act mark,enter Julie Adams (billed here as "Julia Adams") as Ann Conant. She's the member of another weird brother/sister duo. Her brother, Julian (Dennis Weaver, believe it or not, with a sort of New York high society accent) sits down to play with Fallon, saying he heard he played an honest game. He quickly loses every cent he brought with him, then goes out on deck and shoots himself. The Captain and Fallon discover he has a sister on board, and Fallon feels responsible and wants to help her. She says he must have gambled away the money his company gave him to take to New Orleans. Fallon, noble fellow that he is, lies and says no he gave that money to the captain for safe keeping. He takes Ann to New Orleans where and sets her up in a hotel. It complicates his plans to romance Angelique but what's a story without complications.?

Meantime in New Orleans he runs into fencing expert Edmund Dureau (Paul Cavanaugh) and guess what? He turns out to be Angelique and Laurent's father! Of course, he invites Fallon to his home where he meets them again. In one of the lamest scenes in the whole film, when they have a moment alone, he tells her that he knows he and she are in love with each other and always will be. "I could have you thrown out of this house for speaking to me like that,” she exhorts. He replies, "You don't have to run me out. I'm leaving tomorrow." And he adds: "You’re not ready for marriage. And you won't be until the day you come to me." She calls him an egotistical cad. And here's the punchline. "Yes", Fallon says, "I suppose it sounds that way. But it's the only way a woman can be truly happy with a man".

What? Did women in the 50’s really buy this tripe? Can you imagine George Clooney trying that line on Catherine Zeta-Jones, or Catherine Heigel? He'd get his ass kicked. I won't go on with any more of the plot, but you can be sure it involves some fencing and a duel with pistols at the Dueling Oaks. Funny thing about Power's fencing scene with Paul Cavanaugh. Both men wore fencing masks through the entire scene, which makes me wonder if either one did any of the fancy sword work, even though Power was in reality a very good fencer. In another fight scene between Fallon and Laurent on the riverboat, it is so obviously two badly matched stuntmen carrying the action. Power was only 39 when he filmed “The Mississippi Gambler,” but he looked older and a bit tired. Maybe he wanted to take it easy. He'd made many great films by then but would only live five more years. He'd make seven more films in that time, all better than “The Mississippi Gambler,” including “The Sun Also Rises,” and “King of the Khyber Rifles.”

Nevertheless “The Mississippi Gambler” was a big financial success. Lucky for Power, because his wife, Linda Christian divorced him after losing out to Piper Laurie for the part of Angelique. She never forgave Power for not getting her the part, and also, allegedly, for having an affair with Anita Ekberg, who played an uncredited part as a maid of honor at Angelique's wedding to another of her suitors.

. . . So that’s the review I wrote 8 years ago. The new Blu-ray release, as noted earlier, contains nothing new except a commentary by Toby Roan. Frankly, even Roan’s commentary doesn’t warrant spending the money for the new edition. His comments merely consist of providing biographical info on each and every actor, no matter how insignificant his role. Oh, look, here’s John McIntyre. He was a regular on the Naked City TV series. There’s Paul Cavanaugh, he was in a Tarzan movie. And that’s Guy Williams who played Zorro on TV. And on and on and on. I turned the commentary off after half an hour.

The home video market is disappearing before our eyes. Streaming has become the consumer’s first choice for watching movies at home. Go into Target or Best Buy and what used to be row after row of DVDs for sale has shrunk down to a few shelves, hidden behind the flat screen TV display area. If companies like Kino Lorber hope to stay in business they have to provide extras that aren’t available through the streaming platforms to make it worth their while. So any of these commentary tracks are very welcome, even if this one falls short.

When it comes to Kino Lorber’s “The Mississippi Gambler,” as I said in the original write up, I'd rather put on a Yancy Derringer DVD and watch him at the poker table with Pahoo Ka Te Wah standing behind him with his shotgun hidden under his poncho, ready for action as the Sultana winds its way down the Big Muddy. Rollin’ down the river.

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(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales".)

By Lee Pfeiffer

The James Bond-inspired spy movie boom of the 1960s resulted in the films of this genre generally fitting into one of two distinct categories: tongue-in-cheek spoofs played largely for laughs (the Flint and Matt Helm series) and gritty, realistic depictions of espionage that stripped away any glamour from the spy trade ("The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "The Deadly Affair", "The Venetian Affair", "The Ipcress File" and countless others.) Straddling the line between the two genres was writer/director Val Guest's 1966 film "Where the Spies Are" starring David Niven, who seemed impeccably suited to capitalize on the movie craze. The film was based on the novel "Passport to Oblivion" by James Leasor, a straight-up thriller set in Beirut, Lebanon when it was a thriving holiday destination for wealthy Europeans to the extent it was known as "The Paris of the Middle East". The movie opens with the abduction and murder of an MI6 agent, Rossiter (Cyril Cusack) in Beirut. He's been investigating a Soviet-inspired plot to murder the head of state and install a puppet government. The British are especially concerned because they depend upon the friendly government of Lebanon to provide Great Britain with substantial amounts of oil (some things never change.) When Rossiter goes silent, MI6 boss MacGillivray (John Le Mesurier) needs to send an agent to Beirut to investigate his disappearance. He decides he needs a non-professional who has no trace to the agency to act as an operative. He recalls using the services of Jason Love (David Niven) twenty years earlier in the war. It seems that Love proved to be reliable in successfully pulling off a dangerous mission. Love is now a well-off physician living a happy bachelor lifestyle with a posh house and a vintage, valuable roadster that he takes pleasure in driving through the country lanes. MacGillivray uses Love's sense of patriotism (and a bribe to buy him an even more valuable and rare roadster) as an incentive for him to agree to visit Lebanon, ostensibly to attend an international medical conference. It's supposed to be an easy job with Love simply nosing around and trying to find some clues as to Rossiter's fate, but you know how things usually turn out in missions of this type. 

When Love disembarks from his plane in Rome to await a connecting flight to Beirut, there is quite a stir in the terminal because world famous fashion model known simply as Vikki (Francoise Dorleac) is being photographed for a fashion spread in a major magazine. They meet cute and Love is understandably distracted by her beauty. After turning on the charm, she confides in Love that she is actually one of the MI6 contacts he will meet on his mission. Love is so shocked that he is too late to catch his flight- and lucky for him that he didn't because minutes after takeoff, the plane explodes, killing everyone on board. (Inexplicably, the incident directly over the airport doesn't seem to generate much reaction from the people at the airport.) Love attributes the disaster to a mechanical flaw and arrives at his hotel in Lebanon- the same one that Rossiter had a room at. He's pleased to find that Vikki is there, too, and is as enthused about getting under the covers as he is. Their romantic fling is later disturbed by an assassination attempt and Vikki informs Love that the destruction of the airplane might have been a plot to kill him. He soon meets Parkington (Nigel Davenport), another MI6 contact- a career agent who is depressed and cynical about intelligence work. He copes by hitting the bottle hard but he proves to be a valuable ally to Love in tracing Rossiter's fate. Ultimately, Love finds himself in further peril and having to resort to his own defense mechanisms (and a couple of spy gadgets, of course) in order to survive. The finale finds him trying to thwart the assassination as well as escape Soviet kidnappers who bundle him aboard a plane bound for Russia.

"Where the Spies Are" starts off with the implication that it will be a comedy in the Flint/Helm mode with Niven playing a comic fish-out-of-water character embroiled in a larger-than-life adventure. However, the laughs are few and far between once he sets off on his mission. The film still offers some witticisms and subdued laughs, but it turns primarily into a thriller including a larger-than-life action scene atop ancient ruins. The movie was directed and co-written by Val Guest, a reliable old hand at making highly enjoyable mid-range films that weren't designed to be blockbusters or win awards. He keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, accompanied by a lively score by Mario Nasciembene. Niven is perfectly cast and delivers his usual charismatic and charming performance. Dorleac is given some mod fashion wear to show off and makes for a suitable love interest. She was set to follow her sister Catherine Deneuve as the next "it girl" in films but tragically died in 1967 in a car crash shortly after completing her final film, the spy thriller "Billion Dollar Brain". The film benefits from some exotic on-location scenes in Lebanon, with interiors shot at the old MGM Studios at Boreham Wood, England. However, it suffers from some crude special effects and the all-too-obvious use of miniatures and rear screen projection. Similarly, Niven's stunt double doesn't pass muster, as he doesn't resemble the actor in the slightest even from afar.

The film features any number of people associated with James Bond films. Niven, of course, would go on to star as Sir James Bond in the 1967 spoof version of "Casino Royale" which was co-written and co-directed by Val Guest. Wolf Mankiewicz, who had been an uncredited contributor to the script of "Dr. No", co-wrote the screenplay for "Where the Spies Are" as well as "Casino Royale". The titles were designed by Robert Brownjohn who also created the classic titles for "Goldfinger" and "From Russia with Love". Among the actors who were associated with at least one Bond movie include Eric Pohlmann (who provided the voice of the unseen Blofeld in the early Bond movies), Paul Stassino "("Thunderball"), John Le Mesurier ("Casino Royale" as "M"'s chauffeur), George Pravda ("From Russia with Love"), Bill Nagy ("Goldfinger") and Geoffrey Bayldon ("Casino Royale"). Also, former Bond star George Lazenby starred as Jason Love in an audio book adaptation of "Passport to Oblivion" available on Amazon Kindle. "U.N.C.L.E."  fans will also enjoy seeing "Girl from U.N.C.L.E." star Noel Harrison as an MI6 agent and will get a laugh out of one of the passwords used in the film, "Love from Uncle", which could not have been a coincidence since it was an MGM production.

Val Guest had obtained the screen rights to "Passport to Oblivion" and several literary sequels in the hopes that a series of Jason Love films would go into production. However, the film didn't elicit much excitement from moviegoers or critics and, thus, a series never went into production. Not helping matters was MGM's decision to recut Guest's final version of the film without his permission, which supposedly infuriated him. Nevertheless, if you have a soft spot for spy movies of the 1960s, you'll probably find the film as enjoyable as I did. 

The region-free Warner Archive DVD proves that this title is in dire need of a Blu-ray upgrade. The color quality is all over the place, ranging from satisfactory to wild deviations to various garish tints, giving it a Frankenstein-like quality in that it seemed to have been cobbled together with bits from several prints. That probably wasn't the case, but it is nevertheless the effect. The Archive is doing some great work upgrading even "B" titles so let's hope "Where the Spies Are" is on their list for future Blu-ray release. The only bonus feature is the original trailer which is narrated for some reason by a guy who sounds like an extra from an old WB gangster movie.

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Retro-Active: From the Cinema Retro Archives

By Lee Pfeiffer

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 MI6 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.

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It's always fun to look back on how retro films were regarded by critics at the time of their initial release. Here is the evaluation of Frank Sinatra's 1967 hit "Tony Rome" as written by a new, upcoming film critic named Roger Ebert!

Click here to read.

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By Lee Pfeiffer

On Tuesday, April 25,  it was a balmy and pleasant New York evening as ticket holders and the press lined up at Lincoln Center to attend the New York Philharmonic's special concert in honor of five-time Oscar winning composter John Williams. Attendees walked past the famous circular fountain in the main concourse area where Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder had rejoiced in Mel Brooks' "The Producers". The movie reference is appropriate because Williams is best known for his contributions to cinema over the course of the last six decades. Inside the Wu Tsai Theater in David Geffen Hall, nary a free seat could be found. The event had sold out quickly, with even standing room only places quickly snapped up by eager admirers of Williams. Cinema Retro has been invited to cover many of the NY Phil's film-oriented concerts over the years and each one is a very memorable occasion. However, at the risk of appearing to engage in some hyperbole, the Williams concert was not only memorable but the most impressive film concert this reviewer has ever seen. Conductor Ken-David Masur, son of NY Phil's Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur, made his debut with the orchestra with this performance. If Masur had any trepidation of performing with John Williams in the audience, it was not evident. He was simply brilliant, as was the full orchestra.

The concert began in dramatic fashion with the NY Phil's magnificent rendering of Williams' main theme for the 1978 film "Superman". The choice of musical selections was inspired and sidestepped predictability. There were selections from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" that had hints of the famous main title theme. This was followed by a presentation of Williams' track from a chase scene in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". An unusual inclusion was the animated Oscar-winning 2017 short film "Dear Basketball" narrated by Kobe Bryant that chronicled the late, legendary basketball player's lifelong fascination with the sport. Williams provided the score the production, illustrating once again the sheer diversity of his achievements. Then, to the delight of the audience, The NY Phil played selections from "Star Wars: A New Hope", which predictably brought down the house. But there were plenty more thrills in store. 

To the accompaniment of Williams' main theme from "Jaws", Steven Spielberg took to the stage, eschewing his usual casual look for black tie. Commenting upon his musical introduction, Spielberg quipped that "I've made 3,300 hundred movies and all anyone wants to talk about is 'Jaws'!" He elaborated by saying that even among autograph hunters, it's "Jaws" more than any of his other films that elicits the most comments. Spielberg spoke warmly about his longtime friendship with John Williams, reminding the audience that they have collaborated on 51 films over a period of 29 years. It's clear that Spielberg still regards him as a treasured mentor as well as an essential collaborator. Spielberg then showed the opening sequence of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" sans any musical score. He wanted to emphasize how valuable a composer's contribution to a film is. We're all familiar with the scene, as Indy appears to have successfully snatched a golden relic only to find he has triggered the activation of many death traps. Spielberg remembered that, upon seeing the unscored sequence back in the day, George Lucas said "We need Johnny!" Indeed, "Johnny" did contribute his magic, as evidenced when Spielberg replayed the scene with Williams' score intact. I came to realize that his genius was not only in providing a suspenseful score, but for making musical notes appear to be special sound effects that further enhanced the scene. The tribute continued with the NY Phil providing musical tributes to "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Jurassic Park" and "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial", accompanied by extensive film clips.

The event concluded with Spielberg paying tribute to Williams' haunting score for "Schindler's List". He then invited Williams to take to the podium and conduct the orchestra for this pivotal work. Predictably, the audience responded with thunderous applause. The somber, heart-wrenching score brought back all the memories of the brilliant film and the disturbing images that have led me to be unable to watch it since I saw it upon its initial release. Williams left the stage to a standing ovation that wouldn't stop. He then reemerged to conduct the orchestra for the iconic theme song from the Indiana Jones films. He left the stage once more but the audience wouldn't relent in its applause so Williams came out again. This time, the energetic 91-year old concluded the proceedings by conducting the "Imperial March and Finale" from "Star Wars: A New Hope". I doubt there was a dry eye in the house.

New York City has taken it on the chin in recent years with reports of all the things that had gone wrong during the time of the pandemic. But Gotham was back in full glory thanks to the remarkable talents that provided the audience with a historic and unforgettable evening. We are unlikely to see a film composer with the career accomplishments of John Williams ever again. Anyone who was privileged to witness this extraordinary event would understand why.

(Special thanks to Lanore Carr)

By Todd Garbarini

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film of Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining is one of the most written about, most celebrated, most loved, most hated, and most misunderstood motion pictures in the history of the medium. Its hypnotic effect is undeniable, and countless books and articles have been written in many languages about its purported hidden meanings and the on-set difficulties that were encountered by the cast and crew on the nearly year-long shooting schedule. One of the film’s biggest fans, film director Lee Unkrich and caretaker of http://www.theoverlookhotel.com, teamed with the late great author J.W. Rinzler on the ultimate book on the making of the film: a 2,200-page tome from Taschen appropriately entitled Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, now available on the company website, just in time for Jack Nicholson’s 86^th birthday. Cinema Retro recently spoke with Mr. Unkrich about the new book, twelve years in the making, and how it came about.

Todd Garbarini: How did you first hear about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining?

Lee Unkrich: Honestly, I had no awareness of it until my mom took me to see it. I had no knowledge or understanding of who Stanley Kubrick was. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and I may have seen it at the Randall Park Mall. I was 13 and I remember liking it. A few days after I saw the movie, my mom was driving me to summer camp, and we stopped at a gas station. They had a rack of paperback books, and they had the movie tie-in edition of Stephen King’s novel. It had Saul Bass’s yellow and black poster art on the front. I bought it, and I ended up reading it voraciously all summer at camp and beyond. I still have the copy to this day. I think I realized right away that the book was different in a lot of ways than the movie, but for me, it was more of an extension of the film. We got a Betamax at some point, and I had to wait until The Shining came out on video to see it again. I loved both the movie and the book. In the middle of the paperback, there was a collection of black and white film stills from the movie. One of the photos was from a scene that I didn’t remember. It was a shot of Wendy cooking in the kitchen, presumably making the breakfast that she then takes up to Jack who is just waking up. I saw that and I started thinking, wow, if that was a scene that was shot and cut, were there others?

TG: I saw The Shining on ABC-TV in May 1983 and became obsessed with it, too, watching it on home video shortly afterwards. When we went to Florida on vacation in July, I found a used copy of the movie tie-in, and saw the photo of Wendy that you mentioned and wondered what happened to the scene.

LU: Somewhere roughly around the same time, I read that there had been a hospital epilogue that Kubrick had cut out of the film after its limited release. Between those two things, I just started really becoming obsessed with trying to get my hands on a screenplay or any more information about the film. I would say that the idea of trying to track down ostensibly more of the movie that I loved was the beginning of this obsession that built and grew and morphed over the subsequent decades. It was the fact that I couldn’t find anything, frustratingly, because Kubrick held such tight reins over it all. I’d get little tidbits here and there. I found a few crumbs, but it honestly wasn’t until The Stanley Kubrick Archives book by Allison Castle was published by Taschen in 2005 that I had my first glimpse into the fact that there was a lot more material that existed in Kubrick’s own archives. Then subsequently his family established the Kubrick Archive after he passed away. It was when I was on a press tour for Toy Story 3 that I managed to visit the archive for the first time and really got to dive in deep for the first time and get answers to the questions I’d had for decades.

TG: Did The Shining scare you when you saw it?

LU: I don’t think so. It didn’t give me nightmares or anything like that, and I’m an only child. My parents both worked, so I was a latchkey kid. I was home alone a lot. I had a vivid imagination. I liked reading scary things. I liked scaring myself, but then that would extend into bad scaring where I’d be alone and think someone was in the house, or a statue that we had was alive, or all kinds of crazy stuff. My parents fought a lot. They ended up divorcing by the time I was nine, so I knew what it was like to be the child of an unstable marriage. All of that, there were just so many elements to the movie, coupled with its tone and its uncanniness, and how it gets under your skin, that I think it just really wormed its way into me in a way and just never left.

TG: Your new book looks beautiful and vast in scope, covering intimate aspects of the film’s production. It’s a book that could never have been published without the inclusion of the Kubrick family. How involved were they?

LU: They were very involved, and they were amazing. What I had that was the most helpful was Stanley’s daughter, Vivian, who made the documentary on the making of The Shining that has been available on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra High Definition. She sat Jack and everyone down for interviews around the time the film was completed and I got my hands on the transcripts and those full interviews, including Jack’s, which is like a two-hour interview. That’s the most helpful because he’d just made the movie. He’s young and he remembers everything. I would have loved to have met Jack, of course. I know fully that the book itself wasn’t harmed in any way because he wasn’t involved. It’s just full of him through and through but very thoroughly. We sent him a few copies of the book that just got to his house within the past few weeks. I’m looking forward to hearing his thoughts about it.

TG: Did you talk to Steven Spielberg about The Shining? I know he said he wasn’t crazy about the film the first time he saw it because he felt that Jack was nuts from the word go.

LU: Yes, we spoke multiple times and he wrote the foreword. Kubrick was mostly interested in Steven because he was fascinated with how Steven had made such a huge blockbuster in Jaws. He was just constantly peppering him with questions about Jaws and the marketing. If Stanley was talking to you, usually it was because you had some information that he wanted, and that was true for Spielberg as well.

TG: Did you speak at length with Leon Vitali (Stanley Kubrick’s personal assistant)?

LU: I did, yes. I spent a lot of time with Leon. He was extremely helpful to me at many junctures throughout the making of the book. I was, of course, devastated when he died suddenly last summer, that he never got to see the finished book because he was really honestly the person I probably wanted to see it the most. He was just a very sweet, kind man. He had a very complicated relationship with Stanley, but it was loving. I just had enormous respect for him and how he just essentially gave his life over in many ways to Stanley. Then even in the decades after Stanley’s death, he did everything he could to fight the fight and make sure that everything was presented and handled in a way that Stanley would’ve wanted. Sitting down with Leon, especially in showing him photos, because I had hundreds that nobody had seen before, many of them I got from the Danny Lloyd family, it would instantly bring up stories that he probably never would’ve summoned or remembered.

TG: I’ve seen the film well over fifty times, and yet I’m still seeing things that I never noticed!

LU: I know! It’s because we’re in this digital age now where people can do frame grabs and overlay them. If you look at the Colorado lounge set throughout that movie, practically every scene, there are major differences from one scene to the next in terms of how the furniture is laid out, where lamps are, for example. It’s because Stanley didn’t care about continuity because he knew nobody would notice. What he did care about were individual compositions. If a lamp in the background was coming out of someone’s shoulder in a weird way, he’d say, “Get the lamp out of there.” He didn’t care.

TG: What did you stumble across that you had absolutely no idea about, that was revelatory to you?

LU: I saw lots of stuff in the Kubrick Archive that made me think, “What the hell is this?” An example of that would be, I found all these outtake frames, most of which are reproduced in the book. These are actual compositions, frames from set-ups, from shots and scenes that Kubrick shot that aren’t in the finished film. A lot of them I could figure out from drafts of the screenplay and shooting scripts, shot logs, all that I could figure out. Like the scrapbook, for instance. It used to play a big part in the movie (as it does in the novel). You can see it on Jack’s desk while he’s typing. No reference is made to it in the finished film, but there were lots of scenes about it. There was a whole scene where he found it. There were scenes of him becoming obsessed with it. There was a scene of him showing it to Wendy. There was a scene of him going back and looking at it again after he saw the old woman in room 237. There was a lot of stuff having to do with that. I saw all those frames, and I was able to figure out what they were. Then there were other things as well. One in particular, where I never found any reference to it anywhere, nor did I speak to anyone who remembered it. That was when Jack is wandering around the hotel with writer’s block where he’s throwing the tennis ball. He ends up in the lobby of the hotel, and he wanders over to the maze model. There’s a model of the hedge maze in the lobby. He looks down at it, and Kubrick cuts to this weird shot that’s almost like the maze in Jack’s mind. It’s like a maze that’s far bigger and more elaborate than the model sitting on the table in front of him. As you know, he slowly zooms in on that, and you see a tiny little Wendy and Danny walking around in the center of the maze. I found some footage of that same oversized maze model that had been completely redressed to be encrusted with snow. Sitting in the middle of it was a tiny frozen Jack. I found both the head and the tail of that shot. It was a slow zoom. I’m presuming it was a slow zoom-out from frozen Jack. I’m guessing that Kubrick had an idea and intended, possibly after the shot of him frozen in the snow, that he would cut to this God’s eye view of the maze and Jack frozen in it, and just slowly zoom out to reveal him just getting lost in this endless labyrinth before then presumably dissolving through to the hospital epilogue. I talked to Les Tomkins, the man who built that maze model, but he had no memory of the snowy version.

TG: How many people did you interview for the book?

LU: Seventy-two. I spoke with Kelvin Pike at his house, and he has the coffee table from room 237 in his living room. When I was over at Jan Harlan’s (Kubrick’s brother-in-law) house, Jan has a guest bedroom in the bathroom. He did a renovation right around the time they finished The Shining, and so the bathtub in his guest bathroom is the bathtub from room 237.

TG: That’s arguably cinema’s most famous (and peculiar) bathroom.

LU: I talked a lot with (assistant editor) Gordon Stainforth who was very helpful to me with the things that he was able to be helpful with, which is Vivian’s documentary and the cutting of music on The Shining, which he ended up doing most of. I met Greg MacGillivray a few times (whose company shot the opening in Montana). He ended up providing a lot of photographs as well for the book. He had a big archive. He went to visit the set twice, and Stanley allowed him to take photos. He had a whole bunch of photos from the second unit shoot, the helicopter stuff at the beginning of the movie. He graciously gave me access to his entire library of mostly slides. Some black and white negatives. It was mostly color slides. Greg is one of two people I spoke to who I really am convinced has a photographic memory. Vivian was very friendly. I spent two whole days with her down in Florida, but she was very selective about what she would talk about. She gave me an amazing artifact, this continuity script that the script supervisor, Joan Randall, had given her at the end of production. I was shocked that she’d entrusted me with it. She popped it in the mail, and it showed up at my office at Pixar. I opened it, and I just about died because it was this amazing working screenplay with notes all over it, and fragments of paper right out of Stanley’s typewriter on the set, taped in, and continuity Polaroids. It was amazing. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, it’s such a shame that no one is going to get to see this in its entirety.” But, as it worked out, as we figured out what this collector’s edition of the book was going to be, I ended up pitching the idea of doing an exact facsimile of this script and Taschen went forward with it after Vivian gave us approval. Everyone who buys this collector’s edition gets this. Other than it not having actual photos taped and glued into it, it’s an exact replica of that screenplay.

TG: Nice! I read that Vivian had shot roughly 45 to 50 hours on the set during principal photography.

LU: That’s exactly what it is. Yes, 50 hours.

TG: She keeps that close to her vest. She’s not releasing it. Did you see any of this footage beyond the widely available 30-minute documentary?

LU: No. There were little clippings, 16-millimeter clippings of it in the archive, all of which I scanned and used as stills in the book. Jan used some bits of it in his film Stanley Kubrick – A Life in Pictures. There are some bits from The Shining that are not in Vivian’s documentary. The family defers to Vivian on that footage because it was her film. Ultimately, I think Warner Brothers probably owns it, but in terms of the relationship with the family and the estate, everyone defers to Vivian, and she just is very adamant about no one ever seeing it.

TG: I know that a lot of viewers probably felt that Stanley really worked over Shelley Duvall on this film.

LU: Exactly, and nothing could be further from the truth. Was it a difficult shoot? Yes. Did Shelley have to summon hysteria and cry on a daily basis sometimes for a big stretch of the last part of the production? Yes. Was she abused? No, I don’t believe she was abused. When I talk about this, I really try not to have my own opinion, even though I do have my own opinion based on everyone I’ve talked to. At the end of the day, I think that the only person who can really speak on the subject is Shelley. I have interviews with Shelley, and I spent a whole day with her. We talked about this, and Shelley remembers Stanley warmly. Shelley is proud of her work on that film. Shelley will say, “Yes, it was difficult. Yes, it was taxing.” It was a taxing role and she knew what she was getting into in terms of what the role demanded, and she took the part. She’s proud of her work.

TG: I am eagerly looking forward to seeing this book. It looks astonishing. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication for making this a reality.

LU: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining limited edition collector's edition (1,000) is available for purchase from Taschen. Click here.

(Lee Unkrich's credits as film director include Coco, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 and as co-director of Finding Nemo.)

“LUMINOUS MARILYN”

By Raymond Benson

The 1957 romantic comedy, The Prince and the Showgirl has likely received more press about what went on behind the scenes and the notorious animosity that existed between the two stars, Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. The latter was also producer and director of the picture, although the production company was the first title made by the newly-formed Marilyn Monroe Productions. The 2011 picture (was it that long ago?), My Week with Marilyn, featuring Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, depicted the stormy relationship between Monroe and Olivier and how Monroe behaved rather, well, erratically and irrationally toward her director/co-star, other actors, the cinematographer, the costumer, and nearly everyone else on the set. The actress even brought something of a “support coach” with her every day in the form of Paula Strasberg, who, with her husband Lee, ran the Actors Studio.

Unless one had actually seen the real movie, The Prince and the Showgirl, one came away from My Week with Marilyn with the impression that Monroe was a mess, that Olivier hated her guts, and that the movie they made was a disaster.

The Prince and the Showgirl is actually a charming, well-acted, funny, and touching piece of work. This reviewer is happy to say that Marilyn Monroe is marvelous in the role of Elsie Marina, a chorus line showgirl of a musical playing in London’s West End in 1911, when the picture takes place. Monroe displays impressive comic timing and wit, does a pratfall or two with aplomb, and categorially holds her own against the likes of renowned thespian Olivier. He, too, is quite winning, even though his accent as a “Carpathian” prince regent (from the Balkans) sometimes causes one’s eyebrows to rise. But make no mistake—this movie belongs to Monroe, and this reviewer would easily cite her performance here ranked in her top five.

Funny how the bad rep of a movie and its making clouds what one really sees on the screen.

Granted, The Prince and the Showgirl was received with lukewarm praise upon its release. The BAFTAs honored it with several nominations, including Actor, “Foreign” Actress, Screenplay, and British Film. It received no Academy Award nominations. The film did very well in the UK, likely due to Olivier’s presence. Perhaps the picture’s indifferent reception in the USA was due to its rather slow pace, length (a few minutes under two hours), and the fact that the story takes place mostly in static one-room sequences of the Carpathian Embassy. That’s not surprising, because the movie is based on a stage play, The Sleeping Prince, by Terrence Rattigan, who also penned the screenplay. Perhaps Rattigan adhered too closely to the conventions of the stage. All of these things are indeed flaws in the motion picture.

Still… this is a worthwhile romantic comedy on the strength of the two leads, especially Monroe’s luminous performance. Not only does she look fantastic, as always, but she truly does light up the screen with charisma, warmth, and delight. Other standouts in the cast would include Richard Wattis, who nearly steals the movie as the frustrated foreign office suit who is charged with keeping the prince happy during his stay in London, Sybil Thorndike as the prince’s dowdy but often frank mother-in-law, and Jeremy Spenser as the prince’s son, King Nicolas, who to this reviewer resembles what Quentin Tarantino might have looked like at the age of sixteen.

The Warner Archive has released a region-free, beautifully rendered, restored presentation of the feature film in high definition. That 1950s-era Technicolor pops out, and the costumes are undeniably gorgeous. Unfortunately, the only supplement on the disk is the theatrical trailer.

The Prince and the Showgirl is enthusiastically recommended for fans of Marilyn Monroe. Fans of Olivier, who does what he can when someone so appealing is sharing the screen with him, will find it interesting. For this reviewer’s money, The Prince and the Showgirl is far more enjoyable than My Week with Marilyn, which now seems to be a rather sordid coda to this romantic comedy bauble.

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