What
if the alien invasion films of the 1950s were actually serving as tools of
disinformation from the State to help cover up real alien sightings and landing
in the 1940s? If you think that is farfetched, this book may help you change
your mind. And just how much truth is there in political conspiracy films like They
Live, The Parralax View or The Manchurian Candidate? Were
mind control techniques really used by the US government, and the secrets
hidden inside mainstream thrillers and sci-fi like The Gamma People? Was
President Kennedy shot by someone who had been “programmed,” and did the people
who knew the truth seed that into Hollywood?
You
might believe these things after reading Hollywood Haunts the World. This
is a fascinating collection of essays on a wide variety of topics which will
make you think twice about what has been going on in the Dream Factory for all
these years. This is a hard book to summarise: tt is more something you need to
experience for yourself. Suffice it to say that dozens of films and TV shows
come under discussion here, ranging from silent classics like The Phantom
Carriage, through Universal horror and Poverty Row quickies – many of which
featuring Bela Lugosi up against any number of apes – iconic science fiction
like The Thing From Another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still,
right up to more modern films like JFK, the Twin Peaks sequel Fire
Walk With Me, Vanilla Sky and even Avengers: Infinity War.
If
you thought you knew your Hollywood history, think again. This book peels back
the curtain on the movie business and shows us how they have been in league
with the CIA all along, that the tenets of Gnosticism and Freemasonry have had
a hold on production, that the writers of trashy ‘B’ movies were actually
promoting controversial theories on evolution and race, and that every
conspiracy theory you have ever considered could actually be true. The
influence of Freudian and Jungian philosophy, Darwin, the Surrealists and much
more, some quite disturbing, are all considered and presented with convincing
evidence. Robert Guffey, a novelist, historian and writer living in Long
Beach, California, has produced a book that reads like the film history
equivalent of The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
This
is a fascinating, mind-expanding trip into some seriously dark corners, and one
which particularly appeals to people like me who read Cinema Retro AND Fortean
Times.
Here's a vintage behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of the 1968 western "Guns for San Sebastian" which had Anthony Quinn squaring off against villain Charles Bronson in an underrated gem from the era. Click here to order Blu-ray from Amazon.
In
“Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace,” a 1962 German production with an
international cast, Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic detective (Christopher Lee)
knows that his archenemy Professor Moriarty is up to no good in a mystery that
involves the Thaysia, a freighter recently docked in London from North
Africa.Anything that draws Moriarty’s
attention is bound to be associated with the vast criminal network of “forgery,
robbery, burglary, and murder” on which he has amassed his fortune.But what does the professor have to do with
the Thaysia?That remains to be
determined by Holmes, and even then, he’ll have to offer credible evidence of
wrongdoing.“Knowing is not proving,”
the detective observes to his associate Dr. Watson (Thorley Walters).To the police, Moriarty is a respectable
academic whose pursuit by Holmes seems to verge on delusional obsession.
Sherlock
soon learns that a priceless Egyptian artefact, a jewelled necklace once worn
by Cleopatra, lies at the heart of the mystery.Three of Moriarty’s henchmen stole the relic during an archeological dig
in Egypt, and one of the three, Peter Blackburn, made off with it and left the
other two in the hands of the Egyptian police.Holed up in a country estate with his wife Ellen (Senta Berger) and her
friend Paul King, Blackburn patrols the grounds with a rifle and keeps a close
eye out for intruders.He doesn’t have
to worry now about one of the other thieves he betrayed, Harrison, who was
murdered on board the Thaysia by the third partner, Samuels.But Samuels is still at large and back in
England, and it’s only a matter of time until Professor Moriarty exercises his
claim for the necklace, using Samuels as his tool.Holmes hurries out to Blackburn’s estate in
hopes of getting there first, but by the time he arrives, a dead man wearing
Peter’s clothing is lying in the house, his face shattered beyond
recognition.Ellen and Paul claim the
dead man is Blackburn, the victim of a violent break-in.The police accept the identification and
suspect the couple of foul play.No one
else was present in the house, signs of a break-in are questionable, and the
Blackburns’ marriage was known to be troubled.But the necklace is missing, and Holmes reads a different story from the
clues.
Once
the backstory of the stolen necklace is established about 25 minutes into the
85 minutes of the movie, and Sherlock uncovers the identity of the dead man in
Blackburn’s clothing about 20 minutes after that (in a scene suggested by the
plot of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Valley of Fear,” in an otherwise original
screenplay by Curt Siodmak), “Sherlock Holmes and the Stolen Necklace” becomes
less a murder mystery than a contest between Holmes and Moriarty for the stolen
necklace.First one and then the other
comes into possession, with Moriarty trying to secure his claim with a variety
of deadly gadgets and booby traps that would give James Bond and Indiana Jones
pause.He even offers Holmes a
partnership and a share of the profits from the necklace.“We are wasting our forces warring against
each other,” he amiably suggests.But
Sherlock is undeterred: “I have only one ambition at present, to see you
hang.”The exchange sets up a trap that
Holmes evades with clever foresight, with a sort of resolution to follow after
that as Holmes turns the recovered necklace over to the police.The authorities transport the recovered
necklace to auction in a carefully guarded van, but Moriarty has an audacious
strategy for snatching it back before the van and its escort reach the auction
hall.He and Holmes both have more
tricks to play in the final moments of Siodmak’s clever script.
Directed
by Terence Fisher, “Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace” was not released
theatrically in the U.S.In those days
before social media and today’s plugged-in movie junkies with websites, few
thriller fans in America were likely to have heard of it.In fact, the only ones in the know may have
been we relative handful of teenagers who read “Castle of Frankenstein”
magazine.A 1965 issue referred to the
film, with a couple of accompanying publicity stills, in an article by Michel
Parry that surveyed current movie activity in the U.K. and Europe.Even then, we could hardly predict that it
would be a half-century on before we would have a chance to see the film in a
sharp, subtitled version.It’s difficult
to overestimate the benefits of today’s home video and streaming platforms in finally
rescuing obscure titles like this from oblivion.
“Sherlock
Holmes and the Deadly Necklace” has an uneven reputation among Conan Doyle fans
who have seen it.Some regret it was
filmed in black-and-white instead of color, which might have given it a higher
profile for U.S. distribution, but others prefer the black-and-white
cinematography as a better fit with the atmosphere and the Edwardian setting of
the production.One drawback all can
agree on: in the English-language dubbing, Christopher Lee’s voice was replaced
by somebody else’s; the voice double does an acceptable job, but the loss of
Lee’s distinctive tones is unfortunate, especially in the scenes where Sherlock
coolly exchanges verbal barbs with the politely sinister Moriarty, played by
German actor Hans Söhnker.In a mostly German supporting cast, the
gorgeous Senta Berger is the one most likely to be remembered from the Cinema
Retro era, but Spaghetti Western fans will recognize Wolfgang Lukschy
as Peter Blackburn; credited as “W. Lukschy,” he played John Baxter, the
corrupt town boss double-crossed by Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, in “A
Fistful of Dollars” (1964).Rotund actor
Leon Askin, who has prominent screen time as Moriarty’s chauffeur and henchman
Charles, is another of those “Hey, I’ve seen him before” faces; he had guest
roles in every 1960s and ‘70s American TV show from “The Monkees”, “Hogan’s
Heroes” and “My Favourite Martian” to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
“Sherlock
Holmes and the Deadly Necklace” streams on Amazon Prime Video in a lustrous
high-def print apparently sourced from a 2024 Blu-ray edition from Severin
Films.A different print posted on
YouTube, courtesy of a site called All Time Classic Movies, offers a good,
clear alternative for viewers who may not have access to Prime Video.
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Focus on the Spaghetti Western #1:The Films of Tony Kendall". Click here to order from Amazon.)
I am
a big fan of these ‘Tales of Adventure’ collections from Imprint. They are the
modern equivalent of the ‘Midnite Movies’ series from MGM around 20 years ago,
which presented double-bills of some of the best B movies in the vaults. Many
of the films which were previously available through that series are now
getting the Blu-ray upgrades they deserve, including the four films in this
set.
One
can view this collection in a few different ways: as a Doug McClure boxset, a
Kevin Connor collection (he directed all four of these) or as an Edgar Rice
Burroughs-themed set. Three of the films here are adapted from original
Burroughs material and one was made up to fit the general theme and appear as a
Burroughs story. Whichever focus you choose to put on the set, the films are a
lot of fun and watching them close together will make you long for that time in
the 1970s when cinema was simpler – when men were heroes, women needed
rescuing, and dinosaurs were made of rubber and papier-mâché.
The
Land That Time Forgot (1974), an Amicus
production for American International Pictures shot at Shepperton Studios, was
the first and is still possibly the best, or at least has the most compelling
narrative of the four. Based on Burroughs’ 1918 novel, it is set during the
First World War and sees a German U-boat sink a British ship and then take on
the survivors, including an American (Doug McClure) submarine builder, a
scientist (Susan Penhaligon) and various members of the crew. Through acts of
espionage and mistrust between the two sides, they eventually agree to
cooperate whilst in international waters, and suddenly find themselves stranded
near a mysterious frozen continent where they are forced to land to restock
supplies. They soon discover that this is in fact an uncharted subcontinent
full of prehistoric creatures and cavemen at various points of evolution. They
capture and befriend one of them who helps them find oil, allowing them to gradually
refuel so that they can leave. Of course, nothing is quite so simple, and the
intrigue between the British and the Germans causes regular fights,
double-crossing and tension. Only the U-boat captain (John McEnery but dubbed
by Anton Diffring) seems capable of maintaining his sense of honour but
gradually loses control over the impatient crew.
This
is an exciting, gripping adventure story which shows Doug McClure at his heroic
best, and the supporting cast, including several familiar faces such as Keigh
Barron and Anthony Ainley, are all excellent. The cinematography is impressive,
the Douglas Gamley score is effective, and the special effects are, well,
entertaining. This release includes a new interview with Kevin Conner (divided
across all four discs), who’s recollections are interesting although at times
it does appear that some of his memories of these films are receding into the
mists of time. Another new feature is a commentary track from film critic and
author Kim Newman and writer and editor Stephen Jones, just the right pairing
for a film such as this. The disc also features an interview with Susan
Penhaligon and an archival featurette on the making of the film. The picture
and sound quality are excellent, and it really demonstrates the high-quality
craftsmanship on display.
At
the Earth’s Core (1976) sees an American financier (McClure)
team up with an eccentric inventor (Peter Cushing, very much in Doctor Who
mode), who has built a burrowing machine, The Mole, designed to travel through
mountain ranges. On their maiden voyage things very quickly go awry and they
find themselves heading deep into the earth, where they finally come to a stop
having broken through to the cavernous interior world of Pellucidar. They soon
discover humans who are being kept as slaves by the Sagoths, who are controlled
telepathically by dinosaur-like bird creatures called the Mahars. One of these
humans is naturally a beautiful princess (played by the incredibly luminous
Caroline Munro), so of course a love triangle soon forms between her, the
American and a jealous fellow-slave. The kingdom is powered by molten lava, and
the slaves are forced to protect incubated dino eggs whilst an escape plan is
hatched (sorry).
This
is an exciting, fire-filled adventure film with some impressive special effects
and sound design, much of which feels like it was a dry run for Star Wars
(1977), which would also go into production at Elstree Studios. The cast are all fun, even if Cushing’s mad professor can at times be
a bit shrill, and Caroline Munro can never get enough screen time; she lights
the place up whenever she is on. This was another Amicus production for AIP
with a higher budget thanks to the success of The Land That Time Forgot,
and it shows. The film looks great on this Blu-ray and comes with more of that
Kevin Connor interview along with an interview with Caroline Munro and a new
fact-filled commentary from film historians Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons.
The
People That Time Forgot (1977) is a direct sequel
to The Land That Time Forgot and was another Amicus production for AIP,
although they went out of business before its release, so it only says AIP in
the credits. In this film a rescue party sets out to find what happened to Doug
McClure’s Tyler, who sent out a message in a bottle at the end of that film.
The expedition is led by Patrick Wayne as Ben McBride, a daredevil biplane
pilot, who along with his mechanic Hogan (the always terrific Shane Rimmer),
palaeontologist Norfolk (Hammer regular Thorley Walters) and newspaper
photographer Lady Charlotte (Sarah Douglas, about to achieve global fame thanks
to her role in the Superman (1978/ 1980) films) is determined to bring
his friend home. A ship takes them to the edge of the impenetrable continent,
and then the four of them fly over vast walls of ice until they find a rocky,
tropical interior where they are instantly attacked by a pterodactyl. Hogan is
tasked with repairing the plane whilst the rest head further inland to try and
discover clues to Tyler’s whereabouts. They soon bump into a well-endowed
tribeswoman (Dana Gillespie), who appears to have bought her outfit at the One
Million Years B.C. (1966) department store. She speaks broken English and
explains that she was taught by Tyler. Together they must avoid dinosaurs and
snakes until they find a tribe called the Nargas who worship a volcano where
they are taken prisoner and must try to escape.
The continuity
between the two films is not perfect, but The People That Time Forgot,
adapted from Burroughs’ 1918 novel, still makes for a great follow-up to the
first film. Unlike the studio-bound previous two films in this set, it was
mainly shot on location in the Canary Islands and therefore feels much more
realistic (along with some interiors and effects shot at Pinewood). According
to an interview with Sarah Douglas on this disc, it was hard going with very
few creature comforts: Thorley Walters brought his own toilet roll with him for
each occasion when he had to nip off behind a rock. With appearances towards
the end from Milton Reid and David Prowse (who, let’s not forget, had just shot
Star Wars), there’s a bit of a Hammer reunion here which adds to the
fun, plus an early appearance from a young Kiran Shah in his first film role.
He would go on to achieve global fame as the size double for Frodo the Hobbit
in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003).
This
Blu-ray looks great, again, and comes with yet another new commentary from Kim
Newman and Stephen Jones (these guys are so busy), more of the Kevin Connor
interview, the aforementioned Sarah Douglas interview plus one with Dana
Gillespie, both recorded in 2016.
Let's take a trip in the Cinema Retro time machine to August of 1970. Here were the big films that were playing in London at the time. Among the titles playing: "Paint Your Wagon", "The Lion in Winter" (in its 78th week!), "Airport", "Battle of Britain", "Patton" (under the UK title "Patton: Lust for Glory"), "M*A*S*H", the star-studded remake of "Julius Caesar", "Woodstock", "Hello Dolly" and John Wayne as "Chisum". Best of all, you could go on a date to a first rate theater in those days without applying for a second mortgage. (Data from Kine Weekly film trade magazine).
Cinema Retro's Author's Corner column invites authors of books about the
arts to enlighten readers with the background story behind their latest work. In this column, author Brian Hannan discusses his new book "King of the Action Thriller: Films from the Mind of Alistair Maclean", which provides the most comprehensive look at the films that were based on MacLean's bestselling novels.
By Brian Hannan
He was the world’s best-selling author. He was the
highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood. He didn’t learn to speak English until
he was six.“I’m a businessman, not a writer,” claimed the self-effacing
Alistair MacLean. While his narrative skills acquired readers in the millions,
his understanding of the publishing and entertainment business made him the
most business-savvy author since Charles Dickens invented the cliffhanging
chapter ending and the author tour. MacLean had an instinctive understanding of
synergy.In Hollywood,
“property” was king. This was real estate of a different commercial kind, an
item on which many fates depended, and which could be used to raise the
millions of dollars required to make a movie. And, virtually alone among
authors of his generation, and certainly unique among screenwriters, his name
acquired marquee status, carrying above-the-credit status, often billed above
actors involved, ensuring that movies could be marketed as Alistair MacLean
pictures, promising to deliver as certain an experience akin as those who
embraced a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
Alistair MacLean was unique among the authors who rose to
bestselling prominence in the 1950s and 1960s in that his books were translated
onto the screen at a startling rate, eighteen in total making the transition.
Many became the biggest blockbusters of the day – The Guns of Navarone
(1961) and Where Eagles Dare (1968) for example – while others like Puppet
on a Chain (1970) and Fear Is the Key (1972) not only attracted a
cult following but reinvented the chase picture. His books spanned World War
Two and the Cold War, espionage often a consideration, but his gift for
authenticity ensured he was as at home in the Wild West or a racetrack.
A number of elements made him stand out from the other
big-time bestsellers of the day. For a start, he didn’t rely like Harold
Robbins (The Carpetbaggers) on sex, nor a retelling of history in the
vein of James Michener (Hawaii), nor reliant in exploring institutions in the
manner of Arthur Hailey (Hotel). He wasn’t interested in contemporary
issues. He didn’t have a series character like James Bond, which allowed his
thrillers to be cherry-picked by a far wider range of producers and Hollywood
studios. Although his main characters were loners, often with a disfigurement
or major flaw, they were sufficiently different to be interpreted by a very
diverse number of actors.
You could argue that he re-purposed the thriller and
invented the mission war novel. By the late 1950s the former was polarised
between the critically-acclaimed novels of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler and
the sexed-up pulp of Mickey Spillane. In the latter, MacLean narratives were
defined by serious purpose, dedicated professionals rather than amateurs
stumbling onto a conspiracy. The aftermath of the Second World War saw the
advent of many mission pictures, but, mostly based on real events, were documentary
or gung-ho in style. The Guns of Navarone
ushered in a new type of mission book/film, short on exposition and training
and overloaded with tension.
Authors rarely become brand names.
They may produce bestsellers, become well-known to readers and within the book
trade, perhaps appreciated by critics, and yet their fame rarely extends beyond
the publication arena. Dickensian, Chandleresque, Shakespearian, Tolkienesque,
as well as being shorthand for describing a type of character or a fictional
world are, in fact, the biggest accolade that can be bestowed upon an author,
that their work has transcended the specific arena of publishing and entered
the vocabulary. You can be a multi-million-selling author and still the impact of
your work will be limited – nobody has created adjectives around the
door-stopping sagas of Leon Uris and James Michener or the thrillers of Lee
Child. The contemporary ancillary opportunities available to the likes of
Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have ensured they have become brands, their names
above the titles of movies made from their novels promising a certain kind of
experience and, in broader terms, creating a marketing goldmine.
For over two decades Alistair
MacLean was a brand name. The only author whose sales came close was Agatha
Christie and yet her mysteries, stewing away in an impossibly English
landscape, lacked the full international penetration of the harder-edged thrillers
of MacLean. Her two most famous characters, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple,
barely made a dent in her lifetime on the big screen. But the pull of MacLean
was such that his name was not just above the title of the movies but
emblazoned across the posters, as if that was all the marquee an audience
required.As Elliott Kastner, producer of Where
Eagles Dare, put it, “Alistair
MacLean is the first bestselling author equally talented as novelist and
screenwriter.This puts him astride the entertainment industry like a golden
colossus.” Peter Snell,
producer of Bear Island (1979), concurred, “He’s simply an author
everyone knows. The films have a guaranteed audience and that’s hard to beat,
knowing you have an audience before you begin.”Bestsellers had underpinned
Hollywood from the outset, studios believing they were a safer bet because
resulting films were pre-sold. But as directors became more demanding, their
name often superseded that of the author of the source material to the extent
that audiences often believe a movie has emerged from the imagination of a
director rather than originating elsewhere (Poor Things, 2023, a case in
point).Thus, it is regarded as Martin Ritt’s The Spy Who Came in from the
Cold (1965) and Francis Ford’s Coppola’s The Godfather (1972).But after the first few adaptations
of MacLean thrillers, it was never Brian G. Hutton’s Where Eagles Dare
or Geoffrey Reeves’s Puppet on a Chain or Don Sharp’s Bear Island.
These movies were identified with their author. From the outset his
films attracted variable budgets – very big for The Guns of Navarone, Where
Eagles Dare and Ice Station Zebra (1968), the last two designated
70mm roadshows – but considerably smaller for The Secret Ways (1961) and
The Satan Bug (1965).
(Author Brian Hannan)
In later films, it was apparent that the author’s name was
as big a draw as any of the stars, and that you could make a film based on one
of his books without going to the expense of recruiting a major marquee name –
George Maharis, Sven Bertil-Taube, Anthony Hopkins and David Birney were
virtual unknowns when cast, respectively, in the leading roles in The Satan
Bug, Puppet on a Chain, When Eight Bells Toll and Caravan to Vaccares (1974).
Audiences knew what they were going to get and if a director
added more exciting action sequences as with, for example, the speedboat chase
through the canals of Amsterdam in Puppet
on a Chain or car chase in Fear Is the Key, that was a bonus. English was a foreign language for MacLean.
Though born in Glasgow’s East End, in 1922, the son of a Church of Scotland
minister, he was brought up in a small town in the Highlands of Scotland and
spoke Gaelic until, aged five, he attended school. Drafted into the Royal Navy
at 19 on what proved a five-year stint, seeing action in the North Sea,
Atlantic, Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and the Far East, these experiences
providing authentic material for several books.
Post-war, as a schoolteacher in Glasgow, MacLean tried his hand at
short stories to generate extra income, and after winning a competition in a
national newspaper was encourage to write H.M.S.
Ulysses, the tale of a doomed
wartime convoy. A massive bestseller shifting an unprecedented 250,000 copies
in hardback, with the film rights selling for £30,000, the combined income
allowed him to become a full-time writer, his prospects cemented by the
publication in 1957 of The Guns of
Navarone. That book sold
450,000 copies in six months and the film rights were purchased by Carl Foreman,
who planned a multi-million-dollar star-laden picture for Columbia.However, the first movie to roll off what would become the
MacLean bandwagon was a lesser-known smaller-budgeted affair, The Secret Ways (1961). Thereafter,
films based on his works appeared at regular intervals. For an author MacLean
was unusually involved in the film-making process. Most writers, perhaps
attracted by Hollywood mystique and the hefty sums paid out for film rights,
generally entertain some interest, at least initially, in participating in the
movie machine, but, equally usually, become quickly disaffected by the
ruthlessness of a business where the screenwriter is on the lowest rung of the
ladder.
William Goldman is usually held up as the best example of
someone who straddled both fields with equal success, but of his original works
only Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was a big movie hit, and
his fame largely rested on adaptations – Harper (1966), All the
President’s Men (1975) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). You could as
easily argue that he learned from MacLean to write books that were cinematic
and enjoy the financial triple whammy of book sales, selling the film rights
and writing the screenplay. American agent-turned-producer Elliott Kastner (Harper,
1966), who had set up an office in London, invited the novelist to write an
original screenplay. It’s fair to say that MacLean, in creating Where Eagles
Dare, plundered his previous mission opus The Guns of Navarone, but
jacked up the suspense and action.Kastner then signed up for another two original screenplays as well as
novels. While The Guns of Navarone set MacLean on his way as
a hot Hollywood property, it was the experience of Where Eagles Dare
that created the legend of an author who commanded such a global following that
audiences were guaranteed to turn up for movies based on his thrillers. Over
the space of 18 years, from The Secret Ways in 1961 to Bear Island
in 1979, a colossal 13 of his books were turned into movies, an extraordinary
strike rate.
These 13 movies plus another five made for big- and
small-screen are covered in this book. Each chapter focuses on one film,
detailing its production, casting, and filming and then analysing both the film
and the changes made to the book. The final chapter is a big surprise, which I
won’t reveal here, and there’s a chapter devoted to what happened to the other
books bought by studios or producers but never made – such as the involvement
of Lord Puttnam in an aborted effort to make HMS Ulysses – and there’s a
section on box office.
King of the Action Thriller: Films from the Mind of Alistair
MacLean (McFarland
Publishing) by Brian Hannan and, as ever, with copious and often rare
illustrations, is available from all good bookshops and online via Amazon and
other such traders as well as on Kindle.
Rare shot of Ernest Borgnine on the Mexican set of Sam Peckinpah's 1969 classic "The Wild Bunch". Borgnine is nursing a foot injury that occurred prior to production and posed some obstacles for him in filming the action scenes.
Although they have both worked in other
genres, director Robert Clouse and producer Fred Weintraub will be forever
remembered for giving us a series of thrilling martial arts/action films such
as the immortal Bruce Lee’s Enter the
Dragon (1973), 1974’s Black Belt
Jones starring karate champion Jim Kelly, the always amazing Jackie Chan’s The Big Brawl aka Battle Creek Brawl (1980), 1985’s Gymkata, and 1990’s China
O’Brien I and II which both star
the queen of martial arts, Cynthia Rothrock.However, in 1981 the dynamic duo teamed up yet again for another
action-packed, martial arts extravaganza titled Force: Five.
In order stop the dangerous cult of
super-rich and powerful religious leader Reverend Rhee (Master Bong Soo Han), government
agent Jim Martin (Joe Lewis) assembles a kick-ass team of martial arts experts
who attempt to bring the evil, Jonestown-like organization to its knees.
Directed by Robert Clouse (who also co-wrote
the film with Emil Farkas and George Goldsmith) and produced by Fred Weintraub, Force: Five was released in June of
1981 by American Cinema Releasing. The film is a semi-remake of the 1976 Black Belt Jones sequel Hot Potato which was also produced by
Weintraub.
Force: Five is a very enjoyable
martial arts/action picture. Not surprisingly, director Clouse expertly handles
the movie’s many exciting action sequences, but we must talk a bit about the
sensational cast. First, we have our Force: Five (six, actually). As group
leader Jim Martin, World Heavyweight Full Contact Karate Champion Joe Lewis is
totally convincing in both martial arts and acting. Fun fact: the charismatic
Lewis was handpicked by Bruce Lee to play Colt in Lee’s fantastic directorial
debut Way of the Dragon (1972), but
had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts. The role eventually went to the
legendary Chuck Norris.
The rest of the team consists of World Full
Contact Welterweight Champion Benny “The Jet” Urquidez; 10th-degree
Black Belt (in Zen Do Kai Karate) Richard Norton (who appears in several of
Clouse and Weintraub’s films); massive actor and Kenpo Karate expert Sonny
Barnes; lovely actress Pam Huntington, and talented voice actor Ron Hayden.
Known as the Father of Hapkido, Master Bong
Soo Han shines as evil villain Reverend Rhee. There are also terrific
performances from Amanda Wyss, Peter MacLean, Bob Schott, Tom Villard, and a
brief appearance by Mel Novak.
The acting from our super athletes may not be
perfect, but it’s more than passable and it definitely gives the movie some of
its charm.
This film will never be considered one of the
greatest martial arts/action movies ever made, but it sure is a lot of fun and
the cast seems to be having a great time. If, like me, you’re a fan of this stuff,
you will, without a doubt, enjoy Force:
Five. It has action, adventure, humor and, of course, expertly
choreographed fight sequences performed by crazy talented world champions.
Force: Five has been released on
a Region One Blu-ray and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The
movie, although a tad soft, looks better than previous releases while the LPCM
2.0 mono/stereo audio is pretty good, but not great. The special features
include a wonderful 50 minute interview with Joe Lewis as well as two other
interviews with Benny Urquidez. (I believe these features, including the
theatrical trailer, are all ported over from the 2016 release by Scorpion.) We
are also treated to some cool reversible artwork, a collectible poster, and a
limited edition slipcover made up to look like an old VHS rental box. Worth the
upgrade.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
To mark the 60th Anniversary of
The Good, The Bad and They Ugly (1966) South West Silents (https://www.southwestsilents.com/)
is planning a special weekend celebration of the work of Sergio Leone
(1929-1989). This Sergio Leone Weekend (https://hdfst.uk/e145608)
will take place at the Bristol Megascreen (originally the Bristol IMAX) on
Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th April 2026.
The weekend is made up of:
SATURDAY 18TH APRIL:
A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964): 12:00PM
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (1965): 3:00PM
SUNDAY 19TH APRIL:
MY NAME IS NOBODY (1973): 12:00PM
VOGLIO A TTE! (1922): 3:00PM
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966): 4:45PM
There are planned intros by filmmaker Alex Cox (recording
his intros from Mexico) and in person intros by Leone biographer and historian
Sir Christopher Frayling throughout the weekend as well.
“Producing an event around Spaghetti Westerns
made in the 1960/70s might seem a bit off subject for an organisation dedicated
to the silent era. But when you start patting the dust off one’s poncho you
begin to realise the distinctive silent film elements of Leone’s work.”
Co-director of SWS James Harrison says.
“From the outset, there is the use of
dialogue; or the little use of it to be honest. Sergio Leone’s
screenplays/scripts are renowned for keeping the dialogue to a minimum and you
can clearly see this in the Dollars Trilogy;A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More(1965) and, most importantly, in The Good,
The Bad and The Ugly (1966) are very much lean when it comes to dialogue.”
Happy to say that all three Dollars films as
well as My Name is Nobody (1973) will come from the 4K restorations from Cineteca
di Bologna.
Then there is the ‘silent film heritage’ of
the director himself. Leone’s mother Edvige Maria Valcarenghi (1886-1969) was a
silent film star who gave up her film career by the time Leone was born in
1929. Leone’s father on the other hand, Vincenzo Leone (1879 -1959) continued
his career as an actor, writer, producer and director until the early 1950s.
But it was between the 1910s and the late
1920s that Vincenzo’s output (who credited himself as Roberto Roberti) is the most
profound. Roberti was making a healthy amount of silent films in the Neapolitan
film industry alongside other celebrated Italian and Naples based filmmakers
such as Giuseppe de Liguoro (1869–1944) and lvira Notari (1875–1946). We will
be marking the work of Vincenzo Leone with a screening of Voglio a Tte! (1922)
which we have been able to get from our friends at Cineteca Milano.
And of course, silent films were never really
silent, and neither were the films of Sergio Leone thanks to the incredible
talent of Ennio Morricone (1928-2020).
So expect the films to be big and loud at Bristol’s
Megascreen between Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th April
2026.
Alfred Hitchcock was such an iconic personality that he sometimes made himself the foremost presence in trailers for his new films. Such was the case with this very witty trailer for his 1963 blockbuster "The Birds" in which he dominates virtually every frame of the trailer with the only footage from the actual film being seen in the last few seconds.
Turner Classic Movies presents a superb podcast series about the trials and tribulations suffered by director Joseph Mankiewicz in bringing 20th Century-Fox's 1963 epic "Cleopatra" to the big screen. As you may be aware, the seemingly endless production underwent cast changes, production disasters and countless other challenges. TCM host Ben Mankiewicz hosts this six-part series and he's just the person to do it. As the nephew of Joe Mankiewicz, he provides the inside story based on first hand knowledge and rare audio comments from his uncle. We're presenting the first episode here. To continue listening to the other episodes (and other TCM podcast editions), click here. But be warned: they are all highly addictive.
It was 1966 and Batmania was in full swing. Since most viewers were watching the show on B&W televisions, 20th Century-Fox decided to bring Adam West and Burt Ward to the big screen in a color feature film appropriately titled "Batman". The studio took the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach and hired the most popular villains from the series to appear in the feature film. Here is the original trailer.
I initially saw "Cops and Robbers" on its theatrical release in 1973.
Strangely, I retained no memories of the film whatsoever except a few
bars of the catchy title theme song by Michel Legrand. I say "strangely"
because, upon watching recently, I found the movie to be terrifically entertaining.
Perhaps it's because terrifically entertaining films were a dime a dozen
back in the 1970s that this particular movie didn't resonate with me at
the time. Nevertheless, watching it today, it has a great many
pleasures, not the least of which is two leading actors who were not
familiar faces at the time, thus allowing the viewer to not have any
preconceptions about their mannerisms or previous roles. The film was
shot in New York City during a long period of urban decay. Poverty and
crime were rising and the infrastructure was crumbling as the city came
perilously close to declaring bankruptcy. It's a far cry from today's
New York but at the time one benefit of all this chaos was that it
inspired filmmakers to take advantage of the somber landscape and use it
as fodder for some memorable films. Michael Winner's "Death Wish" and
Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" administered the cinematic coup de grace, painting
a picture of Gotham as a foreboding urban jungle. This was always
overstated, of course, as there was never a period in which New York was
in danger of losing its reputation as the most exciting city on earth.
However, the grime and grit certainly did much to tarnish its reputation
for a good number of years.
Among the films that represented this era was the little-remembered
"Cops and Robbers", which is an offbeat entry in the genre of "dirty
cop" movies that became popular during the 1970s. The twist is that,
unlike the exploits of larger-than-life cops such as Dirty Harry or
Popeye Doyle, this film centers on the day-to-day frustrations of two
every day patrolmen - Tom (Cliff Gorman) and Joe (Joseph Bologna)-
trying to cope with the frustrations of risking their lives for a salary
of $43 a day. We watch as they car pool from their cramped suburban
housing units to Manhattan, a daily trek of seemingly endless traffic
jams that they must endure in the sweltering heat. (Yes, kiddies, most
of us working class clods didn't have air conditioning in our cars in
the 1970s.) Their familiar grind includes wrestling with mentally
unstable people, watching fellow officers getting shot and having an
ungrateful populace take them for granted. With wives and kids to
provide for, they are at the end of their ropes. One day, Joe casually
confesses to Tom that he recently walked into a liquor store in full
uniform and held the place up at gunpoint. He only got a couple of
hundred dollars, but was amazed at how easy it was to get away with-
largely because everyone assumed the culprit was someone disguised as
a New York City police officer. After all, although corruption was
widespread even in this post-Serpico period, it was mostly carried out
discreetly through payoffs and freebies. New York City cops did not
commit overt robberies while on the job. Tom is initially appalled, but
is also mesmerized by the prospect of using their positions of trust to
carry out an even grander robbery: one that would put them on Easy Street for the rest of their lives. Using a disguise, Tom visits the
domain of a local mob kingpin and discloses he and his partner are
genuine members of the NYPD- and they want his help to work out a scam
that will net both cops $1 million each. They are told to rob
untraceable securities in the amount of $10 million, for which they will
be paid a $2 million "commission". Tom and Joe create a daring plan to
gain access to a major finance company on Wall Street on the very day
that the Apollo 11 astronauts are receiving a ticker tape parade.
Knowing the employees will be distracted, they enter the premises on the
pretense of checking out a minor matter. They bluff their way into the
inner sanctum of the company president and hold him hostage while his
secretary escorts Joe to a vault and gets the appropriate securities. As
is the case in most good caper movies, things initially go well but
unexpected snafus arise that threaten the cops' getaway. To say more
would be to spoil the fun but suffice it to say that the climax of the
movie finds them trying to collect the $2 million from the mob in the
middle of Central Park- where both sides try to double-cross each other.
The result is a wild car chase seems to doom not only the cops' getaway
but the cops themselves.
Director Aram Avakian, working with producer Elliott Kastner, makes
the most of the New York locations, eschewing studio sets for real
places. This adds immeasurably to the realistic feel of the production.
Both Joe Bologna and Cliff Gorman were exceptionally well cast and are
completely convincing as urban cops. Bologna was starting to ride high
on the heels of he and his wife Renee Taylor's success with "Lovers and
Other Strangers" and "Made for Each Other". Gorman was primarily known
for his acclaimed stage performance as Lenny Bruce but also won kudos
for his role in William Friedkin's 1969 film production of "The Boys in
the Band". He's so good in this film, you wonder why major stardom
eluded him. There is also an abundance of good character actors
including Dolph Sweet, Joe Spinell and Shepperd Strudwick. The witty
screenplay is the work of Donald E. Westlake, a noted crime novelist who
would later turn his script for the film into a successful book.
Westlake only makes one creative misstep. It is essential in most crime
movies that feature charismatic cads as anti-heroes that their victims
are established as villains who don't deserve the sympathy of the
viewer. From the classic caper flick "The Sting" to the long-running
British TV series "Hustle", the targets of the con men must always be
deemed to be unsympathetic. In Westlake's screenplay, the victims of the errant
cops are every day, working people. Joe's stickup of the liquor store
(seen over the opening credits) terrorizes innocent people. Their
protracted plan to rip off the Wall Street firm similarly puts
non-criminals in harm's way (although Westlake throws in a twist that is
designed to water down the victim's plight). Watching the film through a
modern viewpoint, when police corruption is no longer considered to be
an acceptable part of every day life, the movie's disturbing celebration
of officers who are violating their sacred duty to protect the public
seems more distasteful today than it did at the time of the film's
release. Even viewed within the context of the era, we can certainly
sympathize with the cops' frustrations, but their turning to crime makes
a mockery of most police officers who resist taking that path.
Nevertheless, if you can overlook the sociological factors and accept
the film as pure entertainment, it works wonderfully well.
The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and MGM+.
Two years after Clint Eastwood's blockbuster hit "Dirty Harry", he returned in the role for 1973's "Magnum Force", directed by his old friend from his "Rawhide" days, Ted Post. Predictably, it became one of the most popular films of the year. This clip shows why.
They were Hollywood's seemingly least compatible power couple. Charles Bronson was noted for avoiding interviews and publicity while Jill Ireland relished the opportunities to promote her films. The couple had a rather convoluted start to their relationship. Ireland was married to David McCallum when the up-and-coming British/Scottish couple moved to Hollywood to further their ambitions. It worked. McCallum would become a major star within a few years and his career helped give his wife exposure as well. However, behind the scenes the marriage was becoming strained. McCallum and Ireland had formed a close friendship with Charles Bronson when they filmed "The Great Escape" together. When the McCallums moved to Hollywood, Bronson did a lot of socializing with them. But behind the scenes, Bronson and Jill began a tempestuous affair that led to her divorce from McCallum, who went on to marry model Katherine Carpenter. Bronson and Jill married as well and began a long time collaboration of appearing in films together. Initially, Jill had minor roles but as Bronson's star power increased he used his influence to get his wife co-starring roles. In all, they would appear in over a dozen films together before her untimely death from cancer in 1990.
A while back, I joined my colleagues Paul Scrabo and Tony Latino in providing an Imprint Blu-ray commentary track for Charles Chaplin's final film, "A Countess from Hong Kong" (1967) starring two of the biggest stars of the era, Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. I had only seen it once before and thought it deserved its reputation as one of the most disappointing films in history. Expectations were high for the film, with Chaplin in the director's chair but despite a tidal wave of international publicity, the movie was savaged by critics and audiences stayed away despite the onscreen star power. In recording the commentary track, I seem to recall voicing the opinion that while the film was certainly a deserved flop, I found some nuggets of salvation amidst the celluloid rubble. In this episode of Joe Dante's "Trailers from Hell", screenwriter Larry Karaszewski adeptly summarizes much that went wrong in a little over two minutes. It's been said that Chaplin was the only one who deemed the movie to be an artistic success but filming it was a challenge for all. Brando and Loren were at odds during production, which must have been a challenge for them, as they had to enact a whimsical romance. Brando would later tell Playboy that he felt Chaplin was one of the cruelest people he had ever worked with and dared to give him a dressing down about the way the legendary filmmaker would berate his son, Sydney Chaplin (who has a supporting role) in front of the cast and crew. If you've never seen it, do so, if only to see if the film lives up to (or down to) popular opinion.
Check out Trailers from Hell for many more critiques of retro movies.
There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to The Three Stooges. People either love them or loathe them. Assuming you are among the Stooge lovers, here's one of their funniest: "Brideless Groom" in which hapless Shemp has to get married quickly for reasons unveiled in the plot. We hope all you fellow Cinema Retro knuckleheads enjoy it!
The film world has lost one of its most iconic talents with the death of actor Robert Duvall at age 95. He passed away peacefully at his beloved Virginia horse farm, according to his wife Luciana, who he married after co-starring with her in "Assassination Tango", which Duvall also directed. Duvall was an unlikely candidate for leading man stardom. He was born in San Diego in 1931. His father was a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy and the family moved quite a bit because of his father's varying assignments. Robert served two years in the U.S. Army and in 1955 moved to New York City where he was accepted as a student at the esteemed Neighborhood Playhouse where he became friends with two other penniless aspiring actors, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. Duvall appeared in guest starring roles in popular T.V. series and made his big screen debut as "Boo" Radley, the mysterious, mentally challenged man who appears in the final scene of the 1962 classic "To Kill a Mockingbird". Despite having his one line of dialogue cut from the film, Duvall's physical presence made an impression on critics and the audience. Big screen roles did not pour in, however, and Duvall resumed guest-starring on television series. He did land a role as an arrogant New York City cop in conflict with Frank Sinatra's titular "The Detective" in 1968 and had a minor role as a taxi driver in the blockbuster crime drama "Bullitt" the same year. In 1969, he landed the plum role of likeable villain "Lucky" Ned Pepper in the screen adaptation of the bestselling novel "True Grit". In the film's most iconic scene, he and his fellow bad guys are decimated by John Wayne (in his Oscar winning role) in a blazing gun battle on horseback. That same year, Duvall teamed with young director Francis Ford Coppola on a dramatic film "The Rain People", co-starring another aspiring actor, James Caan. In 1972, Coppola would hire both of them for pivotal roles in "The Godfather", which was accorded the Best Picture Oscar. Two years later, Duvall returned as crime family lawyer Tom Hagan in the sequel "The Godfather Part II", which also won the Best Picture Oscar. In 1979, he worked with Coppola again on his 1979 masterpiece "Apocalypse Now" in which he played what what arguably the most popular role of his career, the wacky, war-loving Colonel Kilgore, who speaks the immortal line "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning...Smells like victory."
(Duvall as "Lucky" Ned Pepper in "True Grit" (1969). (Photo: Paramount.)
Duvall could seemingly play any role from subtle comedy such as the uptight Major Frank Burns in the 1970 big screen version of M*A*S*H to the corporate hatchet man in "Network" to a trouble country singer in his Oscar-winning role in the 1983 film "Tender Mercies". (Duvall would accumulate six other nominations in the categories of Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.) One of his most popular roles was in the blockbuster 1989 Western mini-series "Lonesome Dove". He was also nominated for an Oscar in a key late-career role in the 1997 drama "The Apostle", a film he championed and helped finance. Duvall's "everyman" persona gave viewers the impression he could well be their neighbor or co-worker. He lacked pretentiousness and, while certainly not reclusive, he did not overtly court publicity. Some of his finest work is in films that were not boxoffice hits such as "Get Low" and "True Confessions". He also teamed with Kevin Costner for "Open Range", a 2003 Western that proved there was still a receptive audience for a genre that was widely deemed to be dead by the major studios.
Robert Duvall was an actor's actor. He was modest about his talents and expressed surprise and gratitude for his success. Fittingly, New York Times critic Vincent Canby once appropriately accorded him the great compliment of all by referring to him as "America's Olivier". The breadth and depth of his accomplishments have ensured he will be remembered as one of the screen's greatest talents.
Less forgiving cineastes choose not to put the
filmography of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello on par with the works of Chaplin,
Keaton and Laurel and Hardy.Their
argument is that the storylines of Abbott and Costello’s comedies for Universal
were too formulaic, the rewarmed vaudeville bits and occasionally violent
slapstick actions and pratfalls too low-brow. While I suppose there’s some fair
merit to that argument, I disagree.Personally, I don’t care much for too simplistic, contrasting
assessments.
There’s one thing everyone can agree on.The partnership of Abbott and Costello was
long-lasting.Though both men initially worked
separately in various burlesque and theatrical productions, it wasn’t until
1936 they would formally team as a popular act on the vaudeville stage.The pair importantly gained national exposure
following an appearance on TheKate
Smith Hour radio program in February of 1938.The duo’s comedy repartee was so
well-received that show’s producers routinely brought them back.By summer of 1940, the team (prominently under-billed
as the “Radio sensations of ‘I’m a baaad
boy’ fame”) were signed by Universal to provide comedic support for the
Jerome Kern musical production One Night
in the Tropics (1940).
One
Night in the Tropics opened to mostly tepid reviews.That said, Variety noted the walk-on comic bits of Abbott and Costello
provided the film’s “brightest spots,” perhaps even saving “the picture from
general tediousness.”The pair quietly
returned to vaudeville to earn their bread and butter.The tepid response to Tropics might have signaled an end of the pair’s career aspirations
in motion pictures.But due to the
passing of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Conscription Bill, Universal was planning
on producing a series of “service pictures.”
Three of Abbott and Costello’s first four top-billed pics
for Universal were just that, war-effort comedies, all from 1941 and all
successful: Buck Privates, In the Navy and Keep ‘em Flying. The team’s
single non-WWII-related outlier was Hold
that Ghost, also from 1941.That latter
spooky-comedy allowed the two to seamlessly team for a third time with the
musical Andrews Sisters.It also marked
their first mash-up with Universal’s horror and mystery pics of the day.
If the 1940s offered the greatest films of the teams’
partnership, Charles Barton’s Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein is oft-cited as perhaps their greatest cinematic
effort.Upon the film’s release in 1948,
not everyone agreed that was so, critical reviews decidedly mixed. I suppose to
this very day there remain a few who are of contrarian opinions of believing … Meet Frankenstein to be the pair’s
best outing.That said, there’s no doubt
- in my opinion, of course - that … Meet
Frankenstein is seamlessly assembled, each part fit together in a perfect
jigsaw: the direction, the casting, the scripting, the performances, the eerie
sets, the sight gags, the warmed-over vaudeville bits… everything.The film expertly mixes comedy and mystery.
The most welcome aspect of the film is that the fabled
Universal monsters (Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man) are not
mindlessly ridiculed as buffoons.Bud
and Lou instead are ceremoniously dropped as inhabitants into the strange world
of Bela Lugosi’s vampire, Lon Chaney Jr.’s lycanthrope, Glenn Strange’s monster
and Lenore Aubert’s sinister Dr. Mornay.It’s interesting that neither A&C, whose boffo box-office appeal was
already in fade near the end of the 1940s, were originally thrilled about
appearing in … Meet Frankenstein.The film’s two stars were allegedly not
getting along with neither Universal nor each other at this point in their
careers. Costello reportedly pronounced the mash-up script as underwhelming.
The quality of the script by Robert Lees, Frederic I.
Rinaldo and John Grant was also debated by two of the film’s major players who shared
differing opinions of it.Chaney Jr. too
was not impressed, though his feelings were tinged with a measure of
bitterness.The actor had been dropped
as a contract player following Pillow of
Death (1945), the final installment of Universal’s Inner Sanctum mystery series. Still feeling bruised by that dismissal,
Chaney would return reluctantly returned to Universal for … Meet Frankenstein.(The film was actually the actor’s second
teaming with A&C, having already appeared in the latter’s Here Come the Co-Eds (1945)).
In an oft-cited damning rebuke, Chaney later groused that
A&C made “buffoons of the monsters.” but that quote is rarely bracketed with
context.The simple fact remains that in
course of … Meet Frankenstein,
Chaney’s Lawrence Talbot/Wolf Man is written and played entirely straight.His annoyance with A&C more likely stemmed
from the time Chaney’s Frankenstein monster was ignobly lampooned by the pair during
two hosted skits on TV’s The Colgate
Comedy Hour (1951).Chaney’s
feelings were not mirrored by BelaLugosi
who was to reprise his on-screen Dracula for the first time since 1931.The actor was pleased to see Dracula’s sophisticate
menace was retained, unblemished as a figure of parody.
I’m not sure the term “oversaturation” was commonplace in
the early 1950s, but if it was, the career trajectory of Abbott and Costello would
both profit and suffer from it.The two
were everywhere: on stage, on radio, on television, on the big screen.Their films continued to do dependably good -
if no longer blockbusting - business well into the 1950s.With the advent of television, the pair had
become familiar stars on such programs as the Colgate Comedy Hour (1950-1951) and their own The Abbott and Costello Show.
The latter program, which began filming in spring of
1951, was a television staple from fall of 1952 through late spring of 1954.Those original episodes would later be syndicated
well into the 1970s.The pair’s
television appearances - while introducing and extending their popular
recognition to a new generation of fans – proved a double-edged sword.Such regular TV appearances would eventually soften
their movie-star prowess at the box office.
In any case, the commercial success of … Meet Frankenstein would change the
pair’s opinion of sharing similar showdowns with other monsters, Universal and
otherwise. It made perfect sense that Bud and Lou’s next meeting with a figure
of Universal’s fright-factory would be the Invisible Man.After all, at the conclusion of … Meet Frankenstein, the pair are
introduced, sight unseen (naturally) to the laughter of Vincent Price’s
Invisible Man. (Price was Universal’s second Invisible Man, having appeared in
Joe May’s The Invisible Man Returns
(1940).Alas, Price’s “Geoffrey
Radcliffe” from Returns is not present
in this second A&C thriller.However,
director Charles Lamont and the very same trio of writers of … Meet Frankenstein do reference a tie-in
to Claude Rains’ original “raving maniac” of James Whale’s seminal The Invisible Man (1933).
Though not a patch on … Meet Frankenstein, this Invisible Man entry is a decent-enough
programmer.Newly graduated from
detective school, Bud and Lou are contacted by distraught boxer Tommy Nelson
(Arthur Franz).Nelson is on the run
from police, having been falsely accused of murdering his manager.Desperate to clear his name, Nelson has
escaped from jail and seeks the help of his fiancé Helen Gray (Nancy
Guild).Helen’s uncle, Dr. Philip Gray
(Gavin Muir) has experimented with the same invisibility serum originally
developed by scientist Jack Griffin, Claude Rain’s character in the Whale film.Gray refuses Nelson’s request for injection
as he’s aware that the serum brings about the eventual onset of madness.Undeterred, the boxer injects himself and,
with the assistance of Bud and Lou, seeks out the scheming gangsters actually guilty
of the murder of his manager.
My second personal
favorite of the “… Meet the Monsters”
series is Lamont’s Abbott and Costello
Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), co-scripted by John Grant and Lee Loeb.
To be honest, this third opus is not a great film, but it’s a pretty good one, the
first to feature a monster outside of the usual Universal milieu.It helps that Boris Karloff is aboard as the
titular Jekyll/Hyde, though the actor’s gift for providing a healthy dose of
on-screen menace is perhaps too reserved as written.This pic is actually Karloff’s second
“meeting” with the pair, having previously been cast as the mysterious Swami
Talpur in Barton’s Abbott and Costello
Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949).
In this entry, A&C play a pair of bumbling American
cops sent to England to study the methods of the London police force.The two new Bobbies, as one might expect, fare
miserably, even finding themselves arrested and jailed following a wild fray at
a Woman’s Suffrage rally in Hyde Park.Relieved of their duties as policeman, the pair hope to work their way back
into the good graces of the constabulary by solving the mystery behind recent
string of local murders.
The …. Meet Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pic offers two separate storylines that gradually mesh.We are introduced to a beautiful suffragette/part-time
chorus hall girl, Vicky Edwards (Helen Westcott).Edwards, we learn, is the ward of guardian of
the prestigious Dr. Jekyll (Karloff).Edwards falls in fast-track love with the suffragette-sympathetic but prying
newspaperman Bruce Adams (Craig Stevens).This romantic coupling causes distress to Jekyll.As Hyde, the doctor has been murdering
Londoners and conducting chemical experiments in a secreted basement laboratory.As Jekyll, he’s despairing and jealous of his
young ward’s romance with Adams as he too pines for Vicky’s affections. Of
course, Bud and Lou soon find themselves in the middle of this brouhaha of mysterious
murders and love triangles.
The reason I regard …
Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as the second best of the “Meet the Monsters”
pics, is that it successfully brings A&C into a genuinely atmospheric Universal
horror film. Though I wouldn’t call the comedic elements secondary to the scenario,
director Lamont manages to bring a sense of eeriness to the production: there
are eerie fog-bound streets, a masked and cloaked mysterious figure lurking
about, a secret laboratory hiding “Batley” (John Dierkes), Karloff’s menacing assisting
chemist.The spooky Mr. Hyde mask
created by make-up man Bud Westmore is original in design, half-Neanderthal/half-Ape
in construction. (Click here to order from Amazon)
Rare photo of Steven Spielberg with "Jaws" author Peter Benchley in Martha's Vineyard for the filming of the 1975 classic in which Benchley made a brief cameo appearance. Oh, and we know what you are thinking...yes, we'd also drool over acquiring that production crew T shirt that Spielberg is sporting.
Enjoy this vintage documentary, "Steve McQueen: Man on the Edge", narrated by his friend James Coburn, with whom he starred in "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape". (To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube".)
The first issue of Season 22 (issue #64) is now shipping worldwide! Subscribe today and enjoy the world's only magazine devoted to the greatest era of filmmaking!
Here is a brief newsreel of the festivities taking place at the 1962 New York premiere of MGM's "Mutiny on the Bounty", a magnificent epic even though there were almost impossible obstacles to overcome in bringing it to the big screen. (See Cinema Retro's Movie Classics roadshow epics issue for full coverage). Despite causing controversies during filming, Marlon Brando was induced to attend the premiere, a practice he was usually adverse to. Note the theater marquee across the street showing John Frankenheimer's "The Manchurian Candidate".
In an article for the website Slashfilm.com, writer Devin Meenan briefly outlines the strange interaction between Alfred Hitchcock and MGM that ultimately- and unexpectedly- led to the creation of his 1959 masterpiece "North By Northwest"- and why, despite the film's success, Hitchcock would never work for MGM again.
Here's the original trailer for the 1968 crime thriller "Madigan", directed by Don Siegel with his usual expertise and featuring a sterling cast. Just one of many gritty crime thrillers from this great era of filmmaking.
Click here to order the Blu-ray special edition from Amazon
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FEATURES FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVE
This feature puts the spotlight on those glorious old movie marquees. This one depicts the
Loew's Capitol theater on the evening of the New York premiere of The Dirty Dozen in June 1967 at the Loews Capitol. Continue reading to see vintage marquees for Steve McQueen's The War Lover and Requiem for a Heavyweight starring Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason.
Cinema Retro's Author's Corner column invites authors of books about the arts to enlighten readers with the background story behind their latest book. In this column, author Marshall Terrill provides an inside look at his new book, "Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, The Making of Tom Horn and The Hunter", the final two films of the screen legends career, with photographs by Barbara Minty-McQueen, who was made to Steve McQueen during this period of his life.
By
Marshall Terrill
In my new
book, Steve McQueen: The Last Reel, the Making of Tom Horn and The Hunter
(Dalton Watson Fine Books, 2026) I didn’t set out to write another sweeping
overview of the superstar’s glittering career. That story had already been
told, and told well. What kept tugging at me instead were his final two films—Tom Horn and The Hunter—and a sense that
they hadn’t yet been fully understood.
The seed for
the book was planted back in 2009 or 2010, not long after my first
collaboration with Barbara McQueen on Steve McQueen: The Last Mile. For that book, we
digitized roughly 800 of Barbara’s photographs but only had room to use about
150. A large portion of the unused images came from Tom Horn and The Hunter, and even then I
knew they were too important to stay hidden. In my mind, a second book focusing
on those films felt like the natural successor to The Last Mile, which was a
continuation of both the story and the journey Barbara and I had begun
together.
We had a
blast working on that first book. It took us all over the world for signings
and art exhibits, and for nearly three years it was nonstop. By the end of it,
Barbara was exhausted. I, on the other hand, was already thinking ahead. She
begged off any talk of another book, and for the next fifteen years the idea
stayed on the shelf. It wasn’t until the 45th anniversary of Tom Horn and The Hunter approached in 2025
that I finally convinced her to return—on one condition. She would provide the
photographs and I would handle the text. That agreement became Steve McQueen: The Last
Reel.
What truly
elevated the project, though, was my access to forty-five hours of previously
unheard taped conversations with McQueen about Tom Horn. These recordings
stopped me cold. When McQueen was alive, he almost never talked about acting.
He preferred motorcycles, race cars, anything that felt more rugged. Acting,
oddly enough, struck him as not particularly manly. So, to hear him speak so
openly and thoughtfully about film, character, camera angles and storytelling
was revelatory.
On the
tapes, McQueen talks in detail about how he wanted Tom Horn to work visually. He
pushed screenwriter Tom McGuane to think less like a novelist and more like a
filmmaker. McQueen had an uncanny ability to strip a scene down to its
essence—something that sounds simple but absolutely isn’t. One moment that
stood out to me involved a scene where the town leaders secretly discuss how
Tom Horn’s violence is spiraling out of control. McQueen suggested holding
these leaders should meet outdoors, miles from town, so no one could witness
it. As a former reporter who’s sat through more than a few “executive sessions”
where nothing is recorded on purpose, I immediately recognized how spot-on that
instinct was.
Tom
Horn
wasn’t just another role for McQueen as it was deeply personal. He deeply
identified with Horn, once saying he felt like an old man by the time he was
seventeen. He even visited Horn’s gravesite and claimed to hear the outlaw’s
spirit tell him, “Tell my story.”
(Photo: Marshall Terrill)
Professionally,
McQueen was also at a crossroads. Five years earlier, he had co-starred with
Paul Newman in The
Towering Inferno,
then one of the biggest box-office hits of all time. After that, he made An Enemy of the People, a Henrik Ibsen
adaptation that depicted him with long hair and a full beard. Warner Bros.
shelved the film in 1978 because audiences didn’t recognize the McQueen they
expected. As a result, Tom Horn marked his first on-screen appearance in five years,
which was an eternity at the time. When audiences finally saw him again, they
were meeting a more mature, nuanced superstar.
Then there’s
The
Hunter,
which couldn’t be more different in tone. Here, McQueen knowingly pokes fun at
his own image. That choice was entirely intentional and completely against
type. To me, it showed a man who was finally comfortable in his own skin. That
said, I’ll admit I think he went a little too far. Part of me wanted him to
kick ass, and the film leans a bit too cute for my taste. Personally, I find Tom Horn the more satisfying
of the two.
Barbara’s
photographs—nearly four hundred of them—add an entirely new dimension to this
story. In the Tom
Horn
images especially, you see how hard McQueen worked. He wasn’t just the star; he
was an executive producer and, in many ways, the film’s guiding force. He
obsessed over details, collaborating closely with writers, costume designers,
historians, and directors. By contrast, on The Hunter he showed up, hit
his marks, and moved on. The difference is striking.
Screen legend Anthony Quinn was not a frequent guest on television chat shows. However, Dick Cavett's progrtam was an exception due to his wit, low-key personality and intellect. In this segment, Quinn discusses his latest film, "The Shoes of the Fisherman" in which he played the Pope. Quinn explains that after he started filming he came down with a mysterious ailment that was traced to an age old problem: nerves. He says he began to think that he would not live up to expectations in the role and became physically sick for weeks. He hoped the producers would recast but when he learned they would not, he rallied and completed the film. As an aside, this episode shows Cavett's talent for attracting diverse high-profile guests and here they include Lee Remick and Wood Allen.
German
filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch, who immigrated to Hollywood during the silent era,
was known for his light, effervescent comedies of manners and entanglements of
the sexes in the 1920s, 30s, and early 40s until his untimely death at the
young age of fifty-five. In Tinsel Town, they called his directing prowess the
“Lubitsch Touch.”
He
also made a handful of innovative, very early musicals when pictures first
featured sound. In fact, his first “talkie,” The Love Parade (1929), is
considered the premiere musical to successfully integrate singing with
narrative dialogue—unlike the few early musicals such as the Oscar-winning The
Broadway Melody (earlier in 1929), in which musical numbers are “staged” in
a proscenium theater as part of the story, separated from the dialogue and dramatic
action. This latter convention did continue into the 1930s with the likes of the
Busby Berkeley style pictures (42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933,
and more) until Lubitsch’s method of creating a story line in which characters break
out of straight dialogue and sing became the norm.
Lubitsch
Musicals was
first released by the Criterion Collection as part of their Eclipse Series,
which consisted of lower-budgeted DVD anthologies. Now, Criterion has deemed this
title worthy enough to upgrade it to a high definition Blu-ray release. The
results are wonderful.
If
you think you might not take to pre-Code, technically awkward Hollywood
musicals—think again. Lubitsch Musicals contains four delightful titles
that are surprisingly entertaining and witty precursors to what we would later
call romantic comedies, only with singing. At times they are hilariously funny.
Three
of them star a young, vibrant Maurice Chevalier, whose charisma and charm light
up the frame. Most of today’s audiences might know Chevalier only as the older
French actor who sang “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” in Gigi, the
popular Oscar-winning musical from 1958. No, Chevalier was quite the star in
the 1930s, and his appearances in this set are worth the price of admission.
First
up: The Love Parade, arguably the best and funniest of the quartet, even
though, due to its place in the timeline, lacks the technical advancements that
eventually improved as Hollywood learned how to use sound effectively and
create cinematic compositions at the same time. No matter. The movie was an
Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Chevalier),
and three other technical categories for the 1929-1930 Oscar season. (For the
first six years of Academy history, the calendar year went from August to the
next July.) Chevalier stars as Count Alfred Renard, a military attaché
in the fictional country of Sylvania. He has been ousted from his post in Paris
due to his scandalous affairs. The Sylvanian Queen Louise (Jeanette MacDonald),
intent on staying unmarried, becomes intrigued by Alfred’s reputation and
ultimate attractiveness. A romance naturally ensues between them, as well as
between their respective servants, Jacques (Lupino Lane) and Lulu (Lillian
Roth). With songs by Victor Schertzinger (music) and Clifford Grey (lyrics),
the two couples sing and slapstick their way into our hearts. Great fun.
Next:
Monte Carlo (1930), which, while amusing and enjoyable, suffers from the
absence of Chevalier. Instead, Jack Buchanan stars as a French Count on the
prowl who becomes enamored of Countess Helene Mara (Jeanette MacDonald again). Helene
simply does not want to marry the Duke (Claud Allister) and runs from her
wedding to Monaco, where she meets Buchanan. A series of cat-and-mouse games
between the eventual lovers take place, with intermittent songs by Richard
Whiting and W. Franke Harling. The tune “Beyond the Blue Horizon” became a hit
record for MacDonald.
Third:
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) also received a nomination for Best
Picture during the 1931-1932 Oscar calendar year. Maurice Chevalier is back,
this time opposite the luminous Claudette Colbert and talented Miriam Hopkins. The
action is in Vienna and the fictional country of Flausenthurm as the three
leads navigate a love triangle with comic consequences. The songs are by Oscar
Straus. Lieutenant was Paramount’s highest grossing title of its year
and is considered one of Lubitsch’s better accomplishments.
Last:
One Hour With You (1932), which, again, received a Best Picture
nomination in the same calendar year as The Smiling Lieutenant, so the
pair were competing against each other. Chevalier and MacDonald are back
together for this one, and the results are winning. The movie is actually a
remake of The Marriage Circle, a 1924 silent picture that Lubitsch
directed, only now with songs by Oscar Straus (music) and Leo Robin (lyrics).
Genevieve Tobin and Charles Ruggles co-star as another couple with which the leads
are tempted to stray. Being pre-Code, this title may be the most provocative as
it suggests that it’s okay to cheat as long as one truly loves one’s spouse and
can forget the dalliance the next day (and Chevalier often breaks the fourth
wall to address us directly).
This
reviewer ranks the four pictures thusly: 1) The Love Parade, 2) The
Smiling Lieutenant, 3) One Hour With You, and 4) Monte Carlo.
Criterion’s
new two-disc Blu-ray set features The Love Parade and One Hour With
You with 4K restorations (and they look pristine!), The Smiling
Lieutenant with a 2K restoration, and Monte Carlo, a film now in the
public domain, with what appears to be a straight to high definition from DVD transfer.
There are no supplements included. An informative historical essay by author
and film critic Michael Koresky is in the enclosed fold-out booklet.
The
Eclipse Series’s presentation of Lubitsch Musicals is a cinephile’s joy.
For fans of Ernst Lubtisch, Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Hollywood
pre-Code fare, and movie musicals.
This portion of the movie section from a 1966 edition of The New York Times indicates just a portion of how many fine movies were in release during a single week. Among them: "The Ipcress File", "Thunderball", "Darling", "The Hill", "The Slender Thread", "A Patch of Blue", "Bunny Lake is Missing", "Viva Maria!", "The Pawnbroker" and a Beatles double feature: "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!". Those really were the days!
Maurice Jarre's score for the David Lean's 1966 epic "Doctor Zhivago" is one of the most magnificent in screen history. Here, he accepts a well deserved Oscar at the 1966 Academy Awards, presented by James Coburn and Virna Lisi. It begs the question "Why don't we hear film scores like this any more?"
Imprint
have been doing some amazing work with these ‘Tales of Adventure’ sets, and in
this 8th volume the binding theme is Jules Verne (although one is
loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe but is as much Verne as the others), and the
set includes six films from the silent era up to the 1970s. Some of these films
will be very familiar, whereas others are more obscure and worthy of the rescue
Imprint have given them.
We
begin in 1916 with a silent Hollywood version of 20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea (Stuart Paton), produced by the legendary Carl Laemmle. This is a
fascinating production, and apparently the first film to utilise underwater
photography thanks to a specially designed submarine. Location work took place
in the Bahamas, and the film uses elements of Verne’s novel Mysterious
Island as well, whilst adding a new subplot which gives us more of a
background to Captain Nemo (Allen Holubar) and introduces a wild girl on the
island, described in the intertitles as a “Child of nature” (Jane Gail). The
various plot elements sort of come together and there are some exciting and
impressive sequences, particularly when one bears in mind that this was
produced less than fifteen years after Georges Méliès Le voyage dans la lune
(1902) brought fantastical images from Jules Verne’s imagination to life in the
Star Film studios, and films had only just begun to be produced in Hollywood a
couple of years earlier. This release features an excellent commentary track
from the hugely experienced silent film historian Anthony Slide, who gives
plenty of information on the cast and the production itself.
The
set then jumps forward to one of the more familiar films in the set (and the
first of two starring Vincent Price). Master of the World (William
Witney, 1961) is an American International Pictures production, made shortly
after Roger Corman pushed them into bigger budget colour films with his Edgar
Allan Poe adaptations. Like many of those, this is also scripted by Richard
Matheson, here adapting two Verne stories about a man who threatens the world’s
major military powers from his incredibly advanced airship. The plot is very
similar to the Disney adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Richard
Fleischer, 1954), but it is very enjoyable nonetheless, even though the fact
that AIP didn’t have Disney’s budgets occasionally shows through, particularly
in the overuse of stock footage. With Vincent Price as the captain of what is,
let’s be honest, a homoerotic all-male crew, it’s up to the prisoners on board to
stop him, led by Charles Bronson in an early starring role. This is a very
entertaining film with excellent colour photography which really shines on this
disc. Here we get a thorough and enjoyable audio commentary (ported over from a
previous release) featuring a whole group of experts corralled by film historian
Tom Weaver, coupled with two new video essays, both looking at the film from
different angles. There is also a great commentary with the British actor David
Frankham, who had a long successful career in Hollywood and has a very good
memory of his time on this film. Finally, although it is not listed on
Imprint’s website, the disc also features the lengthy documentary Richard
Matheson: Storyteller, which is taken from the interviews he gave to
support the Midnite Movie releases of some of his films back in the early
2000s. This alone is worth the price of admission.
The
next in the set, and probably the most obscure, is Valley of the Dragons
(Edward, Berns, 1961), a low-budget second feature produced by the B-movie king
Al Zimbalist, who will be remembered for such gems as Robot Monster (Phil
Tucker) and Cat-Women of the Moon (Arthur Hilton), both released in 1953;
clearly a great year for cinema. Scripted by Zimbalist’s son Donald and adapted
from Verne’s Off on a Comet, Valley of the Dragons utilises stock
footage from, amongst others, One Million Years B.C. (Hal Roach &
Hal Roach Jr., 1940) and Rodan (Ishir? Honda, 1956) to create a
surprisingly effective prehistoric adventure. Amongst its delights are
back-projected lizards, bodybuilders in fur swimming trunks and a large papier-mâché
spider, all shot on leftover sets on the Columbia backlot. It stars the very
prolific Italian actor Cesare Danova alongside Irish actor Sean McClory as two
rivals who find themselves carried away when a comet collides with Earth, where
they improbably discover it has dinosaurs and tribes of cavemen living on it. Joan
Staley, perhaps best remembered now for The Ghost and Mrs Chicken (Alan
Rafkin, 1966), is a beautiful blonde cavegirl who features in a lengthy
underwater swimming sequence reminiscent of Tarzan and his Mate (Cedric
Gibbons, Jack Conway & James C. McKay, 1934). Whilst this film seems to be
aimed at children, Staley’s swimming appears to have been included for the dads
in the audience. This release marks the film’s debut on Blu-ray, and it looks
great. Zimbalist’s films may have been cheap, but the technicians behind the
camera were professionals who made sure everything looked as good as it could. Sadly,
there are no bonus features on here at all, unless one counts the subtitles.
They could have asked me to provide a commentary: I could talk for at least an
hour on Zimbalist alone. On reflection, perhaps that’s why they didn’t ask me.
The little-remembered spy spoof "The Trouble with Spies" has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray, at least to this writer's knowledge. It was released on VHS back in ancient times. However, the movie has surfaced on Amazon Prime. The film had a checkered production history and release. Director/screenwriter Burt Kennedy had purchased the rights to several of novelist Marc Elliott's comedic spy books that featured a bumbling protagonist named Appleton Porter. It was an odd choice for Kennedy, who was primarily known for making Westerns including such entertaining gems as "The War Wagon", "Support Your Local Sheriff" and "The Train Robbers". Kennedy co-authored the screenplay with Marc McShane in the obvious hope that it would inspire a film series. In fact, the film has some historical significance, as it was the first production for HBO's newly-found theatrical motion picture division. The key role of the bumbling hero, an agent of MI6, was reportedly offered to Michael Caine for a salary of $1 million. For reasons unknown, Caine turned down the offer, one of the few times he did reject a well-paying film role during this period of his career. (He would later say that he would come to regret appearing in so many mediocre films simply to gain a sizable pay check.). The role went to Donald Sutherland, who doesn't make much of an effort to retain a British accent and is saddled with an unbecoming haircut that makes him look like an entry in the Stan Laurel Look-a-like Contest.
The film begins with Porter, whose incompetence is a thorn in the side of his stuffy MI6 boss Angus (Robert Morley in full Robert Morley mode). Thus, Angus devises an elaborate plot to send Porter on what he deems to be a suicide mission. The naive Porter is shocked and honored that he is being entrusted with the assignment, which involves him going to the swinging and beautiful location of Ibizia, Spain, where he is to pose as a tourist and stay at the Royal Rose, a quaint small hotel where he is to search for an MI6 who has gone missing after checking at the venue. However, we later learn that the real purpose of the mission is for Porter to become a likely victim for a deadly truth serum that MI6 is desperate to steal from foreign agents. They hope that Porter is kidnapped and that will lead them to the enemy agents who possess the serum that they can then steal. As a "bonus", there is a good chance Porter will be killed during the operation, thus relieving Angus of the frustration of dealing with him. When Porter arrives in Ibizia, he is greeted by Mona (Lucy Gutteridge), the gorgeous and very friendly owner of the Royal Rose. Soon after checking in to the hotel, attempts are made on Porter's life but through pure luck on his part, they fail. Throughout the course of the film, we're introduced to exotic villains and increasingly deadly attempts to lure Porter to his demise. By the end of the film, we find that not everyone is who they appear to be and friends turn out to be foes.
One of the problems with the screenplay is that Porter is presented in an erratic manner. In the beginning sequence, there is the age-old gag of him assuring his boss that his machine gun isn't loaded, only to have it fire off rounds that almost kill his boss. Throughout the first half of the movie, Porter goes through Inspector Clouseau-like scenarios in which he bumbles his way out of death traps. However, he later proves to be quite adept at using his skills to avoid being murdered. This combination of Maxwell Smart and James Bond in his personality traits makes for an uneven viewing experience. Ned Beatty and Ruth Gordon show up in minor roles that largely waste their considerable talents. The Ibizia locations are gorgeous, however, although director Kennedy can't help but dwell on extraneous shots of beautiful, topless young women playing volley ball on the beach, thus capturing every bounce and jiggle for posterity's sake. (In films of this era, there seems to be a psychological correlation between young women doffing their bikini tops with a sudden urge for them to play volley ball.)
HBO deemed the movie to not be worthy of a theatrical release until 1987, when Dino De Laurentiis bought the theatrical rights and finally released the movie. It quickly bombed and faded from public view, thus negating the value of Burt Kennedy's screen rights to future Appleton Porter novels. In the ensuing years, Ruth Gordon passed away in 1985 after filming the movie "Maxie". Thus, when she appeared in a "new" theatrical film in 1987, it must have caused a bit of confusion for her fans. The film isn't terrible and Donald Sutherland is in good form, as are the supporting players. However, the trouble with "The Trouble with Spies" is that it's one of those misguided cinematic productions that makes you suspect many talented people signed on to it primarily to get a paid vacation in in an exotic locations. It would have found a more receptive audience twenty years earlier during the James Bond-inspired spy craze of the 1960s when there was an audience appetite for even the most modestly entertaining espionage thrillers and spoofs.
Over
the years since David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks first assaulted
a television viewing audience way back in 1990, there have been numerous books
published on the subject. From fiction tie-ins, like the best-selling The
Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (which was pseudonymously written by Lynch’s
daughter, filmmaker/writer Jennifer Lynch) or The Autobiography of FBI
Special Agent Dale Cooper (pseudonymously written by Scott Frost, brother
of co-creator/co-writer Mark), to canonical fiction by Mark Frost himself. Then
there are the many non-fiction studies and fan extravaganzas of Peaks—academic
analyses in book form, a regular fanzine (Wrapped in Plastic), and more.
For
a primetime television show that was canceled after two seasons, the cult phenomenon
of Twin Peaks, like the character Laura Palmer,just didn’t want
to completely die. Folks were still asking “Who killed Laura Palmer?” long
after the answer had been revealed. Phrases like “Let’s rock!” and “That gum
you like is going to come back in style” became codes for fans around the
world.
In
1992, Lynch directed a prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,
which might have been the final nail in the coffin, despite annual pilgrimages
by enthusiasts to the Washington State locations where the pilot and film were
made, and continuing publications and online discussions and debates. Then,
miraculously, in 2017, a little over twenty-five years later, a third season of
Twin Peaks appeared on Showtime, an epic movie divided into eighteen
hour-long episodes, directed by Lynch himself. This was alternatively titled Twin
Peaks: A Limited Event Series or Twin Peaks: The Return. For many
fans of the filmmaker, this remarkable work of art has been called a summation
of Lynch’s career. Eerily, at the end of the season two finale, the spectral
form of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), sitting in the mysterious “Red Room,” tells
Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), “I’ll see you again in twenty-five
years.” And she did!
Now
we have this highly readable and engaging tome by Scott Meslow, A Place Both
Wonderful and Strange, which is a blow-by-blow history of the making of
all the various cogs of Twin Peaks. Note that this is not one of those
academic analysis books, a “what does it all mean?” type of work that dominates
most of the non-fiction bibliography on Peaks. Nor is it a complete
“episode guide” (something fans sorely need that hasn’t really been done yet).
Instead, this is a behind-the-scenes account of how it all began, followed by
the evolution (and de-evolution) of the various incarnations of Twin Peaks.
The
book starts with David Lynch meeting Mark Frost, of course, and how they worked
together for at least a year before the idea for the series, then called Northwest
Passage, made it to a pitch-worthy level. We go through the jumping to
different networks, finally landing at ABC for a development deal and the subsequent
making of the glorious pilot episode. We learn how a European feature film was
part of that deal and how a tagged-on “ending,” the footage of which was later
used in an episode of the first season, was utilized for that purpose.
Meslow
takes the reader through the various stages of seasons one and two and how the
show was a huge success at first. But the author documents the network sabotaging
the second season so that the series would ultimately fail. Why did they do
that? The “talking heads” in the book—interviewees like
co-producers/writers/directors Harley Peyton and Robert Engels, as well as Mark
Frost himself—are candid in their speculative theories. (Sorry, Lynch did not
participate in the creation of the book prior to his untimely death in early
2025.)
But
as we know, Twin Peaks saw resurrection in two more lives in the feature
film and the third season—and Meslow details these steps, all the way to the
end.
Only
at times does Meslow offer his own interpretation of some of the storylines,
especially in The Return. But he acknowledges that it has always been
both Lynch’s and Frost’s desire that the audience make up their own minds “what
it all means.” Nevertheless, this turning back the red curtain to see the radical
and unorthodox inner workings of Twin Peaks is fascinating.
Both
wonderful and strange indeed. There was nothing like Twin Peaks in all
its forms, and Meslow tallies how it changed television. Many imitations
attempted to usurp its haunting power. There is a good argument to proclaim
that much of today’s streaming content would not exist without the
groundbreaking experiment that was Peaks.
Including
an insightful Introduction by Harley Peyton, Scott Meslow’s history of the Twin
Peaks sensation is a fan’s delight. Highly recommended.
In January of 1973 Dan Curtis Production placed a
full-page ad in Variety to promote
the company’s upcoming projects.1973 was
to be a very busy year for Curtis, the producer of ABC-TV’s widely popular Dark Shadows series.Curtis’ The
Night Strangler was to be telecast on January 16 as ABC’s “Movie of the
Week.”The first half of his two-part Frankenstein adaptation would immediately
follow Strangler that same
night.Then, on 21 February, NBC was to
broadcast the producer/director Curtis’ The
Norliss Tapes television-movie.New projects
in various stages of pre-production would include adapts of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, of Bram
Stoker’s Dracula and of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.Still other ambitious projects were listed as
“In Development.”
Production on Dorian
Gray would begin on 6 February 1973.With his slate already full, Curtis passed directorial duties to Glenn
Jordan.The work of Jordan, who recently
helmed Curtis’ Frankenstein, was primarily
seen on television, as was Curtis’.The
screenplay for Dorian Gray was penned
by John Tomerlin, a television writer who contributed scripts to such series as
Wanted: Dead or Alive, Boris Karloff’s Thriller, and The Twilight Zone. Dorian Gray was to be
the second of Curtis’ offerings to ABC’s Wide
World of Entertainment/Wide World of Mystery late-night telefilm series.The production was to be shot, on video, on
the Trans-American Video (and former MGM) soundstages at Culver City.
Having made a name and small fortune for himself in the
horror trade, Curtis was tiring of the genre.He found himself hamstrung by industry execs only willing to extend
financing to the same sort of eerie fare on which he built his reputation.Typecast, Curtis offered he wished to extend
his filmography into such genres as westerns or romances.With Dorian
Gray (and later with The Turn of the
Screw), the producer would get the opportunity to explore a bit of the
latter.Both features would offer a mix of
gothic horror and romance – two subjects not too outside the realm of Dark Shadows.
Cast to take on the role of the haunted and rakish Dorian Gray was twenty-six-year-old
British actor Shane Briant.The actor
had just come off working on Peter Syke’s satanic folk-tale Demons of the Mind for Hammer Film
Productions.Unable to find a suitable “Dorian
Gray” in America, Curtis had set up a casting call in London.Briant admitted to the Los Angeles Times, the producer initially seemed diffident to his
casting as Gray, but as a young actor working only at home, he was desirous of introducing
his talent to the “whole new continent” of the Americas.
Convincing Curtis he was the right man for the role, the
producer relented on Briant’s casting.Curtis was partly pressed as production of Dorian Gray was imminent.Briant recalled he was notified on a Thursday he had won the part: by
Saturday he was in Culver City, put through a fast-paced, twelve day “shredding
machine.”There was little to no time
for rehearsal as Curtis’ stock-in-trade was to shoot quickly and economically.
Albert Lewin’s more famous presentation of The Picture of Dorian Gray (MGM, 1945)
featuring George Sanders and Hurd Hatfield, was written as a supernatural
horror melodrama.Curtis, however, tried
to incorporate Wilde’s vision of Hatfield as not suffering inner-torment by his
ill-deeds but by his private thoughts.Of course such a psychological approach was far more difficult to
translate on-screen, though Briant enthused Curtis managed to successfully bring
out this shade of Wilde’s philosophical tale.There were other times however when Curtis freely brought artistic
license to Wilde’s work.When a
journalist suggested to Briant there is “an unwritten credo that all things on
American TV must have happy endings,” the actor agreed conceding Curtis’
version was unfaithful to Wilde’s original.“There is an attempt at redemption,” Briant acknowledged, “and it is
quite foreign to Wilde’s story.”
When the series was broadcast in two parts on 23/24 April
1973, critics were not impressed. Critic Kay Gardella in New York’s Daily News savagely called the pic an
“exercise in boredom and banality.” She was especially unsparing of the actors
in the film, (unfairly) describing Briant as “a piece of plaster, never once
convincing us that he was even half alive.”
A Los Angeles Times
critic similarly raged the pic an “exercise in unrelieved tedium that is
without any saving graces whatsoever […] a hopelessly talky, stagy production,
indifferently acted and ploddingly directed.”The critic from Baltimore’s Evening
Sun was a bit more merciful in appraisal, noting Curtis’ feature, while “handsome
in detail” was perhaps if anything “too faithful” to Wilde’s original tale.Though Wilde wrote his character a decadent
soul, “his decadence was mostly a matter of speculation.”
The real issue with both Curtis’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and his subsequent Turn of the Screw (both included in this set from Kino Cult) is
that both drip with style but conjure little atmosphere.This is partly the result of Curtis choosing
to shoot both pics on video.The
technology of the time wasn’t able to match the spooky imagery that grain,
artistic lighting and film-stock photography allowed.On Dorian
Gray, Curtis relied on his Dark
Shadows storehouse of tricks for expediency, so familiarity abounds.Curtis repurposes elements of the fine scores
composed by Robert Cobert of earlier projects: notably his “Quentin’s Theme”
from Dark Shadows, of the feature Night of Dark Shadows and of Curtis’ earlier
telefilm Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde.
One of the more notable features of his Dorian Gray are the half-dozen paintings
commissioned by Curtis that reflected the disintegrating state of the
character’s mental and physical well-being.The paintings are the work of the great movie poster artist John Solie.Solie had earlier designed the surreal
one-sheet art for Curtis’ theatrical feature Night of Dark Shadows (1971).
Reviews and ratings for both of his Wide World of Mystery programs were limited.The programs were scheduled to broadcast only
as late-night entries, Dorian Gray appearing
on screen as late as 11:30 PM.The Hollywood Reporter suggested while
ABC-TV’s interest in Curtis’ offerings remained “very high,” they nonetheless resisted
his wish to slot the films into the network’s prime-time schedule.When Turn
of the Screw was broadcast in May of 1973 that effort too would go
head-to-head with Johnny Carson’s The
Tonight Show.
Curtis recalls he was introduced to James’ Turn of the Screw while attending a
regional theater stage production of The
Innocents in New Jersey.Interestingly,
Curtis was unfamiliar with Jack Clayton’s famous 1961 film version of The Innocents, an adaptation of Turn now considered a classic of
ghost-story cinema.Intrigued by the
tale, Curtis sought out the James novella of 1898 and found himself “even more
fascinated” with the work, citing it as his favorite ghost story.This led him to see the Clayton film that
famously featured British actress Deborah Kerr as the aggrieved governess.Curtis thought the film “brilliant” and made
plans to lens his own version in due time.
My favorite self-published magazine of the 1990’s was Jim
Clatterbaugh and Steve Kronenberg’s Monster
from the Vault.Each issue combined
wonderful production standards with insightful articles written by the best
horror-film historians.The cover story
of the mag’s eleventh issue was provocatively titled “Universal vs. Hammer,” a sub-heading
offering the “Cinematic Grudge Match of the Century.”As promised, Bryan Senn’s critical essay
offered a showdown (unnecessary, really) between the two greatest horror-film
factories.In the final tally Senn, an
obvious Uni-champion, asserted it was “time to bring the Hammer down,” since
“without Universal there would be no
Hammer.”Though provocative, I
personally found comparing the horror-film catalogs of the two companies misguided.Apples and oranges.
In truth, favoring Universal over Hammer (or vice versa) really
comes down to one’s preference in taste, style and storytelling.I imagine it’s also a result of which series
you were first introduced.My personal nostalgia
for the old Universal pics of the 1930s and 1940s is greater than my nostalgia
for the British horrors of Hammer.Which
doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoy the Hammer’s horror pics any less. I simply didn’t see too many of
them as a child growing up in the States.But I was certainly aware of them.
As a dedicated ten-year old reading Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, I was introduced to Hammer
horrors via B&W photo layouts of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing promoting
their various ghastly enterprises.It’s
perhaps telling that even Famous Monsters
magazine, whose target readership barely extended beyond a pre-teen audience,
described the scripting of Scars of
Dracula as “interesting, though somewhat trite.” Oh, well.Since the film received an “X certificate in Britain and an “R” rating
in the U.S., it was evident few young monster movie fans would get the
opportunity to see it upon theatrical release anyway.
The old Universal’s played often on such programs as
Saturday night’s Creature Features or
Chiller telecasts, but those same New
York City stations would only broadcast Hammer titles on occasion.And, if memory serves, the Hammer horrors
telecasted were primarily those released stateside through Universal-International
or other U.S. companies.Roy Ward
Baker’s Scars of Dracula (1970) was initially
not among those titles.For the record,
I was first introduced to Scars of
Dracula (henceforth referred to as Scars)
at November’s end of 1974 when the pic was finally telecast in the New York
City market.
The earliest Hammer horrors were produced, as per Variety, “exclusively under Yank major
tie-ups” with Universal, 20th Century Fox and Warner-Seven
Arts.In summer of 1970, Hammer announced
it was to cut U.S. backing and co-produce two pics with Britain’s EMI
subsidiary Associated British Pictures Corporation and the Rank Organisation. The
first two announced titles to be released through these two partnerships were Scars of Dracula and Horror of Frankenstein.Hammer’s Sir James Carreras enthused to Kine Weekly this new deal means “the
whole of the revenue from overseas sales will come direct back to Britain.”
Tapped to direct was Roy Ward Baker, helmsman of the
recent Hammer horror The Vampire Lovers
(1970), as well as the company’s Quatermass
and the Pit (1967), The Anniversary
(1968), and Moon Zero Two (1969).For this new project Baker chose to study all
of Hammer’s previous Dracula pics, hoping to capture and retain some of the
style and atmosphere of the series’ earlier entries.Baker was given only six weeks to shoot the
entire Technicolor film in May-June of 1970 (Variety noted a starting date of 11 May at Elstree), so it was to
be a fast-tracked hectic production, a not unusual occurrence.
Though Carreras bragged of a 200,000 GBP production
budget allotted for Scars, upon
release some Hammer scholars wondered where much of that money went.The expenditures are not visually apparent,
with castle exteriors and models mostly appearing unconvincing on screen.That said, most agree that art director Scott
MacGregor, as had predecessor Bernard Robinson, worked magic in his recycling of
old sets to make them appear fresh.Composer James Bernard provides an elegant score to the proceedings
which also invokes mood.The film,
coupled with Jimmy Sangster’s Horror of
Frankenstein, would enjoy its U.K. premiere in October of 1970, followed by
its U.S. debut in December 1970.
The film managed to do decent, if not blockbusting, business
in the U.K.The movie would even beget
Angus Hall’s collectible paperback edition of the scenario, via UK publisher
Sphere Books.Following its first week
of regional release in the U.S., the double-bill (distributed by American
Continental), brought in a respectable $34,000, earning the no. 36 position as
a top-grosser for the week ending January 20.But subsequently the package managed only “fair” business in North
America. Double-bill partner Horror of
Frankenstein generally would receive more positive notices than Scars, the latter pic getting a big critical
staking.
In its review of Scars,
the Independent Film Journal sighed
Christopher Lee’s Dracula “has a large cross to bear in the form of a poor plot
and terrible dialogue.”Though
acknowledging Baker’s direction as “competent,” the IFJ thought the pics’
“castle sets, miniatures, painted backdrops, fog machines and all are beginning
to look threadbare.”The Los Angeles Times too conceded while Baker
had already proved himself capable of turning “out an excellent film” in Scars, “all he manages to do here is to
keep things moving.”That same critic deemed
the film “needlessly protracted,” the vampire bats far too gruesome, and the
juxtaposition of sexual encounters with “hideous deaths […] pretty sick in
effect.”Howard Thompson of the New York Times would brutally dismiss Scars in two harsh sentences:“Avoid ‘Dracula’ like the plague.It’s garish, gory junk.”
Of course such criticisms were levied upon the film’s
release in 1970/1971.By today’s
standards the on-screen blood and sex and special effects of Scars would be seen as antiquated,
perhaps even laughable at times.Yes, it’s
a Hammer film so there’s brief flashing bits of bums and boobs on screen, but as
far as sex goes its only ample cleavage on display.The film is certainly less sexy and
suggestive than Baker’s envelope-pushing The
Vampire Lovers.It is true that Scars offered some of the most graphic
and violent scenes of Hammer’s Dracula series to-date, but these assorted scenes,
while disturbing in content, flicker quickly by.
The brutal stabbing of Tanya (Anouska Hempel) by Dracula
is perhaps the most disturbing.But, as
is pointed out in course of the commentaries included with this set from Kino
Lorber, that scene could have been played out much worse.British censors demanded the removal of the
stabbing’s aftermath, Dracula drinking from the blood of Tanya’s corpse.This was corpse abuse at its best, outright
necrophilia at its worse. The dismemberment of Tanya’s corpse by Dracula’s assistant
Klove, also seen in brief, was also unnecessarily sadistic, as was his
subsequent flesh-burning punishment by Dracula’s iron-hot sword blade.
In an accompanying eighteen-minute legacy documentary Blood Rites: Inside Scars of Dracula
(produced and directed by Marcus Hearn) that has been ported over to the the new 4K/Blu-ray Kino Lorber release, an assortment of Hammer historians
deconstruct the film, offering what works and what does not.Jonathan Rigby suggests Carreras was “looking
to get out” of the horror business, hence the deals with EMI and ABPC.He thought the scripting of Scars “internally confused,” suggesting
Hammer was poised to replace a recalcitrant Christopher Lee in the role.Cultural critic and commentator John Johnston
suggests Lee’s gaunt Dracula in Scars
appears “unwell rather than undead.” Lee
would have likely agreed, once noting his ghost-like white make-up in the film
“was wrong.”But then again actor had an
infamously long-standing love/hate relationship with the role.
In the early 1980s, Lee offered to authors Robert W.
Pohle Jr. and Douglas C. Hart of The
Films of Christopher Lee (Scarecrow Press, 1983), that Horror of Dracula (1958) was the first and “probably the best” of
all of Hammer’s Dracula’s.“From then
on, they all – as far as I am concerned – went straight downhill.”Lee was particularly not fond of Scars, describing the pic as “the
weakest and the most unconvincing of the Dracula series… probably the poorest
of the whole lot.”Lee thought the main
issue was with the script.“Instead of
writing a story around the character,” he groused, screenwriter John Elder (aka
Anthony Hinds) wrote a scenario and tried “to fit the character into it.”
Then again, in the early 80s Lee was dismissive of all of
Hammer’s post Horror of Dracula
pics.The actor explained to Pohle and
Hart his decision for being near-mute in Dracula,
Prince of Darkness, 1966): “There was a great deal of dialogue originally,
but it was so bad that I refused to deliver it.”Of Dracula
Has Risen from the Grave (1968):“I
never saw it.The story had begun to
sour on me because I saw the character getting farther and farther away from
the author’s original.”Of Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), despite
a good cast and special effects, the resulting pic offered nothing but a
“Progressive deterioration in the series.”
So it is somewhat refreshing to listen to sit through
this more contemporary audio commentary moderated by Marcus Hearn (also ported over from previous releases), author of The Hammer Story.Hearnnimblyguides of through an
intelligent discussion/viewing of Scars
with both Lee and Baker present contributing their thoughts.The passing of time has, apparently, softened
some of Lee’s memories of both Scar
and his time as Count Dracula.But only
softened.
The actor remained very critical of certain aspects of Scars, not the least of which were the
unconvincing oversize, blood-thirsty vampire bats of special effects guru Roger
Dicken.He admitted to being “frustrated
and despondent” in ways he thought Hammer’s writers were steering the series far
from Bram Stoker’s novel, believing the scripts too often crossed the “fine
line” between the suspension of disbelief and disbelief itself.He laments of not being consulted when
scripts were being prepared, and angry his subsequent on-set improving
“comments brushed aside.”Though Lee is
given a bit more dialogue than usual in Scars,
much of the hackneyed verbiage he delivers dilutes any sense of mystery or
menace present.
That said, on the plus side, Lee thought Hammer’s
scripters did incorporate “an English sense of humor” to the Dracula films,
burnishing the elegant visual style of what’s often referred to as “Hammer
Glamour.” It must be said Hearn does a
commendable job as moderator, never taking center stage.He occasionally offers up a question or two
but mostly leans back and allow the extremely loquacious Lee and the more
reticent Baker to free-associate in their recollections.
Cinema Retro has received the following announcement from Kino Lorber:
The Rolling Stones’ exploding rock
& roll film of their record-breaking 1981 U.S. tour. Take an onstage seat
amongst the interaction of the group that has been called the world’s greatest
rock & roll band. Features 25 songs, ranging from their hottest hits to
several songs that were never performed before the tour. Captured on film by
renowned director Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Shampoo, Coming
Home), with Pablo Ferro as creative associate, using 20 cameras and the
latest in 24-track audio. See the breathtaking aerial views of the Sun Devil
Stadium, the high-speed segment of the stage crew setting up a complex indoor
stage to the grand accompaniment of “Goin’ to a Go-Go” and a performance of
“Honky Tonk Women” featuring a massive chorus line of dressed-up “honky-tonk
women.” Surround yourself with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron
Wood and Bill Wyman amid the brilliant pinks, yellows and blues of the outdoor
show. No real music lover or collector could possibly pass this piece of
musical history up. You may never get this close to the Rolling Stones again!
Product Extras
:
DISC 1 (4KUHD):
Brand New UHD SDR Master – From a 4K Scan of the
35mm Original Camera Negative
NEW Audio Commentary by Justin Sosa, Host of Hang
Fire: A Rolling Stones Podcast
NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment
Journalists/Authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc
Optional English Subtitles
5.1 Surround & Lossless 2.0 Audio
DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):
Brand New HD Master – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm
Original Camera Negative
NEW Audio Commentary by Justin Sosa, Host of Hang
Fire: A Rolling Stones Podcast
NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment
Journalists/Authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
Clint
Eastwood will justifiably always rank among the most prolific giants of cinema.
At times it seems that every professional writer in the world has authored a
book covering the career of Clint Eastwood (myself, included.) The latest, by
Shawn Levy, presents 560 pages of biographical details and career analysis of
Eastwood, from his humble upbringing in California to his near-death experience
in the military when a plane he was on crashed at sea, to his entrance into
show business and his improbable rise to become an international movie icon and
Oscar winner. In his foreword, Levy acknowledges the wealth of books about
Eastwood but selects the biographies of him by Richard Schickel and Patrick
McGilligan, both published in the 1990s, for criticism. Schickel, the legendary
film critic, was a friend of Eastwood, who granted extensive interviews for the
project. Thus, Levy concludes the resulting book was tainted by Schickel for
his treating his subject's personal controversies with kid gloves. Conversely,
he accuses McGilligan of basically authoring a bad faith hit piece on the
legendary actor. Levy states in his acknowledgements that he reached out to
Eastwood but, unsurprisingly, did not receive a response from the notably
private screen icon. However, this actually works in the book's favor because
Levy can present a dispassionate and objective viewpoint. His research
(thoroughly documented in footnotes) provides a very detailed look
into Eastwood's life and it extends up to the present day with the release of
his latest film Juror #2. Levy documents Eastwood's complex
love life over the decades, his multiple marriages and the large family that
resulted from his relationships with wives and lovers, all of whom seem to
still enjoy good relationships with him. He also covers in detail the unusual
aspects of his ultimately doomed love affair with longtime girlfriend and
on-screen co-star Sondra Locke.
The book
also delves into Eastwood's political views. Unlike the star he has most been
compared to, John Wayne, Eastwood tends to be low-key about his leanings,
though Levy does dissect Eastwood's controversial comedic stunt when endorsing
GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney at the 2012 Republican convention. Mostly,
Eastwood's politics are on a local or California state level. He's primarily
right wing but, unlike Wayne, he's not an ideologue and occasionally donates to
the campaigns of Democratic candidates. Levy also covers Eastwood's one-term as
Mayor of Carmel, a position he ran for not so much for political reasons as
much as his desire to undo the overly-strict town rules set by his predecessor.
True to his word, he put his career on hold to look after the day-to-day needs
of the town. Levy also presents Eastwood's generally good instincts as a
businessman and conservationist in his beloved area of Monterey and the town of
Carmel. Unlike some books about Eastwood, this one does provide abundant analysis
of each of his films. Levy rightly defends underrated gems such as Bird and White
Hunter, Black Heart while just as appropriately slamming the very few
cinematic misfires of Eastwood's career.He bluntly calls out Eastwood
(who, for some reason, he refers to in the familial "Clint") for
perceived past character flaws, but the impression left is that he is a great
admirer of Eastwood both as an actor and director. Refreshingly, he also covers
in some depth Eastwood's often overlooked accomplishments as a composer and
musician. The book is highly readable, meticulously researched and engrossing
throughout. Your bookshelf may be bending with volumes about Clint Eastwood but
you should make space for this one.
(For an
interview with Kyle Eastwood about his musical collaborations with his father,
see Cinema Retro issue #20)
When
you think of the legendary Hong Kong production company Shaw Brothers it’s most
likely their Seventies martial arts spectacles that first come to mind, with
titles like King Boxer (Chang-hwa Jeong, 1972), The 36th
Chamber of Shaolin (Chia-Liang Liu, 1978) and The Five Venoms (Cheh
Chang, also 1978). Back then everybody WAS kung fu fighting. Watching those
films in the west in the 1970s and 1980s meant putting up with dubbed, scratchy
prints which did nothing for their reputation and lead to the general opinion
that these ‘chop-socky’ films had no artistic merit whatsoever. Thankfully the
last decade or so has seen a resurgence of interest in Hong Kong cinema, with
boutique labels like 88 Films and Arrow Video in the UK, with their ‘Shawscope’
box sets (now up to volume 4), Shout Factory’s ‘Shaw Brothers Classics’ sets
(volume 8 has just been released) and Vinegar Syndrome’s Shaw Scares series in
America, and now Australia’s Imprint label getting in on the act with both
individual releases and now Shaw-Shock Volume 2. The Shaw Brothers studio
released around 1000 films before they finally ceased production in the 1980s,
so we are likely to see more releases from all of these companies for years to
come, both on Blu-ray and UHD (88 Films and Vinegar Syndrome have already
released some titles on this latest 4K format).
These
new restorations, liberally augmented with authoritative commentaries, archival
and new interviews, and sometimes comprehensive books, mean that the Shaw
Brothers film can finally be seen for what they were – fascinating, intricate
pieces of work produced by artists, craftsmen, performers and fighters all at
the top of their game. And more intriguingly, in this case of these Shaw-Shock
sets from Imprint, we can discover that Shaw Brothers were more than just
purveyors of martial arts epics. Whilst it is unlikely that anyone is going to
start releasing their early 1960s musical operatic melodramas any time soon, we
are now starting to see more and more of their supernatural and horror-themed
productions coming out. Chinese classical literature is full of tales of ghosts,
mysticism and magic, so it was only natural that Shaw Brothers would adapt some
of these tales for their films. This latest collection from Imprint features
three such classic ghost stories which feature little in the way of martial arts
but are great examples of the artistry and skills that were typical of the
studio.
The
Enchanting Shadow (Li Han-hsiang, 1960), the
earliest film in the set, draws its inspiration from Strange Tales from a
Chinese Studio, a collection of around 500 short stories written by Pu
Songling, first published in 1766 (many other films were also based on these stories,
including A Touch of Zen (1971, King Hu) and Erotic Ghost Story
(Ngai Choi Lam, 1990); the became a trilogy which was also released as a boxset
by Imprint in 2025). In this film a young poet (Lei Zhao) finds himself needing
to stay the night in a haunted abandoned temple, where he falls in love with
the young artistic beauty (Betty Loh Ti, a very popular star at the time but
who sadly took her own life just a few years after making this film) who lives
in the house next door with her domineering aunt. However, things get
increasingly confusing when he becomes aware that there is no house next door,
and the young artist had died several years earlier and is forced by her
demonic aunt to lure men to their deaths.
This
is an atmospheric, exquisitely designed film which appears to be drawing
inspiration from Hammer’s gothic horror films just as much as from traditional
Chinese imagery. Given that the second unit director was King Hu, who would go
on to reinvent Chinese wuxia cinema just a few years later with incredible films
like Come Drink with Me (1966) and the aforementioned A Touch of Zen,
which was caused a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975, it not a surprise
that the film looks as good as it does. Sadly, perhaps because the available
elements for this are not in as good condition as their later films, there are
some minor issues with this release, where some scenes are a bit dark, and the
colour balance seems to be struggling on occasion. However, given that this is
a worldwide first on Blu-ray, perhaps because of the difficulty in locating a
better element, we shouldn’t really complain. There are some useful extras on
here too, whether you’re a beginner with Chinese ghost stories or a Shaw
aficionado, including an excellent commentary, an interview with a film
historian and an archival documentary on the director.
Moving
on to the early 1970s, the next film in the set has the sensational title The
Bride From Hell (Hsu-Chiang Chou, 1971), and gives us ghosts, Taoist
rituals, comedy, eroticism and revenge. A more accurate (but less exploitable)
title would be “The Ghost Bride,” as this is no entity from Hell in the
traditional sense but the ghost of woman who was raped and murdered and seeks
revenge on the men responsible. A young nobleman (Yang Fang) and his comedic
servant (Got Siu-Bo) take refuge one night in a remote country home, where they
meet a comely young woman (Margaret Hsing Hui) and her servant (Kong Ha). Very
quickly they are all married, and the nobleman takes his new bride home to meet
his family, who instantly sense that something is wrong with this new addition
to the family.
This
is another atmospheric ghostly film with beautiful lighting and set design, and
some amusing elements to offset the spooky shenanigans. Previously available in
a single release in the UK, this edition comes with a fact-packed and
insightful new audio commentary by Asian film experts Arne Venema (who was also
on the The Enchanting Shadow track) and Domini Ting.
The
final film in the set is The Ghost Lovers (Shin Sang-ok, 1974), in which
a young woman (Ching Li) dies of a broken heart whilst waiting for her
betrothed to return. Having been beaten and robbed of all his savings on the
way there, Han (Lin Wei-Tu) is found by a friend (Chu Yao-Ko) and nursed back
to health. He is unaware that his beloved has died, so when she and her servant
appear to him in the night and lure him out into the woods, he has no reason to
suspect that anything is wrong. He is persuaded to marry her right there and
then, but they are shortly disturbed, and the film becomes an almost comedic
race against time as they are constantly interrupted whilst attempting to
consummate the marriage, ensuring that her ghost can remain with him forever.
Meanwhile his friend, who knows there are ghostly things going on, does his
best to protect them all, including hiring a local troupe of martial arts
experts and a Taoist priest.
This
one is closer to a traditional horror film, featuring blood, severed limbs and
demonic entities, which all work well alongside the romance and comedy. The
film is notable for being directed by South Korea’s Shin Sang-ok, who just a
few years later would have his life turned upside down when he and his wife
were kidnapped by Kim Jong Il and forced to make films in North Korea for
several years until they managed to escape and sought sanctuary in the States.
Theirs is a fascinating story which has been the subject of books and
documentaries, and it is discussed briefly here in a piece on the film by
scholar Wayne Wong, as well as on the excellent commentary from American critic,
filmmaker and boutique label owner Justin Decloux.
This Region-Free release is another welcome Shaw Brothers collection, which sits well alongside
Imprint’s many individual releases of their more traditional martial arts
films.
It can be a real grind for leading actors to promote their latest film, but in 1965 "grind" was literally part of the promotion for Michael Caine's first Harry Palmer spy thriller, "The Ipcress File" in which the cynical agent drinks brews coffee in his London flat, thus leading to the promotional tie-addressed in this blurb that appeared in the Motion Picture Exhibitor trade magazine.
Here's a YouTube blast from the past: footage shot in Times Square in April, 1966. It offers a treasure trove of movie marquees and billboards showcasing "The Silencers", "Battle of the Bulge", "Doctor Zhivago", "My Fair Lady", "Harper" (UK title: "The Moving Target") and "The Group". For those of us who can remember frequenting Times Square during the 1960s, you'll also see familiar landmarks such as the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum and dining establishments.
The Slaygirls were twelve beautiful young women who resided with playboy/super spy Matt Helm in the popular 1960s film series starring Dean Martin. In this rare production featurette, presented by The Dean Martin Association, for the second Helm film, "Murderers Row", Martin introduces each of the young actresses. We join other Helm fans in pondering why the series has not appeared on home video since the release of a DVD boxed set many years ago. Unless there are some legal snags we are not aware of, a Blu-ray/4K special edition set is long overdue.
"Lime Kiln Club Field Day is the earliest surviving feature film with an all-Black cast. Shot between 1913 and 1914 but never finished or released, the film was effectively lost to history until MoMA assembled the archival elements and released the film 100 years later. What we originally acquired from the Biograph Studio in 1939 were seven cans of unedited daily rushes. At the time the negative was printed for viewing in the late 1970s, our staff could see the footage featured Caribbean-American vaudeville star Bert Williams, but that was all. Because the film was never completed there were no release prints to which we could compare our reels, nor were there any production records or reviews. We took it up again in 2003 when new digital technology allowed for closer inspection.
The detective work involved frame-by-frame study of each reel for glimpses of the directors and crew stepping in front of the camera between takes, as well as facial recognition techniques to identify the cast. Curator Ron Magliozzi and preservation officer Peter Williamson conducted research over nearly a decade to decipher the plot of the film and recover its production history, even going so far as to employ a lip reader and explore Staten Island and New Jersey in search of locations.
(Bert Williams)
Had Biograph finished the film, it would have been a broad comedy of rival suitors competing for the hand of the town beauty on fairground playing fields and a high-society dance floor. But what distinguishes Lime Kiln Club Field Day is the love story between Bert Williams and his leading lady, Odessa Warren Grey, arguably the screen’s first Black woman star. The scene featured in this excerpt is one of joy and laughter, an important representation of middle-class Black life in the 1910s, as well as a breath of fresh air in 2020. Since its initial screening, this work has been the Department of Film’s number-one most requested title for both loans and research screenings. Lime Kiln Club Field Day continues to inspire artists such as Garrett Bradley, whose powerful installation incorporating footage from the film, titled America, will be on view at MoMA soon.
Please note: Williams was among a number of leading Black performers who appeared wearing blackface onstage at the turn of the century, and this practice carried over into early films. As we see in this excerpt from Lime Kiln, adopting this convention of the minstrel stage allowed significant numbers of their fellow Black castmates to appear alongside them, without being forced to wear racist makeup as well."
BOOTLACE CINEMA VOLUME TWO: COLLECTING ALL KINDS OF
MOVIES ON SUPER 8! By Mark Williams (Tree Frog Publications, £16.99/£26.50),
144 pages, Illustrated (Colour), Paperback and Hardback, ISBN-9798243640213.
Review by Tim Greaves
Following on from last year‘s “Bootlace Cinema”, which
surveyed horror, science fiction and exploitation releases on the 8mm
“bootlace” film format, author Mark Williams is back with a follow-up that
widens the field to comprise collectible releases spanning a more diverse range
of genres, which in turn potentially affords it broader appeal.
As was the case with that first volume, it’s eye-opening to
learn just how many films were available on the format in other countries back
in the hobby’s heyday; remember we had no Internet back in the 1970s and 1980s,
so there was little way an eager fledgling collector like myself would ever
have known they existed. German collectors were notably treated to some
fabulous releases. And that brings us to the book’s real draw: the hundreds of
drool-worthy illustrations of box artwork which pack the pages from cover to
cover – all reproduced in colour – are a real education as to just how the
hobby flourished overseas. A peppering of reproduction pages from old
distributor catalogues are the icing on the cake.
Williams covers more than 130 titles, with a number of releases
that will be familiar to UK collectors all rubbing shoulders with the likes of Orca, Death
on the Nile, Breakheart Pass, Django, Flash
Gordon, Warlords of Atlantis
and Lemon
Popsicle. Then there are the guilty pleasures, such as Emanuelle
and the Last Cannibals and Jack the
Ripper (Jess Franco’s 1976 version starring Klaus Kinski).
Mentioning Lemon Popsicle, a
bonus chapter provides a nice overview of the popular 1970s/80s film series,
from which, sadly, only the first spawned an 8mm home release – and once again it
was a title exclusive to Germany. At least if they only released one, they went
with the best of them.
While both volumes of “Bootlace Cinema” will resonate with
collectors of yesteryear such as myself – and may even tempt a few old hands
back into the fold – it also functions as a treasure trove of temptation for
those who may like the idea of getting into a hobby that it’s comforting to
know is still thriving. Who would have guessed that in 2026 you would be able
to acquire a full-length widescreen “bootlace” gauge feature of Diamonds
are Forever from Spain?
The
late Alfred Sole was a production designer who carved out a nice career for
himself in Hollywood, most notably on the television shows Veronica Mars (2004-7), Castle
(2009-16), and the reboot of MacGyver
(2017-18). Long before he chose that line of work, however, he dabbled in the
world of film directing. His first film, the 1972 hardcore sex “comedy” Deep Sleep, must be seen to be believed
because despite a few flourishes of cinematic style and several humorous
sequences involving dialogue, the film is nothing more than a hardcore sex romp
featuring folks no one in their right mind would want to see naked, let alone
copulating. There is absolutely nothing in this film to suggest that he would
next direct one of the greatest and most thematically disturbing thrillers of our
time, 1976’s Communion, which was
later retitled Alice, Sweet Alice when it fell into the public domain
and ended up on local television airings and on VHS videocassette. It is not to
be confused with the Christopher Walken/alien probe 1989 outing based on Whitley
Strieber’s 1987 “non-fiction” book of the same name. Mr. Sole’s subsequent
films, 1980’s Tanya’s Island with the
late Denise Matthews (credited as “D.D. Winters”) and 1982’s star-studded
comedy Pandemonium, both fared poorly
at the box office, hence his career change. Thankfully, Alice, Sweet Alice, with its high cinematic style and deceptively
low production budget, refused to die.
In
her screen debut, Brooke Shields plays Karen Spages (rhymes with “pages”), the
younger sister of Alice Spages, the latter brilliantly portrayed by New
Jersey-born actress Paula Sheppard, whose only other onscreen credit is Slava
Tsukerman’s cult film Liquid Sky (1982). Karen is favored by everyone
around her and can do no wrong, mostly because Alice is a troublemaker. Alice
teases Karen, locks her in an abandoned building to scare her, and mistreats
her communion veil. Why the horseplay? Alice was conceived out of wedlock and
is not entitled to receive the Holy Eucharist. As if this is her fault.
On
the day of her First Communion, Karen is brutally murdered right in the church
and all suspicion points to her sister after she finds the discarded veil and
wears it to the altar. This sets in motion some truly well-acted scenes wherein
the identity of the killer is constantly in question. Everyone suspects Alice,
even her neighbor Mr. Alphonse (Alphonse DeNoble), who plays an obese
monstrosity you must see to believe. Karen and Alice’s mother Catherine (Linda
Miller) is grief-stricken and meets her ex-husband Dom (Niles McMaster) at the
funeral. Afterwards, there are suspicions about Alice’s whereabouts during
Karen’s murder and Alice submits to a polygraph which she mischievously pushes
on to the floor. Her Aunt Annie (Jane Lowry) battles with Catherine and the
latter accuses her of hating Alice because of her sinful status. Annie refutes
this until she herself is attacked in a shockingly bloody sequence and fully
believes that Alice is the killer.
Alice takes place circa 1961 as evinced by the production design,
the old-style cars, the calendar on the wall, and the prevalence of a poster of
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) that
can be seen if one really looks for it. Originally reviled amid concerns that
it is an attack against the Catholic Church (how can it not be?), the film was
met with lukewarm box office. Director Sole was rumored to have stated that the
church was simply the milieu he wanted to set the story against, but the Blu-ray
commentary infers otherwise. It is one of the most Catholic-themed films I have
ever seen, even more so than William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) or Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976). It
has a look, a feel, and an atmosphere all its own. This film is quite simply
one of the best low-budget American horror films ever made. It boasts a
superbly eerie score by Stephen Lawrence who scored a handful of other films. Yours
Truly had been wishing for a soundtrack album of this music for decades, and
one finally surfaced from Waxwork Records which, though now out-of-print, can
be found on eBay. Great editing, wonderful set design, and excellent music all
come together to make Alice an
enjoyable shocker that can easily be viewed more than several times.
This
film has had a strange history. Filmed in Mr. Sole’s hometown of Paterson, NJ
in the summer of 1975, Alice
premiered in Paterson (Lou Costello’s old stomping grounds) under its original
title Communion, it had its world
premiere on Saturday, November 13, 1976 at the Fabian Theater (now the Fabian
Building). The event was met with much fanfare, however a subsequent theatrical
release failed to stir much interest. Communion
was dropped by the original distributor, picked up by another, retitled Alice, Sweet Alice and was even known as The Mask
Murders in some ad campaigns. It was re-cut and redistributed on Friday,
April 3, 1981 as Holy Terror and
played up Brooke Shields’s participation in response to the success of the
previous year’s The Blue Lagoon and
anticipating the release of her new film at the time, Franco Zefferelli’s Endless
Love. It then made its way to cable television and local independent
stations where the bulk of us caught up with it. Later, it was relegated to VHS
collecting dust in discount bins beginning in 1985 with Goodtimes Home Video,
seemingly forever to be lost within the public domain due to a legal snafu.
In
1998, the film received a laserdisc release from the Roan Group which sported a
highly entertaining audio commentary from director Sole and the film’s editor, Edward Salier. The film was given two
DVD releases later on which ported over the commentary. Even without the
benefit of Sole's discussion, one can easily see the influence that
Nicolas Roeg's astonishing Don’t
Look Now (1973) has on this film.
In
2018, a Blu-ray was issued for this title. The film was restored in a new 2K
transfer generated from one of the film’s few remaining 35mm prints and
practically restored it to how it looked over forty years ago. I was grateful
to have it and it had been a long time coming.