Film critic Ann Thompson worked on early John Carpenter movies as a press agent, including the original 1978 horror classic "Halloween", which is being reissued to theaters. Thompson recently reunited with the director and actress to reminisce about the making of "Halloween", which was made for a relatively small budget and became a boxoffice blockbuster. Carpenter also discusses how his superb remake of "The Thing" made him cynical about working with major studios after it under-performed at the boxoffice- a fate that was blamed on his ambiguous ending to the movie. Click here to read.

"RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVE"

BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA

There's nothing I like better than getting hold of a movie that I've been searching over three decades for and adding it to my collection. At my age, there aren't many vintage films left that I don't own in one format or another, so when I very pleased when I heard that the 1976 cult classic Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw was getting a Blu-ray release. This movie has somehow always managed to elude me. It never seemed to play on any of my cable stations in the early 80s, we never had a copy of it at the video store I worked at in the mid-80s and I was still never able to find a copy of it anywhere throughout the 90s. To be honest, by the time the 21^st century hit, I completely forgot about this movie, so I was pretty surprised and even more excited to find out that it was not only being released on Blu-ray, but also with quite a few special features. Why? To begin with, I'm a tremendous fan of the director; not to mention the entire cast and, last, but not least, I just love fun, action/crime/drama exploitation films from the 1970s.

Produced and directed by Mark Lester (Truck Stop Women, Roller Boogie, Class of 1984), written by Vernon Zimmerman (Unholy Rollers, Fade to Black) and released by American International Pictures, modern western Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw tells the tale of quick-draw expert and Billy the Kid enthusiast Lyle Wheeler (Marjoe Gortner, Earthquake, Food of the Gods, Viva Knievel!, Starcrash) who, together with waitress and aspiring country singer Bobbi Jo Baker (TV’s one and only Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter) experiences a dangerous cross country adventure filled with love, robbery and murder.

So, was the movie worth the wait? I certainly think so. It may not be in the same league as, say, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), but it's still an extremely enjoyable, well-directed, written and acted low-budget feature that definitely deserves to be seen. To begin with, Mark Lester's direction is not only solid, but he is just at home directing the quiet, more character-driven and dramatic/romantic scenes as he is directing a sequence involving heavy action and stunts. Next up, Vernon Zimmerman's wonderful writing not only creates an engaging story, but interesting and likeable three-dimensional characters as well. Lyle Wheeler aka the Outlaw, seems to live by his own code and has definite ideas of good and evil; right and wrong. Marjoe Gortner effortlessly and believably gets all this across and makes his character quite likeable. (This may be my favorite Gortner performance.) The stunning Lynda Carter gets to show a bit more range then she did as Wonder Woman and is extremely convincing as the hopeful and somewhat naive Bobbi Jo. The rest of the outrageously talented cast not only add immensely to the film, but clearly came to play. Jesse Vint (Chinatown, Forbidden World) perfectly plays Slick Callahan; a wild, not too bright cocaine fiend and boyfriend of Bobbi Jo's sister, Pearl. Gorgeous Merrie Lynn Ross (Class of 1984, TVs General Hospital), who also co-produced the film, brings a hardened heart quality to slightly ditzy stripper Pearl, and the always welcome Belinda Balaski (Piranha, The Howling) shines as hippie waitress Essie Beaumont. Rounding out the top-notch cast is Gene Drew (Truck Stop Women) as a no-nonsense sheriff, B-movie legend Gerrit Graham (Beware! The Blob, Phantom of the Paradise, The Annihilators, C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D.) as a helpful hippie, Virgil Frye (Graduation Day), who replaced Dennis Hopper, as a macho gas station attendant with something to prove, Peggy Stewart (Alias Billy the Kid, Beyond Evil) as Bobbi Jo's alcoholic mom, and James Gammon (Major League) as a fast talking salesman.

The New Mexico-lensed, low-budget feature also benefits from some nice Albuquerque locations, Grammy winner Barry De Vorzonâ's (The Young and the Restless, Dillinger, Rolling Thunder) memorable score, Stanley Wright's lovely cinematography, and "Those City Lights", a catchy country song by Bobby Bare (Tremors). A lot of people believe that the only reason to see this film is for Lynda Carter's brief nude scene. While Lynda looks absolutely beautiful and made both my eyes very happy, the movie itself has more going for it than just that. All in all, it's an extremely solid and fun piece of 1970s exploitation cinema that fans of this lost era of filmmaking are sure to enjoy.

Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. The Region 1 disc presents the movie in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Although the gorgeous transfer is slightly grainy-looking at times (mostly in a few of the nighttime scenes), it never detracts from the story, and the images are otherwise extremely clear making the HD movie beautiful to look at. The disc also contains quite a few wonderful special features including the original trailer, interviews with Mark Lester (who mentions various aspects of the film such as casting, directing, budget and the fact that the concept of the film was inspired by the classic Eagles hit "Desperado"), Merrie Lynn Ross (who goes into detail about being both an actor and a producer) and Belinda Balaski (who talks about how she got cast, how she developed her character, and her recollection of working with Lynda Carter) as well as a very interesting and informative audio commentary by director Lester. If, like me, you're a fan of 70s action/crime cinema, I recommend checking out Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw.

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(Photo: Montclair Film)

By Lee Pfeiffer

Cinema Retro was invited to cover the Daniel Craig/ Stephen Colbert interview event at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Friday, October 28 as part of the Montclair Film Festival. It was quite an enjoyable evening and featured the best interview I've ever seen Craig give. He has been on Colbert's chat show many times and by now they have an Abbott and Costello-like relationship. The set was designed as a living room, with Craig and Colbert perched comfortably in facing chairs, which gave the impression you were observing two guys speaking privately even though it was in front of an auditorium of over 2,000 people. (Amusingly, if you looked closely, you could see a model Aston Martin DB5 placed on top of a table.)To keep the atmosphere loose, Colbert would periodically walk over to a bar and mix drinks for the two participants. Colbert got Craig to talk about his hardscrabble early days in Liverpool, his early film career and his experiences working on specific films with specific co-stars. There was plenty of time devoted to talking about 007. Craig said he only spoke personally with one of his predecessors in the role, Pierce Brosnan, but said he appreciated Sean Connery's public comments praising his work as Bond. He was extremely positive about the producers and everything the series has afforded him, career-wise. His said his favorite Bond film in which he didn't appear is "Goldfinger". Craig also spoke of his delight at being part of the "Knives Out" series and praised the writer/director Rian Johnson.

(Photo: Montclair Film)

When it was announced that the event would allow for questions for the audience, I had concerns. We all know that an open microphone tends to attract at least a few people who can be relied upon to ask cringe-inducing questions. But Artistic Director Tom Hall defused this possibility early on and in a humorous manner by advising attendees that asking the stars to review their personal film project or some other such pipe dream was not going to happen. Consequently, the questions that were asked were intelligent and lead to insightful answers.

(Photo: Cinema Retro)

There were some well-chosen film clips demonstrating the evolution of Craig’s career and he was also extremely funny throughout the night. It left me with the realization that, while I greatly admire his Bond films, they never capitalized on his talent for humor and witticisms the way previous films did for their lead actors. At the end of the event, Colbert presented Craig with a career achievement award to rapturous applause. In all, a terrific evening. Well done, Montclair Film Festival.

Here's a short but interesting TV spot with Roger Moore promoting the telecast of the London premiere festivities for "The Spy Who Loved Me" in  1977, courtesy of the Internet Archives. 

Clint Eastwood proved that the skills he displayed as a first-time director with "Play Misty for Me" in 1971 were not a fluke. In 1973, he directed and starred in the revisionist Western "High Plains Drifter", playing upon his star-making image as a mysterious drifter with a murky past. In this case, the film had an added unique element: supernatural overtones. John Wayne hated the film but audiences flocked to it and even some critics grudgingly conceded that Eastwood was showing some promising skill as a director. Little would anyone know that in 1993, he would receive the Best Director Oscar for another Western, "Unforgiven".

This is a rare trade ad for "High Plains Drifter" that ran in Boxoffice magazine in July, 1973.

Celebrity interviewer Bobbie Wygant posted this 1968 interview with Robert Vaughn when he was in Czechoslovakia to begin filming the WWII epic "The Bridge at Remagen". Vaughn speaks optimistically about the new freedoms found in the country, which was under domination of the Soviet Union. The so-called "Prague Spring" didn't last long, however. Shortly after this interview was conducted, the Soviets had second thoughts about having extended significant freedoms to the people of Czechoslovakia, fearing that other satellite states would demand the same. As Vaughn recounted to Cinema Retro, he and other members of the cast and crew received a rude awakening at their Prague hotel when Soviet tanks rumbled through the city streets, sent by Soviet leaders to  reimpose the iron boot of an authoritarian regime. In the protests and street violence that followed, the cast and crew had to fend for themselves to devise ways to escape the country.

Vaughn recounts all of this in his highly-readable memoir, "A Fortunate Life" but he also joined cast members George Segal, Bradford Dillman and Bo Hopkins in providing his memories of the experience to writer Steven J. Rubin in Cinema Retro issues #'s 33 and 34.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

In a worthy attempt to focus attention on the work of writer/producer/director/actor Delmer Daves, Criterion has released a Blu-ray edition of his 1956 Western Jubal. It's a rather odd choice for the label, which specializes in gold-standard editions of established classics and revered cult films. On the surface, Jubal may sound like a standard horse opera, especially with the title role played by reliable-but-unexciting Glenn Ford. However, the reason why Criterion sought to have the movie re-evaluated is immediately apparent. This is an unusually mature Western with a very dramatic story line that builds in intensity under Daves' assured direction. Ford plays Jubal Troop, a troubled loner and drifter, who is saved from certain death in the mountains by Shep Horgan (Ernest Borgnine), a boisterous but kind prominent rancher who nurses Jubal back to health and rewards him with a job on his ranch. It isn't long before Jubal proves his worth and impresses Shep enough to make him the new foreman- an act that offends and alienates another, long-time ranch hand, "Pinky" Pinkus (Rod Steiger), who had sought the position himself. Jubal's seemingly idyllic situation is further hampered by the fact that Shep's sultry Canadian wife Mae (Valerie French) is disgusted by her husband's boorish behavior and his tendency to treat her as a prized steer. Clearly suffering from sexual frustration, the isolated woman exists in a world of misogynistic men. It isn't long before she's making eyes at Jubal, who must summon all of his willpower to resist her advances out of respect for his friendship with Shep. Adding to the rising tensions is the fact that Mae had once had a fling with "Pinky" and he can't accept the fact that she now favors Jubal. The intricate plot takes numerous turns leading to Mae's manipulation of Shep and Jubal by implying to her husband that she has slept with his ranch foreman. This sets in motion a series of tragic circumstances.

Although Daves is best known for his seminal Western 3:10 to Yuma, there is much in Jubal that rivals that classic. Daves makes full use of the magnificent Wyoming locations, using the widescreen process as effectively as George Stevens did with Shane. While the personal relationships of the principal characters are perpetually in crisis mode, Daves seems to use the sweeping cinematography to intentionally dwarf the key players, as though to imply that, in the end,  we're all just rather inconsequential figures in nature's landscape. The performances are all first rate, and this may well be the most effective performance of Glenn Ford's career. His low-key approach to acting has often been dismissed as boring, but Ford always brought a quiet intensity and "guy next door" quality to each of his performances. As Jubal, he's just a shy man who wants to get through the demons of his past by starting a new life that is unblemished by personal stress. Instead, he finds himself in the unlikely situation of being embroiled in a cauldron of sexual tension, betrayal and violent death. Ernest Borgnine is terrific as the hapless Shep, a likable "man's man" who remains oblivious to the fact that the wife he so adores has nothing but contempt for him. Rod Steiger seems a bit out of place here, as he as always seemed far more comfortable in gritty, urban dramas. Valerie French practically steams up the screen as the femme fatale at the heart of the deception that endangers the men in her life. She clearly the villain, but you can't help but empathize with her plight, which must have mirrored that of countless women of the plains: she is trapped in a man's world of endless work with little appreciation for her femininity beyond her "duty" to provide sex. 

The Criterion transfer is flawless and the colors leap off the screen. Frustratingly, the film is devoid of any bonus extras. It would have been a nice touch to hear a film scholar discuss the film and Daves' work in general. However, there is a booklet that contains a lengthy and informative essay by Kent Jones. If you like Western, this one is a "must".

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Photo: Montclair Film.

By Lee Pfeiffer 

Brendan Fraser started as most actors do, trying to land supporting roles in high profile films. He landed the leading role in low-brow 1992 comedy "Encino Man" in which he played a caveman in the modern era. Over the next few years, he worked steadily- if unevenly- in a range of films that failed to score at the boxoffice. That changed in 1997 when he played the role of George of the Jungle, a big screen adaptation of a 1960s cartoon series. With his hunky good looks, athletic physique and ability to perform difficult stunts, Fraser was in demand when the film proved to be a hit. More successes followed with "The Mummy" and its sequel. Fraser excelled in playing genial, if fallible action heroes and romantic leads, but he also proved he had the talent to portray dramatic characters as well, as evidenced by his acclaimed performances in "Gods and Monsters" and "The Quiet American". He also won plaudits for his performance as Brick in a 2001 stage production of Tennessee Williams' classic "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Then things slowed down. A few modest hits aside, Fraser appeared mostly in forgettable films and in supporting roles in TV productions. A volatile divorce, medical consequences from the many stunts her performed earlier in his career and other personal challenges led to him virtually dropping out of sight a few years ago. Fans who had grown up on his work in the 1990s speculated that he might soon fit into the "Whatever happened to?" category. His much-anticipated role as a villain in the "Batgirl" feature film was a casualty of Warner Brothers' decision to cancel the unfinished film. But Fraser has had plenty to be happy about recently. He landed a major role in Martin Scorsese's currently-filming "Killers of the Flower Moon" and has recently generated Oscar buzz for his leading role in director Darren Aronofsky's dramatic film "The Whale", which premiered last month at the Venice Film Festival to a six-minute standing ovation.

I joined my fellow ink-stained wretches of the press for a screening of the film last Sunday at The Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey. Fraser was on hand to be interviewed by Stephen Colbert, who resides in Montclair and who, along with his wife Evelyn, have been major players in the creation of the film festival, which holds screenings in two local historic theaters, the one-time Cinerama showcase The Claridge and the Wellmont, a grand old venue where this event took place. The cavernous Wellmont had a packed house and the crowd was made up of true cinephiles, as evidenced by their rapt attention to the film and the interview that followed. Nobody was texting, talking or otherwise distracting from the proceedings, despite the fact that there were three bars on site dispensing plenty of adult beverages. This was my first time attending the festival and I was impressed by the atmosphere and choice of venues.

As for "The Whale", like many critics, I found myself with mixed feelings. The primary reason to see the film is because of Fraser's justifiably acclaimed performance. It has been noted that the actor is now more beefy than beefcake but don't confuse Fraser with Charlie, the character he plays in the film, who is a 600-pound man confined to his apartment. Fraser required a rather amazing prosthetic "fat suit" as well as some convincing CGI effects to convincingly play a person this morbidly obese. The film opens on a jarring note. Charlie is slouched in his couch masturbating to a gay porn video, and his aroused state almost causes his death. In fact, virtually every movement is a challenge for Charlie, a kindhearted man whose only regular connection to society is his job teaching an online college course in literature via Zoom. Because he is ashamed of his appearance, he tells his students that his camera is broken. He can see them, but they can't see him, which unintentionally allows him to create an air of mystery about his persona. Charlie is obsessed with Herman Melville's "Moby Dick", and the analogy between the great white whale and his own physical state is obvious. Charlie receives a visit from a young evangelist, Thomas (Ty Simpkins) who ostensibly is there to spread the word from the Good Book but who ends up assisting and befriending Charlie, while keeping a secret about his own background. Next in line to visit is Ellie (Sadie Sink), Charlie's estranged teenage daughter who lugs a pretty good number of plot devices in the door with her. Seems Charlie was once married but left Sadie and her mother when she was very young when he came out of the closet and lived with his lover, who is now deceased and whose memory leaves Charlie in a constant state of despair. This first plot contrivance doesn't hold up for the simple reason that Charlie and his wife and daughter all still live in the same town, so it seems unlikely they would have had no social interaction until now. Next up among the visitors is Liz (Hong Chau), a saucy, no-nonsense nurse who happens to be a personal friend of Charlie. In between looking after his endless medical needs, she lectures him about his health to little avail. Rounding out the parade of eccentric troubadours dropping in on this mini Grand Central Station is Charlie's ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton), who discusses their mutual concerns about Ellie's rebellious nature and self-destructive tendencies, all of which are squarely blamed on Charlie's negligence toward her.

"The Whale" is based on Samuel D. Hunter's stage play and film looks very much like a filmed stage production. There are precious few exterior shots and the murky interior cinematography by Matthew Libatique, combined with Ron Simonsen's eerie score, results in the mood of a horror film being prevalent. Hunter's screenplay and Aronofsky's direction tip off all but the most gullible viewer that their emotions are being exploited in a naked and shameless manner. Nothing wrong with that. Chaplin did the same with the final scene of "City Lights", as the Little Tramp unveils his identity to his once-blind paramour in a scene that may be the most touching in screen history. But "The Whale" is loaded up with a lot of contrived crises. Charlie is a sympathetic figure throughout but Ellie is painted as the Cruella DeVil of the high school set, a  one-note character that you try in vain to find redeeming qualities in. She even charges her own father money in order to spend time with her. Director Aronofsky has Sadie Sink go for the rafters in terms of her cruelty but we know from minute one that at some point she'll fall for young Thomas in another improbable plot twist. The actors can't be faulted. They're just following orders. The only believable character aside from Charlie is Liz the nurse and Hong Chau registers strongly in the role. The most affecting scenes are those centering on Charlie as an individual, as we watch seemingly mundane actions such as attempting to stand up evolve into "Mission: Impossible"-like scenarios. It's painful to watch Fraser, but that's the point. Regardless of the film's flaws, his performance is flawless. "The Whale" isn't the first film to portray morbidly obese people in a sympathetic fashion. Director Anne Bancroft's 1979 film "Fatso" did so through a serio-comedic lens. "The Whale", however, provides precious few reasons to smile.   

Following the screening, Brendan Fraser and Stephen Colbert took to the stage to Fraser's latest standing ovation. He appeared genuinely moved and in discussion with Colbert, it became clear how grateful he is to have been cast as Charlie. The chat reinforced Fraser's image as a Mister Nice Guy and to Colbert's credit, he suppressed his comedic side and did nothing to overshadow Fraser in any way. The interview was enjoyable and insightful.  

"The Whale" is a flawed film but no so flawed that it can't be recommended for those who seek a moving, if manipulative drama, as well as the performance of a lifetime by Brendan Fraser.

The film will open on December 9.

By Fred Blosser

If you fear losing your energy and creativity (among other things) as soon as you enter your sixth decade, just consider John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Henry Hathaway, and take heart. Ford worked until age 71 (his last Western was “Cheyenne Autumn, 1964, and his final film, “7 Women,” 1966), Hawks until 75 (“Rio Lobo,” 1971), and Hathaway until 76. Hathaway’s final Western was “Shoot Out,” which opened on October 13, 1971, when he was 73. In the movie, Clay Lomax (Gregory Peck) is released from prison after serving a seven-year sentence for bank robbery. Lomax’s eyes have a steely, distant glare as he buckles on his six-shooter. “You hate me, but there’s someone out there you hate more,” the warden guesses. “Someone” is Lomax’s former partner, Sam Foley (James Gregory), who betrayed Clay and shot him in the back as the pair fled with their stolen money. Clay was captured and Sam got away. Lomax intends to find Foley, who now lives comfortably on their loot, passing himself off as a retired businessman. In turn, learning that Lomax is a free man again, Foley hires three loutish gunmen to trail his

former friend. The leader of the trio, Bobby Jay (Robert E. Lyons), offers to kill Clay, but Foley says no; just keep an eye on him and let me know if he comes this way. Does Foley hope that Clay will just go away? Will he try to make amends if Lomax pays a visit? Or will he use the pistol hidden in his desk drawer? It isn’t exactly clear, and maybe Sam himself doesn’t know.

On the other hand, there’s no doubt about Lomax’s lust for revenge. But first, leaving the penitentiary, he has to stop at the railroad depot in nearby Weed City, where he has arranged to meet a former girlfriend, a prostitute, who holds a sum of money in safekeeping for him. The money arrives but not the girlfriend, who died on her way from Kansas City. Instead, the woman’s now-orphaned daughter, six-year-old Decky (Dawn Lyn), steps off the train. To claim his money, Clay has to take Decky too. The stymied ex-convict tries to hand the little girl off to a succession of people, without any luck. Orphaned, abandoned children are about as welcome in the fictitious Weed City as they are in real life.

Clay doesn’t know where to find Foley, but a mutual acquaintance, Trooper (Jeff Corey), does. The crusty, wheelchair-bound saloon owner agrees to divulge Sam’s current location—for $200. Bobby Jay and his friends also show up Trooper’s establishment, keeping tabs on Clay. You’d think they’d try to draw as little attention to themselves as possible, but they’re as stupid as they are malicious. When they provoke a fight with Lomax, he cleans the floor with all three. The louts later tangle with Trooper after they damage his property and refuse to pay the abused saloon girl they spent the night with, Alma (Susan Tyrell). They murder Trooper, but the saloon-keeper manages to disclose Foley’s whereabouts before he dies. Lomax heads out to find his quarry, several days’ ride away in Gun Hill, with Decky in tow. Along the way, having bonded after a gruff start, they find shelter from a rainstorm at a ranch owned by a lonely widow, Juliana (Pat Quinn). Juliana’s ranch hands are away in town for the night, giving her and Clay a chance to strike up a romance. But the isolation also puts Juliana, her young son, Lomax, and Decky in danger when the volatile Bobby Jay and his friends turn up and invade her house.

“Shoot Out” was produced by Hal B. Wallis and written by Marguerite Roberts. Both had collaborated with Hathaway on the wildly popular “True Grit” two years before. The three hoped to repeat that success with a similar story about a growing attachment between a flinty old gunfighter and a spunky girl, even costuming Dawn Lyn’s Decky in a smaller replica of Kim Darby’s outfit from “True Grit.” But the strategy backfired when critics measured “Shoot Out” against the 1969 Western and found it wanting. They might have been kinder if they had known that well-written, briskly directed, unpretentious Westerns like “Shoot Out” were approaching the end of their shelf life in the 1970s. Ford and Hawks had become favorites of younger critics like Peter Bogdanovich and Robin Wood, but appreciation for Hathaway’s considerable talents lagged, and still does.

Marguerite Roberts had worked in Hollywood for nearly as long as Hathaway. He started in the prop department in 1919 and directed his first feature, a Zane Grey Western, in 1932. She began as a studio secretary in 1927 and sold her first screenplay in 1934, beginning a long career as a screenwriter that was interrupted from 1952 to 1962. During those ten years, she was blacklisted for refusing to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A scene in “Shoot Out” suggests that Roberts retained painful emotions from the experience. Having burst into Juliana’s house, the unhinged Bobby Jay terrorizes his hostages when he proposes to display his marksmanship by shooting a cup off of the widow’s son’s head. Juliana argues the gunman out of putting her son in danger, but doesn’t resist when he orders her to move the cup to Decky’s head instead. The credits for “Shoot Out” cite Will James’ 1926 memoir, “Lone Cowboy: My Life Story,” as the source for Roberts’ screenplay, but the real inspiration seems to be George Eliot’s “Silas Marner.” The sentimental 1861 novel was once the bane of 15-year-olds for whom it was required reading in high school English classes, before it was replaced by more contemporary fare like “Catcher in the Rye.”

A new Blu-ray edition of “Shoot Out” from Kino Lorber Studio Classics presents the film in a sharp hi-def transfer that looks equally attractive in its sunny outdoor scenes, filmed in New Mexico, and in the rich, masculine red and green lampshades and upholstery in Sam Foley’s private office. In a fine audio commentary, critic Nick Pinkerton notes that the production punches up its standard revenge story with the violent, sexually frank revisionist elements common in the Westerns of the early 1970s, a trend that Hathaway himself helped pioneer with “Nevada Smith” in 1966. Gone is the old B-Western

pretense that saloon hostesses did no more than serve drinks and dance the can-can. Trooper’s four prostitutes are sad, alcoholic women with impoverished pasts, who suffer physical and verbal mistreatment from the men they solicit. If the fate of Decky’s mother is any indication, their life expectancy from illness, alcoholism, and exploitation will be short. The train conductor who delivers Decky to Clay’s care (played by Paul Fix, one of several Western old-timers in the supporting cast) asks Clay how old her mother was. “Thirty,” he responds. “She looked fifty,” the conductor says. “Shoot Out” was rated “GP” (the short-lived precursor of “PG”), classifying it as suitable for general audiences, but advising “parental guidance.” The newly instituted MPAA ratings system was tricky to figure out. I wonder how many parents interpreted GP to mean “bring the kids,” on the assumption that a movie with Gregory Peck and a little girl couldn’t be any saltier than the watered-down TV Westerns of the era.

Pinkerton calls the subplot about the embittered gunman and the orphaned child “cloying,” but it’s a matter of opinion. Dawn Lyn’s role is crafted and performed with a nice balance of feistiness and vulnerability, and she and Peck play off well against each other. Is Lomax the biological father of Decky, as we infer from her mother placing her in his care . . . or not? The question becomes academic once each develops a soft spot for the other. In addition to the Nick Pinkerton commentary, the Blu-ray also includes the theatrical trailer and previews of other 1970s Westerns from KL Studio Classics.

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

By Dana Polan

Railroaded, Detour, Caught, I Wake Up Screaming, Private Hell 36. . . Raw Deal, and so on and so on: the titles of film noir often offer harsh tales of dismal entrapment and victimization, and it is tempting to wonder what audiences made of these harrowing, even unpleasurable, thrillers of inevitable male degradation. Did these sometimes nasty films put the lie to the golden glow of films that celebrated the American dream? Or did they confirm the seeming possibility of that dream by allowing viewers to feel superior to the doomed characters in these films? Placed on the double bill with generally respectable and even uplifting “A” pictures, these programmers or downright “B”-films speak with a cynicism and despair that might perhaps have stood in complex relation to the positive yearnings of the Hollywood dream factory. At a tight 79-minutes, Raw Deal is the tautest of the taut – a sharp exercise in futility and fatalism. It excels through the sharp cinematography of the great noir cameraman John Alton: deep focus scenes composed around diagonals from way in the back to looming objects or bodies or faces in the foreground; low angles; and above all, what film historian Jeremy Arnold in his rich commentary for this Bu-ray edition of Raw Deal terms “tons of darkness with little pools of light” (sometimes, in fact, not even pools but just a gleam or glitter furtively trying to stick out in the inky black). Raw Deal stands apart moreover by employment of a female voice-over (deadpan, often present-tense, bleakness from the criminal protagonist’s world-weary moll, Pat, played by Claire Trevor), rare in films noirs of the times. Pat’s narration shows her to be jaded yet devoted to loser anti-hero Joe (Dennis O’Keefe) who breaks out of the pen to get money owed him by the most evil of evil gangsters (a so-menacing Raymond Burr). But Joe falls for the innocent Ann (Marsha Hunt), his lawyer’s assistant whom he takes hostage, and by the film’s set of final confrontations, both action-oriented, and romantic, all bets are off as to what moral position will win out and who indeed will survive between venality and redemption. Pushing violence to an extreme (especially, a fire thrown into a female face, years before the coffee-to-the-kisser shock in Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat), Raw Deal packs a series of dramatic and emotional wallops as overpowering as the punches in a darkened room fight that comes virtually mid-way through the film.

In addition to the aforementioned commentary track by Jeremy Arnold, very insightful about the film’s employment of expressive techniques and noir visual style to convey a narrative of inevitable entrapment, this new Classicflix Blu-ray edition of Raw Deal includes short featurettes on the film’s making and on actor Dennis O’Keefe that are not very deep in historical exploration but are short enough to be consumed easily quickly as one gives greater attention to richer materials on the Blu-ray : that commentary track (which manages to cram in lots of facts about the stars and extras even as it tells us so much about visual – and also musical – style) and a nice booklet by Mann scholar Max Alvarez. There’s an image gallery which perhaps devotes a little too much time to images from the film itself (which, after all, is what most purchasers of the Blu-ray will attend to, rather than just stills) although it nicely includes some of the various poster and color ads that promoted Raw Deal.

Like so many other films, though, and especially in the case of this one, where one might wonder what the Hays Office might have made of the movie’s severe level of violence and corporeal threat (as in an antler on an stuffed animal that one criminal tries to impale another’s eye on), it is easy to lament that the extras didn’t include Production Code files or other production documents. Jeremy Arnold and Max Alvarez do provide valuable background in their scholarly contributions, though, and confirm just how much Raw Deal merits close study and just how much the downbeat world of noir overall commands our emotional and intellectual attention as an striking and critical mode of American popular culture.

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(Dana Polan is the author of "Dreams of Flight: 'The Great Escape' in American Film and Culture". Click here to order from Amazon

Having first teamed three years earlier in Billy Wilder's "The Fortune Cookie", Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau reunited for the 1968 screen version of the Broadway smash, Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple". It was the perfect casting in the perfect comedy. If you need to ask why, just watch this clip.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

When they say "They don't make 'em like that anymore" it could well be in reference to "The Honey Pot", a delightful 1967 concoction.The film is the kind of star-studded comedy/mystery that has recently made a comeback through the "Knives Out" movies. However, this film barely registers in the minds of most movie-goers and was not successful when it was first released. (The studio even reissued it under a new title, "It Comes Up Murder".) The project was cursed from the beginning. The original cinematographer, Gianni Di Venanzo, died before production was completed. When the film was released in select engagements, the running time was 150 minutes, which was deemed to be far too long for this modest enterprise that is confined largely to interiors. For general release, 18 minutes were cut, although some of those scenes still appeared in lobby cards advertising the movie. One well-known character actor, Herschel Bernardi, had his entire role eliminated. Additionally, the film's producer Charles K. Feldman was under a great deal of stress, as he was simultaneously overseeing production on his bloated, out-of-control spoof version of the James Bond novel "Casino Royale". Yet, what emerges somehow managed to end up being quite entertaining, thanks in no small part to the larger-than-life Rex Harrison having a field day playing an equally larger-than-life rich cad. Essentially, he's playing Henry Higgins from "My Fair Lady" once again- only this time with a more devious streak. Both characters are filthy rich. Both are erudite and sophisticated snobs who devise cruel games involving innocents in return for his own self-amusement. Harrison is a wicked but lovable character. You can't help cheering him on despite his lack of ethical convictions.

The film, written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, is cobbled together from Frederick Knotts' play "Mr. Fox of Venice" and Thomas Sterling's novel "The Evil of the Day" with a healthy dose of Ben Johnson's play "Volpone" tossed in. In fact the film opens with Harrison as the pretentiously-named Cecil Sheridan Fox enjoying a performance of "Volpone" at a magnificent Venetian theater. The camera pans back to show that this is a private performance for Fox alone. He stops the play before the finale, thanks the cast members for a spirited production and leaves the scene. Yes, he's that rich. We soon learn that he is using elements of "Volpone" to orchestrate an elaborate and expensive practical joke. The first step comes when he hires an unemployed American actor, William McFly (Cliff Robertson) to be his hired hand. He informs McFly that he must pose as Fox's long-time major domo in his elaborate mansion house, which is impressively located right on one of the canals. Fox explains to McFly that he has written to three former lovers and told them he is terminally ill. None of the women know that the others have been informed. He reasons that they will all make a bee-line directly to him, ostensibly to care for him, but in reality in hopes of inheriting his fortune. First on his list is Lone Star Crockett (Susan Hayward), who Fox wooed when she was a wild teenager. In the course of their affair, he put her on the road to a life of luxury and pleasure. Then there is Princess Dominique (Capucine), an exotic beauty who is in a troubled marriage and Merle McGill (Edie Adams), a famous but fading movie star. On the surface, all three of these women are independently wealthy and shouldn't need his fortune. But he suspects that, in reality, all are in some degree of financial distress and he wants to see if they will compete with each other to earn his favor. Sure enough, each of the ladies arrive at his home and are surprised to see they have two female competitors. Lone Star is now a cranky hypochondriac who requires constant pampering from her ever-present companion, a spinster named Sarah Watkins (Maggie Smith). Dominique tries to put on an air of self-assurance and Merle is a wise-cracking cynic. All of them individually express their sympathies to Fox and there is even the occasional attempt at seduction. Fox puts on a show that he is desperately ill and even sits in bed affixed to an oxygen tank. In private, however, he blasts classical music and dances around the room, delighted that his perceptions of human behavior are proving to be true. The plot takes several major swings in due course, however, when one of the women ends up dead, ostensibly from an overdose of sleeping pills. However, McFly and Sarah suspect murder is afoot. The film then becomes one of those time-honored drawing room mysteries with upper crust characters matching wits with the local inspector (Adolfo Celi, marvelous in a rare comedic role.) 

To describe the plot in any further detail would necessitate providing some spoilers. Suffice it to say there are plenty of red herrings and a complex plot that will demand your constant attention or you will be hopelessly lost.  

The performances are all first rate, though Capucine (never one who mastered the light touch that these sorts of comedies require) is a bit stiff. However, Hayward and Adams pick up the slack with very funny characterizations. The scene stealer among the women, however, is Maggie Smith, who is more streetwise than any of the others suspect. As for Harrison, he seems to be having a genuine ball, chewing the scenery and dispensing bon mots that are consistently amusing. The sequence in which he dances around his bed chamber is one for the ages. 

"The Honey Pot" deserved a better fate than it received when it was released theatrically. Hopefully it will get a more appreciative audience through streaming and a Kino Lorber Blu-ray that is available.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release. Since our magazine is edited in New Jersey, we look forward to seeing this ultimate “Jersey Guy” documentary.

Banded Together: The Boys From Glen Rock High

Reunite on Hometown New Jersey High School Stage 50 Years Later

You Never Know What Those Crazy Kids May Grow Up to Be!

Feature Documentary Makes World Premiere Oct. 29^th & 30^th at Montclair Film Festival;

Featuring: Lee Shapiro, Jimmy Vivino, John Feeney, Jerry Vivino, Frank Pagano, Uncle Floyd Vivino, Doug Romoff, Jeff Venho, Joe Sielski & Conan O'Brien.

LOS ANGELES — Oct. 21, 2022 — For Immediate Release: Having all established high-profile careers in the music industry, eight men reunite 50 years later to jam on their high school auditorium stage in idyllic Glen Rock, NJ, and look back on what a strange ride it’s been in Banded Together: The Boys From Glen Rock High.

Directed, produced and edited by Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning documentarian Barry Rubinow (Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hothouse, Beakman’s World), this full-length documentary is an official selection of the Montclair Film Festival (Oct. 21-30). Moved to a bigger theater to accommodate demand, the film will make its world premiere Saturday, Oct. 29 at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday Oct. 30 at noon.

About Banded Together: The Boys From Glen Rock High ...

Once upon a time, in the small, Mayberry-esque town of Glen Rock, NJ, 25 miles and a world away from New York City, a group of friends from high school joined the music department—some commanded to do so by their parents or in lieu of receiving detention—with adolescent dreams of making it in “the biz.”

From the launch pad of their garage band gatherings and unassuming high school auditorium, each of them today—Lee Shapiro, Jimmy Vivino, John Feeney, Jerry Vivino, Frank Pagano, Uncle Floyd Vivino, Doug Romoff and Jeff Venho—perform at the highest levels of the music industry ... from the main stage of the Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien (who appears in the film) to hosting their own show to writing some of the industry’s most successful songs to performing in arenas with such iconic artists as Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, The Allman Brothers, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Donald Fagen and Jimmy Buffet, to name a few. [short bios, pg. 2]

The remarkable story of a true band of brothers, a group of close friends who bonded through music, reuniting for a concert in the same auditorium where they wowed their teachers and fellow students 50 years ago. Along the way, we learn about their individual journeys and their remarkable successes, all heavily influenced by their time at Glen Rock High School, under the tutelage of their beloved music teacher and bandleader, Joe Sielski.

The film explores the importance of music and arts education for all students and is a touching testament to the value of teaching and promoting the arts. The love and respect that these musicians have for one another and their teachers is on full display, as well as their drive, discipline, humor and sheer talent.  Though their careers have taken them all around the world, performing in front of thousands, there is no greater joy than returning to the hometown stage that defined them.

Documentary, Music / Running Time: 77 Minutes / Not Rated

Featuring Lee Shapiro, Jimmy Vivino, John Feeney, Jerry Vivino, Frank Pagano, Uncle Floyd Vivino, Doug Romoff, Jeff Venho, Joe Sielski and Conan O’Brien. Directed by Barry Rubinow. Produced by Barry Rubinow and Doug Romoff. Editor Barry Rubinow. Director of Photography Patrick Cone. Production Designer Richard Gardner.

About the Musicians ...

JIMMY VIVINO is a guitarist, keyboard player, singer, producer and music director. He began playing in NYC clubs in the early 1980s and started producing and arranging music for such artists as Phoebe Snow, Laura Nyro, John Sebastian, and Donald Fagen. Blues legend Al Kooper considers Jimmy one of his “discoveries” and he worked as Kooper’s musical director for 15 years. Jimmy performed with the house bands for The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien as well as Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Jimmy led the house band for the late-night program Conan called Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band. Jimmy has recorded and played live with renowned musicians Johnnie Johnson, Hubert Sumlin and Levon Helm.

LEE SHAPIRO is a keyboardist, arranger and music director. He was studying at the Manhattan School of Music when he was discovered playing at a club in New Jersey by the manager of the band, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. Lee was age 19 at the time he was asked to join. He was the arranger on the hit songs, “Who Loves You” and “Oh What a Night.” Lee also worked with Barry Manilow on Copacabana, The Musical before starting Lee Shapiro Music, a company that created music for the media and advertising. He also created the “must have” toys of 2000, ‘Rock N Roll Elmo’ and ‘Rock N Roll Ernie’ for Fisher-Price. Lee formed the classic rock band The Hit Men with former Four Seasons bandmates Gerry Polci and Don Ciccone. The band has evolved over the past 12 years and is touring with band members who perform with the legends of classic rock.

JOHN FEENEY, principal double bass of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the American Classical Orchestra and Opera Lafayette, is a chamber musician and soloist of international renown. John has performed as a guest bassist with the Vienna Philharmonic. An avid Viennese violinist, in 2010 he co-founded The Serenade Orchestra and the Serenade Quartet, performing many dozens of concerts featuring the music of 18th and 19th century Vienna. John has recorded extensively for most major record labels and holds bachelor and master degrees from the Juilliard School where he was a scholarship student of David Walter. He began his bass studies with Linda McKnight.

UNCLE FLOYD VIVINO is a legendary comedian, musician and entertainer. He created and starred in The Uncle Floyd Show, a comedic variety show that can be equally read as a children’s program or a parody of a children’s program. The show aired for over two decades and featured character comedy, puppetry, audience participation, Floyd’s vaudevillian piano playing and a puppet sidekick named Oogie. The Uncle Floyd Show had musical guests including such renowned performers as The Ramones, Bon Jovi, Blue Öyster Cult, Joe Jackson and Cyndi Lauper. Uncle Floyd continues to perform his one-of-a-kind act around various northern New Jersey venues. Check out his radio show every Sunday at 9 a.m. EST on WFDU-FM 89.1 and WFDU-FM.

FRANK PAGANO is a drums and percussion musician and teacher. He graduated from the Manhattan School of Music to go on to work with Phoebe Snow and Concord Jazz recording artists Jackie and Roy. Frank has played music in Broadway shows since 1985. His performing and recording credits range from Smokey Joe’s Cafe and Escape to Margaritaville, to Darlene Love and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Frank is currently recording drums, percussion and vocals with prog-rock band Renaissance. He also performs with the Jon Herington Band and The Harmonious Five.

JERRY VIVINO is a multi-talented reed player who attributes his mastering of seven woodwinds to his high school band director Joe Sielski. After graduating in 1972 he attended Manhattan School of Music aspiring to become a full-time musician. For 25 years he was the featured saxophonist for Conan O’Brien on NBC’S  Late Night, The Tonight Show and the TBS cable TV show Conan. As a sideman, Jerry has shared the stage or recorded with the likes of Tony Bennett, Donald Fagen, Johnny Mathis, Darlene Love, Dion DiMucci, Stanley Clark, Franki Valli, Keely Smith, The Allman Brothers, Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen to name a few. Jerry also performs with his brother Floyd’s The Uncle Floyd Show, brother Jimmy’s Blues Revue and as a leader with his own jazz quartet.

DOUG ROMOFF is a professional bassist, entrepreneur and film producer. He performed music in many Broadway shows as well as movie scores and commercial jingles. Doug founded Harmony 534, a full-service music production and video editing facility with clients such as Sesame Street and Criterion Films. Doug also founded the Paradiso Group, an advertising agency that creates multi-media presentations, live television broadcasts and classic TV, radio and print advertising. Doug was the executive producer and creator of Beyond the Crush, a docu-series about wine owners in Napa Valley. He is the co-owner and creative director for Adrenaline Films, a creative services company with clients such as Universal Studios and Xfinity.

JEFF VENHO attended the Juilliard School as a scholarship trumpet performance major, graduating with a master’s degree. Jeff has performed with the NYC Opera, the American Symphony, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and numerous Broadway Shows. In addition to his freelance activities, Jeff is currently employed as Trumpet Professor at Hofstra University and is the Winds Department Chair at the Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan.

About the Mentor ...

JOE SIELSKI was the music teacher and band leader at Glen Rock High School from 1963 to 2003. In 1968, he started the orchestra program at the school, and served on the Middle Atlantic States High School Evaluation Committee. In 1976, Joe got his M.A. degree in conducting from Columbia University TC. He also served as Glen Rock High School Fine Arts Department Chairperson. Joe has been married to his wife, Carolyn, for more than 50 years. They hosted the reunion of the Boys From Glen Rock High and Joe played/ conducted at the reunion concert at Glen Rock High School.

About the Filmmaker ...

BARRY RUBINOW grew up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, and made his first film in eighth grade at Glen Rock Junior/Senior High School. With early aspirations to be a filmmaker, he moved to Los Angeles and attended the University of Southern California’s acclaimed school of cinema. The first documentary he edited, Red Grooms: Sunflower in a Hothouse, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. His career as a producer, director, editor and indie filmmaker has included winning an Emmy Award for editing the CBS science show, Beakman’s World. He was also a founding member of the Documentary Channel, which was in 25 million homes on Dish Network and DirecTV, and ran all creative endeavors of the channel, overseeing the branding and on-air IDs and promos. He produced over 100 episodes of the channel’s flagship original show, DocTalk, interviewing acclaimed documentary filmmakers from Werner Herzog to Alex Gibney to Errol Morris. Rubinow brings his unique background and experience and love of his hometown, to this powerful project.

(www.bandedtogethermovie.com)

For tickets and information about the Montclair Film Festival, click here. 

BY JOHN LEMAY

Though this author has seen many Italian Westerns, for years I had avoided watching Navajo Joe because I had wrongly assumed it was an American Western due to its star: Burt Reynolds. Happily, I discovered that Navajo Joe is a solidly entertaining film. Reynolds stars as the title character, out for revenge after a gang of cutthroats massacres his tribe and scalps his wife. The rest of the film shows Reynolds hunting down the bandits and killing them one by one. Naturally, as this is a Spaghetti Western, Joe has a few anti-hero traits. When the same outlaw gang begins terrorizing the town of Esperanza, Joe dupes the townspeople into paying him to kill the gang, thus managing to profit from an act he was intending to carry out anyway (hence the film's Italian title A Dollar a Head). Though a solid film produced by Dino de Laurentiis, directed by Sergio Corbucci (Django) and scored by Ennio Morricone, Burt Reynolds often puts the movie down, stating that it could only be shown in prisons and on airplanes to truly captive audiences that couldn't escape. Supposedly the bad blood began when Reynolds misunderstood that he was to be working with Sergio Leone rather than Sergio Corbucci, and vice versa Corbucci initially hoped to cast Marlon Brando. Due to the mutual disappointment the director and his star didn't get along terribly well. The film was shot between two of Corbucci's other westerns, Johnny Oro (1966) and Hellbenders (1967). The camera work and direction for the action scenes are top notch and Reynolds himself was said to have done his own stunts, in addition to overseeing the stunt work on the entire film. Ennio Morricone (under the alias of Leo Nichols) composes another good score, with the main theme being the most memorable.

The picture quality on the Blu-ray, though not flawless, is good overall. Included in the special features is a commentary track by the Kino Lorber Senior Vice President of Theatrical Releasing, Gary Palmucci. In addition to the usual cast and crew backgrounds, Palmucci also offers up some interesting insights into running a company such as Kino Lorber and how they acquire their various titles. The Blu-ray also comes with a trailer for Navajo Joe and other Reynolds MGM/UA action films White Lightning, Gator and Malone.

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John LeMay is the author of several western non-fiction titles, among them Tall Tales and Half Truths of Billy the Kid. Click here to order from Amazon.

University of California Press

Pages: 264

28 b&w illustrations

ISBN: 9780520380097

Paperback

RRP: £27

REVIEW BY ADRIAN SMITH

When the Argentine actress Isabel Sarli passed away in June 2019 the world lost one of the most beautiful, glamorous, and let’s be honest, sexy women in cinema. She was a superstar, a goddess, whose twenty-seven films from 1958 to 1984 with partner-director and frequent co-star Armando Bó caused scandal and outrage in their home country of Argentina, and yet outside of the Spanish-speaking world she is relatively unknown. Aside from some films making it to New York’s 42^nd Street grindhouses they did not make much of an impact, which is a great pity, so one hopes that this book, the first about Sarli to be published in English, will go some way towards improving the situation.

Isabel Sarli, nicknamed Coca, a former Miss Argentina who reached the semi-finals for Miss Universe in 1955, made her film debut swimming nude in Thunder Among the Leaves (1958), and immediately caused a sensation. The scene is often said to be the first glimpse of full-frontal nudity in Argentinian cinema. She immediately became a star and embarked on a remarkable partnership (and personal relationship) with its director Armando Bó. She was said to be the cleanest woman in cinema, as so many of the films featured her bathing or showering. She was also not averse to frolicking naked in snow, on sand or in the jungle. She was Insatiable (also the name of her last film with Bó in 1984). In what is probably their most famous film Fuego (1969), she trysts with her lover, her housemaid and even random workmen she picks up in the street, whilst in Fever (1972) she memorably pleasures herself whilst fantasising about horses copulating. With other film titles in their career like Tropical Lust (1964), Naked Temptation (1966) and Intimacies of a Prostitute (1972), it is no wonder she was a famous sexual icon whilst at the same time attracting a vast amount of censorship and distribution issues at home.

As Victoria Ruétalo makes clear in this excellent book, Sarli was not only in front of the camera; she was heavily involved in the production of the films. After all, it was her body that was frequently the selling point, so it only seems right that she had an element of power and control over what was going on. The book explores their filmography in relation to Argentinian politics, in particular in reference to the Perón era and its emphasis on the power of the working man. It is surely no coincidence that Sarli’s first nude swim saw her being watched by a local worker. Frequently Sarli’s sexuality was present in relation to the working class, juxtaposing leisure with the hard labour they had to perform. Sometimes, as in Meat (1968) where Sarli’s character is kidnapped by some of her fellow workforce in the meat-packing factory and gang-raped, the working man is the enemy. These films could be challenging as well as titillating.

Ruétalo also looks at the problems inherent in trying to research a subject when archives have been destroyed. There was so much government censorship within Argentina, but sadly the records were disposed of, and the historian is left trying to find crumbs that still reveal something about what happened. Thankfully the book is able to present us with what she was able to locate. Their impact on the Spanish-speaking world is also assessed. Not only did Sarli and Bó shoot their films around South America, making the most of the spectacular locations on offer, but they were also seen in many countries as well as Argentina. In Feugo they even managed a short trip to shoot scenes in New York, adding further local appeal for those grindhouse audiences.

Violated Frames: Armando Bó and Isabel Sarli's Sexploits is an essential read for anyone interested in learning more about this fascinating piece of World Cinema history and the fabulous icon that was Isabel Sarli.

This reviewer recorded an interview with Victoria Ruétalo for the podcast Second Features, which can be found here: https://play.acast.com/s/second-features/fuego-1969-with-guest-victoria-ruetalo

You can purchase the book in all the regular places, including here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520380097/violated-frames

By Lee Pfeiffer

If you are a subscriber to Amazon Prime, you already know that the service is a goldmine of retro movies and TV shows that are included in the annual subscription fee. You have probably also noticed that there are independent movie screening services that you can subscribe to for separate fees and these can be played conveniently through the Amazon Prime app. These separate streaming services are usually built around a niche such as horror films, westerns, foreign films, etc. One of the apps I recently discovered is Screenpix and for a paltry $2.99 a month, you can access a wide range of retro movies that are not included in Amazon Prime's catalog. The service gives you a 7-day free trial and is also available through Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV and Playstation. Here are just some of the titles I glimpsed in browsing through the service:

• "Shout at the Devil"
• "The Professionals"
• "Fail Safe"
• "The Innocents"
• "Red River"
• "Marooned"
• "Bus Stop"
• "To Catch a Thief"
• "The Blob" (original)
• "Rollerball" (original)
• "To Catch a Thief"
• "Stagecoach" (original)
• "Born Losers"
• "The African Queen"
• "Return of Sabata"
• "Attack on the Iron Coast"
• "The Wild Angels"
• "Billion Dollar Brain"
• "Where's Papa?"
• "Witchfinder General" (aka "The Conqueror Worm")
• "Attack!"
• "The 1,000 Plane Raid"
• "Woman of Straw"
• "House of Usher"
• "The Longest Day"
  

By Design: The Joe Caroff Story

Premiering on TCM and HBO Max

Cinema Retro readers probably already know about Joe Caroff’s unique contribution to James Bond and film history, but outside of serious movie fan circles, he’s less well known. Several years ago, former HBO producer (and CR writer) Mark Cerulli and editor Paul C. Rosen set out to change that by putting together a documentary about his remarkable life – growing up in the Great Depression, fighting in WWII and being part of the Mad Men advertising scene in the 1960s and 70s. Along with way, Joe designed a number of iconic film logos including West Side Story, 007, Rollerball, A Hard Day’s Night, Orion Pictures and many others. If you’re expecting a Bond documentary, this ain’t it; rather it’s a portrait of a true American success story that delves into his troubled relationship with his father, finding the girl of his dreams and conquering Hollywood, one brilliant logo at a time.

Also in the cast is legendary film executive Mike Medavoy (who commissioned Joe to design the Orion Pictures logo) and top Hollywood poster artist Dan Chapman.

"By Design: The Joe Caroff Story" premiered last night on TCM (North America) and is now available on HBO Max.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Paramount Home Video:

Newly restored in 4K Ultra HD, Elvis Presley’s beloved 1961 classic BLUE HAWAII arrives as part of the collectible Paramount Presents line on both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray™ for the first time ever November 15, 2022!

Enjoy this rollicking Technicolor musical in ultra-crisp 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision™ and HDR-10.  Fully restored from the original 35mm camera negative, BLUE HAWAII looks more spectacular than ever with every colorful costume and vivid Hawaiian background brought to life.  The first of three films that Elvis shot in Hawaii, BLUE HAWAII celebrated the brand-new exotic state and features the massive hit song “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” which was certified platinum.

For the restoration, the original negative was scanned in 4K/16bit, however the opening title sequence was very grainy because it originally used duped film.  That sequence was completely rebuilt using the original film elements from the Paramount library.  Brand new text overlays were created for a truly spectacular opening sequence befitting this delightful film.

The Paramount Presents BLUE HAWAII release includes the film on both 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc™ and on Blu-ray, as well as access to a digital copy of the film.  The Blu-ray additionally includes the original theatrical trailer and the following new bonus content:

· Commentary by historian James L. Neibaur

· Blue Hawaii Photo Scrapbook—contains high-res images from the Paramount archives, including behind-the-scenes shots

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

The year 1967 marked the high point of Sidney Poitier's screen career. He starred in three highly acclaimed box office hits: "To Sir, With Love", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "In the Heat of the Night".  The fact that Poitier did not score a Best Actor Oscar nomination that year had less to do with societal prejudices (he had already won an Oscar) than the fact that he was competing with himself and split the voter's choices for his best performance. "In the Heat of the Night" did win the Best Picture Oscar and immortalized Poitier's performance as Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective who finds himself assigned to assist a redneck sheriff (Rod Steiger, who did win the Oscar that year for his performance in this film) in a town in the deep south that has experienced a grisly unsolved murder. When Steiger's character, resentful for having to work with a black man, refers to Tibbs as "boy" and asks what they call him back in Philadelphia, he replies "They call me Mister Tibbs!", thereby uttering what would become one of the cinema's most iconic lines of dialogue. In the film, Poitier plays Tibbs as a man of mystery. Little is unveiled about his personal life, which adds immeasurably to his mystique. He proves to be highly intelligent, logical and courageous, though refreshingly, not immune from making mistakes and misjudgments. The reaction to the movie was so good that, Hollywood being Hollywood, United Artists became convinced that Tibbs could be brought back to star in a "tentpole" series of crime thrillers. These have previously been released as individual Blu-ray titles by Kino Lorber and they are now available as a double feature set.

First up is the 1970 release, "The Call me MISTER Tibbs!" Aside from Poitier's commanding presence as the same character, there is virtually no connection between this Virgil Tibbs and the one seen in the previous film. The screenplay by Alan Trustman, who wrote the winners "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "Bullitt", softens the Tibbs character to the point that he resembles one of those unthreatening TV gumshoes. When we first see him, he is now in the San Francisco Police Department, though Trustman doesn't provide even a single line of dialogue to explain how he got there. He's apparently been there for some time, too, because Tibbs has suddenly acquired a wife (Barbara McNair) and a young son and daughter. The movie opens with the brutal murder of a call girl who lived in a pricey apartment. Evidence points to Tibbs' old friend Logan Sharpe (Martin Landau), a firebrand street preacher and activist who enjoys a wide following and who is galvanizing the community to vote in a politically controversial referendum. Sharpe professes his innocence and Tibbs sets out to acquit him and find the real killer. The trail quickly leads to a confusing mix of motley characters and red herrings, among them Anthony Zerbe and Ed Asner. Poitier is never less than impressive even when playing a watered-down version of a once gritty character. However, his impact is diminished by the sappy screenplay which allocates an abundance of time showing Tibbs dealing with day-to-day family living. He flirts with his wife and offers life lessons to his son that border on the extremes of political incorrectness. When he catches the lad smoking, Tibbs decides to teach the pre-teen a lesson by inviting him to join him in smoking Churchill cigars and drinking some scotch. (Most of our dads would probably have employed methods that were slightly more "conventional".) This domestic gibberish reduces the character of Tibbs to a big screen version of Brian Keith's Uncle Bill from the "Family Affair" TV series. Director Gordon Douglas, normally very underrated, handles the pedantic script in a pedantic manner, tossing in a few impressive action scenes including one in which Poitier chases Zerbe on foot seemingly through half of San Francisco in the movie's best sequence. The scenes between Poitier and Landau bristle with fine acting but they only share a limited amount of screen time. Quincy Jones provides a lively, funky jazz score but the film never rises above the level of mediocrity.

Poitier returned to the screen for the last time as Virgil Tibbs in 1971 in "The Organization". Compared to the previous outing, this one is superior on most levels. The script by James R. Webb is just as confusing but there is a grittiness to the production and the character of Tibbs is toughened up a bit. Thankfully, the scenes of his home life with wife and kids are kept to a minimum. The film, well directed by Don Medford (his final production), begins with an inspired caper in which a group of masked men stage an audacious and elaborate infiltration of an office building owned by some shady mob characters. They abscond with millions in cocaine. Tibbs is assigned to the case and is shocked when the culprits secretly approach him and admit they stole the drugs. Turns out they are community activists who wanted to prevent the cocaine from hitting the streets. However, they want Tibbs to know that they did not commit a murder that occurred on the premises of the office. They claim someone else did the dirty deed and is trying to pin it on them. Tibbs believes their story and goes against department protocols by keeping the information secret from his superiors while he works with the activists to crack the case. At some point the plot became so tangled that I gave up trying to figure out who was who and just sat back to enjoy the mayhem. Tibbs' withholding of information from the police department backfires on him and he ends up being suspended from the force. Predictably, he goes rogue in order to take on organized crime figures who are trying to get the drugs back. "The Organization" is fairly good Seventies cop fare capped off by a lengthy action sequence imaginatively set in a subway tunnel that is under construction. The supporting cast is impressive and includes reliable Sheree North, scruffy Allen Garfield and up-and-comers Raul Julia, Ron O'Neal and a very brief appearances by Max Gail and Damon Wilson. Barbara McNair returns as Mrs. Tibbs but her sole function is to provide attractive window dressing. Gil Melle provides a hip jazz score.

Both films boast fine transfers but the only bonus features are the original trailers.

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This featurette from Turner Classic Movies is a "celebration of song and dance from Hollywood's most iconic Black performers of the 1940s-1950s." Features some marvelous performers displaying some equally marvelous talents. 

By Hank Reineke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This 2022 release from Kino-Lorber Studio Classics supplants their original 2015 Blu-ray issue of TWICE TOLD TALES. As with its first incarnation, the film is presented in Technicolor and in its original 1.66:1 ratio and in 1920x1080p with removable English subtitles. This new issue looks great… but no greater than their 2015 release, quite frankly. This edition doesn’t necessarily offer a significant upgrade, if at all. Bonus features ported over from the first issue includes a commentary from film scholars Richard Harland Smith and Perry Martin as well as a brief “Trailers from Hell” segment courtesy of Mick Garris.

It seems this Kino “Special Edition” differs only in small ways from their earlier effort. First, a “collectible” slipcover (featuring a pair of color photographs on the reverse sleeve), replaces the two black-and-white shots featured on the case of the original issue. The original edition featured only three trailers in total – this new issue balloons to a generous baker’s dozen of trailers from other Poe/Price/AIP titles offered on the Kino Studio Classics line. On the minus side, this new edition, somewhat oddly, offers no chapter selections – a strange omission for a portmanteau film. An essential purchase, I suppose – but only for those who missed out on the original 2015 pressing.

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By Ernie Magnotta

In the late 1970s and up until the mid-80s, six-time, undefeated world karate champion Chuck Norris was making quite a name for himself as a martial arts cinema superstar. By 1985, he would begin to tone down the amount of karate used in his films and he soon became known simply as an action movie hero. One of the films which helped this transition was the successful and exciting 1986 action flick with an all-star 70s disaster movie-like cast called The Delta Force in which he starred as Scott McCoy. Norris then went on to make three more enjoyable films before finally returning to the role of McCoy in 1990’s Delta Force 2.

When the brilliant, wealthy and ruthless drug kingpin Ramon Cota (Billy Drago, Pale Rider, 1987’s The Untouchables) captures a group of undercover American DEA agents and makes them prisoners at his South American drug compound where he eventually plans to execute them, Colonel Scott McCoy (Norris) and his fearless Delta Force spring into action and attempt to free the hostages as well as put an end to Cota’s lucrative drug cartel before any more of its cocaine shipments can reach the United States.

Shot in the Philippines, directed by Chuck’s brother, Aaron Norris (Braddock: Missing in Action III), and written by Lee Reynolds (Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold), Delta Force 2, which continued Chuck’s association with now legendary film studio The Cannon Group, has, over the years, been labelled a bit of a misstep in Chuck’s filmography. First of all, it has been said that the film isn’t really a sequel to the original Delta Force. It just uses the title and Chuck’s character name from the first movie, but that’s about it. I guess that’s true. Next, the script usually comes under fire for containing many predictable scenes/action movie clichés. These include the overly-happy partner with the perfect (and pregnant) wife who we just know will both meet a bad end early on as well as re-working scenes and ideas from not only other films, but from other Norris adventures as well (part of the plot seems to be taken from Chuck’s 1984 hit Missing in Action and there are also slightly re-worked scenes from 1987’s The Untouchables and 1979’s Moonraker). While all of this is also true, these sequences and ideas are done with just enough variation that we let them slide and still thoroughly enjoy the film. The man responsible for making these scenes work is director Aaron Norris who films many well-directed and exciting action sequences and keeps the movie engaging and fun. The last bit of criticism this movie gets usually has to do with the acting which has been labeled sub-par. This is just another critique I disagree with. While no one’s performance in this film would be considered for an Academy Award (it’s not that type of film, critics), the amazingly talented cast does very well with the material given to them.

Of course, the main reason any self-respecting action aficionado would spend almost two hours watching this film is due to the presence of the man himself, Chuck Norris. What more can really be said about Chuck? He’s low-key, likeable, sometimes humorous, yet believably deadly when necessary. As usual, he’s perfect for this type of film and his enormous fan base will not be disappointed.

A cinematic action hero is only as good as his nefarious adversary and when it comes to vile villains; it’s tough to top Billy Drago. The extremely talented Drago, who also acted alongside Chuck in both Invasion U.S.A. and Hero and the Terror, plays amoral drug dealer Cota in a totally convincing way and, throughout the film, exudes ice-cold, creepy evil. Drago really makes you hate his character which works all the more once Chuck’s Colonel McCoy gets the upper hand on him.

The impressive acting doesn’t stop there, as the enjoyable film is loaded with even more top-notch talent. To begin with, the always welcome John P. Ryan (It’s Alive, Runaway Train) gives an extremely likeable and humorous performance as a US General who just loves to kick ass. Fans of 60s and 70s cinema will be happy to see the great Richard Jaeckel (The Dirty Dozen, The Devil’s Brigade, Grizzly, Day of the Animals) as a tough-as-nails DEA agent. Next up, is Paul Perri (Manhunter) as Chuck’s ill-fated partner; not to mention the highly recognizable Mark Margolis (Scarface, Breaking Bad) as evil General Olmedo. Last, but not least, legendary actor/stuntman Dick Warlock (Jaws, 1981’s Halloween II) shows up briefly (blink and you’ll miss him) as a DEA agent on stakeout.

During filming, a helicopter crash killed four crew members and the pilot. The movie is dedicated to their memory.

Delta Force 2 (which is also known as Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection and Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold) has been released on a region one Blu-ray by Kino Lorber and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The beautiful HD transfer boasts sharp, crystal clear images as well as just as clear audio. Other than the original theatrical trailer along with trailers for Chuck’s extremely entertaining actioners An Eye for an Eye and Hero and the Terror (which are both available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber), the disc contains no special features. However, if you’re in the mood to sit back, relax, not think too hard and just watch our man Chuck almost singlehandedly mop up the floor with the bad guys, then Delta Force 2 certainly delivers the goods.

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By Hank Reineke

In his collection of 1997, Who the Devil Made It?: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, Peter Bogdanovich, trumpeted that no one in the film industry, “had ever made good pictures faster or for less money than Edgar Ulmer. What he could do with nothing (occasionally in the script department as well) remains an object lesson for those directors, myself included, who complain about tight budgets and schedules.” Bogdanovich, who befriended Ulmer when the latter was in his seventies, reminded readers the director of such gems as Detour (1945) and The Black Cat (1934) was rarely given more than six-days to shoot any of his features.

Ulmer was an interesting character, an oft-cited ego-centric with high aspirations and boundless energy. Indie Hollywood producers found Ulmer a dependable craftsman who made the most of what he was given – which too often was a pittance. He occasionally made great films. To his credit, he never delivered anything less than an efficient film. In a 2014 study, Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, biographer Noah Isenberg, conceded his on-set mission of seeking “clear-cut answers” was futile: Ulmer’s personal and professional life was nothing if not a bewildering “straddle [of] truth and fiction.”

Though Isenberg exhumed every interview with the director he could find, he acknowledged one couldn’t “accept without qualification what Ulmer himself presented as the truth when he was still alive.” According to film historian Gary D. Rhodes, Robert Clarke, the actor/producer of Beyond the Time Barrier – one of a trio films included here on Kino’s new Blu ray issue of the Edgar G. Ulmer Sci-Fi Collection - considered the writer-director “something of a genius, but also a troubled, difficult person.”

Ulmer was, inarguably, partly responsible for some of his travails. Working at Universal as an art director and set designer in the early ‘30s, Ulmer was given the opportunity to direct the studio’s art-deco atmospheric horror The Black Cat with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. But opportunities to helm future pictures for up-market Hollywood studios were derailed. Though married, Ulmer entered into a scandalous affair with a studio script supervisor – one already married to the nephew of Universal’s c0-founder, Carl Laemmle. The retribution for Ulmer’s affair-of-the-heart was his blacklisting from working at any Hollywood major. But as a filmmaker Ulmer was nothing if not resilient. He worked for the next thirty-odd years as a director-for-hire by independent producers and poverty-row studios.

As Bogdanovich noted, Ulmer was an able craftsman. He was a utilitarian director, successfully cranking out films in nearly every popular-market genre: westerns, gangster films, mysteries, adventure yarns - even the occasional comedy. Though the film noir classic Detour might be his greatest achievement, he is also beloved by fans of classic horror and sci-fi for a string of engaging pictures. He never approached films in the horror genre as toss-a-ways, stories unworthy of his talent. Though none of his subsequent horror pictures would ever match the iconic status anointed to The Black Cat, his occasional dabbles in “fantastic films” were solid efforts.

Some films were better than others. One especially well done was Bluebeard (1944, featuring John Carradine). Sometimes the films were simply off-the-charts exploitation fare as was Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957 with John Agar). His films tended to be, whatever their budgetary shortcomings, memorable. This new set from Kino offers fans a trio of his best sci-fi efforts: a well-regarded effort and two of the last films directed before his departure from the film business.

The “pick” of the set is, arguably, Ulmer’s The Man from Planet X (1951), a very early entry into the Silver-Age sci-fi film sweepstakes. It’s September 1950 and astronomers are puzzled by the sudden surfacing of “a strange astronomical phenomenon” which they describe as “Planet X.” The problem with Planet X is that its trajectory suggests it might be on a collision course with earth. The space craft lands somewhere in the gloomy, foggy moors of Scotland, not too far from the ancient, spooky watchtower where scientists Dr. Elliot and Dr. Mears (Raymond Bond and William Schallert, respectively) and journalist Jack Lawrence (Robert Clarke) just happen to be tracking Planet X’s path. Dr. Elliot’s daughter Enid (Margaret Field) is the unlucky first one to come face-to-face with the Man from Planet X, describing the alien as having a “ghastly caricature” of a human face. But now that he’s arrived on earth the question is why he’s here – and whether he’s friend or foe.

The Man from Planet X received a modicum of press interest in the last months of 1950. There were reports writer-producers Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen’s modest Mid-Century production company was taking on a David vs. Goliath challenge. They were, after all, competing against a Hollywood big dog studio with their modest upstart picture. One month prior to the start of the filming of Planet X at Culver City’s Hal Roach Studio, Howard Hawk’s production of the iconic ‘50s sci-fi thriller The Thing was already in mid-production at RKO. Though tackling the same sort of space-invader subject matter, Planet X was scheduled to be shot – Ulmer-style – in six scant days with a budget of less than $50,000. As one Los Angeles daily noted the threadbare budget allotted “wouldn’t rate you a thing at RKO or any other film factory.” Perhaps not, but the hasty shooting schedule ensured The Man from Planet X would hit cinema screens long before than The Thing.

The producers of Planet X didn’t deny they had proceeded with budgetary economic caution since - they were two of the film’s principal investors and had a lot to lose. “As writers,” Wisberg defended to the L.A.’s Daily News, “we recognized and anticipated the time and budget limitations in our script in advance and are now able to cut corners on the set.” One such frugal measure was their re-using the “standing scenery” left erected of Ingrid Bergman’s Joan of Arc (1948) featuring Ingrid Bergman. (Much of the background scenery and effects in the film are comprised of impressionistic matte paintings and miniatures).

Following the film’s release, Pollexfen conceded while the film’s script was laden with a lot of scientific jargon, there was probably more fiction than science embroidered within. For starters, there was never a mention of exactly how far the visitor from Planet X had traveled to get his spaceship to earth. “We did it on purpose, he admitted. “If we had mentioned the distance some 12-year old with a slide rule would prove we were bums.” With its tight, seventy-one minute running time, The Man from Planet X proves to be a very serviceable thriller.

The scenario of the second film of this collection, Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) exploitatively springboards off the popularity of George Pal’s version of H.G. Well’s The Time Machine. The film was scripted by Arthur C. Pierce who brought us such other 50s and 60s low-budget sci-fi fare as The Cosmic Man (1959), Invasion of the Animal People (1959) and The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966). I really wasn’t expecting much from this film, but was surprised that, all things considered, it was actually a pretty decent futuristic adventure.

On March 5, 1960 Major William Allison (Robert Clarke), a research test pilot for the USAF, sets off on a jet that will straddle the border of earth’s atmosphere and outer space. The craft accidentally strafes the speed of light, catapulting Allison through the time barrier to the Citadel, a fortress protecting the inhabitants from a mutant population. The non-mutant population of the Citadel are all deaf and dumb – with the exception of the grandfatherly supreme leader (Vladimir Sokoloff) and his belligerent Captain (Boyd Morgan). Most of communication of the residents of the Citadel is done telepathically – a bit of bad luck for the bewildered test pilot trying to plot an escape.

Allison learns the year is now (gasp!) 2024. The residents are survivors of a plague brought on by cosmic radiation from too many nuclear explosions on earth. They are also part of a dying race. There have been no newborns in the Citadel in twenty-years since the plague left all of the men sterile. Among the last born were the supreme leader’s granddaughter Trirene (Darlene Tompkins), a nicely-formed ingénue. There’s a sort of cockeyed plan for Trirene to mate with Allison to promulgate the species. But that idea goes bust when double-crosses and carnage follow in the wake of the scheming scientists and rampaging mutants. There’s also a bit of a Twilight Zone twist to keep things interesting in the end. Despite the film’s low budget, Ulmer’s talents in art direction allows the film’s futuristic sets – all triangles, diamond-shapes and inverted pyramids – to give the film a glossy, moneyed appearance.

Clocking in a little more than 58 minutes, the final film of the set, The Amazing Transparent Man (1960), ties things up in perfunctory fashion – the running time adequate, I suppose, to tell its slim story. In 1959 the film’s screenwriter, Jack Lewis – whose previous scripting work was mostly of adventures and westerns – decided to try his hand at writing a science-fiction tale. His script, originally titled Search for a Shadow, was initially picked–up by indie Pacific International Pictures. Ulmer was tapped to direct the film – this time involving a master safe-cracker who is “sprung from prison by a ring of international spies.”

The spies are seeking copious amounts of atomic material X-13 so they can develop a ray that will transform an army invisible for the purpose of military supremacy. To that end Major Paul Krenner (James Griffith) and Laura Matson (Marguerite Chapman) orchestrate the escape of safe-cracker Joey Faust (Douglas Kennedy) to – under the cloak of invisibility - break into the government’s highly protected stores of fissionable material. Krenner is an unlikeable sort, manipulative and cold. It’s not clear whether he’s acting on behalf of a secretive U.S. agency or as a double-agent for a foreign power.

He’s assisted, under duress, by Dr. Peter Ulof (Ivan Triesault), an “eminent nuclear scientist” and developer of the special X-ray machine that turns both guinea pigs and escaped convicts invisible. Ulof is acutely aware of Krenner’s dark intentions, but is unable to do anything about it: his reasons for dutifully assisting in the Major’s schemes becomes evident as the film unspools. In the meantime, Faust incurs Krenner’s ill-will by enjoying an unsanctioned - but predictable – return to bank robbery – a side-benefit of his now being invisible. There are a few hand-to-hand combat tussles but little suspense as the tale unfolds. The story hastily wraps with Ulof’s breaking of the “third wall” with an earnest morality plea/request.

Lewis’s conjured invisible man/spy-ring scenario was intriguing but not without precedent. Curt Siodmak had already written a more successful variant of the idea for Universal during WWII. That film, Edwin L. Marin’s Invisible Agent (1942), didn’t cheat on the special effects as would The Amazing Transparent Man. Universal’s especial effects team (including the illustrious John P. Fulton) earned an Academy Award nomination for their work on this earlier project. The invisibility tricks as provided by special effects supervisor Roger George in Transparent Man are passable but not breathtaking.

To be fair, the script would undergo numerous tweaks. Ulmer and producers John Miller and Robert L. Madden liked the premise, but were not enamored with the script’s original title. Lewis reportedly offered them no fewer than twenty-three alternate titles, the filmmakers initially settling on The Invisible Invader. But this title too was tossed when Edward L. Cahn’s Invisible Invaders (1959, with John Agar and John Carradine) beat them to market. Other titles were bandied about (“The Invisible Thief,” “The Invisible Gangster”) until the whole “invisible” campaign was dropped in favor of The Amazing Transparent Man. Lewis’s script called for Faust’s character to - intriguingly - cast no shadow even when not in his invisible state. The screenwriter contended this element was quickly – and sadly - dropped when the filmmakers ordered him to “Take out the shadow part. The budget won’t stand all that special effects work.”

This new Kino Lorber Blu-ray set will obviously be of great interest to fans of Ulmer and 1950s/early 1960s vintage sci-fi. If you are a fan or collector of commentaries in particular then this release provides you with a bonanza of them. There are no hoary hack commentators present, these are folks who know what they’re talking about. The Man from Planet X features no fewer than three separate commentaries featuring the likes of Tom Weaver, David Schecter, Dr. Robert J. Kiss, Joe Dante, Gary D. Rhodes, Richard Harland Smith and Ulmer’s Daughter Arianne Ulmer Cipes. Weaver, Schecter and Rhodes do double-duty on Beyond the Time Barrier, with David Del Valle going it alone on The Amazing Transparent Man.

All three films are presented in their original black-and-white in 1920 x 1080p with DTS audio, Planet X in 1.37:1 and Time Barrier and Transparent Man in 1.85:1. The set also features the theatrical trailers for all three of the films and an option for removable English sub-titles. The films generally all look great, The Amazing Transparent Man looking a bit soft-focused in parts, but still better than anything we’ve seen so far of this title. Totally recommended.

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"OH, THOSE NAUGHTY SWEDES!"

In a recent book review about Swedish exploitation films, Cinema Retro columnist Adrian Smith points out that in the 1960s and 1970s Sweden became "the sexy film capital of Europe." As cinematic censorship eased around the world, filmmakers were quick to capitalize on the new screen freedoms, churning out countless low-budget sexploitation films that were softcore in content but far more erotic than any previous films that had been widely shown. Pity the horny person who lived in a rural area without access to theaters that showed such fare, and were thus not part of the action. As comedian George Gobel once quipped to Johnny Carson, "I feel like the world is a tuxedo and I'm a pair of brown shoes." The profit margins on these films were impressive, as they generally cast no-name actors and filmed in locations that were both accessible and economic. Many of these films cited Sweden in the title. Why Sweden was singled out among the other Nordic countries to be a particular haven for sexual permissiveness is still a mystery but this much is certain: the public equated the Swedes with being among the most sexually liberated people on earth. Was it true that they were having more fun than most of us? I guess you'd have to consult Swedes who came of age during that era, but to quote the famous line from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Swedish sexploitation films presented many new female "stars", but most of them faded quickly. One exception was Christina Lindberg (aka Kristina Lindberg), who still has a devoted subculture of fans based on her work in sexploitation films of the 1970s. Small in stature, Lindberg nevertheless was the very definition of voluptuous. While still a teenager, she appeared in prominent photo spreads for both Playboy and Penthouse when both magazines were at the height of their influence. Lindberg quickly attracted film producers and she began appearing in erotic films. She landed her first starring role in "Maid in Sweden", released in 1971. It is a Swedish film shot in English language and top-lining Lindberg as a major new star on the exploitation film circuit, a point that was emphasized by marketing materials that thoughtfully provided her measurements: 42-21-36. The film has been jointly released on Blu-ray through Kino Lorber and Code Red, though it has been in circulation for many years on other labels.  

Lindberg plays Inga, a 16 year-old high school student who lives with her parents in a rural area. She is quiet, studious and well-behaved but yearns for a bit of excitement. The opportunity comes when she receives an invitation from her older sister Greta (Monica Ekman) to stay a few days with her in Stockholm, where she works and rents an apartment. Inga makes the train journey to the big city and is greeted by her sister. However, things get uncomfortable when she finds that Greta has a live-in lover, her boyfriend Casten (Crista Ekman, Monica's real-life husband.) Inga is nervous and uncomfortable sharing such small quarters with a man she's never met before. She becomes even more uncomfortable when she witnesses the uninhibited lifestyle of Greta and Casten. They walk about in various stages of undress and think nothing of noisily making love without making much of an effort to be discreet. When Inga secretly observes them, it fuels her own sexual awakening, though not in a pleasant way. She has a nightmare in which she is being gang-raped and is saved by an older women who tries to seduce her. These scenes are extraneous to the story and are inserted simply to provide some additional kinky visuals. Feeling Inga could use some male companionship, Greta and Casten set her up for a date with a friend, Bjorn, who is 21 years-old and seems like a polite, considerate person. That changes when he gets Inga to his apartment. When she spurs his advances, he violently rapes her. In true celluloid fantasy fashion, she puts aside this crime as though her attacker made a simple social flub. She becomes infatuated with him and the two form a romantic bond. Then there is a turn for the worse when Casten tries to seduce her, thus leading to a domestic crisis that endangers her relationship with her sister. By the time Inga must return home, she has lived the equivalent of years of sexual experience all in a matter of days.

"Maid in Sweden" is by any definition a sexploitation film. It exists only to showcase varying degrees of female nudity. Christina Lindberg willingly obliges, doffing her top at every opportunity and occasionally walking about starkers. However, she doesn't bring much personality to the role, playing the part in a grim, unsmiling Wednesday Addams-like mode. The sex scenes are softcore, but push the boundaries. The film, directed by Floch Johnson, is a cut above most other sex movies of the era in that the actors are competent and there is a good deal of footage devoted to showing aspects of Stockholm. There is also a soundtrack comprised mostly of original rock songs. Lindberg would go on to make other exploitation/sexploitation films, most notably the controversial rape revenge movie "Thriller" (aka "They Call Her One-Eye"). Ultimately, she would return to school and veered away from acting to become an animal activist and environmentalist.

Code Red and Kino Lorber have provided a very good 2K transfer which probably means this is the best video version of the movie to be made available. The only bonus extras are the original trailer and a slew of other sexploitation film trailers.

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Cinema Retro mourns the passing of Angela Lansbury at age 96. She leaves behind a remarkable legacy of achievements on stage and in film and television. 

"Torah! Torah! Torah!" 

By Lee Pfeiffer

"The Frisco Kid" is a gentle buddy comedy Western made in 1979 when star Gene Wilder was riding high and post-"Star Wars" Harrison Ford was a rising star. The script was not a hot property, as it had plenty of people's fingerprints on it by the time Wilder signed on to the film. Ford was a major fan of Wilder's and was eager to co-star. Seasoned veteran Robert Aldrich, best known for his macho action movies such as "The Dirty Dozen", "Flight of the Phoenix", "Ulzana's Raid" and "The Longest Yard", was signed as director. It was seemingly an odd fit but Aldrich had directed the 1963 Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin Western comedy "4 for Texas". The film finds Wilder well-cast as Avram, a somewhat bumbling rabbinical student in Poland who is chosen to travel to San Francisco to serve as the rabbi for a new order. As a reward, he is shown a photograph of the beautiful young daughter of the religious leader in the area who will become Avram's bride. The trip from Poland to California would be arduous enough in the days of the old West under any circumstance but things go particularly wrong for Avram. Upon arriving on the east coast of America, he's told the ship he had booked passage on has been significantly delayed. He befriends three men with a wagon who say they are going to San Francisco. He opts to join them but along the way they rob him and leave him penniless in the desert. A group of Mormons save him and give him money to continue his now seemingly impossible journey across a hellish landscape of deserts and other natural barriers, as well as dangerous Indian tribes. He has a chance encounter with Tommy (Harrison Ford), a low-key friendly young guy who occasionally robs banks. The two men make for an "Odd Couple" scenario as they bond in friendship. Tommy feels sorry for the hapless Avram and agrees to escort him to San Francisco. The film chronicles their adventures and misadventures along the way, some comical, others frightening. 

Today's film comedies are largely defined by an abundance of cynicism, cruelty and gross-out jokes, so one is hesitant to be harsh to the bygone era of  family-friendly big screen yucks that "The Frisco Kid" epitomizes. There are some genuine giggles in the film, particularly due to Wilder's fish-out-of-water reaction to American traditions and the chemistry between Wilder and Ford is genuine and enjoyable. At other times, the film is sentimental and occasionally touching, as in the scenes in which our hero rabbi risks his life to save the sacred Torah he must deliver to his synagogue. However, the script by Michael Elias and Frank Shaw is meandering and has quite a few slow spots. There is a completely extraneous sequence in which our heroes are captured by hostile Indians that employs the age-old joke of having the tribal chief actually be a sophisticated, seemingly educated man. The scene drags on forever and goes nowhere. At 2 hours, the movie is about a half-hour too long. At times it seems endless and one can only wonder if a 90 minute version wouldn't have been more enjoyable. Sometimes less is more."The Frisco Kid" isn't a bad film, but it is bloated and Robert Aldrich's direction is workman-like and uninspired. It will primarily be of interest to Harrison Ford fans as an example of the eclectic types of films he appeared in after the original "Star Wars".

The region-free Warner Archive Blu-ray looks very good indeed. The only extra is the original trailer.

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Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson epitomized "the strong, silent type" of leading men. Neither of them were very enthused about promoting their films on publicity tours but occasionally they would bite the bullet and go before the press. In 1981, Marvin and Bronson, who had co-starred in "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), reunited for director Peter Hunt's adventure film "Death Hunt". Probably due to contractual obligations, the men made some joint press appearances. This interview with host Bobbie Wygant consists mostly of the usual softball questions as she tries to run out the clock with a polite Marvin and a seemingly bored Bronson.

“ANESTHESIA ON FILM”

By Raymond Benson

Preston Sturges’ filmmaking career in Hollywood between 1940-1944 is unparalleled. He is often called the first “writer-director” who would helm his own screenplays (actually this is untrue, since Charles Chaplin had been doing it since 1914, and Orson Welles was also doing it in the early 40s), but there is no question that Sturges became an auteur of sorts in those glorious five years. His flame burned brightly for that short period, and then it sadly weakened and eventually blew out.

One of the reasons for the filmmaker’s demise was the unfortunate production of The Great Moment, a biopic of a 19th Century dentist named Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, who is (mostly) credited as discovering the use of ether as an anesthetic for surgery.

Sturges, who was known for his acerbic comedies like The Great McGinty (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), and Sullivan’s Travels (1942), was apparently obsessed with Morton’s story and had been working on a script as early as 1939 to be directed by Henry Hathaway. That project was shelved, and then Sturges began his run of directing his own scripts in 1940. He resurrected the Morton biopic on his own in 1942. It was based on the book Triumph Over Pain (1940) by René Fülüp-Miller, and that also became the title of Sturges’ script. The film was shot before the making of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero! (both released in 1944). But Paramount, Sturges’ studio, didn’t like the Morton biopic Sturges had made, and they took control away from the writer-director, retitled it The Great Moment, and re-edited it. The film was finally released two years after its production in 1944, after Miracle and Conquering Hero. By then, Sturges had already left Paramount in disgust. The Great Moment bombed at the box office and critics hated it. Sturges made a few more films for other studios, but his career never regained the peak of his earlier Paramount successes.

The Great Moment exhibits how Dr. Morton (Joel McCrea) discovers that ether allows him to successfully pull a tooth from patient Eben Frost (Sturges’ stalwart character actor William Demarest), so he develops a specially shaped bottle from which patients can inhale the ether vapors. History has shown that Morton pulled pieces of his “idea” from other doctors and his mentor, surgeon Professor Warren (Harry Carey), and the story illustrates this. After Morton’s discovery, he endured attacks to his claim, especially when he attempts to patent the process. The medical profession is quick to condemn Morton for what they perceive as “monetizing” the method by patenting it, even though Morton has no intention of making a profit. He simply doesn’t want to reveal the ingredients of what’s in the bottle. Morton and his wife, Elizabeth (Betty Field), withstand hardships as Morton stubbornly pursues his claims in courts and even in a petition to the president of the United States.

Doesn’t sound like a comedy, does it? Well, it isn’t. There are humorous bits and pieces in The Great Moment (mostly from Demarest), but the studio was correct in determining that the film was not in keeping with the previous “Preston Sturges Comedies.” Never mind that Sturges had likely made a good biopic with a message about sacrifice. Paramount deleted scenes, rearranged the narrative flow, and emphasized the few comic bits—and then they marketed the film as if it were a Preston Sturges Comedy. It’s no wonder that audiences were disappointed.

In viewing The Great Moment today, one can see that it’s not a good film. It really is “anesthesia on celluloid.” It is, as the late filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich calls it in a supplement included on the new Kino Lorber disk, a “mess.” The thing is, Sturges can’t be blamed for it. But for Preston Sturges fans, it is an interesting document. We can see that there are indeed Sturges’ fingerprints all through the picture, and many of the Sturges “stock company” are present (such as Franklin Pangborn, Porter Hall, and others). The irony and bite that is pure Sturges is often there in the dialogue.

In short, The Great Moment is a great failure, but one that illustrates how Hollywood tended to squash talented auteurs who bucked the system in the 1940s (like Sturges and Welles).

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray edition looks pristine and sharp in its glorious black and white. The disk includes the previously mentioned supplement, “Triumph Over Pain: A Celebration of Preston Sturges,” which is a three-way Zoom call between Tom Sturges (Preston’s son), Bogdanovich, and film historian Constantine Nasr. This is a lot of fun and very informative (perhaps more entertaining than the feature film!). Also of interest is a lengthy Introduction by Nasr, which goes into the history of the problematic production. The theatrical trailers for this and other Sturges’ releases round out the package.

The Great Moment is for fans of Preston Sturges, to be sure, but also for historians interested in documentation of Hollywood’s miscalculations and bone-headed decisions when it came to filmmakers who likely knew much more about what they were doing than the studios behind them.

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By Cai Ross

Just as the school holidays were about to start, way back in the December of 1982, ITV began previewing their upcoming festive slate. In amongst the sleigh-bell soundtracked shots of Morecambe & Wise, Ted Rogers and Mike Yarwood et al, Richard Kiel grabbed a thick metal cable and bit into it with his silver dentures. This little tit-bit was all any of us kids could talk about in school the next day. ‘Did you see it? Moonraker’s going to be on TV on Boxing Day!’

I can’t remember anything else about that Christmas, only the desperate excitement in the run-up to watching the biggest, best James Bond film ever made! And back then, it was both of those things because we were, y’know, kids.

Moonraker was (and remains) the entry-level kids’ Bond movie. Once you realise that the concept of a space shuttle full of American marines armed with laser guns being fired into space is as intelligence-insultingly absurd as the idea of a double-taking pigeon, the lustre wears off rapidly.

And so it came to pass that over the years, the most successful Bond movie yet released saw its reputation take an almighty plummet, hovering at the bottom of most Bond popularity charts; an overblown, camp nadir that even Cubby Broccoli recognised as ‘a bit too much’ (by contrast, the next Bond adventure, For Your Eyes Only was a pointedly earth-bound gadget-free caper based on the retrieval of what looked like a ZX Spectrum keyboard).

Admitting that Moonraker was one of your favourite Bond movies in the company of cineastes was a faux pas akin to suggesting that the best Star Trek movie was the fifth one, or that Robert De Niro never did it for you as an actor until he started making those hilarious Meet The Parents movies.

The Daniel Craig years - in which Bond was transformed from a smooth, quip-spouting, all-action Lothario into a tortured, reluctant assassin, as bruised and broken on the inside as he is on the surface - made the comic nonsense of Moonraker seem even more ludicrous, unforgivably so.

Yet all of a sudden, Bond’s misbegotten Star Wars cash-in has recently started to find voices of support piping up in its defence. Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary could have chosen from hundreds of thousands of other movies to launch their new Video Archives podcast, but for episode 1, out of every movie ever made they went for Moonraker.

Of the two film-makers, Avary is the one pleading the case for the defence. In time-honoured tradition, he considered it beneath his contempt when it was first released in 1979. “I was absolutely dubious of it. I hated it.

“I’ve noticed that when I see films that I dismissed quickly back in the day; I sometimes look at them now and I am seeing things and appreciating things that I just wasn’t prepared for back then.” Among those things that Avary now appreciated were Ken Adams’s beautiful sets, John Barry’s lush score, the still-impressive special effects, Michael Lonsdale’s cold dismissive performance, and the opening skydiving stunt, which Avary & Tarantino both cite as one of their favourite pre-titles sequence in the series: ‘Real people are doing this!’

Avary continued, ‘It’s a spy film, it’s an action movie, it’s a romance, it’s a travelogue, it’s a sci-fi…it’s also a horror film. It switches its tone constantly. It becomes whatever it needs to be in the moment. It’s a comedy, it’s even a western at one point.’ He even confesses to crying at the end when Jaws finally speaks.

Tarantino’s enjoyment is more circumspect. He has little enthusiasm for Lewis Gilbert’s handling of action scenes, especially the gondola chase. At one point he bellows, ‘Any movie that cuts to a reaction shot of animals doing comic double-takes can never be taken seriously under any circumstances!’

The Video Archives Moonraker reevaluation followed on the heels of its surprise appearance in the 2021 Marvel movie Black Widow, in which Scarlett Johansson’s superhero assassin enjoys some much-needed downtime by watching Moonraker - a film she’s seen so often she can recite the dialogue from memory.

Moonraker was, to Johansson’s character, what it is to so many of us: a comfort watch (it also serves as a witty foretaste of the rest of Black Widow; a film that ends up set aboard a colossal airborne sky-station which our hero destroys in mid-flight).

It has also taken on an unlikely contemporary resonance, thanks to the intergalactic antics of a new breed of super-billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and - especially - Elon Musk, who have recently been playing with their little rocket ships and all, like Drax, clearly obsessed by the conquest of space.

Watching these space-fixated moguls, all of them rich beyond the wealth of nations, seemingly sharing Drax’s casual disdain for the trite pauper-concerns of mere earthlings, Moonraker’s plot suddenly becomes targeted future-satire from the least-likely source.

Then again, it could just be something far simpler. This new warmth towards Moonraker might well have stemmed from the loss of Roger Moore, who became the first Bond to head to the great casino in the sky in 2017. There has rarely been a more beloved actor, and the shock of suddenly not having him around any more may have led many to reconsider the legacy of someone we have now lost forever.

Moore’s Bond movies - built around his unique presentation of the character - were unabashed entertainment. They were designed at an eye-wateringly huge cost by some of the most talented and dedicated artists in the industry for one simple, noble purpose: to give family audiences a thrill ride and make them happy.

Produced for a then-staggering $34million, Moonraker was released at a time of economic stagnation, constant strikes, international unrest and unremitting gloom. No wonder audiences rushed into cinemas to bask in its technicolor glamour, warm humour and impossible silliness. No wonder its charms seem so suddenly appealing once again.

“A FEAR OF FUGUES”

By Raymond Benson

David Lynch’s challenging 1997 feature, Lost Highway, has had a tortured home video release history. After an initial VHS release, and then one on DVD, rights issues and a lack of interest by media companies prevented a Blu-ray release in the USA for many years. Less-than-ideal quality imported Blu-ray editions from various countries were circulated among Lynch fans and collectors. Kino Lorber finally put out a decent Blu-ray in 2019, but it was criticized by home video review sites and by Lynch himself as having inferior quality, as it didn’t go through the stringent approval process to which the director was accustomed. Cinema Retro reviewed that edition, finding it not terrible and certainly adequate enough since it seemed that it was all that we were ever going to get.

Now, however, The Criterion Collection has issued a new, director-approved 4K UHD edition that is an astonishingly gorgeous digital restoration with a new 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack and an alternate one of uncompressed stereo. Criterion’s Lost Highway can be purchased as a 2-disk set containing a 4K UHD disk of the film alone plus a Blu-ray disk of the film and all the supplements, or in a single disk Blu-ray package.

Much of what this reviewer has to say about the film itself is repeated from the earlier 2019 review.

Lost Highway is a disturbing and surreal work of art from Luis Buñuel’s heir apparent, and it’s a doozy. Lynch described the film as a “psychogenic fugue,” which is a fancy term for a dissociative disorder. The story concerns musician Fred Madison (Bill Pullman), who is having marriage trouble with his beautiful wife, Renee (Patricia Arquette). An outside force seems to be watching and harassing the couple by leaving intimate videotapes of themselves on their doorstep. Throw in some nightmares and the appearance of a “mystery man” (the very creepy Robert Blake) with powers that could only exist as dream logic, and Fred eventually loses it. Suddenly he’s arrested for killing his wife. But then—uh oh—while he’s sitting in a jail cell, he becomes… someone else. The cops find Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) in Fred’s place. Puzzled, they let Pete go, since he’s not the man they want. Now there’s a kind of alternate universe thing going on, because Patricia Arquette now plays Alice, the mistress of the cruel Mr. Eddy (Robert Loggia), who may in truth be a porn producer named Dick Laurent.

Confused? Many audience members were baffled at the time of Lost Highway’s initial release. The picture marked the first in what might be called the “fugue trilogy” (the other parts being Mulholland Drive and INLAND EMPIRE), in which main characters become other people during the flow of the tales. After a second or third viewing and examining Lynch’s narrative conceits in the other movies, one can get a sense of what it’s all about.

And this reviewer is not going to tell you. Just know that Lost Highway is about a man who murders his wife, and he is unable to live with himself—or inside his own mind—because of it. The film generates a good amount of dread, and it is pure Lynch. It marks a transition from earlier, more narrative-friendly pictures, to more dreamlike, experimental works of art that defy description—other than that they are “David Lynch Films.”

Peter Deming’s cinematography is fully exploited in Criterion’s new restoration. His use of light and shadow is remarkable, and the bits in which Fred walks into a dark hallway and disappears, and then later reappears from the blackness, are canny metaphors for the themes in the movie.

As opposed to the earlier Kino disk, Criterion has included some choice supplements. Most notable is the 1997 feature documentary, Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch, which served as a behind-the-scenes “making of Lost Highway” piece as well as a look at Lynch’s career as an artist (painting/sculpture) and filmmaker. Highway cast members and crew are interviewed along with Lynch himself, and there are clips from earlier films, too. An audio-only excerpt from the audiobook of Lynch and Kristine McKenna’s biography, Room to Dream, covers the period in the mid-90s when Highway was made. Two archival featurettes about the making of the film and interviews with cast/crew are also welcome. The theatrical re-release trailer rounds out the package. The booklet feature interview excerpts from the publication Lynch on Lynch. Note that the feature film does not have chapter breaks, in keeping with other Lynch-approved Blu-ray and DVD releases.

Lost Highway has become more mysterious and admirable with age, and Criterion’s new release does the work justice. For fans of David Lynch, dark—very dark—crime dramas, surreal cinema, and bravura filmmaking.

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The 60th anniversary celebrations of the James Bond film franchise continue on Amazon Prime:

• All of the feature films will be available for streaming beginning today in the USA and numerous other international markets for "a limited time", though the specifics were not provided.
• "The Sound of 007" official documentary about the music from the series also begins streaming today.
• "The Sound of 007: Live from the Royal Albert Hall", a telecast of the recent concert, is also available for streaming.
  

Cinema Memories: A People's History of Cinema-going in 1960s Britain

Melvyn Stokes, Matthew Jones & Emma Pett

Bloomsbury/ British Film Institute

Published: March 2022

Hardback

237 pages

10 b&w illustrations

ISBN: 9781911239888

RRP: £76

One evening in June 2016 at the Picturehouse on Piccadilly Circus, cinemagoers were transported back fifty years, where a uniformed commissionaire made them queue outside for a screening of One Million Years B.C. Once inside there were usherettes, a cinema manager chain-smoking and shouting at the staff, dozens of people sporting the best Sixties fashion, cavemen and cavewomen (cavepeople?) dragging unwitting participants into some neanderthal roleplay (including this writer), and even a film producer with a dollybird on his arm. After witnessing a competition to find the next Hammer glamour star, which was interrupted by placard-wielding feminists, the public were finally able to enter the cinema screen. The experience did not end there though: during the film there was constant disturbance from usherettes with torches and people fighting or sneaking in and out of the fire exit. Once it was all over the audience stood for the national anthem (or ran out in mock disgust). This was no ordinary evening at the cinema, this was a fantastic event organised by Dr. Matthew Jones of De Montfort University (the cinema manager himself, whose performance was so convincing that the Picturehouse received complaints from the public about his behaviour towards the usherettes), with the aim of bringing to life the fantastic research project ‘Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s’.

Through questionnaires and interviews with hundreds of people over a three-year period, the project gathered memories of what it was like to go to the cinema in the 1960s. Given the age of participants this meant that most of the memories were connected to recollections of childhood and adolescence, of first dates and first sexual experiences, of happiness and occasional danger, and of community and political awareness. This of course makes sense. When one considers cinemagoing, in particular those favourite cinemas of one’s youth, it is the whole experience that is thought of fondly, not just the film itself; there are the posters outside and in the foyer, the elaborate décor, the cinema manager, the box office, the concessions and then the screen itself, where often one came in after the film had started. There were usherettes in uniforms armed with torches to make sure no one was getting too carried away on the back row, or to police single men moving too close to younger audience members. There was a thick smoky haze, which was not affected by attempts to have a separate non-smoking section of the auditorium, and some cinemas were art deco palaces whilst others were literal fleapits.

This terrific book brings together the results of this research in a non-immersive experience which is sure to bring back memories of the reader’s own cinema memories. The book is organised into topics, with the memories of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ both conforming to established cultural history as well as questioning it. After all, the Sixties were not swinging for everyone, and it often depended on whether you lived in the north or the south. Some people do remember the films of course, and the stars, many of whom were role models and fashion icons. In the chapter on post-colonial audiences, such as the ‘Windrush Generation’, some participants recall learning about English culture and behaviour by attending the cinema. Audience memories of Hollywood are also discussed, as are those who recalled attending European and world cinema, often in a more arthouse-type cinema than the usual family cinema or fleapit.

This research is an excellent reminder of the importance of the cinema experience in that culturally-significant decade (political changes and their impacts on the public, such as the legalisation of both abortion and homosexuality in 1967 are discussed in reference to films such as Alfie and Victim), and it also serves to point out just how much has changed over the last fifty years: intermissions are rare, the smoking has thankfully gone, and popcorn has replaced the choc ice as the snack of choice. Cinema Memories: A People's History of Cinema-going in 1960s Britain may provoke nostalgia in some older readers, whilst for younger readers it’s a fascinating window into an almost lost world. Admittedly it’s not quite the same as that night out at the cinema in 2016, but at least you are less likely to have to pretend to be a caveman.

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If you were fortunate enough to call Sir Christopher Lee a friend, then you knew who his best friends were: fellow screen legends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. Christopher would never miss an opportunity to extol his admiration for both of them as actors and colleagues. In this brief video, he discusses his affection for both. 

An amusing blast from the past from "Saturday Night Live", 1992, featuring the funeral of Superman, attended by a Who's Who of superheroes and villains. Chris Farley's Incredible Hulk is a highlight.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the 1965 comedy Strange Bedfellows, which existed primarily to reunite Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida, who had a box-office hit with Come September several years before. Like most of the romantic comedies of the era, there is little to separate this from a standard sitcom episode aside from the running time. Hudson plays a London-based executive on the rise who spontaneously marries a tempestuous Italian bombshell artist played by Lollobrigida. The newlyweds find their mutually insatiable sex drives are the only thing they have in common. Politically conservative Hudson is constantly at odds with his wife's liberal activism. They soon separate but after seven years, Hudson has a reason to stall the divorce proceedings he has put in place. Seems his even more conservative boss wants to promote him to be his right hand man- on the proviso that he is happily married. The contrived plot finds Hudson trying to swallow his pride and woo his wife back- despite the fact that she already has a British lover, Edward Judd.

The film ambles from one predictable, over-played scene to another, though there are some genuine laughs along the way. Hudson and Lollbrigida do have genuine chemistry on-screen and there is a very amusing supporting cast that includes Gig Young, Terry-Thomas, Arthur Haynes, Nancy Kulp, Bernard Fox and and the late, great Cinema Retro contributor Joe Sirola, who offers a very funny turn as a perverted sculptor. The most amusing aspect of the film is rather unintentional- the now laughably cliched presentation of life in England. In one scene, people can't get home because London is covered in a pea-soup like fog, an enduring legend that stemmed from the Victorian era when the city was often shrouded in pollution, not fog. Taxi drivers all speak with Cockney accents and call everyone 'guv. Ironically, only a small bit of second unit footage was even filmed in Old Blighty. The only on location footage featuring the stars is confined to a shot or two of Edward Judd and an opening scene of Rock Hudson walking along the Thames. One might ask why no additional footage of Hudson was shot on location. The answer was probably moolah. It would have cost Universal a tidy sum to deal with the logistics of shooting in the midst of a major city. So the studio reverted back to an economic model and "London" was recreated very unconvincingly on the Universal back lot. One sequence that was played for laughs has a more subtle aspect of humor to it when viewed today: Hudson reluctantly sharing a bed with Judd. (Hudson shared similar scene when he bedded down with Tony Randall in Send Me No Flowers, leading one to believe that he was probably in on the joke in the days when he was still very much in the closet.)  Like most of these types of comedies, the finale features the entire cast coming together in a big chaotic scene. This time, it's Lollobrigida's scheme to scandalize London by riding through town as Lady Godvia. It's a mark of the movie's prudishness, however, that she is clad in neck-to-toe flesh colored body suit. Some scandal. The film's uninspired direction by Melvin Frank doesn't completely negate the fun of watching two genuine screen legends at the peak of their careers.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray features a pin-sharp transfer that only makes it more obvious how much of the film relies on shoddy rear-screen projection.  The disc features an informative commentary track by film historian Eddy Von Mueller and it's admirable that Kino Lorber continues to provide these tracks on movies that are routine at best. Even films that are artistic failures often have many interesting tales relevant to their production and Strange Bedfellows is no exception. There is also the original trailer and gallery of other trailers from KL featuring the two legendary stars.

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