When Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" was released in 1970 it was a critical and boxoffice sensation. Audiences immediately recognized that, although the film was set in the Korean War, it was very obviously an analogy to the current controversial conflict in Vietnam. The film thrust Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould into the top tier of leading actors and the movie spawned the classic TV series that was a phenomenon in its own right. The film's success, along with the simultaneous triumph of the more traditional war film "Patton", helped stem the red ink that was plaguing 20th Century Fox and played a key role in making the studio solvent once again.
If you haven't seen the 2003 film "Owning Mahowny", put it on your "Must Watch" list if you have Amazon Prime. If you don't have Amazon Prime, consider purchasing the DVD (it has not available on Blu-ray). I was unaware of the movie but in browsing through Prime's seemingly endless selection of streaming choices, I was drawn to it by the fact that Philip Seymour Hoffman has the starring role. Hoffman, who tragically passed away in 2014, was one of the best actors of his generation and this film offers him an impressive showcase for his estimable talents. The Canadian production is based on a true story, though the title character's name, Dan Mahowny, was amended from the real-life counterpart, Brian Molony. Why? Supposedly because the real guy's name was too similar to the incumbent prime minister at the time, Brian Mulroney. The movie is set in the early 1980s when the actual events occurred. Hoffman's Mahowny is a nondescript, affable schlep who wears ill-fitting suits and drives a clunker of a car. He's a dedicated mid-management type who loyally works at a prestigious bank in Toronto that has some extremely wealthy clients. In recognition of his work ethic and loyalty, he has recently been promoted to Vice-President, which gives him access to and responsibility for overseeing the accounts of the bank's most important customers. Mahowny also has a nice fiancee, Belinda (Minnie Driver) who sees his promotion as a stepping stone for getting married and buying a place of their own.
Despite his seemingly ordinary life, Mahowny is hiding a secret: he's got a gambling addiction, though like most people plagued with this affliction, he feels he has control over this aspect of his life. He primarily does his betting through his sleazy bookie, the uncouth Frank Perlin (Maury Chakin). With his new promotion and higher salary, Mahowny is now betting recklessly, primarily on sports. He also makes periodic flights from Toronto to Atlantic City to gamble at the casinos.(Legalized gambling was new novelty in New Jersey at the time.) Mahowny disguises these trips with various excuses to Belinda that they are work related. She sympathizes with him and considers him to be a workaholic when, in fact, these trips and nocturnal activities are purely related to gambling. Mahowny is gambling so much that even Perlin wants to cut him off, but Mahowny insists on taking larger and larger advances from the bookie. He's gambling so much that it attracts the attention of Atlantic City casino boss Victor Foss (John Hurt), who views Mahowny as a very desirable client and monitors his gambling sessions via closed circuit T.V. As Mahowny's gambling debts grow, he borrows more money and draws crowds at the casino. Sometimes he wins big but ultimately it all goes back to the casino. Foss has his fish on the line and caters to Mahowny with spacious suites and offers of endless booze and fine dining, all being comped, of course. Mahowny accepts the room but turns down all the other free temptations including a gorgeous hooker sent to his room. All he requests is a meal consisting of ribs with no sauce and a Coke. Foss observes with relish that Mahowny shows no interest in booze, drugs or sex and labels him a "thoroughbred" in that he wants nothing other than the action of gambling.
Mahowny's troubles start to mount when Belinda begins to suspect his addiction. A romantic visit to Las Vegas ends in disaster when Mahowny opts to desert her in favor of the gambling tables. Meanwhile, he continues to manipulate funds at the bank and enact coverups. He crosses the line when his "borrowings" go from thousands of dollars to millions. As the pressure builds, an internal bank audit adds to his worries, leading to some genuine tension in the film, which is very ably directed by Richard Kwietniowski, working with a screenplay by Maurice Chauvet (based on a book by Gary Stephen Ross). Additionally, U.S. law enforcement is secretly monitoring him in conjunction with Canadian law enforcement in the belief that he might be a drug dealer. All of the performances are excellent with John Hurt particularly good as the superficially friendly casino boss who employees ruthless tactics to both woo and destroy his customers. Minnie Driver is also very good as the ever-patient and somewhat naive girlfriend who is in danger of being eclipsed by her finance's love of gambling. The most impressive aspect of the film, however, is the brilliant performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman, which ranks among his best. He's understated throughout, even as the pressures build on his character, whose career and personal life fall further into jeopardy.
"Owning Mahowny" is probably unknown to most movie fans but it was enthusiastically acclaimed by critics and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actor at Canada's Genie Awards. It's engrossing throughout and the film proves that when you have a lot of talent involved, you don't always need an expensive budget. Give it a try. Will you like this suspense drama about addictive gambling? You bet!
(The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Click here to order the DVD from Amazon.)
Please note: due to travel obligations, the U.S. office will be closed November 12 and will reopen on November 26. Please continue to order as your normally would and we will begin shipping issues as soon as the office reopens. Thank you!
Kino Lorber will release a 4K UHD edition of Don Siegel's "Two Mules for Sister Sara" starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine. Here are the details:
Product Description
From Don Siegel, the legendary director
of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Coogan’s Bluff, Dirty Harry, Charley
Varrick, The Shootist and Escape from Alcatraz, comes this classic
western starring screen legends Clint Eastwood (The Good, the Bad and
the Ugly, High Plains Drifter) and Shirley MacLaine (Sweet Charity, Irma
La Douce). Eastwood is a hard-hitting drifter who rides into town and
single-handedly rescues a local nun (MacLaine) from a gang of bandits.
After meeting a band of Mexican revolutionaries bent on resisting the
French occupation of Mexico, the cowboy and Sister Sara decide to join
forces with the freedom fighters and set off on a deadly mission to
capture the enemy’s garrison. But along the way, a steamy romance
develops between them when the soft-spoken hero discovers the nun is not
what she seems. Ending with a violent climax at the well-protected
fort, this action-packed western classic cemented Eastwood’s status as a
true cinematic superstar. Featuring a masterful score by the great
Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars).
Special Features:
DISC 1 (4KUHD):
• Brand New HDR/Dolby Vision Master (International Cut) – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative • NEW Audio Commentary for by Author and Film Historian Justin Humphreys • Audio Commentary by Filmmaker Alex Cox, Author of 10,000 Ways to Die: A Director's Take on the Italian Western • At Home with Clint: Vintage Candid Interview with Clint Eastwood • Poster and Image Gallery • 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio • Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc • Optional English Subtitles
DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):
• 2020 4K Restoration of the Domestic Cut • Radio Spots • TV Spots • Theatrical Trailer • 10 More Clint Eastwood Trailers • 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio • Dual-Layered BD50 Disc • Optional English Subtitles
Laurel & Hardy: Year Two, The Newly
Restored 1928 Silents from Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films®, adds new special
features, including the rare short, ‘Now I’ll Tell One’
Release Date: Now Available
(Los Angeles, CA — October 8, 2024) Flicker
Alley and Blackhawk Films are today announcing some new surprises for Laurel
& Hardy fans. The upcoming two-disc Blu-ray edition of Laurel & Hardy:
Year Two, previously announced for release on October 29, will be delayed by
one week to accommodate the inclusion of several new pieces of bonus content,
including the extant second reel of the 1927 Charley Chase short ‘Now I’ll Tell
One’ (courtesy of the British Film Institute.) Once considered a fully lost
film, the short features both Stan and Ollie, albeit not yet as a comedy duo.
In addition to ‘Now I’ll Tell One,’ the
upcoming set will also include some newly announced alternate audio options,
including two vintage Blackhawk Films music tracks on ‘You’re Darn Tootin’ and
‘Two Tars.’ These join original scores by Neil Brand, Robert Israel, Andreas
Benz, and Jean-Francois Zygel, as well as audio commentaries on every short by
Laurel & Hardy scholars Randy Skretvedt and Richard W. Bann.
Following their initial pairing in early
1927, Laurel and Hardy ended their first year on top. Their success moving into
1928 galvanized the efforts of everyone at Hal Roach Studios (including famed
director Leo McCarey), who proudly upped their game in support of the winning
comedy duo. Whether wreaking accidental havoc as a two-man band, doing battle
against one another as millionaire and butler, or even becoming grave robbers
for a mad scientist, Laurel and Hardy prove in their second year that they have
what it takes to not only win over audiences in the twilight of the silent era,
but generate enough momentum to make an unparalleled transition to “talkies” in
1929.
Although their names are synonymous with the
very idea of comedy, few of the original negatives for Laurel and Hardy’s early
silent work survive, elements only available from scattered sources throughout
the world, often in substantially less than pristine shape. It took the team at
Blackhawk Films four years to gather all surviving film elements, to
meticulously compare them shot by shot, and to complete the best digital
restorations possible. Today, these beloved shorts look as new as they did
nearly a century ago.
Featuring all new restorations sourced from
best available materials contributed by archives and collectors around the
world restored by Blackhawk Films® and FPA Classics, this comprehensive deluxe
Blu-ray 2-Disc collection features their ten 1928 films as a team and
additional films from the Hal Roach Studios that showcase their final solo
short film appearances, as well as the shift from silent films to films
featuring music and synchronized sound effects.
The release is curated by film historians and
Laurel and Hardy specialists; Randy Skretvedt, Richard K. Bann, Serge Bromberg,
and Eric Lange.
The full breakdown of the ten 1928 shorts on Laurel
& Hardy: Year Two is as follows:
Leave 'em Laughing
Score by Andreas Benz
Score by Jean-Francois Zygel
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
The Finishing Touch
Score by Neil Brand
Commentary by Richard W. Bann
From Soup to Nuts
- Score by Neil Brand
- Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
You're Darn Tootin’
Score by Robert Israel
Score by Neil Brand
Vintage Blackhawk Films Music Track
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
Their Purple Moment
Score by Andreas Benz
Commentary by Richard W. Bann
Should Married Men Go Home?
Score by Neil Brand
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
Early to Bed
Score by Neil Brand
Commentary by Richard W. Bann
Two Tars
Score by Robert Israel
Score by Andreas Benz
Vintage Blackhawk Films Music Track
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
Habeas Corpus
Score by Robert Israel
Original 1928 VitaPhone Track
Commentary by Richard W. Bann
We Faw Down
Score by Jean-Francois Zygel
Original 1928 VitaPhone Track
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
The set also includes the following bonus
features:
Now I’ll Tell One
The extant second reel of a rare short featuring both stars.
Score by Serge Bromberg
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
Gallopin’ Ghosts
Two surviving fragments of a rare solo Oliver
Hardy comedy.
Score by Neil Brand
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
Eve’s Love Letters
One of Stan Laurel’s final solo films,
directed by Leo McCarey and written by Laurel himself, from rare 35mm elements.
1930s French Rerelease Track
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
A Pair of Tights
A 1929 short starring Anita Garvin and Marion
Byron, who were teamed to try and replicate the success of Laurel and Hardy.
Score by Neil Brand
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
George Mann Footage
Home movies shot behind the scenes of Hal
Roach Studios, including the filming of ‘Should Married Men Go Home’.
Score by Neil Brand
Commentary by Randy Skretvedt
Audio
Interviews Conducted by Randy Skretvedt
Personal
interviews with Anita Garvin, Thomas Benton Roberts, and Hal Roach.
Audio Interview with Stan Laurel
Conducted by Tony Thomas in 1959, the year
following Oliver Hardy’s death.
Laurel & Hardy On-Location in Year Two
A video essay by historian John Bengtson on
selected location exteriors.
Film Specific Image Galleries
Containing original publicity materials,
press reviews, and rare production stills.
Souvenir Booklet
Containing a new collection introduction by
Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange; A look at the supporting players and other
creative personnel in the world of Hal Roach Studios by historian Sara Imogen
Smith; A new essay exploring the development of the Vitaphone sound-on-disc
system in 1928 by Randy Skredvedt; and comprehensive notes on each film
English SDH Subtitles
Blu-ray Authoring by David Mackenzie of
Fidelity In Motion
Blackhawk Films® was founded in 1927 as a
producer of film advertising for merchants and as a distributor of regional
newsreels. From 1950 until 1995, Blackhawk expanded and began distributing new
8mm and 16mm prints of Laurel & Hardy comedies from Hal Roach Studios as
well as other classic film titles through its legendary monthly catalog. Today,
Blackhawk Films® is both a unique collection of classic films (more than 5000
titles), and a restoration laboratory established in Burbank, CA, handling cinematic
masterpieces for the biggest archives and films owners throughout the world.
About Flicker Alley, LLC
Flicker Alley, LLC was founded in 2002. Each
Flicker Alley publication is the culmination of hundreds of hours of research,
digital restoration, graphic design, music composition, and scoring.
Collectively, they reflect the creativity, expertise, and shared passion of
many talented collaborators. The Flicker Alley brand has grown to enjoy
national and international acclaim. The company is a four-time recipient of the
National Society of Film Critics Film Heritage Award for publishing "rare
early U.S. and foreign silent film.”
The second box set from Imprint devoted to the career of Marlon Brando will be released in January. Cinema Retro's Lee Pfeiffer and fellow film historians Paul Scrabo and Tony Latino provide the commentary track on the first special edition Blu-ray for "The Missouri Breaks". The set also contains the first Blu-ray of "Last Tango in Paris" to feature bonus features. Also included is the remarkable feature film documentary "Listen to Me Marlon" in which unveiled audio tapes of Brando describe his life and career.The other feature films are all gems: "The Night of the Following Day", "The Nightcomers" and "A Dry White Season", which afforded Brando his last Oscar nomination.
Click here to pre-order. This will be a limited edition release of 1500 sets.
Note: Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter for non-Australian orders.
Writer/Producer Alan Spencer narrates the trailer for the 1980 "Get Smart" feature film, "The Nude Bomb" starring Don Adams. Spencer idolized Adams and when the film ran into some snags, he donated his talents and provided some gags. Spencer acknowledges the missteps in the production, namely the refusal to include Barbara Feldon's essential Agent "99" and a less-than-family friendly modern approach that seemed tasteless at times. Nevertheless, he assures us the film was profitable. He also fills us in on the scuttled plans to bring a "Get Smart" film to the big screen as far back as 1965.
Kino Lorber has released
the 1975 Charles Bronson crime thriller "Breakout" as a Blu-ray special edition. Bronson
was riding high at the time, coming off the sensational success of
"Death Wish". The film was originally supposed to star Kris
Kristofferson under the direction of Michael Ritchie but those plans
soon fell apart. Bronson took over the lead role with veteran director
Tom Gries at the helm. The film finds Bronson well-cast as Nick Colton, a
shady businessman/con man/grifter who operates a variety of small time
business ventures on the Mexican border with his partner Hawk Hawkins
(pre-kooky Randy Quaid.) Nick is living hand-to-mouth when he is
approached by Ann Wagner (Jill Ireland) with a proposition to help her
husband, equally shady rich guy Jay (Robert Duvall), escape from a Mexican prison where he has
been sentenced after being framed for a murder. Time is of the essence
because Jay is in declining health and may well be too weak to help
effect his own escape. Colton and Hawk's first attempt to spring him
ends disastrously and they barely escape back to America. Colton
concocts an audacious plan for a second escape attempt that involves
split-second timing. He will arrange for a helicopter to land in the
courtyard of the prison and in the inevitable confusion, Jay is to make
his way on board and presumably fly away to freedom. In order to pull
off the caper, Nick enlists the help of a professional helicopter pilot
as well as Myrna (Sheree North), a married ex-call girl who will be used
to distract some of the guards when the copter lands inside the prison.
When the pilot gets cold feet, Nick is forced to fly the chopper
himself despite the fact that he only has minimum experience doing so.
Another complication ensues when Jay is confined to the prison hospital
and doubts he will be able to be in the courtyard at the precise moment
Colton lands.
"Breakout" was inspired by an incredible 1971 real life escape in
which an American was indeed rescued by helicopter from a Mexican
prison. The screenplay has some other sub-plots that are poorly
developed and quite confusing, but some of which are obviously related
to the actual escape including some rumored involvement by the CIA. In
the film, Jay Wagner's frame-up takes place at the behest of his evil
tycoon grandfather, Harris Wagner (John Huston) for reasons that never
become clear. Apparently, Harris is concerned that Jay may inherit some
control over the company Harris runs with an iron fist, though these
plot points remain murky as does the involvement of some CIA characters.
Another potential plot device, which finds Nick and Ann obviously
attracted to each other, also goes nowhere. The film has a rushed look
to it and there are some unsatisfying aspects caused by the movie's
rather abrupt ending. The movie studio, Columbia, apparently felt the
film was a rather weak production and thus gambled on a massive ad
campaign that probably cost more than the film's modest budget. Ads for
"Breakout" were everywhere: in newspapers, on TV and on radio.
Additionally, the film opened wide in 1,000 American theaters, which was
a big number in 1975. The movie was dismissed by critics with Variety
calling it a "cheap exploitation pic", and indeed the main poster
artwork (different from the Blu-ray sleeve artwork) and graphics looked surprisingly amateurish considering this was
a golden age for film poster designs. Nevertheless, Bronson's appeal
seemed to override these negative factors. "Breakout" proved to be a
major hit and helped cement his status as a top boxoffice attraction ,
though his clout would gradually diminish henceforth.
Like a lot of older movies, "Breakout" probably plays better today
than it did at the time of its initial release. Bronson is in top form
and gives an unusually energetic performance that allows him to stress
his rarely-used talent for light comedy. The only other standout member
of the cast is Sheree North, as the epitome of the sexy cougar. She's a
fast-talking, tough cookie who parades about in sexy lingerie in an
attempt to seduce Bronson. (Surprisingly, Bronson's character does not
engage in any sexual action throughout the movie.) Robert Duvall is
largely underutilized in a low-key role and performance that could have
been credibly played by almost any other competent actor. Huston's
presence in the movie is disappointing, also. His role is confined to a
few scattered cameo appearances that probably don't last more than two
minutes. Some other familiar faces include Paul Mantee, Alejandro Rey,
Roy Jenson and the Mexican cinema's favorite bad guy, Emilio Fernandez.
As for Bronson teaming for the umpteenth time with real life wife Jill
Ireland, the gimmick was wearing thin. Some screen couples could team
without wearing out their welcome. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
made many films together but they were always playing entirely different
characters in entirely different scenarios. Bronson and Ireland,
despite being competent actors, were no Liz and Dick. It became clear
that their films together were largely made possible by Bronson's clout
with the studios. Although Ireland always gave credible performances,
she never lit up the screen. After a while the sheer predictability of
their on-screen teamings probably undermined Bronson's popularity
because it constrained him from interacting with other actresses. It was
a trap Clint Eastwood also fell into for a period of time when he cast
Sondra Locke in the female lead in six of his movies over a period of
only seven years. Despite these gripes, it must be said that director
Tom Gries keeps the pace moving briskly and there isn't a dull moment.
He also knows how to milk some genuine suspense out of the helicopter
escape scene, which is exceptionally well photographed by the great
cinematographer Lucien Ballard. Jerry Goldsmith also contributes a
typically fine score. The movie was shot in a wide number of locations
including California, Mexico, Spain and France, where the impressive
edifice that serves as the prison is located.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks great
and features a very informative commentary track by Paul Talbot, author
of the excellent "Bronson's Loose" books, which analyze his action
movies. There is also a trailer, TV spot and radio spot. In all, an
impressive package for a fun '70s adventure flick. Recommended.
The legendary Alfred Hitchcock
is recognized for directing some of the most unforgettable and
groundbreaking films of all time. Now, for the first time ever, six of
the most recognizable films from The Master of Suspense are available
together in Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection including Rear
Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The
Birds. Starring Hollywood favorites James Stewart, Cary Grant, Grace
Kelly, Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Tippi Hedren, Eva Marie Saint, Kim
Novak and Rod Taylor, this collection captures the most memorable
moments in the career of a true cinematic master.
Bonus Content:
Disc 1 - Rear Window:
Includes
a digital copy of Alfred Hitchcock: The Iconic Film Collection (Subject
to expiration. Go to NBCUCodes.com for details.)
Features High Dynamic Range (HDR10) for Brighter, Deeper, More Lifelike Color
Rear Window Ethics: An Original Documentary
A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes
Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of the Master
Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Masters of Cinema
Production Photographs
Theatrical Trailer
Re-release Trailer Narrated by James Stewart
Feature Commentary with John Fawell, Author of Hitchcock's Rear Window: the Well Made Film
Disc 3 - Vertigo:
Features High Dynamic Range (HDR10) for Brighter, Deeper, More Lifelike Color
Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life of Hitchcock's Masterpiece
Partners in Crime: Hitchcock's Collaborators
Foreign Censorship Ending
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Feature Commentary with Film Director William Friedkin
Theatrical Trailer
Restoration Theatrical Trailer
100 Years of Universal: The Lew Wasserman Era
Disc 4 - North by Northwest:
North by Northwest: Cinematography, Score, and the Art of the Edit
Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style
North by Northwest: One for the Ages
A Guided Tour with Alfred Hitchcock
Commentary by Screenwriter Ernest Lehman
Disc 5 - Psycho (1960):
4x Sharper than Full HD with High Dynamic Range (HDR10)
The Making of Psycho
Psycho Sound
In The Master's Shadow: Hitchcock's Legacy
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Newsreel Footage: The Release of Psycho
The Shower Scene: With and Without Music
The Shower Sequence: Storyboards by Saul Bass
The Psycho Archives
Posters and Psycho Ads
Lobby Cards
Behind-the-Scenes Photographs
Production Photographs
Psycho Theatrical Trailers
Psycho Re-release Trailers
Feature Commentary with Stephen Rebello, author of "Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho"
Disc 6 - The Birds:
Features High Dynamic Range (HDR10) for Brighter, Deeper, More Lifelike Color
The Birds: Hitchcock's Monster Movie
All About The Birds
Tippi Hedren's Screen Test
Deleted Scenes
The Original Ending
Hitchcock/Truffaut
The Birds Is Coming (Universal International Newsreel)
Suspense Story: National Press Club Hears Hitchcock (Universal International Newsreel)
Theatrical Trailer
100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics
100 Years of Universal: The Lot
This set will ship on November 26. Click here to pre- order from Amazon and save $30.
Broadcast on Sky Arts, 31 October 2024 and available to
stream on NOW.
Like
many of my generation, Hammer is in my DNA. Hammer films were regularly
screened in the Eighties on the BBC, and my parents would tape them for me so I
could spend my Saturdays watching the likes of Dracula: Prince of Darkness
and Plague of the Zombies (both 1966). In the last twenty years I’ve
been fortunate enough to attend many Hammer-themed events (I’ve lost count of
the number of times I’ve met Caroline Munro), made friends with other Hammer
fans, written essays and articles about the company, collected dozens of
videos, DVDs and Blu-rays (with 4K UHD on the horizon), contributed bonus
features to a couple of upcoming Hammer Blu-ray releases, expanded my Hammer
library with publications from the likes of Wayne Kinsey, Marcus Hearn and the Little
Shoppe of Horrors magazine, and I even appeared as an extra in Hammer’s 2008
comeback vampire horror Beyond the Rave. It is a cliché, yet it is true
- Hammer is much like its undead antiheroes: whenever the studio appears to be
dead, it comes back to life.
With
this new documentary Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, first
broadcast on Sky Arts over Halloween, and available on NOW, the new incarnation
of Hammer (recently acquired by theatre impresario John Gore in an excellent
example of nominative determinism) are refreshing their brand and reminding the
world of their USP. Although many die-hard Hammer fans will tell you that
horror actually made up just a small percentage of their overall film output, it’s
horror that has made the Hammer name, and clearly what the new iteration is
trading on as the company hits its 90th anniversary. With one new
horror film under their belts already (Doctor Jekyll (2023) starring
Eddie Izzard in their third adaptation of Stephenson’s novel, following The
Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)),
Hammer Horror is back. Again.
Hammer:
Heroes, Legends and Monsters, directed by Benjamin Field
and co-produced by Jamie (son of Gerry) Anderson, is an excellent history of
the Hammer brand. The film celebrates the highs as well as the lows of Hammer
and brings in the opinions of experts and famous fans alike. It will come as no
surprise to see Tim Burton, John Landis, Joe Dante and John Carpenter in there,
alongside noted Hammer and genre historians such as Wayne Kinsey, Jonathan
Rigby, Axelle Carolyn, Toby Hadoke and Sarah Appleton. We also get to see some
of the few remaining Hammer stars, including Caroline Munro, Martine Beswick, Madeline
Smith and Valerie Leon (a pointed reminder that Hammer employed much younger
leading ladies than their leading men which is why it’s only women left) and
lots of archival interview footage with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing,
amongst others.
Narrated
by Charles Dance, this documentary is beautifully shot, with purpose-built
Hammer-style sets providing some great visual interest to what could otherwise be just similar-looking talking heads.
The fact that this is produced by Hammer has allowed for great archival access,
and one suspects that there was so much material that it could easily have been
a two or even three-part series. Hammer fans would definitely buy a box set of
those. As far as I am aware, this is the first Hammer-produced documentary
about the company since the Channel 4 Oliver Reed-narrated series The World
of Hammer in the early 1990s, and Hammer’s back-catalogue would allow for
lots more documentaries should they want to mine their history further.
Although
Hammer fans are some of the most learned, there is still new information to be
found in Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, and this will also have
wider appeal and hopefully bring a new audience to Hammer’s dark and scary world.
LOS ANGELES, CA (September
17, 2024) – Legendary composer, conductor and arranger, Henry Mancini
recognized that music can be one of the most compelling characters in cinema.
His timeless works set the tone and narrative for some of the most
unforgettable moments on film. With masterful vision and skillful elegance,
Mancini’s scores brought playful fun, dramatic grandeur and heartbreaking
tenderness to 20th century popular music and engaged audiences on a deeply
emotional level. Equally engaging is the biographical tale of this celebrated,
award-winning composer, The Extraordinary Life of Henry Mancini,
a beautifully illustrated story from critically acclaimed animation studio, Fantoons.
The graphic novel features a foreword by Hans Zimmer and it is available
today, September 17, at retailers everywhere.
Mancini’s name is synonymous
with his timeless melodies, “Moon River,” “Peter Gunn,” the Pink Panther
Theme,iconic soundtracks to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 10, Victor
Victoria andcountless works that defined how musical score could
elevate storytelling on film and screen. With many of his hits made classic by
Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis and decades of iconic artists and a
body of work boasting some of the most hummed melodies of all time, Henry
Mancini’s catalog earned him four Oscars and twenty Grammy Awards.
Award winning studio, Fantoons
is now proud to present the fully authorized story of the legendary Henry
Mancini in a new graphic novel written by David Calcano, author of fan-favorite
illustrated biographies and books of Rush, Billie Holiday, Motörhead, The Beach
Boys, Tenacious D, Iron Maiden, and many others.Featuring a foreword by Hans Zimmer and
introduction by Christopher Lennertz, The Extraordinary Life of Henry
Mancini is illustrated by Svetlana Palkina, Jorge Mansilla, Lindsay
Lee, and Eriana Mirabal in this vibrant telling of the artist’s true story of
music, love and passion. A sweeping tale; wider than a mile.
The book features two editions:
Standalone hardcover edition and alimited deluxe
edition featuring an interview booklet about Mancini’s influence. Highlights
include interviews with film composer legendsJohn Powell and Patrick
Doyle, alongside interviews with legendary Disney animation directors John
Musker and Ron Clements, as well as business luminaries including Chris Montan
(former President of Walt Disney Music) and Richard Kraft (legendary film music
agent).
The interview booklet is 26 pages and is released in a
beautifully printed format that includes a limited edition 7-inch vinyl record
done in conjunction with Quartet Records. Featuring a performance never before
available on vinyl from the “Sunflower” score and a beautiful piano demo of the
“Love Theme” played by Mancini himself, the vinyl single also includes
“Giovanna,” a classic example of Mancini’s famous Touch and of course
the Pink Panther theme (from Trail of the Pink Panther). The
record features new art from Fantoons Animation Studios.
Book description:
Henry Mancini is one of the most successful and
groundbreaking film composers of all time. From the humble beginnings of his
father’s flute lessons to standing ovations at the prestigious Hollywood Bowl,
this graphic novel by Fantoons beautifully illustrates every step in the
journey of Henry Mancini’s pivotal and industry-shaping career.
Each page features vividly painted illustrations, with
color that encapsulates each of the many emotions–high and low–of Henry
Mancini’s bold, musical adventure.
Audrey Hepburn said, “A movie without music is like an
airplane without fuel,” and rightly so. Henry Mancini’s music has left an
indelible mark on the film industry, transforming it for generations of new
composers to come. Readers can learn the surprising, true stories behind the
unforgettable scores of movies such as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Pink
Panther,” and even pop-culture TV classics like “Peter Gunn.”
Before winning multiple Grammys, Golden Globes, Academy
Awards, and becoming one of the highest-regarded composers in the history of
film, step into the shoes of the boy who would bravely set out to change cinema
forever.
Get swept away in the majestic, heartwarming, and
astonishing symphony that is the extraordinary life of renowned composer Henry
Mancini, in this fully illustrated, 180-page, graphic novel.
The Extraordinary Life of Henry Mancini:
Official Graphic Novel will be available in hardcover at
retailers everywhere for a list price of $29.99 (ISBN: 978-1-97004-7-288) on
September 17, 2024.
About Fantoons:
Fantoons Animation Studios
is a group of like-minded artists with a shared passion for animation, stories,
and music. Founded by director David Calcano almost a decade ago, the vision
for the studio was simple: create content surrounding music and tell compelling
stories to celebrate it. Fantoons focuses on the artist’s personal stories
whether on the road, in the studio, or their personal journey, using sequential
storytelling in the form of graphic novels or animated content. Fantoons
creative works have received acclaim from Rolling Stone, The Guardian, PROG
Magazine, and other notable press outlets. Fantoons recently celebrated their
first Webby Award as a 2021 Honoree for Video Animation. As well as winning
multiple awards, Fantoons have accumulated over 100+ million views in their
content across social platforms, and more than 100 thousand books sold and
counting.
Conspiracy
theories flourish today thanks in large part to the universality of the
Internet and, more specifically, the ease with which once can access the World
Wide Web. The Dark Web is more than likely a better platform for every
“end-of-the-world” worry wart with a grievance huddled in a makeshift bunker to
anonymously poke the bear and make themselves heard. Following President John
F. Kennedy’s 1962 famous speech which decreed that “…this nation should commit
itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a
man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” NASA set to
work to do just that, feeling they owed it to him following his assassination
14 months later. NASA accomplished this feat in a race against the Soviets, but
in the years since the 1969 moon landing, conspiracy theorists who generally
have a problem with the truthfulness of the United States’s Federal Government,
began tossing around the notion that film director Stanley Kubrick was hired to
direct the moon landing which they claim was faked on the sets remaining from MGM’s
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) film shoot. Purported hidden messages that
ostensibly appear in his 1980 film The Shining have resulted in more
Youtube.com videos than you can shake a stick at, in addition to a feature
film, Room 237 (2017), which touches upon this very notion.
Peter
Hyams’s Capricorn One, lensed in the early months of 1977 and released
on Friday, June 2, 1978, was written off by some critics as a silly thriller
with plot holes large enough to fly a spacecraft through. It posits the notion
that the Powers That Be (i.e. the Military Industrial Complex), in a bid to
keep the space race funded and afloat, need to conquer the next frontier and
send American astronauts to the planet Mars, for fear of indifference from
American citizens. NASA is ready to send Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Peter
Willis (Sam Waterston), and John Walker (O.J. Simpson) to Mars until the men
are pulled right before takeoff by a team headed by Dr. James Kelloway (Hal
Holbrook) who explains that forces bigger than NASA want the flight to be a
success and have created a set to mimic the Red Planet’s terrain complete with
a mock-up of the lunar module. Strong-arming the three men into complicity with
the deception, it soon becomes apparent that it would be impossible for them to
remain silent regarding their involvement and there is no intention of letting
them return to their families, keeping them as prisoners locked away in the
desert.
Robert
Caulfield (Elliott Gould) is a journalist who is onto the ploy and the Powers
That Be are always one step ahead of him. Elliot Whitter (Robert Walden) is a
NASA employee who refuses to believe that the transmissions are coming from
Mars and disappears after several attempts to air his concerns to Dr. Kelloway.
This raises even more suspicion from Caulfield who established a professional
rapport with him, only to find that Whitter’s apartment is now inhabited by a
woman he has never seen before. Multiple attempts are made on Caulfield’s life,
he is framed and arrested and bailed out of jail by his non-believing boss
(David Boyle) who then fires him on the spot, however a fellow journalist
(Karen Black) comes to his aid.
There
are a lot of interesting supporting character actors who appear. Brenda
Vaccarro is on hand as Brubaker’s wife who firmly believes that she must go on
following the “death” of her husband in the “re-entry accident” to Earth; James
Karen is his usual ingratiating self as the Vice President of the United States
several years before he appeared in Poltergeist; David Huddleston is
Hollis Peaker who politely airs his grievance about the absence of the
President of the United States at the launchpad; Lou Frizzell, an actor I
always liked from Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971), Robert Mulligan’s Summer
of ’42 (1971) and The Other (1972) and Curtis Harrington’s Devil
Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), is quite moving as a NASA employee who gives
the astronauts a Bible to take with them; and Telly Savalas is hilarious as a
crop duster pilot who puts his skills to the test for Caulfield in a chase that
Alfred Hitchcock would appreciate after the three astronauts escape from the
desert by plane, with Brubaker being the sole survivor. The film ends abruptly like
a TV-movie, on an image that is probably framed and hanging on Barbara
Streisand’s wall. I would have liked the film to go one step further, with
Brubaker walking up to Kelloway at his “funeral,” and punching him in the face,
just like Sean Connery does to Peter Boyle in the aforementioned Outland.
Imprint,
the wonderful Blu-ray label from Down Under, has released the film on Blu-ray
in a deluxe, two-disc edition.
Blu-ray
Disc One – Theatrical Cut:
The
film had its network television debut on Sunday, May 11, 1980, and being that
it aired in a two-hour time slot on NBC, was no doubt trimmed as the theatrical
cut runs 123 minutes. This is the version that appears on the first Blu-ray,
and it includes subtitles. The transfer is adequate given that the film was
shot 47 years ago. It retains the film’s Panavision 2.35:1 framing in an
anamorphic presentation in 1080p High-Definition.
Ported
over from the Lionsgate DVD from 2008, there is a feature-length audio commentary
by director Peter Hyams, who would go on to direct Hanover Street in
1979 and the nifty High Noon redo in outer space in Outland
(1981) where deception of another kind takes place as the mining colonists on
one of Jupiter’s moons all take Polydichloric Euthimol, a drug that makes them
work harder until it kills them, and their co-workers all believe they go back
to Earth to account for their absence. He talks about the challenges that he
encountered on Capricorn One and rightly heaps praise on the performers
involved in the film. Most people today will recognize these folks and say,
“Hey, I know him/her!”
Flights
of Fancy: The Politics of Capricorn One (Standard
Definition). This piece runs 17:17 and is a fascinating look at “no-moonies,” a
term given to those who believe that the July 1969 moon landing was faked. This
notion is debunked by the onscreen interviewers. Director Hyams recounts how he
watched the event from his Chicago apartment and how it affected him. He had
been a wartime correspondent in Vietnam and saw firsthand how the government
was lying to the public. There are also discussions about audience boredom with
the space race, something brought to light in Ron Howard’s terrific film Apollo
13 (1995).
What
If?: The Making of Capricorn One (Standard
Definition). This piece runs 6:51 and is a series of quick on-camera comments
from some of the performers in the film and their thoughts on faking a Mars
landing.
On
Set with Capricorn One (Standard
Definition). This piece runs 38:22 and consists of non-narrated,
behind-the-scenes raw footage shot in June 1977 in the desert highlighting
Brubaker’s encounter with the gas station and the crop duster.
The
Photo Gallery(High Definition) contains 95 images from the film
displayed during 9:31 of running time. Ironically, when the film was released
in 1978, I saw one of the movie poster ads for it in the newspaper which
depicts the lunar module and oversized lights and crew people standing around.
I was under the erroneous impression that this was a behind-the-scenes shot
taken on the set of the film and it made its way into the film’s marketing campaign
by accident. Talk about confusion and deception!
The
requisite theatrical trailer is in High Definition and is sourced from an old
theatrical print and runs 3:09.
Blu-ray
Disc Two – Extended Cut
This
is an extended cut in high definition of the film that runs 128:30 and has some
noticeable differences that make for a different interpretation of the film and
is worth watching. There is an audio commentary by film historians Daniel
Kremer and Daniel Waters that accompanies this cut, which they announce was
recorded on James Brolin’s birthday which was August 27th. They
provide a very fun and informative examination of the film.
Conspiracy
Busting (High Definition). This is an
onscreen interview with Elliott Gould shot in 2024 and it runs 17:45 with him
discussing his history with the director beginning with their collaboration on Busting
in 1974. He is perched in front of his DVD collection, and he has a great
assortment of titles – some of which he starred in! Love him.
Confessions
of an Astronaut’s Wife (High
Definition). This is an onscreen interview from 2024 with Brenda Vacarro that
runs 13:18 and appears to have been conducted over either Zoom or Skype. She
speaks highly of her co-workers and her director and the luck she has had with
working with so many wonderful people over the years.
How
the Capricorn Was Won: Getting the Greenlight (High Definition). This is an interview with producer Paul Lazarus and
runs 26:49 and his experience working with and winning over Sir Lew Grade of
ITC Entertainment (remember their logo right before The Muppet Show?) to
get the funding for the film. Extremely interesting.
A
Lady of Wondrous Abandon: Remembering the Incomparable Karen Black (High Definition). This is a memorial piece for
the actress that runs 7:16. People weigh in on her impact on them and in film.
I first saw her in Dan Curtis’s 1976 thriller Burnt Offerings and later
his 1975 TV-movie Trilogy of Terror, and she was wonderful. Her poignant
work in Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (1970) opposite Jack Nicholson
was heartbreaking.
Orchestrating
a Conspiracy (High Definition).
I love this piece that runs 18:00 because it discusses the wonderful music of
Jerry Goldsmith, whose work I first heard in August 1979 when Logan’s Run
(1976) premiered on NBC television. Even as a seven-year-old I could really
appreciate his contribution to the film, to say nothing of
twenty-three-year-old Jenny Agutter’s side-split “barely there” outfit – Holy Toledo,
Batman…I would later hear his work on Outland (1981) and then Poltergeist
(1982) which sealed the deal. I was a fan for life.
If
you’re any kind of a fan of this film, this is the edition to get.
Incomparable.
The region-free Blu-ray can be ordered by clicking here.
Note: Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter for non-Australian orders
The Emotional Documentary Film on the Life of
Actor and Activist Christopher Reeve Arrives for Digital Ownership on November
5
Burbank, CA, November 4, 2024 – Super/Man:
The Christopher Reeve Story, the new documentary film featuring
never-before-seen home movies and personal archives that recounts the tragic
and redemptive story of actor and activist Christopher Reeve, best known for
playing Superman in the '70s and '80s films, arrives for purchase Digitally at
home on November 5.
Following a life-altering accident, Christopher Reeve
persevered, inspiring the world by using his fame to speak of hope and change
our perception of paralysis, all while remaining a dedicated activist, actor
and filmmaker, devoted dad, and loving husband to Dana, the beating heart of
the family.
From the directors of McQueen, Ian Bonhôte and Peter
Ettedgui, the film includes never-before-seen intimate home movies and an
extraordinary trove of personal archive material, as well as the first extended
interviews ever filmed with Reeve’s three children about their father, and interviews
with the A-list Hollywood actors who were Reeve’s colleagues and friends. The
film is a moving and vivid cinematic telling of Reeve’s remarkable story.
On November 5, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve
Story will be available for Digital Ownership at home on
participating digital platforms where you purchase movies, including Amazon
Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Fandango At Home, and more.
On November 19, Super/Man: The Christopher
Reeve Story will be available for Digital rental via VOD on
participating digital platforms where you rent movies.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is
directed by Ian Bonhôte & Peter Ettedgui and features Alexandra Reeves
Givens, Matthew Reeve and Will Reeve. The film is written by Peter
Ettedgui and co-written by Ian Bonhôte & Otto Burnham and produced by
Lizzie Gillett, Robert Ford and Ian Bonhôte.
BASICS
Digital Ownership: November 5, 2024
Digital Rental: November 19, 2024
Running Time: 104 minutes
Rated: PG-13 for some strong language and thematic
elements
Cinema Retro Season 21 is almost here! We anticipate the first issue of the new season, #61, to ship to UK subscribers in December. Subscribers throughout the rest of the world will receive their issue in January.
Please subscribe or new today!
Some of our subscribers wait until all three issues are available before renewing. However, if we sell out of one of the three issues, we will not be able to fulfill the subscription. Therefore, if you subscribe now, you will ensure you will not miss a single issue.
Thanks to our loyal readers worldwide for their continued support!
From Bond to Benoit Blanc, few have embodied and
excavated a greater variety of masculinities on-screen than Daniel Craig.
Coinciding with the premiere of Luca Guadagnino's new film adaptation of
William Burroughs's novel, Queer, starring Craig as a sensitive wanderer in
mid-century Mexico City, writer Hilton Als sits down with the actor for an
enlightening evening of in-depth conversation.
Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the beloved sci-fi comedy
classic GALAXY QUEST as it arrives for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD™
December 13, 2024 from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Featuring an out-of-this-world, all-star cast including Tim
Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Enrico
Colantoni, Daryl Mitchell, Justin Long, Missi Pyle, and Rainn Wilson, this
rollicking send-up of sci-fi fanaticism is as funny today as when it premiered
in theatres 25 years ago on December 25, 1999.
· Never Give Up, Never Surrender: The Intrepid Crew of
the NSEA Protector
· By Grabthar's Hammer, What Amazing Effects
· Alien School: Creating the Thermian Race
· Actors in Space
· Sigourney Weaver Raps
· Deleted Scenes
· Theatrical Trailer
Synopsis
Years after cancellation, the stars of the television
series Galaxy Quest cling to their careers. When a distressed interstellar race
mistakes the show for “historical documents,” lead actor Jason Nesmith (Tim
Allen) and his crew of has-beens are unwittingly recruited to save the alien
race from a genocidal warlord. Featuring an all-star ensemble, including
Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell,
Justin Long and Rainn Wilson, GALAXY QUEST is a hilarious adventure that boldly
goes where no comedy has gone before?
Click here to pre-order 4K UHD limited edition steelbook.
Burnt
Offerings (1976) is Dan
Curtis’s film adaptation of the 1973 novel of the same name by the late Robert
Marasco.It’s the novel that reportedly
inspired Stephen King to sublimate his experiences as a caretaker at the
Stanley Hotel in October 1974 into his second novel The Shining (1977) following Carrie
(1974). Much of the plot devices from the former were aped in the latter: a
mother and father spend a season in a huge manse with their young son; a large
structural abode has a life of its own and thrives off of the life blood of its
human dwellers for survival, etc.
Burnt
Offerings opened on
Wednesday, September 29, 1976 in New York “at Red Carpet Theatres” (as opposed
to what, black carpet theatres?Always wondered about that).It is a film that I caught up with five years
later on a repeat NBC-TV airing and it became a perennial favorite on many
independent stations during the 1980s.When I saw the film on VHS, I was shocked at how much footage was cut
from some of its television airings, which is a shame because it moves at a
deliberately slow but effective pace.
Bolstered by terrific performances and
a better-than-average script, the real star of the film is the Dunsmuir
Hellman Historic Estate in Oakland, California, a sprawling 37-room mansion on 50
acres of gorgeous land that belies the dangerous neighborhood that exists to
the west of it.If it looks familiar,
that is because it has been featured in a handful of other films, most notably
as the Morningside mortuary’s exterior in Don Coscarelli’s classic Phantasm (1979) and in the James Bond
film A View to a Kill (1985). Here,
it has been dressed to look decrepit and creepy.Oliver Reed and Karen Black are Ben and
Marian Rolf, a couple who consider renting this incredible dwelling for the
summer with their young son, David (Lee H. Montgomery of Ben), and Ben’s Aunt Elizabeth (played brilliantly by Bette Davis).
They are greeted at the house by Walker the Handyman (Dub Taylor of those crazy
Hubba Bubba commercials from 1980) who introduces them to the
renters, two eccentric siblings played wonderfully by Eileen Heckart and
Burgess Meredith. They inform the Rolfs that they can rent the house for two
months for $900.00(!) if they agree to a slight catch: they must agree to take
care of their 85-year-old mother, Mrs. Allardyce, who lives in a room on the
top floor.All they have to do is
prepare food for her three times a day and leave it in her sitting room.Understandably hesitant to buy into this
peculiar “arrangement”, Ben and his family return home. Marian is gung-ho from
the get-go, so Ben reluctantly acquiesces to her wish to rent the house and
concurs by default with the terms set forth by the Allardyces. These opening
introductory scenes set the tone for the rest of the film, as both the Rolf’s
and the audience are kept in the dark as to what the owners have up their
sleeves.
Returning to the house with Aunt
Elizabeth in tow, the Rolf’s engage in some fun banter concerning Elizabeth’s
desire to procure a driver’s license. Director Curtis sets up the Rolfs as a
family that the audience can relate to and almost feel as though they are along
for the ride. When they reach the house, the Rolfs are shocked to find that the
Allardyces have left them the keys to the home and are nowhere to be found. As
Davey is ordered by his father to unpack the car, Marian attends to Mrs.
Allardyce. Despite knocking on her door multiple times and talking to her, the
old woman never responds. Marian assumes she’s sleeping.
As the days progress, Davey and his
father clean out the pool and fill it with water, while Marian prepares meals
for Mrs. Allardyce and becomes more in awe of the old woman’s music box and
photo collection, the latter of which is strange in two respects: not only are
the photos of people who are of varying age and do not appear related, but none
of them are smiling. When Marian listens to the music from the music box, she
goes into a dreamlike trance, oblivious to all external sounds. The uneventful
settling into the house suddenly takes a U-turn when Ben inexplicably tries to
drown Davey in the pool during a maniacal episode of unprovoked rage. Later
that night, Ben, contrite and baffled by his own behavior, dreams of his
mother’s funeral when he was just a young boy. In the dream, cinema’s scariest
chauffeur smiles at him. As the film progresses, a series of near-fatal
“accidents” that threaten the very fabric of the family unit and their physical
well-being leaves the viewer wondering why they just do not simply leave. It is
in this respect, as well as the film’s denouement, where the film triumphs over
the novel.
The one image people tend to remember
from this film more than any other is Anthony James’ frightening turn as the
chauffeur. His smile behind the dark sunglasses is rumored to have made teenage
girls scream as they watched it in a theater or, more often than not, at
sleepovers.
Dan Curtis, the creator of the popular
TV show Dark Shadows, used his TV
crew to make this film, much like Alfred Hitchcock did when he filmed his
self-proclaimed “fun picture” Psycho
(1960). Fortunately, he shot the film with a cinematic eye, which results in
some very interesting camerawork by Jacques R. Marquette. He employs the use of
low-angle shots with the idea of the theatrical audience in mind, “looking up”
at the actors on the screen. I wish that I had seen this film in a
theater!If you have the patience to
watch a thriller that takes its time, Burnt
Offerings is well worth seeing.
Kino
Lorber has done right by Burnt Offerings
and offers up a beautiful, much improved transfer over the original MGM/UA 2003
DVD which was drab, muted and lacking in detail. Originally scheduled for
release on laserdisc in 1997, the project was postponed and eventually scrapped
altogether due to MGM’s inability at that time to secure suitable film elements
for the transfer. The print used here is fairly free of dirt and the increased
resolution from the high definition gives the image a much-needed boost. The
film was shot in August 1975 and I originally thought that it was designed with
a soft look, but that was just due to the lackluster transfer (the VHS tape,
with Macrovision, was even worse!).
The film’s sound, which was problematic
on the VHS and DVD transfers, is also much improved. The dialog is now more
intelligible and Robert Cobert’s musical score, indubitably one of the
creepiest and most frightening scores ever written for a film, fairs far better
here, too. The mix is monaural. Kino, for some reason, does not provide
subtitles, so if you want them hold onto the 2003 DVD.
A soundtrack album for Burnt Offerings was finally issued in 2011 and is out-of-print, but worth seeking out.
If you love this film as much as I do,
purchasing this Blu-ray is a no-brainer. Another thing that Kino Lorber has
done, and they really need to be commended on this, is include the original
United Artists/Transamerica logo that appears before the film begins. This may
not seem like a big deal, but to us die-hard film aficionados, this is a huge deal.Seeing a film from the very start of the
first frame is very important, and the studio logo before a film begins is not
separate, it is a part of the film viewing experience. The Warner Brothers logo
that opens William Friedkin’s The
Exorcist (1973) is so integral to the film that as the movie starts, the
music begins playing over the studio
logo. Billy Goldenberg’s icy music plays over the “Universal/An MCA Company”
logo in Steven Spielberg’s Duel as
does the underwater machinery in Jaws
prior to that film’s start.In the 1980s,
it was possible to see these logos before a film’s start as most of the
transfers were done from theatrical prints. As we got into the 1990s and the
2000s and telecine transfers became more common, the original studio logos were
being replaced with the newer and fancier studio logos.Now, the original studio logos are really in
danger of disappearing altogether (Youtube is really the only place to see
them). Unless companies like Kino Lorber, which really have the cineastes’ best
interests at heart, continue their excellent work of retaining the original
film logos, those very logos will become a lost part of cinema history.
The Blu-ray disc includes the following
extras:
The theatrical trailer
The first commentary is with Karen
Black, Dan Curtis, and the film’s screenwriter William F. Nolan and has been
ported over from the original 2003 MGM/UA DVD release. I wish that they all had
viewed the film prior to the
commentary, as some of their comments are truly unbelievable. This commentary
is a riot to listen to.
There is a second commentary on here
recorded in 2015 by film historian Richard Harland Smith, and it is one of the
most entertaining, insightful and informative commentaries that I have ever
listened to. Mr. Smith got me thinking about things that I never thought of
before, particularly in regard to Marian’s distancing from her family, and even
manages to tie in a discussion about the Vietnam War. He speaks at length about
the meaning behind the film’s title in addition to the notion of the “Old Dark
House” where evil lurks.
There are onscreen interviews with the
late Anthony James (he played the chauffeur), Lee Montgomery (he played Davey)
and William F. Nolan (he wrote the screenplay).
Kino
Lorber has retained the film’s effective key art for the cover.
Burnt Offerings was
the first thriller I ever saw and it made an indelible impression on me that
has stayed with me for the past 43 years. A superb release, especially at the
end of October!
The YouTube channel Old School Cinema makes a convincing case that the Oscars have long been snubbing great westerns. There aren't too many westerns made today, but over the decades it was one of the most popular genres. See if you agree that these chosen films deserved Oscar recognition.
This
absolute gem of a film has finally received the Criterion treatment in high
definition. Paper Moon was already a delight, but now it’s even more so.
Based
on the decently-selling 1971 novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown,
Paramount Pictures had scooped up the rights and had secured John Huston to
direct it with Paul Newman starring with one of his daughters. The project fell
apart and it was offered to Peter Bogdanovich, who was flying high after the
huge successes of The Last Picture Show (1971) and What’s Up, Doc? (1972).
Bogdanovich
read the script written by Alvin Sargent and wasn’t particularly thrilled about
it. His former wife, Polly Platt, with whom he was still friendly and worked with on
previous pictures (she was production designer for three of his recent movies)
read it and convinced him to do it. She even suggested Tatum O’Neal as the
star. After visiting Ryan O’Neal and Tatum at their Malibu home, Bogdanovich
was convinced Tatum could do it, and then went the whole way and asked Ryan to
star as well, making it a true father-daughter one-two punch. After rewrites
with Sargent on the script, the director then knew the movie had to be made.
Set
during the Great Depression of 1930s Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri, the story
is the tale of an orphaned girl, Addie (Tatum, who was eight and nine when the
picture was made), who meets a dubious con man, Moze (Ryan) at her mother’s
funeral. She suspects that he’s really her “daddy.” One thing leads to another,
and some locals convince Moze to give Addie a ride to her aunt’s house in St.
Joseph. Along the way, Addie witnesses Moze’s attempts at conning strangers out
of their money. Moze even convinces the brother of the man who accidentally
killed Addie’s mother to give her $200. The mistake he then makes is spending
it on a new car. Addie is wise beyond her years, so she extorts him to pay back
the money that is legally hers. Thus begins a road trip movie across the
Midwest, where the reluctant “father and daughter” participate in more con
games, meet a ditzy stripper, Trixie (the fabulous Madeline Kahn) and her
teenage black maid, Imogene (P. J. Johnson), get in trouble with the law, and
other sometimes hilarious, other times touching, vignettes. One of the
overriding questions in the film—Is Moze really Addie’s father?—hangs
over the proceedings, and it’s up to the audience to decide the answer.
Paper
Moon is
easily one of Bogdanovich’s better pictures, the crowning touch of a master
trilogy of titles that began with The Last Picture Show. Upon its
release, the movie was an immediate box office hit. Tatum O’Neal became the
youngest performer ever to win an Oscar—Best Supporting Actress—for her
remarkable work. Madeline Kahn was also nominated for Supporting Actress, the
script was up for Adapted Screenplay, and the movie’s Sound got the nod. Why it
didn’t receive a Best Picture nomination is a mystery, and it’s especially
surprising that Ryan O’Neal did not get a nomination. This reviewer believes Paper
Moon is the actor’s crowning achievement. But, indeed, the movie belongs to
Tatum O’Neal. There are not many child performances in the history of cinema
that can touch hers.
The
Criterion Collection’s new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural
soundtrack, looks beautiful in László
Kovács’s glorious black and white cinematography.
Criterion has released the film in a 2-disk 4K UHD edition (that also includes
the Blu-ray and supplements) as well as the single disk Blu-ray. The film comes
with the 2003 audio commentary by Bogdanovich, ported over from the Paramount
DVD. The director is always an entertaining spokesman with wonderful stories
about the making of the movie.
Supplements
include a new video essay on the film by Peter Tonguette (Bogdanovich’s
biographer), the 2003 Introduction to the film by Bogdanovich, an archival
interview with Polly Platt, Platt’s home movies of location scouting, a
port-over from 2003 of a three-part “making of” documentary featuring
Bogdanovich, Platt, producer Frank Marshall, and Kovács;
and an absolutely terrific excerpt from The Johnny Carson Show when
Bogdanovich and both O’Neals appeared as guests. The theatrical trailer rounds
up the package. An essay by critic Mark Harris appears in the enclosed booklet.
Paper Moon is for fans of director Bogdanovich, Ryan and
Tatum O’Neal, 1970s “New Hollywood,” Depression-era tales, and poignant comedy.
Highly recommended.
Quincy Jones, one of the most famous and distinguished names in the history of modern music, has passed away at age 91. Jones was the very definition of "multi-talented": he composed, conducted, produced and wrote songs. He was the recipient of 28 Grammy Awards and worked with some of the greatest names in the music industry. His collaborations with Michael Jackson produced three hit albums, one of whicn- "Thriller"- is the top-selling record album of all time. Jones also had notable collaborations with Frank Sinatra that showcased both artists at their best. Jones was a top name in composing music for movies and television. Among his memorable creations for T.V. were the classic themes for "Roots", "Sanford and Son" and "Ironside". His film soundtracks include "In the Heat of the Night", "The Getaway", "The Anderson Tapes", "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", "The Hot Rock", "Mackenna's Gold", "The Italian Job" (1969 version) and "Mirage", among many others. Perhaps his greatest achievement was organizing "We Are the World", the legendary 1985 concert to benefit famine relief. Jones used his clout to get a "Who's Who" of international music legends together to perform. For more about his life and career, click here.
Canon Films was a sensation in the movie industry during the 1980s. The ailing company was acquired by partners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who quickly brought to the screen an eclectic array of low-to-middle range budgeted films. The company was not interested in producing high art and their range of product ran from exploiting the latest trends (i.e break dancing) to action movies aimed squarely at audiences that weren't too discriminating and who just wanted some fun flicks to indulge in. Sometimes their films sank at the boxoffice but more often than not they returned a good profit. Occasionally, they hit paydirt, as in their successful efforts to make Chuck Norris into a bankable leading man. The studio also became a one-stop employment agency for the aging Charles Bronson, whose glory days with the big studios were over. Cannon Films gave Bronson a new lease on life with a seemingly endless string of urban crime thrillers. Some were lousy (the "Death Wish" sequels) while others proved to be rather good and that Bronson still had the power to attract audiences. Golan and Globus weren't chasing Oscars, just good return on investment. By the late 1980s, however, the formula was showing signs of stress. The partners decided to go a bit upscale by securing the screen rights to famed adventure novelist Alistair MacLean's 1981 novel "River of Death". The film sank at the boxoffice but, like many Canon films, has enjoyed popularity through home video and streaming. MacLean, who passed away in 1987, was, for a while anyway, a surefire name to attract movie audiences via such high profile titles as "The Guns of Navarone", "Ice Station Zebra" and "Where Eagles Dare".
"River of Death" is set in the mid-1960s and presents Canon's in-house hunky action star Michael Dudikoff as John Hamilton, a freelance adventurer-for-hire who is engaged by a disparate group of suspicious people to help them find a legendary lost city deep in the inhospitable Amazon jungle. His primary client is Heinrich Spaatz (Donald Pleasence) who presents himself as a Holocaust survivor who lost his family in the Dachau concentration camp. However, due to a dramatic prologue, we know that "Spaatz" is actually a surviving member of the Nazi high command. Ostensibly, the group is supposed to be investigating the outbreak of a mysterious disease that is devastating a tribe in the jungle. In fact, Spaatz is trying to locate his old nemesis and fellow surviving Nazi big wig Dr. Wolfgang Manteuffel (Robert Vaughn) who had schemed with Spaatz to abscond with treasures of the Third Reich during the hectic final days of the war. However, Manteuffel double-crossed him and left him for dead. Spaatz suspects that the mad doctor is with the tribe, where he is unleashing his quack medical experiments with deadly results. We won't belabor the plot other than to say that the group Hamilton is leading includes two gorgeous blonds and a local American ex-pat Eddie Hiller (L.Q. Jones), who is an expert helicopter pilot who can deliver the group to where they will embark on the Amazon up river by boat. Needless to say, there are plenty of revelations along the way and the streetwise Hamilton is suspicious about the group's motives. They also meet the local corrupt police chief Col. Ricardo Diaz (Herbert Lom), who is determined to find out what the group is really up to.
I have not read MacLean's novel but it becomes clear that it was inspired in part by Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", as was "Apocalypse Now", which explains why there are similarities between this film and Francis Ford Coppola's classic. Under the competent direction of Steve Carver, the production is better than most Canon fare. The movie was supposed to be shot in Brazil, but the penny-pinching Golan and Globus decided they could shoot it in South Africa for lower costs. That's because South Africa was an international pariah at the time due to its unspeakably cruel apartheid practices. Major movie studios refused to shoot films there, but Carver, claiming his was "non-political" took the job and ended up getting sanctioned by the Director's Guild of America. Carver came to rue his decision before that happened simply because of the inhospitable locations he had to film in. He would later say they were so dangerous that it was amazing no one in the cast and crew was murdered. Nonetheless, this particular Canon film has some higher production values than most of the studio's fare. It also has some genuine suspense and impressive cast. Dudikoff makes for a suitable leading man and he can actually act. The film also benefits from the likes of Pleasence, Lom and Jones, all of whom have meaty roles. Although Robert Vaughn gets second billing, he only appears briefly in the prologue and again at the finale, filling the role of the Colonel Kurtz-like figure who has managed to preside over a tribe of savage warriors. In Manteuffel's case, however, he isn't regarded as the god-like figure Kurtz was. Rather, he enforces his control over the tribe with an army of heavily armed neo-Nazis.
I don't want to overstate the merits of "River of Death" because when one reviews a Canon production, your thumb has to firmly placed on a scale in terms of comparing it to most of their films. However, the movie moves at a brisk pace and contains some genuinely exciting action scenes. In the finale, you get to see an iconic T.V. hero, Napoleon Solo (Vaughn) squaring off against an iconic Bond villain, Ernest Stavro Blofeld (Pleasence). For that memorable moment in pop culture alone, the film is worth viewing.
("River of Death" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and MGM+.)
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Norman Lear: His Life & Times, the first comprehensive
biography of the eponymous TV pioneer by show business historian, entertainment
journalist and author Tripp Whetsell, will be released by Applause Books on
November 11th.
Hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as a “fitting tribute to a
consequential figure in television history,” it is the first in-depth biography
of the iconic writer, producer and social activist, who beginning in the early
1970s, forever altered America’s television landscape with such groundbreaking
situation comedies as All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, One
Day at a Time and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
While much has been written about Lear, Whetsell
demonstrates there is still a lot more to be learned about “the man in the
white hat,” who was arguably the first behind-the-scenes television figure to
become a bona fide celebrity in his own right, whose multi-award-winning
taboo-busting sitcoms averaged as many as 120 million viewers a week during
their peak.
Whetsell currently teaches the only college-level course
about Lear and his classic sitcoms at their alma mater, Boston’s Emerson
College, in which Lear appeared as a guest via Zoom twice. He was also
the only journalist to interview Lear exclusively for a 40th anniversary
retrospective of All in the Family for TV Guide in 2001.
From his birth in New Haven, Connecticut in July 1922 right
up until his death in Los Angeles in December 2023 at the age of 101, Lear’s
life is told in thorough, meticulous detail with unflinching candor, including:
How his father’s three-year prison sentence when he was just
nine years old, coupled by his mother Jeanette’s emotional indifference and
hearing the infamously anti-Semitic rhetoric of pro-fascist broadcaster Father
Charles Coughlin, would linger in Lear’s psyche for the rest of his life.
How he became one of the highest paid comedy writers in the
young medium of television during the early 1950s, penning variety show
sketches for the likes of Martin & Lewis, Martha Raye, George Gobel and
others.
Lear’s equally prolific turn writing and producing films
throughout the 1960s followed—Come Blow Your Horn starring Frank Sinatra, Divorce
American Style, starring Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds and The Night They
Raided Minsky’s co-starring Jason Robards and Elliot Gould in his first major
film appearance.
His many creative and personal battles with network censors
and actors Carroll O’Connor, Redd Foxx, John Amos, Esther Rolle, Louise Lasser
and others.
His tumultuous first two marriages and complex relationship
with longtime producing partner Bud Yorkin.
His decision to walk away from weekly television at the
height of his fame and the top of his game in 1978 to devote more time to
social activism.
His multiple sitcom comeback attempts in the decades that
followed, all of which failed, before finally hitting pay dirt in the early
2020s, first with Latino reboot of One Day at a Time and the three Live in
Front of a Studio Audience specials in which his beloved sitcoms were
reimagined resulting in Lear becoming the oldest Emmy winner ever two years in
a row.
Tripp
Whetsell
is the author of The Improv: An Oral History the Comedy Club That
Revolutionized Stand-Up (with founder Budd Friedman and a Foreword by
Jay Leno), which was named one of the best comedy books of 2017 by ABC News, The
New York Times and the New York Post. He is a media studies professor at
Emerson College in Boston. As an entertainment journalist, he has covered TV,
film, comedy and other aspects of popular culture for more than two decades and
his articles have appeared in Vulture, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times,
VanityFair.com, The Wall Street Journal, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. He
lives in New York City and Westhampton Beach, Long Island. Norman Lear: His
Life & Times is his fourth book
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Sony Home Entertainment:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
“…one of the definitive TV sitcoms of all time.” –
Variety
SEINFELD: THE COMPLETE SERIES
The Iconic, Hilarious, Beloved, Emmy® Award-Winning, Yada
Yada Yada…
Show About Nothing Finally Debuts on Blu-ray Disc™ and 4K
Ultra HD™ Disc December 17th
Celebrating The Series’ 35th Anniversary and 100 Years of
Columbia Pictures
CULVER CITY, Calif. (October 30, 2024) – All of the
catchphrases, all of the memorable characters, all
of the misunderstandings, all of the unforgettable hilarity
of one of the best television shows of all time:
SEINFELD: THE COMPLETE SERIES finally comes to
Blu-ray Disc and 4K Ultra HD Disc on
December 17th, just in time for Festivus and other holiday
occasions!
Packed with all nine seasons of the historically acclaimed
series plus hours of insightful special features—
from deleted scenes to inside looks to cast & crew
commentaries and more.
SEINFELD: THE
COMPLETE SERIES is presented in two separate
editions: a Blu-ray edition featuring a high definition
presentation of the series in a 1.78 format, and a limited
edition 4K Ultra HD edition featuring the entire
series presented in 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range at
its original 1.33 aspect ratio.
Long-awaited by fans, SEINFELD: THE COMPLETE SERIES
is finally making the leap from standard
definition discs following an extensive and comprehensive 4K
upgrade for the series, and is perfectly timed for the series’ 35th
anniversary, as well as to conclude the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures.
In addition to the physical sets, SEINFELD: THE COMPLETE SERIES is also
available for purchase at participating digital retailers.
SEINFELD: THE COMPLETE SERIES DISC DETAILS
BLU-RAY EDITION
• 24 Blu-ray Discs
• Episodes presented in 1.78:1 High Definition on Blu-ray
Disc; English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Audio
• Special Features include Audio Commentaries, Deleted
Scenes, Bloopers, Inside Looks and Alternate
Versions of Select Episodes
4K ULTRA HD EDITION – the 4K Ultra HD set is a
limited edition.
• 24 4K Ultra HD Discs
• Episodes presented in 1.33:1 at 4K resolution with HDR10;
English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Audio
• Special Features include Audio Commentaries, Deleted
Scenes, Bloopers, Inside Looks and Alternate
Cinema Retro has received the following press release pertaining to the UK limited edition of "Captain Kronos: Vampire Huner"
LONDON, UK (31/10/24): This Halloween, Hammer Films
invites horror fans to experience an unparalleled celebration of the
studio’s legendary legacy. The highly anticipated 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray™
release of a brand-new 4K restoration of Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter becomes available for pre-order on Thursday 31st October, marking the cult classic’s 50th anniversary.
The home entertainment announcement kicks off Hammer Films’ 90th
anniversary celebrations including a partnership with Sky Arts for the
premiere of Deep Fusion Films’ new documentary Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, a deep dive into the iconic studio’s legacy which will be shown exclusively on Sky Arts at 9pm on 31st
October. Throughout November, Sky Arts is then screening a selection of
classic Hammer horror to honour the 90th anniversary on 9th November.
Hammer Films brings cult classic Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter
back to life as the first stunning 4K restoration from the new Hammer
team, under John Gore’s leadership. Written and directed by the
legendary Brian Clemens (The Avengers, The Professionals) and
originally released in 1974, this swashbuckling horror film has been
meticulously restored from the original film negatives. It will be
celebrating its 50th anniversary with a limited collector’s edition
5-disc set (2 UHD discs and 3 Blu-rays™) enclosed within a high-end,
leather-feel slipcase with debossed red foil titling. Available for
pre-order on 31st October, the limited collector’s edition features:
Three presentations of the film: UK Theatrical, US Theatrical and As-Filmed Versions
Brand-new
documentary on Brian Clemens’ life and work by Chris Chapman, featuring
interviews with Brian’s colleagues, friends and family
Brand-new introductions and commentary by Hammer icon and star Caroline Munro and Brian Clemens’ sons, Sam and George
Previously unseen interviews with Brian Clemens and star Horst Janson
Brand new artwork by world-renowned artist Graham Humphreys
High-end
collectible packaging featuring the 5 discs, a double-sided poster, art
cards, new booklet on the making of this cult classic and 100-page
comic featuring a reprint of the Kronos strips from the legendary 1970s
magazine The House of Hammer
A film that has only grown in significance since its 1974 release, it
mixes swashbuckling action with horror; a bold and innovative departure
for Hammer and one that continues to inspire filmmakers today.
This release not only revives a Hammer classic but reaffirms the
studio’s commitment to restoring its cinematic treasures for today’s
horror enthusiasts and dedicated collectors worldwide.
It is the first 4K restoration from John Gore’s Hammer team and an
essential collector’s edition that offers a deep dive into the film’s
creation and legacy. With extensive bonus materials, including new rare
interviews and archival commentaries, it offers fans an unprecedented
look behind the scenes of one of Hammer’s most innovative films.
“Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter represents the adventurous spirit of
Hammer in the 1970s - a bold blend of horror, action and fantasy that
was ahead of its time. This 4K restoration allows us to finally present
the film in its full glory, and I’m thrilled that it’s the first of many
Hammer Films restorations.” says John Gore, Hammer Films’ CEO and
Chairman.
Leading lady Caroline Munro reflects “I have such fond memories of
working on Captain Kronos. It was a true passion project and seeing it
restored in 4K is like watching it with new eyes. Fans are in for a real
treat with this release - it looks stunning and captures all the
excitement we felt making it.”
Sam Clemens, son of writer/director Brian Clemens, echoes this
sentiment: “My father was always proud of Captain Kronos. He saw it as a
fresh take on the vampire mythos and a character who could have spawned
a series. This 4K restoration is the version he would have wanted fans
to experience.”
NOTE: WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED THAT THIS VIDEO IS REGION-FREE!
Pre-order the limited edition Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray™ on 31st October atwww.hammerfilms.com
Film critic Ann Thompson worked on early John Carpenter movies as a press agent, including the original 1978 horror classic "Halloween". In 2018, Thompson reunited with the director and actress Jamie Lee Curtis 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.
Actress Teri Garr has died at age 79. She had been suffering for years from serious illnesses related to multiple sclerosis. Garr had a hard scrabble life beginning with the death of her father when she was 11 years old. Her family moved numerous times before settling in Los Angeles. Garr graduated from North Hollywood High School. She took an interest in acting was ultimately accepted to study at the Actors Studio. She proved to be a good dancer, which helped during the go-go mania days of the 1960s. She was a dancer on "The Sonny and Cher" TV program and appeared as a dancer in numerous Elvis Presley feature films. Garr gained acclaim for her brief but memorable role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 classic "The Conversation". Stardom followed when Mel Brooks cast her in his hit comedy "Young Frankenstein". She would later receive praise for her performance in Steven Spielberg's 1977 sci-fi classic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and an Oscar nomination for the 1982 comedy classic "Tootsie" starring Dustin Hoffman. She also starred opposite Michael Keaton in "Mr. Mom". She would also have a recurring role in the TV series "Friends". (Lee Pfeiffer)
The
most horrifying scene in Robert Aldrich’s 1956 movie, Attack!, occurs when Lieutenant Joe Costa’s arm is crushed by the
wheels of a German tank and he screams in excruciating agony. This scene is
difficult to watch and some viewers inevitably turn away, their eyes and minds
incapable of imagining such unbearable pain. Incredibly, Costa doesn’t die. He
forces himself to try to wrench his crushed arm from under the wheels. He has
stay alive long enough to fulfill a promise he made to Captain Erskine Cooney.
He must stay alive so he can kill Cooney.
Robert
Aldrich was a skilled director whose distinctive approach to familiar film
genres was overlooked for most of his career, at least in his home country of
the United States; in Europe, his expertise was recognized as early as the
1950s, the first decade of his directing career. He began working in Hollywood as
a Third Assistant Director in 1941 and was promoted to Second Assistant Director
the following year. In 1952, he began his directing career on television in such
series as The Doctor, China Smith and Four Star Playhouse. He directed his first feature film in 1953, a
low-budget sports drama for M-G-M called Big
Leaguer that didn’t make much of an impression. However, in 1954, he directed
two major Westerns, Apache and Vera Cruz, that were box-office
successes and elevated him to the status of a bankable director.
Over
three decades, Aldrich directed 29 movies. He was always a maverick, personally
and professionally, which caused many difficulties with studio executives who
resented his independence. As a result, he eventually formed his own production
company, The Associates and Aldrich, which would allow him the freedom to
express his unique personal vision without studio interference. In 1955, two of
his films were released. Kiss Me Deadly
is a seminal film noir and The Big Knife
is a searing indictment of Hollywood that starred Jack Palance in the first of
three movies he would make with Aldrich. Neither movie was as commercially
successful as the two Westerns but their critical acclaim added to his prestige,
though the latter film’s portrait of fictional studio executives didn’t endear
him to their real-life counterparts.
Throughout
the rest of Aldrich’s career, he directed some great films, including the
subject of this article, Attack!, as
well as The Flight of the Phoenix
(1965), The Grissom Gang(1971),
Ulzana’s Raid (1972) and Twilight’s
Last Gleaming (1977). (Note: These are my personal favorite Aldrich movies.
Many critics called The Grissom Gang
disgusting and depraved but failed to see the genuine emotion beneath the
superficial unpleasantness. Twilight’s
Last Gleaming did not draw large audiences but it is a powerful conspiracy
thriller about the Vietnam War and, indirectly, the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.) He also directed some very good movies such as the
above-mentioned Apache, Vera Cruz, The Big Knife and Kiss Me
Deadly as well as The Last Sunset
(1961), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
and Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964).
In addition, his resumé includes such box-office hits as The Dirty Dozen, (1967), The
Longest Yard (1974) and Hustle (1975). (Note: Though these are
his most commercially successful movies, I feel that they don’t reflect the
intensity of personal commitment that infuses my favorites.) Yes, he made some
mediocre movies including The Angry Hills
(1959), 4 for Texas (1963), The Killing of Sister George (1968), The Choirboys (1977) and The Frisco Kid (1979) but every great
artist makes some mistakes. (Note: Comedies were not Aldrich’s specialty so
whatever possessed him to make two humorless Western comedies is a puzzlement.)
Incidentally,
detailed analyses of Robert Aldrich’s movies along with his personal opinions
about them can be found in the following books: The Films and Career of Robert Aldrich by Edwin T. Arnold (The
University of Tennessee Press; 1986), Whatever
Happened to Robert Aldrich by Alain Silver and James Ursini (Limelight
Editions; 1995) and Robert Aldrich
Interviews edited by Eugene L. Miller, Jr. and Edwin T. Arnold (University
Press of Mississippi; 2004). These books were helpful in the preparation of
this article. My memory has also been of assistance. I was a 14-year-old boy
when I first saw Attack! at the Park
Theater in Woonsocket RI. The image of that tank rolling over Jack Palance’s
arm along with his piercing scream and agonized reaction scared the living
daylights out of me. This was probably the director’s intention since he refers
to Attack! as an anti-war movie. It
certainly made me anti-war. It also helped to make me anti-authoritarian. After
I was drafted several years later, I superimposed Eddie Albert’s face on every
officer that I encountered and referred to every captain as ‘Erskine.’
Following
the formation of his own company and the release of The Big Knife, Aldrich wanted to direct a movie about World War II.
His primary objective was to make a movie that portrayed the detrimental
effects of war upon individual men and how it leads to extremely commendable acts
from some men and extremely contemptible acts from others. After being unable
to secure the rights to Irwin Shaw’s novel, The
Young Lions, and Norman Mailer’s novel, The
Naked and the Dead, Aldrich read Norman A. Brooks’ play, Fragile Fox, and purchased the film
rights.
Fragile Fox opened on Broadway
on October 10, 1954. The review by ‘Bron’ in Variety mentioned the play’s
virtues but emphasized its faults: “Fragile
Fox, reportedly based upon the playwright’s personal experiences, is a
frequently sturdy melodrama. The story revolves around two lieutenants who are
in friction with their two superiors. One is a cowardly drunken captain who is
responsible for the deaths of several of his men and the other is a
materialistic colonel. Dane Clark brings drive and conviction to the part of Lieutenant
Costa. Don Taylor impresses as Lieutenant Woodruff. Andrew Duggan is convincing
as Captain Cooney and James Gregory is effective as Colonel Bartlett. However, the
humor of the first act is forced and hackneyed. The story picks up speed in the
second act but flaws in characterizations curb enthusiasm and interest. Odds
are against its box-office success.”
According
to Variety, newspaper theater critics
provided two affirmative reviews and five negative reviews (including one from
the influential Brooks Atkinson in The
New York Times) for Fragile Fox. With
tickets ranging from $4.60 to $5.75, the play earned $11,000 the first week and
$8,500 the second week. In order to hopefully increase attendance, on November
7, Dane Clark and Don Taylor performed a scene from the play on the CBS
television variety series, EdSullivan’s Toast of the Town. However,
audiences continued to decrease. For the seventh week, receipts were only slightly
over $7,000. On November 27, the play closed at a loss of approximately $60,000
on a $70,000 investment. (Note: Norman A. Brooks never wrote another play.)
Despite
its failure on the stage, Fragile Fox
contained themes and characterizations that appealed to Robert Aldrich. Since
United Artists had released four of his five previous movies, Aldrich arranged
for UA to distribute his war movie which he was producing through his Associate
and Aldrich company. The reported budget for the film was $500,000. He financed
the film with a bank loan and an advance from United Artists. He signed James
Poe, who had scripted The Big Knife,
to write the screenplay. After reviewing
the script, the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army refused to provide
equipment and assistance to Aldrich. Congressman Melvin Price, a member of the
Armed Service Committee, accused the Defense Department for its apparent
censorship of a movie due to its negative depiction of some Army officers. The
American Veterans Committee also criticized the Defense Department for refusing
to acknowledge the reality of spineless officers during the war though it had
no objection to films that depicted the weaknesses of enlisted men. Nevertheless,
Aldrich had to purchase or rent all of the military equipment, including two
tanks. Exterior shots were filmed at the Albertson Ranch in Triunfo California.
Interiors were filmed at the RKO Studios and Universal Studios. Filming was
completed within 31 days in January and February, 1956. The new title given to
the movie was Attack!. (Note: Posters
for the movie and the trailer include an exclamation point after the title;
however, in the actual title credit on screen, there is no exclamation point.)
Incidentally,
there is a historical basis for the events depicted in the play and the movie.
Aachen was a city in Germany bordering Belgium. In April and May of 1944,
Allied air raids reduced much of the city to wreckage. After the air raids,
what remained of the city was destroyed by American armed forces and Nazi
defenders during the Battle of Aachen which occurred in October 1944. Aachen
became the first German city to be occupied by U.S. Army forces. The last major
German offensive, known as the Battle of the Bulge, occurred around the
Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxemburg and lasted for five weeks from
December 1944 to January 1945.
James
Poe’s adaptation of Brooks’ play is a prime example of how to capture the
essence of a play while expanding its potential through the medium of the
cinema. And if ever a play was more suited to the screen than to the stage, it
was Fragile Fox. However, though
Poe’s screenplay is excellent, Robert Aldrich is the auteur behind this movie. Because
the story involves extremely tense emotions of the two main characters, director
Aldrich is able to highlight these emotions far more effectively with the use
of close-ups and the careful placement of characters within each scene. This
type of character placement is also of great value in depicting the various
relationships that are integral to the development of the story. Aldrich also
developed personalities and relationships by filming some scenes from overhead,
others though windows and doorways and still others behind precisely-positioned
props. Most importantly, battle scenes which could only be related on the stage
are depicted with brutal realism on the screen by the director. Fragile Fox probably failed on Broadway
because the stage is not the type of medium that can fully depict the horrors
and insanity of war that film can so vividly display. And Aldrich superbly
emphasizes war’s brutality and senselessness with scenes that explode on the
screen with shocking impact.
Robert
Aldrich’s direction is assured from the first scene. A title card states simply
that the setting is ‘Europe 1944.’ The movie opens in the midst of a battle. A
National Guard Infantry Company, Fragile Fox, has been ordered by company
commander Captain Erskine Cooney to capture one of the last German strongholds
in the town of Aachen. But something is obviously wrong. Sergeant Ingersol and his
first squad are pinned down by enemy fire from a German pillbox. The squad
leader, Lieutenant Lathrop, has been killed. Ingersol is frantically awaiting
the support that Captain Cooney promised. Platoon leader Lieutenant Joe Costa,
who sent Lathrop’s squad on a reconnaissance mission, furiously tries to reach Cooney
but Cooney refuses to acknowledge his calls for help. As a result, the entire
first squad is slaughtered. Lt. Costa harbors his loathing of Cooney from this
disastrous battle. This initial sequence unfolds at a rapid pace that displays
the fatality of war directly by the explosions that tear human beings apart and
symbolically by the image of a helmet rolling down a hill to land next to a
single flower.
At
Fragile Fox headquarters, Lieutenant Harry Woodruff is the liaison between
battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Clyde Bartlett and Captain Cooney.
Woodruff is torn between his empathy for Costa and his duties to his military
superiors. Woodruff asks Colonel Bartlett to transfer Cooney to a clerical
position but Bartlett refuses because he needs to earn the gratitude of
Cooney’s father, who is a powerful judge back home. This sequence reveals the
opportunism of Bartlett who doesn’t care that Cooney’s incompetence creates a
danger to his soldiers. It is also apparent that Cooney thought that by joining
the National Guard in his home state he would never come close to combat. Once
his company was activated, he sought the protection of his father’s law clerk,
Clyde Bartlett, who was willing to shelter Cooney for his own interests. It
will become clear that the deaths of the first squad’s 14 men mean nothing to
both of them. Cooney is more interested in his supply of bourbon than the lives
of his company’s soldiers. And Bartlett is only interested in ensuring his
future political prospects by securing a fraudulent citation for Cooney.
Outside
of company headquarters, the soldiers of Lt. Costa’s second squad worry that they
may suffer the same fate as the first squad. The soldiers include Sergeant
Tolliver, Private First Class Bernstein, Private First Class Ricks, Private
Snowden and Private Abramowitz, among others. The morale in the platoon is dangerously
low because of their contempt of Cooney. Aldrich emphasizes the hopelessness of
their situation by their jeers toward Cooney’s orderly, Corporal Jackson. It is
obvious that these soldiers feel that they have no recourse against the forces
that control their destiny. They place their trust in Lt. Costa who feels
responsible for the lives of his men. Costa is the only person who can openly
express his feelings about Cooney. He ventilates his anger initially by
slamming his hammer into metal in a blacksmith’s shop and then by openly
provoking Cooney in the poker game ordered by Bartlett. In this card game, the
director gradually builds the tension until the smoldering antagonism between
Costa and Cooney verbally and almost physically explodes.
Costa
is aware of the corruption of his superiors and openly expresses his rage
toward Cooney after the captain orders him to take his squad and test the
strength of the Germans in the nearby town of La Nelle. Seething with anger, he
tells Cooney that if he fails to provide support for him as he did with
Ingersol he will come back and kill him. After Costa discovers that La Nelle is
heavily occupied by German forces, Cooney again fails to send reinforcements and
the lives of several soldiers of the second squad are snuffed out. Only Costa,
Tolliver, Snowden, Bernstein and Ricks are left to take refuge in a farmhouse.
After they discover a German officer and soldier hiding in the basement, the enraged
Costa expresses his hatred of Cooney by forcing the officer out of the
farmhouse to be killed by his own men. Surroundedby superior German forces, Costa orders his
men to try to escape by racing back to headquarters.
Costa’s
threat to kill Cooney is the first indication of his lapse of judgement not
only because it is a court-martial offense but because it could be argued that
he is unintentionally ensuring Cooney’s betrayal of his squad. It is obvious by
this time that Cooney is so frightened of combat that he will be more than
willing to sacrifice another squad to ensure that Costa does not survive to
fulfill his threat. Moreover, Costa has tarnished his status as an officer even
further when he violates the Geneva Convention mandates by sending the German
officer to his death. These examples illustrate Aldrich’s intention to show the
effects of war upon good men like Costa. The fact that Costa desperately
recites the Hail Mary prayer is still another indication of how his essential
piety has been crushed.
Back
at Fragile Fox Headquarters, Colonel Bartlett castigates Cooney for his failure
to occupy La Nelle, not because of his concern for the slaughtered men but
because it makes him look ineffectual to the division commander, General
Parsons. Under increased pressure from his protector, Cooney’s consumption of
liquor increases and Woodruff shockingly witnesses his mental breakdown. Costa
then returns to exact vengeance upon Cooney and only stops when Jackson informs
him that the Germans are advancing upon headquarters and that his remaining
squad members are besieged in the cellar of a demolished building. He rushes
back to join his men and, after destroying one tank with a bazooka, has his traumatic
encounter with the second tank. Meanwhile, Woodruff and Jackson take refuge in
the cellar with Tolliver, Bernstein and Snowden. Threatened by Bartlett with
exposure and imprisonment, Cooney anxiously joins them. A short while later,
Costa appears dragging his mangled, blood-soaked, useless arm. He desperately
prays to God to find the strength to kill Cooney who cowers in terror. But he
collapses and dies, leaving Cooney to smile mercilessly over his body.
This
sequence illustrates the consequences of nepotism within the military that
places deranged and inept men like Cooney in command positions along with
unscrupulous men like Bartlett in higher positions of authority. At one point,
Woodruff says that such corruption only exists within their own company and
doesn’t represent the U. S. Army. This concession to the Defense Department was
apparently not enough to prevent their opposition to the film’s production. The
Defense Department apparently didn’t want even a slight suggestion that many
men, such as the soldiers of the first and second squads, died needlessly. They
wanted families back home to believe that their loved ones died heroically and
for a good cause. Of course, such official opposition to the movie would not
have occurred if the movie’s assertions were not true.
By
this point in the film, Aldrich has intensified the emotions of the characters to
a breaking point. Costa’s death is the heart-rending incident that pushes all
of the men over the edge. When Tolliver cradles Costa’s lifeless body and
openly sobs, Cooney’s sneers infuriate the remaining soldiers. The director
emphasizes the religious references at this time to perhaps suggest that
Cooney’s fate is now preordained. Prior hints of spirituality were indicated by
both Costa and Ricks making the sign of the cross. There was also the prominently
displayed picture of Jesus on the wall of the farmhouse. Bernstein was only
being partially facetious when he stated that a miracle saved his life. Most
egregiously, Costa died with a sin upon his lips by begging God to let him to rot
in hell if only he could live long enough to kill Cooney. When Bernstein asks
God to forgive Costa for his dying words, the stage is set for Cooney’s overdue
punishment.
Aldrich
makes it clear, by the placement of each of the men in relation to Cooney and
their expressions of revulsion, that God can forgive Costa but they can’t
forgive Cooney. As Cooney prepares to surrender to the German forces that he
believes are surrounding the cellar, Woodruff disregards his loyalty to the
Army and exacts his own brand of justice by shooting Cooney. To appease his
conscience, he then expresses his intention to confess his crime to his
superiors but Tolliver attempts to relieve him of his guilt by firing another bullet
into Cooney’s lifeless body. Bernstein and Jackson follow by also shooting
Cooney’s body, thus claiming equal responsibility for the captain’s death. Snowden
would undoubtedly have joined them but he had left the cellar to find out why
the Germans were no longer in the area.
Justice
has been exacted upon Cooney but Bartlett remains unscathed. Cooney was despicable
but it was Bartlett who enabled him to cause the deaths of so many men. When Bartlett
arrives with reinforcements who have routed the Germans, he informs Woodruff of
his intention to award a posthumous medal to Cooney for heroism. He attempts to
bribe Woodruff with a promotion if he agrees to sign a statement alleging
Cooney’s valor. Woodruff cannot accept this continued deceit and proceeds to
report his crime and everything that has preceded it to General Parsons. The
movie ends on this apparently hopeful note.
On
the surface, this appears to be a morally correct conclusion to the movie.
Woodruff is prepared to expose the truth of Bartlett’s dishonesty and Cooney’s
cowardice. However, he is forgetting that Tolliver told him truthfully that the
officers at his trial will only recognize the fact that he has killed a
superior officer and that the precipitating causes will not be admissible
evidence. In the Army, there are no absolute truths, only what the superior
officers deem to be the truth. Since Bartlett will deny Woodruff’s allegations,
the trial officers will undoubtedly believe
a colonel over a lieutenant. Furthermore, in order to reveal the truth of
Cooney’s death, Woodruff will have to report the culpability of the soldiers who
committed their crime to relieve him of his guilt. Thus, Woodruff will be
condemning his loyal soldiers to maximum punishment because the Army will not
condone under any circumstances the shooting of an officer by enlisted men,
even if the victim was already dead. Most egregiously, due to Bartlett’s status
as a colonel, he will probably succeed in his awarding of a citation for Cooney
and become the son to Judge Cooney that Erskine never could be.
It
is possible that Aldrich may have covertly suggested this depressing conclusion.
In support of this, Bartlett leaves with an expression of self-satisfaction
because he knows that his superior rank will outweigh the truth. In addition, the
last image of Costa is his anguished death grimace while Cooney, lying next to
him, displays a serene expression. It is perhaps a suggestion that Cooney will
prevail even after death and that the corruption within the Army as epitomized
by Bartlett is too pervasive. This pessimistic conclusion is not on the screen
but enters the minds of some viewers only after reflection.
The
hopeful ending is in the movie for 1956 audiences who suffered through four
years of World War II. When the movie was released, the war was only 11 years
in the past and still a painful memory for Americans, especially those who had
lost loved ones in the war. Audiences wanted and needed to believe that
officers like Cooney and Bartlett were aberrations. Costa’s heroism and
Woodruff’s integrity strengthened their faith in the morality of the U.S. Army.
Accordingly, it is possible that General Parsons will believe Woodruff and
confirm that the Army is an honorable institution. Perhaps Aldrich, deep in his
heart, harbored some degree of hope along with his cynicism and allowed the
ambiguity of the film’s ending.
Sony has released Volume 5 of their highly collectible Columbia Classics film series in 4K UHD. The set is superbly designed and includes a hardback, lavishly illustrated book containing background information on the films included in this set. There are also Blu-rays of each film along with digital codes to view them via streaming. Over 20 hours of special features are included. If that isn't enough, there is a bonus disc containing rare Columbia films from the 1920s. The packaging doesn't reveal what titles these are, so we'll spill the beans. The bonus features are all from the 1920s: The Belle of Broadway, Ladies of Leisure, The Desert Bride and The Scarlet Lady. Three of these films are presented in SDR but in 4K resolution. I have not examined the previous "Columbia Classics" releases but I can say that in terms of content and packaging design, this is the most impressive major studio video release I've seen this year.
These tend to sell out quickly and increase in value, so act fast! Here are the official details:
Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 5 (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
Complete your Columbia Classics Collection with Volume 5!
Limited edition gift set
Featuring
six movies debuting on 4K Ultra HD disc, including three Best Picture
winners: ALL THE KING’S MEN, ON THE WATERFRONT, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS,
TOOTSIE, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and LITTLE WOMEN (2019)
Includes over 20 hours of new and archival special features, with commentaries, deleted scenes, making-ofs and much more!
Plus an exclusive extra disc featuring four rare Columbia Pictures films from the 1920s!
Expert private investigator Tom Welles
(Nicolas Cage) is hired to find out the authenticity of a recently discovered 8mm
film which seems to show the murder of a young girl. With help from an adult
video store worker named Max (Joaquin Phoenix), Welles looks into the hardcore
BDSM industry while attempting to figure out whether the 8mm movie is just a
work of fiction or an actual snuff film.
Solidly directed (and co-produced) by Joel
Schumacher and well written by Andrew Kevin Walker, 8MM is an engaging and, in my opinion, underrated neo-noir crime
thriller made in the wake of David Fincher’s
Seven (also written by Walker). The dark and disturbing film features a
terrific turn from the talented Cage (in one of his best performances) who is
supported by an equally talented cast which not only includes the
aforementioned Phoenix (who steals every scene he appears in), but also James
Gandolfini, Peter Stormare, Myra Carter, Anthony Heald, Catherine Keener and
Norman Reedus.
Lensed in New York, California and Florida, 8MM also greatly benefits from the
top-notch cinematography of Academy Award winner Robert Elswit, and the movie
comments on the greed, sadism and inhumanity that unfortunately lurks within
certain people.
8MM has been released on
a region-free Blu-ray and is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The
1080p High-definition film looks fantastic and the audio (Audio English DTS-HD
5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0 Stereo) is also pretty decent. Special features include
an audio commentary by director/producer Joel Schumacher, a “making of”
featurette, an interview with Schumacher, and the original theatrical trailer.
This release is limited to 1500 copies and comes with a nice limited edition
slipcase. Recommended.
Issue #60 of Cinema Retro is now shipping to subscribers worldwide.
Highlights of this issue include:
Dave Worrall celebrates the 60th anniversary of the James Bond classic Goldfinger with an extensive article detailing the incredible publicity campaign for the film upon its UK premiere, including many extremely rare photos of marketing materials and public events.
Cinema Retro honours the wishes of the late journalist Thomas Vinciguerra by publishing his exclusive interview with filmmaker John Milius.
Morten Sagen provides an archival interview with Trevor Bond, who recalls teaming with Robert Brownjohn to create the iconic and groundbreaking main titles for From Russia with Love and Goldfinger.
Simon Lewis looks back on two underrated films starring Omar Sharif: The Last Valley and The Horsemen
Brian Davidson pays tribute to the career of actress Georgina Ward and the dramatic events that ended it.
Nicholas Anez shines the spotlight on a forgotten British classic, No Love for Johnnie starring Peter Finch.
John LeMay details the ambitious plans by Hammer Films to make a movie about the Loch Ness Monster that never came to fruition.
Dave Worrall looks back on a "missing film": the 1969 Paramount release of Fraulein Doktor which has never been released on home video.
Plus regular columns by Raymond Benson, Gareth Owen, Dr. Sheldon Hall, Brian Hannan and Darren Allison.
If you haven't subscribed yet, do so now and get all three issues of Season 20.
“Horror is not a suitable subject for a woman” was a popular maxim
in Hollywood, but as this new book proves, it is simply not true. Hollywood
histories are filled with tales of great masculine directors using their
dominance and sheer force of will to wrangle film
crews and actors in order to produce great entertainment, whereas women in the
industry were primarily pushed towards the more ‘feminine’ pursuits of writing,
costuming and hair and make-up, nor forgetting the specifically gendered-job
role of continuity or “script girl”. As this new book from Heidi Honeycutt
demonstrates in this book based on fifteen years of research however, many
women have directed horror, from the birth of cinema right through to today.
In the early days of silent cinema, it was not uncommon for women to
be directors, and more specifically, for women to be dabbling in the realms of
the horrific and macabre. There are some fascinating early examples here, such
as Alice Guy-Blaché, the French filmmaker who made her first film in 1896 and
was most likely the only female film director for the first decade of cinema.
She made many films which feature elements of the thriller, science fiction and
fantasy, most notably her adaptation of Faust in 1903. Austrian writer,
producer and director Louise Kolm-Fleck was responsible for the first known
feature-length horror film directed by a woman, with 1919’s gothic supernatural
tale The Ancestress; like much early cinema it was thought lost but has
now been partially recovered and restored.
The coming of sound and the dominance of the Hollywood studios made
it increasingly difficult for women to direct films from the 1930s through to
the 1960s, although there were occasionally some, such as the UK’s Wendy Toye, who
directed the best segment of the anthology film Three Cases of Murder
(1954), and later directed an episode of Tales of the Unexpected
(1979-1988). In fact, television production offered women many more opportunities
than film, with the demand for skilled directors driving executives to
reevaluate their attitude towards women. Actress-turned-director Ida Lupino
also had a very successful television career, directing episodes of Alfred
Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962) and Thriller (1960-1962) amongst
others, and many other women followed. (She also directed feature films.) One of the
most prolific female television directors was Lela Swift, who’s career is
presented in detail here. She directed almost half of the over 1000 episodes of
Dark Shadows (1966-1971), the gothic horror soap opera that had American
audiences glued to their screens.
Honeycutt’s research, including brand new interviews, takes in
global female directors and non-English language horror. There are also chapters
covering exploitation; Doris Wishman and Stephanie Rothman are two of the more
well-known directors, but there were plenty more, particularly those employed
by Roger Corman. She also looks at the filmmakers who were able to take
advantage of the VHS boom of the Eighties, like Kat Shea with Stripped to
Kill (1987), and brings things up to the current day, where female horror
directors are more successful than ever (one only needs to look at the critical
acclaim and box office success of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024)
for recent evidence). Serving as a guide through 130 years of female-directed
horror films, this book is an essential entry into the horror studies library.
Packed with photos, this book is thoroughly researched and engagingly written,
and has a terrific cover design to boot, which will look great in any
collection.
I Spit on your Celluloid is available from Headpress. Click here to order a collector’s
hardback edition.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Cult Epics:
Will you be able to endure the sexy hilarity as Carla visits
London? She's a big hit with everyone - except her boyfriend Matteo, who
seethes with jealousy when she meets the horny lesbian real estate
agent Moira. Beautiful shot and featuring a head-banging soundtrack,
Cheeky! is sure to have you glued to the screen. Tinto Brass' most sexy
and joyful film. Cult Epics presents the 4K UHD world premiere of the
Uncut and Uncensored version with new and vintage bonus features.
4K ULTRA HD DISC - SPECIAL FEATURES:
New 4K Transfer (from the original negative) & Restoration + HDR
New DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo/5.1 Surround Italian & English
New Audio Commentary by Eugenio Ercolani & Nathaniel Thompson
New 4K Theatrical Trailers
4K UHD first pressing Exclusive: 4x Repro Italian Lobby Card prints
BLU-RAY DISC - SPECIAL FEATURES:
New 4K Transfer (from the original negative) & Restoration
New DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo/5.1 Surround English & Italian
New Audio Commentary by Eugenio Ercolani & Nathaniel Thompson
New Interview with cinematographer Massimo Di Venanzo (2024)
New Isolated Score by Pino Donaggio
Backstage with Tinto Brass (2000)
Theatrical Trailers
Photo Gallery
Double-sided sleeve with original uncensored Italian poster art
20-Page illustrated booklet with liner notes by Eugenio Ercolani and Domenico Monetti
Slipcase
Click on link below to watch the trailer on YouTube.
REVIEWS:
”While
probably best known to most people for darker fare like Caligula and
Salon Kitty, Tinto Brass has pumped out some lighter material as well,
and 2000's Cheeky! is a shining example of just how well he can combine
comedy with eroticism. Highly Recommended.” - Rock Shock Pop
”The a/v is a huge bump in quality and this alone should be strongly appealing to fans.” - DVD Beaver
”The
big news here is that it finally presents the film in its original
1.66:1 aspect ratio, which makes a significant difference with better
compositions throughout and a less cramped look overall. Colors are also
much richer with a warm, vibrant appearance throughout, and detail is
visibly better as well with the 4K in particular shining when it comes
to skin, hair, and clothing textures. As you'd expect, the addition of
HDR for the UHD is a particular bonus with some of the stylized interior
lighting blazing off the screen." - Mondo Digital
A transcendent science fiction drama, INTERSTELLAR became
a cultural phenomenon, thrilling audiences and critics with its “enthralling”
(Rolling Stone) exploration of humanity’s future through a story that is
“intelligent as well as epic” (Los Angeles Times). Acclaimed for its
scientific accuracy, INTERSTELLAR captured viewers’ imaginations, earning over
$730 million worldwide and five Oscar® nominations, with a win for Best Visual
Effects. The film features an extraordinary cast, including Matthew
McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, Michael
Caine, Timothée Chalamet, Ellen Burstyn, Bill Irwin, Wes Bentley, David
Oyelowo, Casey Affleck, and more.
Fans can revisit INTERSTELLAR with the 10th Anniversary
Collector’s Edition, created with the participation and approval of Christopher
Nolan. This must-own, limited-edition set includes the iconic film on
both 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Disc™, as well as a third Blu-ray™ with more than
two hours of new and legacy bonus content that delves into the science of the
film, its groundbreaking production, and a brand-new discussion of the film’s
impact 10 years later. The set also includes access to a Digital copy of
the film, reproductions of five costume patches, five theatrical poster
reproductions, and a never-before-seen storyboard sequence from the director’s
archives.
Bonus content is detailed below:
· The Future Is Now: A Look Back at INTERSTELLAR – NEW!
Explore the impact of INTERSTELLAR 10 years later through
new interviews with director/co-writer Christopher Nolan, producer Emma Thomas,
executive producer Kip Thorne, and co-writer Jonathan Nolan. From the
development of prophetic black hole visuals to revolutionary production design
for IMAX, further context is provided by colleagues and fans including director
Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) and director Denis Villeneuve (Dune).
· The Science of Interstellar
· Inside Interstellar:
o Plotting an Interstellar Journey
o Life on Cooper's Farm
o The Dust
o TARS and CASE
o The Cosmic Sounds of Interstellar
o The Space Suits
o The Endurance
o Shooting in Iceland: Miller's Planet / Mann's Planet
o The Ranger and the Lander
o Miniatures in Space
o The Simulation of Zero-G
o Celestial Landmarks
o Across All Dimensions and Time
o Final Thoughts
· Roundtables:
o Creating Interstellar
o Experiencing Interstellar
· Trailers
Synopsis
A team of pioneers undertakes the most important mission
in human history—to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars.
Oscar®-winner Matthew McConaughey stars as the ex-pilot turned farmer who is
forced to leave his family and a foundering Earth behind to lead an expedition
traveling beyond this galaxy.
INTERSTELLAR is rated PG-13 for some intense perilous
action and brief strong language
*2024, Best Motion Picture of the Year and Best
Achievement in Directing, Oppenheimer
“ACADEMY AWARD®” and “OSCAR®” are the registered
trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences.
Author Nat Segaloff can write excellent film-related books faster than I can read them. Segaloff is veteran of the movie industry and worked as a marketing and publicity executive for such high profile films as "The Exorcist" and "The Towering Inferno". (Yes, he's written books about both.) His latest work is titled "The Naughty Bits: What the Censors Wouldn't Let You See in Hollywood's Most Famous Movies". It's a look at the history of censorship in the American film industry. The industry did not want to answer to a government-run censorship office so it was decided that the movie studios would police themselves by answering to a bureau they created themselves. It would be referred to by numerous official names during the course of the decades that followed but it was commonly referred to as the Production Code Office. Ironically, instead of being fairly liberal about the content of motion pictures, the office would prove to as stringent as many had feared, especially when the notorious Will Hays was appointed head of the bureau in the late 1920s. Hays, a former Postmaster General of the United States without any experience in the film industry, came to believe he needed another strongman to assist him. Thus, in 1934 he promoted one Joseph Breen to the position as the nominal head of the Production Code office, leaving him to do most of the day-to-day dirty work. The studios would soon suffer the consequences of the decision. Segaloff's book goes through this entire period in great detail but ensuring it makes for a breezy read. The most consequential aspect of the new rules that were introduced was that every motion picture had to be submitted for approval in order to get the Production Code office's coveted "Seal of Approval". Although there were no laws mandating that films needed to obtain this, in reality, it was virtually impossible for studios to get major distribution for any film if it had not had the Seal bequeathed upon.The book illustrates that the Production Code Office wasn't the only group of uptight people studios had to contend with. Even if a film received the Seal and was put into general release, Catholic and Protestant churches wielded great influence over what appeared on movie screens. Additionally, some individual American states had their own censorship boards that took it upon themselves to carve up films before they were publicly exhibited.
Segaloff consulted a virtual library of old files pertaining to the Code and is able to recreate the draconian power that the Production Code office brought to the making of every type of movie. Breen was a conservative blue-nose when it came to all sorts of objections. This began in the formative stages of a movie, with the studio submitting their final script for approval. Inevitably, Breen and his henchmen would find countless objections in even the most mundane plots and bits of dialogue. Woody Allen once said "Sex is only dirty if you're doing it right." However, the Code officials were that breed of men who still exist today: they were afraid that somewhere, somehow, somebody was enjoying sexual activity. Breen and his cohorts objected to almost any insinuation of sex, especially the illicit kind. Female characters bore the brunt of the objections, as any woman who seemed to initiate or enjoy lovemaking was deemed to be too tawdry for adult audiences to cope with. The self-imposed guardians of American morality therefore demanded significant changes to virtually every script sent to them. The result was the watering down of eroticism at every level. Clever studio executives often objected to these demands and sometimes they won the case, but more often than not they had to comply, 'lest they would not receive the Seal. This meant that for decades American movies would suffer from being infantilized. Cursing was forbidden until MGM managed to get permission for Clark Gable to memorably say "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"- and that took until 1939. The use of alcohol was also subjected to tight restrictions on the big screen.
Segaloff chooses an abundance of famous movies and provides a page or two on each to describe the ordeals that studio executives had to go through in order to release a film that resembled what they had envisioned. The list of objections naturally mostly affected such steamy films as "The Apartment", "Hud", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Psycho" and "Sunset Boulevard". However, Segaloff also provides evidence that objections extended to such inoffensive fare as "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "The Gay Divorcee" with Fred and Ginger. The studios won enough battles to ensure that these films did become classics, but the mind reels at what they could have been if men with sexual hangups hadn't insisted that the scripts be tinkered with. As the years went by, the Production Code office recognized that society was becoming more liberal about sex, drinking and drugs- all topics that were once highly constricted on screen. Slowly, more mature dialogue and sexual situations were permitted until Jack Warner refused to tamper with the classic 1966 screen version of Edward Albee's Broadway masterpiece "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The movie caused a sensation when it was released sans the Seal of Approval and went on to be an Oscar-winning boxoffice winner. Everyone sensed that the Production Code's day's were over and ultimately the ratings system was introduced in 1968 and remains in place today. This unleashed a fabulous era of filmmaking.
The impact of the Production Code seems a relic of the distant past today. We now have T.V. commercials with more sexual content than was allowed in entire feature films decades ago. However, we should remember the warning of philosopher George Santayana, who famously said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This is worth thinking about with the current resurgence of attempts in some quarters to ban certain books. If they succeed, films will certainly follow.
Nat Segaloff's "The Naughty Bits" is a highly entertaining book, written in a very witty manner. However, it's also an important book and its message about the Orwellian aspects of censorship is a sobering one.
In
The Persuaders!, Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) is a New York-born and raised
self-made millionaire. Lord Brett Sinclair (Roger Moore) is a British
aristocrat who has never had to do a day’s work in his life. The pair of them
like to enjoy the finer things in life, like partying in the South of France,
but when a chance encounter turns into fisticuffs and a run-in with the law, a
deal is struck by the retired judge (Laurence Naismith) who saves them. It
seems he has collected a dossier on criminals who were found not guilty in
court but who he feels need to get their comeuppance. He effectively turns Wild
and Sinclair into vigilantes, who when not investigating cases for the judge
manage to stumble into crimes, rescue damsels in distress and even thwart the
occasional political coup. With episodes split between Europe and the UK, this
is a fast-paced action-adventure series in the best ITC tradition, with plenty
of glitz and glamour.
The
Persuaders! is the crown jewel in the ITC back
catalogue. Although they had other shows with American stars, securing the
services of Tony Curtis (his first major excursion into television) to star
alongside ITC golden boy Roger Moore was on another level. This, combined with
an increased production budget, allowed for more location shooting than was
usual for an ITC show. Generally, the shows used back projection that often
stood in for exotic locales.The higher production
values really sets this series apart from the others. Plus, as if that wasn’t
enough, they even splashed the cash to hire John Barry to write the Moog-heavy
theme tune.It would prove to be so
popular that it stayed in the UK charts for nine weeks. To celebrate, the BBC
recorded a film of the popular dance troupe Pan’s People performing the theme
that was broadcast during Top of the Pops (and is available here as one
of the many bonus features).
The
series began shooting on the Riviera before moving to the UK for location and
studio work at Pinewood. Tony Curtis moved to London for the duration of the
series, and for reasons known only to himself, decided to cause a continuity
headache by stopping dying his hair when they left Europe. No reason is given
within the show itself as to why Danny’s hair turned grey during the course of
their adventures; perhaps the stress of crime-solving was taking its toll.
The
series represented one of the biggest
budgets Lew Grade had ever splashed on a show, and if The Persuaders! had
been more of a success on American television there seems to have been every
hope that it could run for a few series. Although it sold well globally, this
relative failure in the American schedules, coupled with Roger Moore securing
the James Bond gig, meant that after 24 episodes it was all over. One could
argue that this was for the best: Moore himself had already tried to remove himself
from television after The Saint. He had some feature success with The
Man Who Haunted Himself and Crossplot before Grade appealed to his
sense of Britishness (allegedly saying “Do it for the Queen!” when Roger
expressed some reticence to do yet another TV series) as well as his bank
balance, to do the series. Even if the show had been a success in the States, Moore
may have left after one series anyway (there had been talk of replacing him
with the actor Noel Harrison, who had been the male lead in The Girl from
U.N.C.L.E. ).
This
one series is also a great time capsule of the early 1970s. It’s notable just
how quickly things had changed in just a couple of years. If one looks at late
1960s, ITC shows such as Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) or Department
S, they are still very colourful,
but once the new decade arrived everything seemed to turn brown overnight. There
is a lot of brown leather in the wardrobes of both Lord Sinclair and Danny
Wilde, and this colour palate extends to the costumes of many other characters
plus the set design. People wearing shades of brown standing in brown rooms is
a common sight in The Persuaders!, just like it was in real life back
then. Leather driving gloves seem to have been de rigueur too: in one
scene Danny Wilde can be seen washing his hands with his gloves still on, which
Tony Curtis apparently threw in as an improvisation, which he did throughout
the series.
The
Persuaders! is now fifty years old, which may be an
alarming thought to some of you. It's fashions may have aged, but it is still a
great piece of escapist entertainment. The chemistry between the two leads is
the main draw here; the stories are good, occasionally so-so, but they elevate
the whole thing with their charm, wit and screen presence. There are also a lot
of other guest stars who help make the show a joy to watch – a real “Who’s Who”
of British big and small screen talent – including Ian Hendry, Bernard Lee,
Derren Nesbitt, Suzanna Leigh, Madeline Smith, Valerie Leon, Terry-Thomas,
Annette Andre, Joan Collins, Denholm Elliott and even Lionel Blair! The
creative team also consisted of many skilled and experienced people; The
Saint producer (and close collaborator with Roger Moore) Robert S. Baker
was the producer here as well, and he brought in Terry Nation (most famous for
being the man who invented the Daleks for Doctor Who) to script edit,
with individual episodes being written by, among others, Brian Clemens (the man
behind The Avengers) and Val Guest. The directors were also some of the best in the business, including Roy Ward Baker, Basil
Dearden, Sidney Hayers, Peter Hunt (fresh off On Her Majesty’s Secret
Service) and Roger Moore himself.
This
new 12-disc region free Blu-ray box set from Imprint brings together the 24 restored
episodes, previously released in the UK by Network, along with fully restored
and reframed for 16:9 versions of the four UK-released feature film versions,
three Italian-released films and one that was released in Turkey (although
controversially the restored version for that one here is substantially
different to the original). The Italian versions were originally released in cinemas,
but the four UK feature-length edits seem to have been made for VHS release in
the 1980s, so if you’re nostalgic for the 4:3 fuzzy quality those would have
provided, you can find those versions included here on a bonus disc. (All of
the feature films were derived from episodes of the T.V. series and adapted for
theatrical showings.)
There
is also a huge amount of both archival and new bonus features, with lots of
commentary tracks from the stars, the creative team and television historians.
A 2006 documentary on the series, featuring hilarious interviews with Moore and
Curtis, is here along with other Q&A material from the show’s 2011 40th
anniversary celebrations. There are some new interviews and other featurettes
too, plus a restored episode of The Saint, “The Ex-King of Diamonds”,
which was said to be a trial run for The Persuaders! On top of all this
is a 120-page booklet featuring an in-depth production history and reprinted
publicity material. All these extras, along with the 24 episodes themselves, add
up to one very substantial package, which will keep any fan of Curtis and Moore
busy for a very long time.
You
can buy The Persuaders! The Complete Series from Imprint by clicking here.
Note: Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter for non-Australian orders.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Sony.
"LEGENDS OF THE FALL" : THE 1994 ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER FOR BEST
CINEMATOGRAPHY DEBUTS ON 4K ULTRA HD™
DECEMBER 3RD
SYNOPSIS
The epic story of three brothers bound by loyalty, tested
by war and torn apart by love. Brad Pitt stars as Tristan, the wildest of the
Ludlow sons, whose failure to protect his brother puts his entire family on a
path of betrayal and self-destruction. From the battlefields of Europe to the
farthest reaches of civilization,
LEGENDS OF THE FALL follows Tristan's turbulent journey
from boyhood to manhood to legend. Also starring Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn,
Julia Ormond and Henry Thomas.
DISC DETAILS & BONUS MATERIALS
4K ULTRA HD DISC
• Scanned from the original camera negative, feature
presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision
• English Dolby Atmos + English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
• Special Features:
o Commentary with Director Edward Zwick and Brad Pitt
o Commentary with Cinematographer John Toll and
Production Designer Lilly Kilvert
o 3 Deleted Scenes with Director Commentary
o Original Making-Of Featurette
o Production Design Featurette
o Theatrical Trailer
CAST AND CREW
Directed By: Edward Zwick
Produced By: Edward Zwick, Bill Wittliff, Marshall
Herskovitz
Screenplay By: Susan Shilliday and Bill Wittliff
Based on the Novella By: Jim Harrison
Cast: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia
Ormond, Henry Thomas
SPECS
Run Time: Approx. 133 minutes
Rating: R for violence, and for some sexuality and
language
4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition,
1.85:1
4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos, English 5.1
DTS-HD MA
Did
you ever wonder who created the Oscars?The Motion Picture Academy?The
answer is just above this paragraph; it was the brothers Nicholas and Joseph
Schenck. Originally
from Russia, the entire Schenck clan emigrated to the US, in
pairs, due to the expense, beginning in 1889. Ossip (who became Joseph in the U.S.)
and his sister Enni (later Annie) reached America in 1892. Nick came over two
years later with his mother.Scattered
throughout the New York metropolitan area, the family, both parents and all
eight children, eventually settled in an apartment on Rivington Street on the
lower East Side. The ghetto was mostly populated by Jews and Italians. When
Joe was refused a raise from his boss in a wire factory, he quit and walked ten
miles from Passiac to Orange, New Jersey taking a job in a bicycle factory that
paid $7.50 a week. Nick briefly attended fifth grade on the lower East Side but
the two brothers needed to earn for the family and sold newspapers on the
sidewalk.With his new wages from the
bicycle factory Joe took a night course in pharmacy. In
1887 the family moved uptown to Harlem.Joe earned his high school diploma while taking night courses and
working during the day. In 1899 he took night courses at the New York College
of Pharmacy and became a licensed pharmacist. Before that happened however, Joe
and Nick took jobs down in Chinatown at a "pharmacy" that was a shack
where opium was sold from and also acted as a "sort
of a hospital" for the wounded in the Chinatown gang wars.Just the sort of experience they would later
need when they became the film moguls of this books' title.
In
1903, with the pharmacies they owned doing well, they opened a bar/dance hall
in Harlem. In 1906 they founded the Fort George Amusement Company, leased land
in Fort George and opened an amusement park named "Paradise Park."
Joe also discovered poker. After gambling away the Paradise Park 1906 profits
in the winter, not an hour after the gates opened in 1907, Marcus Loew came to
see the brothers.The meeting changed
their lives. Loew owned penny arcades, nickelodeon parlors, several small
theaters and one large one. His idea was to create "something that looks
like a railroad car", all dark inside and doesn't move, but had a
projector inside that would give the patrons the illusion of movement because
of the "scenic pictures I will show."He also provided motion pictures and vaudeville acts that brought people
to the park.
In
1910, with Loew's help, the brothers purchased a thirty-eight acre site on the
Palisade Cliffs from the local trolley company.On May 28, 1910 Palisades Amusement Park opened its doors.Things did not always
go well. There were injuries and deaths at the park. It was eventually sold by
the Schenck brothers in 1946 and closed for good in 1971. The brothers partnered
with both Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor and opened theaters across the
country.As sound was ushered in, Joe
closed theaters in shifts.When Loew
passed away, Nick embarked on building six "Wonder Theaters" in the New
York metropolitan area.Though in the midst
of the Depression, Nick realised that what the public needed was entertainment
at a good price. There is an altruism: "When times get tough, there are
two habits unaffected; drinking and going to the movies." The first of the
"Wonder Theaters" to be completed was the Loew's Valensia in Jamaica,
Queens. It opened on January 12, 1929.On September 7, 1929 two theaters opened up simultaneously; The Loew's
Paradise on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx (where my dad took my mom on their
first date in 1952 to see Frank Sinatra) and the Kings Theater on Flatbush
Avenue in Brooklyn.Other theatres were
the Loew's Jersey on Journal Square in Jersey City (now a functioning landmark
theatre), the Loew's Pitkin in Brownsville Brooklyn, and the Loew's 175th
Street Theater, which took up the entire block. The
Schenks were the most powerful brothers in Hollywood history, more influenital than the
Warner brothers.They held controlling
interest in three major studios: MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox and United Artists.
However, since they ran their global empire behind closed doors, they were
relatively unknown by the public.
The
eclectic scandals you'll read about include the Fatty Arbuckle sex scandal, the
murder of Thelma Todd, the mob's attempted takeover of Hollywood, Hitler's plan
to turn Hollywood into a Nazi propaganda machine, the "Red Scare," Commies
in Hollywood and the McCarthy era Blacklist and the strange suicide of TV's
Superman, George Reeves. You will read about the friendships, the marriages,
affairs (Joe had a long relationship with Marilyn Monroe that lasted until his
death, even while she was married.She
told Joe when she first met him that she was named Norma because of Joe's first
wife, film star Norma Talmadge). The book also covers the "fixers" who
worked for the Schencks from the early days of Paradise Park throughout Joe's
years in Hollywood.
Moguls
is a well written and researched book that at times reads as if it were a
novel.Most of the cast of characters
will be familiar to the reader.I found
myself engrossed with many of the "minor" (not famous actors, etc.)
characters; the Schenck’s, Loew’s and Mayer's fixers and how they protected
their bosses and the whodunnits that go unsolved. However, there are a few
discrepancies I took issue with, the main one being the writers crediting
Thomas Edison with inventing the film projector, which was perfected two years
earlier in France by the Lumiere Brothers. You can look it up. While you're at
it; research French filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché - the most prolific filmmaker
from the late 19th century into the 20th.
Just in time for Halloween, Paramount has released "Addams Family Values" in a new 4K UHD edition that also comes with a digital code.
Here is the official description:
Product Description
It's love at first fright when Gomez
(Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) welcome a new addition to
the Addams household -- Pubert, their soft, cuddly, mustachioed baby
boy. As Fester (Christopher Lloyd) falls hard for voluptuous nanny
Debbie Jilinksy (Joan Cusack), Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley
(Jimmy Workman) discover she's a black-widow murderess who plans to add
Fester to her collection of dead husbands. The family's future grows
even bleaker when the no-good nanny marries Fester and has the kids
shipped off to summer camp. But Wednesday still has a Thing or two up
her sleeve... With gags and ghouls galore, Addams Family Values is
"screamingly funny!" (Jeff Craig, Sixty Second Preview).
Special Features: Audio commentary by director Barry Sonnenfeld and writer Paul Rudnick; "Crafting Family Values" featurette.
Here's a production featurette from the underrated 1968 Western "Guns for San Sebastian" which featured Anthony Quinn squaring off against Charles Bronson, under the direction of Henri Verneuil.
CLICK HEREto order Warner Archive Blu-ray from Amazon.
On 23 October 1962, movie industry trades were reporting
two associates of Britain’s Allied Filmmakers Corporation, director Basil
Dearden and producer Michael Relph, had inked a three-picture deal with Robert
Blumofe, vice-president of productions at United Artists.This trio of proposed films, to be produced
in England and Europe, were designed for worldwide commercial release. It was
agreed all three would be produced under the Eady Levy plan, a tax collected on
all domestic box-office receipts.The
goal of the Eady Levy was for those tax monies to be collected to support the
struggling British film industry.
The three announced pics were to be produced with “flexible
budgets.” Dearden was chosen to helm production of a drama titled Woman of Straw.The filmmaker was optimistic he could bring
the ambitious film in at a cost of no more than $750,000.His economic optimism was welcomed by United
Artists.UA was aggressively looking to greenlight
an additional five feature films in the near future.Those five, to be shot in New York, Hollywood
and overseas, were to go into co-current production through Labor Day’s end of summer
1963.
Woman
of Straw was the film chosen to go first before the cameras.The pic would be a cinematic adaptation of a taut
mystery thriller penned by French author Catherine Arley.Arley’s original novel was first published in
1956 as La Femme De Paille.The story is, as per the dustcover of its subsequent
1958 publication in the U.S., “A psychological novel about a woman who finds
that the interest on ill-gotten money is terror.” Stanley Mann (Another Time, Another Place (1958), The Mouse that Roared (1959) was to collaborate on the screenplay
with Robert Muller (then a mostly unknown television writer).As the two worked on adapting Arley’s story for
the screen, Dearden was tasked to finish up two feature projects already in the
works: the crime drama A Place to Go
and a sci-fi pic The Mind Benders.
It wasn’t until eight months on, May of 1963, that an announcement
was made that Italian screen siren Gina Lollobrigida had been signed to star
opposite Sir Ralph Richardson and Sean Connery in Woman of Straw.This film
would be the first British film in which the voluptuous actress would be cast. Lollobrigida
already wore the dual starry crown of sex symbol and international film star.The actress had also acquired a reputation of
being somewhat of a diva.
She would brag upon signing on to Woman of Straw that United Artists was so invested in her casting
as the sultry Maria Marcello, the company promised she’d hold approval on all matters
concerning scripting, director and the casting of co-stars.It was during a visit with the actress at home
in Rome, that one UA exec suggested Sean Connery might play opposite her as the
film’s antagonist, Anthony Richmond.Upon
hearing Connery’s name, Lollobrigida reportedly asked, “Sean who?”
Such a scenario, if true, wasn’t unlikely.Though Dr.
No, released in Britain in October of 1962, would bring Connery great attention
and acclaim – particularly in Britain and a bit more belatedly in U.S. markets
– the worldwide cult of James Bond had not yet ignited.The follow-up to Dr. No, From Russia with Love,
began shooting on 1 April 1963 and as of July of ’63 was finishing up principal
photography.This second James Bond film
was to have its London premiere in October 1963.As Dr.
No had proven one of the more successful British films of 1962, Connery
quickly established a reputation as a cinema star in his own right, at least in
England.Following the success of Dr. No, a start-up “fan club”
celebrating the actor already had managed to attract (perhaps apocryphally)
some “28,000 registered members” since inception – at least according to one
press account.
Connery had just completed his tiring sixteen-week stint
on From Russia with Love when asked
to appear in Woman of Straw.The actor would later reminisce that he,
“hardly had a time to take a bath and change my suit” prior to beginning work
on the film.Though it meant no rest
between film projects, Connery was eager to sign on.He was already
tiring of being James Bond, despite only a single Bond film having thus far reached
the public.He was a serious, capableactor, frightened of being typecast in James Bond-type roles.Woman
of Straw would offer the actor an opportunity to tackle a very different
sort of role, one antithetical to his Bond persona.He would play a caddish villain.
As a bonus, Connery would also have the opportunity to
work alongside the great Sir Ralph Richardson.Richardson too had been looking for a different sort of project.His taking on a role in Woman of Straw was a gamble, one that would necessitate his
abandonment of a role on a London stage production of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author.Connery too was seemingly up for a gamble.Some reports suggested Connery didn’t ask to
first read through the script of Woman of
Straw prior to accepting a role in the film. If true, this was an unusual
decision on his part, one quite out of character.Connery had already developed a reputation as
a serious sort, often brusque in matters of contract and artistic vision.
Catherine Arley’s original scenario for Woman of Straw is, essentially, a twisting
tale of greed and manipulation.It’s
difficult to pigeonhole the story as translated to film: it’s not quite a run-of-the-mill
suspense-thriller, nor a shrouded mystery nor a romance.It’s really none of these things, which
likely made the marketing of the film difficult.There are a number of chess boards present in
the film, and the film plays out as a chess game of sorts.Moves are thoughtfully countered and checked
as evolving situations – anticipated and otherwise - arise.
Ralph Richardson is cast as Charles Richmond, a bitter, wheelchair
bound multi-millionaire with a penchant for classical music.Richmond lives amidst the lavish, plush
surroundings of imposing Foxhurst Mansion.Despite his high-standing, Charles is a completely loathsome character, devoid
of generosity, kindness and empathy.He
shows no appreciation even for those contracted to attend to his every passing
whim or need.He’s also as overt a
racist as can be imagined.In truth, the
demeaning racialism he exhibits to his attendants in the film is, as a
filmgoer, uncomfortable to sit through.
Charles’ only blood relative is a nephew, Anthony
Richardson (Sean Connery).Sadly, Charles
is no kinder to his nephew than the others.The corrupted businessman mocks his kin’s “lily white hands,” and sees Anthony,
his dead bother’s offspring, as a spoiled playboy, one who spends his days,
“driving Jaguars and seducing women.”Anthony initially appears a model of sensible moderation and
patience.He tries to smooth over his
uncle’s ugly words and deeds with aggrieved staff and business associates in a most
gentlemanly manner.It’s also revealed Anthony
has a good reason to hate his uncle.
We learn Anthony’s father and Charles were once business
partners.But the unscrupulous Charles
managed to duplicitously drive his brother out of their successful business
partnership.The familial betrayal
causes Anthony’s father to commit suicide.Then, in a final, despicable act, Charles marries his brother’s widow,
Anthony’s father. With his wife now having
gone off to her own reward, Charles plans to selfishly bequeath his fortune of
50 million GBP – minus an insultingly small dowry of 20,000 GBP to Anthony – to
a “dog’s home” charity.
The crotchety Charles, sickly and in the late autumn
years of life, requires the constant attention of a nurse.As he is with most things, Charles has been particularly
displeased with the nurses Anthony has contracted to care for him – an
unrewarding task at best.The
curmudgeonly millionaire dismisses his most recent nursing hires as aging
“battle axes” and “hags.”Anthony’s
newest certainly doesn’t fit into either of those categories.Newly arriving from London – and literally introduced to Charles by her
stepping from shadow into an elegant mansion room - is the steamy, voluptuous
Maria Marcello (Lollobrigida).
The gentle and kind Maria takes an instant dislike to her
new employer (“He’s a monster, cruel”), but is cautiously intrigued by the
suave, handsome nephew.We soon discover
that Anthony, in his own way, can be every bit as cunning and cruel as his
uncle.He has contrived a plan to have
his uncle’s last will and testament furtively changed.The new terms will prove more favorable to both
Gina and himself… assuming the reluctant nurse will agree to assist in his
scheme.There’s a lot more going on, of
course, than demonstrated in the brief synopsis above.I’m simply trying my best to avoid any spoilers.
The earliest reports suggested production on Woman of Straw would take place entirely
in England, but that promise was soon scrubbed.Though principal photography was originally scheduled to begin 22 July
at Pinewood Studios, this original start date was pushed back.It was revealed that the film, to be
photographed in glorious Eastman Colour, was set for a twelve-week shooting
schedule.Two weeks of filming would
take place on Majorca, a sun-bleached Balearic island off the Spanish coast.
As per a notice in the 7 August issue of Variety, Lollobrigida had arrived in
England a week earlier, but was still “prepping” for the first stage call.Production commenced on the second week of
August 1963, but things, sadly, got off to a rocky start.Whether it was a clash of egos or styles, Lollobrigida
and Connery didn’t seem to gel well off set.The actresses’ Diva-like tendencies were thought interminable nuisances
by both her no-nonsense co-star and much of the film’s crew.Connery had other issues as well.He discovered the consequences of not having
read the film’s script prior to accepting a role.
The actor was reportedly so unhappy with certain elements
of the screenplay that he continually asked scenarist Stanley Mann for scene
and dialogue revisions.Luckily, Mann
was an accommodating friend, having previously scripted Lewis Allen’s poorly
received Another Time, Another Place
(1958).That Paramount film, featuring
Lana Turner in the star role, is generally recognized as Connery’s
“breakthrough” motion-picture casting.
Following his break-out performance as Superman in the 1978
blockbuster, Christopher Reeve deftly avoided being typecast in the role
despite appearing in several sequels. However, his non-Superman flicks
were a decidedly mixed bag. Virtually none of them were successful at
the boxoffice at the time of their initial release, although Somewhere in Time found a loyal cult audience over the years and Deathtrap
seems more entertaining now than it did in 1982. Reeve proved to be a
good, if unremarkable actor, who had an affable screen presence and the
kind of handsome features and physique that recalled the more
traditional Hollywood leading men of days gone by. (Think Rock Hudson).
However, Reeve's scattershot record of choosing film projects prevented
him from fully capitalizing on his potential. There were too many
boxoffice bombs along the way and Reeve sometimes returned to his first
love, live theater, to continue to grow as an artist. One of Reeve's
least-known films, The Aviator, is now streaming on Screenpix.
The movie was based on the novel by Ernest K. Gann, who specialized in
aerial adventure stories. (He wrote the novel and screenplay for John
Wayne's smash hit The High and the Mighty.) The film opens
intriguingly at a military air base in WWI. Reeve is Edgar Anscombe, a
cocky pilot who is training a novice on his first flight when things go
wrong. The trainee panics and the plane crashes, leaving the student
pilot dead and Anscombe suffering from severe burns. The plot then jumps
ahead by a decade. Anscombe is now a bitter and introverted man still
haunted by his wartime experiences, especially the deadly training
accident that he feels responsible for. He's now working for Moravia
(Jack Warden), the owner of a small air fleet that delivers mail from
Nevada across the western states. In order to supplement the company's
meager profits, Moravia sometimes accepts a passenger to accompany the
pilots on their route. Along comes Tillie Hansen (Rosanna Arquette), a
perky but troubled 17 year-old whose father (Sam Wanamaker) finds her to
be incorrigible. Against Tillie's wishes, he decides to send her to a
strict, disciplinarian aunt in order to teach her social and personal
values. Anscombe immediately resents having to take Tillie along on his
next flight. He snubs her overtures at friendliness and makes it clear
that he wants no part of socially interacting with her. However, while
in flight over a remote mountain region, their plane develops a problem
with the fuel line, forcing them to crash land. Both Anscombe and Tillie
emerge unscathed but their trials and tribulations are just beginning.
Anscombe admits he went off course to take a short-cut, making it
unlikely that rescue parties will find them. Additionally, they lack
shelter and food and are menaced by a pack of hungry wolves. All they
have for a weapon is a pistol with a few rounds of ammunition.
Once the survivalist aspect of The Aviator kicks in, the film
should soar beyond the bland opening scenes that predictably thrust the
viewer into yet another one of those scenarios in which the leading man
and leading lady bicker and kvetch at each other. However,
director George Miller (not the same director George Miller of the Mad
Max movies, unfortunately) establishes a leaden pace that makes The Aviator
resemble a TV movie. You're practically waiting for one of those cringy commercials for
full-body deodorant to pop up any minute. The film lumbers through some
moments of crisis that don't pack much suspense. Dopey Tillie wants to
smoke a cigarette and ends up burning down the wreckage of the plane the
stranded couple had been using for shelter. Anscombe manages to kill
some game for much-needed sustenance only to have it ripped from him by
wolves. The couple decides they must try to make the arduous climb down
the mountain to find help. In the film's only unexpected twist, Anscombe
comes across a remote cabin only to find its eccentric inhabitant won't
help him and threatens him with a gun. Reeve makes for a bland, boring
hero in the under-written role of Anscombe and Arquette grates on the
viewer like nails on a blackboard with her ditzy Valley Girl-like
interpretation of a liberated young woman from the 1920s. The last,
inexcusable cliche the screenplay thrusts upon us finds the
once-bickering Anscombe and Tillie now falling in love.
The Aviator does have some aspects to commend. Jack Warden, Sam
Wanakmaker and Scott Wilson manage to outshine the leading actors and
put some much-needed realism and empathy into their roles, although Tyne
Daly is largely wasted in a minor role. There is a suitably
old-fashioned score by the estimable Dominic Frontiere and the film
boasts some impressive camerawork by David Connell. The film was shot
entirely in Yugoslavia but it must be said that the locations
convincingly resemble the American northwest. The Aviator isn't a
terrible movie, just an unnecessary one that unfortunately helped
contribute to the likeable Christopher Reeve's less-than-inspired career
choices.
Click here to read an interesting study of well-known rock and folk songs that were inspired, if not overtly then at least in part, by well known movies. Some are obvious, such as Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" referencing the English language title for the classic French horror film and Iron Maiden's "Where Eagles Dare". Others are more subtle. We always thought that Al Stewart's "The Year of the Cat" was inspired by "Casablanca" but we wouldn't have guessed Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonite" was derived from a scene in "The Sting". Sometimes a songwriter's inspirational source from a movie can cause problems, as with Neil Diamond's obvious tribute to "E.T.: The Extraterrestrial", which saw him get sued.
The addictive web site www.in70mm.com takes us back to October 10, 1955, to relive how the much-anticipated opening of the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway smash "Oklahoma!" was received. The web site provides the original first-hand reporting on the star-studded black tie premiere at New York's Rivoli Theatre. It should be noted that the film marked the first production to be shot in the new Todd-AO widescreen process, which was developed to help the film industry offset the encroachment of television on moviegoers' habits. Thus, there was not only great anticipation for the film, but also for the process it was being shown in.
The most recent James Bond film to be released was "No Time to Die" in 2021, Daniel Craig's well-received swan song in the role of 007. Bond fans have gotten used to long gaps between the films but, as the web site MI6-HQ reports, they will probably have to continue to have their patience tested. They lay out a variety of high- profile projects that producer Barbara Broccoli is currently involved in, including bringing a musical to Broadway. While Amazon is now partners with Eon Productions, it's Barbara and her stepbrother Michael G. Wilson who call the shots as to when a new Bond movie will go into production. Nothing firm seems to be on the horizon at the moment, so it appears 007 fans will have to live and let cry until further notice.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
“Brilliant and brutal, funny and exhilarating”
— Washington Post
“Audacious, outrageous, indulgent, extreme”
— Toronto Star
“Callous, insolent, breathtaking”
— The Guardian
In 1994, writer-director Quentin Tarantino blew away audiences and
critics with his brazenly brilliant tribute to hard-crime capers, PULP
FICTION. 30 years later, the acclaimed and award-winning film
continues to thrill new generations of fans with its infinitely quotable
dialogue, superb cast, ingenious plot, and chart-topping
soundtrack.
In celebration of the cinematic masterpiece’s 30th anniversary, PULP
FICTION will return to the big screen in October for special
presentations featuring pristine new 35mm prints in select theatres across the
U.S. In addition, the film will be released on 4K Ultra HD in a 30th
Anniversary Collector’s Edition on December 3, 2024 from Paramount Home
Entertainment.
Hailed for its “combination of gorgeous dialogue, genre-literacy, guns,
and gore” (Times UK) as well as its “smart, offbeat, strangely sexy cast”
(Chicago Tribune), PULP FICTION became a cultural phenomenon that
redefined cinema. The Miramax film took home the Cannes Film Festival
Palme d’Or, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature, the Oscar® for Best
Original Screenplay, and dozens of additional awards. The star-studded
cast includes John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim
Roth, Amanda Plummer, Maria de Medeiros, Ving Rhames, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna
Arquette, Christopher Walken, and Bruce Willis.
PULP FICTION will be presented on both 4K Ultra HD
and Blu-ray™ in a new Limited-Edition set that also includes extensive legacy
bonus content and access to a Digital copy of the film in a collectible premium
slipcase, a new slipcover with pop-up artwork, lobby card reproductions,
photography select sheet, and decals. Bonus content is detailed below:
4K Ultra HD
Not the Usual
Mindless Boring Getting to Know You Chit
Chat
Here are Some
Facts on the
Fiction
Enhanced Trivia
Track
Blu-ray
Not the Usual
Mindless Boring Getting to Know You Chit Chat
Here Are Some
Facts on the Fiction
Pulp Fiction:
The Facts – Documentary
Deleted Scenes
Behind the
Scenes Montages
Production
Design Featurette
Siskel &
Ebert "At the Movies"- The Tarantino Generation
Independent
Spirit Awards
Cannes Film
Festival – Palme d'Or Acceptance Speech
Mill
Creek Entertainment has released a double feature under a Director Spotlight
banner of a couple of Sydney Pollack films. “Castle Keep” from 1969 and “Bobby
Deerfield” from 1977. Two more different movies on a single disc you would be
hard pressed to find, but each film is as interesting and unique as they are different.
One is a fairy tail version of WWII set in a French castle and the other a low
key romance set in the France.
First
up is “Caste Keep,” a WWII tale of U.S. soldiers seemingly sent to protect a 10th
century French castle at the end of the war to prevent the retreating Germans
from recapturing it. The castle contains priceless historical artifacts and
great masterpieces of art and literature. The American orders are to destroy
the Germans which could involve the inadvertent destruction of the castle.
Jean-Pierre Aumont is Henri Tixier, the Count of Maldorais and resident lord of
the castle. Astrid Heeren is his beautiful young wife, Countess Therese de
Maldorais.
The
count works to protect not only the castle and all its contents, but his legacy
and is in need of an heir. This is where Burt Lancaster comes in as the eye
patch-wearing American soldier, Major Abraham Falconer. The Count encourages
Falconer to sleep with his wife in order to get her pregnant. Apparently, the Count
made a similar deal with the German commander who previously occupied the
castle. The deal is that they agree to not destroy the castle. Major Falconer
and the Countess begin an affair which is fully supported by the Count.
The
cast for this movie is first rate at every level from Lancaster to the
supporting players. In addition to Lancaster, Aumont and Heeren there’s Patrick
O’Neal as Captain Lionel Beckman, an expert on Medieval art whose objective is
to catalog and save the castle from destruction. Pater Falk is Sergeant Rossi
Baker, a soldier who also happens to be a baker. He discovers a bakery in the
nearby town where he sets up shop with the previous baker’s wife and family and
happily starts baking bread. Scott Wilson is Corporal Clearboy, who finds an
abandoned Volkswagen Beetle which he gets running. Bruce Dern is Lieutenant
Billy Byron Bis, the leader of a group of Army conscientious objectors
proselytizing as they march through the nearby town in front of the local
brothel. There’s also Al Freeman Jr as Private Allistair Piersall Benjamin, an
aspiring author and the narrator of the movie. He reads the film’s credits to
us when the movie starts, thus adding to the fairy tale element. Tony Bill as
Lieutenant Amberjack, James Patterson as Elk and Michael Conrad as Sergeant
DeVaca.
All
the players come into various conflicts with one another; the Count and the
soldiers, the Count and his wife and the major, the art historian and the
major, the soldiers in the bordello, the conscientious objectors marching down
the street, the soldier obsessed with his Volkswagen, the baker making bread as
shells are exploding around him, and of course there’s the imminent threat of
Germans gathering for a new assault on the town and castle.
Major
Falconer likes to refer to these eccentrics as dreamers and he encourages them
because he too is a dreamer. Falconer wants to save the castle, but his orders
come first. Captain Beckman wants to save the castle too and thinks the orders
should be ignored, Sergeant Baker just wants to forget the war and bake bread, Corporal
Clearboy wants to keep his Volkswagen running and useful, Private Benjamin
wants to be a writer and the Count wants an heir.
Several
characters pause to ask throughout the film, “What century is this?” starting
with the first sighting of the count on horseback in the snow-covered forest
near the castle. The soldiers arrive in a dream lead by a knight who finds a
beautiful princess. There’s a balladeer, sirens, a stoic, a baker, a priest, a
magician and the impending return of the beast threatening to wake everyone
from their dream.
The
movie clocks in at 107 minutes with a terrific score by Michel Legrand which,
along with the 2.39:1 aspect ratio cinematography by Henri Decae, contributes
to the film’s dream-like quality. The movie was made on location in Yugoslavia
on a castle set with exteriors filmed in the town of Novi Sad, Serbia, throughout
the month of March in 1968 and released to the public in July 1969.
Next
up is “Bobby Deerfield,” the story of an American Formula One race car driver
living in Italy who meets a beautiful and quirky German woman while visiting a member
of his racing team who is recovering from a serious racing accident. He’s a bit
of a rock star in the Formula One circuit, but is always trying hard not to be
the center of attention. Bobby is an enigma almost to the point of being
boring. It’s hard to feel anyone is really drawn to him.
The
tag line on the Blu-ray cover poster reads, “He never gave a damn. Until her.”
The “he” is Al Pacino as Bobby Deerfield. The “her” is Marthe Keller as Lillian
Morelli. Lillian is terminally ill and receiving treatment at the Swiss hospital
where Deerfield’s racing colleague is recovering. He visits not so much out of friendship
and concern, but in order to uncover the reasons behind the accident and to prevent
the same from happening to him.
Based
on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the racing world is the backdrop to a
romance that develops between Bobby and Lillian. The film was shot on location
in France, Italy, Switzerland and other European locations. The screen is
filled with beautiful scenery as Bobby and Lillian visit her family and friends.
At one point Bobby and Lillian spot a hot air balloon while picnicking on a
scenic hillside and they drive to a balloon festival. Lillian finds a man
willing to take them for a ride on his balloon and Bobby declines. The next
several minutes reminded me of movie critic Roger Ebert’s Balloon Rule which
states: “Good movies rarely contain a hot air balloon.”
Is
“Bobby Deerfield” a movie worth your time? If you’re looking for a racing
movie, this is not the movie for you. We get to see the racetrack once at the
beginning and again near the end for a total of about five minutes of Formula One
racing. This is a movie about a man who happens to be a race car driver. Bobby
has people in his life who love him or at least try to get close to him. He is
in a relationship with a woman, Anny Duperey as Lydia, but he leaves her behind
while he pursues Lillian. Bobby has a brother who comes to see him about family
issues, but Bobby has no time for family or friends. His relationships are either
business or superficial friendships until he meets Lillian. She is a woman
seeking to experience as much as she can in the time she has left and falls in
love with a man whose days may also be numbered due to the dangers of his
profession.
“Bobby
Deerfield” clocks in at 124 minutes and benefits greatly from the location
filming in France and Italy with 2.35:1 widescreen cinematography by Henri
Decae and a score by regular Pollock composer Dave Grusin. Released in
September 1977, it was a co-production between Columbia, Warner Bros. and First
Artists (which Pacino was a co-partner). The film was marketed in America as a
racing movie like “Grand Prix” which may have set up a different expectation,
as the movie does not offer much in the way of racing, but does have excellent low
key performances by Pacino and Keller.
Both
movies have been released previously on Blu-ray, DVD and VHS over the years.
“Castle Keep” received a Blu-ray release by Indicator in the UK loaded with
extras and “Bobby Deerfield” received a Blu-ray release by Twilight Time.
Both
films on this release by Mill Creek are found on a single disc with the option
to watch with subtitles. The disc is bare bones without even a trailer, but
both movies look and sound very nice on this disc. I highly recommend this
release, especially for those not acquainted with either movie. This is a
welcome double bill of the work of a great American director and I would
welcome more entries in Mill Creek’s Director Spotlight. Recommended for fans
of Pollack, Lancaster and Pacino.
Tree
Frog Publications, £15.59/£24.94), 130 pages, Illustrated (Colour), Paperback
and Hardback, ISBN-13-979-8333276421.
Review by Tim Greaves
Long
before there was 4K, Blu-Ray, DVD, LaserDisc, or VHS (not to mention several
other short-lived, obsolete film formats), for movie buffs of a certain age
there was 8mm. The excitement of actually owning the best scenes from your
favourite movies was unparalleled. I say “the best scenes” because, although
some titles were available in feature-length form, they were largely the domain
of the affluent; a single title could set you back several hundreds pounds –
and this was 40 years ago or more. Within reach of most of our pockets though
were the 9-minute and 18-minute-long reels, which comprised “selected scenes”
from blockbusters like Jaws and The Omen to Z-graders like Blood
Devils and Frankenstein Conquers the World and – though even they
had their fans. These releases were almost always edited into a coherent
mini-story.
The
joys of the hobby – still alive today, albeit on a much smaller scale – have
been captured in Mark Williams’ outstanding new book, “Bootlace Cinema:
Collecting Horror, Science Fiction & Exploitation Movies on Super 8!”. It’s
a slimline volume, but don’t let that deter you; the sheer amount of
information and glorious full colour illustrations crammed into its 130 pages
is phenomenal. Opening
with a foreword by film-maker Donald Farmer, there follows an introduction from
Williams, a biographical piece by Keith Wilton (a name familiar to many of us
as a former key figure within the 8mm collecting community), an overview of the
dealers who made these delights available to us back in the day, and a short
piece by Lee Mannering about his own 8mm film, Cinema in Miniature. And
that’s just the first-14 pages. The remaining 116 comprise an extensive
collection of reviews and box art for almost 150 releases that fit within the
categories named in the book’s subtitle, plus a selection of old dealers’
adverts, which many of us will remember drooling over all those years ago.
The
text itself would have benefited from an editor’s eye, but the pesky errors
lurking throughout the book are eclipsed by the unbridled passion for the
subject that tumbles from its pages, provoking misty-eyed memories of a time
long past; it not only transported me back to my youth, and made me wish that I
hadn’t sold off most of my collection many moons ago as I learned about releases
that had completely passed me by.
If
you used to collect films on 8mm, or have even a passing interest in seeing
what limited access there used to be to our favourite movies, then “Bootlace
Cinema” – its title drawn from the nickname by which the narrow-gauge film
format is known – is a book you simply mustn’t miss.
Most
folks who pay attention to Cinema Retro will likely know who Val Lewton
is. For those who don’t… After Orson Welles made Citizen Kane and The
Magnificent Ambersons at RKO Radio Pictures and (unwittingly and
undeservedly) nearly destroyed the studio, the top brass needed some quick
influx of money. They hired producer Val Lewton to “do what Universal was doing
and make some horror movies because that genre was profitable!” The only
problem was that they gave him practically nothing in terms of a budget to make
these films. It was up to Lewton to decide the kind of pictures he would make,
who to hire to make them, and so on.
Thus,
between 1942 and 1946, with Lewton at the producing helm, RKO released a string
of remarkable low-budget frighteners that relied not on expensive makeup or
visual effects to scare the audience, but rather carefully executed black and
white cinematography, sound, and storylines that left the horror in the
viewers’ imaginations. It was the adage—what you don’t see is likely creepier
than what you do. And it worked.
Lewton
hired talented filmmakers who drew upon German expressionism (and this was the
same time that Hollywood was beginning to make low budget crime dramas, later
known after the fact as film noir, using the same visual techniques) to
create an eerie atmosphere of contrasting dark shadows and light. Add in some
spooky sounds (wind, creaking doors, cat screeches, metal garbage cans crashing
loudly on a sidewalk) and a sensibility that anything could be lurking
around the corner… and you have some truly unnerving motion pictures. We don’t
need no stinkin’ monsters!
As
illustrated by film historian Imogen Sara Smith in an excellent supplement
about the Val Lewton film series, another aspect that made the films creepy was
an overwhelming sense of dread and death in all of them. They were nihilistic
explorations into the dark abscesses of the human soul. Suicide, murder, depression,
and repressed sexuality were common themes in all the titles.
First
out of the gate was Cat People (1942, also available on the Criterion
Collection), which was a surprise box office hit. French director Jacques
Tourneur and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca established the style and
presentation of the Lewton movies with sensitive, canny direction and film
noir photography.
I
Walked with a Zombie
(1943) was next, and it’s this reviewer’s favorite among all the Lewton titles.
Loosely inspired by Jane Eyre, it’s one of the earliest Hollywood movies
to deal with voodoo in the West Indies. Tourneur also directed, but with J. Roy
Hunt as DP. Starring Frances Dee as Betsy, an innocent nurse on a Caribbean
island who is hired to care for Jessica (Christine Gordon), the invalid wife of
Paul (Tom Conway), a sugar plantation owner. Jessica is near catatonic but
wanders silently outdoors at night. Betsy soon learns more about the island’s superstitious
beliefs in Vodou and is surprised that even Paul’s mother, Mrs. Rand (Edith
Barrett) is a practitioner. It isn’t long before Betsy, who has fallen in love
with her employer, encounters the underbelly of the Vodou community and must
protect herself and her charge.
Is
I Walked with a Zombie “scary”? Well, no, not really, not any more than
any of the Lewton horror films. But what it has going for it is style and
atmosphere in spades. This is one of the most poetic horror films ever
made. It’s a beautifully-rendered, impressionistic tale that is creepy, to be
sure, and somewhat shocking (certainly for its time). There is much more happening
here than a mere zombie story. The themes of slavery and racism also crop up to
make the picture a much more meaningful treatise on the voodoo concept. And it
is absolutely gorgeous to look at.
The
Seventh Victim (1943)
was the fourth Lewton-produced picture, this time directed by Mark Robson, who
had been the editor on the first three Lewton titles. Nicholas Musuraca is back
as cinematographer, and the pictures would not have been as effective without
him. Something of a precursor to Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Seventh
Victim is about a devil-worshipping cult in New York City’s Greenwich
Village. Mary (Kim Hunter, in her first film role) is a young student looking
for her missing older sister, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks). Her investigation
introduces her to Gregory (Hugh Beaumont), who is, surprisingly, married to
Jacqueline, Dr. Judd (Tom Conway again), a psychiatrist who had been treating
Jacqueline, and poet Jason (Erford Gage), who offers to help in the search.
Mary eventually finds the despondent Jacqueline, who expresses the desire to
commit suicide. It turns out she is under the influence of the
Satan-worshippers, who believe that traitors to their cabal should die
preferably by suicide rather than violence.
Apparently,
The Seventh Victim went through a drastic post-production phase in which
at least four big scenes were deleted. As a result, the storyline in the
picture is often incoherent. We can’t help but wonder what the heck is really
going on most of the time. But is it “scary”? Again, no, not really, but the
film is indeed atmospheric, beautiful to look at, and has a sense of anxiety
that keeps one interested until we reach an ending that is, unfortunately,
unsatisfying. Nevertheless, Victim tackles unusual themes (watch for the
hint of a lesbian relationship between Jacqueline and her best friend, played
by Isabel Jewell). It’s a wonder that The Seventh Victim got through the
Hays Office with the Production Code seal of approval, considering its unsavory
set of villains and a suicide plot.
The
Criterion Collection has released a 4K/UHD edition and a Blu-ray edition of
both films on a single disk (the 4K/UHD edition includes the Blu-ray disk,
which also sports the supplements). The disk features a 4K digital restoration
of both films with uncompressed monaural soundtracks. Both pictures look
absolutely marvelous, cleaned up, sharp, and pristine. They are a testament to
the glory of black and white photography.
The
supplements abound. I Walked with a Zombie comes with an audio
commentary by authors Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. There is also an audio
essay from Adam Roche’s podcast “The Secret History of Hollywood” accompanying
the movie.
The
Seventh Victim comes
with an audio commentary by film historian Steve Haberman, as well as an audio
essay from the same Adam Roche’s podcast.
Other
supplements include the previously-mentioned interview with Imogen Sara Smith
that is an excellent overview of Lewton’s movies and especially the two titles
on the disk. The 2005 documentary, Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton
Legacy, is included in its entirety. There is another audio essay from Adam
Roche and his podcast about the casts, crews, and productions of both movies. Excerpts
from the PBS series Monstrum on “The Origins of the Zombie” are
particularly inviting. Rounding off the package are trailers for both films,
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, and a booklet with essays
by critics Chris Fujiwara and Lucy Sante.
Just
in time for Halloween, Criterion’s Val Lewton double feature of I Walked
with a Zombie and The Seventh Victim comes highly recommended for
fans of old horror films and classic Hollywood.
Eon Productions has opened an official James Bond 007 venue in Mayfair, London at the Burlington Arcade.
The venue affords visitors the opportunity to enjoy viewing iconic film props, shop for official merchandise and indulge in Bond-inspired cocktails.
Among the attendees for the opening were Bond actresses
Carole Ashby, Caroline Munro and Martine Beswick. The
exhibition runs through December 31. Cinema Retro's Mark Mawston was on hand to
chronicle the opening. For full details, visit the
MI6-HQ website.
