One
of the most iconic and influential movies ever made, ONCE UPON A
TIME IN THE WEST has been restored from the original 35mm Techniscope camera negative by Paramount’s archive team, L'Immagine Ritrovata and The
Film Foundation. This
restoration honors the 2007 Film Foundation photochemical restoration overseen
by legendary director Martin
Scorsese by matching its build and color palette. The
result is the definitive home release of the film, which features the
165-minute extended cut restored to its glory.
A
must-own for every cinephile’s collection, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE
WEST will be presented in a Limited-Edition two-disc 4K Ultra
HD/Blu-ray™ set that includes both new and legacy bonus
content, as well as access to a Digital copy of the film. The film is
presented in Dolby Vision™* and HDR-10, along with English 5.1
DTS-HD Master Audio and English Restored Mono Dolby Digital for an exceptional
home viewing experience.
·Commentary
by the Hosts of the Spaghetti Western Podcast –NEW!
·A
Look Back with Leonard Maltin—NEW!
·Commentary
with contributions from directors John Carpenter, John Milius & Alex Cox,
film historians Sir Christopher Frayling & Dr. Sheldon Hall, and cast and
crew
Widely
considered to be one of the greatest Westerns—and one of the greatest
films—ever made, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST was
selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in the U.S. National Film
Registry in 2009. The film stars Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Jason
Robards, and Charles Bronson.
Synopsis
Set
in the dying days of the Old West, a struggle to control water in a dusty
desert town embroils three hard-bitten gunmen in an epic clash of greed, honor,
and revenge.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST will also be available on
4K Ultra HD Digital on May 14.
This is a limited edition. Click here to pre-order now from Amazon.
The first African-American to direct a major film for a Hollywood
studio was Gordon Parks, whose feature film debut "The Learning Tree"
was released in 1969. Parks may have shattered the glass ceiling but
there wasn't a tidal wave of opportunities that immediately opened for
other minority filmmakers, in part because there were so few with any
formal training in the art. One beneficiary of Parks' achievement was
Ossie Davis, who was internationally respected as a well-rounded artist.
He was a triple threat: actor, director and writer but his directing
skills had been relegated to the stage. In 1970 Davis co-wrote the
screenplay for and directed "Cotton Comes to Harlem", a major production
for United Artists. The film was based on a novel by African-American
writer Chester Himes and proved to be pivotal in ushering in what became
known as the Blaxploitation genre. In reality, it's debatable whether
"Cotton" really is a Blaxploitation film. While most of the major roles
are played by Black actors, the term "Blaxploitation" has largely come
to symbolize the kinds of goofy, low-budget films that are fondly
remembered as guilty pleasures. However, "Cotton"- like Gordon Parks's
"Shaft" films which would follow- boasts first class production values
and top talent both in front of and behind the cameras. Regardless, the
movie had sufficient impact at the boxoffice to inspire a seemingly
endless barrage of Black-oriented American films that were all the rage
from the early to mid-1970s. The Blaxploitation fever burned briefly but
shone brightly and opened many doors for minority actors.
The film was shot when New York City was in the midst of a
precipitous decline in terms of quality of life. Crime was soaring, the
infrastructure was aging and the city itself would be on the verge of
bankruptcy a few years later. Harlem was among the hardest hit areas in
terms of the economy. The once dazzling jewel of a neighborhood had
boasted popular nightclubs, theaters and restaurants that attracted
affluent white patrons. By the mid-to-late 1960s, however, that had
changed radically. Street crimes, organized gangs and the drug culture
spread rapidly, making Harlem a very dangerous place to be. It was
foreboding enough if you were Black but it was considered a "Forbidden
Zone" for most white people, who spent their money elsewhere, thus
exacerbating the decline of the neighborhoods. "Cotton Comes to Harlem"
serves as an interesting time capsule of what life was like in the area,
having been shot during this period of decline. Director Davis was
considered royalty in Harlem. Despite his success in show business, he
and his equally acclaimed wife, actress Ruby Dee, never "went
Hollywood". They stayed in the community and worked hard to improve the
environment. Thus, Davis was perfectly suited to capture the action on
the streets in a manner that played authentically on screen. Similarly,
he had a real feel for the local population. As with any major urban
area, Harlem undoubtedly had its share of amusing eccentrics and Davis
populates the movie with plenty of such characters.
The film opens with a major rally held by Rev. Deke O'Malley (Calvin
Lockhart), a local guy who made good and who is idolized by the
population of Harlem. O'Malley is a smooth-talking, charismatic con man
in the mode of the notorious Reverend Ike who uses religion as a facade
to rip off gullible followers. This time, O'Malley has launched a "Back
to Africa" campaign for which he is soliciting funds. It's based on the
absurd premise that he will be able to finance disgruntled Harlem
residents back to the land of their ancestry. The hard-working,
semi-impoverished locals end up donating $87,000 in cash but the rally
is interrupted by a daring daytime robbery. An armored car filled with
masked men armed with heavy weaponry descend upon the goings-on, loot
the cashbox and take off. They are pursued by two street-wise local
cops, "Grave Digger" Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and his partner "Coffin"
Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques). Davis provides an exciting and
colorful car chase through the streets of Harlem, as the cops fail to
snag the robbers. They also discover that O'Malley has gone missing,
leading them to believe that he orchestrated the heist himself so he
could keep the proceeds raised at the rally. The plot becomes rather
convoluted, as Jones and Johnson learn that a bale of cotton has arrived
in Harlem and its somehow connected to the crime. They assume that the
stolen money has been stashed in said cotton bale, which quickly changes
hands among the most unsavory characters in the community. Getting in
on the action is a white mob boss and his goons who are also trying to
recover the cotton bale. The cotton itself is resented in Harlem because
of its historical links to slavery and by the end of the film, the bale
ends up in a stage show at the famed Apollo Theater where it is used as
a prop in a bizarre production that involves historical observations
about the black experience intermingled with a striptease act! Through
it all, Jones and Johnson doggedly chase any number of people through
the streets, engage in shoot-outs and car chases and come in and out of
contact with Rev. O'Malley, who professes his innocence about being
involved in the robbery. The Rev isn't so innocent when it comes to
other unscrupulous activities such as chronically cheating on his
long-suffering girlfriend Iris (Judy Pace) and manipulating other women
in a variety of ways.
The most delightful aspect of the film is the showcasing of some very
diverse talents of the era. Godfrey Cambridge (who made it big as a
stand-up comic) and Raymond St. Jacques enjoy considerable on-screen
chemistry even if the script deprives them of the kind of witty dialogue
that would have enhanced their scenes together. They make wisecracks
all the time and harass some less-than-savory characters but the
screenplay never truly capitalizes on Cambridge's comedic potential. The
film's most impressive performance comes from Calvin Lockhart, who
perfectly captures the traits of phony, larger-than-life "preachers".
He's all flashy good looks, gaudy outfits and narcissistic behavior.
Lockhart seems to be having a ball playing this character and the screen
ignites every time he appears. There are some nice turns by other good
character actors including pre-"Sanford and Son" Redd Foxx, who figures
in the film's amusing "sting-in-the-tail" ending, John Anderson as the
exasperated white captain of a Harlem police station that is constantly
on the verge of being besieged by local activists, Lou Jacobi as a junk
dealer, Cleavon Little as a local eccentric, J.D. Canon as a mob hit man
and Dick Sabol as a goofy white cop who suffers humiliation from
virtually everyone (which is sort of a payback for the decades in which
Black characters were routinely used as comic foils). The film has a
surprisingly contemporary feel about it, save for a few garish fashions
from the 1970s. It's also rather nostalgic to hear genuine soul music
peppered through the soundtrack in this pre-rap era. Happily, life has
not imitated art in the years since the film was released. Harlem has
been undergoing the kind of Renaissance that would have seemed
unimaginable in 1970. The old glory has come back strong and the center
of the neighorhood, 125th Street, is vibrant and thriving once again.
These societal perspectives make watching "Cotton Comes to Harlem"
enjoyable on an entirely different level than simply an amusing crime
comedy.
The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, available for subscription through Amazon Prime.
"I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" might leaving contemporary viewers asking "Who is Alice B. Toklas?" The answer: she was a companion of writer Gertrude Stein. Toklas was a fellow writer who became idolized by pop culture addicts for daring to have written a cookbook that included a recipe for pot brownies. The 1968 big screen farce was anything but fun to make. Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker were to have made their directorial debuts with this film. However, once Peter Sellers was signed to star, the mercurial and unpredictable actor had them bounced from the directors chair(s), though their screenplay was retained. Shortly after production began, Sellers brought Mazursky back on board to offer advice about salvaging a production that Sellers was growing increasingly leery about. The truce was short-lived because Mazursky criticized the way Sellers played a love scene with Leigh Taylor-Young, who made her big screen debut in the film. Mazursky was fired again as the film hobbled through production under the direction of Hy Averback. Sellers was apparently also feuding with his wife, Britt Ekland, who was simultaneously filming "The Night They Raided Minsky's" against Sellers' wishes.
The story presents Sellers as Harold Fine, an L.A. lawyer and self-described "square". He is courting his law firm's secretary, Joyce (Joyce Van Patten), an amiable bubble-head who constantly pressures Harold into proposing to her. He finally relents and a wedding date is set, much to the delight of Harold's parents (amusingly played by Jo Van Fleet and Salem Ludwig). In the meantime, Harold finds himself unexpectedly immersed in the local hippie culture when his car is damaged and he finds the only accessible vehicle is a flower-powered decorated loaner he gets from the repair shop. At the same time, his hippie brother Herbie (David Arkin) introduces him to the gorgeous Nancy (Leigh Taylor-Young), a free-spirited young woman who indulges in drugs and free love. Harold finds himself smitten by her and when she leaves him some pot-laced brownies, it results in the film's funniest scene in which Harold ends up serving them to his parents and Joyce, resulting in the kind of over-reaction one might attribute to a tab of LSD. Nevertheless, it is quite an amusing segment. Ultimately, Harold leaves Joyce at the synagogue seconds before taking the vow of marriage. He dashes home and vows to start a new life with Nancy. Before long, he is sporting long hair, mod eyeglasses and is living in his car. It seems perfect until the screenplay predictably delves into one of those scenarios in which the motto is "Be careful what you wish for- you just may get it!".
Sellers is the glue that holds the fragile premise together, even if his American accent slips every now and then. Taylor-Young makes for a lovely leading lady and Joyce Van Patten is stuck in the role of constantly jilted lover who craves Harold no matter how many times he humiliates her. Unfortunately, the premise wears thin pretty quickly and the movie is never as funny as it should be or you expect it to be. In fact, it bears a certain resemblance to Blake Edwards' "The Party", which was released the same year. Both films were based on an initially funny scenario that ultimately ran out of steam as the movie wore on. At the time, Roger Ebert reviewed the film favorably but pointed out that it was another example of a Hollywood studio punting when it came to presenting the hippie culture and depicting the rebellious young people as sanitized caricatures. Perhaps the biggest laugh to be had was by Paul Mazursky, who would direct the smash hit "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" the following year, thus establishing himself as a major name in the film industry.
The region-free Warner Archive boasts a fine transfer. The only bonus feature is the trailer.
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of The Internecine Project, a 1974 London-based thriller directed by Ken Hughes and starring James Coburn in a bravura performance as a charismatic villain. Coburn plays an internationally respected economics expert who finds himself being tapped to be an adviser to the President of the United States. However, he must first ensure that his sordid sideline of running a small London crime ring is swept under the rug. To do so, he devises a complex scheme to convince each member of his team to murder another. The film, written by Barry Levinson and Jonathan Lynn, bristles with tension and leads to a wonderful and satisfying conclusion. Aside from Coburn's outstanding performance, you can relish yeoman work from Lee Grant, Kennan Wynn, Harry Andrews and Ian Hendry- all set to Roy Budd's atmospheric score.
The Blu-ray is a welcome upgrade from the previous Scorpion DVD edition. It ports over the interview with Jonathan Lynn, who would go on to be best known for writing famous British comedy TV series. On most special editions produced by major studios, the interviews are chopped into brief soundbites. Refreshingly, this one allows Lynn to talk for almost 30 minutes- and he goes beyond discussing The Internecine Project to detailing working on Clue, which he wrote and directed.Unfortunately, this edition does not include the interview with Coburn's daughter that was featured on the DVD release. The Blu-ray does contain the original trailer along with trailers of other crime thrillers available from KL. Highly recommended.
The conventional wisdom is that physical media (DVDs, Blu-rays) is in a death spiral in the age of streaming. In article for the BBC's web site, writer Claire Thorp makes the case for treasuring physical media. Let's face it: streaming is great, but as the article points out, your "ownership" of your favorite videos is tentative, subject to them vanishing without warning due to licensing expiration situations and other factors. Additionally, streaming can't provide those great bonus extras collectors treasure. The article advises that the only way to permanently possess these treasured films is to own them outright. Click here to read.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Legendary director Don Siegel (Dirty
Harry) directs the iconic John Wayne as an ageing gunfighter dying of cancer in
his final screen appearance, a superb adaptation of Glendon Swarthout's classic
western novel, The Shootist.
John Bernard Books is the stuff of
legend, a renowned 'shootist' whose reputation looms large. But it's 1901, and
like the old west, John is dying and a reputation like his draws trouble like
an outhouse draws flies. As word spreads that the famous gunfighter is on his
last legs, the vultures begin to gather; old enemies, the marshal, newspaper
men, an undertaker, all eager to see him dead. Other men might die quietly in
bed or take their own lives, but J. B. Books will choose his executioner and
face down death with a pistol in each hand.
With an outstanding cast that
features not only Wayne, but James Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, Scatman
Crothers and John Carradine, The Shootist is an elegiac ode to a monumental
screen presence and to the Western genre itself.
Bonus Materials
·New 2K remaster by Arrow
Films from the original 35mm camera negative
·High Definition Blu-ray
(1080p) presentation
·Original lossless mono
audio
·Optional English
Subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
·Brand new audio
commentary by filmmaker and critic Howard S. Berger
·The Last Day, a new
visual essay by film critic David Cairns
·A Man-Making Moment, a
new interview with Western author C. Courtney Joyner
·Laments of the West, a
new appreciation of Elmer Bernstein’s score by film historian and composer Neil
Brand
·Contemplating John
Wayne: The Death of a Cowboy, a new visual essay by filmmaker and critic Scout
Tafoya
·The Shootist: The Legend
Lives On, archival featurette
·Theatrical trailer
·Image gallery
·Reversible sleeve
featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Juan Esteban Rodríguez
·Double-sided fold-out
poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Juan Esteban
Rodríguez
·Six postcard-sized lobby
card reproductions
·Illustrated collector’s
booklet featuring new writing by film critic Philip Kemp
This Blu-ray will be released on March 12. Click here to order from Amazon.
Here's a fine documentary examining the life and career of Robert Mitchum from The Hollywood Collection.
"For nearly a century, Hollywood has captivated and influenced generation after generation of moviegoers. Its magic has left an indelible imprint on every culture with a movie projector. Originally broadcast on PBS, HBO/Cinemax, TNT, A&E, Lifetime, and Bravo, this is one of the most comprehensive collections of biographies and cinema retrospectives ever compiled, a spectacular treasury of 32 revealing biographies of Hollywood’s most beloved stars. These biographies, some narrated by the stars themselves, include interviews with friends, family members and colleagues, as well as clips from their most memorable films, and in some cases, rare home movies.
“Over 350 actors, writers, directors, producers, make-up people, publicists, agents, and family members all gave of themselves to help make these shows possible. This was the way it was in Hollywood in its classic era and these were the stars that captured us.” – Gene Feldman, producer/director of The Hollywood Collection."
(To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube".)
Arrow Films has released director Peter Yates' 1971 WWII adventure "Murphy's War" starring Peter O'Toole as a Blu-ray special edition, loaded with impressive extras. Click here for more info and to order from Amazon.
“Tales
of Adventure Collection 2,” a special edition, Blu-ray box set from
Australia’s Imprint Films, gathers five movies from the 1940s and ‘50s with
“wild and dangerous” jungle settings. To
the best of my memory, I don’t recall seeing any of them among the scores of
jungle pictures I enjoyed as a kid in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, either on the
big screen or on local TV morning movie matinees. Of the five diverse selections in the Imprint
box set, three are Republic Pictures productions, the fourth is a Paramount
release, and the fifth bears the Columbia Pictures logo. All five feature superior transfers (the
three Republic entries are transfers from 4K scans of the original negatives)
and captions for the deaf and hard of hearing, and four of them come with
excellent audio commentaries. Younger
viewers be aware, the films tend to reflect attitudes about race and
conservation that were commonplace seventy years ago, but frowned upon today;
you won’t see anything remotely like Black Panther’s democratic technocracy of
Wakanda here.
The
older two Republic releases, both in black-and-white and paired here on one
disc, underscore the studio’s reputation as a purveyor of lowbrow entertainment
with stingy production values. “Angel on
the Amazon” (1948) begins with Christine Ridgeway (Vera Hruba Ralston) trekking
through the Amazon jungle with safari hat and rifle, stalking panthers. It promises (or threatens, if you’re a
conservationist) to become a film about big-game hunting, where wild animals
exist to be turned into trophy heads. But
then Christine’s station wagon breaks down, and she radios for help. Pilot Jim Warburton (George Brent) flies in
with the needed carburetor part, just in time for the party to escape from
“headhunters.” This may be the only
jungle movie in history where rescue depends on a delivery from Auto Zone. Jim is enchanted by Christine, but she has
something to hide and refuses to warm up to his advances. Later, meeting Jim again in Rio de Janeiro,
she becomes frightened when an elderly, apparently harmless man watches her
from a distance. As film historian
Philippa Berry notes on the informative audio commentary for the Blu-ray, the
answer to the mystery revolves around the then-popular theme of physical
effects from psychological trauma, here given a mystical and somewhat absurd
twist. The studio-bound sets and back
projection that waft the characters from the Amazon to Rio and then to
Pasadena, California, are charmingly phoney. George Brent and two other fading co-stars from the 1930s, the
aristocratic Brian Aherne and Constance Bennett, stoutly maintain straight
faces in the backlot rain forest.
“Daughter
of the Jungle” (1949) is even more formulaic, as a young blonde woman raised in
the jungle comes to the aid of pilot Paul Cooper (James Cardwell), a policeman,
and two gangsters in the lawman’s custody when their plane crashes somewhere in
Africa. Called Ticoora by the local
tribe, she is actually Irene Walker, who was stranded with her millionaire
father in their own plane crash twelve years before. As film historian Gary Gerani notes in his
audio commentary track, Ticoora is one of a long line of virginal jungle sirens
in movies that range from the ridiculously sublime, like 1959’s “Green
Mansions,” to the sublimely ridiculous, like 1983’s “Sheena, Queen of the
Jungle.” She can summon elephants with a
Tarzan-like yodel that recalls Carol Burnett’s parodies on her old TV
show. As Ticoora leads the party to
safety, the oily head gangster, Kraik, schemes a way to claim her inheritance,
which awaits in New York. Some viewers
will see Kraik, played by the great Sheldon Leonard with a constant volley of
“dese, dose, and dem” insults, as the only reason to stay with the movie’s plod
through lions, gorillas, crocodiles, and indigenous Africans played by white
actors in greasepaint. Others (I plead
guilty) tend to view unassuming, ramshackle pictures like this one more
leniently, providing we can accept if not endorse their racial attitudes as a
product of their times. Consistent with
Republic’s nickel-and-diming on its B-feature releases, especially those made
in the late ‘40s, the more spectacular long shots of Ticoora swinging from
vines in her above-the-knee jungle skirt were recycled from one of the studio’s
earlier releases. In those scenes, it’s
actually Francis Gifford’s stunt doubles in the same outfit from the 1941
serial “Jungle Girl,” not Lois Hall who plays Ticoora in the new footage. Gary Gerani’s audio commentary provides lots
of information about the cast, including the two obscure leads, Lois Hall and
James Cardwell. Gerani points out that
the Blu-ray print, from the original negative, presents the movie’s full
80-minute version for the first time ever. The 69-minute theatrical release in 1949 omitted some B-roll filler and
some scenes where Paul woos Irene. More
action, less kissy, was crucial for encouraging positive playground
word-of-mouth from sixth graders in the audience—the pint-sized forerunners of
today’s Tik-Tok influencers.
The
third movie retrieved from Republic’s vaults, “Fair Wind to Java” (1953), was
one of the studio’s intermittent efforts to offer more expensive productions in
living Trucolor, with a rousing Victor Young musical score, to compete with
major postwar costume epics from the MGM and Paramount powerhouses. Ironically, Paramount now owns the rights to
Republic’s home video library. In 1883
Indonesia, New England sea captain Boll (Fred MacMurray) picks up the trail of
lost diamonds also sought by a pirate chief, Pulo Besar (Robert Douglas). Obstacles include the pirates, some scurvy
knaves in Boll’s own crew, Dutch colonial authorities, and the fact that the
only person who can direct Boll to the treasure is dancing girl Kim Kim (Vera
Hruba Ralston), who has only an imperfect memory of the route from her
childhood. Substitute Indiana Jones for
Captain Boll, and you’d hardly notice the switch. It turns out that the gems are hidden in a
temple on Fire Island—unfortunately for the captain, not the friendly enclave
of Fire Island, N.Y., but the volcanic peak of Krakatoa. Will Krakatoa blow up just as the rival
treasure hunters make landfall there? Are you kidding? The script doesn’t disappoint, and neither do the FX by
Republic’s in-house technical team, Howard and Theodore Lydecker. A former ice skating star who escaped
Czechoslovakia ahead of the Nazis, Ralston was the wife of Republic studio head
Herbert J. Yates and widely derided as a beneficiary of nepotism who couldn’t
act her way out of an audition. She was
still a punch line for comics in the 1960s, long after most people had
forgotten the point of the joke. In
reality, both here and in “Angel on the Amazon,” she is an appealing performer,
no more deserving of ridicule than other actresses of her time with careers
mainly in escapist pictures. The sultry
but vulnerable Kim Kim was the kind of role that Hedy Lamarr might have played
under other circumstances. Ralston’s
performance is at least as engaging, and she looks mighty nice in brunette
makeup and sarong.
If
you first met Fred MacMurray as the star of “My Three Sons,” as I did as a kid,
it may take some adjustment to see him in action-hero mode. It’’s no big deal when Dwayne Johnson or
Jason Statham slings a bandolier over his shoulder or has his shirt torn off in
a brawl with a pugnacious sailor . . . but Fred MacMurray? When Boll ponders whether or not to trust his
shifty first mate Flint (John Russell), it’s a little like MacMurray’s suburban
dad asking Uncle Charlie if he should trust Robbie and Chip with the family
car. John Wayne was originally
envisioned for the role, following his starring credit in a similar Republic
production, “Wake of the Red Witch,” but MacMurray wasn’t completely out of his
element, having played lawmen and gunslingers in several Westerns before his
sitcom days. Frankly, it’s fun to see
the normally buttoned-down actor shooting it out with the pirates and racing a
tsunami. Imprint includes another
excellent commentary, this one by historian Samm Deighan. As she notes, colourfully mounted and briskly
scripted movies like this were designed to attract the whole family in those
days before Hollywood marketing fractured along lines of audience gender, age,
and race. As she observes, Junior might
not recognise the sado-sexual elements of the scene where Pulo Besar’s burly
torturer (played by Buddy Baer!) strips Kim Kim and plies his whip across her
bare back. All in a day’s work in the
dungeon. But dad likely would have sat
up and paid close attention.
Only
a year later (1954), Paramount’s “Elephant Walk” furthered Hollywood’s trend of
filming exteriors for its more prestigious movies in actual overseas locations
rather than relying on studio mockups, as “Fair Wind to Java” did. Ruth Wiley (Elizabeth Taylor at her most
luminous) travels to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with her new husband John (Peter
Finch), the charming and prosperous owner of a tea plantation. Initially, Ruth is enraptured by the lush
countryside and John’s bungalow, Elephant Walk, actually a mansion almost as
large as Grand Central Station and a lot more lavish. But trouble portends as Ruth realizes that
the memory of John’s imperious father Tom, reverently called “the Governor” by
John and the other British residents, still pervades and controls the
household. The elderly head steward,
Appuhamy (Abraham Sofaer), is quietly hostile when Ruth questions the need to
continue running the house exactly as it was run in the Governor’s day. In trying to communicate with the other
indigenous servants and workers, she runs into the barriers of language and
culture. The estate itself, complete
with Old Tom’s mausoleum in the backyard, is built across an ancestral path the
native elephants still try to use as a short cut to their watering holes. Hence its name. Wiley keeps the peripatetic pachyderms out
with a wall. His plantation manager
(Dana Andrews) is more sympathetic to Ruth, and the two fall in love as the
increasingly surly John lapses back into old habits of drinking all night with
rowdy fellow expatriates who camp out in the sprawling mansion. Andrews’ character is named “Dick Carver,”
the kind of name you’re not likely to see on credits anymore outside
Pornhub. I wonder if some moviegoers in
1954 found it funny too?
If
the combination of shaky marriage, illicit affair, and luxurious colonial life on a jungle plantation sounds
familiar, you may be thinking of “Out of Africa” (1985) or the less
romanticised “White Mischief” (1987), the latest examples of this particular
jungle sub-genre of domestic drama in the tropics. As Gary Gerani points out in his audio
commentary, enthusiasts of melodrama will also cry “Rebecca!” in the subplot
about the shadow that “the Governor’s” pernicious, posthumous influence casts
over the married couple. The movie’s
lush Technicolor palate, William Dieterle’s sleek direction, the special FX of
an elephant stampede, Edith Head’s ensembles for Liz, and Franz Waxman’s
symphonic score have an old-fashioned Hollywood polish, shown to good effect on
the Blu-ray. But as Gerani notes, the
script by John Lee Mahin, based on a 1948 novel, offers an implicit political
commentary too. As viewers of “The
Crown” know, British rule was already crumbling in the Third World in the early
1950s and would soon fall, just like Wylie’s wall faces a renewed assault by
drought-stricken elephants in the final half hour of the movie. Thanks to the capable cast, glossy production
values, and a script that takes interesting, unexpected turns, I liked
“Elephant Walk” more than I thought I would.
Terence
Young’s “Safari” (1956) from Columbia Pictures begins with a jaunty title song
to a percussive beat that wouldn’t be out of place in “The Lion King”—“We’re on
safari, beat that drum, / We’re on safari to kingdom come”—leading you to think
that the picture will be a romp like “Call Me Bwana” (1963), “Clarence the
Cross-Eyed Lion” (1965), or the last gasp of jungle comedies so far, “George of
the Jungle” (1997). But the story takes
a grim turn almost immediately. An
American guide and hunter in Kenya, Ken Duffield (Victor Mature), is called
back from a safari to find his 10-year-old son murdered and his home burned by
Mau Mau terrorists. He determines to
find and kill the murderer, Jeroge (Earl Cameron), a formerly trusted servant
who, unknown to Duffield, had “taken the Mau Mau oath.” The British authorities revoke Duffield’s
license to keep him from interfering with their attempts to apprehend Jeroge
and the other culprits, but then they hand it back under pressure from Sir
Vincent Brampton (Roland Culver), who comes to Africa to kill a notorious lion
called “Hatari.” “You know what ‘Hatari’
means, don’t you?” Duffield asks. “It
means danger”—the very tagline used for Howard Hawks’ movie of the same name a
few years later. Coincidence? Brampton is a wealthy, borderline sociopathic
bully who makes life miserable for his finance Linda (Janet Leigh) and
assistant Brian (John Justin), and Duffield doesn’t much care for him
either. But the millionaire insists on
hiring Duffield as the best in the business, and the hunter uses the safari as
a pretext for pursuing Jeroge into the bush. The script juxtaposes Duffield’s chase after Jeroge with Brampton’s
determination to bag Hatari, but the millionaire is such an unpleasant
character (well played by Culver) that most of us will hope the lion wins.
This
was one of the last “big bwana” movies where no one thinks twice about killing
wild animals for sport, and viewers sensitive about the subject may not share
Sir Vincent’s enthusiasm for Ken Duffield’s talents, or the production’s
matter-of-fact scenes of animals collapsing from gunshots. The political material about the Mau Maus is
a little dicey too; the Mau Mau insurrection of 1952-60 was more complicated
than the script suggests. Poster art for
the movie, reproduced on the Blu-ray sleeve, depicts a fearsomely painted
African. Actually, it isn’t a Mau Mau
but a friendly Massai tribesman; Linda makes the same mistake in the movie
before learning that the Massai have agreed to help Duffield track Jeroge. Squirm-worthy dialogue occurs as well, when
Duffield and Brampton alike refer to the hunter’s African bearers and camp
personnel as “boys.” But Terence Young’s
brisk, muscular direction on outdoor locations in Kenya is exemplary, and the
CinemaScope vistas of Kenya in Technicolor are sumptuous. This was one of Young’s four projects behind
the camera for Irving Allen and Albert R. Broccoli’s Warwick Films, preceding
Broccoli’s later partnership with Harry Saltzman when the producers engaged
Young to direct the inaugural James Bond entries. For 007 fans, it may be heresy to suggest
that his work on “Safari” equals that on his best Bond picture, “From Russia
With Love,” but so be it. The Imprint
Blu-ray doesn’t contain an audio commentary or other special features, but the
hi-def transfer at the 2.55:1 widescreen aspect ratio is perfect.
“Tales
of Adventure Collection 2” contains the four region-free Blu-ray Discs in a sturdy
hardbox, illustrated with a collage from the poster art for the five movies in
the set. Limited to a special edition of
1,500 copies, it can be ordered HERE. (Note: prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter for non-Australian orders.)
"Number One" (released in certain
countries under the title "Pro") is an off-beat vehicle for Charlon Heston, who was then at his peak of popularity. The fact that the
movie under-performed at the box-office and failed to score with
critics didn't diminish Heston's status as a leading man. He would go on
to star in such hits as "The Omega Man", "Skyjacked", "Soylent Green"
"Earthquake", "Midway"and "Airport '75"- with cameos in the popular "The
Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers". The poor response to
"Number One" doesn't diminish its many merits - and the fact that Heston
was willing to play against type in a largely unsympathetic role. For
the film, he reunited with director Tom Gries, with whom he made the
acclaimed 1968 Western "Will Penny". Curiously, both movies center on
the same theme: a macho man who can't come to grips with the fact that
he is aging and, therefore, his chosen way of life is threatened. In
"Will Penny", Heston played the title character: a middle-aged cowboy
who feels the inevitable aches and pains of trying to maintain a career
that is clearly suited for younger men. Similarly, in "Number One" he
plays "Cat" Catlan, a star quarterback for the New Orleans Saints
football team. Catlan has seen plenty of fame and glory as the team's
Golden Boy and the idol of the crowds. But now he is 40 years old and,
although still in Herculean physical condition compared to most men his
age, he's fallen victim to the constant brutalities he suffers on the
field.
The film opens on a particularly disastrous game in which Catlan
makes some serious misjudgments about plays and bungles some key passes.
The result is an embarrassing loss for the team. The Saints' gruff
coach Southerd (John Randolph) isn't ready to give up on Catlin but
seemingly every other team member is. Catlan is subjected to some cruel
jokes and he has to contend with the fact that a much younger player
(Richard Elkins) is breathing down his neck, hoping to replace him as
quarterback. Things aren't much better at home for Catlan. His
long-suffering wife Julie (Jessica Walter) patiently endures his
mysterious absences, unpredictable mood swings and volatile temper. She
is a very successful fashion designer but Catlan is "old school" when it
comes to the role of wives. He wants Julie to stay home and cater to
his needs. In the midst of one of their frequent fights, he even stoops
so low as to cruelly tease her about her inability to conceive a baby.
Still, she sticks with him even when he confesses to having an affair
with an attractive, self-made woman, Ann (Diana Muldaur). Faced with the
fact that his career is winding down, Catlan reluctantly explores his
options for his post-NFL life. They aren't very enticing. His best
friend Richie (Bruce Dern), is an obnoxious former Saints player who
brags about having gotten out of the game at age 34. He now runs a very
successful car leasing business and lives a playboy lifestyle. He wants
Catlan to work for him, a prospect that doesn't sit well with the aging
quarterback. He also gets an offer from a computer company to work for
them but the idea of dealing of being surrounded by machines in the
confines of an office is repugnant to him. Ultimately, Catlan is
inspired by his wife to go out on a high note. During one of their rare
moments of domestic detente, she convinces him that he still has some
good games in his future if he can shake off the funk and get his
confidence back. The film's climactic game is the very definition of
mixed emotions. Catlan performs well and has his mojo back but the
movie's ambiguous final shot is anything but uplifting.
Tom Gries was a good director for Heston. He somehow managed to tamp
down Heston's larger-than-life personality and afford him the
opportunity to play everyday men. In "Number One", Heston is subject to
the sorts of problems that plague most middle-aged men. He's nervous
about his future. He often takes his frustrations out on the people
closest to him. He tries to reassert his youth by exerting his sexual
prowess through having an affair. Throughout it all, Heston admirably
does not try to make Catlan into a hero. There is a level of sympathy
accorded to him because of the emotional and physical stress he is under
but his sheer disregard for others makes him more a villain than a
hero. (He even refuses to give fans his autograph). Even worse is his
sheer selfishness in how he deals with his wife's needs. He feels
threatened by the success she is enjoying in her own career and
therefore diminishes her achievements. Heston gives one of his finest
performances, ironically, in what was one of his least-seen films.He
gets able support from the woefully-underrated Jessica Walter, whose
performance a couple of years later in "Play Misty For Me" should have
assured her of major stardom (and an Oscar nomination). Director Gries
also utilizes the talents of real-life football players, some of whom
exhibit impressive acting skills. Diana Muldaur also excels as the siren
who lures Catlan into her bed. There is an air of authenticity to the
film, primarily because Gries shot much of it in front of packed
stadiums. (Cinematographer Michael Hugo's work is especially
impressive). Gries also captures the feel of New Orleans back in the
day, capitalizing on the local scenery, jazz clubs and even getting the
great Al Hirt to perform a number and do a bit of acting. About the only
dated aspects of the film concern the off-the-field activities of the
NFL players. Catlan complains that they are paid like peasants, which
was probably true in 1969, but is a rather laughable notion today. Also,
the NFL team is required to wear jackets and ties when traveling to or
leaving the stadium, another rule that would be virtually unenforceable
by contemporary standards.
"Number One" never found its audience in 1969 but hopefully retro movie lovers appreciate its
merits. Th film did have at least one critic who appreciated the movie and Heston's
performance. Writing in the New York Times, critic Howard Thompson
wrote: "Charlton Heston, minus a beard, a loincloth, a toga or the Red
Sea, tackles a starkly unadorned role in one of the most interesting and
admirable performances of his career. If Heston could have been better, we
don't know how." Our sentiments exactly.
The film is currently streaming on Screenpix with an add on subscription for Roku and Amazon Prime subscribers.
Acclaimed films from Todd Haynes, Yorgos Lanthimos, Hou
Hsiao-Hsien, Christian Petzold, Lina Wertmuller, Ken Loach, Andrei Tarkovsky, Jafar
Panahi, Taika Waititi, Oscar Micheaux, Susan Sontag, Jean-Luc Godard, Bruno
Dumont, Jia Zhangke, Bernardo Bertolucci, Fritz Lang and more arrive on
streaming, some for the first time.
Kino Lorber’s recent acclaimed films Chile ‘76, Close
to Vermeer, and new 4K restorations of The Conformist and Millennium
Mambo arrive on streaming for the first time.
Kino Lorber, a leading name in independent film
distribution for over 45 years, has launched KINO FILM
COLLECTION, a new streaming service available in the U.S. on the
Amazon Service via Prime Video Channels for $5.99 per month. The Collection
will feature new Kino releases fresh from theaters, along with hundreds of
films from its expansive library of more than 4,000 titles, many now streaming
for the first time.
Films available at launch include award-winning theatrical
releases and critically acclaimed hits and classics from around the globe
including new 4K restorations of THE CONFORMIST (Bernardo Bertolucci) and key
works by notable directors such as DOGTOOTH (Yorgos Lanthimos), TAXI (Jafar
Panahi), POISON (Todd Haynes), GANJA & HESS (Bill Gunn), THE SCENT OF GREEN
PAPAYA (Tran Anh Hung), A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (Ana Lily Amirpour),
COMPUTER CHESS (Andrew Bujalski), PORTRAIT OF JASON (Shirley Clarke), and A
TOUCH OF SIN (Jia Zhangke). Joining them are entries from the long-revered Kino
canon such as METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang), NOSFERATU (F.W. Murnau), THE CABINET OF
DR. CALIGARI (Robert Wiene), BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Sergei Eisenstein),
BIRTHRIGHT (Oscar Micheaux) and THE SACRIFICE (Andrei Tarkovsky), all presented
in the best versions available anywhere. Rounding out the collection are
popular and acclaimed documentaries like BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY
(Alexandra Dean), Academy Award®-nominated FIRE AT SEA (Gianfranco Rosi), GRACE
JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI (Sophie Fiennes), and BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK
(Richard Press).
The Kino Film Collection will be updated monthly with
regular streaming premieres of acclaimed films directly from theaters including
CHILE ‘76 (Manuela Martelli), FRAMING AGNES (Chase Joynt), BRAINWASHED:
SEX-CAMERA-POWER (Nina Menkes), THE SUPER 8 YEARS (Annie Ernaux, David
Ernaux-Briot), COSTA BRAVA, LEBANON (Mounia Akl) and THE WORST ONES (Lise Akoka
and Romane Gueret), alongside curated treasures from the Kino library and cult
film selections from the Kino vault to satisfy genre fans.
December streaming premieres will include a new 4K
restoration of MILLENNIUM MAMBO (Hou Hsiao-Hsien), SONGS MY BROTHERS TAUGHT ME
(Chloe Zhao), CLOSE TO VERMEER (Suzanne Raes), FINAL CUT (Michel Hazanavicius),
BACURAU (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles), TOKYO POP (Fran Rubel
Kuzui), TWO SMALL BODIES (Beth B), and more.
Richard Lorber, President and CEO of Kino Lorber, said
"I'm excited about Kino Film Collection as a destination for our newest
films fresh from festivals and theaters, as well as newly launched restorations
of classics and curated selections from our vast library, many streaming for
the first time. Over the last 45 years, we've introduced electrifying new films
from directors at the vanguard around the world to American audiences, and
built a library and brand synonymous with cinematic innovation, distinguished
curation, and enduring quality. The Kino Film Collection will be the place to
go to find the classics of tomorrow and the best of cinema past."
Lisa Schwartz, Chief Revenue Officer for Kino Lorber, who
will oversee the service, said, “The creation of Kino Film Collection is the
latest example of our continued commitment to independent film and to ensuring
our incredible collection remains available for audiences nationwide. Many
streaming services are currently undergoing a shift in their content focus and
consequently many titles are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Therefore, we felt it was a business imperative to create a dedicated home
where our films would be consistently available to film lovers. This
curated collection allows us to highlight our successful new theatrical
releases as well as repertory films and beautifully restored library classics.”
Largely forgotten by the general public, Hickey & Boggs, a 1972 crime thriller,is
currently streaming on ScreenPix, a subscription service available as
an add-on for Amazon Prime and YouTube subscribers. The film's primary merit is that
it reunited I Spy co-stars Bill Cosby and Robert Culp (though by
this time, Cosby's fame had eclipsed Culp's, thus resulting in his
receiving top billing). In their classic TV show, Culp and Cosby played a
tennis pro and his trainer who were actually secret agents. The glitz
of the tennis world allowed them to live Bondian lifestyles while they
thwarted bad guys. Intriguingly, Hickey & Boggs goes in a very different direction. Resisting the temptation to revive their wise-cracking I Spy personalities,
Culp and Cos are seen as down-and-out private investigators in Los
Angeles. Both are divorced but pine away for their ex's; they can't pay
the office phone bill and they ride around in cars that look like they
barely survived a demolition derby. As the TV spots for the film said at
the time, "They have to reach up to touch bottom." On the brink of
financial disaster, the men finally get a case: they are hired by a
mysterious man to find an equally mysterious woman he wants to locate.
The money is good, but the seemingly mundane case soon turns deadly with
Hickey and Boggs dodging mob hit men, Black Power radicals and
unfriendly police brass.
Although the film boasts a screenplay by the noted Walter Hill, this is
the weakest aspect of the production. The story becomes completely
incomprehensible within minutes and, in terms of confusing aspects of
the plot, makes The Big Sleep play like a Pink Panther movie. So
many characters and relationships are introduced that the viewer is
never sure who is doing what to whom and why. What the film does have is
atmosphere, and Culp, who also directed, takes pains to distance the
two lead characters from their I Spy counterparts. They still
have terrific screen chemistry, however, even as they play against type
as two rusty private eyes who can't hit the broad side of a barn even
with their .357 Magnums blazing. The film features a number of exciting
action sequences and an excellent supporting cast including Rosalind
Cash, Vincent Gardenia, Ed Lauter, Bill Hickman (the legendary stunt
driver) and, in early career roles, James Woods and Michael Moriarty. It
would have helped immensely if the downbeat script was at least
decipherable, but as it stands there is still plenty to recommend about Hickey & Boggs.
"RETRO-ACTIVE: AN ARTICLE FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES"
By Doug Oswald
Released
as a burn-to-order DVD from the Universal Vault Series, some may be quick to add
that they should have kept "The Conqueror" in the vault. The movie is notorious
for being one of the worst movies in Hollywood history. Much has been written
about how terrible this movie is so I'm going to avoid jumping on that
bandwagon. After all, calling this movie bad is like calling out water for
being wet.
The
movie is also a part of a conspiracy theory of sorts because many of the cast
and crew died from cancer and some have connected those cancer deaths to the
location filming in St. George Utah which was the stand-in for the Gobi Desert.
St. George is downwind from where the above ground nuclear testing occurred in
Nevada. Indeed, many involved with this movie did succumb to cancer including lifetime
smoker John Wayne who also denied any connection between his cancer and the St.
George location filming.
The
CinemaScope widescreen image for "The Conqueror" looks terrific and has an
appropriately grand score by Victor Young. The movie stars John Wayne and Susan
Hayward and features some of the best character actors of the era including
Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Morehead, Thomas Gomez, William Conrad and Lee Van
Cleef. If only the movie was the western it tries so hard to be rather than a 13th
century historical epic taking place in Central Asia.
Apparently,
nobody was more surprised than former actor and director of "The Conqueror", actor
Dick Powell, when the Duke insisted on playing the lead. When asked by reporters
during production how Wayne looked as Genghis Kahn, Powell replied, "Murderous.
Just murderous." I'd say murderous for the viewer too. While there's a lot of
ethnicity in the cast (Native American Indians from a local reservation were
hired as extras to portray the Mongolian hordes in the movie) it's hard to
believe that they couldn't cast a single Asian actor in this movie.
The
movie pulled in a healthy profit world-wide for RKO at the time of its initial
release in 1956, but it was critically panned and is difficult to watch. "The
Conqueror" was a personal favorite of the movie's eccentric producer Howard
Hughes who owned RKO at the time and pulled the movie from theatrical and TV distribution.
Apparently Hughes watched the movie over and over again, but it was not seen by
mortal men again until 1974 after the rights reverted to Paramount. This was the
final movie that Hughes personally produced and some may say it would have been
better if he had destroyed the negatives and all copies of the movie.
"The
Conqueror" was previously released by Universal in 2006 as part of the, "An
American Icon: John Wayne 5 Movie Collection" DVD set. That release included
the trailer, subtitles and chapters. This burn to order release appears to be produced
from the same source material because it looks and sounds identical, but includes
no extras and the movie starts up immediately after loading. "The Conqueror" is
a rare turkey for the Duke, as most of his post-"Stagecoach" output is very
watchable. It's a must-see for die-hard fans of the Duke and when hosting movie
nights where you want guests to leave early.
By the time Burt Reynolds finally starred in the 1972 classic
"Deliverance", he had been paying his dues in Hollywood for many years
with varying degrees of success on television. His feature films,
however, were strictly "B" grade. Saul David, who produced a 1970 film
starring Reynolds titled "Skullduggery", bemoaned at the time that he
should have been a major movie star but bad luck seemed to always
interfere. Reynolds wisely cultivated an image as a hip, towel-snapping
wiseguy through appearing on seemingly every American game and chat
show. His appearances on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" merited
"must-see TV" status. Ironically, "Deliverance" entirely abandoned this
popular image of Reynolds and afforded him a dramatic role that he
fulfilled with excellent results. But the success of the film made
Reynolds anxious to prove he could sustain his boxoffice clout without
the help of a strong co-star, in the case of of "Deliverance", Jon
Voight. Reynolds chose wisely for his follow-up feature. "White
Lightning" was developed under the working title "McClusky". The role of
a hunky, charismatic southern good ol' boy fit Reynolds like a glove
because it allowed him to incorporate his penchant for performing stunts
with his flippant, wise-cracking TV persona.
Filmed in Arkansas, the movie finds Reynolds as "Gator" McClusky, a
man doing prison time for running illegal moonshine. Gator still has
another year to spend on the prison farm when he gets word that his
younger brother has been murdered. (We see the scene play out over the
opening credits in which two young men are brutally drowned in a swamp
by the local sheriff, J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty) and his deputy.) Enraged
and spoiling for revenge, Gator accepts a deal to work undercover for
federal agents to expose Connors as the local Huey Long-type power
broker in Bogan County. Indeed, the seemingly affable, understated
Connors runs the entire county like a personal fiefdom, using extortion,
shakedowns and outright murder to ensure his stature. He also gets a
piece of the action from the very moonshiners he's supposed to
prosecute. Gator feels uncomfortable working as a snitch but it's the
only way to find out why his brother was killed and to bring Connors to
justice. Using his considerable charm and his background as a guy from a
small rural community, he finds himself quickly working for a moonshine
ring headed by Big Bear (R.G. Armstrong), who is brutal in retribution
against anyone who crosses him. Gator is assigned to deliver moonshine
with a partner, Roy Boone (Bo Hopkins). They spend a lot of time
together and become fast friends, even though Roy's hot-to-trot
girlfriend Lou (Jennifer Billingsley) succeeds in seducing Gator, thus
endangering his mission when Roy gets wind of the deception. When Gator
learns the reason why his brother and his friend were murdered, he
becomes even more vengeful, leading to a spectacular car chase involving
Connors and his corrupt deputies.
"White Lightning" was directed by Joseph Sargent, who was primarily
known for his work in television. He fulfills the requirements of the
film quite well, though the spectacular car chases and jaw-dropping
action scenes were largely the work of legendary stutman/coordinator Hal
Needham, who would go on to work on many films with Reynolds. The film
is consistently lively but it also has moments of poignancy and drama.
The supporting cast is terrific with Ned Beatty of "Deliverance"
reuniting with Reynolds with good results. Beatty underplays the sense
of menace attributable to his character. He also plays up his status as a
pillar of the community, tossing off barbs about how hippies and big
city liberals threaten "our values" and-worst of all- encourage "our
coloreds to vote!". Meanwhile, he is heading up a vast criminal
enterprise. Jennifer Billingsley is wonderful as the lovable air-headed
seductress who will jump into bed with a man if there's a prospect of
getting a new dress out of the bargain. There are also fine turns by Bo
Hopkins, R.G. Armstrong and Diane Ladd (whose name in the opening and
closing credits is misspelled as "Lad". Ouch!) The movie turned out to
be a big hit for United Artists, aided in part by striking ad campaigns
with the same weapon-as-phallic symbol design employed for Richard
Roundtree's "Shaft's Big Score" the previous year coupled with another
poster showing Reynolds behind the wheel of a speeding car. Sex and
speed became hallmarks for promoting a Reynolds action movie.
Kino Lorber has reissued their 2019 Blu-ray edition, which is
first-rate in all aspects, with a fine transfer and a 2014 interview
with Burt Reynolds, who looks back fondly on the importance the movie
had on proving he could be top-billed in a hit movie. The film initiated
his association with rural-based comedies and action films and three
years later, a successful sequel ("Gator") would be released. Reynolds
also drops the interesting fact that this was to be Steven Spielberg's
first feature film. However, Reynolds says the young TV director got
cold feet about his ability to film on so many difficult locations,
given that his background was largely working in studios. Reynolds
praises his co-star Ned Beatty and reminds everyone that "White
Lightning" was only his second film, having made his screen debut in
"Deliverance". He is also very complimentary towards Jennifer
Billingsley and regrets that she never became a big star. Reynolds also
discusses Hal Needham's zealousness for performing dangerous stunts and
relates how one key scene in which a car shoots out over water to land
on a moving barge almost went disastrously wrong. He says the film has a
realistic atmosphere because of the screenplay by William W. Norton,
who adapted many aspects of his own hard scrabble life. The only
negative note Reynolds sounds is about Diane Ladd, who he cryptically
says he did not like working with, although he doesn't go into detail as
to why.The set includes a new feature not available on the previous
Blu-ray release: a commentary track by film historian collaborators
Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. As far as commentary tracks are
concerned, the duo are always terrific and this outing is no exception.
Their easy-going, laid-back and humorous style is appropriate for the
tone of the film. They go into great detail about aspects of the and
cast. I hadn't realized until listening to the track how on-the-mark
they are in assessing Ned Beatty as an actor whose physical appearance
varied dramatically depending upon the type of story he was cast in.
Indeed, they are correct. The evil good ol' boy corrupt sheriff of
"White Lightning" is light years away from the fish-out-water rape
victim of "Deliverance" or the demagogic TV executive of "Network". The
track is good enough to merit upgrading to this version of the Blu-ray
even if you have the previous release.
The Blu-ray also includes the original trailer, which was very
effective in playing up Reynolds' emerging star power and reversible sleeve art showing an alternative ad campaign. Highly
recommended.
If you're an Amazon Prime subscriber and in the mood to watch 2/3 of a terrific crime thriller, by all means check out "The Outfit", written by Graham Moore and Jonathan McLain. The production marks the directing debut of Moore, who won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for his 2015 WWII spy thriller "The Imitation Game". Why do I refer to this as "2/3 of a terrific crime thriller"? I shall explain later. For now, let's examine the creative set-up of the film's plot. It is set in Chicago in 1956 and all of the action takes place inside a "Bespoke" tailor shop owned by Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance), a Brit who emigrated to Chicago right after WWII. The "Bespoke" aspect of his shop refers to a quaint term that indicates this isn't the place to buy off-the-rack suits. Rather, Leonard, who was Savile Row-trained, prides himself on creating custom-made duds for discriminating men of means. The shop is a dark, somewhat foreboding place and Leonard spends most of his days (and nights) obsessing over his latest masterworks in the back room. His only employee is his Girl Friday (to use an appropriately quaint term) Mabel (Zoey Deutch), a young woman who he takes a paternal interest in looking after. Leonard is affronted by being confused with a tailor and quickly points out that he is a professional cutter, a status that can only be achieved through years of apprenticeships and hard work.When asked if the destruction from the Blitz on London inspired his immigration to America, he quips that it wasn't and that his real enemy was the public's embracing of bluejeans. (It makes for a clever line, though, it's not accurate as bluejeans were certainly not a fashion rage during the 1940s.)
This seemingly unexciting setting is soon revealed to be a bastion of secrets. It seems that Leonard's best customer is a local mob kingpin, Roy (Simon Russell Beale), who has appropriated the shop as a communications hub for the wiseguys in his employ. Throughout the day and night, the gangsters drop off coded messages that are then picked up by other gangsters. In return for this cooperation, Leonard has become the preferred clothier for the nattily-dressed crooks. Two of the more frequent visitors to his shop are among the least welcome: Roy's son Richie (Dylan O'Brien) and his fellow mobster Francis (Johnny Flynn). The two are like brothers and share a penchant for cruelty, as evidenced by the fact that they constantly insult Leonard by not even addressing him by his name, opting instead to call him "English". Leonard keeps his head down and bears the humiliation. What else can he do? These are real-life killers with itchy trigger fingers. In the first of a number of revelations, Leonard learns that Richie is in a romantic relationship with Mabel. He knows she is making a mistake but she can't be dissuaded. Richie is handsome, exciting and has all the appeal of the trademark "bad boy" lover. The less divulged about the plot of a thriller, the better for prospective viewers. However, a few plot points need to be discussed. At one point during this seemingly endless evening, Francis returns to the shop with a seriously wounded Richie, who has been shot by a rival gang. He can't bring Richie to a hospital for fear of police involvement. Instead, he forces Leonard to remove the bullet and stitch up Richie using his tailoring instruments. It makes for a tense, suspenseful scene. Later, Roy arrives at the shop looking for a major character who has gone missing. What he doesn't know is that the person is dead and is being concealed in a large trunk in the very room. Adding to the drama is the revelation that the F.B.I. has secretly recorded incriminating conversations, which sets everyone off on a frenzied search for the tape before the rival gang obtains it. It makes for some genuine slow-boiling tension.
Until this point, about 2/3 of the way through the film, things have been going swimmingly as director Moore keeps the pace measured and the suspense building- and then...then...in the immortal words of Yeats, "Things fall apart." Revelations are made by so many people in such a frenzied manner that the scenario become unintentionally funny and more appropriate for a "Naked Gun" script. It seems that Moore the screenwriter is intent on undermining Moore the director. There are inexcusable cliches. For example, the script invokes my warning of what I call the "Bear Trap Scenario". This occurs in any film in which a bear trap is shown early in the story in a seemingly innocuous manner only to be used by someone as a weapon later in the story (See "Straw Dogs", "Dead of Winter" and "Skyfall"). In, "The Outfit", much is made about Leonard's affection for his prized pair of cutting shears. "Oh, no", I thought, "It would be too obvious to have them used as an instrument of violence." But, voila! At the film's conclusion they certainly are. Then there's the revelation that there's a "rat" in the gang, which makes everyone understandably paranoid. The finale also finds the introduction of an exotic female crime kingpin known as La Fontaine (Nikki Amuka-Bird), who presides over a Black gang. Although Amuka-Bird's performance is spot-on, the character is more suited for a Bond film than an old world Chicago crime scenario in which most of the characters are reminiscent of a Bogart Warner Brothers production. La Fontaine's presence comes off as a bit of gimmicky casting that undermines the quickly evaporating sense of realism that was apparent in the first 2/3 of the production. Finally, director Moore goes off the hinges by turning the climax into a quasi slasher film, complete with the seemingly immortal antagonist. Squaring off against him, Leonard then makes some startling revelations of his own. Mind you, he does so in the midst of a raging inferno that conveniently seems to stop spreading while he delivers a soliloquy of sorts for dramatic effect.
I can't remember the last time I've seen such a promising film devolve and self-destruct in the manner that "The Outfit" does. It's a pity, too, because Mark Rylance gives a mesmerizing performance and he benefits from a fine supporting cast. To be fair, some reviewers have lavished the film with praise, so judge for yourself. Meanwhile, if you want to see a first-rate underrated crime thriller with the same title, check out the 1974 caper movie "The Outfit" starring Robert Duvall. It's tense, suspenseful and makes sense...and you don't have to fear the "Bear Trap Scenario" angle.
Founded by producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff,
American International Pictures (A.I.P.) hit upon a formula of financing
and releasing low-budget exploitation films for non-discriminating
audiences (translation: the youth market). Specializing in horror films
and goofy comedies, A.I.P. occasionally strayed into other genres. In
1963, the company capitalized on the always-popular WWII genre with the
release of "Operation Bikini". Ostensibly, the movie's title referred to
the obscure atoll in the Pacific where atomic bomb tests were conducted
during the Cold War era. However, in true A.I.P. style, the advertising
campaign was designed to imply that the title might also refer to the
fact that the bikini bathing suit was popularized here by a French
designer who conducted a photo shoot on the atoll just days after an
atomic blast. (Ignorant of the risks from radiation poison, he merrily
pronounced that "Like the bomb, the bikini is small and devastating!")
Still, the sexploitation angle in "Operation Bikini" was saved for late
in the film. What precedes its appearance is a fairly routine combat
flick made somewhat more interesting by the obvious attempts of the
filmmakers to disguise the movie's very limited budget.
Tab Hunter, one of the top heart throbs of the era, had by this point
seen his popularity in decline. He nonetheless received top billing
over charismatic crooner Frankie Avalon, whose career was ascending and
who would find great popularity as the star of several A.I.P. beach
movies over the next few years. Hunter plays Lt. Morgan Hayes, the
leader of a secret commando team that has been ordered to rendezvous
with a U.S. submarine that has been ordered to transport them on a
secret mission. The team is supposed to locate and destroy the wreckage
of an American sub that was recently sunk off the coast of Bikini by the
Japanese. Seems the wreckage contains a prototype of a top secret sonar
device that the Allies can't afford to fall into enemy hands. From
minute one, Hayes' small group of rough house land-lubbers rubs the
Captain of the submarine, Emmett Carey (Scott Brady) and his crew the
wrong way. Hayes's men resent being cooped up in a floating "tin can"
and the naval crew resents the presence of these brash soldiers who seem
to be perpetually eager to provoke a fight. Carey gives Hayes a
dressing down about keeping the tension levels low and the two men
ultimately gain mutual respect for one another. Upon arriving at Bikini,
Hayes and his men must sneak ashore and traverse the dense jungle in
search of the area where the sunken submarine is located. They are
guided by local partisans who conveniently include a stunning beauty
named Reiko, played by Eva Six, a recent winner of the "Miss Golden
Globes" honor. (I will refrain from making any tasteless jokes.) Reiko
takes a shine to Hayes and gets his mind temporarily off his troubles by
seducing him. When Hayes and his men finally arrive at their
destination, they are dismayed to see a virtual fleet of Japanese
vessels guarding the coast line where the sub is already being salvaged
by the enemy. Hayes realizes that they are now probably on a suicide
mission. Nevertheless, they persevere courageously, dodging and
sometimes engaging Japanese patrols before sending in Hayes and some
fellow scuba divers to attach time bombs to the hull of the sunken sub.
(The sequence is rather absurd because the team accomplishes this in the
dead of night despite not being able to employ any lighting equipment
whatsoever.) Detected by the Japanese, Hayes and his heroes take some
casualties in their desperate attempt to make it back to Capt. Carey's
submarine.
"Operation Bikini" is a "by the numbers" WWII yarn that isn't noticeably
better or worse than many of the other "B" movies of this genre that
were released in the 1960s. Director Anthony Carras, who edited some of
the better Poe adaptations for producer Roger Corman, employs grainy
stock footage of real combat sequences to get around his limited budget.
However, there are a couple of sequences that are unintentionally
amusing in which we find the crew of the submarine standing on deck,
supposedly in the middle of the ocean. The scenes are clearly filmed on a
sound stage because there is absolutely no movement of the vessel at
all. Apparently the budget didn't even allow for a few crew members to
gently "rock" the vessel. Additionally, the backdrop consists of either a
white or black wall with nary a hint of nature evident. Hunter looks
sullen and dreary throughout the entire proceedings, even when stripping
off his shirt for the love scene. The supporting cast includes some
offspring of Hollywood legends: Jody McCrea (son of Joel) and Gary
Crosby (son of "Der Bingle"). Michael Dante is the executive officer of
the sub and in a rather offbeat bit of casting, Jim Backus is seen in a
dramatic role as a member of the demolition team. Hunter's fellow teen
idol Frankie Avalon is cast in his usual role as wise-cracking street
guy. In the film's most bizarre sequences, he drools over a photo of the
prim and proper girl he left behind. while singing an awful love song
about trying not to be tempted by the "bad girls" he meets while on duty
away from home. Although the film is in black and white, these fantasy
sequences are shot in color. The "good girl" is shown lovingly waiting
for him while dressed like somebody's great grandmother and is presented
in B&W. Meanwhile, the leggy temptress is seen in full color,
attired in a slinky cocktail dress and gyrating her hips suggestively.
The virginal good girl gets the short end of the stick. These weird
sequences are an amusing example of how A.I.P. used an "everything but
the kitchen" sink formula to appeal to young audiences, regardless of
the lack of logic. The formula is employed in the film's equally bizarre
epilogue which extols the fact that the bikini bathing suit is closely
associated with Bikini. We observe a several minute sequence (also shot
in color) in which two young women lounge around the beach in skimpy
swim attire for no apparent reason than to stimulate the already raging
hormones of the movie's intended male teenage audience.
(The film is currently available for streaming through ScreenPix, which is available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional fee every month.)
CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE DVD FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
I much prefer writing about obscure or little-known items of celluloid than attempt to tackle a bona fide film classic as The Quatermass Xperiment. The best chroniclers and historians of science-fiction and horror film history have proven to be a distinguished, thoroughly immersive, and informed band of researchers, commentators and authors. Which, sadly, leaves also-rans such as myself little insight to add to what discourse exists already. But in the rare event that someone who reads Cinema Retro is unfamiliar with Val Guest’s classic of British sci-fi, I’ll press on and attempt at a simple synopsis of The Quatermass Xperiment:
The nose end of an intact rocket ship crash lands in an open misty field deep in the English countryside. Within minutes, police, fire vehicles, ambulances and curious locals gather to view the wreckage. Among those taking command at the scene is the irascible and cocksure Professor Quatermass, barking orders that override even those of the assemblage of police and military officials. Quatermass, we soon learn, was the primary architect of this wrecked three-crew space mission. We also learn via the protest of an upset official from the Ministry of Defence, that Quatermass’s interstellar space voyage was unsanctioned by the British government.
Only one of the three astronauts originally launched, Victor Carroon, has seemingly survived this orbital freefall. Truth be told, it’s hard for scientists to determine conclusively. Two of the astronaut’s spacesuits are still aboard the craft, but now curiously empty of their occupants. Carroon is unable to explain what went on prior to the spacecraft’s unceremonious crash to earth. Carroon has returned in a near-catatonic state. He’s unable to speak… save for a desperate, mumbled plea asking his rescuers to “Help Me.” Unfortunately for all involved, they are mostly unable to.
To make matters more peculiar, upon close examination it becomes unclear to his caregivers if Carroon actually is Carroon. The fingerprints taken upon his return do not match that of the pre-flight astronaut. One doctor suggests the prints examined are not “even human” in form. It’s determined that whomever this “shell of a man” is, he’s being slowly transformed into something decidedly non-human.
As one might expect, this faux-Carroon manages to escape from his hospital quarantine. He roams the streets and riverbanks of London and surrounding areas, searching for food and scaring locals in the process. Quatermass, the police, and the military are in pursuit, helpfully assisted by Carroon’s continual shedding of human-form to something more gelatinous. As the ill-fated astronaut continues to devolve, he conveniently leaves behind a luminous path of radioactive waste in his wake for his pursuers to follow in trail. The film climaxes with a climactic showdown between earthlings and alien in the hallowed chamber of Winchester Cathedral.
The Hollywood Reporter was among the first of the trade papers in the U.S. to confirm that production of The Quatermass Xperiment was to commence in October of 1954. (Technically speaking, the earliest reports first offered details under the film’s working title of Shock!) It was announced that Val Guest would direct the extravaganza, a film soon to be trumpeted as “The Most Fantastic Story Ever Told!” Hammer Films’ Michael Carreras and Anthony Hinds would produce, with the picture’s U.K. distribution to be handled by London’s Exclusive Films. The screenplay of Shock! – based on the characters created by writer Nigel Keane for the Quatermass BBC television series of 1953 - was reported as a collaboration of veteran screenwriter Richard Landau and Guest.
Bringing Quatermass to the big screen seemed a sure bet. The earlier BBC series had proven wildly popular, millions of UK viewers tuning into their parlor sets to watch the extra-terrestrial exploits of the Professor. In a 1973 interview with Chris Knight (later published in the June 2018 issue of Richard Klemensen’s seminal Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine) Rudolph Cartier, the producer-director of the original BBC television series gave the lion share of credit to Kneale’s brilliantly conceived scenarios.
Cartier thought Kneale’s cliffhanger scripting was the deciding factor in the success of the television series. The producer was equally impressed by Kneale’s ability to write the natural dialogue of “real people,” which exhibited an unerring “ability to play on the underlying fears of the human soul.” In that very same issue of LSOH, director John Carpenter – no slouch in creating totemic horror and sci-fi films himself – equally acknowledged Guest’s big screen version of The Quatermass Xperiment as “horrifyingly groundbreaking.” Carpenter thought the film version offered well-executed and thoughtful explorations of “the fear of the unknown.”
On one of the supplements included on this release from Kino Lorber, Carpenter on Quatermass: On Camera Interview with Legendary Director John Carpenter,” the auteur recalls catching The Quatermass Xperiment (under its U.S. release title of The Creeping Unknown) as a youngster in Kentucky. He thought the film both “profound” and mind-blowing, arriving timely on the heels of a world post-atom bomb and on the cusp of American and Soviet interest in space exploration. Carpenter was of the opinion The Quatermass Xperiment was the “first powerful gift” of Hammer Films’ fright factory.
Perhaps. But in 1955 the original creators of the television series didn’t share that rosy view. Cartier acknowledged that Kneale was particularly unhappy with Hammer’s adaptation of his work. So much so that the scenarist even cautioned Cartier “not to go” to the cinema to visit the film upon release. Kneale might have been – perhaps understandably - over-protective of his personal vision, but he was not alone in his assessment. Upon the film’s release, one London-based critic mused while the first Hammer Quatermass film certainly offered cinemagoers the “full horror comic treatment,” he thought “Some of the TV Tension” of the original BBC series was “lost in this film’s extravagant chiller gimmicks.”
Today only aged folks with long memories can say whether Kneale’s The Quatermass Experiment series was greater than Hammer’s The Quatermass Xperiment (with an “X”). Sadly, only two of the original six-episode summer of 1953 BBC broadcast are extant, so comparisons aren’t possible. Oh, but about that “Experiment” versus “Xperiment…”
Guest was aware his picture would likely be given an “X” certificate designation – no child under the age of sixteen admitted into the cinema due to alleged “explicit” content. Such branding was not unexpected given the temperature of the times. Guest had previously submitted a sample copy of the script to a censor at the British Board of Film Classification who, upon reading, advised as such. But Guest chose to press on regardless of losing an important audience demographic. “Some people thought we were mad to go ahead, but I had faith in it,” he offered to Picturegoer. One BBC feature writer suggested the prominent “X” in the film’s “Xperiment” title was purposeful, Hammer Film’s sly rebuke of the picture’s undeserved “X” classification.
Upon the film’s release, it appeared Guest’s gambit had paid off. London’s Picturegoer was particularly enthused with The Quatermass Xperiment, enthusing that a British studio had - at last - managed a production, “to make Hollywood’s Frankenstein’s and Dracula’s curl up in their crypts.” That might have been so, but Guest nonetheless cautioned the film not be preemptively tagged as a run-of-the-mill “horror” movie. Such designation brought with it expectations. “We didn’t really set out to make that kind of film, you know,” Guest corrected. “I’d prefer it if you call the film a ‘chiller.’”
Picturegoer noted there were plans to release the film in U.S. markets under its provisional title of Shock! But that re-title wouldn’t happen. In March of 1956, Variety reported that Robert Lippert of United Artists had paid a flat fee of $125,000: he believed this “thriller-type film” held “potential value” in the U.S. market. The brief item also noted the film’s U.S. domestic release title change would be The Creeping Unknown. Upon its U.S. release - and following its scoring of “fancy” box-office returns for United Artists - a Variety critic acknowledged, The Creeping Unknown (“a gelatinous octopus-like mass that absorbs all plant and animal life that it touches”) was a “competently made drama, containing sufficient suspense and frightening elements.”
The film’s success in the U.S. was not assured. As neither Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass BBC serial – nor the Professor Bernard Quatermass character – were generally on the radar of American couch-sitters, United Artists retitling The Quatermass Xperiment under the far more provocatively sinister and exploitative name of The Creeping Unknown made sense. (On a special feature included here that compares the differences between the U.K. and U.S. cuts of the film - the latter running approximately two and-a-half minutes shorter - it’s noted that a surviving continuity script titled the film in pre-release as Monster from Outer Space).
The Creeping Unknown was paired in the U.S. as the undercard of a ballyhoo “Double Horror Show! of “Two Terrific Horror Pictures!” (of which Reginald LeBorg’s The Black Sleep (1956) would top-line). The LeBorg film, while no venerable classic, was certainly the more marketable of the two – at least in the U.S. The cast of The Quatermass Xperiment were peopled with faces mostly unfamiliar to U.S. moviegoers. In contrast, The Black Sleep offered an illustrious cast of familiar and beloved genre actors: Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, John Carradine and Tor Johnson amongst them.
United Artists certainly wasn’t about to gamble on its investment in this British undercard. Under the title banner of The Creeping Unknown, the U.S. marketing department was tasked to play up the film’s more exploitative angles. The art department conjured up a garish one-sheet poster featuring a crashed rocket ship and gigantic demonic creature hovering above the heads of a terrified, fleeing populace. The poster’s caption read: “You Can’t Escape It! Nothing Can Destroy It! It’s Coming for You from Space to Wipe all Living Things from the Face of the Earth! Can it Be Stopped?”
It was a prudent time for United Artists to release the film in the U.S. as the 1950s “Silver Age” of cinematic science-fiction in full bloom. In 1956 alone, theater cash boxes were stuffed with receipts from such pictures as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Forbidden Planet, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Conquered the World, The Creature Walks Among Us, The Mole People, and World Without End – and that’s to name only a few. Interest in sci-fi would continue to blossom and explode throughout the 1950s, with 1957 and 1958 being particularly banner years for the genre.
According to the film’s U.S. pressbook, director Val Guest had helmed no fewer than seven motion pictures in a twelve-month span, The Creeping Unknown being the seventh. Guest had been, all things considered, an odd choice to be asked to direct. Guest admitted he was a mostly disinterested observer of science fiction of any sort. So he expressed surprise when producer Anthony Hinds had approached him to helm the film. Most of the films Guest had previously directed - and was best known for - were straight-on comedies. Since Guest admitted honestly to having not watched the wildly popular BBC series, Hinds pressed copies of Kneale’s original tele-scripts to help familiarize him with the material. On holiday with his wife in Tangiers, Guest – at first, reluctantly - began to read through the scripts. He would acknowledge Kneale’s storytelling left him “pinned to his deckchair.”
There was certainly interest that Hammer test the viability of The Quatermass Xperiment/The Creeping Unknown playing overseas. There was one major hurdle. Should the film employ only or primarily a British cast, the main players would be practically unknown to U.S. moviegoers. Guest noted it was mostly at the insistence of the American distributor that an actor of some marquee standing in the U.S. be given the lead role. So the producers brought in the American actor Brian Donlevy to play Professor Quatermass.
Donlevy was well known to American film audiences. The actor had worked regularly and steadily in Hollywood, more often than not in rough-and-tumble tough-guy roles: prize-fighters to cowboys to soldiers to film noir detectives. But certainly not as an egg-head scientist. (As a completely irrelevant aside – but a fun fact all the same - Donlevy would later wed the widow of Bela Lugosi). The casting of Donlevy was the only major talent concession. Most folks cast were familiar faces of past Guest productions, the director preferring to work alongside the dependable professionals of his own repertory company.
Both Carpenter and Guest suggest that Kneale was particularly unhappy with the casting of a brash, somewhat tactless Yank as Quatermass. Kneale’s Quatermass was, in Guest’s reading, “a very English, Professor-like character,” a model of British gentility. Donlevy exhibited none of these qualities, but Guest welcomed bringing the actor’s tough-guy persona to the fore – even if that meant partly re-creating the character as envisioned by the dissatisfied Kneale. Carpenter too recalled Kneale’s obvious displeasure in the Donlevy casting, but personally found the actor’s performance as suitable. Having worked with the scenarist on two projects (an ultimately unmade remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and on Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, for which the writer’s contribution was uncredited), Carpenter reminisced that Kneale - while certainly talented - was a “handful” to work with.
In any event, the film was a success. By spring of 1956, Donlevy was already back in London to work on a second Quatermass film, X the Unknown (also co-written and directed by Guest). As this follow-up would cost $140,000 to produce (a 60% increase over the more economically-budgeted The Quatermass Xperiment), Exclusive Films, the United Kingdom distributor, entered into a partnership with United Artists – the latter agreeing to put up 75% of that cost for a 50/50 box office share.
In some manner of speaking, the American had been upstaged in the first film. Donlevy’s co-star Richard Wordsworth was mostly unknown to U.S. moviegoers, the actor having only recently graduated from stage to television to film acting. Indeed, The Quatermass Xperiment would log as his first big-screen credit. His performance as the alien-infected mute Victor Carroon received good notices: quite a feat considering his character spoke nary a line of dialogue. In many respects, Wordsworth steals the show, delivering a frightening, tortured portrait of the empty-shell astronaut. Guest thought Wordsworth “brilliantly” acted the part, relying solely on the conveyance of haunted facial expressions and gentle physical movements to emote.
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No one has ever clamored for a remake of director Howard Hawks' "Red River". The 1948 film is routinely considered to be one of the great American westerns, although Hawks was never completely satisfied with the end result. Between changes he made to the film and some changes imposed by the studio, the result was that film scholars are still debating which version should be considered as the final cut. However, the film's impact is indisputable. It afforded John Wayne the best role of his career up to that time and elevated up-and-coming Montgomery Clift to major stardom. I must admit that I was surprised to learn of a 1988 television remake of the film when I saw it is now streaming on ScreenPix, an optional subscription channel, which is available for a nominal monthly fee to Amazon Prime subscribers. It would take a big man to step into Duke Wayne's shoes but James Arness filled the bill. In fact, Wayne was a mentor to Arness and made several films with him before he convinced the young actor to accept CBS's offer to star as Marshall Matt Dillon in the TV series "Gunsmoke", an adaptation of the popular radio program. Arness plays Thomas Dunson, who was on a wagon train to Texas along his fiancee. Dunson and his sidekick Groot (Ray Walston in a role originally played by Walter Brennan), leave the wagon train to scout for appropriate land to settle on. While they are away, the wagon train is attacked by Indians. The begins with Dunson and Groot discovering that all of the pioneers have been killed except for a young boy, Matt Garth (Mickey Kuhn), who Dunson unofficially adopts as a son. The gesture proves to be mutually beneficial, as it helps both grief-stricken people cope with their losses. Ultimately, the headstrong Dunson finds the perfect land to claim for his own and it stretches as far as the eye can see. The film then jumps ahead a number of years. Dunson's spread, known as the Red River D, has been a major success and he is getting ready to move his enormous herd to Sedalia, Missouri to sell the steers for a considerable profit. He is heartened by the return of Matt (now played by Bruce Boxleitner), who has been away fighting with Southern forces in the Civil War. With Matt and Groot as his trusted right-hand men, Dunson assembles a major company of experienced drovers for the perilous journey that lies ahead.
As with Hawks' version of "Red River", the TV production chronicles the increased hardships the cattlemen endure and the slow breakdown in morale as food supplies become skimpy and the dangers increase from inclement weather and the threat of hostile Indians. Dunson rules the company with an iron fist and tells the men that he is financially broke, as he's put all of his money into the cattle drive. He reminds them that the only way they will get paid is if they get the herd to Sedalia, where it can be sold. Some cowhands encounter the drovers and say there is a rumor that the rail line has now reach Abilene, Kansas. If true, it will make for a lucrative market to sell the cattle in order to feed the booming population. It's also a shorter and safer journey for the drovers to make. However, Dunson will have not risk changing direction on the basis of an unfounded rumor. Ultimately, some men choose to leave the drive. However, when a couple of drovers also steal some precious food before absconding, Dunson has them hunted down and captured. Enraged, he tells them he will lynch them. When Matt can't convince him that he is going to far, a major rift occurs and Matt informs Dunson that he is taking control of the herd and gambling on taking the cattle to Abilene. Dunson refuses to go along and promises to hunt Matt down and personally kill him, despite the fact that Matt intends to turn any proceeds over to his adoptive father.
The story continues to follow events in the film, albeit in truncated fashion since the film runs 96 minutes compared to the 133 minutes of the original version. Matt and flashy gunslinger Cherry Valance (Gregory Harrison) encounter a wagon train besieged by Indians. They ultimately rescue the survivors which include Kate Millay (Laura Johnson), a Civil War widow with a young son. Both Matt and Cherry are smitten by her, which introduces an element of sexual tension as both men become antagonistic towards each other in increasingly dangerous ways. Ultimately, Matt gets the herd to Abilene and finds that the rumors were true. The town is booming and anxious to buy the herd for top dollar. Matt's joy is short-lived, however, as Dunson arrives with his personal posse of hired gunmen- and he's intent on keeping his vow to kill Matt.
There is nothing in the TV version of "Red River" that improves on Hawks's original in any meaningful way. However, it does offer some fine performances. It's interesting to see Arness, who gives a commanding performance, finally play a character whose judgment is flawed and whose actions border on the reckless. He has good chemistry with Bruce Boxleitner, possibly because the two were old friends who had co-starred in Arness's post-"Gunsmoke" TV series "How the West Was Won". Gregory Harrison has a meatier role as Cherry Valance than John Ireland did in the original version, possibly because Harrison was an executive producer on this production. He provides ample doses of both charm and reckless behavior. There are plenty of familiar Western stars who make brief appearances including Ty Hardin, Robert Horton, L.Q. Jones and Guy Madison, in his final screen appearance. The script has been updated with some new characters added, most notably Stan Shaw, very good as Jack Byrd, an ex-slave who must endure bigotry before winning the respect of the drovers with his skills. The film is crisply directed by Richard Michaels, who keeps the balance between action and personal dramas well-balanced.
I viewed the film with the expectation that it would be simply a pale imitation of the 1948 classic. However, while the original reigns supreme, I'm happy to say that if the TV version is viewed as a stand-alone production, it's actually surprisingly good.
I can find no record of this film having been released on home video aside from an early VHS version, so the Screenpix option is the best way to view it.
as an Iconic Warrior King and a Suspenseful WWII Epic with Peter O’Toole
On January 30th, Conan The Barbarian,the award-winning epic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, arrives on 4K UHD and Blu-ray for the first time. John Milius directs Academy Award-winning writer Oliver Stone’s
adaptation of the pulp novels by Robert E. Howard to the big screen. A
global phenomenon ruling the box office upon its initial release in
1982, the fantasy forged Schwarzenegger’s status as a true cinematic
icon. Schwarzenegger stars as Conan – enslaved as a young boy after cult leader Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones)
murders his parents. Conan pushes himself from slave to gladiator to
freed warrior in search of Thulsa Doom to exact his vengeance. Along the
way Conan learns of love, friendship, wisdom, and loyalty. The film
features electrifying star performances by Schwarzenegger and Jones, and
an impressive supporting cast, including Max von Sydow, Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, and Mako.
The
Limited Edition 4K UHD comes in a 2-Disc set, loaded with extras,
including new interviews with cast and crew, rarely seen footage and
archival materials. The Blu-ray and 4K UHD Limited Edition sets each
include a double-sided fold-out poster, six double-sided collectors’
postcards, an illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by
Walter Chaw and John Walsh, and an archive set report by Paul M. Sammon.
Also on the same day, Conan The Destroyer makes its debut on 4K UHD and Blu-ray. The sequel to the wildly successful Conan The Barbarian, Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as Robert E. Howard’s sword-wielding anti-hero. Conan is offered the opportunity to take a young princess (Olivia D’Abo)
on a quest to retrieve the jeweled horn of the dreaming god Dagoth. In
return, the love of his life Valeria will be brought back to life,
though Conan and his fellowship get more than they bargained for as
Dagoth may not be the benevolent demi-god they expected. Directed by Richard Fleischer, Conan The Destroyer features an international cast that includes supermodel/icon Grace Jones, Olivia D'Abo, NBA Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain, Tracey Walter, and Sarah Douglas.
The
Blu-ray and 4K UHD Limited Edition sets include a double-sided fold-out
poster, six double-sided collectors’ postcards, an illustrated
collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Walter Chaw and John Walsh,
and an archive set report by Paul M. Sammon.Bonus
features include a brand new 4K restoration from the original negative,
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray (2160p) presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10
compatible), newly restored original mono audio and remixed Dolby Atmos
surround audio, archive feature commentary by director Richard
Fleischer, actors Olivia d’Abo, Tracey Walter and Sarah Douglas, newly
filmed interviews and commentary with cast and crew, theatrical
trailers, and an image gallery.
The month ends with a bang in Murphy’s War, coming to Blu-ray on January 30. Peter O’Toole
stars as Murphy, the sole survivor of a German U-boat attack off the
coast of Venezuela at the end of WWII. Nursed back to health by a Quaker
nurse (Siân Phillips),
Murphy has one goal: to destroy the U-boat that killed his mates.
Nothing will stop Murphy from exacting vengeance. Featured co-stars of
O’Toole include Philippe Noiret (La Grande Bouffe, Cinema Paradiso), and Horst Janson (Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, Shout at the Devil),. The film is directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt) and beautifully shot by Indiana Jones cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, with a propulsive score from John Barry.Special features across the release include Running Out of War, a new visual essay by film critic David Cairns, A Great Adventure, an archive interview with assistant director John Glen, Dougie, Chic and Me, an archive interview with focus puller Robin Vidgeon, One Man Army,
an archive interview with film critic Sheldon Hall, the theatrical
trailer, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve featuring original and
newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain, and an illustrated
collector’s booklet featuring new writing by film critic Philip Kemp.
Australian video label Imprint has released a Blu-ray boxed set dedicated to the films of Sidney Lumet. The movies included are:
Serpico
The Group
The Pawnbroker
The Deadly Affair
The Offence
Child's Play
The set includes hours of bonus features and a new documentary about Lumet's early career achievements. Cinema Retro's Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer is joined by fellow film historians Paul Scrabo and Tony Latino for the commentary track on "The Offence", which stars Sean Connery in what many believe is his best performance.
The discs are all region-free. The set is a limited edition. Click here to order.
Prices are in Australian dollars. If you reside outside of Australia, use a currency converter to calculate the price in your currency.
As a monster-movie loving kid growing up in the shadow of
Manhattan, most of my Saturday night plans in the late 1960s and early 1970s
were solidly set.That night was
reserved for watching old horror and sci-fi flicks on New York City’s Chiller (WPIX-TV) or Creature Features (WNEW-TV).I don’t recall the latter program surviving
past 1980 – and even then there had been an interruption of some six years in
the scheduling of Creature Features.Though the program would return to the
airwaves in 1979, the 8 PM broadcasts were now a thing of the past.The revived telecasts had moved to midnight
and well into the early hours of Sunday morning.It hardly mattered, really.I no longer watched Creature Features with the same fervor of 1969 through 1973.I was age nineteen in 1979 and found other
(if not necessarily better) things to
do on Saturday nights.
This absence from Creature
Features caused me to miss out on a number of obscure, aging films
broadcast 1979-1980.Among this mix of occasional
cinematic gems with near-misses was a mostly forgotten mystery programmer of
1944 titled The Man in Half Moon Street.I was particularly sorry to have missed this
one: if my research is correct, I believe the film was broadcast only once – just
shy of 2 A.M. - on March 29, 1980.Though one New York area newspaper listing dismissed the film as little
more than a “Moody and marginally interesting tale of eternal youth through
murder,” such lukewarm praise actually piqued my interest.This seemed my kind of movie.And for
some forty-three years I’ve lamented having missing that broadcast.
It has been a tough film to get ahold of: though I’m
guessing gray-market copies could have been found at conventions or through those
“specialty” dealers of vintage VHS tapes from the ‘80s onward.But as far as I can tell (and, please, feel
free correct me if you know better), The
Man in Half Moon Street has never been officially
available on any home video format: not Laser Disc, VHS, DVD or Blu Ray.Well, that is until now, as we near the
eightieth year of the film’s original cinematic release.We have Australia’s Imprint Films to thank
for finally issuing this superlative, region-free coded Blu-ray release.
As in the case of many Hollywood pictures of the day, The Man in Half Moon Street was not an
original invention of the filmmakers: the scenario was actually based on the British
stage drama of playwright Barré Lyndon.Lyndon’s play, published in 1939 by London’s Hamish Hamilton Publishing
House, had first toured Bournemouth, Oxford, Manchester and Brighton on a
two-week testing-sortie in February of ’39.The play would formally open at the New Theatre in London’s West End on
22 March 1939.
Lyndon’s main antagonist in the stage drama, chemist John Thackeray (Leslie Banks), is a ninety-year
old man.One wouldn’t notice the dotage
as Thackeray appears decades younger.This
is due to the chemist having discovered that by combining radium and periodically replacing his aging
super-renal glands with fresh specimens he can retain both youth and
immortality.Of course the collection of
fresh glands requires innocent others to lose their lives to Thackeray’s ghoulish
harvesting.
Over a fifty-year period eight bank cashiers – those with
access to large sums of money - have fallen prey to Thackeray’s criminal doings.Dissolving their bodies in acid baths, the
chemist then steals the cash reserves his victims had been minding in their
bank-telling guardianship.Thackeray
requires the large sums so he can pay a confidant: in this case an
ethically-challenged surgeon friend, to perform the necessary life-sustaining
gland grafts.But Scotland Yard takes up
the case just as the chemist readies to take the life of a targeted ninth
victim for his evil ends.
Interestingly, playwright Lyndon would go on to write
screenplays for Hollywood studios by the mid-1940s, including such moody
mystery-noirs as John Brahm’s The Lodger
(1944) and Hangover Square
(1945).But in late January of 1940, it
was announced that Don Hartman, a dependable scenarist for Paramount, was
scheduled to begin work on adapting Lyndon’s stage play to the big screen.Hartman was, at present, in New York, trying
to finish up his co-write (with Clifford Goldsmith) of The Further Adventures of Henry Aldrich.
That May of 1940, Paramount optimistically announced
there would be no production delays on their twenty-five million dollar film
schedule budget for the upcoming year.This declaration was made “despite war conditions in Europe which
continue to threaten returns” in both national and international film markets.One of the films on the Paramount schedule
was The Man inHalf Moon Street. Early reports suggested that Basil Rathbone was
to take on the leading role. The actor was available to assume the role of
Thackeray as he had only recently completed work on Paramount’s A Date with Destiny (soon retitled The Mad Doctor).
Rathbone had played the villainous role in The Mad Doctor which, despite the intriguing
title, was not a horror film, but a mystery crime-drama.The Los
Angeles Citizen-News would report in June of 1940 that while Half Moon too was not of “bogeyman
classification,” it on the “fantastic side” with its lurid sci-fi angle.In any case, the film project fell
temporarily to the wayside, first due to scripting issues and afterward to the
cranking out of patriotic films necessitated by America’s entry into WWII
following the attack at Pearl Harbor.
But by early winter of 1943, the long dormant Half Moon project was showing signs of
revival.On March 2, 1943 it was
announced in the Hollywood trades that Lester Fuller, recently arrived in Los
Angeles from New York, had been offered the director’s chair for The Man in Half Moon Street.In spring of 1943, Albert Dekker, a Hollywood
“heavie” who recently scared audiences as Universal’s Dr. Cyclops (1940), was announced to assume the leading role.
But on June 15, 1943, Variety
reported that Fuller was out of the Half
Moon project. Ralph Murphy was now chosen to direct.Technically, the pair’s previously assigned directorial
spots were merely traded-off.Murphy had
initially been chosen to helm Paramount’s production of Marseilles, but former stage director Fuller was now tasked to
assume responsibility on that particular film. Murphy was to move over to
direct Fuller’s Half Moon project.
Murphy’s first assignment was a formidable one:he was “to order a complete rewrite job on
the script.”There was also a report
that such rewriting would likely require a recasting of principal characters.Though Swedish film star Nils Asther had been
the latest actor announced to assume the film’s leading role, his participation
in the project was now suggested as being “off” - for the time being, at
least.The film’s producer Walter
MacEwan wanted to weigh casting options “until further developments” in the
scripting of Half Moon were resolved.
The re-writing of Half
Moon would eventually fall to scenarists Charles Kenyon and Garrett Fort. The final screenplay credit would ultimately go
to Kenyon alone who, like Fort, was a veteran of old Hollywood: their work in
the industry could be traced to silent cinema’s earliest days.Fort’s resume for this sort of film was
particularly impressive: he had written or co-written such totemic pre-code
Golden Age Horrors for Universal as Dracula
(1931), Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula’s Daughter (1936). But Fort’s credit on Half Moon only noted his role in adapting Lyndon’s play for the
screen.
The final screenplay drafted would, peculiarly, expunge
most of the ghoulish and murderous elements of Lyndon’s stage play – perhaps
America’s real-life wartime experiences were horrific enough.There are no murders of bankers.The Thackeray character (renamed Dr. Julian
Karell in the film) appears to be already a man of means, an accomplished
portrait artist and scientist.He
attends black-tie, high society, posh parties and conducts his experiments at
an upscale London row house.The film curiously
offers no scenes of on (or off) screen physical violence.
There are no gruesome acid baths in which the bodies of
victims are disposed. The film’s lone “action” scene captures a moment when
Karell “rescues” a despondent medical student (Morton Lowry) from a watery suicide
attempt near the Thames Embankment.Most
scenes of this dialogue-heavy script are set in parlors and sitting rooms –
which, to be honest, really proves a drag on the film’s ninety-two minute running
time.One begins to welcome even the
briefest scenes when Karell ventures out into the shrouded night and pea-soup fog
of the London Streets.Not that much
happens during these interludes, but such moments provide a measure of
moodiness to this otherwise slowly paced non-mystery.
Truth be told, The
Man in Half Moon Street is no detective nor mystery film; we know almost
from the beginning what’s going on.We
learn the handsome and youthful Karell is actually more than one hundred years
old in age.But through a century of
experimentation – and with the assistance of the aging Dr. Kurt Van Bruecken, the
“world’s greatest living surgeon and necrologist” (Reinhold Schünzel), Karell has
managed to stay young through his drinking of a luminous serum and periodically
undergoing fresh glandular transplants at ten year intervals.
There are problems ahead.Following a stroke, the shaky hands of the elderly Van Bruecken are no longer
trustworthy to perform the necessary surgeries.Besides, Van Bruecken has undergone a change of heart: he fears that
Karell is no longer working in the interest of science and humanity in staving off
the aging process.He fears (rightfully)
Karell is now consumed only by his burning desire for the lovely Eve Brandon (Helen
Walker) and selfish self-interest in maintaining a “fraudulent youth.”
“No man can break the law of God,” Van Bruecken cautions,
but Karell is confident if anyone can do it, he can.Even if that means farming the glands of the
suicidal medical student he’s imprisoned upstairs.The other more pressing problem facing Karell
is that his mysterious activities have finally brought him to the attention of
an ethical surgeon (Paul Cavanagh), a cabal of fine art appraisers and Scotland
Yard.
With Paramount now holding what they believed an
acceptable – and mostly non-horrific - script in place, the casting of the film
proceeded in earnest. In May of 1943 it was suggested that young actress Susan
Hayward would play a “featured role” in Half
Moon, though the report cautioned Paramount was still “having a time of it
procuring someone to play the sinister male lead.”The earlier front-running names of Rathbone
and Dekker were both out, and rumors of Alan Ladd’s casting were squelched when
the actor chose instead to sign up for military service.
That same month producer MacEwan confirmed Nils Asther would in fact play the role of Dr.
Julian Karell as earlier rumored.The
trades suggested that it was Asther who, in fact, first suggested that Paramount
pick up the rights to Lyndon’s play and cast him in the lead role.There was some mild press controversy regarding
Asther’s casting.Some Hollywood gossips
dismissed the actor as “Yesterday’s Star” (born in 1897, Asther had appeared in
silent films with Greta Garbo).Though
his character was scripted as someone thirty-five years of age, Asther was in
reality 46 years old at the time of production.Still, there was an acknowledgement that the dashingly tall, slender, handsome
(and rumored bi-sexual) actor “still has a big following.”
Though the actor was to star opposite the sultry Hayward,
the role of Karell’s paramour Eve Brandon was ultimately given to Helen Walker.There would be some delay before she could
join the production: the actress, currently on a wartime U.S.O. tour, was expected
to report to the set near September’s end.Truthfully, Walker doesn’t have a lot to do in the film.She certainly photographs well as Karell’s
doting and perhaps too protective and
morally-blind girlfriend.Even though Karell’s
work is secretive – so much so that it causes him to disappear for weeks or
months at a time – Eve chooses to accept her lover’s “general mysteriousness”
as a byproduct of his genius.I
personally found Brandon less likable and sympathetic as the film progresses.
When it’s finally revealed to her that Karell’s experimentations have brought
harm to innocents, she’s so in love with him she dismisses his guilt, choosing
instead to reflexively defend the “grandeur” of his ambitions.
If the main characters in this picture aren’t always
likable, there’s still a lot to admire about the film.Miklos Rozsa’s moody musical score is
certainly worthy of praise.Henry
Sharp’s fog-bound “exterior” photography is similarly moody, but unfortunately not
up on the screen much.In the final
minutes of the film when Karell dramatically reverts to his actual age,
long-time make-up man Wally Westmore – of Hollywood’s make-up family dynasty –
does his best on the effects.But the
camera cheats the audience of a full on-screen transformation ala Westmore’s
make-up on Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde (1931) – which remains the “gold standard” of Golden Age
horror transformations.Ralph Murphy’s
direction is competent but workmanlike in execution.He creates very little visual tension until
the film’s final scenes and, by then, it’s simply too late.Following the completion of Half Moon, Murphy was planning to move
back to New York City to direct the Broadway stage production of Sleep It Off.
Of course World War II was still on-going, interrupting,
ruining and/or ending the lives of countless innocents globally.In such an atmosphere Hollywood was not immune
to war-time production delays and release date restrictions.Paramount alone had accumulated an
unprecedented backlog of thirty-one completed films awaiting release in early
summer of 1944.There was some confidence
that the tide was turning in favor of the Allies, studios cooperating in the
war effort by rolling out whatever patriotic war films they were sitting on.There was a consensus it was time to empty
the vault of such films.It was believed
that movie audiences would weary of war films following the cessation of
fighting overseas.
There was, at long last, a belated screening of The Man in Half Moon Street held at a
Hollywood tradeshow on October 16, 1944.Variety thought the script was
a “compact and interesting,” the Kenyon/Fort scenario displaying a “few new
twists from the formularized style of long-life mystery tales to keep interest
at consistent level.” But the reviewer acknowledged, not unreasonably, that the
film would best serve as “strong support” to a superior attraction.Other critics likewise suggested Half Moon was too weak to see
top-billing on a double-attraction.
Indeed, The Man in
Half Moon Street (already in U.S. regional release as early as December
1944 although the film’s copyright is listed as 1945 on the sleeve of the snap
case) was featured as the undercard of a double-bill. (On his commentary, Tim
Lucas reveals the film actually had its world-wide premiere in Australia in
early November of 1944).On its U.S.
run, the film was usually topped by director Fritz Lang’s cinematic take of
novelist Graham Greene’s Nazi espionage tale Ministry of Fear.This double
feature actually did reasonably well, the trades citing solid - if not necessarily
boffo - returns as the package was rolled out across U.S. markets and into 1945.Newspaper columnists tended to give the Lang
film the lion’s share of its critical attention, though both films were generally
branded as little more than decent programmers of primary interest only to devotees
of suspense and mystery films.
I wouldn’t have fared well in Puritan America of
1642.A title overlay inscription on the
front end of Robert G. Vignola’s The
Scarlet Letter (1934) offers, “Though to us, the customs seem grim and the
punishments hard, they were necessary in the formation of the U.S.
destiny.”With the benefit of hindsight,
I might argue this opinion otherwise, but it is what it is… or, rather, was
what it was.Puritan America seemed a
bit too inhospitable to my taste: everybody at one time or another was being
publically humiliated or punished for terribly mild transgressions.
In 1642 you could find yourself in the stock for laughing
on the Sabbath, or publically gagged and propped for gossiping, or aggressively
poked with a long stick if caught dozing off during a long and ponderous sermon.And that’s not to mention having the Towne
Crier ordering you to extinguish your lights for a pre-ordained bedtime set by the
whims of a council of elders.Of course
all of this, I suppose, is all still far preferable to being trussed to a pole and
stoned by your “righteous” and “pious” neighbors for accusations of adultery
and other crimes.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel of 1850, The Scarlet Letter, is widely regarded as a masterwork of early
American literature.The novel’s
storyline is set in Puritan American of 1642, beleaguered seamstress Hester
Prynne forced to wear a scarlet “A”
on her clothing, a mark identifying her as an adulteress.With her physician husband missing from the
village for two years and presumed lost at sea, Prynne gives out-of-wedlock birth
to a daughter, Pearl.Though castigated and
ostracized by the community, Prynne refuses to name the father of the child,
thereby preserving his unsoiled reputation.Despite the travails, Prynne manages to live her life with a sense of dignity
and compassion – and a measure of moral clarity not exemplified by the
religious zealots who continue to harass and condemn both mother and child.
There had been several film adaptations of The Scarlet Letter, preceding this 1934
effort directed by Vignola, though all previous were released as silents.The first adaptation was a 1908 adaptation
directed by Sydney Olcott, a film short now presumed lost.Interestingly, Olcott was still alive and
kicking when the Vignola film went into production.In June of 1934, the Los Angeles Post-Record reported, “One visitor to the set was
Sydney Olcott who directed the one-reel 1908 version of The Scarlet Letter in one day.Olcott was still proud of his effort, telling actor Henry B. Walthall, “We didn’t do so bad in 1908, Henry. We
didn’t have cranes, microphones and we didn’t use big crowds.We had a solitary cameraman and he helped
with the props […] Them was the days.”
Olcott’s film may have been the first cinematic
adaptation, but certainly not last.Between 1911 and 1926, the film was re-made as at least on five
occasions.Some of these versions –
varying as one to nine reelers in their release – are also presumed lost or suffer
missing reels.The most famous of these silent
era cinematic adaptations have survived:Victor Seastrom’s 1926 version for Metro Goldwin Mayer featuring Lillian
Gish and Henry B. Walthall.
But producer Larry Darmour, the founder and president of
Majestic Pictures, was determined to bring The
Scarlet Letter to the big screen for the title’s first sound version.A wartime cameraman and newsreel editor,
Darmour was interested in creating Hollywood productions, ultimately scoring
his earliest success with a series of Mickey Rooney Mickey McGuire comedy shorts.Then - riding on the coattails of Universal’s successful Dracula and Frankenstein pictures – Darmour served as an uncredited executive
producer for Frank R. Strayer’s The
Vampire Bat (1933), a fine Golden Age chiller featuring Lionel Atwill and
Fay Wray.
It was gossip columnist Louella Parsons who broke the big
news in March of 1934: “The Scarlet
Letter, the picture that MGM would just as soon forget, is to be brought
back to life.But this time it will be
made without the airy, fairy Lillian Gish and in a different mood.I don’t know how it can be made different,
but Larry Darmour […] says they will bring a little humor into it.Hope Nathaniel Hawthorne won’t turn in his
grave if they put too much humor into his famous novel.” Parsons would also
report that Leonard Fields and David Silverstein had been hired to script from
Hawthorne’s novel.
It is true that Darmour made the odd decision to bring in
episodes of light-comedy relief to this otherwise somber and dramatic
enterprise.Actors Alan Hale
(“Bartholomew Hockings”) and William Kent (“Sampson Goodfellow”) are written
into the storyline – neither character appears in the original novel – and the
pair’s misadventures as offered are completely irrelevant to the film’s
storyline and disturb the scenario’s sense of dramatic tension.Variety
certainly noted this scripting failure in their review of September 25, 1934,
noting this “venerated classic [goes] wrecked on the rocks of comedy relief. Hawthorne’s
tense plot is lightened with a John Alden-Miles Standish development that
recurs with mathematical precision about every so often to spoil whatever
tension the players have been able to create.”
The role of beleaguered Hester Prynne was given to the
acclaimed silent-film actress Colleen Moore, just coming off her early sound role
as “Sarah” in J. Walter Ruben’s gun-less and pretty pedestrian crime-drama Success at any Price (1934).In the words of an overly critical journalist
from the Evening Vanguard (Venice,
CA), Moore’s assumption of the Prynne role might “atone somewhat” for the
failures of Success.Moore was already disillusioned with
Hollywood’s new way of doing things, this ingénue of the silent screen
uncomfortable with both microphones and sound recording.Moore’s appearance in The Scarlet Letter would in fact prove to be her final big screen
credit.
The actor Henry B. Walthall more easily made the
transition to sound pictures.He had been
knocking around movie sets since 1908 and would continue working until his
death in 1936.Walthall was cast to
reprise his role as Prynne’s surprisingly-retuned-from-sea husband Roger
Chillingworth: who now lives only to bitterly exact revenge on the unnamed father
of young Pearl and bring public “dishonor” upon Hester as a “faithless woman.” Hardie
Albright rounds out the cast’s major players, taking on the role of preacher
“Arthur Dimmesdale,” a fallen Man-of-God tortured by a secret that has eaten
away at his soul.
In May of 1934, the Los
Angeles Times reported this first sound version of The Scarlet Letter was to go before cameras on or about May 23rd.The film was shot primarily at Culver City’s
Pathe Studios and at RKO’s forty-acre desert Pathe Ranch location.The latter area suffered no shortage of
rattlesnakes crawling about. Film producer-distributor Sam Sherman suggests on
a commentary that a cruel joke played on snake-fearing actress Moore by members
of the film crew actually led to the actresses’ hospitalization for a nervous
breakdown.
There were some journalist-train spotters who seemed
dismissive of the project from its onset, carping on the smallest of details of
Majestic’s economically-budgeted feature.Again, from an on-set report in June of 1934 courtesy of the Evening Vanguard:“An anachronistic note occurs in the
churchyard.The dates on the tombstones
are of the nineteenth century.On a
major lot, such a state of affairs would not be tolerated for a moment.”The filmmakers protested such eagle-eyed nonsense,
noting – accurately – that such graves would only be seen “from a distance” in
the final print.
By 2 July 1934, production was already completed, Variety reporting that Darmour was in
process of producing no fewer than thirteen features for Majestic, with The Scarlet Letter and Ralph Cedar’s She Had to Choose (with Buster Crabbe
and Isabel Jewell) already in the can.There was a preview screening of The
Scarlet Letter held at Pasadena’s Colorado Theatre held in July of 1934. Billboard allowed the film was a “sincere
effort, singling out Moore’s performance as “the only redeeming thing about the
whole business, [but] the balance of the cast are mere shadows.”The review also thought the film demonstrated
a “slow development and uneven tempo.” The critic mused the script might have
benefited with modern dialogue, as the cast was (…) “to speak the silly lither
of year’s gone past.”
The critic from Variety
was in agreement that Moore’s performance was “informed by gentle humility
which gives the part dignity and appeal.”And though the scenarists were given credit for a mostly “well done”
script, the writers were chided for not digging “below the surface” to reflect
the “real soul-tragedy” of this man/woman relationship, choosing instead to only
amplify the “community’s cruelty to the transgressor.”Though the Boston Globe thought the film a worthwhile effort, this critic too made
plain The Scarlet Letter was not a
“first-rank picture.” Post-dated tombstones aside, it was the reviewer’s belief
the film offered, “Too much attention to realism of detail, and not enough of
virtue of emotion in drama.”
But ultimately the harshest critic of Vignola’s The Scarlet Letter was the powerful Archbishop
John T. McNicholas of The Catholic League of Decency who found the age-old
subject matter of adultery and babies born out of wedlock to be contemporaneously
dangerous and abhorrent.The League put
the film on its banned list as a “Class C” film, a rating deeming such films as
“indecent and immoral and unfit for public entertainment."This was problematic for the producer Darmour
as many Americans accepted the judgement of the clergy as holy writ to be wholeheartedly
obeyed.
Hoping to change the mind of the “Decency” League ruling
– while arguing for the right of free expression in America – Darmour would
telegram McNicholas in September of 1934.The ruling, he protested, was unfair.After all, the producer argued, 95% of U.S. schools offered Hawthorne’s book
as “compulsory reading” in their curriculum of American literature studies.Darmour also sent a copy of his telegram to
newspapers.It read:
We
were moved to produce The Scarlet Letter because of its widespread use in
schools, logically feeling that a faithful screen adaptation should be
acceptable to educators.We have adhered
faithfully to the basic theme related in Hawthorne’s great work.
If
the campaign you are waging for decency is carried to its logical end, why,
then, are not attempts made to bar the book in schools and public
libraries?Since the film version is a
faithful adaptation of the book, your ban on the film appears as agitation
against one medium and not another.One
is forced to admit this is discrimination and wholly undemocratic.”
Sadly, it appears as though this telegram, with minor
changes in the particulars, could be sent to administrators of certain U.S.
States in 2023.The more things change,
the more they stay the same, huh?
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Shout! Factory.
For
the honor of the crown and the destiny of a country, four heroes must
reassemble for one last epic battle in the cult film classic, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK. Directed by Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor), Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon) leads a phenomenal cast, including Jeremy Irons (Red Sparrow), John Malkovich (Bullet Head), Gérard Depardieu (To the Ends of the Earth), and Gabriel Byrne (Hereditary) in this thrilling tale of majesty and Musketeers. On December 26, 2023, Shout! Select will release THE MAN IN THE IRON MASKCollector’s Edition in 4K UHD™+ Blu-ray™.
This must-have home entertainment release features new 4K transfer from
the original negative in Dolby Vision, and special bonus content. Movie
collectors and fans can now preorder THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
Collector’s Edition 4K UHD™+ Blu-ray™ at ShoutFactory.com.
Louis
XIII, King of France, had a son, Louis, who succeeded his father to the
throne. But, known to very few, the heir had a twin brother, Philippe,
hidden away after birth and forced to languish in prison, his identity
unknown behind an iron mask. His brother, now grown and King Louis XIV,
proved to be both corrupt and a tyrant. Louis sends Athos’ son, Raoul
off to certain death in war, so that he could have his woman for
himself. Athos, together with two of the other Musketeers, Porthos and
Aramis, swear revenge. Only D’Artagnan remains loyal to the crown, but
will he join his former compatriots to free Philippe from prison, kill
the king, and put Philippe on the throne in his place?
UNITED ARTISTS Presents A RANDALL WALLACE Film LEONARDO DiCAPRIO JEREMY IRONS
JOHN MALKOVICH GÉRARD DEPARDIEU GABRIEL BYRNE “THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK”
ANNE PARILLAUD JUDITH GODRÈCHE A UNITED ARTISTS CORPORATION LTD. Production
Music by NICK GLENNIE-SMITH Costume Designer JAMES ACHESON Edited by WILLIAM HOY
Production Designed by ANTHONY PRATT Director of Photography PETER SUSCHITZKY
Based upon the novel by ALEXANDRE DUMAS Co-Producer PAUL HITCHCOCK Executive Producer ALAN LADD, JR.
Produced by RANDALL WALLACE RUSSELL SMITH Written for the Screen and Directed by RANDALL WALLACE
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK Collector’s Edition
Bonus Features for UHD/Blu-ray
DISC ONE (4K UHD):
· NEW 4K Transfer From the Original Camera Negative
· Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, 2.0
· In Dolby Vision (HDR-10 Compatible)
· Audio Commentary With Writer/Director Randall Wallace
DISC TWO (BLU-RAY):
· NEW 4K Transfer From The Original Camera Negative
· Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, 2.0
· Audio Commentary with Randall Wallace
· Interview With Producer Paul Hitchcock
· Interview With Production Designer Anthony Pratt
Life goes from bad to worse for Confederate soldier John
Warner (George Hilton) in the opening half hour of “A Bullet for Sandoval,” a
1970 Spaghetti Western now available on Blu-ray in a Special Edition from VCI
Entertainment. On the eve of battle in Texas, Warner learns that his sweetheart
Rosa has just given birth to their son in plague-ridden Los Cedros, and now is
dying from cholera. Denied authorisation to leave camp, Warner rides off
anyway, incurring a death sentence for desertion. Arriving in Los Cedros with
hopes of marrying Rosa before she dies, he finds no sympathy there either. Rosa
has passed away, and her father Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine), a
powerful grandee who loathes “gringos” in general and Warner in particular, is
infuriated that the soldier has returned. He disowns the baby and drives Warner
and the newborn out of his palatial hacienda.
Fleeing Los Cedros with his son, Warner is rebuffed at
one way-station and then a second when he begs for milk for the infant. The
people at both places are fearful of being infected when they learn that he has
just come from Los Cedros. The weakened, feverish baby dies, and Warner becomes
a vengeful outlaw, assembling a gang of henchmen to raid the settlements that
drove him away when he needed their aid to keep his child alive. Three of the
men—Sam, Lucky, and Priest—are trustworthy. The other three—Morton, One-Eye (“a
sex maniac convicted of raping two little girls”), and Guadalupano—not so much.
Warner comes to enjoy the riches and women that accrue from his new career as a
bandit, but his ultimate target remains Sandoval. In the meantime, Don Pedro and
his fellow cattle barons on the Border convince the Confederate army to help
them pursue and eradicate Warner and his band.
Like most Spaghetti Westerns, “A Bullet for Sandoval” was
an international production with Italian studio backing, a cast of actors from
several countries, outdoor locations in the Spanish desert, and in this case, a
Spanish director (Julio Buchs), and Spanish writers. In the starring role,
George Hilton (born Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara) was an accomplished, darkly
handsome Uruguayan actor who had a thriving career in Italian genre movies but
was largely unknown to U.S. moviegoers. For marquee value in the States, the
producers paired him with Ernest Borgnine as the imperious Don Pedro. Who
didn’t know Ernest Borgnine from “The Wild Bunch,” “Ice Station Zebra,” a
hundred other movies, and “McHale’s Navy”?
With Borgnine’s name prominently displayed on ads, “A
Bullet for Sandoval” was one of several Spaghetti Westerns that opened in the
U.S. in 1970, after the surprise success of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
Derided by most critics as violent trash, they were usually relegated to
drive-ins and second-run movie houses. There, they filled a void on
double-bills left by the death of traditional, American-made B-Westerns like
those made a decade before with aging stars like Dana Andrews, Glenn Ford, and Robert
Taylor. Sometimes, ironically, they were paired with the homegrown Spaghetti
imitations that Hollywood studios had begun to produce, like “Two Mules for Sister Sara,”
“Barquero,” “Macho Callahan,” and “El
Condor.”
The critics may have dismissed the genre, but their
opinions were immaterial for the U.S. target audience of young guys in their
teens and early twenties, who welcomed pictures like “A Bullet for Sandoval” on
all-night movie marathons at local drive-ins. At one o’clock in the morning, in
a pleasant stupor of fatigue and beer, few would question the accuracy or
plausibility of a Civil War in which Confederate officers pause their military
campaign to help ranchers chase outlaws. As far as fans were concerned, such
fine points could be argued by history professors, as long as they could rely
on filmmakers like Buchs to deliver a gritty succession of gunfights, chases,
and gorgeous European starlets—in the case of “A Bullet for Sandoval,”
Annabella Incontrera, Mary Paz Pondal, and Paquita Torres—in low-cut peasant
blouses.
VCI Entertainment’s new Special Edition of “A Bullet for
Sandoval” presents the film in a remastered, 4K version from the original
negative, adding the English-dubbed voice track and diligently restoring ten
minutes of footage edited out of the U.S. print in 1970 and consequently, out
of previous American home video releases. As director and enthusiast Alex Cox
suggests in his informative audio commentary for the disc, the movie is better
than its synopsis implies. The script and direction give the story an epic
scope despite a limited budget, culminating in a briskly staged showdown in a
bullfighting arena, and Hilton and Borgnine offer heartfelt performances as the
two antagonists. Relatively rare for a Spaghetti Western, both Warner and Don
Pedro are emotionally damaged characters instead of the cool-cat bounty hunter
and deranged bandido who usually anchor such films.
Cox notes that the grim scenes of Warner and his friends
Lucky and Priest trying to keep Warner’s baby alive in the desert owe an
obvious debt to “Three Godfathers,” John Ford’s 1948 parable of the Nativity
story with horses and six-shooters. Ford was ever the optimist, and the infant
in “Three Godfathers” survives, delivered safely to a Western town called
Jerusalem by outlaw Bob Hightower, played by the indomitable John Wayne.
Warner’s newborn isn’t as fortunate in a world bereft of Christian charity, reflecting
the grim philosophy of the Spaghetti genre where the innocent are as likely to
suffer as the corrupt and the guilty, and often, more likely.
In addition to Alex Cox’s commentary track, the VCI
Special Edition includes the title sequence from the original Spanish version,
titled “Los Desperados,” and the U.S. theatrical trailer. It is an admirably
respectful package for a movie that few would have regarded as anything other
than disposable entertainment five decades ago.
Celebrating
its 40th anniversary in 2024, the beloved classic FOOTLOOSE
arrives for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD™ February 13, 2024
from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Originally
released on February 17, 1984, FOOTLOOSE thrilled audiences with
its spirited dancing, electrifying soundtrack, and inspiring story. Kevin
Bacon gives a star-making performance as a city boy whose rebellious love for
music and dancing shakes up a small town.
Directed
by Herbert Ross and written by composer and writer Dean Pitchford, FOOTLOOSE
was a massive success, earning $80 million at the domestic box office.
The film features an exceptional supporting cast, including Lori Singer, Dianne
Wiest, John Lithgow, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Chris Penn, along with a
sensational soundtrack featuring Kenny Loggins, Shalamar, Deniece Williams,
Bonnie Tyler, Quiet Riot, John Mellencamp, Foreigner, and more. Both
“Footloose” and “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” were nominated for the Academy
Award® for Best Music, Original Song.
Newly
remastered, FOOTLOOSE will be available in a two-disc 4K Ultra
HD/Blu-ray™ set or a collectible SteelBook™ with artwork designed to
look like an 80s Walkman. Both sets include access to a digital copy of
the film and the Blu-ray includes the legacy bonus content detailed below:
·Commentary
by Craig Zadan and Dean Pitchford
·Commentary
by Kevin Bacon
·Let's
Dance! Kevin Bacon on Footloose
·From
Bomont to the Big Apple: An Interview with Sarah Jessica Parker
·Remembering
Willard
·Kevin
Bacon's Screen Test
·Kevin
Bacon Costume Montage
·Footloose:
A Modern Musical - Part 1
·Footloose:
A Modern Musical - Part 2
·Footloose:
Songs That Tell A Story
·Theatrical
Trailer
Synopsis
City-boy
Ren McCormick (Kevin Bacon) is new to an uptight small town where dancing has
been banned. Ren quickly makes a new best friend in Willard (Chris Penn) and
falls fast for the minister's daughter (Lori Singer), but his love for music
and dancing gets him into hot water equally as fast.??
Humphry
Bogart and Eleanor Parker feature in the aviation romance drama, “Chain
Lightning,” available on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive Collection. Bogart is hot-shot
test pilot Matt Brennan flying for an aircraft manufacturer contracted to
produce a supersonic jet for the newly formed United States Air Force. The
movie soon flashes back to 1943 in WWII England where we see the origins of the
relationship between Bogart and Parker. Parker is Joan “Jo” Holloway, an
American Red Cross nurse stationed in England where Lieutenant Colonel Matt Brennan
is an experienced B-17 pilot. Richard Whorf is Carl Troxell, an engineer working
for a B-17 aircraft manufacturer sent to research the reason for aircraft
failures. Matt tells Carl exactly the issue which is obvious to those flying
the bombing missions, the air war and the lack of long-range air cover support.
While on a mission, they encounter a German Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, a
rocket powered interceptor that moves faster than anything in the allied
arsenal.
Matt
gets word he’s being rotated stateside to sell war bonds after surviving so many
bombing missions over Europe. He’s faced with a complicated choice because he
has to leave Jo in England. We hope he fulfills his promise to her, but this is
Bogart and I think we know what will happen. We meet up with Matt again after
the war working as a pilot trainer until he has a chance meeting with Leland
Willis, the head of Willis Aviation, that leads to a job as test pilot working
on developing jets for the Defense Department. Willis is played by Raymond
Massey as the semi-villain of the film. Carl is working for Willis and is also
now involved with Jo. The Matt, Jo, Carl love triangle is resolved, but tension
arrives in the rivalry between Matt and Carl as they each work on projects to
create a safe, fast jet.
Bogart
is good playing Bogart and this role is no exception. He does have genuine
chemistry with Eleanor Parker playing the girl who never fell out of love with him.
While this is by no means a Bogart classic, it is certainly a small gem in his
film career. Massey is good as the businessman who is willing to risk lives in
order to succeed and Whorf is a bit too predictable as the third part of the
love triangle and works hard to be the opposite of Bogart.
The
movie is chockfull of WWII aviation footage which is integrated well into the
story,including the crash landing in the early part of the movie. There is also
pretty good model work later as we see Bogart piloting the jets and he’s seen
at the controls in a studio cockpit and models used for the new jet attempting
to break a cross- continent flight record.
The
film was directed by Stuart Heisler, who had a career working on mostly B-movie
dramas and thrillers, though he had a few stand-outs like “The Biscuit Eater”
in 1940, “The Glass Key” in 1942, “Storm Warning” in 1950 and “Tokyo Joe” from
1949, the first of two movies with Bogart. Bogart’s filmography is filled with
classics, duds and those in between like “Chain Lightning.” Eleanor Parker
appeared in many movies, sometimes as the lead, throughout the 50s and early
60s. Raymond Massey was great at playing heavies and semi-villainous roles with
occasional heroic figures such as Abraham Lincoln. Richard Whorf is a bit of an
enigma for me, featuring in mostly B-movies and never quite reaching leading
man status.
Released in 1950 with
a flight time of 95 minutes, the movie looks and sounds terrific on this
region-free Blu-ray upgrade from the previous DVD release. Extras on the disc include the
animated “Bear Feat,” the Joe McDoakes comedy short film “So You Want to Be an
Actor” and the trailer for the film. The movie is recommended for Bogart fans
and aviation movie enthusiasts.
Imprint, the Australian video label, has released a region-free Blu-ray set, "Tales of Adventure Collection #2" consisting of four jungle-based action films: "Safari", Elephant Walk", "Fair Wind to Java" and "Angel of the Amazon". This is a limited edition set of 1,500 units.
BRING HOME ALL OF YOUR FAVORITE HILARIOUS
CHRISTMAS EPISODES
IN ONE BRAND NEW JOLLY COLLECTION
THE
OFFICE:
COMPLETE
CHRISTMAS COLLECTION
FROM
UNIVERSAL PICTURES HOME ENTERTAINMENT
AVAILABLE
ON BLU-RAYTM & DVD
SYNOPSIS:Come join
Dunder Mifflin for a holiday celebration like no other with The Office:
Complete Christmas Collection! Developed by Primetime Emmy Award winner
Greg Daniels, relive all 7 of the wackiest workplace holiday episodes in TV history.
Featuring “Christmas Party”, “A Benihana Christmas”, “Moroccan Christmas”,
“Secret Santa”, “Classy Christmas”, “Christmas Wishes” and “Dwight Christmas”,
‘tis the season for non-stop laughs.
SYNOPSIS:Come join
Dunder Mifflin for a holiday celebration like no other with The Office:
Complete Christmas Collection! Developed by Primetime Emmy Award winner
Greg Daniels, relive all 7 of the wackiest workplace holiday episodes in TV history.
Featuring “Christmas Party”, “A Benihana Christmas”, “Moroccan Christmas”,
“Secret Santa”, “Classy Christmas”, “Christmas Wishes” and “Dwight Christmas”,
‘tis the season for non-stop laughs.
EPISODES:
Christmas
Party – Holiday cheer is in short supply when Michael
insists on doing a last-minute swap of Secret Santa gifts, and Jim becomes
alarmed that his sweet and sentimental gift for Pam will end up in Dwight’s
hands.
A
Benihana Christmas – It’s a time for joy and goodwill toward others,
but the staff is feeling none of it as Michael deals with a broken heart and
Angela and Pam create rival Christmas parties.
Moroccan
Christmas – It’s time for the annual Christmas party and a
drunken Meredith gets into the holiday spirit by setting her hair on fire.
Secret
Santa – Michael is outraged when Jim allows Phyllis to be
Santa at the Christmas party, where holiday spirits are dampened by the
company’s troubles. Meanwhile, Andy’s Secret Santa gifts to Erin backfire and
Oscar has a secret crush.
Classy
Christmas – Toby takes a leave of absence and corporate sends
Holly to cover for him; Michael forces Pam to hold a second Christmas party on
the day Holly arrives; Dwight challenges Jim to a snowball fight.
Christmas
Wishes – Andy tries to make this year’s Christmas the best
ever by granting each person’s holiday wishes; Robert California tries to drown
his sorrows at the office party.
Dwight
Christmas – When the party planning committee drops the ball
on the annual Christmas party, Dwight gets everyone to celebrate with a
traditional Schrute German Christmas.
BONUS
FEATURES:
Audio
Commentaries
“Christmas Party” Commentary with Jenna Fischer, B.J. Novak, Kate
Flannery, David Denman, Editor Dave Rogers, Writer Mike Schur and Executive
Producer Greg Daniels
“Moroccan Christmas” Commentary with Kate Flannery, Angela Kinsey, and
Brian Baumgartner
“Secret Santa” Commentary with Mindy Kaling, Ellie Kemper, and Claire
Scanlon
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray collection: ""Columbo: The 1970s, Seasons 1-7"
Here are the details:
"Columbo" is the landmark series that set the standard for the
murder mystery genre. Remastered in 4K by Universal, "Columbo: The 1970s"
includes the first seven seasons of this enduring classic on Blu-ray!
Starring Peter Falk in his four-time Emmy-winning role as the
cigar-chomping, trenchcoat-wearing police lieutenant.
Special Features: • Restored in 4K by Universal Pictures • Includes the 1968 Movie-of-the-Week "Prescription: Murder" and the 1971 Pilot "Ransom for a Dead Man" • Shorter 71-Minute Cut of "ÉTUDE IN BLACK" • Optional Music and Effects Tracks for All Episodes • Episode Guide Booklet • Newly Commissioned Slipcase Cover Illustration by Tony Stella • Optional English Subtitles
This Season 6 episode of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In features guest star John Wayne, who at one point is dressed as the Easter Bunny. There's also an abundance of politically incorrect humor that would never be broadcast today. Click here to view.
Here's your chance to enjoy season one of the classic TV series "The Saint" starring Roger Moore. Shout! TV is making all of the episodes available for free streaming. Click here to view.
The
film classic that put director Bernardo Bertolucci on the map outside of Italy
was 1970’s The Conformist, hailed by the arthouse cinema circuit as one
of the masterpieces of international filmmaking in that decade.
An
Italian-French-West German co-production, The Conformist was filmed in
Italy and France and stars celebrated French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, who
made several pictures in Italy along with the many in his native country.
Although Trintignant could speak Italian, he was almost always dubbed by an
Italian actor in these pictures; in fact, all Italian movies of the era were
usually dubbed in post-production. Luckily, the dubbing here is quite good
because at least Trintignant is mouthing the correct Italian language dialogue.
This
is a gorgeous-looking movie, often cited as a groundbreaker in cinematography.
Vittorio Storaro made his name with the picture, just as Bertolucci did.
Francis Ford Coppola allegedly used The Conformist as the “look” he was
going for when he made The Godfather. Storaro is one of only three
people who have won the Best Cinematography Oscar three times (he won for Apocalypse
Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor, another Bertolucci title).
This
is reason alone to view the film today. The content is perhaps a little too
attached to the time period in which it was made, in that the editing and
narrative flow of the movie is somewhat experimental with its use of flashbacks
and time-jumping that filmmakers liked to play with in those days. As a result,
the first half of The Conformist takes some getting used to (and is, at
first, difficult to follow), but the second half is riveting. The subject
matter is also extremely political in that it is a psychological character
study of a man torn between the desire to fit in and to do what is right within
the context of the socio-political climate of his time.
It’s
1930s Italy, during Mussolini’s reign. Trintignant is Marcello, a wannabe
social climber… but to do so, he must during those years be a member of
Mussolini’s party and, well, a fascist. Most of his friends are members of the
party, as is his closest pal, a blind man named Italo (José
Quaglio). In 1938, Marcello accepts the assignment to assassinate his former
college professor, Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), a staunch anti-fascist living
in Paris with his wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda). Marcello marries Giulia
(Stefania Sandrelli), a pretty girl who is naïve and rather common, in an
attempt to be “more like ‘normal’ people.” Marcello disguises his true purpose
on the trip to Paris by bringing along Giulia, and he is shadowed by his
handler, Agent Manganiello (Gastone Moschin, recognizable to Western audiences
as Don Fanucci from The Godfather Part II). Once in Paris, Marcello and
Giulia enjoy social gatherings with the Quadris, and there is some eyebrow-raising
hanky-panky that occurs between Anna and not only Marcello, but also Giulia!
(The seductive dance between Anna and Giulia at a party is a highlight of the
movie, and stills from the sequence dominated its marketing.) In the meantime,
Marcello is struggling with his assignment. Thrown into his head torment is the
trauma he suffered back in 1917, when as a boy he was molested by a young man.
There
is a lot going on within the characters’ psyches in The Conformist. It
is a rich, deeply layered motion picture that asks many questions and provides
few answers. Some sequences were shocking in 1970 and are still disturbing
today. This is potent cinema, providing the early evidence that Bertolucci was
a formidable artist who would push the envelope.
The
RARO Cinema Art Blu-ray edition (from RAROvideousa.com, distributed by Kino
Lorber) is a 2-disk set. The first disk contains a new stunning 4K restoration
from the original camera negative. This is accompanied by an audio commentary
by film critic Bilge Ebiri. The second disk is the 2011 HD restoration that
both Bertolucci and Storaro worked on. The inclusion of the second disk feature
is curious since the new restoration is far, far superior and should be the
go-to viewing. It appears that the second, older version is simply there for
comparison.
Supplements
spread over the two disks include an interview with Valentina Ricciardelli, the
president of the Bernardo Bertolucci Foundation; an hour-long documentary, “In
the Shade of The Conformist”; and trailers of the film from 1970, 2014,
and 2023.
The
Conformist is
for fans of Bernardo Bertolucci, Vittorio Storaro, Jean-Louis Trintignant,
international cinema, and political films.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
On November 28th, Arrow Video brings
director Roger Vadim’s Barbarella to 4K UHD and Blu-ray with a brand
new, eye-popping 4K restoration from the original negative. The film is based
on the scandalous international comic book and stars Jane Fonda as a
beautiful and intrepid cosmic adventurer. The story follows space vixen,
Barbarella, as she engages in sexy, interplanetary romps while trying to stop
the evil Durand Durand (Milo O'Shea) from using the ultimate weapon of
mass destruction he’s created. Featuring actors John Phillip Law, Marcel
Marceau, David Hemmings, Claude Dauphin, and Anita
Pallenberg, and an out-of-this-world ‘60s pop visual style, Barbarella
is a feast for the eyes in 4K UHD.
The two-disc 4K UHD Blu-ray and Blu-ray
limited edition bonus content includes a reversible sleeve and a fold-out
poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tula Lotay; six
double-sided collector’s postcards; an illustrated collector’s booklet
featuring new writing on the film by Anne Billson, Paul Gravett, Véronique
Bergen and Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, and select archival material.
Both discs are loaded with bonus
content, including audio commentaries, featurettes, interviews, trailers, image
galleries and more.
Click here for full details and to order from Amazon
RETRO-ACTIVE: MEMORABLE ARTICLES FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
By
Hank Reineke
In September of 2021 I attended Manhattan’s Quad Cinema screening
of Thomas Hamilton’s affectionate documentary Boris Karloff: the Man Behind the Monster.As a life-long fan of the actor - and the
owner of dozens of books examining the actor’s career in film, stage and radio
- this was the sort of career-spanning appraisal I was hoping to someday
see.Then, only a few weeks following
that theatrical screening, Cinema Retro
was provided a stream of the doc for critical review.This enabled me to watch the film a second
time, revisiting bits of commentary I had missed or recalled only hazily.At the time the stream was provided to Cinema Retro, it was still uncertain if Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster
would be offered on physical media.That
question was answered in October 2022 when the film became available as a two-disc
combo Blu ray/DVD set from Voltage Films/Abramorama.
In the sixteen-page booklet that’s included in the set, director
Hamilton advises both he and scripter Ronald MacCloskey originally envisioned
their Karloff doc as a bold “4-hour, 2-part film or a 6 part miniseries.”They certainly had enough material to do so,
with a reported 60+ hours of interviews involving no fewer than fifty-five
subjects.And, that sixty hours of
recorded interviews, of course, didn’t include the footage gleaned from
Karloff’s fabled filmography.
While you’re not going to find some sixty-odd hours of
extras on this release,the set does suggest that it offers an expanded
director’s cut (titled on packaging - but not on the film itself - as Boris Karloff: The Rest of the Story).This is a bit curious.The version screened theatrically at the Quad
ran 103 minutes – at least as per its billing at the cinema.The
Rest of the Story disc runs one hour and forty-three minutes.Which, if my math skills haven’t failed,
equals the same 103 minutes of running time.
Of course the new set does feature two additional bonus
selections.The first, Meeting Boris Karloff, is, truthfully,
not a terribly essential addition, but not uninteresting.It’s an offering of fourteen minutes of interview/commentary
by three figures a bit tangential to Karloff’s legend.Of the trio, author and film historian Kevin
Brownlow shares his reminisce of his November 1964 interview with Karloff.He recalls Karloff as an interesting
interviewee – one who wasn’t remiss to take issue or correct erroneous information
found in the press clippings Brownlow had collected.But he noted Karloff always challenged misinformation
in a gentlemanly manner.
Andrew Pratt, described as a “great nephew” of the actor,
then shyly recounts his one and only meeting with his great uncle.He credits that meeting as inspiration to
pursue a career in film art direction – a career that would earn him a number
of nominations and awards from the Academy, BAFTA, and the Art Directors
Guild.The last subject interviewed was
Anthony Bilbow, a television host of BBC-2’s Late Night Line-Up. His only real connection to Karloff was when
the actor was a guest on the program, September of 1968.He recalls Karloff as a gentleman kind and
warm, modest and self-effacing – but not in a “counterfeit” sort of way.
The final bonus feature of the set is a three-minute
interview with the co-scriptwriter of Boris
Karloff: the Man Behind the Monster, Ron MacCloskey.This New Jersey-based writer and comedian
fell under Karloff’s spell at age seven, having caught Frankenstein on a late night TV telecast.A collector of Frankenstein memorabilia,
MacCloskey’s interest in Karloff’s work proved lifelong and ultimately led to
his teaming with director Thomas Hamilton to start shooting this documentary in
2018.
If the doc itself is truly an expanded version of the original,
it doesn’t really change or radically alter anything presented in the
theatrical cut.I’m more than willing to
stand corrected if indeed, the doc is offered here in an expanded form.My frame-by-frame memories of those 2021
screenings are all a bit hazy now, so I can’t say with any certainty if extra
footage/commentary was included.But, if
you missed it the first time, I’ll tack on my original “streaming” review of
October of 2021.I very much enjoyed the
doc on its original run and my opinion of its merit has not changed at all.Read on, should you wish:
There’s a telling moment at the dénouement of Thomas
Hamilton’s and Ron MacCloskey’s affectionate documentary Boris Karloff: The Man behind the Monster.Sara Karloff, the now eighty-two year old daughter
of the beloved actor, opines that her father’s lasting cinematic legacy is due,
in part, to the tenaciousness of his devoted fan base.It’s a demographic that we soon discover
consists of a number of amazingly creative people: folks whose loyalty to and
enthusiasm for Karloff’s work has not wavered over the decades.Sara’s contention is inarguably true.As this ninety-nine minute Voltage
Films/Abramorama documentary unspools – crisply narrated by Paul Ryan and
featuring commentary by preeminent Karloff scholar and “Biographical
Consultant” Stephen Jacobs - we discover the actor’s admirer’s bridge several
generations of fans and filmmakers.
The first generation to discover Karloff in the decades
following his big splash as the Frankenstein monster in 1931, include directors
Roger Corman and Peter Bogdanovich.Both
men would have the opportunity and honor to work with the actor in his twilight
years.The second generation of admirers
were those introduced to Karloff via neighborhood cinema screenings or through
television broadcasts of Shock Theater
in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
These filmmakers, profoundly influenced by Karloff’s art,
would go on to create a few cinematic gems of their own:John Landis, Joe Dante, and Guillermo Del
Toro, to name a few.The latter
gentleman is particularly effusive in his praise, describing Karloff’s
performance as the vampiric Wurdalak
in Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath as a
“tremendous” example of the great actor’s “physical presence, his majesty, his
demonic power.”
If the documentary is chock-full of talented filmmakers offering
tributes, the film is also supported by the erudite commentaries of film
scholars David J. Skal (The Monster Show:
a Cultural History of Horror), Gregory W. Mank (Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: the Expanded Story of a Haunting
Collaboration), Donald F. Glut (The
Frankenstein Legend: a tribute to Mary Shelley and Boris Karloff), Sir
Christopher Frayling (Frankenstein: the
first Two Hundred Years), and critic Leonard Maltin.
There are also short tributes and reminisces by several
actors – three now gone - who had worked with Karloff at some point in their
career: Dick Miller (The Terror),
Christopher Plummer (The Lark, Even the Weariest River), Ian Ogilvy (The Sorcerers), and Orson Bean (Arsenic and Old Lace).Karloff’s tells part of his own story through
audio recordings made available to the filmmakers courtesy of the British cinema
historian/author Kevin Brownlow (The
Parades Gone By…) and the Pacifica Radio Archive.
It has long annoyed me that when one searches out the
term “Boris Karloff” in the ever-expanding IMDB, the resulting prompt
identifies the actor’s signature film as The
Grinch that Stole Christmas (1966).My daughters would remind me that my personal agitation of this result is,
by definition, a “first world” problem, one hardly worthy of condemnation.But as cinema’s preeminent boogeyman for four
decades, seeing Karloff’s storied career reduced to a role featuring only his
disembodied voice as the Grinch… Well, let’s just say that I still find it somewhat
misleading and inappropriate.
Be that as it may, Hamilton’s film reminds Karloff
himself might disagree with my wariness of the Grinch being bandied as the
cinematic crown jewel of the actor’s legacy.Sara Karloff recalls receiving a phone call from her father immediately
following his recording of the narration for that beloved Dr. Seuss vehicle.The actor we learn was profoundly happy with
his work on the now-famous animated holiday classic, telling his daughter
proudly, “I’ve done something which I think is pretty good.”
Karloff would pass away a couple of years following the
first broadcast of The Grinch that Stole
Christmas, but he worked to the very end of his days, appearing in a number
of memorable – and a few less-than-memorable – films, several of which would see
release in years following his passing.His last films were little more than cameo-length appearances shot on a
Hollywood sound stage.It was director
Jack Hill’s idea to take the Karloff footage from these shoots and blend the
results into a series of Mexican horror films.
Karloff, rightly and proudly, would choose to refer to
his spell-binding turn as the semi-autobiographical aging horror film actor Byron
Orlok in Bogdanovich’s Targets (1968)
as his feature film swan song.Technically,
it wasn’t.But the brief appearances in that
post- Target series of Hollywood-Mexico
co-production mash-ups were mostly an excuse for an old pro to continue to ply
his trade and keep busy.But working
oxygen-tank dependent and wheelchair bound on the Jack Hill-directed sequences,
Karloff was prevented from doing much of anything with the already somewhat
cut-and-paste material given to him.
Karloff, of course, was not the only “horror film” star
of the genre’s celebrated Golden Age of the 1930s and 40s. Karloff, we learn, was actually not happy with
the designation “horror movie”, much preferring his films to be termed as
“thrillers” or “shock” pictures. His contemporary competitor as grand ghoul of
the horror film - one whose own legacy would burn bright into the next century -
was Bela Lugosi.Although Lugosi had too
often played second-fiddle to Karloff in matters of employment and billing, the
Hungarian’s post-mortem fame may have eclipsed his friend’s star over the last few
decades.
For starters, Lugosi’s sad and lurid dependency on morphine
and alcohol in his final years made him the subject of tabloid fodder, and
gossip then – and now – still rules.Lugosi’s
slow demise coupled with his appearances in several of Edward J. Wood’s revered
cult films brought him a big degree of post-mortem fame.A brand new generation would discover the
actor through Martin Landau’s Oscar-winning turn as Lugosi in Tim Burton’s
semi-biographical drama Ed Wood.
To be fair, Lugosi’s string of mad performances in Wood’s
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), Bride of the Monster (1955), and Glen or Glenda (1953) are, in many ways,
were no less better or worse or more undistinguished than Karloff’s walk-ons in
the creaky Jack Hill/Mexi-horror films of spring 1968. Though both sets of films are passably
entertaining in their own uneven, cult-ish ways, both actor’s cinematic exits
were ignoble ends to these two great men who famously made audiences shiver in
1931.
James Whale’s Frankenstein
would ultimately transform Karloff into a full-fledged movie star, but it had
been a long road to achieving such fame.The actor had been working on various Hollywood backlots since the
silent era.In the course of his
earliest silent film efforts – beginning with such titles as The Lightning Raider (1919) and His Majesty, the American (1919) – he
worked as little more than an extra.His
subsequent fame would cause a score of budding film historians to carefully
survey battered old prints of Karloff’s earliest filmography in the often
futile hope of catching a glimpse as he passed by the camera.
In truth, his decade-long career as a silent film actor
was mostly non consequential.He would
appear in approximately sixty or so silent films between 1919 and 1929.He would, on occasion, be gifted a role of
some heft, most notably as that of “The Mesmerist” in The Bells (1926) opposite Lionel Barrymore, but he was most often
cast in adventure-orientated serials as a heavy, or as a Hindu, Mexican or an Arab,
a mystic or a general ne’er-do-well.
It was his casting as the sadistic “Galloway” in Howard
Hawk’s sound prison drama The Criminal
Code (1930) that brought him to the attention of Universal executives
looking to cast a suitably cadaverous-appearing actor as the Frankenstein
monster.Following Lugosi’s rejection of
the part due to the absence of dialogue afforded, Bela’s pass on the role was
fortuitous for Karloff.He was still hungry
and looking for that big break.Although
the role of the monster would forever typecast him, the actor remained forever
grateful for having taking the role in Frankenstein,
once describing the career door-opening creature as “the best friend I ever
had.”
It’s not hard to see why Karloff’s portrayal of the
monster remains the preeminent of the Universal series.He was, after all, the only actor to have
been given the opportunity to actually act and emote, to bring a sense of pathos
to the role.He was abetted, of course,
by Jack Pierce’s iconic make-up which, rather than masking, cannily sculpted
and made highlight of Karloff’s facial features and sunken cheeks.This gave the monster, according to one of
the participants in the documentary, a “full expression range.”The trio of actors who would subsequently
portray the monster in the Universal series simply weren’t given the
opportunity to apply any emotive effect of their own.Even by Son
of Frankenstein (1939), the third film in the series, the screenwriters had
already reduced the monster into little more than a hulking, lumbering menace
and henchman.
It is discouraging to learn that when Frankenstein had its gala premiere in
the autumn of 1931, Karloff was not even invited to attend.He was already forty-four years of age when
he assumed the role, a no-name celebrity and hardly a handsome matinee idol of
any recognition.The unexpected
phenomenal success of Frankenstein
would change all that, and Universal was quick to capitalize on the actor’s
sudden notoriety as Hollywood’s most beloved boogeyman.Karloff’s natural proclivity for taking on
roles of menacing villainous characters with icy stares would allow his casting
into a string of Golden Age horror classics – not only for Universal but for
other studios as well, including memorable turn in MGM’s The Mask of Fu Manchu.The
latter remains a great, entertaining film… if undeniably one of the most
politically-incorrect lavish big studio productions of the 1930s.
When the market for horror films softened in the
mid-1940s – thanks, in part, due to the horror genre’s continuing perceived transgressions
of the Hays Code - Karloff easily transitioned to character roles, where,
according to his daughter, her father’s natural “dark coloring,” permitted him
to slip easily into “ethnic roles.”As
one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild, he was able to exercise his
freelance status by working for, amongst others, RKO, Columbia, Monogram, and
Warner Bros.
Another avenue of opportunity had presented itself around
this same time.In 1941 Karloff was
lured, against his better judgement according to this film, to take on the Broadway
role of the villainous Jonathan Brewster in Joseph L. Kesselring’s stage play Arsenic and Old Lace.It was to his life-long disappointment that a
clause in his theatrical stage contract prevented his returning to Hollywood –
as did several fellow members of the original Broadway cast – to reprise the
role for the much beloved Frank Capra film adaptation of 1944.
Though initially frightened to work in theatre before a
live audience, the success of Arsenic
emboldened Karloff to accept several other roles in such Broadway productions as
The Lark (with Julie Harris), The Linden Tree, The Shop at Sly Corner, and even in a memorable turn as Captain
Hook in a 1950 production of Peter Pan.Fortunately, we of a certain age who missed
out still can get a small taste of what we missed since kinescopes survive from
early Hallmark Hall of Fame
broadcasts of the original production of The
Lark and a 1961 re-staging of Arsenic
and Old Lace.
Though Karloff’s work in radio is mostly ignored in this
documentary, the film does take pains to point out that he was among the first
movie stars of his generation to fully embrace television.Though he would often appear in serious
televisions drams for such programs as Texaco
Star Theater or Playhouse 90, he
was not above spoofing his own curious fame as Hollywood’s grandest ghoul on
any number of variety programs hosted by the likes of Red Skelton or Dinah
Shore.
(Stefanie Powers and Robert Vaughn with Karloff in "The Mother Muffin Affair" on "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." (Photo: Cinema Retro Archives)
In the 1960s, he would famously host (and occasionally
act) in episodes of the television program Thriller,
or appear in drag as “Mother Muffin” in an episode of The Girl from U.N.C.L.E – or with former U.N.C.L.E. agent Robert
Vaughn in the spy-film The Venetian
Affair (1966).Joe Dante also
references the series of wonderful long-playing albums Karloff would record
over the years, his unmistakable, lisping voice introducing children to a wonderful
selection of folk tales, ghost stories, Washington Irving classics, and
time-worn fables.
Boris
Karloff: the Man behind the Monster reminds us that the actor (1887-1969)
accomplished a lot in his eighty-one-years, a large percentage of which would
encompass appearances on screen, on stage, on air, on record, and on
television.To their credit, the
filmmakers share what they can in the constraint of the film’ ninety-nine
minute running time, and the film certainly succeeds as an excellent
primer.Karloff wonks like myself might
hold out hope that a multi-part, Ken Burns-style series might someday be put
into the works, but I imagine that’s unlikely.One hundred and thirty four years have passed since Karloff’s birth.The fact that contemporary audiences remain completely
entranced by his filmography in 2021 is testament enough to the worthiness of
this loving tribute painting him as one of Hollywood’s greatest.
Supernatural Horror Classic, The
Devil’s Partner (1961) Newly Restored 4K Special Edition
Includes Newly Restored Bonus
Film, Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961)
On Blu-ray & DVD Jan. 16th
Special Features Includes New Interview With Roger Corman
ROCKPORT, Mass. — January 2024 — For Immediate Release — Vintage film restoration and distribution company Film Masters continues its tribute to the pope of pop cinema, Roger Corman, with the third installment of The Filmgroup series on Blu-ray and DVD, The Devil’s Partner, available Jan. 16.
Corman and his brother, Gene, founded The Filmgroup to distribute their own films. While the company did produce the majority of its films, including the cult classic Creature From the Haunted Sea, it also occasionally acquired projects by other filmmakers, as is the case with The Devil's Partner (1961). From director Charles R. Rondeau, the film is a macabre tale of an elderly man who regains his youth after making a deal with the devil.During the summer and fall of 1961, the two films were often paired as a double feature.
Half Man, Half Beast, He Sold his Soul for Passion — Director/actor Edgar Buchanan (best known as Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction)
appears in this supernatural thriller about an old codger trying to
reclaim his youth, employing black magic to lure a woman away from his
rival. The film also stars Jean Allison,Richard Crane and Ed Nelson.
This well-crafted, independent feature has been hailed for its
atmosphere and as a pioneering film in the devil worshiping subgenre
made popular in the ‘70s.
Made in 1958, The Devil’s Partnerlanguished with no release date until it was picked up and distributed by The Filmgroup, becoming a steady presence on the drive-in circuit, often appearing in tandem with Creature from Haunted Sea, another Corman classic from the golden age of drive-in schlock.
This spoof of spy/gangsters/monster movies stars Anthony Carbone
as a gangster and smuggler who decides to kill members of the ship’s
bungling crew and blame their deaths on a legendary sea creature. What
he doesn’t know is that the creature is actually out there!Also starring Betsy Jones-Moreland and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown) under the pseudonym Edward Wain.
?
The film was conceived when Corman finished shooting The Last Woman on Earth in Puerto Rico and discovered he had enough film left over to make another film. He enlisted long-time associate Charles B. Griffith,
who—legend goes—had six days to write the script. Ever the pragmatist
when it came to budget, Corman recruited locals to appear in this film
as extras.
Special Features:Commentary for The Devil’s Partner is by Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan and Matt Weinhold of the Monster Party podcast; theatrical-length commentary for Creature From the Haunted Sea
is by fan favorite Tom Weaver, with contributions from Roger Corman,
Kinta Zertuche and Larry Blamire. Weaver also provides the liner notes
for the film. Ballyhoo Motion Picturescontributes Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story
with Part III of the story, as well as their new interview with Roger
Corman on the formation of The Filmgroup; recut trailers, based on the
original theatrical trailers; original Creature From the Haunted Sea theatrical trailer (from 16mm archival elements scanned in 4k); and a full essay for The Devil’s Partner by author Mark McGee.
Both films are presented with a theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, as well as in a 1.37:1 television format. The televised version of Creature From the Haunted Seaincludes anadditional
15 minutes of footage shot years later to extend the film for a sale to
Allied Artists. Discs are region free and include English SDH.Audio is DTS-HD/Dolby AC3s.
"Young Billy Young" is the kind of film of which it can be said, "They don't make 'em like that anymore". Not because the movie is so exceptional. In fact, it isn't exceptional on any level whatsoever. Rather, it's the sheer ordinariness of the entire production that makes one pine away for an era in which top talent could be attracted to enjoyable, if unremarkable, fare such as this. Such films, especially Westerns, were churned out with workmanlike professionalism to play to undemanding audiences that didn't require mega-budget blockbusters to feel they got their money's worth at the boxoffice. Sadly, such movies have largely gone the way of the dodo bird. In today's film industry, bigger must always be better and mid-range flicks such as are no longer made. However, through streaming services such as ScreenPix, it's possible to still enjoy the simple pleasures that such movies provide. (The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is now out of print.)
The story opens with botched robbery in Mexico committed by Billy Young (Robert Walker) and some cohorts including Jesse (David Carradine). The plan to steal horses from the Mexican military goes awry and Billy is forced to split from his fellow robbers with the army in hot pursuit. Making his way back across the border to New Mexico, he is penniless and desperate. He has a chance encounter with Ben Kane (Robert Mitchum), a tough, sarcastic older man who he encounters again in a nearby town. Here, Billy is being cheated at cards by the local sheriff, who goads him into a gunfight. Billy ends up killing him but stands to be framed for the sheriff's death. He's saved by Ben, who rides along with him to another town where Ben has agreed to take on the job of lawman. Ostensibly he is there to keep order and collect back taxes from deadbeats but in reality, he is on a mission of revenge. Some years before, Ben's son had been gunned down by a criminal named Boone (John Anderson) and Kane has learned that Boone is a presence in the new town and that he is being protected by a local corrupt businessman, John Behan (Jack Kelly). Ben makes his presence known immediately by enforcing the law in a strict manner. He's confronted by Behan, who tries to intimidate him. This results in Behan being slapped around by Kane. Behan also grows to resent the new lawman because he is flirting with his mistress, saloon entertainer Lily Beloit (Angie Dickinson). When Behan abuses her as punishment, he gets another beating from Kane. Meanwhile, Billy runs into Jesse and accuses him of having deserted him in Mexico. The two men fight it out and Jesse is later involved with the accidental shooting of the town's beloved doctor while in the employ of Behan. Kane learns that Jesse is Boone's son and holds him in jail as bait for Boone to come out of hiding. The plan works all too well. Boone turns up with a small army and lays siege to the jailhouse where Kane and Billy are holed up.
"Young Billy Young" was compared to a TV show by New York Times critic Howard Thompson on the basis that it contains so many standard elements of westerns from this time period. There is the bad girl with the heart of gold, the evil business tycoon, the brash young gun and his wiser, older mentor, the heroes outnumbered by superior forces and a lovable old coot (played against type by Paul Fix in full Walter Brennan/Gabby Hayes mode.) Yet somehow it all works very well, thanks mostly to Robert Mitchum's stalwart presence. With his trademark ramrod stiff walk and cool persona, Mitchum tosses off bon mots like a frontier version of 007. Even the Times acknowledged that "Mitchum can do laconic wonders with a good wise-crack". He has considerable chemistry with Dickinson, though the action between the sheets is more implied than shown. Robert Walker Jr. acquits himself well in the title role and David Carradine makes an impression even with limited screen time. The film was directed by Burt Kennedy, an old hand at directing fine westerns in reliable, if not remarkable, style and it all culminates in a rip-snorting shoot-out that is genuinely exciting. The fine supporting cast includes Willis Bouchey, Parley Baer and Deanna Martin (Dino's daughter) in her acting debut. One oddball element to the film: Mitchum croons the title song over the opening credits. If this sounds strange, keep in mind that Mitchum improbably once had a hit album of calypso music.
The film is currently streaming on ScreenPix, which is available to Amazon Prime customers for $2.99 a month.
RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES
By Lee Pfeiffer
There has been a very positive response to Cinema Retro's coverage of
"B" WWII movies in some of our back issues. Writer Howard Hughes concentrated on the films produced by Oakmont Productions, the
British-based company that financed and released such modestly-budgeted
gems as Attack on the Iron Coast, The Thousand Plane Raid, Hell Boats,
and Mosquito Squadron. These films had no lofty pretenses of being
potential Oscar winners. Instead, they were made simply to generate a
modest profit. However, they tended to be intelligently scripted and
well-directed and acted, with showcase roles afforded to stars who
didn't usually get top-billing (Lloyd Bridges, Christopher George, David
McCallum). The 1970 film Underground was not an Oakmont production but
is largely indistinguishable from the company's catalog of titles. It
stars Robert Goulet as Dawson, an embittered American agent for military
intelligence who is based in England. Dawson is wracked by guilt
because his mission behind German lines in occupied France ended
disastrously. Both he and his fellow agent (his wife) were captured.
Dawson, under extreme torture, revealed his wife's true identity and she
suffered a horrendous death at the hands of the Gestapo. Dawson managed
to escape and make his way back to England, though how he achieved this
remarkable feat is glossed over in the script. The film opens with
Dawson bluffing his way aboard a plane carrying a fellow agent on a new
mission over occupied France. Dawson, who is determined to atone for his
previous failure by taking on this mission himself, disables the agent
and parachutes in his place to meet his contacts in the French
Resistance. His French underground colleagues find him to be a bitter,
unpleasant man and it isn't long before they realize that he is an
imposter for their real contact. Nevertheless, Dawson persuades them to
let him carry out the important mission which involves kidnapping a high
profile German general who has vital intelligence information and
bringing him back to England. Dawon's team is headed by Boule (Lawrence
Dobkin), a headstrong and valiant man who frequently locks horns with
Dobson over strategy. The team also includes Yvonne (Daniele Gaubert), a
beautiful agent who is Boule's wife. Complications ensue when Dawson
shows his more human side and he and Yvonne secretly become lovers.
Underground is the kind of film that often receives the backhanded
praise of benefiting from "workmanlike" efficiency from its stars and
director Arthur H. Nadel. Yet, like the Oakmont productions, it probably
plays better in today's era of overblown, CGI-stuffed action movies
than it did at the time of its initial release. The film is tightly
scripted and the plan to capture the German general is straight out of a
top-of-the-line Mission: Impossible episode. The movie was shot on
location in Ireland but the countryside passes convincingly for France.
Goulet, grim and determined, makes for an impressive leading man and
there are fine turns by Lawrence Dobkin and Carl Duering, who is
impressive as the German general who adds a clever plot twist to the
story line. Like most of these WWII mini "epics" of the period, the
production team manages to make the film look far more expensive than it
probably was. The action sequences are exciting and well-staged,
particularly a climactic shootout as Dawson awaits the arrival of a
British plane on a makeshift runway as German forces close in on him and
his team.
Underground has been released by MGM as a region-free DVD with a rather bland cover design instead of the terrific original poster artwork. Transfer quality is very good but there are no bonus extras.
If there is such thing as a family-oriented sex farce, the 1969 hit "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell" fits the description. The delightful concoction stars Gina Lollobrigida as Carla Campbell, a vivacious woman of relative wealth who lives in a modest Italian village. She is known for her rather upscale lifestyle that includes a live-in maid, Rosa (Naomi Stevens) and the fact that she can afford to send her 18 year-old daughter to a fancy American university in Switzerland. Life is very pleasing for Carla, who is known for using her money for charitable purposes. She has told everyone that she came by her wealth when her husband, an American officer named Captain Campbell died in action during WWII. She tells a moving tale about how she married him when he took shelter at her house when she was only 16 years old. They fell in love, married and had only a few days together before he was shipped out and killed in battle. During their brief marriage, she became pregnant with their daughter Gia (Janet Margolin), who is now far more American than Italian in her speech and mannerisms. Carla claims that her financial security comes from her late husband's family in America, which has been kind enough to send ample checks every month to provide for her and Gia. Carla also has her own boy toy, hunky Vittorio (Philippe Leroy in a very amusing performance), who oversees her small wine business. As with most Italian lovers depicted in comedies of this period, the two spend a good deal of time verbally sparring with each other but every time one of them threatens to leave, the other uses sex as lure to get her/him back.
A crisis erupts one fine morning when Carla discovers the town is preparing to host a reunion of American airmen who were stationed there during the war. Turns out she has been living a lie. She confides to Rosa and Vittorio that there had never been a "Captain Campbell" who she married. In fact, she created him out of thin air to cover the fact she was pregnant and took the name from a can of Campbell's soup! In reality, three different airmen had been housed with her family during the same week. As one moved out, another moved in...and she had relations with each of them. At the war's end, she was not certain which of them was the real father of her baby so she wrote to each man and told him he was the father. The three men all believed that he was her only lover and dutifully and secretly sent checks to Carla over a period of twenty years, continuing the practice even after they married and had kids of their own. Now the three ex-G.I.'s are coming to town and will expect to slip away from their spouses and see Carla. Making matters worse, Gia has heard about the reunion and has made a surprise return from school in order to meet the men of her father's fighting unit. All the set pieces are now firmly in place for a traditional Italian farce. There is a script flaw in that the film should be taking place some years earlier, as the age of some of the characters doesn't add up. Also, as the movie was released in 1968, why are the Americans visiting Italy to celebrate their 20th anniversary reunion? That would mean they were in the country three years after the war ended.
The three men who think they are Gia's father are a diverse lot. Justin Young (Peter Lawford) is an aristocratic playboy who is accompanied by his long-suffering wife Lauren (Marian Moses), who can barely endure his constant womanizing. She correctly assumes that he intends to hook up with another girl while in Italy for the reunion, though she doesn't know that he believes he will be seeing the mother of his daughter. Walter Braddock (Telly Savalas) also has an abrasive relationship with his wife Fritzie (Lee Grant), who constantly throws painful insults at him because the couple can't have children. (Walter doesn't believe the medical diagnosis because he feels he fathered Gia). Then there's Phil Newman (Phil Silvers) and his loyal wife Shirley (Shelly Winters in full Shelly Winters mode). The couple has their young sons along for the trip and Phil finds that every time he concocts a way to meet up with Carla, family responsibilities intrude. Finally, each man manages to contact her and Carla finds herself in the unenviable position of having them all make secret visits to her villa at the same time. This results in the predictable madcap scene in which she tries to hide them from each other. Director Melvin Frank (who co-wrote the script) demonstrates an ability to make such ancient comedy scenarios work, thanks in no small part to the presence of those great male second bananas, each of whom gets plenty of screen time. (Only Lawford seems miscast. He looks too much like a dapper movie star and no one attempts to explain why an American airman has a British accent.) Carla's complex situation becomes increasingly troublesome as pace becomes frantic, resulting in car chases, lovers quarrels, the unveiling of long-kept secrets and a very moving and sentimental finale.
Lollobrigida gives one of her best performances in this film and was nominated for a Golden Globe. The sheer amount of talent on display makes us point out once again that in days of old, such marvelous actors were taken for granted. Today, there is a dearth of great character actors and the film industry is not better off because of it. The film zips along at a brisk pace, accompanied by Riz Ortalani's inspired score, topped off by the infectious title tune which is crooned by Jimmy Rosell, which was also nominated for a Golden Globe.
The movie is currently available for streaming through Screenpix, which is available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional $2.99 a month).
The good folks at Shout! Factory have a streaming site, Shout!TV and are making it possible for fans to stream beautifully mastered episodes of "The Prisoner", the classic series starring Patrick McGoohan. In fact, every episode is available for streaming. Be seeing you at Shout!TV...Click here to view.
THE
FUGITIVECOMES
TO 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAYTM AND DIGITAL
THE
1993 ACTION THRILLER FILM STARRING HARRISON FORD AND TOMMY LEE JONES WILL BE
AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
Purchase
the film on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital November 21
Burbank, Calif., October 4, 2023 – As part of the
year-long centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros.
Studio, the acclaimed action thriller film The Fugitive from director
Andrew Davis (A Perfect Murder, Holes) will be available for purchase on 4K
Ultra HD Disc and Digital for the first time on November 21.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of its 1993
release, The Fugitive will be available to purchase on November
21 on Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and
available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play,
Vudu and more.
The Fugitive stars Academy Award nominee Harrison
Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as Deputy U.S. Marshall Sam
Gerard, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The
film also stars Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, and Jeroen
Krabbé.
Directed by Davis from a screenplay by Jeb Stuart and
David Twohy from a story by Twohy, the film is based the television series “The
Fugitive” which was created by Roy Huggins and ran from 1963 to 1967. The film
was produced by Arnold Koppelson.
The Fugitive was nominated for 7 Academy Awards
including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, for which Jones won the
award, and Best Original Score.
The Fugitive will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray
Disc for $33.99 ERP and includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the
theatrical version of the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Digital download of
the film. Fans can also own The Fugitive in 4K Ultra HD via purchase
from select digital retailers beginning on November 21.
The 4K restoration of The Fugitive was
completed at Warner Bros. Discovery’s Motion Picture Imaging (MPI) and was
sourced from the original camera negative. The restoration was overseen
by director Andrew Davis.
About the Film
The Fugitive Ultra HD Blu-ray disc contains the
following previously released special features:
Imprint, the Australian video company, has released a boxed set of Blu-rays devoted to Gene Hackman. The set is region-free and limited to 1500 copies.The set includes "I Never Sang for My Father", "Bite the Bullet", "March or Die" and "The Domino Principal".
Click here to order. (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter to see value in your local currency.)
William Holden, Grace Kelly and Mickey Rooney star in James
A. Michener’s Korean War drama, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” released on Blu-ray by
Kino Lorber. Holden is Lieutenant Harry Brubaker, a lawyer and Naval Reservist
called to active duty during the Korean War. The film opens in November 1952
where we meet Brubaker returning to the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Savo
Island off the coast of Korea. He ends up ditching his plane in the ocean after
running out of fuel and is rescued from the icy waters. Mickey Rooney gives a
memorable performance as Chief Petty Officer Mike Forney, the helicopter pilot who
rescues Brubaker from the ocean. Forney wears an unauthorized addition to his
uniform, a green top hat and matching scarf, when flying. He also likes to
brawl while on shore leave due to girlfriend problems. Earl
Holliman plays Nestor Gamidge, the rescue man who assists in getting the
pilots into the helicopter and brawling with Mike.
Brubaker is a good pilot and WWII veteran who’s resentful
because his civilian life was disrupted by the recall for the Korean War. He
starts to question his abilities as a pilot after ditching his plane and is
nervous about an upcoming bombing mission. Grace Kelly plays his wife, Nancy
Brubaker, who surprises her husband by visiting Japan with their children which
casts additional doubts on Brubaker’s ability to carry out dangerous missions.
Headquartered on the USS Savo Island, the naval task
force commander is Rear Admiral George Tarrant and is played by Fredric March.
Tarrant lost his sons during WWII and is filled with many regrets in life but
tries to change Brubaker’s mind about his career as a naval aviator.Rounding out the cast is Charles McGraw as
Commander Wayne Lee, the fighter wing commander, who leads the climactic
assault on the bridges. Robert Strauss is
Lieutenant “Beer Barrel,” and Willis Bouchey as Captain Evans.There’s also an uncredited bit role by Dennis Weaver as the mission briefing
officer.
The movie is divided into three parts. We meet the
members of the carrier crew in part one. The middle section features shore
leave in Japan where we meet Mrs. Brubaker and the Brubaker’s two young
daughters. There’s also some shore leave drama involving Forney and Nestor
which shows Brubaker’s dedication to these men. The final part of the movie
involves the bombing mission at Toko-Ri which pays off beautifully.
The movie features great use of United States Navy
resources as the bulk of the film takes place on the deck of the carrier USS
Essex with extensive use of the F9F Panther and shots of the carrier task
force. The use of actual United States Navy ships and aircraft rather than
models is an essential part of the authenticity of this movie. Michener himself
spent time on board the USS Essex gathering research for what would become the
short novel, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” which was released in 1953. That
experience by Michener was made into the MGM release, “Men of the Fighting Lady,”
with Michener played by Louis Calhern. That movie was released in May 1954, a
few months prior to the premier of “Toko-Ri.”
Holden gives one of his typical cynical performances
which he was great at doing, especially in such films as “Sunset Blvd,” “Stalag
17” and later in “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “The Horse Soldiers.” He’s
not quite so cynical in this film and gives a great performance as
Brubaker. Grace Kelly isn’t given much to do other than looking beautiful as
the dutiful wife with kids in tow, but she’s important in sealing her husband’s’
doubts. All her scenes were filmed on studio sets in Hollywood with someone
doubling for her in long shots in the location scenes. I think Rooney gives the
standout performance as Mike Forney with the green top hat and scarf. Earl
Holliman is also good as Mike’s best friend and sidekick with Fredric March and
Charles McGraw good as the stoic and capable father figures. I wish Robert
Strauss’ comedic skills were put to greater use in the film, especially
considering he is fondly remembered in “Stalag 17” with Holden. There’s a side
story set up at the start and end of shore leave involving a set of golf clubs carried
by Beer Barrel that’s never explained.
The movie is directed by Mark Robson with a screenplay by
Valentine Davies. While Robson is not a name that rings bells, you certainly
know his movies which include “Peyton Place,” “The Prize,” “Von Ryan’s
Express,” “Valley of the Dolls” and “Earthquake” to name a few of his most well-known
movies. Robson started his career working uncredited as an assistant editor for
Orson Welles and eventually worked his way up to editor and director
culminating in several high-profile big budget movies. He died of a heart
attack in 1978 shortly after the completion of “Avalanche Express” which was
released the following year.
The score by Lyn Murray is serviceable and the on-location
shipboard filming adds great production value to the movie. The model work
depicting the crash landing scenes are very done as well. The film was released theatrically in December
1954 by Paramount. This Kino Lorber release looks and sounds better than ever. The
movie clocks in at 102 minutes and is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio
which resembles VistaVision, even though it isn’t, as the movie went into
production during the transition period when the process was still being perfected.
The Blu-ray release includes an outstanding audio commentary by film historians
Steve Mitchell and Steven J. Rubin as well as trailers for this and other Kino
Lorber releases. The movie is highly recommended for fans of Holden, Kelly,
Rooney and military drama.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
THE BELOVED HOLIDAY FAVORITE COMES
HOME
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER ON 4K ULTRA
HD
"LOVE
ACTUALLY 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION"
YOURS TO OWN NOVEMBER 21, 2023
FROM UNIVERSAL PICTURES HOME
ENTERTAINMENT
INCLUDES BLU-RAY™ AND DIGITAL CODE
SYNOPSIS:Funny, irresistible, and heartwarming, Love Actually is the
ultimate romantic comedy that follows eight couples whose lives intersect
shortly before Christmas. From the makers of Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting
Hill, this beloved film is headlined by an incredible roster of stars
including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson,
Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson and more. Take a breathtaking
tour of love's delightful twists and turns as you fall under the spell of Love
Actually and share the laughs and charm again and again!
BONUS FEATURES:
·Making LOVE ACTUALLY (NEW)
oJoin Writer/Director Richard Curtis along the with cast and crew as they
reflect on the making of the film and its legacy 20 years later.
·Deleted Scenes with Introductions by Richard Curtis
·The Music of LOVE ACTUALLY with Introductions by Richard Curtis
·The Storytellers
oA featurette exploring the film’s main storylines, featuring interviews
with the cast discussing their characters and the major elements within each
on-screen relationship.
·Kelly Clarkson “The Trouble with Love is” Music Video
·Billy Mack “Christmas is All Around” Music Video
·Feature Commentary with Director Richard Curtis and Actors Hugh Grant,
Bill Nighy and Thomas Sangsters
Instagram: @uniallaccess
X: @UniAllAccess
Tiktok: @universalallaccess
LOVE ACTUALLY FILMMAKERS:
Cast: Alan Rickman, Bill
Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson,
Martine McCutcheon, Rowan Atkinson
Casting
By: Mary
Selway CDG
Music
By: Craig
Armstrong
Co-Producers: Debra Hayward, Liza
Chasin
Costume
Designer:
Joanna Johnston
Line
Producers:
Chris Thompson
Production
Designer:
Jim Clay
Director
of Photography:
Michael Coulter BSC
Editor: Nick Moore
Produced
By: Duncan
Kenworthy, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
"Some Kind of a Nut" is yet another obscure movie from the late 1960s (1969, to be precise) that is available through Screenpix, which is an ancillary subscription channel through Amazon Prime. The film is not currently available on home video in the U.S. and I don't know if it ever was. I was aware that the movie didn't make any impact upon its initial release but, given the amount of talent involved in it, I thought it was time to invest 90 minutes of my life to see a collaboration between star Dick Van Dyke and legendary writer/director Garson Kanin. Van Dyke was a hot property at the time, having left his classic TV sitcom "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to concentrate on a career in feature films, where he initially found considerable success. Van Dyke was busy with so many projects at the time that "Some Kind of a Nut" had a bizarre shooting schedule to accommodate him. According to the TCM web site, some of the film was shot in May of 1968 with the rest filmed in January 1969. The logistics of arranging this with a full cast and crew must have been challenging but Van Dyke's presence in the film led United Artists to agree to the terms. The company had recently released "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with Van Dyke in the starring role. The studio was also seeking a long-term relationship with Garson Kanin and signed him to a four-picture deal arranged by producer Walter Mirisch, but none of the other projects came to fruition and Kanin retired from making feature films after "Some Kind of a Nut".
Van Dyke is cast as Fred Amidon, a mousey bank teller who works in a busy branch in the heart of mid-town Manhattan. He and the other employees suffer in an Orwellian atmosphere under the thumb of a priggish, humorless boss who demands complete conformity with conservative banking policies. Fred is also carrying the weight of his pending divorce from his wife Rachel (Angie Dickinson) which will be finalized in a few weeks time. His one pleasant diversion is his romantic relationship with fellow bank clerk Pamela Anderson (no, not that Pamela Anderson) played by Rosemary Forsyth. While enjoying a precious lunch hour together in Central Park, Fred is stung on the chin by a bee. The painful sting proves to be stubborn and won't go away even when the couple leave on a cross-country vacation. Frustrated by the unsightly wound on his chin, Fred decides to grow a beard. (For a bank with prison-like working conditions, the institution must have a very liberal vacation policy, as Fred and Pamela have enough time to drive to San Francisco and back and for Fred's beard to come into full glory.) Upon returning to the bank, his new appearance causes a scandal. His boss insists that he shave it off, as beards are against bank policy. When Fred refuses, he is summarily fired. His stance earns him the respect of his fellow employees and when the media learns of his situation, he becomes a cause celebre. Before long, Fred becomes a reluctant hero to everyday people who are fed up with having to conform to outdated policies in society. He is particularly embraced by the counter-culture movement, making him an unlikely figurehead for local hippies. He has more problems: his soon to be ex-wife Rachel reconnects with him because she is impressed by his new-found courage. This complicates things with Pamela, who detests the beard and the symbolism it represents. She's under the influence of her two meddlesome brothers who seek to compromise Fred's status as a cult figure. Meanwhile, Fred starts to dabble in Eastern mysticism and begins consulting an Asian guru in one of the film's funniest scenes. Beyond this, however, Kanin's script is anything but unpredictable and you can pretty much guess the outcome of the movie long before it arrives.
"Some Kind of a Nut" was filmed under the working title "The One with the Fuzz". It was a dud with critics and audiences, as was often the case when older filmmakers tried to be relevant to the anti-Establishment crowd of the era. (All the hippies are safe, joyous and satisfied carrying protest signs that are about as controversial as "No Trespassing". There isn't a hint of the Vietnam War and civil rights protests that defined the era, let alone any expletives. The film paints a Brady Bunch-like depiction of a time that never was. Nevertheless, the script does have something to say about the price of conformity, expressed in comical fashion through the inimitable talents of Dick Van Dyke, who makes otherwise unfunny scenes amusing. Angie Dickinson has a rather bland role and her screen time is limited, though director Kanin ensures there is a scene set at a swimming pool for no other reason than to present the welcome sight of Dickinson in a bikini.The film also has the virtue of presenting some nostalgic scenes shot on location in Manhattan. For Dick Van Dyke, the movie would be the first of two feature films released in 1969 that were ambitious in content but failures at the boxoffice and with critics, although the second film, Carl Reiner's comedy/drama "The Comic" has earned respect over the years in certain quarters. Van Dyke would only star in one more comedy on the big screen, "Cold Turkey", released in 1971. That film proved to be quite popular. Thereafter, he would not star in a feature film for another eight years, when he appeared in the leading role in Stanley Kramer's admirable but under-appreciated final movie "The Runner Stumbles", in which Van Dyke gave a fine dramatic performance. He returned to the medium where he had originally found success: television and his late career series "Diagnosis: Murder" would prove to be a major hit that ran for many seasons.
("Some Kind of a Nut" is currently streaming on Screenpix, available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional $2.99 a month.)
“The
Hands of Orlac,” a 1960 U.K.-French co-production, was the third movie version
of “Les Mains d’Orlac,” a sensational 1920 novel by French writer Maurice
Renard.Like many of the other horror
pictures released in 1960, it was filmed in black-and-white.The director, Edmond T. Gréville, was a veteran French-born filmmaker who had worked in
both France and England.His previous
picture, “Beat Girl” (1960), had featured Christopher Lee as a strip club
impresario in an exploitative story about beatniks, aspiring rockers, and
strippers.Lee and other British actors
filled most of the major supporting roles in “The Hands of Orlac.”Exterior scenes were filmed on the French
Riviera, interiors at Britain’s Shepperton Studios.An American actor, Mel Ferrer, was cast in
the lead.Ferrer was a reliably familiar
leading man for the all-important U.S. market.His name lent box-office appeal in those days when foreign movies were
suspect in small-town America, as it did for another offbeat horror production
in which he also starred that same year, Roger Vadim’s “Blood and Roses,” a
French and Italian co-production.But
U.S. distributors apparently saw no pressing need to slip Gréville’s film into American theaters, since it didn’t open here
until 1964.By that time, a promotional
still from the movie had appeared in the October 1963 issue of “Famous Monsters
of Filmland” magazine, in a preview of upcoming horror and fantasy releases.
In
the story, a celebrated concert pianist and composer, Stephen Orlac (Ferrer),
flies from London to France to visit his fiancee, Louise (Lucile Saint
Simon).His small plane wrecks in a fog,
and Orlac’s hands are “burnt to the bone” in the crash.After his ambulance passes through a police
checkpoint where a condemned murderer, Vasseur, is being transported to the
guillotine, Louise prevails on a famous surgeon, Dr. Volchett (Donald Wolfit),
to operate in an effort to save her lover’s badly injured hands.Coming out of the anaesthetic, Orlac finds
his hands encased in huge, unsightly plaster casts.Worse, he sees the front page of a newspaper
that juxtaposes a report about Vasseur’s execution with one about his own
injuries.To his groggy eyes, the
stories gradually merge into one under the headline, “Stephen Orlac Receives
the Hands of Vasseur, the Murderer.”Lifting the grotesque casts, Orlac flies into hysterics.This was the publicity still that intrigued
us young readers of “Famous Monsters” in 1963.It was also the centerpiece of the movie’s lobby-poster art.
Did
the newspaper actually display the stories that Orlac read, more or less as he
interpreted them?Was he
hallucinating?Was there even a
newspaper at all?No matter, the
high-strung pianist becomes convinced that the surgeon found his hands
irreparably damaged, amputated them, and replaced them with Vasseur’s,
especially since, as he mourns, “They feel as if they no longer belong to
me!”After the casts come off, he can’t
get his fingers to strike the right notes on the keyboard.
The
obsession grows stronger when Orlac and Louise make love.His fingers unconsciously tighten around her
throat, and she begins to choke.That
incident and others convince the pianist that Vasseur’s hands have a violent
will of their own, and his fiancee’s life is in danger as long as they’re
together.He checks into a sketchy
Marseilles hotel under an assumed name, where he encounters a small-time stage
magician named Nero (Christopher Lee, returning from “Beat Girl” as an even
sleazier character).Nero senses an
opportunity for blackmail; obviously, “Mr. Stephen” is a well-off guy who
wouldn’t be holed up in a dump unless he had something to hide.Nero pimps out his pouty assistant and
mistress, Li-Lang (Dany Carrel), to cozy up to Orlac and get him to talk.
Orlac’s
self-imposed exile doesn’t last long.After Louise tracks him down, he decides to straighten up, return to
England, marry Louise, and resume his career.But he continues to brood over his persuasion that his hands are no
longer his own.Discovering “Mr.
Stephen’s” true identity, Nero and Li-Lang follow.Nero sets about to feed Orlac’s paranoia,
reasoning that the unhinged pianist will kill someone sooner or later, opening
himself to big-time extortion.
To
the extent that film enthusiasts take notice of “The Hands of Orlac” at all,
they mostly judge it seriously inferior to the previous movie versions of
Renard’s novel.Robert Wiene’s “Orlacs
Hände” (1924), also called “The Hands of Orlac” in English-language prints, was
a classic of German silent cinema, with Conrad Veidt as the title character
amid feverish Expressionist sets.Following in 1935 from MGM, Karl Freund’s “Mad Love” with Colin Clive as
Orlac draped the story in sadism and sexual perversion, to the extent Freund
could do so under the vigilant eyes of the Hays Code censors.
Gréville’s remake dialed back on Wiene’s and Freund’s
extravagance, accounting for some of its lacklustre press from critics who like
to see the gothic thriller envelope pushed further than Gréville pushed it, at least in their opinion.It’s very much a product of 1960, emphasising
the psychological aspect of Orlac’s dilemma and stepping into film noir
territory once the intimidating Nero and Li-Lang enter the plot.It even evokes the emerging New Wave of
French cinema with its documentarian exterior shots on the Riviera.Claude Bolling’s musical score includes light
jazz for a scene in which Orlac tools around in a vintage sports car, and
rinky-tink cabaret music for Li-Lang’s sultry song-and-slink routine following
Nero’s magic act, juxtaposed with Beethoven and Liszt in the concert scenes
that open and close the movie.Mel
Ferrer lacks Conrad Veidt’s eye-popping hysteria and Colin Clive’s furrowed
anxiety, his Orlac repurposed for 1960 as a sophisticate in shades, pullover
sweater, and tailored slacks for casual wear, and an expensive suit for
business occasions.If you’re a
retro-fan of JFK-era men’s fashions, you probably won’t mind.You may even prefer Ferrer’s interpretation
over his predecessors’.Like other
British horror films of the time, such as “Jack the Ripper” (1959) and “The Two
Faces of Dr. Jekyll” (1960), “The Hands of Orlac” promises plenty of sex appeal
courtesy of Lucile Saint Simon’s filmy negligees and Dany Carrel’s showgirl
outfits.In truth, this stuff is pretty
tame by 2023 standards, but it was a draw for male filmgoers at a time when
even the centrefolds in “Playboy” were often modestly posed.
For
most of the picture, we don’t know whether Orlac’s obsession has a basis in
reality, since we don’t actually see the operation itself.Were the killer’s hands really grafted onto
his wrists, or is the pianist suffering from a morbid neurosis?An explanation is made toward the end that
for may find satisfying or frustrating, depending on your tastes.It doesn’t help that Orlac is surrounded by
oddball characters who only compound his unease.Nero is the only one who is overtly menacing,
but others are unsettling in their own ways.In his few minutes on screen, Donald Wolfit’s Dr. Volchett is brusque
and possibly alcoholic; his decision to save (or replace) Stephen’s damaged
hands seems more a whim than a humanitarian impulse.His unnamed assistant (Anita Sharp Bolster)
is a starchy spinster who wears rimless glasses with impenetrably thick lenses,
like Albert Dekker’s in 1940’s “Dr. Cyclops.”When Orlac tries to call Dr. Volchett to either confirm or relieve his
suspicions, the assistant tells him the surgeon is on professional travel—to
Moscow!—and unreachable in that era before cellphones and Zoom.She brightens up as she enjoys a chance to
extol her boss, but her comments only deepen Orlac’s fears:“Dr. Volchett is a magician,” she
declares.“Your case was his greatest
triumph.”In a small but bravura
appearance, Donald Pleasence plays Coates, a sculptor who wants to use Orlac’s
hands as the model for those of Lazarus in a biblical tableau of Lazarus raised
from the dead.“All we see of Lazarus is
his hands—your hands, Orlac!”, he exclaims, seizing the pianist’s
wrists.Given Stephen’s state of mind,
the sculptor’s fervor is more invasive than flattering, like the irritating
stranger who latches on to you at a party and won’t let go.As he makes his pitch with growing
enthusiasm, Orlac stares at his hands (poised exactly as he had scrutinized his
grotesque casts earlier in the story), and runs off in panic.
“The
Hands of Orlac” isn’t the best horror thriller of 1960.That would be Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,”
with “Blood and Roses” and Georges Franju’s “Eyes Without a Face” as close
seconds.But it’s better than its
obscurity would imply.In the U.S.,
“Eyes Without a Face” was dumped onto double bills as “The Horror Chamber of
Dr. Faustus” and generally ignored by critics, much as “The Hands of Orlac”
was.Now, it’s widely regarded as a
classic.It’s surprising that Gréville’s
picture hasn’t received similar reappraisal, given the renewed interest in
neglected horror films in the home video era, and the movie’s value as an early
showcase for Christopher Lee and Donald Pleasence.The problem may lie with the fact that an
official DVD or Blu-ray edition for fair evaluation doesn’t exist in the U.S.,
the U.K., or anywhere else as far as I can tell.DVD-R versions are sold on the collector’s
market, with caveats about their visual quality.
We
discovered this presentation of the film on YouTube, apparently sourced from
tape, perhaps one of two competing VHS releases in the 1990s, or a videotape
from a long-ago television broadcast.The image is better than you might expect, if inferior to the hi-def
transfers we’ve come to expect nowadays.It’s also the easiest way to find the movie, at least until we can hope
to see original elements unearthed, if they still exist, and a better print
prepared for Blu-ray or one of the major streaming platforms.
(To watch in full screen format, click on "Watch on YouTube".)
Flicker
Alley’s recent Blu-Ray release of “Laurel & Hardy Year One-The Newly
Restoed 1927 Silents” is the start of a ground-breaking project which is a joy
for all film fan,s especially Laurel & Hardy aficionados. Produced by film
historians and restoration specialists Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange in
conjunction with Lobster Films, Blackhawk Films and The Library of Congress,
this 2-disc set contains the first 15 extant films that feature Stan Laurel and
Oliver Hardy in the casts. A number of the films can just boast having Laurel
& Hardy in the same film-not yet a team.
Many
of these films are being seen in their most complete versions thus far due to
the collaboration of various film archives and collectors. This is the seminal
period of the teaming of Laurel & Hardy. They are not quite a team in the
earliest films in this collection. This set gives us the opportunity to study
their evolving partnership.
In
typical Flicker Alley fashion the set is chock full of wonderful bonus
materials. Each film has newly recorded audio commentary by Laurel & Hardy
scholar Randy Skretvedt. There are three documentaries: Restoring Laurel
& Hardy, Laurel & Hardy on Location & Hats Off!-a slide show
presentation of the only completely lost Laurel and Hardy film. There are
Multiple Image Galleries, additional music scores for three of the shorts and a
very informative 35-page booklet.
If
you have seen any previous Flicker Alley releases, you know the image quality is
superb. This initial release is an exciting start to a multiple year project.
Year Two (1928) is next. We will have the opportunity to watch the teaming of
one of the greatest comedy teams mature into legends. Very much recommended.
Roger Corman had, over a relatively short period of time,
directed and/or produced more than a
half-dozen pictures since his entry into the movie industry in 1955.His first efforts were modest successes, but
the filmmaker firmly broke into a dependably bankable stride within two years’
time.Though already having helmed two
low budget science-fiction pictures with some success (Day the World Ended (1955) and It
Conquered the World (1956) his reputation in Hollywood - as a budget-minded
money-spinner - was properly recognized following the box office counting of his
1957 chiller combo: Attack of the Crab
Monsters/Not of This Earth.Variety noted the package – each film made
on a “slenderized bankroll of $85, 000,” had brought in an impressive domestic
gross of $800,000.By early November of
’57, that package, distributed through Allied Artists, had earned back the
entirety of its production and marketing costs within twelve weeks of its release.
Through the remainder of the 1950s and well into the early
1960s, Corman continued to grind out a dizzying array of feature films, not all
of the horror and sci-fi variety: there were plenty of exploitative teenage
rock n’ roll pictures and crime dramas offered as well. But from 1960 through
1964, Corman worked primarily – though not exclusively – producing and directing
an impressive slate of upscale horror classics.He had already given fans such soon-to-be low-budget cult favorites as Bucket of Blood (1959) and Little Shop of Horrors (1960).But in 1960 he more famously scored with House of Usher, the first of his iconic and
moody cycle of Poe and H.P. Lovecraft adaptations - many featuring Vincent
Price in roles as both tormentor and tormented.
One of Corman’s most important collaborators in his early
years was screenwriter Charles B. Griffith.Griffith would receive screenwriting credit – or co-credit – on no fewer
than eight of Corman’s earliest films 1956-59.The writer would later recall for Beast
from Haunted Cave he had been commissioned by Corman to essentially rework
the storyline of an earlier film they had crafted together – Naked Paradise (1957) aka Thunder Over Hawaii.Naked
Paradise, of which Griffith was brought on late to the project for a
re-write, was essentially a South Seas crime-drama set in a pineapple
plantation under the umbrella of a glistening sun.
Since that film had done well enough, Corman wanted to revisit
the scenario of Naked Paradise for the
reimagined crime drama titled Beast from
Haunted Cave.There would be a new
twist: the new scenario was to take place in and around a gold mining community
nestled in the dead winter snow of South Dakota’s Black Hills.Oh, and Corman advised Griffith that he also wanted
a genuine cave-dwelling monster thrown in for good measure - that sort of thing
was still selling.That was essentially
all the background material given to Griffith to get started on the project.
Despite its menacing title Beast from Haunted Cave appears more a crime-drama than horror
flick in the course of its 65-minute running time.The story revolves around the criminal doings
of a circle of bandits: chain-smoking mastermind Alexander Ward (Frank Wolff), his
two minions Marty Jones (Richard Sinatra) and Byron Smith (Wally Campo) and
Ward’s oft- inebriated “secretary” Gypsy Boulet (Sheila Carol).The thieves have gathered in the snow-capped
mountain winter of the pioneer town of Deadwood, South Dakota.Their plan is to plant an explosive in an
abandoned cave in the early hours of a quiet Sunday morning.The explosion is set merely as a strategic
ploy to distract authorities for a time, enabling the thieves’ free reign to
steal gold bars from an unattended payroll office of a local gold-mining
company.
Unfortunately, their plans don’t run smoothly.Ward’s dissatisfied and affection-starved
lover-secretary, Gypsy, has a bit of a drinking problem.She complicates matters when she falls hard for
ski instructor and trail guide Gil Jackson (Michael Forest), a swarthy,
dark-haired gentleman of gentle temperament. (As an aside, I occasionally had a
bit of trouble understanding actress Sheila Carol’s dialogue in this film: her
diction seemed a perplexing amalgam of drunken slurred words and a faux
Katherine Hepburn accent).The cold Ward
takes notice of his woman’s wandering eye but is unworried.He has plans to kill Jackson once the skier -
unwittingly - guides this gaggle of crooks on a cross-country trail run to a
remote location.
Ward had plans to rendezvous with a waiting plane to
ferry his gang - and their misbegotten treasure - off to safe sanctuary in
Canada.But this plan too is scuttled by
an unwelcome blizzard passing through the mountains.(As a second aside, Ward’s cross-country ski scheme
is surely the most ineffectual escape route ever mapped by criminals carrying weighted
gold bars in rucksacks.They really would
have done better just hightailing it out of town in their rented car). To complicate matters further – and this is
where the horror finally comes in - their explosive mine charge has awakened
the titular beast, sort of an upright walking, giant spider that collects his victims
by webbing them against cave walls and drinking their blood at his leisure.Let’s just say the moral of the story is a
familiar one: essentially, crime doesn’t pay.
In Corman’s attempt to make their chilly time in the
Black Hills more productive and worthwhile (i.e. profitable), the filming of Beast was to be produced back-to-back on
location in Deadwood with yet another Charles B. Griffith script, Ski Troop Attack.This second film was to be a somewhat more
ambitious project, a snow-bound WWII action-adventure pitting American
ski-troopers against their wintry Nazi counterparts.The Corman team would use the same primary
on-and off screen talents featured in the cast and credits of Beast for Ski Troop Attack.
The scenario of Ski
Troop Attack referentially takes place in the snow-capped mountains of
Germany’s Hürtgen Forest, circa
December 1944.A small American band of
ski-troopers are the only remaining Allied force active in this Nazi-controlled
region, hiding themselves behind enemy lines so they can spy and report on SS
ski-troop movements.The level-head
Lieutenant Factor (Forest), a graduate of the Army’s Officer Candidate School,
wishes to stay clear of engaging in active combat with the enemy.As the only team of Allied forces positioned
inside the Nazi-controlled German-Belgian border, it is Forest’s belief his
outfit should purposely avoid direct contact.He instead wants to concentrate his efforts on secret reconnaissance
missions.By acting as the covert eyes of
the good guys behind enemy lines, his outfit would be able to transmit vital
information on Nazi troop movements back to HQ.
But Factor is at loggerheads
with tough-talking Sergeant Potter (a mustache-less Wolff, again cast in a
“heavy” role).Potter is described by
Factor as an old school “regular army guy,” a man of pure fighting spirit but someone
strategically short-sighted.Potter desperately
wants to engage the Nazi ski-troopers in active combat and is mostly dismissive
of the Factor’s civilian background and wartime decision-making capabilities.Potter does get a number of chances to engage
in hand-to-hand combat.The film actually
offers no shortage of brutal on screen violence with competing ski-troops ambushing
and beating one another with fisticuffs, rifles butts, bayonets, knives and
machine-gun fire.
Ultimately, the American’s
decide to blow up a strategic railroad bridge that Allied air powers are unable
to access and target.But while
attempting to get to the base of the bridge to set off their detonators, they
must first successfully climb an ice-covered vertical cliff side.If this isn’t problematic or dangerous enough,
they must also fend off a team of six pursuing Nazi ski-troopers hot on their
trail.The German skiing contingent,
incidentally, is led by the badly-dubbed Roger Corman himself.The film’s climactic ending is, somewhat surprisingly
for this type of adventure, more bleak than celebratory.
Griffith’s screenplay is
actually far more nuanced than it is given credit for in the film’s original
round of reviews.The sensitively written
dialogue is mature – the scene where soldier Grammelsbacher (Sinatra) sits
around a campfire musing if somewhere out there there’s still “a bullet with my
name on it” – is particularly gripping.The better written dialogue also brings out better acting performances
of all involved – including Shelia Carol who appears midway through the film as
a spiteful German captive of the Americans.
The film does plod a bit.There’s a lot of wartime newsreel footage
interlaced throughout, and no matter how beautiful the mountain settings are
photographed, there’s far too many time-filling shots of ski-troopers silently
trudging cross-country style through the tundra.Having said that that, there’s also some
well-executed ski chase scenes captured on screen, such action-footage surprising
for a film shot on a threadbare budget.The soundtrack of the film is riddled with the sound of machine-gun fire
and a decent score courtesy of composer Fred Katz – though fans of Corman’s
earliest films will surely recognize a good number of Katz’s recycled musical
motifs are in play.
As both projects were to be shot on tight schedules,
Roger’s brother, Gene, stepped in as the de facto producer of Beast.Once a Hollywood agent, Gene Corman was co-founder (with Roger) of their
company Filmgroup, Inc.Gene’s earliest
entries as producer would include a number of exploitative sci-fi efforts such as
Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959).With Roger set to both produce and direct Ski Troop Attack, the directorial duties of Beast were given to first-timer Monte Hellman - whose only previous
film experience was having worked as an apprentice editor at ABC-TV.
In his entertaining memoir, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime
(Random House, 1990), Roger Corman recalled the wintertime location shooting in
and around snowbound Deadwood as “unbearable” and “a very tough
challenge.”When shooting was to
commence on the peak of Mount Terry, Corman recorded temperatures of a frigid thirty-eight
degrees below zero.In the recollection
of script supervisor Kinta Zertuche, her primary job was simply “to find ways
to keep the film warm enough so it wouldn’t get brittle and crack.” She was
also deigned to find ways of keeping the production cameras from freezing – not
always successfully.
Production assistant Paul Rapp recalled he had been
tasked to drive the parsimonious Corman – and an automobile-filled cache of
film props - from Los Angeles to Deadwood, so the director “could save on
airfare and have an extra car on location.”When filming one downhill ski sequence, Corman accidentally set off a
small avalanche by shouting “Action!” too loudly through a bullhorn.Rapp recalled while the incident scared him
half-to-death, Corman quickly realized the potential visual impact of what the
camera was capturing.So the team was
commanded to continue to roll film, Corman exhorting via bullhorn that his terrified
skiers try their best to “Stay Ahead of the Avalanche!”
In March of 1959, there was a trade announcement that
“Corman’s distributing outfit, The Filmgroup,” was planning to release Beast from Haunted Cave nationally (paired
with The Wasp Woman) as early as June
1, with Ski Troop Attack (to be paired
with Task Force 38) a little more
than a month later, July 13.But neither
of those prospective release dates would actually roll out as planned, even
though the films themselves were
ready to roll.Beast would come closest to realizing its projected release date,
appearing on some screens in July 1959.
As early as February of 1960, Variety reported that the steamroller that was Filmgroup was
optimistically planning to roll out eight feature films a month between March
and June of 1960.Ski Troop Attack was to see release on the very tail end of that
schedule. The Hollywood Reporter suggested Filmgroup’s plan as more ambitious
than even originally announced: the company was planning on issuing no less
than twenty-four features over a
year’s period, with eleven of those titles already in the can and ready to go.
The company was also interested in testing international
markets. It was reported that the usually closed-to-outsiders Soviet film
market was interested in importing four Corman titles – including Beast and Ski – assuming whether or not Irving Allen, president of Canada’s
Astral Films, could finalize a deal while visiting London.Later in May of 1960, it was reported
Filmgroup had sealed another deal to distribute eight films – again, including Beast and Ski - throughout the Philippine islands.Finally, in August of 1960, Continental
Distributors would obtain rights of Filmgroup product for European markets.
But the U.S. market was of most concern to the filmmakers.On March 16, 1960, there was a very belated press
screening of the Beast and Wasp combo at the Hollywood Theatre. Variety was generally impressed with Hellman’s
Beast, but suggested the film’s scenario
was completely illogical.The critic
also pondered that perhaps interest in horror films was generally on the
wane.He opined, audiences were growing
“inured to monsters and hardly blink when this one guzzles its customary quota
of blood.”The review of Wasp was likewise middling in
praise.The trade noted, while the film
was certainly an “exploitable” passable entertainment, “it’s pretty slow and not
very frightening.”
The “official” premiere of Beast from Haunted Cave was to take place at dual locations in
South Dakota:Rapid City’s State Theatre
and the Hile-Hi Drive-in outside of Deadwood: the latter venue was to enjoy a
four day night run of Beast beginning
August 2, 1959.This was obviously a nod
of acknowledgment to the folks living in the area of the Black Mountain Hills
who hosted and assisted the film’s production.But no matter how well-intentioned the “premiere” honor, Beast from Haunted Cave and The Wasp Woman had already been
projected on screens in the mid and southwestern U.S. as early as July of ’59.
Earlier that spring, director Gene Corman had written
Allan “Birdie” Arnold of Deadwood’s Chamber of Commerce City Council, a champion
of the film shoot. “We saw a rough cut of our picture, it is very good and I’m
sure everyone who helped, especially you, will be proud and pleased,” Gene
wrote, adding, “I plan to make it a full length picture and hope to release it
in the summer.”For their assistance,
both Arnold and Mayor Ed Keene of Lead, South Dakota, were given “Technical
Advisor” credits on Beast.
A film that became a legendary bomb, the 1977 Western The White Buffalo has
been re-evaluated by movie fans in recent years and many consider it to
be an underrated classic. Count me out of this assessment. The film is
certainly unique: an ambitious attempt to blend the Western and horror
film genres, but it falls short on most counts.The United Artists
production stars Charles Bronson as Wild Bill Hickcok, who- for reasons
never adequately explained- is haunted by terrifying nightmares
involving him in a life-or-death confrontation with a giant white
buffalo. I didn't know that buffalo come in colors, but I'll cede the
point. (Given the dreadful styles of the 1970s, it's surprising the film
wasn't titled The Plaid Buffalo.) Simultaneously, Chief Crazy
Horse (Will Sampson) is having his own white buffalo problems. Seems the
actual rampaging beast wreaked havoc on his village and killed his
child. In order to restore his pride and stature among the tribe, he
must hunt down and slaughter the animal- or be stuck with the monicker
of "The Worm" henceforth. (This must be the Indian equivalent of
"nerd".)
The two men are on obsessive journeys and are destined to meet up -
but both feel they have the singular right to kill the buffalo. Hickcok
meanders through some cow towns under an alias and hooks up with a
mountain man geezer (Jack Warden, channeling the ghost of Gabby Hayes)
who decides to accompany him on his quest. When Hickcok and Crazy Horse
do meet up, they end up saving each other's life in respective ambushes
and declare themselves blood brothers. Despite this, each man is
determined to be the one who slays the white buffalo.
The film is moody and atmospheric and at times is offbeat enough
that, if it weren't for the Colorado scenery, one might suspect this is
an Italian Western. Nevertheless, the screenplay by producer, screenwriter and director Richard Sale (based
on his novel) is erratic and contains many disparate elements that never
blend together in a satisfactory manner. The film is peppered with
welcome appearances by many Western favorites (Stuart Whitman, Slim
Pickens, John Carradine) but their characters are superfluous and smack
of gimmicky cameos. Clint Walker shows up briefly, well-cast and playing
against type as a villain. There is also the rather odd presence of Kim
Novak in a nothing role as a good-hearted hooker who suffers the
humiliation of being rejected by Hickcok even as he shares her bed.
(This must be the first case of erectile dysfunction caused by a white
buffalo.)
The movie was an attempt by producer Dino De Laurentiis to exploit
the dying Western genre by finding a way to incorporate elements of Jaws. De
Laurentiis seemed to have a fixation on giant, mythic animals taking
vengeance on mankind, as he produced "King Kong", "Orca" and "The White
Buffalo" all within a two-year period. Despite
the prestigious cast and the fact that this was a United Artists
production, the budget was clearly skimpy. The film abounds with shoddy
rear screen projection shots and some amateurish sets, particularly in
the mountain sequences set at night. There's plenty of plastic snow and
the sets are somewhat less realistic than a Christmas window display at
Macy's. Then there is the titular character of which much has been
written in movie lore. Apparently devoid of anything other than a $20
bill for special effects work, the white buffalo is generally shot in
extreme closeup in very brief cuts to mask its ludicrous appearance.
Although the buffalo is seemingly immortal and can crash through
mountains of snow and cave walls, it never looks any more menacing than a
slightly perturbed mountain goat. The analogies to Moby Dick also
become a bit too obvious especially when Crazy Horse rides atop the
beast, flaying at it with a knife. (just like Ahab and the whale- get
it?) All of this is set to an atmospheric if somewhat low-key score by
John Barry that fits the proceedings well.
Perhaps the most unintentionally amusing aspect of the movie is the
initial meetings between Hickcok and Crazy Horse. The two men face each
other and gesture with elaborate Indian sign language- despite the fact
they are simultaneously speaking to each other in perfect English! This
is as practical as using signal flags to communicate with a dinner
companion and seems more suited to an episode of Police Squad.
Despite all of these criticisms, there is something admirable about the concept of The White Buffalo in
that the film at least tries to be an original take on an age-old
genre. It also represents one of the last movies in which Charles
Bronson at least tried to stretch his acting muscles. With his saggy
eyes and droopy mustache, he's perfectly cast as Hickcok. The failure of
this film seemed to discourage his professional ambitions. With a
couple of exceptions (Telefon, Death Hunt) Bronson went happily
into B movie hell, churning out low-rent but profitable potboilers aimed
at inner city and drive-in audiences. The shame of it is that he also
encouraged once respected directors like J. Lee Thompson and Michael
Winner to go along with him.
The White Buffalo was one of those major failures that initiated the virtual end of the Western film genre, and it was Heaven's Gate three
years later that nailed the coffin shut. The Bronson film has grown in
stature as a curiosity in the ensuing years and apologists claim that
the chintzy set pieces must have been intended in order to convey the
dream-like quality of the plot. Much the same has been said of
Hitchcock's Marnie, which was also heavily criticized for its
abysmal sets, rear screen production work and use of matte paintings.
However, in both cases the hypothesis seems unlikely. They were simply
troubled productions overseen by directors who seem to have lost
interest in their respective projects. Universal ended up losing money
on the Hitchcock drama while United Artists was forced to pick up the
tab for the buffalo bill, if you'll pardon the pun.
The White Buffalo has recently been re-released by Kino
Lorber
Studio Classics. The transfer is superb, which only makes the white
buffalo look even phonier, but that just adds to the fun. An original
trailer is included and this time around, a commentary track has been
added by Paul Talbot, author of the terrific "Bronson's Loose" books.
Talbot admits he's obsessed by Bronson and his films and provides a
master class on the making of The White Buffalo. His track is
highly informative, if lacking in humor, as he discusses the career
credits of virtually every actor who appears in a speaking role.
Talbot's contribution makes the film worth obtaining, even if you had
the earlier version.
"The Hawaiians" was regarded as a cinematic misfire, was released in England under the title Master of the Islands. The
1970 big budget movie was a critical and commercial failure in its day,
but evaluating it after all these years leads the viewer to accentuate
its many positive elements. The story is actually an official
continuation of James Michener's Hawaii, which was made into a
major film in 1966 that curiously also underwhelmed critics and public.
This sequel doesn't have the epic proportions of its predecessor, but it
does boast some impressively lush production values and a typically
enticing score by Henry Mancini. For this film, Heston reunited with director Tom Gries, with whom he made the vastly under-appreciated 1968 Western "Will Penny"which
Heston regarded as one of his most satisfying artistic accomplishments.
He is cast against type here in a somewhat unsympathetic role during a
period of his career in which he was typically cast as a stalwart heroic
figure. Heston plays Whip Hoxworth, a hard-nosed sea captain who
transports luckless Chinese immigrants to Hawaii where they become
cheated, abused and enter into what amounts to indentured servitude. The
opening sequence finds the Chinese crammed into the sweltering hold of
the ship and falling victim to illness and malnutrition. Hoxworth only
adds to their misery by applying beatings and coldly calculating his
human cargo in terms of acceptable deaths, 'lest his ultimate profits
fall short of expectations. Hoxworth is the black sheep of a wealthy
family. He is cut out of his father's will and has a contentious
relationship with his siblings, who have little use for him. Barred from
further sea duties, he is relegated to a failing plantation which he is
determined to turn into a success, if only to spite his relatives.
Geraldine Chaplin is his half-Hawaiian wife, whom he adores but who, for
reasons never satisfactorily explained in the script, turns frigid
after their son is born.
The film tells a parallel story about
the plight of two immigrants who work on his plantation: Nyuk Tsin (Tina
Chen) and Mun Ki (Mako), two people who, through necessity, live as man
and wife even though Mun Ki tells Nyuk Tsin that the children she has
borne him will not be considered hers. Instead, Chinese tradition
dictates that they will ultimately return to China where his wife will
assume the mantle of mother and Nyuk Tsin will be relegated to the
status of an aunt. The couple's hard work appeals to Hoxworth's
generally dormant sympathies and he allows them to prosper financially,
especially when they successfully grow the first pineapples on Hawaii - a
development that makes Hoxworth rich. However, the film piles crisis
upon crisis on each of the major characters, including political
intrigue, armed revolution and, in particularly affecting sequences,
outbreaks of leprosy and plague. John Phillip Law appears late in the
134-minute film as Heston's grown son, whose humanitarianism brings him
into direct conflict with his father's Machevellian ways.
The Hawiians is big-budget soap
opera at every level, but it's a consistently engrossing one. Heston
excels playing part that takes him into new territory as an actor. The
supporting cast is equally good, with both Mako and Tina Chen giving
outstanding performances. It can't be said that the film is an
unqualified success, but it's never boring and it probably seems more
impressive today than it did at the time of its initial release. It
should be mentioned that the movie has a fine score by Henry Mancini.
There are worse fates than spending a couple of hours with Heston under
any circumstance.
(Now streaming on Screenpix, available to Amazon Prime subscribers for $2.99 a month.)