Alfred Hitchcock has been a huge influence on my life, ever
since I saw my first Hitchcock film,I Confess, at the age of 10 years
old. I was immediately struck by the moral ambiguity of the film and the
conflicted viewpoint of the central character, a priest, played by Montgomery
Clift. Although I wasn’t aware of camera angles, film theory and mise-en-scene
at the time, I could sense a gripping plot, characterisations and camera
movement.
Since then, I’ve written four books on Hitchcock, the Master of
Suspense. Two books are on the making of specific films,The
BirdsandMarnie,
which were made in the early 1960s and have a close production history because
they had shared screenwriters and production crew; and a more general book
calledAlfred Hitchcock’s Movie Making Masterclass,
which is about all of his films, for aspiring screenwriters and film makers. My
latest book Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards, is as the name suggests, a
celebration of Hitchcock’s visual art and storyboarding in collaboration with
key production illustrators, storyboard artists and set designers.
When I was writing my first
Hitchcock book, “Hitchcock and the making of Marnie”, 25 years ago now, I was
excited to see the extensive storyboards for the racetrack and hunt sequence at
Margaret Herrick Library, part of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and
Sciences in Los Angeles. I was immediately impressed about the level of detail.
I was lucky enough to interview the production designer Robert Boyle and
storyboard artist Harold Michelson who had a wealth of knowledge and memories
about working onThe BirdsandMarnieand I knew that was just the start. Because
this is my fourth book on Hitchcock, the Estate gave me permission to reproduce
them which is very exciting to share with readers today.
As Hitchcock directed 52 films in his career, I couldn’t include
every film or storyboard, so I decided to focus on a selection of films which
are representative of Hitchcock’s 60 year career. So I chose The 39 Steps, Shadow of a
Doubt, Spellbound, Vertigo, North by
Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie and Torn
Curtain. These films span Hitchcock’s early British period to one of his
last films he made at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Teaming up with Titan
Books who specialise in art and film books, I’m pleased to say that the coffee-table
book includes never-before-published images, especially from The 39 Steps,
Marnie and Torn Curtain. I was also able to feature some of the
art directors, production designers and illustrators who worked on these films,
including the more celebrated ones like Salvador Dali who Hitchcock hired for
designing the Spellbound dream sequence.
(Photo: Tony Lee Moral)
Through
storyboarding each scene, Hitchcock, likened the beats in a film to the notes
on a sheet of music being conducted by an orchestra. Hitchcock was a very
technical director and was keen to manipulate the audience’s emotions, the
highs and lows, and storyboards were central to his practice. Think about the
shower scene in Psycho, the crop duster attack in North by
Northwest and the crows gathering silently on the jungle gym in The
Birds, they are all examples of carefully orchestrated storyboards.
Studying
the storyboards definitely opened my eyes to films which I hadn’t focused on
before such as Shadow of a Doubt and Spellbound,
and what was apparent was the level of detail from both Hitchcock’s early films
and his move to Hollywood. In Shadow of a Doubt, storyboarding and
set design are very important to show a typical American family and the chaos
that erupts when a sinister force, in this case Uncle Charlie, comes to visit. Spellbound is
another film where the dream sequence was storyboarded and Hitchcock was very
interested in dream theory and analysis. There’s also a great behind the scenes
story I discovered about some lost and found Salvador Dali art for Spellbound.
But you’ll have to read the book for that story.
Nicholas Anez’s Science
Fiction Thrills… Horror Chills is the fourth installment of the author’s
“Celluloid Adventures” series, all published by Baltimore’s Midnight Marquee
Press.Although I’m not familiar with Anez’s
original triad, I can reliably muse - based
solely on the strength of his newest effort - the preceding trio are as
well-researched, informative and against-the-grain-in-opinion as is this new
volume.
In his introduction to Science Fiction Thrills, Anez – full disclosure, a contributing
writer to Cinema Retro magazine - informs
readers that his intent in the writing of this current book is to “hopefully
create interest” in fourteen –mostly dismissed upon original release – sci-fi
and horror films.These were films that,
in one way or another, failed to find an appreciative audience despite creative
merit.Being a guy from New Jersey, I
can appreciate Anez’s fighting up from the mat for recognition of these
underdog efforts, championing under-performing films he posits as overlooked
cinematic treasures.
The fourteen films that go under Anez’s microscope are: Son of Dracula (1943), Alias Nick Beal (1949), The Maze (1953), Donovan’s Brain (1953), 1984
(1956), The Mind Benders (1963), Crack in the World (1965), The Mummy’s Shroud (1967), The Power (1968), Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969), The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972), Who? (1974), The Medusa Touch
(1978) and Capricorn One (1978).The latter title, Peter Hyman’s “space
mission” conspiracy film Capricorn One
is, of course, an odd man out in this study.Though not critically praised on its release, the film actually performed
reasonably well at the box office.
Each of Anez’s contributing essays are formulaic in
presentation: an introductory paragraph or two; a multi-page synopsis of the
film’s storyline; a discussion of the movie’s production history (including
full cast and crew credits); a review of a film’s critical reception and
subsequent box office performance.The
book is filled with a score of illustrations – both photographs and promotional
memorabilia - all well-reproduced in balanced black-and-white saturations.The book additionally closes with an eight-page
Appendix where the author lists his favorite sci-fi and horror flicks - as well
what he considers the greatest performances by an actor or actress in both
genres.Suffice to say, I share many of
the author’s cinematic enthusiasms.
To his credit, Anez doesn’t argue that any of the films under
examination - in an extremely readable and cogent two-hundred and fifteen page
paperback - is necessarily a “lost classic.”But Anez does suggest that each film studied here offers challenging
ideas and (mostly) cerebral storylines.Some of the films, he argues, were critically maligned or were proven box
office disappointments for economic reasons: that is, a shortfall of money.Too often the production budgets allotted
were simply too modest to mount and support the project’s ambitions.Having said that, Anez also notes the paucity
of money wasn’t always the reason a particular film did not light up the big
screen as hoped.The author opines some
of the films perhaps simply fell to the wayside due to the carping of critics (i.e.
the alleged miscasting of Edmond O’Brien as “Winston Smith” or of Michael
Andersons’ “unobstructive” direction of George Orwell’s novel 1984).
Other films, such as Basil Dearden’s The Mind Benders, might not have met expectations due to the filmmakers
having chose to mix multiple genre devices into their storylines.Anez gives examples: The Mind Benders is described as being “as much a domestic drama as
a thriller.”He offers John Farrow’s Alias Nick Beal as “a supernatural
horror story,” but one that “also fits in the category of film noir.”The author also contends that Robert
Siodmak’s Son of Dracula (a personal favorite
of mine, featuring an arguably miscast corn-fed Lon Chaney Jr.) remains “a
vastly underrated horror movie that is also a romantic tragedy.”
It soon becomes apparent that Anez’s argument that
certain films failed at the box office - or with film critics – was not due to
the quality of the films themselves.Instead many were perhaps doomed by visionary “outside-of-the-box”
productions that were tough to commercially pigeonhole.Perhaps these films didn’t achieve nor enjoy
a measure of acclaim due to the schematics of the filmmakers.It’s suggested such creative teams, at their
own expense, had gambled on their film’s commercial potentials – perhaps accidentally,
perhaps purposefully.Ultimately, they
chose not to cater to clichés or to rigid formulas or to the expectations of
their target audience.
In the book’s afterword, Anez notes he chose to focus on
“an era in which science-fiction movies depended on ideas and not special effects,” a time when horror films conjured chills
“upon the power of suggestion and not
graphic gore.”Reading through these
essays it becomes obvious that Anez is a strong champion of scenarios that feature
solid writing and cerebral storytelling.It’s of interest that of the fourteen films examined here, no fewer than
eight had been adapted from pre-existing science-fiction novels or other
literary sources published from the 1940s through the 1970s.
Anez acknowledges that some of these films under his
microscope might now appear dated - even open to some ridicule by contemporary
standards - for their dopey, unsophisticated poor-science-based projections.He muses other films might have been doomed at
the box office by their gloomy, paranoid prognostications of a dreary, dystopic
future.(Certainly none of the films Anez
examines here can be thought of as “feel good” movies – quite the opposite, in
fact).Such dystopic melancholia is
reflected in Anez’s own opinions.He
writes of his fear that contemporary exercises of political correctness and encroaching
Orwellian cancel culture movements might yet alter - even expunge – aging artistic
works and forms of “popular culture from the past.”“In today’s Hollywood,” Anez sighs, “nothing
is implied anymore; everything is explicit.”
I’m probably not as fatalistic as Anez on some of the points
he makes, though one can certainly understand – and even sympathize with – some
of the arguments he makes.But by my
reckoning, home video has - from inception - assured that a majority of cultural
artifacts will survive in their original forms for some time well into the
future.Certainly books and films and
music reflective of the aggrieved historical period in which they were created
will survive in their original state.How could they not?There’s too
many of us who have carefully collected and curated these artworks to see them
suddenly made unavailable.But it is also
true that many of these works might – might
- need to co-exist alongside a bowdlerized version for generations to come.
The real question is whether or not our shared histories
– good, bad, tragic, celebratory or indifferent - can be erased easily?The jury is out on that point, and the debate
on the historical revisionism of culture, I imagine, will be argued long into
the future.It’s of interest that many
of the future-looking films that Anez studies in Science Fiction Thrills… Horror Chills cautions and forewarns against
the censorship of free ideas - be those ideas well-meaning, ignorant, brilliant
or otherwise. I was going to end this review with Shakespeare’s famously reflective
and internal ponder on the duality of intentions, “Ay, there’s the rub.”But I
admit I almost didn’t, perhaps employing a bit of guarded self-censorship.After all, Shakespeare, the “immortal bard”
of Avon, might not prove so immortal after all.He too is now a target of cancel culture.
We basically
became friends because we both loved The Prisoner. They were showing the
series on Channel 4 for its 25th anniversary; we were both hooked and stayed
hooked, too. As with a lot of people, the tedium and restrictions of lockdown
led us to consider the idea of a podcast. There were a few Prisoner
podcasts already out there, but they were either a bit dry and professorial or
strangely dismissive. One frustrating aspect was the apocryphal information
that had cemented itself as part of Prisoner lore, we really wanted to
set the record straight where we could.
The ‘Free For
All’ podcast was an absolute hoot to make, and it brought us into contact with
loads of Prisoner devotees from around the world. We’d expected a bit of
pushback from a certain type of social media gatekeeper, but there was
absolutely none. Plus, we got to interview Prisoner stars Derren Nesbitt
and Jane Merrow, which was a thrill.
The problem with
making a podcast about something as finite as a 17-episode TV series is that
once it’s done, it’s done. We’ve made some specials (a Columbo episode
and a look at Danger Man aka Secret Agent) and have more in the
works, but ultimately, we were Prisoner-ed out.
We thought that
what we’d recorded had the makings of an entertaining book. It had to be more
than just a transcription of what we’d said in the podcast, but we did
incorporate some of that element into the text to give it a conversational
feel. With the book, as well as the podcast, we wanted readers to feel that
they were hanging out with like-minded friends. This was also an opportunity to
create an entry point for new viewers by injecting contemporary connections and
a lot of humour, making it accessible to everyone.
We also felt that
we’d uncovered things about The Prisoner that didn’t seem to be covered
in any of the literature or ongoing discussions. We have some theories about
the controversial final episode ‘Fall Out’, that we think, are quite unique and
stand up to scrutiny better than many of the tired 1960s drug culture theories.
As much as the book is a deliberately fun and entertaining read (even if your
memory of The Prisoner is a bit rusty), it holds its own as critical
analysis of a much-discussed series.
(L to R: Authors Chris Bainbridge & Cai Ross.)
There were a few
obstacles to overcome, mainly in the form of rights issues. Necessity being the
mother of invention, we created a Prisoner-ish original, with the
invaluable help of Alan Hayes, the book’s designer, Prisoner expert Rick
Davy and talented graphic artist Jemima Duncalf, who illustrated it.
I hope that it
will sit snugly on the shelf in amongst the grand tomes that make up The
Prisoner library. It’s a testament to the enduring fascination of Patrick
McGoohan’s extraordinary series that the number of books written about it is
still growing nearly sixty years after it first appeared.
The
incentive for this 4th volume in my Celluloid Adventures series was a dismissive review in a reference
book of the 1956 film version of George Orwell’s novel, 1984, calling it “a great disappointment and a lackluster
adaptation of the briliant novel.” This derogatory opinion remains the general
consensus among many critics. I disagree with this assessment, in part
because
the movie remained in my memory long after I first saw it. Furthermore, I had
read the novel so I knew that, though the adaptation was definitely a loose
one, it was actually faithful to Orwell’s ideas. So I wanted to redress this
negative opinion of the movie and proceeded to write about it. This led to my
considering other movies in the science fiction and horror genres that, I
believe, are also underrated. Thus was born the concept for Celluloid Adventures 4:Science Fiction Thrills….Horror Chills.
I
should state at this point that I became a fan of science fiction and horror
movies in my adolescence. I also loved Westerns (Shane is my all-time favorite movie) and it has always upset me
when a good movie, particularly in my favorite genres, fails at the box-office.
Thus, my objective in the first three volumes was to bring overdue attention to
some of these movies. In these books, I discuss films within several genres
while I devote individual chapters to science fiction and/or horror movies. For
this fourth book, I decided to focus only on science fiction and horror because
the ascendancy of these genres that began with Star Wars (1977) and The
Exorcist (1973) relegated to relative obscurity many fine movies that
preceded this dominance along with a few that followed. And it is some of these
films that I wanted to retrieve from anonymity for this book. (Not
coincidentally, my devotion to the genres more or less ended in the late 70s,
coinciding with this ascendancy, but that’s another story.)
It
was very rewarding for me to research the movies in Celluloid Adventures 4 because I discovered numerous interesting details
about their development and production that I hope will make this book equally
interesting. For instance, here are just a few of the many intriguing facts
that I learned:
The director of one movie fired his own
brother who had written the screenplay.
One movie is based upon a legend of the
birth of a deformed monster.
One movie was made by a married couple
that later engaged in an acrimonious divorce.
One movie failed upon its original
release but played to enthusiastic audiences in New York
and Los Angeles 65 years later.
The
screenplay for one movie is based upon actual inhumane experiments conducted in
prestigious universities.
The producer of one movie was forced to
cast the actor who starred in it.
The director of one movie considers it among
his worst.
One serious movie suffered because its
studio promoted it as an exploitation movie.
The
14 movies that I highlight cover a period of three and one-half decades, from
1943 to 1978, and I would speculate that the average moviegoer today has not
heard of most of them. With one exception, they were financial failures or
disappointments, a fact that contributes to their obscurity. However, I believe
that they still deserve the recognition and praise that they did not receive
upon their original release. In my estimation, these are all excellent films
but yet most of them did not attract wide audiences.
These
movies include a wide variety of subjects. In Son of Dracula (1943), the main character is a woman who is not
only eager to die but is also willing to kill the man that loves her. In Alias Nick Beal (1949), Lucifer is
determined to condemn an innocent man him to eternal suffering. Both The Power (1968) and The Medusa Touch (1978) portray men with
superior brains that have the capability to either save or destroy the entire world.
One of them will choose destruction because he hates humanity with a passion.
Very
few people have heard of the movie, Who?
(1974), and those who have heard of it were probably confused by the title. And
yet it is a poignant story of an altruistic man who is victimized by futuristic
technology. The protagonist of The Groundstar
Conspiracy (1972) also endures tremendous suffering from another type of
futuristic technology. The future of the aforementioned 1984 (1956) is extremely frightening because it depicts a world in
which a sweet-looking child will betray her own father to be tortured and
perhaps killed.
I
am hoping that this book will encourage people, including some of you who are
reading this, to view these movies. They are all entertaining and, in some
respects, provocative. For instance, after seeing The Maze (1953), you might actually sympathize with a monstrous amphibian.
If you believe that a brain is lifeless once it is removed from its body, Donovan’s Brain (1953) may change your
mind. You might also discover how fragile our brains are after viewing The Mind Benders (1963), a story about the
cruelty of pitiless scientists. If you view Crack
in the World (1965), you will witness how the earth is almost destroyed by
a scientist with abundant hubris. Upon viewing Journey to the far Side of the Sun (1969), you will witness a benevolent
scientist lose his sanity because of his extraordinary discovery.
There
are moments of pure excitement and suspense as well as pure terror in these
movies. Viewers of Capricorn One
(1977) will inevitably break out in ecstatic applause at the sight of a rickety
biplane suddenly appearing on an isolated desert road. This is the only movie
among the 14 in this book that was a success – with the public if not the
critics. In contrast, The Mummy’s Shroud
(1967) played the bottom-of-the-bill of double features and was unnoticed upon
its release. But I believe it deserves some kind of awareness.
So
I hope that I have piqued your curiosity enough to encourage you to read about
the making of these movies. But even if you choose not to buy the book, for
your own safety, I implore you to please heed this warning: Beware the beat of
the cloth-wrapped feet!
Review: Clint Eastwood: The Iconic Filmmaker
and his Work, by Ian Nathan, White Lion Publishing; 1st edition (7 Sept. 2023),
Hardcover, 176 pages.
Clint Eastwood, one of the original stars to
emerge from the ‘cool’ era of the Sixties, continues to demand the status of
cultural icon on a worldwide basis. From the lone man with no name in the
‘Dollar’ movies to Inspector Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry franchise, bare
knuckle fighter Philo Beddoe to an ageing Korean War veteran in Gran Torino and
The Mule - his roles exemplified an undeniable screen magnetism and a masculine
sense of command.
Eastwood was born in 1930 at Saint Francis
Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. An introverted child (by his own
admission), a personality trait that probably surfaced due to an unsettled
childhood which saw him constantly travelling wherever his father’s work would
take him. He was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War
where he became a lifeguard at Fort Ord. On his return he made a few appearances
and given minor roles by director Jack Arnold in B pictures such as Revenge of
the Creature and Tarantula. His big break came as Rowdy Yates in the TV Saga Rawhide,
an hour-long western series which ran for over 7 years. It was during Rawhide
that Eastwood accepted an offer to travel to a remote region of Spain in order
to make a low-key western for a relatively unknown director, Sergio Leone. It
turned out to be a smart move on Eastwood’s part and one that would catapult
him to one of the leading lights of Hollywood.
Author and Film Critic Ian Nathan’s new book,
Clint Eastwood, The Iconic Filmmaker and his Work (part of the Iconic
Filmmakers Series) (ISBN-13?: ?978-0711283657),
explores, in detail, Eastwood’s phenomenal Hollywood career as actor, director,
producer and composer. As a leading actor in some of the biggest and most respected
films to hit the cinema screens, Nathan breaks his book down into several
linier chapters which makes for an easy-to-read timeline of events. But the
author has also been smart enough to include other important departures such as
his tenure as Mayor of Carmel and his move into directing. The transcendence
from major box office sensation of the Seventies into more personal film
projects of the Eighties and Nineties is smooth and seamless and never misses a
beat. The book charts his maturity, examining certain myths and more
challenging subjects as a filmmaker. The book explores Eastwood as he gradually
moved more behind the camera as opposed to in front of it while maintaining a
healthy respect from both fans and his peers.
I also like Nathan’s footer timeline.
Appearing at the bottom of certain pages, it works well as a nice guide which
keeps you on track during certain periods of his career. Of course, Eastwood’s
career is long and distinguished, often making editing a real nightmare of a
task. There’s a fine line between examining too deeply or not examining deep enough
– especially in a career spanning nearly 70 years (and counting). But Nathan
gets the balance just about right here. It covers all the important aspects of
a very rich and varied career, and with just the right weight in terms of
detail. I doubt if seasoned fans will find anything particularly new within its
176 pages, but they’ll certainly want to add it to their collection,
regardless. Anyone wishing to examine Eastwood’s career, perhaps for the first
time in book form, couldn’t really go far wrong with this as an entry point.
It’s also lavishly packaged. A solid hardback edition which is also housed
within a matching hardshell slipcase matching that of the book’s cover is as
appealing as they come – and a particularly nice touch - as well as serving as
a great form of protection.
Published by White Lion Publishing and
released on 7th September, 2023 – this book also contains a wealth of
impressive images, from rare posters, production shots and a wonderful
collection of stills ranging from the early Universal years right up to Eastwood’s
latest release, Cry Macho. Overall. it’s
a lavishly detailed publication which I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending. It’s
a book in which everyone involved should feel a genuine sense of pride and
accomplishment. Darren
Allison
"Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling” by Mark A.
Vieira (Running Press; $40) 368 Pages, Illustrated (B&W and color);
Hardback. ISBN: 9780762482375"
Review by Lee Pfeiffer
Running Press, in association with Turner Classic Movies,
has released a glorious tribute to a legendary studio with “Warner Bros.: 100
Years of Storytelling” by noted author and film historian Mark A. Vieira. The
book features an insightful foreword written by (appropriately enough) Ben
Mankiewicz, one of the popular hosts of TCM movie presentations and a member of
the Mankiewicz family of Hollywood legend. The studio introduced sound
to the movie-going experience with the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927,
and as the press releases points out, would later “put the noir in film”
through countless crime classics that saw the rise of James Cagney, Edward G.
Robinson and Humphrey Bogart to legendary status.
The handsome coffee table
book is broken down by decade up through films released in 2021. Vieira
provides lengthy and informative introductions to each decade beginning with
the founding of the studio through the breakthroughs in new screen freedoms in
the 1960s and 1970s. However, this is a celebration of Warner Bros. that relies
primarily on photographs, reproduced in gorgeous B&W and color. There is a
photo and caption for every single film and simply flipping through the volume
is a marvelous trip down memory lane. Vieira completed the book before the studio
underwent a number of high-profile controversies in the last year that resulted
in layoffs that included the top staff of TCM itself- an act that saw major
filmmakers such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese go public
with a joint demand that TCM should remain the beloved jewel it has always
been. Whatever the future holds for WB, no one can change its monumental past
and this book is a fitting tribute to its legacy.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from The History Press:
Featuring a host of unpublished interviews, this is the first book to explore the greatest year in Hollywood's history - 1971
By anyone’s estimate 1971 was a great year for cinema. Has any other
year boasted such a mass of talented filmmakers plying their trade?
Polanski, Woody Allen, Spielberg, Kubrick, Peckinpah, Sergio Leone,
Robert Altman, George Lucas, Dario Argento, Nicolas Roeg and Ingmar
Bergman, among many others, were behind the camera, while the stars were
out in force, too. Clint Eastwood, Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Michael
Caine, Al Pacino, Jane Fonda, Gene Hackman, Paul Newman, Raquel Welch,
Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen and Warren
Beatty all had films come out in 1971.
This remarkable artistic
flowering that came from the ‘New Hollywood’ of the '70s was just
beginning in 1971. The old guard was fading away and the new guard was
taking over. With a decline in box office attendances by the end of the
'60s, along with a genuine inability to come up with a reliable
barometer of box office success, studio heads gave unprecedented freedom
to younger filmmakers to lead the way. Featuring interviews with some
of Hollywood's biggest names, bestselling author Robert Sellers explores
this landmark year in Hollywood and in Britain, when this new age was
at its freshest, and where the transfer of power was felt most
exhilaratingly.
After years of considering new book projects, I decided that it was time to write another book on the Beatles. My first book on the Beatles was Let It Be, part of the 33 1/3 series published by Bloomsbury. The subject of pop music and film always intrigued me, and obviously I touched on this subject with the Let It Be book, so choosing to write about the films of the Beatles seemed like a natural fit for my interests.
There hasn’t been a book that has concentrated on the five Beatles films for the general book trade in some time. Those books also didn’t include any of the rich vein of materials from the DVD and Blu-ray reissues of the films or the vinyl reissues (and lavish box set of theLet It Be album) of the soundtrack albums and related reissues. Having access to the Get Back project from Peter Jackson fleshed out the story of the Let It Be film in ways that were truly illuminating.
All of the films of the Beatles came out between 1964 and 1970. This was also a key period for British movies in general, so I knew that I wanted to provide context on British cinema of the period in the book. This would include the iconic spy movies of the era, most notably the James Bond films. There were also plenty of directors, actors, writers and others behind the scenes of not only the films of the Beatles, but of other British films and movies in general that I wanted to include in the book. Some of those people also worked on the films of the Beatles. There is also much musical and cultural context in the book.
I started the book before the pandemic, and due to how the virus affected various aspects of the world at large, it also impacted the entire process of the book, from the writing through its publication.
The hard deadline of the book changed twice. The book was originally conceived to be muchshorter, but as I did my research and wrote and with the additional time added, the book ballooned to a final manuscript of nearly 500 pages. That manuscript was edited down to the nearly 350-page book that was published on May 15th in the U.S. and July 15th in the U.K. from Roman & Littlefield, through its Backbeat imprint.
The book has been warmly received by the Beatles community at large. Among my chief concerns were ensuring factual accuracy and creating a book that offered an expanded scope from that of previous volumes on the films of the Beatles. The feedback I have received so far makes me feel like I have succeeded.
I didn’t interview Paul or Ringo for the book. Given that the films were made in some cases nearly 60 years ago, there were many people I would have liked to have to talked to, but many are no longer with us and some have long since ceased doing interviews for a variety of reasons. Some of the people I did interview who worked on the films or with the Beatles or who could provide insight and context include Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Billy J. Kramer, Anthony Richmond, Cameron Crowe, Ralph Bakshi, Gered Mankowitz, John Kosh, Ryan White and Marijke Koger, among many others.
This is definitely a book for fans of the Beatles, but also for fans of the British films, music and cultural history of the time and place.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
“A terrific read that puts the Fabs’ films into an
insightful and fact-filled context with a fresh perspective on just how
important the movies were to their lasting legacy.” —Dennis Elsas, legendary
WNEW FM and WFUV New York disc jockey and co-host of Fab Fourum on Sirius XM
“With Act Naturally: The Beatles on Film, Steve Matteo
provides readers with the definitive, go-to book for understanding the group’s
cinematic forays. Chockful of new information, Act Naturally is rife with
stories about the Fabs’ filmic excursions and key aspects of their unparalleled
contribution to music and celebrity culture.” —Kenneth Womack, author of John
Lennon 1980 and Fandom and the Beatles
“Steve Matteo is the perfect companion and tour guide in
navigating the Beatles’ fascinating dalliance with film, from the British New
Wave of Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night to the atmospheric verité of
Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be. This is a most welcome—and long
overdue—exploration of an important but often overlooked facet of the Beatles’
saga.” —Mark Rozzo, author of Everybody Thought We Were Crazy and a founding
member of Bambi Kino
“Fans of the films of the Beatles have not been given a
book to revel in for many years. Steve Matteo has provided one: a deep-dive
look at the Beatles, their soundtrack music, and their films. The Beatles
remain the epitome of what a band can be. All-time greats. Matteo's history
swiftly and clearly follows their path, transporting the reader to swinging
’60s London and beyond. This book is every Beatles fan's ticket to ride.”
—Noah Charney, author of The Devil in the Gallery: How
Scandal, Shock, and Rivalry Shaped the Art World
“The Beatles are a gift that keeps on giving. Steve
Matteo’s book is a gift in itself. For those of us who will always love the
Beatles, Matteo’s book renews and expands this love of the songs and the four
guys we thought we knew.” —David Yaffe, author of Reckless Daughter: A Portrait
of Joni Mitchell
“Act Naturally is saturated with the author’s contagious
love for his subject. It’s a miraculous chronicle of how those precious films
came to be, their history from every imaginable angle, the characters—likely
and unlikely—who had a hand in the productions, and industry logistics. I am so
grateful to have been shuttled back to the 1960s, to swinging London, and to
the Beatles’ glorious films. I learned a lot, and anyone interested in films of
the ‘50s and ‘60s will get a huge charge out of this wonderful and meticulous
history.” —Maura Spiegel, author of Sidney Lumet: A Life and Professor of
English and Film at Columbia University
Backbeat Books is proud to announce the release of Act Naturally by Steve
Matteo. The five films the Beatles worked on during their time together (A Hard
Day’s Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be) all
represent key phases in the group’s career—some successful, some not. Subsequent
reissues of the films have provided a deeper understanding of the group with
the addition of bonus material, along with the recent release of Get Back on
DVD and Blu-ray. With Let It Be last available on VHS in 1981, the Get Back
series of Let It Be film footage by Peter Jackson, culled fifty-five hours of
raw footage, to piece together a companion documentary to the original Let It
Be film. The Beatles have never done anything like this before with any of
their films.
In this most up-to-date deep dive into the band's
cinematic output, author and longtime music journalist Steve Matteo follows the
fan frenzy around their films from the 1964 premiere of A Hard Day’s Night through
1970's Let It Be to the release of Get Back in late 2021. Their earlier films
parallel an unprecedented period in the artistic and commercial evolution of
British world cinema. Matteo explores the production process, original
theatrical film releases, subsequent VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray releases and bonus
material, along with the U.S. and U.K. soundtracks. The film legacy of the
Beatles is an exciting inside look at the group and their music-making process.
Steve Matteo is the author of the books Let It Be and Dylan
and contributed to the collection The Beatles in Context. He is a contributing
editor for The Vinyl District and has written for such publications as The New
York Times, The Los Angeles Times, New York magazine, Time Out New York, Rolling
Stone, Spin, Rock's Backpages, Elle, Interview, and Salon. He often appears on
radio in his capacity as a music journalist and author.
Since 1991, Backbeat Books have been favorites among passionate music fans and musicians.
Known for their depth, spirit, and authority, Backbeat offers a diverse range
of books - from biographies and memoirs, critical examinations and histories,
to authoritative volumes on musical instruments and instruction - covering all
areas of rock 'n' roll, jazz, and beyond.
“Noir Bar” by Eddie Muller (Running Press)228 Pages, Illustrated (B&Wand color);
Hardback. ISBN: 9780762480623
If you’re a fan of all things related to Film Noir,
you’re probably quite familiar with Eddie Muller, who is known as the Noir
Czar. Muller’s passion for the genre is well-known and his influence in keeping
Noir in vogue is widespread. He founded the Film Noir Foundation in 2005,
through which he hosts popular film festivals. He’s also a regular host on
Turner Classic Movies’ presentations of Noir movies, always nattily attired and
giving viewers tips on how dress in real Noir style. He’s also a
prolific author who we interviewed about his landmark book “Dark City”, which
is the seminal book on the subject. One would think he’s covered every
conceivable angle in regard to analyzing the genre but he’s pulled another
rabbit out of his hat with the release of “Noir Bar”, an infectious and clever
advisory about how to properly prepare cocktails inspired by Noir films. Thus,
we have recipes related to specific film titles including The Asphalt
Jungle, The Big Sleep (the original, of course!) and more obscure gems such
as Decoy.As the press release
points out, “Rita Hayworth is toasted with a Sailor
Beware, an original concoction which, like the film that inspired it, The Lady from Shanghai, is unique,
complex, and packs a wallop.”But
there’s more…much more. In addition to enticing close-ups of the concoctions,
there is an abundance of superb B&W stills and colourful movie posters.
It’s the stuff that dreams are made of…and also hangovers. Highly recommended
even for teatotallers.
(Photo:TCM)
Sample recipe:
BLACK
MANHATTAN INSPIRED BY SIDE STREET
What could be more appropriate to this
film than a Black Manhattan, a noir twist on the most classic of whiskey-based
cocktails?
COUPE GLASS, chilled
MIXING GLASS, strained
2 ounces rye whiskey
1 ounce Averna amaro
Dash Angostura bitters
Dash orange bitters
Garnish Luxardo Maraschino cherries
NOTES: I garnish this with at least
two cherries on a cocktail skewer. Since you can’t see the cherries in the
drink, rest the skewer on the lip of the glass. Getting Luxardo cherries on a
skewer takes finesse; you don’t want the sticky syrup on your fingers. Use a
barspoon to fish up a cherry, hold it against the inside lip of the jar, and
gently pierce the fruit, using the spoon to push it to the middle of the
skewer. Repeat with one or two more cherries. Wipe the excess off the skewer
with a napkin before setting it across the glass.
"Author's Corner":
Cinema Retro invites authors to contribute a first-hand account of how they
were inspired to write their book. Our guest contributor today is Julian
Schlossberg, author of "Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer's
Life" (Beaufort Books). (Click
here for Cinema Retro's review of the book.)
A producer had better be working on several things at the
same time. As they say, throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and
hope that some of it sticks. But in 2021, with the pandemic raging, nothing was
sticking. I felt the need to put all my projects on hold. So what is a producer
to do with all of that free time and energy? He looks back. He
shares stories. Prior to that, whenever I would share some anecdote
related to my sixty years in show business, I was often asked “are you
writing a book?” I had always answered truthfully that I was too
busy. Well, now, with the pandemic, busy, I wasn’t. So I sat down and
wrote just one chapter. It was a story I had told for years and that had
made my wife Merryn laugh, even though she had heard me tell it countless
times. I then wrote another. And another. I would read each new
chapter to Merryn and two women who are my frequent collaborators and, have
become, like sisters to me, Marlo Thomas and Elaine May. These three
women were very important to my process. Eventually Elaine would
contribute the foreword to my book.
The past started flooding back and I found myself
downloading incidents I had forgotten. The more I wrote, the more I
began to realize that I had many reasons for bring my story to the page. In
looking back, I wanted to transport readers of my generation back to a time
that will never come again. I wanted to share my experiences with a younger
generation that might enjoy reading about a totally different world that once
existed. This was a time when there was only three television
networks. A time when people still dressed up to go to the movies
(especially if it was a musical!). A time when I thought I could do anything,
because I was still young and inexperienced enough to have not considered the
alternative.
(Photo: Julian Schlossberg).
Beyond the nostalgia, I knew that I wanted my story to entertain, and perhaps,
even inspire. Having produced movies, television and theater, I wanted to
write about my personal experiences working in all three mediums. I would
recount in some detail how a play, a movie and a television show is produced
from the ground up. I would share my experiences learning the trade from
the ground up, and recall my collaborations, encounters and, in some cases,
friendships with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Shirley
MacLaine, Bruce Springsteen, Elia Kazan, Sid Caesar, Orson Welles, Al
Pacino, Burt Reynolds, Lillian Hellman, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack
Nicholson, Bob Hope, Ethan Coen, George Burns, Sid Caesar, Steve Allen,
Larry Gelbart and many others.
Just writing such a list humbles me, and looking back, I am still amazed by my
unexpected trajectory. When I was just starting out, I drove a taxi for a
living. To keep alert while picking up late night fares, I would listen
to comedy legends on the radio; talents like Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Woody
Allen and Alan Arkin. I dreamed that I might one day meet them and tell them
how much I admired their talent. The fact that I ended up producing for
them, to this day, boggles my mind.
But before I became a producer, my first showbiz job was working at the ABC-TV
network. There, I decided to learn all I could about the entertainment
business. I didn’t have a medical, accounting or law degree. But I
knew knowledge was power, and if I could attain knowledge perhaps I could
attain some power. So I became my own kind of hyphenate. I was a TV
network executive—motion picture syndicator—V.P. of a theater chain— V.P. of a
major film studio—owner of a production and film distribution company.
And after that, my list of hyphenated job titles grew to include
producer—director—radio host—TV host—co-owner of a record company—talent
manager—producer representative—lecturer-teacher.
And, now, finally, I can say that I’m an author too. Who would have thought
that the cabbie from the Bronx would one day author a memoir titled Try
Not To Hold It Against Me – A Producer’s Life? Who’d have thought that
anyone would want to read it? Certainly not me. But with the book having
sold out on Amazon within days of its initial release, and a second printing on
order, I guess people are reading. I’m awe-struck and I couldn’t be more
pleased or grateful.
(Photo: Julian Schlossberg).
Since this is a cinema site, I’ll close with a memory that I include in the new
book. I describe my experience of working, distantly, with Martin
Scorsese and Federico Fellini. I close that particular chapter with this
recollection: “It meant a lot to me to present a Fellini film with
Scorsese. I was proud to be associated with both of them. But I
also knew how to answer the question often posed in elementary school tests,
‘which one doesn’t belong’.”
I suppose, despite my 60 years in
the business, I will always see myself as the kid from the Bronx who
wanted to get into show business …but try not to hold it against me.
(PR contact for Julian Schlossberg: Brett Oberman at
Keith Sherman & Associates: brett@ksa-pr.com)
I have often been asked why
did I choose to write a book about The Dirty Dozen. Well, the short answer is
that it’s always been a favorite film, very popular, and no one has ever
thought to do it before, to my knowledge. How it came about is a more involved
answer concerning my current agent, Lee Sobel. After my previous agent, Michael
Hamilburg passed away, I was left in free fall until Lee contacted me. I
checked him out and decided to take him up on his offer of representation. In
short order we came up with a new book idea, he goaded me into a proposal, and
the next thing I knew, we got a publisher's offer!
Following my initial
conversation with Lee Sobel, I began the research by rereading and notating the
original novel, as well as Googling info on the internet before agreeing to
create the proposal, all of which took place in January 2021 and continued
until I turned in the manuscript nine months later. From that moment on I was
researching and writing the book continuously, even though I had to maintain a
day job to pay my bills. Thank God my girlfriend was willing to help out
financially when my advance ran out. A freelance author’s lot is not an easy
one.
(Author E.M. "Mick" Nathanson (center) visits the chateau set and poses with director Robert Aldrich (left) and actor Lee Marvin (right. Photo: Dwayne Epstein.)
Because of the extremely short
timetable, the publisher gave me — the aforementioned nine months to research
and write —I had to hit the ground running, very fast. Fortunately, I had a lot
of unused research about the film from my biography of Lee Marvin that I could
use which helped immensely. Also, a friend of mine, Beverly Gray, who also writes
non-fiction about filmmaking, had recently written a book on the making of The
Graduate (1967) entitled Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, which I was able to use as a
sort of template. Even better than that, when I told Beverly what I was working
on, she told me she had interviewed The Dirty Dozen’s original author, E. M.
Nathanson, but it had never been published. In one of the most gracious acts of
kindness I’ve ever experienced, she gave me the interview on a CD which proved
invaluable to my research as Nathanson passed away in 2016. Can’t thank Beverly
enough!
Most days began with me
checking my sources, answering or sending out e-mail inquiries, and going over
what I had written, and what was not yet written. Coffee was of course
required, a local jazz station on the radio in the background and eventually
playing the soundtrack to The Dirty Dozen as the day wore on. I was also
wracked by the constant fear of not being able to finish in time but it was
often allayed by the discovery of a new source of information. My favorite
example was discovering the film’s producer, Ken Hyman, still alive at the age
of 92 and sharp as a tack when it came to his memory of the film. Finding him
was not easy but once I did, I like to joke, how come there aren’t any famous
Jewish detectives?
(Photo: Barbara Troeller)
I quickly discovered that
there are many facts and misinformation about the film and its production that
are still circulating out there that I was most enthusiastic to correct with
proven facts & stats or simply dispel out of hand. Where does one begin?
The story of 12 convicts ordered to kill Nazis on a secret mission during WWII
has always been thought of to be true. The inclusion of filmmaker Russ Meyer in the film’s genesis was also a revelation. What cast members, especially
lead actor Lee Marvin, really thought of the film was great to disprove despite
misinformation to the contrary. As I said, way too many amazing facts to narrow
down to just one. Gotta read the book to find them all out! As a lifelong fan
of the film, I was amazed at the number of differences between the novel and
the film that was provided by such exclusive sources as producer Hyman, cast
members Bob Phillips (Cpl. Morgan), Donald Sutherland (Vernon Pinkley), Dora
Reisser (German Officer's Girl), Colin Maitland (Seth Sawyer), and more. I also
spoke with the adult children of many of the film’s participants such as
Valerie Walker, Lisa and Cheyney Ryan, Caine Carruthers, Michael Nathanson, and
Christopher Marvin, among others. It also helps to have access to the Margaret
Herrick Library at The Motion Picture Academy. Not to brag but my extensive
personal library collection of motion picture history was also a key factor in
discovering the film’s amazing history.
(Actor Lee Marvin (left) and producer Ken Hyman (right) practice the tick fighting skills explained by former Marine self-defense instructor Bob Phillips (center). Photo: Dwayne Epstein).
When I turned in the
manuscript I was expecting to deal with a lot of edits or deletions from the
editor assigned to the book. Much to my surprise, there were none at all. It
was simply accepted and the proofs were sent to me for my approval. Pretty
amazing. As my agent, Lee Sobel messaged me when he read the opening of the
book: “I just read the opening of your book and it’s fantastic. I’m running
around dealing with my kids so I’m not sure when I get to read more but that’s
a sensational opening to the book. You did what all book openings of this kind
should do in my opinion which is to whet the appetite for things to come and
lay out your mission statement if you will. Bravo! It is nice and tight too, no
wonder he didn’t do any editing.” The end result of such diligent hard work is
now available online and in bookstores everywhere.
Where
does a book begin? In my case, with Cleopatra
it came when my dear late mother found out that Elizabeth Taylor had been
recently seen in the pub in South East London where we used to go to celebrate
family occasions.
This
would have been in 1963/64, when the very idea of a screen goddess, a genuine film
star, a bona-fide legend likeElizabeth Taylor would inhabit the same
universe as us!
Thirty
years later and I am Film Editor of Vox,
a monthly UK music and film magazine. I wrote a feature for the 30th
anniversary of Cleopatra, and tried
pitching it as a BBC radio documentary. So over the years I accrued a filing
cabinet drawer and shelf full of material about that legendary 1963 film.
Few
of the film’s stars survived into the 21st century, so I had to rely
on cuttings, biographies and film histories. As you might expect for a film on
the scale of Cleopatra, that in
itself was quite a challenge. But the more I dipped into it the more amazed I
became: stars signed up for 10 weeks hanging round for 18 months in Rome. The
battles Darryl F. Zanuck fought to gain control of 20th Century Fox.
The Burton family’s determination to keep Richard’s marriage together…
I
suspect that my inspiration for a book was based on Steven Bach and Julie
Salamon’s books on Heavens Gate and Bonfire Of The Vanities – brilliant
books about terrible films. And for all its grandeur, Cleopatrais a terrible
film. But what a story in how it made it to the cinema screen.
It
was a five year journey: 20th Century Fox were keen to cash-in on
the success of MGMs Ben-Hur, and so dusted
down a 1917 script about the Queen of the Nile. It was intended as a $2,000,000
vehicle for Fox contract player Joan Collins with a 64-day shoot.
The
fact that the Theda Bara Cleo was a
silent film didn’t seem to worry the studio unduly. Five years later, and at a budget twenty times the original estimate, Cleopatra premiered.
Elizabeth
Taylor accounted for $1,000,000 of that budget, the first star to ask for – and
get! – that legendary seven figure sum. There was no finished script, but the
UK offered generous tax breaks, so Fox decided to construct a massive set of
the ancient port of Alexandria at Pinewood Studios. Shooting began in September
1961, the beginning of the English autumn. Some days it rained so heavily you
couldn’t see the other side of the set. Other days it was so cold, vapour was
coming out of the extras’ mouths. The imported pine tress had to be constantly
replaced because of the wind. The enormous sea tank containing a million
gallons was overflowing because of the rain.
The
original cast of Peter Finch (Caesar) and Stephen Boyd (Marc Antony) had to
quit due to existing commitments. The sky remained grey and gloomy.Trying to conjure up Mediterranean grandeur
was proving problematic. Ancient Alexandria in rural Buckinghamshire suddenly
seemed not such a good idea.
Eventually,
after two months the decision was made to pull the plug on the UK shoot. Eight
minutes of film ended up in the finished film, at a cost of nearly $8,000,000.
The question was: to write off such a sum (half of what Ben-Hur cost!) Or get a new director, script and stars and relocate
to begin filming again in Rome. At least in Italy you could be guaranteed good
weather, besides, what else could possibly go wrong?
As
Cinema Retro readers will know it all
went horribly wrong. Once in Rome, Cleopatra was far removed from the
Hollywood studio. In those pre-fax, email and text days, it was a cumbersome
business to arrange phone calls and telexes. The story of the romance between
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor was only one of the factors whichdelayed the production of Cleopatra. Poor writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was shooting
by day and writing the script by night. His original vision for the film was
two films, but the studio wanted something – anything – out to cash in on the Burton/ Taylor romance.
On
its release, Cleopatra was the most
successful film of 1963, but it took years to claw back its costs, and 20th
Century Fox was only saved by a modest little musical, The Sound Of Music, which came in at a sixth the cost of Cleopatra!
Like
many, I was of an age to be beguiled by the big-screen releases of the early
1960s. It's a cliché, but with only two UK black & white TV channels,
colour was a big deal. Especially in all its Todd-AO, stereophonic majesty. I’d
already lapped upThe Alamo,
Barabbas, King Of Kings, Ben-Hur, El Cid, How the West Was Won, The Guns of
Navarone, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Lawrence of Arabia, PT109, The Longest
Day, Mutiny on the Bounty, Spartacus, and Taras Bulba. Then came The Great Escape, Fall Of The Roman Empire,
55 Days At Peking, 633 Squadron… The glory days.
Finally seeing Cleopatra was a disappointment. It has spectacle, but
is somehow just not… spectacular. And
beware the Ides of March, because once Rex Harrison is gone, the film dips. Over
the years when I began reviewing and writing about films professionally, I kept
coming back to Cleopatra. How could
they have got it so wrong? And didn’t
they learn from their mistakes? Obviously not as flops like Dr Dolittle, Star! and Hello Dolly were overtaken by the likes
of The Graduate, Bonnie & Clyde, Easy
Rider…
You’d
think by now, the studios would have learned from their mistakes, but no, only
last year Warners announced that they’d written off their $100,00,000 Cat Woman. There is something rather
magnificent in the folly of Cleopatra.
But it is a hard watch. Far more enjoyable was The VIPs, made to cash-in
on the infamy of the Burtons.
For
those of a certain age, those epic films were emblematic. They were school
holiday treats at the London Astoria, the Dominion, the Metropole… Souvenir
brochures and Kia-Ora in hand as we sat open-mouthed as the screen was filled
with thousands and thousands of costumed extras, besieging the Alamo or Peking.
Even rewatching them on CD or Blu-Ray, the scale of those productions is jaw
dropping – and those were all humans occupying those Roman forums and besieged
cities, not generated by a computer. And here’s
a thought… a profile of that maverick producer Samuel L. Bronston is long
overdue.
Cleopatra all
but finished the career of J.L. Mankiewicz, it took the studio to the cleaners,
and was a body blow from which the old Hollywood never really recovered. It is
hard to be fond of it as a film, but what happened offscreen gave me a
fantastic opportunity to recall those extravagant days. When even a film as
flawed as Cleopatra was made on a
scale which had to be witnessed with an audience. At a cinema near you…
There is little left to marvel at in
the Marvel Comic Universe.
There just aren’t stars like Burton and Taylor today. For all its manifold flaws,
there is something compelling about the legend of Cleopatra. Not so much in the finished film, but my memories of
cinema-going when a film like that was an event.For all its follies, a film like Cleopatra could almost be said to end an
era of cinematic innocence. My research into what went on off the screen, and
what it took to get it into cinemas was fascinating. They have done it with The Godfather, so maybe a TV series
about the making of Cleopatra. Now that would make a great movie.
Photo: Courtesy of Patrick Humphries.
"Cleopatra & The Undoing Of
Hollywood" is published by The History Press, £20.00, ISBN 9781803990187
“Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer’s Life” by Julian
Schlossberg (Beaufort Books; $27) 168 Pages, Illustrated (B&W); Hardback.
ISBN: 9780825310256
Review by Lee Pfeiffer
Julian Schlossberg's achievements in the film industry make for an amusing and informative
experience in devouring his often whimsical memories of the business in decades
past. He grew up in New York City, far removed from any connection to show
business, but fell in love with movies after seeing his first flick on the big
screen: Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront". It set in motion a desire
to get involved in the entertainment industry despite the fact that his
background provided neither the money, connections or influence to do so. An
indication of his reputation in the film industry is hinted at by the
celebrities who provide enthusiastic blurbs for the book. They are certainly
eclectic: Twiggy, Tony Roberts, Steve Guttenberg, Renee Taylor, Susan Strohman
among them. The foreword is provided by the legendary Elaine May. Schlossberg
has kept good company throughout his long career.
His memoir
details how enthusiasm, confidence and the willingness to take chances resulted
in his edging his way slowly up ladder at a time when Gotham was a crucial
centerpiece in the film business. After a stint in the U.S. Army, Schlossberg
painstakingly sold himself to higher-ups he didn't even know through sheer
determination, first starting in entry level positions and then becoming a
salesman for packages of theatrical films that would be sold to small markets
throughout America. He had quite a chore. In those days, "small
markets" were just that: some places had only one or two TV stations and
were selective about what they chose. Schlossberg had to convince them to buy
packages of acclaimed films that were generally art-house, big city fare. In
several of the markets, he was amicably informed by contacts that he was the
first Jew they had met. Oy vey, indeed! He later worked as the booking agent
for the prestigious Walter Reade theater chain, a high-pressure job that
mandated that he had to pick winners to play to sophisticated New York
audiences. At Warren Beatty's personal request, Schlossberg took a gamble and
opened Robert Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" in one of the
theaters- despite the fact that it had opened and bombed at another theater
recently. With an inspired new ad campaign, the film proved to be a hit. In
those days, new movies often opened in a few select big city theaters before
going into wide release. He opened Woody Allen's offbeat "Everything You
Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask") at two art houses in
Manhattan to great results, an anecdote that had personal resonance to this
reviewer because, at age 15, a friend of mine and I saw the film when it opened
at one of these theaters and we became
the only people in history who were threatened with expulsion for laughing too
hard at a comedy.
Schlossberg
would later gravitate to producing plays and serving among the top brass at movie
studios. Along the way there were plenty of triumphs and missteps, which he
candidly recalls with humour. In doing so, he provides some rare glimpses into
the trials and tribulations of producing live theater. In one chapter, he painstakingly
details the attempts to stage a revival of “Sly Fox” on Broadway. Everyone is
enthused about the project but every actor who is considered for the leading role
proves to be unreliable, including “nice guy” Burt Reynolds, who leaves
Schlossberg and his partners hanging out to dry by backing out at the last
minute. Ultimately, the show went on with Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role, but
the reviews and boxoffice were disappointments. The logistics of putting on
this one production boggle the mind. No wonder Noel Coward once quipped “Why
must the show go on???” There are also plenty of names to drop along the way
from Harrison Ford to Barbra Streisand, some as long-time friends, others
through one-off encounters. This book isn't filled with vengeful rhetoric. Schlossberg writes mostly about people he likes and goes soft on criticizing the people he doesn't. One curiosity concerns how he eventually represented Elia Kazan, his boyhood idol. Perhaps for that reason, Schlossberg doesn't address the controversies about Kazan's "naming names" during the Blacklist period, which made him a figure of great controversy. Yet, it's admirable that his affection for the man on a personal level allowed him to show some deference in the cause of sentiment, which is an emotion not always found in show business relationships. If Schlossberg engages in some occasional bragging,
he’s earned the right. The book is a delight throughout and a “must” for anyone
interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of films and live theatre.
(This book will be available on Amazon on April 15. Click on this link to pre-order from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KjmJVd)
It’s
quite possible that there are more podcasts about cinema these days than there
are cinemas. Given such saturation, podcast creators have to work hard to make
their movie shows stand out from the competition. It is to film critic John Bleasdale’s
credit then that he’s managed to find a singular cinematic theme to concentrate
on, yet one with a vastly broad range of potential subjects and guests.
Writers
On Film is the only podcast dedicated to books on cinema and it is only a few
film-chats away from its 100th episode. Readers of Cinema Retro will no doubt
have at least one Movie section within their bookshelves. Search the authors’ names
on the spines of some of your most recent purchases and there’s a very good
chance you’ll find one of the many guests on Writers on Film.
Bleasdale,
a respected critic who has written for The Times, The Guardian, The
Independent, Sight and Sound and many others was, like so many creatives
looking for something to get him through the lockdown. ‘Because of Covid there
were no releases,’ he says, ‘so I was scrabbling around for things to write
that didn’t require being topical; I didn’t want to do a review podcast or
anything like that. I knew a few people who had written books that I’d met in
film festivals: former editor of Premiere Glenn Kenny was one. My brother had
sent me over a couple of beautiful books for Christmas, the Scorsese book by
Tom Shone and Ian Nathan’s book on Ridley Scott, so I originally thought I’d
just interview a few of these authors.
‘I
noticed that a lot of film writers were promoting their work on Twitter so I
reached out to them and eventually, I had enough of a response to realise this
was a podcast. Initially, the idea was to do about 10 episodes, because I
thought my guest list would have dried up by then, but here we are now crossing
the hundred mark.’
The
guest list has now blossomed into a who’s who of the cinema literature genre.
Scroll back through the episodes and you’ll find Sam Wasson talking about his
Chinatown book The Big Goodbye, Gabriel Byrne discussing his memoir, and Julie
Salamon revisiting her landmark book The Devil’s Candy. In between, there’s
everything from Spike Lee to Buster Keaton via Michael Cimino, Biblical epics,
women vs Hollywood, and George Stevens Jr reminiscing about about Hollywood’s
Golden Age.
Bleasdale
has a convivial, conversational style and the loose format allows space for the
guests to open up about their work, rather than just give quick soundbites.
Occasionally you can hear a guest, perhaps a little tentative at first, relax
and unwind once they realise they’re talking with someone who knows of which he
speaks and isn’t there to trap them.
(Photo:John Bleasdale)
His
love of film books goes back to his youth in Barrow in Furness. ‘The very first
ones were novelisations by writers like Alan Dean Foster, who I was lucky to
have on the podcast. It’s such a legendary name that I was actually surprised
that he was a person!Books and film
really cross over for me. When I couldn’t sneak in to see Blade Runner at the
cinema, because I was ten when it came out and it was an ‘A,’ I bought the
Philip K Dick book with Harrison Ford on the cover and lived in that book as
though it was the movie.’
‘My
auntie was a librarian so I would get all these cinema books out and run up
terrible fines because I was useless at returning them. There was The Cinema of
Loneliness by Robert P. Kolker, with Travis Bickle on the cover, and other one
was the Kubrick book by Michel Ciment (another Writers on Film guest), which
was stunning and so deep and fascinating, and of course this was when we couldn’t
actually see A Clockwork Orange. I became fascinated not just by his films but
by understanding that there was a mind behind these films which was separately
fascinating: if he’d never made a single film, an interview with Kubrick would
have been extraordinary in itself.’
What
the disparate list of guests and themes investigated on Writers on Film
demonstrates is the enormous breadth of subjects that can be categorised under
the Cinema Literature umbrella. ‘It’s pretty much limitless,’ says Bleasdale. ‘If
you want to write a book on cinema, good luck because the hardest thing to find
is a subject that hasn’t been covered, which is good for me because I can find
lots of things to talk about and it’s always different.’
It’s
refreshing to hear that Movie Books are still thriving, despite the potentially
smothering factor of the internet. Bleasdale thinks they have survived by
evolving in the face of competition online. ‘There are cinema books on
bestseller lists these days. The ‘90s were a heyday for a very specific kind of
cinema book. The Faber books were great and some of those authors have been on
the podcast, but they did tend to be interview books. Nowadays, if I want to
find out what Martin Scorsese once said about so-and-so, with YouTube and
Google and even DVD commentaries, that information is now so much more
accessible than it was back then.
‘Today,
there’s more engagement with putting films into a historical context: Peter
Biskind was one of the first writers who launched this idea with Easy Riders,
Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures. Nowadays people like Sam Wasson and
Glenn Frankel are really running with that. Glenn Frankel’s books are just so
deep and interesting and go so far beyond cinema into history, politics and
society and culture generally. Mark Harris is another: calling Scenes from A
Revolution a ‘film book’ is quite limiting. You learn so much not just about
Hollywood but about everything that went on in 1967.Coffee table books have never been more
varied in terms of subject matter or looked better. The recent one on Sofia
Coppola by Hannah Strong looks stunning.’
Writers
on Film is an ear-feast for cinema fans but don’t get too carried away with the
recommendations or, to paraphrase Chief Martin Brody, you’re gonna need a
bigger bookshelf.
(Search
for Writers on Film wherever you find your podcasts. Click here to visit official web site.)
Many
narratives, novels, dramas and films depict an artist at the mercy of a work he
is unable to complete. Constantly deferred and failed attempts bring him to the
verge of death or madness. In the celebrated Fellini’s Otto e mezzo (aka
8 ½) (1963), the film director Guido Anselmi dreams to realize a film he
is unable to create. Just as in Marcel Proust’s In search of the lost Time (that
may be the model of the script), we have to wait until the end of the
film for the creator to find a way of realizing his work, which is, of course,
the one we have just been watching.
In
real life, too, artistic creation often entails battling with a work dreamed of
but which remains forever unrealized. The aim of my book is to show that in
regards to this dream project, that the creator longs to produce and always
abandons, is at the center of his creative adventure. It constitutes the key to
his oeuvre.
How
did I arrive at such a thesis? Many years ago, I discovered in Jean Genet’s
manuscripts (sent by Jean Genet to his American translator and agent, Bernard
Frechtman), a draft of a project named La Mort (Death) on which he
worked almost twenty years. Genet did not finish writing this text. But by analyzing the drafts that remained of this great
project, I realized that it provided the key to understanding Genet’s creative
work as a whole. The meaning of ambiguous plays by Genet like The Balcony,
The Blacks or The Screens aswell
of his theoretical and political worksis put in light by the aims that Genet had set himself in La Mort.
In
Fellini’s case, the twists and turns in the long-delayed shooting of the Viaggio
di G. Mastorna (The Journey of G. Mastorna) have passed into legend. In Otto
e mezzo (1963), Fellini depicted a film director who was unable to make a
film whose actors were already signed up and huge sets already built.
A
few years later real life imitated fiction. Fellini collaborated with Dino
Buzzati and Brunello Rondi on a screenplay about the realm of the Dead (Il
viaggio di G. Mastorna). Just as in the imaginary scenario in Otto e
mezzo, the preparations for shooting are very well advanced. The enormous
sets are ready. Thousands of costumes have been made. The actors’ contracts are
signed. And then to the despair of producer Dino De Laurentiis, Fellini
abandoned the project. Fellini was to return often to the Viaggio di G.
Mastorna without ever succeeding in finishing it. He rewrote the screenplay
with other screenwriters, Bernadino Zapponi and Tonino Guerra. The American
film director Mike Nichols offered him a million dollars for the screen rights.
Fellini refused because he still believed he would one day be able to make it
himself. In the last months of his life, he even agreed to its becoming a
graphic novel by Milo Manara. Only a few days before his death in September
1993, confined to his hospital bed, Fellini was still drawing Mastorna’s
mysterious outline. It was his last self-portrait.
The
Journey of G. Mastorna was intended by Fellini to be a
“Metaphysical James Bond film”. Understanding this dream project sheds new
light on Fellini’s films.Spaghetti, women with enormous breasts,
dreams: Fellini’s stock in trade is all too well known. It ends up obscuring
the true meaning of an oeuvre which is quasi prophetic, a voice raging against
the materialism of the modern world, an ongoing quest for the sacred. The large
number of books on spiritualism in Fellini’s library show how interested he was
in these subjects. Mastorna was intended as an investigation into what
happens after Death because Fellini was certain that something after Death
existed. Fellini- like Genet- is
a mystic whose quest takes place far from religious institutions.
My
book evokes also other cinematographic dream projects: the adaptation of Marcel
Proust’s In search of the lost Time by Luchino Visconti, L’Enfer
(Hell) by Georges Clouzot and the Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon on which
the film director spent years gathering prodigious amounts of documentation.
For
each of the main dream projects depicted in the book, my approach was the same.
First, I reconstructed the different stages of the unfinished work. Then, I
established a link between the abandoned project, and the overall work of this
artist, thereby shedding new light on the totality of his oeuvre.
Following their acclaimed book "A Wealth of Pigeons", Steve Martin and his friend, New Yorker magazine cartoonist Harry Bliss, have collaborated on another volume of cartoons, "Number One is Walking". The title refers to how the main star on the set of a movie is referred to. "Number One is Walking", is shouted to advise the crew that the main star is en route to the set. Martin advises there is a numeric pecking order that only Hollywood could create. Each actor's status is diminished by how far down the line his or her "number" is. The first half of this book consists of Bliss's cartoon depictions of Martin's experiences on movie sets. Refreshingly, the humor is gentle and self-deprecating towards Martin. Many of the cartoons depict Martin's devotion to his beloved pet dogs. Bliss's work- intentionally or not- calls to mind the creations of Gary Larson , the mad genius behind "The Far Side". Larson went into self-imposed retirement some years ago, so Bliss's clever work helps fill the gap. During the film-related section of the book, Martin recalls amusing anecdotes involving most of the more prominent productions he appeared in. He has nothing but kind words to say about everyone he mentions or depicts in the book, with special praise given to Carl Reiner, with whom he collaborated on several films. The film section of the book is presented in comic book style with multi-panel cartoons and the anecdotes are interesting and funny. Martin explains why he gave up making feature films, writing "I lost interest in movies at exactly the same time movies lost interest in me". He relates that after making 40 feature films, he found the process too taxing and time-consuming. Thus, he re-evaluated his life and career and decided to slow down. He wrote a great deal (books, songs, plays) and teamed with his old pal Martin Short for a stand-up comedy tour that resulted in their hit streaming series "Only Murders in the Building". The second half of the book is a creative free-for-all and features full-panel cartoons unrelated to Martin's film career.
"Number One is Walking" has only one drawback for fans of Martin's movies, namely, the cursory anecdotes might well be his only attempt to provide us with insights into the making of these films. One would hope that a traditional book of memoirs about his movies might someday come to pass. In the interim, this book is amusing and classy, much like Martin and his distinctive brand of timeless humor.
By
Sandra de Bruin with Dean Brierly (BearManor Media), 218 pages, Hardback,
Paperback & Kindle, ISBN 979-8-88771-028-0
By Steve Stiefel
Overview
Hollywood
with a Smileis
not your typical self-indulgent memoir. You will find no axe grinding, closet
skeleton rattling, or “MeToo” posturing in these pages, just captivating
accounts by Sandra de Bruin of her successful and fascinating life as an
actress in the film capital of the world. During a career that spanned decades,
de Bruin enjoyed professional and personal encounters with countless Hollywood
icons. But rather than beating her own drum, she generously directs the focus
onto these familiar faces of film and television.
These
beguiling narratives enlighten and charm in equal measure: a hilarious
fender-bender with Paul Newman; a working relationship/friendship with Charlton
Heston; an affecting encounter with Elvis Presley; accolades from Ricardo
Montalban, James Garner and Dolly Parton; recurring chance meetings with Cliff
Robertson; adventures and misadventures on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson; a romantic relationship with legendary film director Robert Wise. Plus, intimate
perspectives on de Bruin’s life and dreams, follies and foibles, friendships
and loves.
A
poetical prologue sets the book’s tone and tempo and clarifies its raison d’être.
Additional context is provided through capsule biographies that introduce each
chapter and personality, and which underscore an era in which stars really were
stars. This one-of-a-kind book reveals a side of Hollywood rarely remarked
upon—its good side. Furthermore, the insights that de Bruin offers into the
vagaries of human character and behavior aren’t limited to her star-studded
subjects, but have a universal resonance beyond the bounds of the fabled Dream
Factory.
Photo courtesy of Sandra De Bruin.
Q&A
with Sandra de Bruin and Dean Brierly
Q:One of the most
unique aspects of the book is reading about famous stars like Paul Newman and
Charlton Heston outside of their familiar movie star personas.
A: This was a conscious
decision—to present these iconic figures in a down-to-earth and real-world
context in which they behave just like anyone else. We're all familiar with the
classic stories that have been endlessly repeated and recycled. But in our
book, you will encounter a different aspect, a different side, to people like
Paul Newman, James Garner, Jason Robards.
Q:What was your
reason for starting each celebrity chapter with their mini-biographies?
A: We did that partly
with younger generations in mind who might not be familiar with some of the
celebrities from Hollywood's Golden Era. And we tried whenever possible to draw
parallels to contemporary entertainers: for example, comparing Harry
Belafonte's talents and accomplishments to those of Usher. Not all of the
subjects in the book received the same renown during their lifetimes, like
actor Frederick Combs, designer Ret Turner, or C. Bernard Jackson, the
African-American playwright and founder of the Inner City Cultural Center in
Los Angeles, yet all three made huge creative and social contributions in their
respective domains.
Q:In fact, not all
of the people you write about were superstars.
A: We felt it was
important to pay tribute to the working actresses and actors and the
behind-the-scene folks who, in a real sense, are the backbone of Hollywood.
Their stories can be just as important and inspiring as those of their famous
contemporaries.
Q:Talk about the
tone of the book, which is uplifting and positive rather than self-indulgent
and snarky.
A: This was never
intended as a "tell-all" book, which as a genre feels overdone. There
are countless books devoted to dishing dirt on Hollywood stars, but we felt it
important to take a different approach. Everyone who has read the book says
they appreciate how positive and uplifting and funny it is in a nonjudgmental
way.
Q:Sandra, to a
remarkable degree, you don’t blow your own horn, and willingly reveal, as the
book's subtitle reads, your own follies and foibles. The focus really seems to
be on the subjects you write about rather than yourself. Why did you opt for
this approach?
A: We didn’t want this
book to be just another memoir about someone the general public has never
really heard of. We wanted it to mainly be about the icons of Hollywood and my
encounters with them, not the other way around. However, I also wanted to
include some of my own follies and foibles so the reader would have a sense of
who I am.
Q:Yet, these
anecdotes do reveal a great deal about your character and perspective, not only
with regard to the famous people you met, but towards your career as well. Were
you conscious of this during the writing of the book?
A: Yes, I certainly
was. Acting is definitely an art, but it is also a business. When not actually
performing, I always conducted myself according to my instilled values and in a
friendly business fashion. I never relied on my looks or my sexuality. Talent,
intellect, and tenacity made me a professional working actress.
Q:How did these
unique encounters influence your career and career decisions?
A:
Meeting
all these astonishing and highly successful people in a genre known for its
harsh climate made me realize that I could succeed by being true to myself. The
powers that be apparently respected that and my talent.
Q:
What
was the most enjoyable aspect of writing this book and the most challenging?
A: Writing this book
brought back wonderful memories. It made me giggle at my naiveté and applaud my
tenacity. The most challenging parts of it were the bios and pulling it all
together, but those issues were solved by my writing partner, Dean Brierly.
What a guy!
Q:Sandra, how did
you come up with a limerick for the prologue? It’s heartfelt, inspiring, and
delightful.
A: Thank you! Dean and
I agreed that most prologues are a tad boring and wanted to come up with
something different. After a glass of wine, or maybe two, I just sat down at
the computer and rolled it out. It came so easily! It still astonishes me.
Q:What do you hope
people will take away from your book?
A: That Hollywood is
not just Tinseltown, but is also filled with lovely people, some of whom become
well-deserved icons.
Testimonials
“Sandra
de Bruin’s memories of a cherished era in entertainment history are sure to
keep you captivated from one page to the next. The author’s unforgettable
encounters with select celebrities are presented with such authority and
clarity you feel as if you’re almost reliving the experiences with her.
—J.R.
Jordan, film historian and author of Robert Wise: The Motion Pictures
“What
a happy romp Sandra has written: a mélange of memorable vignettes about stars
she met or admired as a longtime actress in Hollywood. It’s at once warm,
revealing and hilarious. I loved it!”
—Nick
Lyons, author of Fire in the Straw
“I
always felt that actors who did not achieve superstardom have the more
interesting stories, and Sandra de Bruin is no exception. She shares her life
as a working actress, describing amusing encounters with some of Hollywood’s
biggest stars.”
—Tom
Lisanti, author of Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers,
Fantasy & Suspense
About
the Authors
• Sandra de Bruin has appeared in over 200
television shows, several major films, many Los Angeles stage productions,
numerous commercials, voiceover and looping...and, oh, yes, danced in a
production at the Los Angeles Music Center. Her informative and witty articles
have appeared in several magazines, and her scripts have been optioned, bought,
sold and dropped by major studios and independent producers alike. She created
the "Actor's Audition Log" and the "Performer's Workshop
Log" to fulfill the organizational needs of her fellow performers from
coast to coast and around the world.
•
Dean Brierlyis a film historian and writer who
has contributed to numerous print and online magazines, including Cinema
Retro, Filmfax, Outre?, and others. Among his many celebrity
interviews are Gordon Parks, David Carradine, Michael Moriarty, Stella Stevens,
Fred Williamson, and Joe Dante. Dean has contributed liner notes for Blu-ray
and DVD releases, and publishes several film blogs, including Fifties Crime
Films and Classic Hollywood Quotes.
Click here to order from Amazon. Available in hardback, softcover and Kindle versions.
"THE WAY WE WERE: THE MAKING OF A ROMANTIC CLASSIC" (Applause)
By Tom Santopietro
I started thinking about The Way We Were as the
subject of a possible book when I happened to hear two women quoting the entire
last scene of the film by heart, re-enacting Barbra Streisand’s Katie Morosky murmuring
“Hubbell, your girl is lovely” to the aging but still golden Robert Redford.
This behavior wasn’t just liking the film- this was quasi-obsession. When I
then happened to catch a re-run of “Sex and the City” where the four best
friends decide that the entire world is divided into “Katie girls” and others,
followed by Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw re-enacting The Way We
Were’s finale in front of the Plaza Hotel, I was intrigued. Hooked. Why
does this decidedly flawed film carry such romantic heft? After all, if the
best movies form parts of our world views and shape our dreams, what did this
hyper fandom for a fifty-year- old film say about the way we are today?
As I started to research the history of the film, my
“possibly writing” became a definite “yes”; accelerating the decision was
realizing that by writing about The Way We Were I was actually, if
unconsciously completing my trilogy of books centering on films that people
don’t just like, but actually obsess over: The Godfather Effect- drama, The
Sound of Music Story- musical, and now The Way We Were- romance.
The backstory was juicy in and of itself. Redford didn’t
want to make the film, dragging his heels until director Sidney Pollack wore
him down with promises of rewrites.Screenwriter Arthur Laurents
remained dissatisfied throughout filming, feuding with desperate producer Ray
Stark. The deeper I dug, the more intrigued I became: I spent several days at
the Library of Congress reading through Laurents’s papers, including a
scorching eight-page memo to Stark in whichhe enumerated the film’s
perceived flaws; flaws which he felt- and I’m translating politely here- were
so egregious that they made him feel sick. Eleven different screenwriters had a
hand in the script- no wonder Laurents was perpetually angry. His own life had
inspired several key incidents in the screenplay and his life was now being
re-written by eleven other people.
I liked the fact that in the early going this now iconic
film’s success was far from assured; as one studio executive only half-kiddingly
said to Sydney Pollack: “Barbra Streisand doesn’t sing and she plays a
communist—are you trying to kill me?!” The fact that no one expected a romantic
classic made its now half-century of success all the more intriguing. The film
had received decidedly mixed reviews upon its initial release, although the
stars were highly praised, and Streisand received an Academy Award nomination. (She
lost to Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class, and when was the last time
anyone decided that they just had to watch A Touch of Class again?)
Streisand, she of the fearsome reputation, proved to be the
easiest personality for Pollack to handle. This was her chance to prove her
chops as a dramatic actress and she was happy with her part; she signed on as
soon as she read the treatment, acknowledging that the treatment more than met
David Lean’s dictum that five good scenes dictates an answer of “yes”. In her
own words: “This had more than five good scenes.” She may have worried over every
last detail during filming, but, Pollack explained, she was not being
difficult- she came from a place of deep concern. She wanted it all to meet her
own perfectionist standards.
A sneak preview proceeded swimmingly- until, that is, the
political unrest of the blacklist period, so central to Laurents’s life and his
conception of the story, shot to the foreground. As soon as the love story
receded, audiences left the theater for popcorn and a cigarette. It was the
love story people cared about, not the polemics. Which meant that after that
first preview in San Francisco, ten minutes of politics was edited out
overnight with a razor blade. Literally. It left the film in a choppy state but
the love story now remained front and center and audiences at the second
preview cheered.
Industry publications predicted a big box office opening followed
by a quick drop-off, but the drop-off never came. Viewers returned to the film
over and over, which leads to the ultimate question: Why did audiences care so
much, unfailingly starting to cry over Katie and Hubbell’s final break-up. And
the more I read, the more I watched, and the more I interviewed (Streisand,
James Woods –his first film- lyricist Alan Bergman, Lois Chiles), I
found four reasons for the film’s extraordinary 50-year hold on audiences
around the world:
nStar chemistry in spades. Redford and Streisand at their
early ‘70s peak, looking great and throwing off sparks together, proving that
opposites really do attract. Everything about them reads as a contrast- looks,
acting styles, manner of speech- and it all blends beautifully.
nIll-fated love affairs are universal. Like Katie and
Hubbell, everyone in the viewing audience has loved the wrong person at one
time. Or at several times. Everyone has loved passionately, if not wisely. As
film historian Jeanine Basinger put it: “Yes- everyone really has loved the
wrong person at one point or another. Except for maybe 10 people- and who wants
to know them?”
nThe uber romantic score by the then unknown Marvin Hamlisch,
who composed the title song on spec, in hopes of scoring the entire movie. His
reward? Two Oscars.
nThat killer ending in front of the Plaza. For the three
people over 50 in the United States who haven’t seen the film, I won’t describe
it- except to say that even critics who didn’t like the film fell for the
ending- it’s an all time keeper.
And as audiences clamored to know if Katie and Hubbell would
ever get back together, the clamor for a sequel grew in volume.Talks were held.
Screenplays were written. So what happened?
To find that out you have to read the book. Besides, I have
my own idea for a sequel.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
“A hilarious and morose invocation of a lost world.
Anyone who has ever been movie-mad will relish this irrepressibly digressive,
surprise-filled, exquisitely written memoir (sort of). I certainly did.”
—Phillip Lopate Novelist
Todd McEwen grew up in a sleepy suburb just thirteen
miles from Hollywood, and at a young age he became obsessed with the big
screen. In this collection of essays—part memoir, part film criticism—McEwen
spins lush, technicolor memories. He recalls early mornings watching Laurel and
Hardy, matinées of Chinatown, and of course, his site of worship: his hometown
movie theater.
Cary Grant’s Suit is at once a love letter to old
Hollywood, a portrait of McEwen’s postwar, sunbelt neighborhood, and a sharp
analysis of a particular moment in American cultural history. The suburban
cul-de-sacs of McEwen’s childhood serve as the stage where the fears and
obsessions of the era are acted out: the neighborhood kids play “war” in the
pool and reenact The Wizard of Ozon the sidewalk. In this environment, McEwen
develops a keen eye for the desires and domestic dynamics, the technological
optimism and looming anxiety of the era. He uses this sensitivity to produce
shrewd (and often hilarious) readings of the films of his youth.
Grant in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest": Stylish even when running for his life.
(Photo: Cinema Retro Archive)
This collection includes essays on: Casablanca (in which
McEwen humorously catalogs the many drinks and cigarettes that appear
throughout the film), Laurel and Hardy (and its resonances with the domestic
and technological anxieties of the 1950s), The 39 Steps(and a trip to Scotland
to retrace the hero’s path), Chinatown(as an object of obsession), White
Christmas(as a “treatise on the textures of the Fifties”), not to mention the
titular essay on North by Northwest (arguing that “[it] isn’t about what
happens to Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit”),and many, many
more.
Todd McEwen was born in Southern California in the 1950s.
As a child he was interested in comedy and the undersea realm and was terrified
by Bambi. In high school he had his own radio show, interviewing folk singers
and puzzle inventors. At college he read Victorian and medieval English
literature. He worked in radio, theatre, and the rare books trade before
arriving in Scotland in the 1980s. After a spell at Granta, he has often worked
as an editor and teacher. His novels include Fisher’s Hornpipe, McX: A Romance
of the Dour, Who Sleeps with Katz, and The Five Simple Machines.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Midnight Marquee Press.
When Sir Christopher Lee passed away at the age of 93 in
2015, it was truly the end of an era. He was the last of the great horror
stars. This book is a comprehensive overview of Lee's work in the horror genre,
including movies, books, audio recordings and video games. As well as providing
in-depth production histories and critical analysis, new interviews have been
conducted with Lee's co-workers (some of them speaking here for the first
time), which shed fresh light upon the man and his work. Few actors spanned the
generations with more lasting appeal than Christopher Lee. From his ventures
with Hammer-whose swift gradation of flesh and blood into a staid 1950s cinema
broke new ground-to his work, in the next century, on Star Wars, Lord of the
Rings and numerous interactive formats, Lee was constantly abreast of
advancements in his industry. Consequently, this book can be read not only as
an alternative history of the Horror Film, but also of the myriad developments
within cinema itself.
Over the course of his five-decade
career as a producer and director, James Burrows has been nominated for fifteen
Directors Guild of
America awards and for an Emmy Award every year between 1980 and 2005,
excluding 1997. Burrows has won ten Emmy Awards and four Directors
Guild of America Awards. If one lasts this long in any industry,
with as many accolades, you can bet the person has many memorable stories to
tell. James Burrows has a number of stories to tell, and with co-author Eddy Friedfeld's
(Caesar's Hour) assistance, they are delivered with the same deftness many of
Burrow's over one thousand directed television episodes enjoyed.
James Burrows was born December
30, 1940 in Los Angeles, California to Ruth (Levinson) and Abe Burrows. He has
one sister, Laurie Burrows Grad. The family moved to New York City when the
children were still young. James' father Abe went on to become a well known
humorist, writer, director of radio and stage winning both a Pulitzer Prize and
a Tony for Best Direction of a Musical for "How to Succeed in Business Without
Really Trying." He occasionally took his son Jimmy to work with him,
depending upon whatever he may have been working on. Burrows recalled that back
then he never considered show business as a career. He eventually attended New
York City's High School of Music & Art, graduated from Oberlin College and
eventually attained a graduate degree from The Yale School of Drama.
After briefly working as a dialogue coach on
"O.K. Crackerby!", a television show created by his dad, he
became assistant stage manager for "Holly Golightly," a stage version
of Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Though the show was a
bomb, closing during previews, it set the stage for a move that would change
Burrows’ career and television situation comedy. Mary Tyler Moore was cast as
Holly Golightly and she and Burrows became great friends. So great in fact,
that when Burrows was tiring of stage managing and directing touring plays, he
wrote Moore and her husband Grant Tinker seeking employment at their production
company MTM Productions. He got a job.
"People like characters they can
identify with," writes Burrows, "Audiences internalize sitcom
characters more than any other type of character because they have gone through
many of the same experiences or emotions that the character has.They have dinner, they fight with each other,
they fall in love, often at the same time. Most people don't investigate
crimes, go to court, or operate on patients like the characters in dramas with
cops, lawyers, and doctors, but everyone eats with their family and friends,
sitting and talking."
This is Writing 101. Plain and simple. Get
your audience to identify with a character, to sympathize with them, celebrate
with them and you'll win the audience over. Think of the characters from many
of Burrows' shows; Sam and Diane from "Cheers," the gang of
"Friends," "Will and Grace," "Frazier," just to
name a few. As of this book's publishing Brooks has directed more that
seventy-five pilots that have gone to series. He has been called the Sitcom
Sorcerer, the Concorde of TV pilots, the Willie Mays of Directing (my personal
favorite), and the Obi-Wan Kenobi of Sitcoms. Have you ever thought of becoming
a television director? Well, here's your first textbook.
“Directed by James Burrows” succeeds on
multiple levels. It not only stands on its own as a memoir filled with colorful
tales and reminisces but also as an instructional manual for multi-camera
direction, how to get the most out of your actors (hint: allowing their input
is crucial), and creating a team-first attitude among your cast. Oh, and also
how to deal with network executives: "Garry Marshall once referred to
television-network executives as 'people who aren't funny who are telling people
who are funny what to do. And it's always going to be that way, because the men
that are funny don't want to put on a suit and tie and sit at the networks.'
"
Burrows focuses on "The Center"
when he discusses casting: "Most sitcoms have a center- a character the
audience is going to like, trust, respect and enjoy despite any flaws or
neuroses. - In the beginning, [centers] must be appealing and compelling.
Networks want characters to be appealing all the time. But that's ultimately
bad for storytelling, because there's no journey. There's no redemption if
there's no sin. There has to be some dimension. The challenge is in figuring
out how to grow and nurture characters carefully so that the audience will
continue to accept them."
“Directed by James Burrows” is also filled
with wonderful anecdotes such as this one from the "little- known fact
files," in this case Taxi: "The same way Louie took bribes from
cabbies for a good cab, Danny Devito developed a little cottage industry taking
bribes from the company (including Burrows) to announce names of family and
friends when he was dispatching cabs. He had a good side hustle going." Burrows also slips in "in jokes" to
his real-life friends: "John Lithgow was the original choice for Frazier
Crane on "Cheers," (I mention this for no other reason than to piss
off Kelsey Grammer, whom I love.")
From top to bottom, a double-take to the
left, a one-time avoidance of the banana peel that leads to a stumble over a
raisin, “Directed by James Burrows” is a thoroughly enjoyable and quick read. Burrows
and Friedfeld are on-point eighty-eight percent of the time. Read the book. Where
else could you find a Willie Mays of directing that bats .880?
Of
all the actors to emerge in the 1970s, there are few, if any, as captivating,
unpredictable and exciting as James Woods. He began the decade, and his on
screen career for that matter, for legendary director Elia Kazan in The
Visitors (1972), and in the next few years established himself as one of
American film's most promising young performers. He turned up as villains in
such classic TV shows as Kojak and Streets of San Francisco, but he also
appeared in some major 70s movies too, such as 1973's The Way We Were, Arthur
Penn's Night Movies (1975) and The Gambler (1975). But it was his performance
in The Onion Field (1979) which really signalled his arrival, as the
sociopathic cop killer Greg Powell. The film, based on Joseph Wambaugh's best-selling
non-fiction book, was a critical smash and earned Woods his first wave of
acclaim. It was a stunning performance, equally charismatic and frightening,
and it brought in a new face for cinema, an actor so convincing in his
intensity that you would have been scared of him had you met him in the street.
Of
course, it was really only the beginning. Into the next decade he proved
himself to be one of American cinema's most reliable, quirky, and appealing
character actors, appearing in such classics as Eyewitness (1981), David
Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983), Sergio Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in
America (1984), Against All Odds (1984), Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), for
which he received his first Oscar nomination, Best Seller (1987), Cop (1988)
and True Believer (1989). It was one of the most remarkable runs for any actor
of the era.
Woods
went on to appear in more than his fair share of stand outs in the following
decades, in such films as Chaplin (1991), The Hard Way (1992), The Specialist
(1994), Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995), for Oliver Stone again in both Nixon
(1995) and Any Given Sunday (1999), in Sofia Coppola's Virgin Suicides (1999)
and John Carpenter's Vampires (1998). His filmography reveals an almost
faultless body of work.
I
first had the idea to write a book about Woods' filmography in May 2021. I had
interviewed James in 2020 for a book I had written about Once Upon a Time in
America and, somewhat unexpectedly, we had stayed in touch. After I put
together a retrospective article for a vintage film magazine I sometimes put
out (Scenes), I presented the idea of a full book. He said he was OK with that,
but I presumed I would just write it and that would be it. No, he was happy to
do interviews- and we certainly did. For months in fact, we would speak every
week for hours on end, going over his many classics, from his early career days
in the 1970s, through his iconic films, right up to the most recent work. I got
the chance to interview the likes of Sharon Stone, Debbie Harry, Oliver Stone
and Jim Belushi, not to mention having Dolly Parton herself write the foreword
(she and Woods made a film together, Straight Talk). However, for the most part
the book is a journey through the career of James Woods, with Woods himself
acting as a sort of tour guide through his canon, and in the process, a part of
film history itself; beginning in the early Seventies with his experiences with
such directors as Sydney Pollack, Kazan, Harold Becker and others, through his
turbulent but rewarding work with Oliver Stone and numerous other legendary
filmmakers.
Woods
said to me at one point that the book was turning into a conversation between
two film lovers, one of whom just happened to be James Woods. And that, I
believe, sums it up rather well. This is a film lover's book, and it has the
distinction of having its subject as a kind of co-author. The resulting book,
The Films of James Woods, is a journey through a film career, yes, but it is
also a relaxed, freewheeling chat between two men, one in the UK, one in America,
and one who just happens to be a cinema legend. There is no gossip in the book,
no tell-all tattle, but a lot of movie talk. A hell of a lot, in fact.
“WATERLOO, MAKING AN EPIC: The
Spectacular Behind-the-Scenes Story of a Movie Colossus”
By Simon Lewis (BearManor Media), 534 pages,
illustrated (B&W), Hardback, Paperback & Ebook, ISBN978-1-62933-832-3
REVIEW BY BRIAN HANNAN
One would think that a film that
flopped as dramatically as Waterloo would scarcely deserve a book as superb as this. In quite extraordinary detail,
author Simon Lewis discusses every aspect of the making of the film, from
initial set-up to release, by way of analysis of dozens of separate scenes
through to rarely discussed elements like the editing and mixing, and even the
myth of the missing longer version and the importance of wooden boxes. It might have helped the movie’s commercial
chances, and not put too much of a dent in the ultimately massive budget of
$26.1 million if producer Dino De Laurentiis has snagged original dream team of
Richard Burton (Napoleon) and Peter O’Toole (Wellington), both of whom carried
much greater box office marquee than Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer.
Burton was never really a possibility but by 1968 O’Toole was “practically set”
although turning it down because he thought it would flop. John Huston, who had
just completed The Bible (1966) for De Laurentiis, was original choice
for director and got so far as being involved in the screenplay being written
by H.A.L Craig (Anzio, 1968). When he dropped out, Gilles Pontecorvo (The
Battle of Algiers, 1966) was briefly in the frame. However, a six-hour
version of War and Peace (1965) ultimately put Sergei Bondarchuk in the
director’s chair.
Requiring thousands of
properly trained and preferably “celluloid-seasoned” troops to carry out
disciplined manoeuvres rather than extras, De Laurentiis was in negotiation
with Turkey, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria before plumping for Russia, whose
production arm, Mosfilm, pumped in $8 million (later rising in line with budget
increases). Paramount and Columbia contributed a combined $7 million with
worldwide rights selling for a total of $25 million. Once filming began, Paramount
chiefs Charles Bludhorn and Robert Evans, watching elements of shooting, were
so taken with what they saw they wished they had invested more. Evans was
reportedly “enthralled by hours of film material.” Craig’s screenplay was
augmented by the director and Vittorio Bonicelli as well as uncredited contributions
by Jean Anouilh (Becket, 1964), Samuel Marx and Edward O. Marsh, not to
mention additions by the two main actors. Steiger pocketed $385,000, Plummer
$300,000, Craig $121,000 but Anouilh only $21,000. Gordon Highlanders pipers
and drummers picked up £7 a day.
Lewis is at his best when
forensically examining particular scenes, for example, the Duchess of Richmond
Ball which used 4,000 candles inserted into candelabras, the slightest draught
causing these to melt and drip wax on performers. A carpet was used to get
camera shots from a very low level.
Steiger played Napoleon almost
as a dead man walking, having got hold of a copy of the French Emperor’s autopsy
which revealed advanced cirrhosis and gonorrhoea. Steiger and Bondarchuk met
the night before to iron out ideas for the following day but Steiger was not
above forcing the director’s hand. In in one instance the actor removed his
trousers to ensure he could only be shot in close-up. Orson Welles matched
Steiger in trickery. Only hired for two days, Welles extended his employment by
insisting on doing his own make-up which of course was never up to scratch and
required amendment. And in terms of movie trickery, Steiger was required to sit
on a wooden box on his horse to ensure he could be kept in focus. Jack Hawkins
dispensed with the horse altogether – he was either atop a box or on top of
stilts, as he was unsteady on an animal. In the absence of CGI of the kind
Ridley Scott could eventually employ for his battle scenes, the real soldiers
were occasionally augmented by mannequins. Five thousand were made, two real
soldiers at either end of a row held eight mannequins in place by the use of a
single wooden plank – “this allowed all regiments to march forward.” Among the
many wonderful candid pictures in this lavishly illustrated tome – 200
photographs, many never seen before - is one of three girls staring at the
mannequins as well as photos of Steiger and Hawkins on their boxes.
The Waterloo battlefield had
one of the biggest sets ever built. A total of 17,000 soldiers, mostly from
Siberia andincluding 2,000 cavalry,
lived in a tented city a mile away. Steiger noted, “It would have taken assistant
directors three days to put untrained men, mere extras, into position. When
they broke for lunch it would be another three days to arrange them again.
These guys are superb.” Real soldiers working with their actual commanders was
the difference between waste and superb. Having a general in charge of the
troops often created issues. Bondarchuk would select the horses he wanted based
on the effect he wished to achieve with the light, demands often obstructed by the
commander if it meant the chosen horses had not been properly fed. “I will
order soldiers – but how do I order animals?” was the dry comment from the army
chief..
Although the battlefield was primarily
authentic – mud for one scene created by
pumping two days’ worth of water into the soil before cavalry churned up the area
– there were occasions when filming conformed to the Hollywood norm. “The use
of fiery explosions had been cinematic shorthand for battle scenes long before Waterloo”
when in reality these would be minimal. “Most ammunition that was fired
comprised large iron balls and so low was its speed it was possible to watch
their progress.”
The famous charge of the Scots Greys was
described thusly in the script: “they came straight into camera – like centaurs
in their magnificence.” The sight of 350 Arabian mounts travelling at breakneck
speed was captured by use of a specially constructed railway powered by a
diesel locomotive. Five cameras were sited in different positions on the train.
The famous slow-motion effect – possibly the most exhilarating moment in the
picture – was achieved by over-cranking the camera at 100 frames per second
which slowed what you saw by a factor of four.
Perhaps the best reveal
regarding movie trickery was the moon above Wellington as he rode past the
carnage. It comprised “special silver paper for front projection – 3M – like
shark skin. You put one light on it and it reflects ten times brighter.” The
moon was shown as one quarter less than full since the effect of a full moon
would be harder to carry off. “Blue ink made some spots as moon craters.” The
fake moon was suspended with one wire on top and two left and right to prevent
it from moving, then one light was projected onto it.
Lewis rebuts the myth of the
missing longer version. He reckons this probably came about because over
300,000 feet of film – 55 hours – was shot and the first rough cut was five
hours long. The final cut was 123 minutes and 42 seconds - not much longer than
if you had worked out the length by counting the pages of the screenplay - and
release cuts varied because, for example, the British censors cut out 28
seconds of horse falls and the ending includes 50 seconds of music over the
credits. It was never shown with the intermission which was de rigeur at
the time for longer roadshows and would have, artificially, inflated the
running time.There was some confusion
over the final print because a novelisation by Frederick E. Smith included some
scenes that didn’t make it into the final print, and Smith’s book, written of
necessity before the film appeared, would have used as its main reference tool
the screenplay. But Lewis spends a whole chapter explaining why a longer cut
never existed.
The world premiere was held on
26 October 1970 in London where the movie released as a roadshow (i.e. separate
performances) was a huge success. It ran for a few weeks short of an entire
year in the London West End, breaking box office records at the Odeon Leicester
Square and the Metropole where it opened on December 3rd, 1970, before
shifting to the Columbia on June 17, 1971, and then a final week at the Odeon
Kensington from September 30 1971. But audience appeal in the United States was
at the other end of the spectrum. It went from a strong opening week of $25,436
at the Criterion in New York to just $1,775 in its fourth week, and nationwide
racked up only $1.4 million in rentals (the studio share of the box office). It
was derided in France in part because the film was about the defeat of a legend
and the French could not come to terms with the idea that it was directed by a
Russian.
Where most “making of” books
concentrate on the stars and the director, Lewis goes into fantastic detail
about all aspects of the production, the chapter on editing and mixing an
education in itself. There’s a chapter on how historically accurate the film
actually was. The author was helped by the discovery of a diary kept during
production by actor Richard Heffer who played the small part Mercer. But Lewis
also managed to make contact with Dino De Laurentiis’s daughters, Raffaella and
Veronica, and around two dozen people connected with the film in some way, and
clearly examined every scrap of information available on the picture. The notes
are another mine of information.
Even if the film is not at the
top of your must-watch list, this book should go to the top of your must-read
list.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from The History Press.
THE ART OF FILM
Designing James Bond, Aliens, Batman and More
24 March 2022 | 9780750997423 | HB | £25
TERRY ACKLAND-SNOW WENDY LAYBOURN
Legendary
Art Director Terry Ackland-Snow lifts the lid on his extraordinary career in
cinema.
Features
many unpublished images and production sketches, and a wealth of amusing and
revealing anecdotes. Terry Ackland-Snow has been a legendary figure in the film /
TV industry for more than 40 years. Having worked on over 80 feature films,
including two James Bond (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Living
Daylights), Aliens, Batman, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Labyrinth and The Rocky
Horror Picture Show, he reveals in The Art of Film the stories behind the
making of these iconic productions. With behind-the-scenes photographs and
Terry’s own production sketches, many of which are published here for the first
time, this is an essential read for lovers of classic cinema.
Terry
Ackland-Snow has been in the film and television industry for more than 50
years. Having worked on over 80 feature productions, he has amassed a wealth of
knowledge and experience, all of which he now teaches on his art direction
training courses based at Pinewood Studios.
Wendy
Laybourn has worked in the film industry since the early 1970s and has spent
the past few years helping the future generation of filmmakers to understand
the skills and crafts involved.
20th Century-Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the
Creation of the Modern Film Studio by Scott Eyman (Running Press/Turner Classic
Movies) $28, 304 pages, Illustrated (Colour & B&W), Hardback, ISBN ‎978-0762470938
Scott Eyman has authored high profile biographies of numerous
screen legends including John Wayne, James Stewart, John Ford, Louis B. Mayer
and Cary Grant. Now, Eyman sets out to examine the career of another
larger-than-life Hollywood icon, Darryl F. Zanuck. There’s plenty of fertile
ground to examine, too, as the mercurial producer had a long, dramatic career
that could have formed the basis of one of his films. He saved the fledgling
Fox film corporation early in his career then became the tyrannical head of its
subsequent incarnation, 20th-Century Fox. Over the decades, Zanuck
would be feared and despised, rarely liked, but always respected as his early knack
for creating hits was legendary.
Zanuck on the set of his 1962 WWII epic, "The Longest Day."
How
tough was he? On the set of The Longest
Day, he publicly humiliated John Wayne for making an offensive remark about
the French. Now, that’s tough. Eyman follows his life through the
many highs and lows, from being dismissed from Fox only to be called back to
stave the red ink from Cleopatra. The
new glory years were followed by disaster due to Zanuck backing money-losing roadshow
productions in the 1960s and 1970s. He also famously battled for control of the
studio with his own son Richard, all the while still chasing women who were
young enough to be his granddaughter. The book provides some fascinating insights into the Zanuck's track record. Despite some major hits such as Patton, Planet of the Apes and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the majority of their productions proved to be money losers, resulting in Zanuck passing the blame to Richard and backing the board in firing his own son. All you need to know about Zanuck's persona is that a previous biography of him, published in the 1980s by Mel Gussow, was titled "Don't Say Yes Until I Finish Talking". It all makes for a highly compelling read
that you will find difficult to put down.
The
Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock is not a traditional biography; it’s not
even chronological. Instead, the book is
a multi-themed, multi-layered exploration of the relationship between
Hitchcock’s personality and his art. Each
of the twelve chapters looks at the man and his films through a different lens:
The Boy Who Couldn’t Grow Up, The Murderer, The Auteur, The Womanizer, The Fat
Man, and so on.
White’s
take on Hitchcock feels very contemporary. No punches are pulled when it comes to his
treatment and abuse of the actresses in his movies, or his issues around
gender, sexuality and body image.On the
other hand, the tone of the book is even-handed; it’s neither hagiography nor
tear-down, but rather a clear-eyed look at a fascinating filmmaker who has
given the world a treasure-trove of complicated, entertaining films.
If
you’re like me—intrigued by the creative process, interested in how and why
films are made— this book is for you!
If you're like most retro movie lovers, you're addicted to some degree to tuning into Turner Classic Movies. TCM fans are also fans of the knowledgeable team of hosts and one of the most prominent is Eddie Muller, the network's "go to" guy for all things relating to the Film Noir genre. In fact, Muller has become synonymous with noir largely due to his informative and stylish segments that bookend the telecasts of the films he introduces. Muller has released a new edition of his acclaimed book "Dark City" through TCM and Running Press publishers. The book has been indispensable over the last twenty years for Noir fans. Having been suitably impressed by a review copy I had received, I thought it would be appropriate to reach out to Muller and get insights on the Noir genre, the Film Noir Foundation, which he founded, TCM and, of course, "Dark City".
At
what point in your life did you discover the Film Noir genre and was there a
specific film that especially influenced you?
In
my early teens I became aware that there was a similarly shadowy, sexy, and sinister
look to Hollywood movies of a particular time. I picked them out of TV Guide
by looking for the words Night, Big, City and Street in the titles. I’m
surprised no studio made a picture called “Big City Street at Night.†“Thieves’
Highway†(1949) put the hook in because it was set in my hometown, San
Francisco.
The
constant debate question concerns what defines Film Noir. The "rules"
seem rather fluid. From your perspective, what are the essential ingredients?
The
protagonist isn’t a hero. He or she wants something they can’t have and they’ll
compromise themselves to get it. That’s the premise for lots of drama, but in
noir that usually means committing a crime. That’s looking at it thematically.
Stylistically, it’s the look: a largely nocturnal, sinister world. Alluring but
dangerous. The look of classic noir inspired filmmakers just as Impressionism
or Cubism influenced painters at a certain time.
There
have been many films in the modern era that have elements of Film Noir: the
Philip Marlowe movies with Robert Mitchum, "Chinatown,""Body Heat," "Mulholland Drive,"
etc....can any of these be considered to be Film Noir- and if not, why?
Since
I’m a writer, I first look at things from that perspective, so to me noir
extends beyond the boundaries of the visually oriented movement. I’m always
intrigued by its influence on a later generation of filmmakers, like Scorsese,
Schrader, Lynch, the Coens, Chris Nolan—and dozens of lesser known filmmakers
who get into the game by trying their hand at a noir—because they are by nature
so minimalist. They can be made on a shoestring. To me, there is the film noir
movement, generally 1941-1952 (when Hollywood was pumping out dozens every
year) and then there’s just Noir—which to me denotes a particularly dark and
dire kind of crime story in which survival is probably the best you can hope for.
Explain
why cinematography plays such an important element in the Noir genre.
Because
that’s what gave the films such a distinctive look. That’s why it’s an
“artistic movement.†There was no inherent reason the films had to look like
this. Most Hollywood trends are driven by economics—this one was driven by the
artists, doing things they found fresh and compelling.
How
did you decide on what films and stars to concentrate on for your book
"Dark City"?
The
core idea was that “Dark City†was an actual place. I was inspired by these
being contemporary films at the time they were made and taken together they
presented a coherent vision of a mythological American city—one that was the
complete antithesis of what the establishment wanted us to believe. So I
divided this city into neighborhoods that reflected essential subsets of the
“genre.†That meant leaving out some favorites, Gothic noirs like “Hangover
Square†and “The Suspect.†But with this revised and expanded version I got to
include a few chapters I’d had to leave out of the original release—The City
Desk (newspaper noirs), The Big House (prison noirs) and The Stage Door (show
biz noir).
Who
is your favorite Noir actor and actress and why?
I
feel obligated to say Humphrey Bogart because his persona was so essential to
the public’s acceptance of the noir anti-hero. He’s the guy who made darker
stories and more cynical characters palatable to the public. Honorable mention
to Robert Mitchum. And Dana Andrews. And Robert Ryan … the list is long. Easier
with the actress: Gloria Grahame. She was totally unique—funny and dangerous
and vulnerable and tough as nails. I love Claire Trevor, Marie Windsor, Jane
Greer, Audrey Totter … an equally long list, I guess. But Gloria was
one-of-a-kind.
What
is your favorite Noir film and why?
“In
a Lonely Place.†Because it stars Bogart and Gloria Grahame, their only film
together. And it’s the most adult movie I’ve ever seen from the period. Its
more than a crime movie; it says profound things about the psyche of artists
and about painful relationships between men and women.
What
are the most underrated Noir films and who would say are the most
underappreciated stars?
“Criss
Cross†(1949) is probably the most underrated. Robert Siodmak is my favorite
director of noir and I think this is his masterpiece, even better than “The
Killers†(1946). Another is “99 River Street,†which is like a 1950s pulp
paperback come to life. The film is not profound or particularly meaningful in
any way, but if you love crime movies it fires on all cylinders. So I might as
well cite its star, John Payne, as one of the most underrated performers in
noir. I don’t think he’s a great actor, but he understood this kind of material
and worked within it perfectly. He’s also great in “Kansas City Confidential.â€
Do
you think the films would have benefited if they had not been subjected to the
Production Code? For example, there always had to be a prevailing message that
crime doesn't pay and the sex scenes had to be compromised.
I
actually think the Code was beneficial to creativity, if artists were sharp and
had their wits about them. Writers like Dalton Trumbo were geniuses are writing
“around†the Code—look at “Gun Crazy,†as sex-charged and amoral a movie as was
ever made in this country, right under the nose of the censors. I don’t belief
in censorship, but I do believe in restraint and good taste. It pains me that
today it’s so hard to for filmmakers to do things tastefully. But maybe its
just because we’ve become a distasteful culture.
Please
describe how this updated edition of "Dark City" differs from the
previous edition.
I’ve
added three new chapters and included lots of material that was unavailable to
me 20-some years ago. In a nutshell, I’d say this edition is more “wised upâ€
than the previous one. And the package itself is exceptional. Running Press,
the publisher, did right by me, enhancing my original design concepts and
ensuring that the book had maximum visual allure.
How
did you get involved with TCM?
Somewhere
along the line they heard me say, “Film noir is the gateway drug to classic
cinema.†And they saw first-hand how many young people were drawn to the noir
film festivals I stage around the country. Being able to entice younger viewers
into the fold is essential to the survivial of these films. TCM felt I could
help do that for the network.
Please
let our readers know about the Film Noir Foundation.
The
Film Noir Foundation was created in 2005 to find, rescue and restore noir films
that were in danger of being lost. Typically, that means independently financed
films distributed but not owned by the major studios.Restorationists call them “orphaned films.â€
So far we’ve restored or preserved more than 30 titles, with more to come. It
was born out of the financial success of the Noir City film festivals I
produce. I couldn’t justify keeping all that profit for myself. Since the films
had given me so much, I decided to give something back to those filmmakers by making
sure their work survived. Many of the films we’ve rescued, “Woman on the Run,â€
“Too Late for Tears,†“The Prowler,†“Trappedâ€â€”are now included in the
narrative of “Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir.†The world may be lost,
but not the films.
When I received the review copy of Running Press's "Summer Movies", published in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies, I naturally assumed the book would probably be heavily skewed to covering the fabled "beach movies" of the fifties and sixties. Not that there's anything wrong with that. However, the genre has already been covered in a comprehensive manner in Tom Lisanti's excellent "Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969". It turns out that author John Malahy (an enthusiastic employee of Turner Classic Movies) has thought outside the box in compiling his list of "30 sun-drenched classics" ranging from the early sound era to recent releases for inclusion in the book. There are the obvious and eclectic choices: David Lean's "Summertime", Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night", "Gidget", "The Endless Summer", "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "Jaws". However, Malahy gets creative when it comes to his litmus test for what should constitute a "summer movie". For example, some of the films don't necessarily involve people at the beach but, rather, important aspects of the story take place during summer, which helps define the films in significant ways. Malahy includes an obscure early sound movie, "Lonesome" because it involves a young couple taking in the pleasures of Coney Island (though it was filmed in California). Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" has dramatic and humorous events unfolding over an unbearably hot New York summer when racial tensions turn violent. Hitchcock's "Rear Window" presents intrigue during another urban heat wave and John Huston's "Key Largo" has a hurricane that is the catalyst for murder and mayhem. "On Golden Pond", "Call Me By Your Name", "A Room with a View" and "The Graduate" concern family crises that unfold during particularly eventful summers that result in personal relationships hitting the breaking point. Other films featured include the original "The Parent Trap", "The Music Man", "Breaking Away", "Moonrise Kingdom", "A League of Their Own", "National Lampoon's Vacation", "Caddyshack", "Dirty Dancing", "Before Sunrise", "State Fair", "The Seven Year Itch" and several other gems.
Malahy writes in an entertaining and informative style and the book is nicely illustrated with an abundance of factoids and color photos. It also features a very appreciative foreword from Leonard Maltin. "Summer Movies" is fun and breezy- just like a day at the beach. Let's hope a sequel is in the works.
“The Rat Pack? Hasn’t that topic
been done to death?â€
That
is the question I was asked by some skeptical fellow writers when I mentioned I
was working with author Lon Davis on Deconstructing
the Rat Pack, our new book, published by Prestige Cinema Press.
It’s
true: there have been a stack of books on the myth that surrounds Rat Pack
members Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter
Lawford. But the fact is, myths are what have most often been printed. It
reminds me of the line in The Man Who
Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the
legend.†Lon and I subscribe to a different belief: print the facts. PR reports
of the time will lead one to believe that the Rat Pack came about organically,
that their onstage hijinks and wisecracks were off the cuff, that these
middle-aged men were basically superhuman, carousing all night with whatever
broads they summoned to their rooms. The truth differs.
The
Rat Pack has more to do with the history of our nation—as well as the history
of entertainment—than even their staunchest fans might realize. It started in
the late fifties. Frank Sinatra was already the Chairman of the Board, the most
influential popular singer of his time. Dean Martin, recently estranged from
his high-octane comic partner Jerry Lewis, was making his mark as a solo nightclub
performer and movie actor. Sammy Davis Jr., a multi-talented phenom, had just
made a stunning comeback following an automobile accident which resulted in his
losing an eye. Joey Bishop, a veteran nightclub comic, was coming into his own
as a witty guest on the mega-popular Tonight Show starring Jack Paar. Teaming
these performers was the idea of Al Freeman, the director and promoter at the
Sands Hotel. He believed that featuring this new act, known informally as the Clan,
and later, as the Rat Pack, with the help of the biggest publicity machine in
the history of show business, for thirty consecutive nights in Las Vegas in
February 1960 (while making a hit heist movie called Ocean’s 11 during
daylight hours), would put this desert town on the map. And it did, big time. That
Las Vegas today is the glittering entertainment capital of the world owes much
of its success to that month of unforgettable, widely publicized performances,
known officially as The Summit.
History
has always been my passion, and in gleaning the facts of an event in recent
times it is important to me to learn about it from the surviving participants.
In the mid-1970s, when I was still in my teens, I began to seek out and
interview countless individuals who were in some way associated with show
business. One of the eighty-five celebrities interviewed for this book was bona
fide Rat Pack member Joey Bishop, the self-described “glue that held the act
together.†By the time I knew him, he was an embittered man in his eighties,
living an isolated existence on Lido Island in Newport Beach, California. It is
Joey’s unique, and heretofore little-known, perspective on which Lon and I have
based our book. Granted, talking with Joey about the Rat Pack was always a slippery
slope: he felt, justifiably, that his association with the group overshadowed
every other aspect of his career. But who can compete with, or ignore, a legend?
For that’s what the Rat Pack has become. So much so that sixty years after the
Summit, there are tribute acts in casinos around the globe, with actors personifying
Frank, Dean, Sammy, and Joey. Of course, whether the act deserves to be
emulated in these more progressive times is a matter of debate. The collective
reputation of the Rat Pack is that of macho, hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking, skirt-chasing
entertainers who glorified misogyny.
It
was the mob that used these well-compensated song-and-dance men to establish Las
Vegas as the world’s leading den of vice. I talked to many of these "wise guys"
as well, some of whom were members of my own family. My cousin Carl Cohen was
the six-foot-five-inch-tall manager of the Sands who stopped a fractious Frank
Sinatra, a 9 percent owner of the hotel, from wreaking havoc in the lobby with
a fist to the mouth, knocking the caps right off his teeth. Moe Dalitz, another
relative, proudly told me how he had looked out for Joey Bishop, whom he
considered to be “a good family man.†Although it has always been Frank Sinatra
who is linked to the mob, Bishop is the only member of the group to serve as a
witness for the defense of Mickey Cohen when the notorious gangster was accused of murder. Max
Diamond, yet another gangster who foresaw the possibilities of Sin City, worked
for my family for twenty years after retiring from the rackets.
Fans
of the Rat Pack have often wondered how Peter Lawford, a rather colorless movie
actor from the 1940s, could share the stage with the likes of the dynamic Sinatra,
Martin, and Davis. The answer has more to do with the family he married into
than his modest talents. His brother-in-law was John F. Kennedy, the
charismatic, youthful senator who was being groomed for the presidency by his
father, star-maker Joseph Kennedy. Frank Sinatra, a man drawn to power,
welcomed JFK into his orbit, even temporarily rechristening the group “The Jack
Pack.†Attracting the country’s younger voters who preferred the good-looking
senator to the stodgy Republican candidate Richard Nixon, the endorsement of
the coolest group in the known world helped significantly in landing JFK in the
White House. The mob was at first delighted by his election, believing they would
get a pass to go about their business. They had no way of knowing that JFK’s
younger brother, Robert Kennedy, who was appointed Attorney General, would
become their worst nightmare. When JFK turned his back on the Rat Pack, Sinatra
turned his back on Lawford. Joey would also lose the Chairman’s favor, although
for a different kind of betrayal.
The story of the Rat Pack has many twists and
turns. But don’t take our word for it. Read the book and see for yourself.
You’ll be glad we chose not to print the legend.
The
best place to start when telling how I came to write a screenplay about Steve
McQueen is somewhere in the middle, around the time Netflix came knocking and
asked me to develop a project about the King of Cool. To be precise, Netflix
held a pitch session in 2018, in Montreal, where I live. Members of the Writer’s
Guild of Canada (experienced screenwriters) were invited to a swanky hotel,
where we went one-by-one into different rooms to meet the heads of various
departments at Netflix. I met with the head of Independent Film Acquisition. My
project was about a young Steve McQueen —a coming of age story, which ends
before he gets into acting; lots of amazing things happened to him before he
became a star, and in my view, those formative years were the most interesting
and dramatic. Naturally, Netflix wanted to hear more about Steve.
To
back-track a little: I’d written a screenplay about a young Steve McQueen ten
years prior. It had gotten positive feedback, even into the hands of some
Hollywood producers. I mean real ones; people who’d produced My Big Fat Greek
Wedding, The Ring movies, etc… But as much as they liked my script, they didn’t
see the commercial potential, and well, that’s how the movie business works.
Initially,
I’d chosen to write about Steve not because I was a particular fan or devotee.
In fact, I’d only discovered his movies a few years before (not having grown up
with them – being born in the mid-1970s when his career was near its end). As I
explored his work (who was this guy, and why hadn’t my generation heard more
about him?) I came to admire how he was the precursor of the modern star…
taking on a wide range of roles and passion projects which meant something to
him, even if they weren’t commercially viable, and sometimes were obvious
experiments (Le Mans, An Enemy of the People, Tom Horn, etc). Not many
Hollywood stars did that in his time, and still not many do it today.
As
much as I was drawn to his movies, what really drew me to write about him, was
his early life. As a teenager, Steve had already traveled the globe, served as
a merchant marine, worked in a brothel in the Dominican Republic; then he was
in the army… and risked his life to save fellow soldiers. He served on
President Truman’s yacht. Steve fell in love and had the chance at a posh job
with his potential father-in-law… but passed it all up to go his own way. He
was never bound by convention. All this before he became a star, or even
started acting. Steve’s life, his real
life —not just his time in Hollywood— was ripe with dramatic potential. Why
hadn’t someone made a movie about him before? Having had my first feature film
released back in 2008 (as well as an extensive career in documentaries), I
decided to take a crack at it.
We
can now fast-forward to when my Young Steve McQueen script sat in my drawer for
many years, after its first run among a few Hollywood producers. In 2018,
Netflix expressed interest in doing something about him, but my concept of a
globe-trotting Steve McQueen was deemed too expensive. So, I pitched an
alternate idea, centered on Steve’s later years when he walked away from
traditional Hollywood, and was focused on helping troubled youth. Netflix appeared
to like this approach which had a much lower budget. I spent the next year or so
developing the concept. Doing so, I was able to get in touch with Steve’s son, Chad
McQueen, who came on board as my executive producer. Chad was generous with his
time and he helped to make sure all the details were authentic. He also enabled
me to further my research. I spoke with Max Scott, former director of the Boys
Republic reform school, where Steve had attended as a youth. Steve later went
back as a star to help out troubled kids. I learned a lot about how he donated
his time and resources to help those kids, away from the eyes of the press. I
think even his son, Chad, learned something new: Max Scott told us how Steve had
supported a teenager from the Boys Republic with Olympic dreams… in bobsledding
no less! I could hear the surprise in Chad’s voice. It was inspiring to see how
much Steve had helped out. I learned a lot of other details about the Boys
Republic, too, how it functioned, and about Steve’s time there… like how he
once beat off a gang of tormentors by putting a bar of soap in a sock!
There
were major surprises for me as well. One day, Chad told me he’d just had lunch
with Steven Spielberg, and they were talking about my project. I’d written a scene
where Steve meets Steven, turning down the role in Close Encounters of the
Third Kind… and Spielberg provided corrections as to what really went down. Chad
told me he was pleased with how the writing was progressing. Unfortunately, as
I was finishing up the final draft of the treatment, Netflix came back and said
there wasn’t enough interest (among their audience) for a Steve McQueen film. They
never even read what I wrote. Needless to say, I was upset. But, I hate giving
up (if there’s anything Steve McQueen taught me!)
To
be clear, I couldn’t do anything with the Steve McQueen-Boys Republic project,
since it was tied up in various contractual agreements. So, I decided to return
to my earlier, Young Steve McQueen script and polish it up, based on my new
insights. It then occurred to me: if Netflix was unwilling to fork out a small
amount (say, under $5 million) to produce a film about Steve McQueen, it was unlikely
anyone would take the risk on a more expensive project, with lots of exotic
locations even though the script made the rounds again and feedback was universally
positive. However, the answer was equally universal. There’s not much of an
audience, today, for Steve McQueen. Or so they say. Are they wrong? I don’t
know, but that’s exactly why I decided to release the Young Steve McQueen script
in book form… to hear what real people have to say about it.
“Directing is so much more than staging
scenes or moving the camera,†explains John Badham in the new edition of his
last book. “It is how to make the impossible possible. It is storytelling,
imagination, people managing, resource skills, physical stamina, so many things
a director is called upon to be good at. Including accepting the blame for
everything: the script, the performances, the camerawork etc., etc., etc. And
yet, in spite of all those limitations, obstacles, and endless politics, we
charge forward trying to make the very best of what we have to work with. Who
else would do such a crazy thing? But how can we not?â€
In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s,
John Badham enjoyed something of the Midas Touch. A former actor - and brother
of To Kill a Mockingbird actress Mary Badham - he had graduated at the
same movie academy of hard knocks as contemporary directors like Steven
Spielberg and Richard Donner: namely directing 1970s TV shows, in his case ‘The
Streets of San Francisco’, ‘Kung Fu’ and ‘Night Gallery’.
He struck box office gold with his second
feature, Saturday Night Fever which became a worldwide phenomenon in
1977, capturing the disco era at the zenith of its popularity and transforming
John Travolta into an icon in white polyester. He demonstrated his versatility
straight away with his next movie, a luscious, romantic Dracula starring
Frank Langella, with the Transylvanian Count retooled as a swoon-inducing
Gothic romancer.
Into the 1980s, Badham alternated kid-centric
thrillers like WarGames and Short Circuit with more mature action
pictures like Blue Thunder, Stakeout and Bird on a Wire, all of which resonated with audiences.
A sure-footed, no-nonsense director, Badham’s
work was characterised by his affinity with actors and his ability to coax
naturalistic performances from his cast that won over audiences time after
time. Even in high concept mainstream studio blockbusters, his cast were always
given room to breathe and play off each other, giving his work a charm and
longevity absent from a lot of other hits from the time.
Following hits like The Hard Way and
his underrated remake of La Femme Nikita, Point of No Return,
Badham’s career went full circle in the new millennium as he returned to
television, directing episodes of some of the most successful shows of the past
twenty years like ‘Supernatural’, ‘Heroes’, ‘Arrow’ and ‘Psych’, though the
difference in working methods on TV made for an often jarring gear-change, or
as he puts it, “The parallel universe takes a hard-right fork here and spears
you on a sharply pointed tine.â€
In 2006 he published his first book, ‘I’ll Be
In My Trailer’ (co-written with Craig Modderno), a juicy and highly
entertaining memoir that dealt with the often strained relationship between
director and actor. In his quest to pass on his hard-won skills at ameliorating
tensions, Badham was joined by fellow-travellers including Oliver Stone,
Richard Donner, John Frankenheimer and Michael Mann, and passing insightful
tips from the actors’s corner of the ring, such luminaries as Martin Sheen,
Eriq LaSalle, Mel Gibson, Richard Dreyfuss, and the “always exciting, never
dull scatological actor†James Woods.
The central theme of resolving the potential
conflict between actors and directors carries through to ‘John Badham on
Directing’ (2nd Edition). The first half of the book is a ‘How To…’ guide on
saying the right things, not saying the wrong things, creating the right
atmosphere and tips, learned the hard way, on the best ways to get your actors
to overcome their innate distrust of you.
Once again, Badham is joined by a gang of
learned pals offering their own advice, which is more often than not a sage reduction
like Steven Soderbergh’s simple edict, “Don’t tell actors what to think. Tell
them what to do.†Badham recalls once doing precisely the opposite,
gabbing on at considerable length trying to explain the internal machinations
of Bill Bixby’s character, until Bixby stopped him and said, “I have no idea
what you just said.†It is typical of Badham’s understated style to make
himself the butt of most of the jokes and the source of most (but by no means
all) of the screw-ups that he’s spent fifty years learning from.
He’s still working today at the cutting edge
of mainstream television but as a graduate of the old-school he still has a
fondness for the more analogue-era techniques. He decries the post-digital
tendency to print everything, knowing that the poor editor will be drowning in
mostly useless footage.
He also has little time for new innovations
like video playback, preferring to deal with the actors the old way, standing
off camera. “The video monitor became the watercooler of the set,†he groans. “Anyone
with nothing better to do scammed a pair of headphones and sat in a forest of
director’s chairs crowded around the video monitor, Monday morning
quarterbacking every second.â€
Despite being called ‘…On Directing’ the book
is not a manual for wannabe directors looking to learn how to create dolly-zoom
shots, block scenes or choose camera lenses correctly - though Badham is
generous in his recommendation of other writers’ works that offer further
reading in that area. In Badham’s experience, new directors flush with all the
benefits of modern technology, tend to already know everything about the
mechanical side of making movies. It’s having to deal with other human beings
on the set that often proves to be the Achilles heel.
Instead, anyone hoping to pick up a bullhorn
and recline into the director’s chair for the first time will benefit from the
many anecdotal lessons learned by Badham and his collaborators about vitally
important but untaught skills like how to praise a performance, or how not to
give advice notes, and deceptively simple guidance, like always show up to work
forty-five minutes early.
His tales of the brutally intense world of
directing television shows are particularly compelling. Often, books on
directors tend to concentrate on the almost mythical figure of the grand
Hollywood auteur, but the advice and reminiscences of TV directors like
Michelle MacLaren (‘Breaking Bad’), Allan Arkush (‘Nashville’) and Romeo Tirone
(‘Dexter’) feel especially vital given television’s seemingly unstoppable
cultural dominance.
It’s also an invaluable read for
scriptwriters who get a rare sense of what a director will do with their magnum
opus after it’s had the go-ahead to be turned into a movie. The first thing I
did after reading this was to return to my own script and strike a red pen
through any adverbs in the personal directions!
‘John Badham on Directing’ is a warm, honest,
amusing, direct and informative collection of hard-earned wisdom that anybody
with even a passing interest in film-making would enjoy. For anyone actively
planning on becoming a professional film-maker, it is absolutely essential. The
summaries at the end of each chapter should be cut out and stuck to the walls
of anyone hoping to become the next Christopher Nolan…or John Badham, for that
matter. Heed his advice: he knows whereof he speaks.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
On the occasion of 40th Anniversary of the movie icon’s
untimely death, Steve McQueen: In His Own Words, serves up the
most credible and thought-provoking insights of ‘The King of Cool,†spoken by
the man himself using more than 450 quotations from McQueen, all drawn from
more than five decades of media coverage, memorabilia and detailed research.
In Steve McQueen In His Own Words, we hear directly
from McQueen through the widest array of sources: interviews, published
articles, personal letters and audiotapes, creating the most intimate picture
yet available of McQueen as an actor, filmmaker, racer, pilot, husband and
family man in his own words and from his own perspective. The portrait that
emerges is not a saint, not a sinner, nor a martyr, but a complex,
contradictory man who became one of the greatest icons of cinema.
Accompanying the 450 quotes are more than 500 photographs,
personal documents and memorabilia, many of which are seen here for the first
time. They illustrate McQueen’s early life and movie career, as well as his
passion for automobiles, motorcycles and antique planes.
Steve McQueen, the global superstar and box office champion of the
1960s and 1970s, remains an enduring mythical figure of alpha-male coolness and
has left behind a body of work that only a few will attain in motion picture
history. His hell-bent-for-leather take on life and pitch-perfect performances
are legendary and he is arguably more popular in death than he was in life.
Surprisingly, the laconic actor who was known for his economy of
words in film, had plenty to say in real life. He spoke freely regarding topics
such as fame, cinema, money, sex, racing, popular culture, and had a
forward-thinking approach on the environment.
Steve
McQueen: In His Own Words is the perfect book for
everyone interested in this American original.
# # #
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Author
Marshall Terrill is a film, sports and music writer and the author of more than
25 books, including best-selling biographies of Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley,
Johnny Cash, Billy Graham and Pete Maravich.
Of
all the filmmakers throughout the years in which we’ve had cinema, two have had
more books written about them than any other director. The first would be
Alfred Hitchcock. The second is Stanley Kubrick. The number of tomes that exist
for both is overwhelming. For Hitchcock, one can understand the depth of
material that can be mined, seeing that Hitchcock made over fifty films.
Kubrick, on the other hand, made only thirteen. One would think that no more
could be said about the genius Jewish kid from the Bronx who made good… but
that would be wrong.
Most
of the books about Kubrick deal exclusively with his work, because that’s
pretty much all we know about him. Stanley Kubrick was an intensely private
person, a family man who carved out a unique life for himself after moving to
the U.K. in the 1960s and making his movies there beginning with Lolita (1962).
He lived minutes away from the studios where his pictures were shot. Both pre-
and post-production was accomplished at his home. Craftsmen, writers, actors,
designers—they all came to him for meetings. Kubrick’s movies were
family affairs, in that members of his immediate family (his wife and three
daughters) all worked at one time or another on the movies, and he kept a
close-knit circle of employees who were considered “family.†There were no
scandals or personal controversies associated with Kubrick; hence, no
“tell-all†hatchet jobs are available. What “biographies†of his personal life
that do exist again end up focusing more on the films he made than what he did
from day to day.
David
Mikics, a Moores Distinguished Professor of English at the University of
Houston and columnist for Tablet magazine, has now presented the most
recent study of Kubrick’s work. How it differs from previous scholarly
publications is that it does include more recent discoveries from the
director’s archives that were unearthed since his death in 1999 and the
subsequent cataloging of his “stuff†by the University of Arts London and the
traveling exhibition that has enjoyed success around the world. For example,
there is more discussion about started-and-abandoned projects—at least more
titles than this reviewer has seen mentioned before in books (and this reviewer
considers himself quite knowledgeable in the subject). Among these titles are
H. Rider Haggard’s Viking epic Eric Brighteyes and a film about the game
of chess entitled Chess Story.
Mikics
does go through Kubrick’s filmography chronologically and offers insightful interpretations
of the works mixed with some production histories. Kubrick aficionados who have
read other books on the subject may not learn much new, but Mikics manages to
come up with some thoughtful analyses. Perhaps the most potent part of the new
book is Mikics’ chapter on Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s last and arguably
most misunderstood final film. Very little has been written about this complex
and engrossing picture that still polarizes audiences (arguably, undeservedly!).
What Mikics fails to mention—like all other critics of Eyes Wide Shut—is
that the movie is an unfinished film. Think about it. Kubrick assembled the
completed cut of the film and viewed it for its stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman, and a couple of Warner Brothers executives. Their responses were
extremely positive. Then… Kubrick suffered a massive heart attack and died only
a few days after the screening. At this point, the release date for the movie
was still four and a half months away! Anyone who has studied Kubrick and his
films knows that he edited his pictures up to the day of release and often
beyond it (he edited twenty minutes out of 2001 following the premiere,
and he edited a coda from The Shining after its opening weekend in North
America—and then deleted 25 minutes from it for the U.K. and European release a
couple of months later!). This reviewer has no doubt that Kubrick would have
continued to work on Eyes Wide Shut, tightening it, trimming it, and reducing its runtime by possibly as much as twenty to thirty minutes.
Still,
Mikics offers some interesting interpretations of this final work and how it is
indeed such a defining piece of celluloid in Kubrick’s life. He had wanted to
make the movie since the 1950s, but he was always being dissuaded (by his third
wife, Christiane, for instance) because he “wasn’t old enough yet.†At one
point, she is quoted as saying that Kubrick was “frightened of making the filmâ€
because it would hit close to his heart. Apparently, it did.
Stanley
Kubrick: American Filmmaker is recommended for cinema students and fans
of thisiconic filmmaker.
“Ultimate Warrior: The Complete Films of Yul
Brynner†by Dawn Dabell and Jonathon Dabell. Publisher: Independently
published. Softback: 265 pages, ISBN-10: 1673491944, ISBN-13: 978-1673491944,
Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 1.5 x 25.4 cm, price £14.99
Following on from their hugely enjoyable
debut, “More Than a Psycho The Complete Films Of Anthony Perkins†(2018),
husband and wife team Dawn and Jonathon Dabell follow up with an equally
impressive book on one of Hollywood’s most fascinating characters.
Ask anyone with the slightest knowledge of
film to name a few Yul Brynner movies and there’s a distinct possibility that
titles such as “The Ten Commandmentsâ€, “The Magnificent Seven†or “The King and
I†will undoubtedly be returned quicker than a rock from a slingshot. Whilst
this is perfectly acceptable (as they are all established and popular movies),
the Dabells set out to provide the reader with a far wider reaching exploration
of Mr. Brynner. The authors help us ease into the complexities of Brynner, his
background still providing a dense shroud of mystery and uncertainties in
relation to his growing up - even his date of birth remains contradictory and
dependent upon which source one cares to believe. Nevertheless, it does provide
a good sense of the man and a certain perspective in relation to his ethics.
After a very respectable, well written introduction
and overview, the Dabells revert to an uncomplicated and logical timeline
approach to Brynner’s career on film. One of the advantages of being a
self-published book naturally means the authors have total control over what
makes it to the printed page, and the process often reflects the art of
self-editing or knowing your limit. In this instance, the authors have
addressed the balance perfectly. A healthy collective of 5-6 pages are given
over to each of Brynner’s films, all with leading cast and crew, synopsis and a
wealth of background information. There’s certainly no scrimping when it comes
to imagery either, in fact, they are plentiful – with each film also containing
some degree of poster artwork which only adds to the overall presentation. Also
worthy of note is the glorious, original cover art by Paul Watts, a real
throwback to the poster art format of yesteryear, when it is all too easy to
revert to the more commonly used and uninspiring ‘star photo’ approach.
The authors have also rounded off the
contents with dedicated chapters on Brynner’s theatre work, television work (he
was a noted director in the medium), cameos and further reading. The Dabells have
certainly poured their hearts and souls into this book; it’s clear and obvious,
with the result being an all-encompassing volume and what should be the
ultimate word on Brynner’s films.
(In our new column, Author Insights, Cinema Retro periodically invites authors of film-related books to provide our readers with the background story relating to their latest publication.)
BY JIM NEMETH
It
Came From … The Stories and Novels Behind Classic Horror, Fantasy and Science
Fiction Films (Midnight Marquee Press) came about when I and my co-author, Bob
Madison, started discussing the many movie classics that find their origins in
genre fiction. Both of us grew up loving science fiction, fantasy and horror
films. Like many genre movie buffs, we frequently sought out the books and
stories that influenced our favorite movies, often surprised (if not amazed) at
the differences. Though born in different states and a few, scant years apart,
our boyhoods were remarkably similar. Spending our youth on such Saturday night
television fare as Creature Features
and Thriller Theater, we made
imaginative quests into worlds very different from our own. Where I gravitated
toward supernatural fiction, Bob dug deeply into literary science fiction. Both
of us became devoted readers of genre fiction and then, later on, the history
of it. The love for movies, though, never wavered.
Over the years, when
considering cinema reference books, particularly those covering films within
the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres adapted from other mediums, we
found scant attention paid to the literary sources. It’s frustrating to pore
through a reference book and find little more concerning the inspiration behind
such films than the credit one finds in the film: “Based on the novel XXXXX, by so-and-so.â€
And so, It
Came From… was born.
The book consists of 21 essays covering
everything from Willie Wonka and the
Chocolate Factory to Planet of the
Apes to, of course, Psycho. In
the essays we shine a deserved spotlight on the authors and screenwriters,
detail the many challenges found in adaptation, and outline why some films do
it better than others. For clarity’s sake, we break the films into three categories—horror,
fantasy, science fiction—and then simply list them chronologically. Each
chapter is the sole work of one of the authors, with the ringer being special
chapters devoted to Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster, where we both delve
into not just one, but several of the best, worst, and most popular of their
cinematic incarnations.
The initial dream for this
volume was a comprehensive history that traced and compared films adapted from
other material back to its origins. But such was not to be! The number of
science fiction, fantasy and horror films that are adaptations from other media
are so varied and repetitive that the challenge was confining ourselves to just
a handful of favorite films. And even here, we deliberately excluded—with a
handful of exceptions—high-profile obvious choices such as The Shining and 2001: A Space
Odyssey, in favor of films that are underserved in genre criticism. But, as
should be obvious to any fan of cinema—sequels happen. Perhaps one day in the
future we will tackle our remaining favorites.
Meanwhile, we hope readers
will sit back, dim the lights a bit and enjoy. And just ignore those pesky
moans coming from under your bed and the scratching sounds you hear from inside
the walls…
“Light
into Ink: A Critical Survey of 50 Film Novelizations†[DeLuxe Edition]: [Colour
Interior] by S.M. Guariento. Publisher: Independently published. Softback: 480
pages, ISBN-10: 1687489084 ISBN-13: 978-1687489081, Product Dimensions: 20.3 x
2.8 x 25.4 cm, price £39.99
As most film fans would concur, the humble
film ‘tie-in’ paperback, or if you would prefer, novelisation – was pretty much
an essential element for movie lovers. Perhaps ‘tie-in’ is a somewhat dated
term these days, but it still relates to the same thing - a book whose jacket,
packaging, contents, or promotion relates to a feature film or a television
show. Back in the day, the paperback novelisation
had a magnetic effect, usually because it contained the wonderful film artwork
or an iconic photo of its star in a scene from the movie. They proved quite
irresistible and the newsagent’s rotary stands were often the place to find
many treasurers. However, it was also a little piece of collecting history that
hadn’t really been examined to any great depth – until now.
S.M. Guariento’s book is an excellent
examination of 50 such books. The London-born author provides a detailed case
study of various genres. In his research, Guariento doesn’t skip or avoid and
leaves no stone unturned. He examines the evolution of the softback,
particularly from its 1950s explosion where the paperback began being a
preference over that of the hardback equivalent. It’s an excellent historical
journey and it’s a great education in how it all evolved. However, there is no escaping
the overriding appeal of their presentation and the genuine pulling power of
their lush and varied cover art.
Guariento provides some glorious memories
with the turn of each page, delving into TV titles such as Target’s Doctor Who,
Bantam’s Star Trek and Futura’s Space 1999 – all of which contained heart
racing cover imagery.
The book’s subtitle ‘50 Film Novelizations’ can
perhaps be easily misinterpreted and arguably underrates this book’s mammoth
amount of content. In terms of subject genres, Guariento hits the sweet spot
every single time. In his chapter selections he has chosen very wisely,
covering Eastwood, Bond, Planet of the Apes, Horror, Sci-fi, Hammer, Crime, Spy
– in fact, everything that is both engaging and appealing to a key audience. Other
chapters focus more specifically, such as cult filmmakers (including David
Cronenberg and John Carpenter) and the adaptations of their various films. Most
importantly, do not be misled into thinking that 50 film novelisations simply
equates to 50 cover illustrations. The book also serves as a spectacular pictorial
treasury with hundreds of covers featured - either related within the context
of a chapter or shown as different or alternative editions of certain titles.
Guariento certainly has this covered. This book is practically a dream.
Despite the glowing praise I’m happy to bestow
upon this book, readers should also take note - and it’s a very important note:
Guariento’s book does come in two very different versions. The version
submitted for the purposes of this review is, in fact, the deluxe edition,
meaning simply that all images contained within its pages are presented in stunning
colour.
However, the book is also available in a Midnight
Edition, which is identical in terms of content except that its pages consist
of monochrome (b/w) images. I also know I can speak for a great number of
similar minded colleagues and friends who will find this somewhat
disappointing. For me, it practically punctured the heart of the book and its
overall enjoyment. For people who grew up with these books, seeing them
reproduced in black and white simply diminishes the retrospective element of its
joy. Of course, it does provide a more affordable (£14.99) alternative.
Nevertheless, given the books’ subject, it does slightly contradict what the
book originally sets out to celebrate.
There’s very little doubt about it, ‘Light
into Ink’ is an exceptionally detailed, well produced and yes, a beautifully
illustrated book. But just be aware; make sure you know exactly which edition
you are ordering should you choose to indulge further. If it’s entirely
possible, make every effort towards the deluxe colour edition, I can promise
you – you’ll be very glad you went the extra yard.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER MONOCHROME EDITION FROM
AMAZON UK
Do the names Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Frank Kramer,
Sartana, Sabata, Tuco or Trinity mean anything to you, amigo? If they do, it’s
probably because you’ve seen a few too many Spaghetti Westerns. "Spaghetti
Western," for those tenderfoots that might not know, is the name given to
a host of western films made in Italy and Spain during the sixties and
seventies featuring an international cast usually headed by an American actor
who had seen better days. Cowboy actors like Rod Cameron, Edd Byrne, and Guy
Madison went to Europe after their TV and film careers petered out to battle
outlaws, rustlers and ruthless killers who looked more like they just stepped
out of a pizzeria in Palermo than a saloon in South Texas. These movies are
wild, violent, and weird, but there was a certain something about them that
kept you watching.
Although patterned after the Hollywood western, they are different in
style, form, and content. The stories were full of double crosses and more
twists than a rusty corkscrew, and sometimes it was hard to tell the good from
the bad. Morality depended on how fast a man could draw a gun, but usually the
man who rode into town seeking revenge for past wrongs came out the winner. Of
course the most famous American TV Cowboy to strike it rich overseas was Clint
Eastwood through his association with Sergio Leone. As the Man with No Name he
and Leone made “A Fistful of Dollars,†“A Few Dollars More,†and “The Good the
Bad and the Ugly†and created not just a career but perhaps even a legend.
In Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, “Once Upon a Time . . . in
Hollywood,†Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a washed up seventies TV
cowboy who makes the trip to Rome to restart his career by starring in "Uccidimi
Subito Ringo, Disse el Gringo," ("Kill Me Now Ringo, Said
the Gringo"). That slightly looney title inspired Fred Blosser, author and
movie reviewer for this site, to put together a book every Italian Western fan
should track down. Blosser, better known as a Robert E. Howard scholar, (see, "Western Weirdness, and Voodoo
Vengeance: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard's American Horrors"), has
seen more Spaghetti Westerns than anyone I know. He probably wouldn't admit it,
but I'd say he's an expert on the subject. “Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti
Western Heroes,†is what he calls an informal readers guide to the pistoleros,
bounty hunters, mercenaries, and desperadoes of the Italian Western.
"Like Tarantino’s fictitious film," Blosser says,
"dozens of actual Italian Westerns were released with names like Ringo,
Django, Sartana, Sabata, and Trinity in the title. These films still remain an
indelible part of pop culture more than a half-century after they first
appeared on big screens in Europe and the U.S."
The book examines a representative section of these movies, beginning
with a brief overview of the genre. Selections from Leone and Corbucci
are highlighted, followed by the movies of the Sabata series, four non-series
Westerns starring the legendary Lee Van Cleef, two films by “the Fourth Sergioâ€
(Martino), two classics in the socially conscious “Zapata Western†sub-genre,
an array of lesser-known Sons of Ringo, and as a postscript, five
representative examples of the German Western school that paralleled the opening
phase of the Italian Western.
This book is full of information on films ranging from the well-known,
to the really obscure. If you're a fan and are looking for a book that provides
historical context for these movies, and perhaps tells you something you never
knew about them, this is it. Even a tinhorn four- flusher like me can find it
useful. There’s enough info on many of the titles that you'll be able to fake
it at your next cocktail party and convince your friends you've actually seen
them. Don't wait. Mosey on over to Amazon and tell them Tuco sent you. And
remember: "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."
"Those Sensational Swing
Scores: Or How I Journeyed
from 1949’s Martin Kane, Private Eye
to 2018’s King of Thieves in Four
Years, Two Months, 17 Days, Six Hours and 43 Minutes"
By Derrick Bang, author of "Crime and Spy Jazz 1950-1970" and "Crime and Spy Jazz Since 1971" (McFarland)
I initially wanted to
write the ultimate guide to television’s Peter
Gunn. But some quick research revealed that it would be hard to improve
upon Joe Manning’s excellent two-part feature story in the June and July 2007
issues of Film Score Monthly
magazine; and Mike Quigley’s impressively thorough website guide to that iconic
1958-61 TV series (at www.petergunn.tv).
That said, Mike’s meticulously thorough analysis of the show’s music planted a
larger seed: perhaps a book about classic TV action jazz? Even there, though, a
few existing books — such as Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979 — had covered that territory
to a degree.
So, go bigger still:
a survey of all television and film action/spy/detective jazz, with
a focus that I knew hadn’t yet been tackled. All that cool music by Henry
Mancini, John Barry, Lalo Schifrin, Edwin Astley, Quincy Jones, Jerry Goldsmith
and hundreds more. Aside from some scholarly works that go deep on a small
number of TV shows or films — such as David Butler’s Jazz Noir — nobody had undertaken the challenge to discuss so much
music in context. This became
obvious, as I began to build a library of research material, when I got the
distinct impression that many authors merely cited the existence of genre
soundtrack albums, perhaps even enthusing about the music itself, but without having watched the TV show or
movie from which it sprang. Too frequently, there was no sense of how a
soundtrack composer’s efforts helped — or sometimes hindered — the finished
product.
Thus armed with an
elevator pitch, I approached the McFarland & Co. editor (David Alff) who
had shepherded my 2012 biography of Northern California’s famed “Dr. Funk,†Vince Guaraldi at the Piano. David loved
the concept; a contract was signed. When pressed for a likely length, I naïvely
suggested 125,000 words.
Boy, was that off the mark.
The first phase was
the most difficult: determining a list of likely candidates. Paging carefully
through Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh’s Complete
Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows (ninth and final
edition) yielded a lengthy list of potential small screen American candidates;
determining likely British entries proved more challenging, as did assembling a
similar list of big-screen feature films. I eventually wound up with 486 films
from 1950 to the present day, which featured crime/spy/action storylines, and
ultimately watched and analyzed 350; the others were discarded for their lack
of jazz scores. The task was far more challenging on the small screen, where
750 shows were considered from 1947 forward; 206 ultimately made the cut. And,
unlike a movie, which is a single (roughly) two-hour experience with music by
(usually) one individual, many of the TV shows necessitated the viewing of at
least half a dozen episodes, due to the involvement of multiple musicians.
You didn’t want to be
in the room while I was watching each entry, because of all the stopping,
sometimes backing up, and resuming … particularly if a soundtrack album
existed. As Cinema Retro’s soundtrack
fans are well aware, most early albums a) were studio re-recordings; and b)
assembled the tracks out of viewing order. So I’d hit a particularly choice
Johnny Mandel passage in (for example) 1958’s I Want to Live, and then search the album tracks until finding —
or, vexingly, not finding — the cue
in question. Over and over and over
again. Depending on quality and/or significance, each entry then generated an
essay of anywhere from a few paragraphs to three or four pages.
Roughly four years
later, the finished result came in just shy of 600,000 words. Okay, fine; first
drafts are over-written. As William Faulkner famously advised, “In writing, you
must kill all your darlings.†So I buried hundreds of them in the back yard,
and wound up with a more manageable 250,000 words. At which point, I knew that
further trimming would have deleted too much “good stuffâ€; the text would have
been compromised beyond repair, destroying the manuscript’s design as a truly
definitive study of this jazz sub-genre.
So I threw myself on
the altar of McFarland’s mercy, and — to my delight (and considerable relief) —
they okayed amending the contract for a two-volume set, thus preserving every
word of the final draft.
Having now emerged at
the far end of this jazz-laden journey, my music library (and the groaning
shelves in our small home) are much richer for the process that led to this
just-published result. And if these two books similarly pique your curiosity —
and correspondingly deplete your bank
account — then I’ll consider it a job well done.
(Derrick Bang has
written film, television, music and general entertainment commentary since the
mid-1970s, and is the author of several books about Charles M. Schulz and Peanuts. He can be reached at
www.screenactionjazz.com.)
Author Steven Bingen's book "Easy Rider: 50 Years Searching for America", written with Alan Dunn, was published last year to commemorate the film's 50th anniversary. In case you haven't already indulged in the book, here is an extended excerpt from it.
BY STEVEN BINGEN
The
road to Easy Rider began, of all
places. In a dark, pot-infused motel room in Toronto, Canada.
It
was November 27, 1967. We know this because Peter Fonda, then a young actor of unfulfilled
promise, remembered it for the rest of his life as it as the date his world
would change.
Fonda,
the actor son of screen legend Henry Fonda, was in Toronto to promote his
latest picture, The Trip (1967), a
low-budget counterculture circus, ring-led by low-budget counterculture
ringleader Roger Corman, The Trip had
been scripted by another unlucky actor, Jack Nicholson, and co-starred a third
underachiever named Dennis Hopper.
One
of Fonda’s duties in town was to attend a motion picture exhibitors conference
that day. He remembers that Jack Valenti, the keynote speaker, had just been
elected president of the Motion Picture Association of America. Peter Fonda
also remembers vividly part of the speech Valenti delivered that day.
“My
Friends, and you are my friends,†Valenti began, “It is time we stopped making
movies about motorcycles, sex, and drugs!†Fonda, who was involved and invested
in all three of those deadly sins at the time, remembers thinking that Valenti
sounded just like a television evangelist. He had a booming, pipe-organ voice,
even sported a rather cornpone southern accent (like several future
participants in our story, Jack Valenti hailed from Texas), and as if he knew
how Fonda felt, Valenti continually, throughout his long talk, seemed to be
staring right at, right into, the actor.
After
that endless, uncomfortable conference, Fonda walked back to the Hillcrest
Motel, where the notoriously spendthrift Corman was putting him up. Bored and
lonely, and admittedly paranoid from the dressing down he felt he had gotten
from Valenti up there on his makeshift pulpit, Fonda lit a roach and proceeded
to get stoned in that motel room.
Amidst
the pot smoke, Peter Fonda found himself inexplicably mesmerized by an old
publicity still from a previous Peter Fonda film, The Wild Angels (1966), which for some reason had been included
with The Trip’s press kit; probably
for him to autograph for some Canadian exhibiter’s teenage daughter. The still
depicted himself and actor Bruce Dern with a motorcycle near Venice Beach,
California.
Oddly, perhaps because of his enhanced state,
Fonda found himself looking at that photograph through the marijuana smoke and
thinking that the picture looked like something from, well, from a Hollywood
western. Perhaps it was because the two of them, Fonda and Dern, were
silhouetted, or almost, and how the bike, also nearly silhouetted, seemed to be
standing in for a horse. The still had been taken on an asphalt road, but it
had been reprinted so many times by Corman’s cut-rate photo lab that much of
the definition had bled away, and so this indistinct copy of a copy looked like
it had been taken in an earlier era on a western street in Tombstone Arizona,
or Deadwood, South Dakota, rather than near the Venice boardwalk. And he and
Dern looked, for all the world, to him, like two lonely Texas cowboys.
Right
there, in that smoke-filed room, amidst the stacked room service trays and
dirty towels, Peter Fonda decided to produce and costar in a western himself. A
western with motorcycles. He later pitched the story just as he first
envisioned it, as “a modern Western with two hip guys on bikes instead of old
movie stars on horses,
"Are Snakes Necessary"", the first novel by famed film director Brian
De Palma (Carrie, Scarface, Dressed to Kill among others), co-written by Susan
Lehman (an attorney by training, former NY Times editor and magazine
contributor) is a doozy. It's latest release of a Hard Case Crime series through Titan Books. The review could end right here but you deserve more
information, read: teasers.
At the risk of sounding much like the
introductory theme song to The Jetsons:
Meet
Barton Brock, campaign manager for Senatorial candidate Jason Crump who's
getting creamed in the primaries by incumbent Senator, Lee Rogers.
"Political
campaigns are brutal. The stakes are high. Not for the electorate - Barton
Brock does not particularly care for the electorate. But for the team that
boosts the candidate into office, the stakes matter, a lot. The guys on the
team get big payoffs, good appointments, cushy jobs, bigger campaigns.
It's a lot like fishing. You start small, then
throw away the little guys, the ones self-respecting cats wouldn't call dinner
- and then you cast out for the big mothers."
You
like similes and metaphors? Lehman and De Palma are masters of the craft. Wait.
Meet
Elizabeth DeCarlo,
a 19 year old "drop-dead gorgeous blonde" working the counter of a
McDonalds. Brock enlists her onto his staff to "conduct push polls"
but he has an ulterior motive.
Meet
Senator Rogers,
incumbent Senator. He has an ailing wife and an historically out of control
libido. He meets Elizabeth. In a hotel bar. After a successful primary victory.
Just what Brock planned. But things don't turn out quite how he planned.
Meet
Jenny Cours,
Jenny is 47 and has been for many years, a flight attendant for Loft Air. She
is a long-time ahem, friend of the Senator's and his aforementioned
libido.
"Why
do we never forget the ones that got away? Rogers quickens his pace. And, eyes
trained on her ass, he catches up with Jenny Cours."
Meet
Fanny Cours,
Jenny's 18 year old daughter who is "in the full flush of carnality. Neither
her vitality and ripeness nor the irrepressible sense of readiness that
surrounds her elude the impatient senator." The college student is
also a political junkie and a videographer who goes to work on Rogers' campaign
much to her mother's distress.
Meet
Nick Sculley,
a one-time famous news photographer who's down on his luck and during a
stopover in Vegas on his way to LA, he bumps into Elizabeth Diamond, nee
DeCarlo, coming out of the
Admiral's Club Lounge. He's as good looking as our old friend, Elizabeth.
Coincidentally, they're taking the same flight to L.A.. They bond over Graham
Greene's The End of the Affair, sit together and...
"Giggle.
Smile. Kiss the boy. Watch him light up. Knowing how to speak to the animal in
the man is half the game. The rest, Elizabeth finds, is really a matter of
will."
Meet
Bruce Diamond,
Elizabeth's rich, casino-owning husband. Seven casinos rich.
"Diamond
loves expensive cars, priceless paintings, beautiful women. Heloves to throw money around. He's so full of
himself and all of his big hungry qualities, he is near to bursting."
There
we have the major dramatis personae. De Palma and Lehman have crafted a
well-woven tale that could be closer to the truth than evident at first.
Politics does make strange... well, you know. The
perfunctory "names, character, places, etc." disclaimer appears on
the copyright page. I bet it must have been written with a tongue in cheek. As
you may guess, due to the authors involved, the novel is very cinematic. The
characters come alive in your mind and you can see settings and scenes as if
you were viewing this, not just reading it.
"A
little conversation, with an old woman. Beats going through the motions of
seduction with some guy out of Vegas who is genuinely confused as to whether
the conversation is going to end up in bed or not. (Yes, mister, it is, why
else do you think I'm listening to you prattle on about your golf game, the
jazz that means more to you than anything in the world, the novel that will
bring you fame and fortune and change the way the world thinks? Darling. This
is the noise we make to fill up the time between here and the not so distant
moment when we'll be naked animals grunting and moaning in a world far from
conversation.)"
These
are Elizabeth's thoughts as she rides on a bus, towards the next stage of her
life as she sits
and
speaks with:
Meet
Lucy Wideman,
an elderly woman who has anonymously, for years, been the Boston Globe's advice
columnist, Dear Dottie.
With
this inventive, fast-paced page turner in your hands you will also be meeting
your next fun and exciting read.
As
a bonus, for those of you in the NY metro area, the authors will be at the
famous Strand Bookstore on Broadway at 12th Street, Monday March 16 beginning
at 7:00 PM. More information can be found at: www.
strandbooks.com/event/palma-lehman-snakes
(The book will be available on Kindle and in hardback on March 17. Click here to pre-order from Amazon.)
Ennio Morricone: Master of the Soundtrack,
Hardcover: by Maurizio Baroni, 368 pages, Publisher: Gingko Press; 01 edition
(31 Oct. 2019), Language: English, ISBN-10: 3943330338, ISBN-13: 978-3943330335
BY DARREN ALLISON, Cinema Retro Soundtrack Editor
Whilst Maurizio Baroni’s book on Maestro
Ennio Morricone might not be the first to be released in 2019, it is certainly
a serious contender as the most rewarding. Comparing Baroni’s book with the
summer release of Alessandro De Rosa’s Ennio Morricone: In His Own Words, is arguably
a little unfair. Both books are very different in terms of context. De Rosa’s
book is a more methodical study of Morricone’s compositional style, his
non-film music and other composers. In essence it is written more in a
biographical style.
However, Master of the Soundtrack is laid out
in a very simplistic way and with the main focus (for the first time) centring
on Morricone’s discography. Baroni’s book consists of two basic halves. The
first half features a great deal of written articles and interviews from the
likes of famous admirers, directors and critics. Among the contributors are:
John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino, Sir Christopher Frayling, Edda Dell’Orso,
Dario Argento, John Boorman and a great deal more. Most of the written pieces
have previously been published but nevertheless work perfectly when gathered
together and set out among this single bound volume. Trying to track down
various articles and interviews on Morricone is seldom an easy task, but Baroni
is a fan first and foremost, and as a result, provided all of the practical
legwork and strenuous digging on our behalf. From a fan’s perspective, all that
is required is for us is to sit back, read and reap the rewards. The written
articles make up for the first thirty or so pages and make the book very easy
to navigate.
The second phase of the book (pages 31-332)
are split into decades and is a lavish compendium of Morricone’s catalogue of
work. Each of the chapter’s opening pages introduces a complete year-by-year
discography of Morricone’s film and television soundtrack releases along with
their associated directors. It is here where you first begin to digest the sheer
sense of enormity and proficiency in regards to the composer’s vast body of
work. From here on, Baroni’s book shifts into top gear with page upon page of
beautifully illustrated covers consisting of albums, EPs and 45s – all of which
have been collated from various regions of the globe.
All of the images are supported by captions
providing either background information and/or fascinating related titbits. The
editors have also refused to scrimp when it comes to reproducing these splendid
images. There are no postage stamp sized illustrations here. Instead you will
find half page images often with two more covers occupying the other half page.
The illustrations have clearly not been hurried, the attention to detail is
first rate and it is obvious that whoever was responsible for this task has
taken the time to lovingly restore each and every record sleeve. It not only
stands out, but also makes all the difference. It simply elevates this book
into a whole new level of quality. Add to this the occasional full page of
original sheet music or cue sheets and it pretty much confirms we are in the
comforting realms of Morricone bliss.
Ennio Morricone: Master of the Soundtrack is
not an inexpensive book, but admirers of the Italian composer will simply love
it, as would any serious collector of soundtrack music. One could argue that
you are paying by the poundage when it comes to this heavyweight beast of a
book. However, rest assured, upon its arrival, you may also find a counter
argument – in that it’s actually worth every single ounce.
Once upon a time, there was what is now considered to be
a Golden Age of film criticism. Serving in that capacity was a well-regarded
career and the standards were generally high. In the pre-internet age, when
newspapers and magazines were in their heyday, readers voraciously followed the
most influential film critics, whose endorsements of a film could elevate its
popularity. Conversely, of course, a negative review might spell death at the
boxoffice. Some of the more prominent critics were regarded as snooty and too
upper crust to connect with the average reader. The ascension of critics Roger
Ebert and Gene Siskel through their highly influential “At the Moviesâ€
syndicated TV series changed all of that. They were film scholars, to be sure,
but they reviewed movies in a populist manner, often defending films that most
critics chose to ignore or denounce. With the advent of the internet, today
anyone can proclaim themselves to be a film critic. You just need a blog and-
Presto!- you are a film critic. Of course, today’s definition of the profession
encompasses the good, the bad and the ugly. Simply having an enthusiasm for
movies doesn’t make one prolific in analyzing them.
One of the best of the “old world†film critics was
British writer Philip French, who began writing film reviews in the early 1950s
and went on to be a long-time contributor to The Times and The Observer. He
passed away in 2015, still practicing his profession. French’s family has
compiled a book of some of his most relevant and important reviews and
published them under the title of “Notes from the Dream House: Selected Film
Reviews 1963-2013â€.The book, published
by Carcanet Press, sets the right tone beginning with the cover, an illustration by
Charles Addams of the "Uncle Fester" character laughing at a movie that has everyone else in
the audience sobbing. Like most of the major critics who came of age when
French did, he displays an encyclopedic knowledge of the films and talents he
passes judgment on. He also falls into
the same trap as many of his peers by assuming the reader is well-versed in
sometimes obscure names and film titles. However, he never comes across as
pretentious and his prose is often wistful and amusing. It is interesting to
read his observations about films that became famous or infamous and French
also revisits certain movies for re-evaluation many years after their initial
release. We find he championed obscure titles such as “Two Land Blacktop†and
dared to defend such boxoffice disasters as Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate†and Hugh Hudson’s “Revolultionâ€
(good for him!). He appreciates
Attenborough’s “A Bridge Too Far†while most critics were immune to its many
qualities. He devotes a very long review to extolling the merits of the 1999
Bond adventure “The World is Not Enoughâ€. He also doesn’t have any sacred cows:
despite being an admirer of Kubrick, he rightly points out that “The Shiningâ€
is “a polished, low-key horror picture of a rather conventional kind… we never
became involved either intellectually or viscerally with the characters…Our
pants flutter occasionally, but the film comes nowhere near scaring them off
us.†In a 1982 re-evaluation of Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the Westâ€, he
makes a mea culpa and admits that,
upon seeing the film in its initial release in 1969, he did not recognize its
greatness. He decried Robert Downey Jr.’s interpretation of Sherlock Holmes as
a contemporary action hero and was an early admirer of John Boorman’s “Point
Blankâ€, which some critics simply denounced because of its violent content.
Breezing through the book is a delight. You can randomly
drop in anywhere and read the reviews that appeal to you. But it should be
noted that French’s observations are worth reading even if they pertain to film
titles that don’t particularly interest you. His wry wit and poignant analysis
make this book a “must†for retro movie lovers.
A manuscript by Anthony Burgess, author of "A Clockwork Orange", has been discovered and it can be considered at least a quasi-sequel to his classic 1962 novel. The 200 page manuscript, titled "A Clockwork Condition", offers Burgess's reflections on society as well as his thoughts about Stanley Kubrick's notorious and highly acclaimed 1971 film version of "A Clockwork Orange" that was removed from exhibition in the UK until after the director's death in 1999. Burgess, who died in 1993, also explains in the manuscript how the bizarre title "A Clockwork Orange" came about. Click here to read BBC report.
(For Cinema Retro's exclusive interview with Malcolm McDowell about the making of the film, see issue #21.)
The art of still photography has played an important role in the promotion of motion pictures since the inception of the medium. However, most photographers who capture the images on set labor in anonymity. It has only been in the last few decades that studios even identified the photographers of publicity photos by name on the press materials that are so widely distributed. As readers of Cinema Retro know, we have long promoted appreciation of the stills photographers and have showcased their work in our magazine. This is why we are quite excited by a new book, "Through Her Lens" (published by ACC Art Books) by Eva Sereny, who broke through a glass ceiling when she started capturing on set images in the 1960s in what was a male-dominated profession. Sereny had an exotic background: she was born of Hungarian parents in London, moved to Italy and took up photography before returning to London where, on a whim, she submitted some sample photos and ended up being hired by legendary publicist Gordon Arnell as a "Special Photographer" on the set of Mike Nichols' "Catch-22". In this capacity, Sereny differed from the unit stills photographer who was employed by the studio throughout the shoot. Instead, Sereny had independence and freedom to capture only those moments that intrigued her most. Her work revealed an astonishing intimacy whether it was photographing posed subjects or candid moments between takes. As Sereny's reputation grew, she gained greater access to interesting movie productions, though she still often had to contend with tempestuous stars. She initially annoyed Raquel Welch but years later the iconic star befriended her. On the set of "Last Tango in Paris", Marlon Brando forbade her from photographing him but ultimately relented and gave her complete artistic freedom to shoot him even when he was unawares.
Marlon Brando lights up director Bernardo Bertolucci on the set of "Last Tango in Paris".
Kate Capshaw, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford on the set of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".
On "The Assassination of Trotsky", she had to tread carefully to photograph Elizabeth Taylor, who was visiting Richard Burton on the set. More pleasant was her experiences on the set of three Indiana Jones movies, including taking an iconic publicity photo of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". There are craggy veterans such as John Huston and Richard Harris, hunky guys like Warren Beatty, Robert Redford and Michael Caine and elegant glamour symbols such as Audrey Hepburn, Barbara Bach and Jacqueline Bisset. (Bisset, along with Charlotte Rampling, provides a foreword for the book.) The volume is divided into chapters each dedicated to a film or a personality with Sereny providing anecdotes about her experience on the production. Other stars such as Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman are photographed in their private lives but no less remarkably than Sereny would have done on a film set. The book's large size, hardback format and superb reproductions of so many remarkable photos make this a "must" for retro movie lovers.
Cinema Retro has received the following announcement:
Just in time for the holidays,
McFarland publications has released John Farkis’s latest book The Making of
Tombstone: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Modern Western. Which is only
appropriate as Disney/Buena Vista premiered this film on December 25, 1993, 25
years ago this month. While other books have been written about Wyatt Earp, Doc
Holliday, and the O.K. Corral, this is the only book written solely about the
making of that iconic film. With numerous behind-the-scene photos and
interviews from over 140 cast and crew members, stuntmen, extras, wranglers and
Buckaroos, this book is a virtual day-by-day summarization of how the film was
made. Starring Kurt Russell, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Sam Elliott, Dana
Delany, Bill Paxton, and Val Kilmer in his Oscar-deserved role of Doc Holliday,
Tombstone is the story of Wyatt Earp, his brothers, Holliday, the Clantons and
McLaurys, and their tumultuous relationship, cumulating in the historic
gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and subsequent Vendetta ride.
Farkis details the stormy creation of
the project, from script development, financing and casting, to site location
and construction.Along the way, he also
explores Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp, which at the time, was in direct
production competition with Tombstone. In fact, Costner was
screenwriter/director Kevin Jarre’s first choice for the role of Wyatt. Known
for his screenplay of Glory (1989), Jarre was replaced early in filming by
action-director George Cosmatos. While extremely proud of their work on the
film, virtually everyone associated with the project said it was an extremely
tough, miserable experience. And Farkis details the trials and tribulations in
exquisite detail. With access to numerous script iterations, call-sheets, daily
production reports and internal communications, he unpacks the story behind the
story. Photographs supplied by cast and crew members serve to enhance this
experience. Not only does he explain the film’s concept and production, he also
describes the historical tale, from the founding of Tombstone, to the
conclusion of Earp’s Vendetta ride. And, he adds a postscript appendix of the
film’s recent 25th anniversary celebration.
Released on Monday, November26, this
book can currently be purchased through McFarland, Barnes & Noble, Amazon,
and numerous other sites. If one wishes to have a personalized autographed
copy, they can be ordered directly from the author. Jkfarkis@earthlink.net.
When it comes to publishing top-end film books nobody
does it better than Titan. The company has its pulse on every movie geek’s
desires and their recent title “Harryhausen: The Movie Posters†should leave
fans of the late, great special effects genius Ray Harryhausen drooling over
the superb representations of his films. Author Richard Holliss wisely leaves the
text to a minimum to allow the wonderfully-reproduced graphics exemplify the
sheer excitement and wonder of the sci-fi and fantasy films associated with
Harryhausen. The book presents a mind-boggling number of rare international
movie posters and assorted oddities relating to the promotion of his films.
Titan has published the book in an appropriately large size hardback format
that allows the stunning graphics to be fully appreciated.
One
becomes aware of
just how important of a role the classic movie posters played in selling
these
films to the public, thanks to their ingenious designs by
then-unheralded
artists. Represented are wonderful graphics from such films as "Might
Joe Young", "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", the Sinbad films, "First
Men in the Moon", "Mysterious Island", "Jason and the Argonauts" and so
many other classics. With a foreword by John Landis, a long-time friend
and admirer of
Harryhausen, this is the most impressive film book to cross my desk this
year.
Kudos to all involved.
Writer Ernie Magnotta has released a new book "Halloween: The Changing Shape of an Iconic Series" that explores the origins of John Carpenter's classic chiller as well as evaluations of the entire "Halloween" series. The book is 380 pages and has 200 color photos. For full details and to order, click here.
AUGUST 2018, VOCALION BOOKS, The Mood Modern,
– 486 pages, Foreword by Keith Mansfield, Hardback and paperback editions –
ISBNs: 978-1-9996796-0-6 (hardback) / 978-1-9996796-1-3 (paperback) – Fully
indexed – Two sixteen-page photo sections, one in b/w, one in colour, both
containing many never-before-published images: from the Phillips family
archive, and of composers, musicians, recording sessions, catalogues, music
scores and studio brochures.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Oliver
Lomax for well over a decade. His superbly produced Dutton Vocalion CD’s have regularly
graced the pages of Cinema Retro. So when he hinted to me some months ago that
he had been working on a book, I knew that it would materialise as something
very special. After reading Oliver’s meticulously detailed liner notes which
had accompanied many of his KPM and Bruton re-releases, it was perhaps no
surprise that he had chosen the history of these legendary labels as the
subject of Vocalion’s publishing debut.
Also known as mood, stock, background or
production music, for decades library music has made an important though
anonymous contribution to the broadcast media, supplying film, radio and
television with innumerable themes and underscores.
The Mood Modern is three books in one,
weaving together the separate strands of company history, biography and
critical assessment of some of the most important music collectively produced
by the KPM and Bruton libraries during the course of a quarter century,
spanning the years from 1956 to 1980. At the heart of the book, however, is the
Phillips family, one of Britain’s great music publishing dynasties, but in
particular Robin Phillips (1939-2006).
The mid-1960s through the ’70s have come to
be regarded as library music’s golden age. In Britain, it was when this
somewhat mysterious branch of the music industry emerged from the chrysalis of
its light music heritage, into a vibrant new era of modern, colourful sounds.
Robin Phillips played a fundamental role in this transformation when, in 1966,
he established a new library – the KPM 1000 Series. Robin would also introduce
several new composers who would quickly become some of the best-known and most
successful names in the library music field: Keith Mansfield, Johnny Pearson,
Syd Dale, Alan Hawkshaw, James Clarke, David Lindup, Brian Bennett and Steve
Gray among others. And thanks to Robin’s guidance, by the early ’70s the 1000
Series had become one of the world’s foremost libraries, its music a ubiquitous
presence in countless films, documentaries, radio programmes and television
series.
But in 1977, at the height of his success,
Robin left KPM for ATV Music – taking with him his right-hand man, Aaron Harry,
and the major composers – where he formed the Bruton Library under the auspices
of his brother Peter (who by now was ATV Music’s managing director) and show
business mogul Lew Grade’s financial adviser, Jack Gill.
Drawing on interviews with members of the
Phillips family (including Peter Phillips) and many of the composers, recording
engineers, musicians and staff of both libraries, The Mood Modern tells the
remarkable inside story of how KPM and, subsequently, Bruton came to be
dominant forces in library music, both in Britain and internationally.
In addition to charting the origin and history
of the music publishing firms – Keith Prowse and Peter Maurice – that merged to
form KPM, The Mood Modern covers numerous related areas. These include the
birth of Britain’s library music industry; the early British libraries and
their inseparable link to the English light music tradition; how the arrival of
commercial television in Britain led to the formation of the Keith Prowse
library in 1956 under the aegis of its manager, Patrick Howgill, which paved
the way for the KPM library; KPM’s legacy as a famous popular music publisher
and its place in the history of Denmark Street (London’s Tin Pan Alley);
Robin’s father, legendary music publisher Jimmy Phillips; the corporate
manoeuvring that saw Keith Prowse, Peter Maurice and KPM bought and sold; and
the clash with management that eventually caused Peter and Robin Phillips to
leave KPM for ATV Music.
The importance of the recording engineer is
acknowledged in The Mood Modern, and those who largely shaped the “sound†of
the KPM and Bruton libraries are featured: Ted Fletcher, Adrian Kerridge, Mike
Clements, Richard Elen (KPM) and Chris Dibble (Bruton Music). There’s detailed
coverage of all the KPM 1000 Series’ overseas sessions – including personnel,
dates, locations and what was recorded – and chapters respectively devoted to
the sessions in Bickendorf, Cologne (along with the stellar lineup of
international jazz talent that played on them) and in KPM’s two in-house
studios. The Musicians’ Union embargo, which had forced British libraries to
record much of their material on the Continent, is also scrutinised, as are the
negotiations with the MU of the late ’70s that finally allowed British
libraries to resume recording in British studios with British musicians.
As well as delineating the setting up of the
Bruton Library, its struggle to get established and the background of the
parent company, ATV Music (itself a division of entertainment conglomerate
Associated Television [ATV]), Bruton’s recording sessions and early output are
placed under the spotlight.
Another aspect of The Mood Modern is the
chapter-length biographical portraits of five of the KPM 1000 Series’ principal
composers: Syd Dale, Johnny Pearson, Keith Mansfield, James Clarke and David
Lindup. This is the first time that any of them have been the subject of an
in-depth portrait, and these chapters take in many associated areas: KPM
library offshoots Aristocrat, Radio Program Music and the KPM International
series; the litany of famous and not-so-famous TV and radio themes within the
KPM library; Lansdowne Studios; British jazz and pop; classical music;
commissioned film and TV scores; BBC Television and Radio; Independent
Television (ITV); the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society; the Performing
Right Society; Phonographic Performance Ltd. and so much more.
A host of other composers also feature in The
Mood Modern. These include KPM and Bruton stalwarts Laurie Johnson, Neil
Richardson, Steve Gray, Dave Gold, Francis Monkman, Brian Bennett, Alan
Hawkshaw, John Dankworth, John Scott, Duncan Lamont, John Fiddy and John
Cameron as well as the KPM 1000 Series’ house bands, WASP and SHARKS.
Putting everything into further perspective
is a thorough examination of the pre-1000 Series KPM library, and a chapter
that focuses on a leading music editor of the ’70s, who describes the processes
and equipment that were used in transferring library music onto the soundtracks
of films, documentaries and television programmes.
The Mood Modern is arguably the most
fascinating and in-depth study of an essential genre within the music industry
and a must for anyone with an intent interest in the history of soundtrack
music.
Despite having been a major star for decades and having a lead a life
of controversy and personal obstacles and challenges, it seems
surprising that there has never been a book about the films of Anthony
Perkins that examined his work in detail. That dilemma has finally been
resolved with the release of "More Than a Psycho: The Complete Films of
Anthony Perkins" by husband-and-wife writing team of Dawn and Jonathon
Dabell. The authors refreshingly concentrate on examining each of the
actor's individual feature films and TV productions in detail, offering
fascinating background information and astute evaluations of each title
from classics such as "Friendly Persuasion" and "Murder on the Orient
Express" to television fare such as "How Awful About Alan" There is a
biographical section, to be sure, that provides meaningful details on
Perkins' life and career but the primary emphasis is on the quality of
his individual films. In this regard the book resembles those marvelous
old Citadel Press "Films of..." titles that still adorn the bookshelves
and libraries of movie lovers worldwide. The book is also profusely
illustrated.
The Dabells succeed in their quest to prove that Perkins should be
judged by other achievements that just his signature role as Norman
Bates in "Psycho" but it's not without irony that the role that
stereotyped him to a degree was one he would return to many years later
to exploit in sequels based on Hitchcock's original premise. The book
makes it clear that, for the most part, Perkins' considerable talents
were generally under-utilized by the film industry. He would
occasionally land a supporting role in an "A" list feature film but more
of than not he top-lined a good deal of mediocre fare. Nevertheless, he
always gave it his best effort and this very worthy book pays homage to
his impressive achievements.
Here is an official announcement about the release of the book:
Anthony
Perkins is best known for playing Norman Bates in Psycho. Its notoriety and success ensured he remained one of
filmdom’s most recognisable faces for the rest of his life… and beyond. Yet
there were those (Perkins included) who felt he never truly shook the screen
persona of the knife-wielding, mother-obsessed, cross-dressing psychopath, and
he was often labelled on the strength of his most notorious role – thus giving
a distorted view of a career which spanned four decades and almost sixty
movies.
In
More Than a Psycho: The Complete Films Of
Anthony Perkins, Dawn and Jonathon Dabell take a closer look at the actor’s
entire body of work. Their book provides cast and crew details, an extensive
image gallery, background information and considered critical analysis for
every title. Perkins was, they argue, more than just a prominent screen villain
– his talent and versatility went much further, his wider oeuvre encompassing
everything from romance to comedy, from war to westerns, from musicals to sci-fi.
With
a foreword by highly regarded film and pop culture historian Paul Talbot, this
is the essential guide to the career of Anthony Perkins.
300+
images.
Specially
commissioned cover by artist Paul Watts.
Proofed
and edited by Darrell Buxton.
Cast
and crew information on every film, including films where Perkins was
screen-writer or director only.
Capsule
biography.
Television
work.
Theatre
work.
Theatrical
and TV-movies.
In-depth,
balanced critical analysis of every film.
Foreword
by Paul Talbot, author of Bronson’s Loose, Bronson’s Loose Again! And Mondo
Mandingo.
Extensive
bibliography.
Rarely
written-about titles explored in never-before-seen detail.
The
first -and currently only - book devoted specifically to an examination of Anthony
Perkins’ filmography.
ALTERNATIVELY, SIGNED COPIES AVAILABLE DIRECT
FROM THE AUTHORS (REQUEST A SHIPPING QUOTE FOR YOUR PART OF THE WORLD BY
SENDING ENQUIRIES TO morethanapsycho@hotmail.com).