Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s - Columnists

"SCENT OF A MAN": THE CHARLES BRONSON TV AD YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE!

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:30:00 -0400

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST ARTICLES FROM CINEMA RETRO'S ARCHIVES

It's no secret that American actors have been making TV commercials for the Japanese market for decades. In years past, there was little chance these would be seen in English-speaking countries where it would have been considered tacky for stars of great magnitude to appear as pitchmen for various products. However, the age of the Internet has opened up a King Tut's tomb of buried video treasures including a real gem featuring Charles Bronson in a bizarre TV spot that looks like it was funded by the old gay erotic magazine Blueboy. That's right - the most macho of leading men appeared in an ad that looks like an outtake from William Friedkin's Cruising.

Cinema Retro's Dean Brierly plays Jimmy Olsen to investigate this rarity: but first check out the video by clicking here

Once Upon a Time in the East, Charles Bronson was the pitchman on a Japanese TV commercial that we suspect he felt would never be seen by western audiences...

The year 1970 was a hot one for Charles Bronson. After grinding away for decades as Hollywood’s toughest character actor, he was on the cusp of international superstardom thanks to a breakout performance in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West and several gritty Eurocrime films. 1970 was also the year that a Japanese corporation sought a Hollywood star to headline an ad campaign for its new line of “Mandom” men’s-care products. Whether through fate, serendipity or cocaine-fueled inspiration, Mandom and Bronson were brought together in a brilliant conflation of the actor’s self-aware hyper-masculinity and over-the-top Japanese film aesthetics. The result was the most mind-blowing television commercial to ever scorch the airwaves.

The spot begins with a close-up of a pianist feeling his way through a bluesy, cocktail lounge number oozing with after-hours ambience. The camera slowly pulls back to reveal a nattily attired Bronson sitting alone in a swank nightclub elegantly defined by heavy curtains, soft lighting and tables discreetly spaced for romantic tête-à-tête. Bronson isn’t seated at one of the tables, however, but at the piano, where he directs a disturbingly intimate smile at the piano player as his gravelly voiceover intones: “All the world loves a lover. All the world loves…Mandom!” The homoerotic emanations are already starting to thrum.

There’s a quick dissolve as Bronson strolls out of the club, where he’s greeted by bit-part actor Percy Helton playing Sam the doorman. (Helton was the obsequious pipsqueak in countless films, most famously Kiss Me Deadly, in which Ralph Meeker slams Helton’s hand in a drawer until he screams like a little girl.) Helton is at his slobbery, sycophantic best as he escorts the icon to his car, whereupon Bronson claps the little guy on the back in a gesture of masculine bonhomie and wishes him good night. “Thank you, Mr. Bronson,” Helton fawningly responds, his tongue practically up Bronson’s arse. “Goodnight, Mr. Bronson. Sleep tight!” Helton then cackles insanely as Chuck zooms off into the night to the swelling strains of a Love Boat-style chorus. Buñuel couldn’t have staged this scene any better.

Another dissolve shows Bronson dramatically entering his penthouse and immediately begin undoing his tie as a Jack Jones-type croons the Mandom theme song. After selecting his favorite pipe from his pipe rack, Bronson strips off his shirt and with a quick pirouette flings it into the air as if he’s auditioning for a road show of The Sound of Music. His pecs proudly displayed, Bronson struts over to his Mandom shrine, grabs a phallic-shaped can of aftershave and spins the top off to the sound of spaghetti western-style gunshots. If the ad had ended at this point, it would still be the defining moment of Bronson’s career. But there’s more. Oh, so much more.

As Bronson starts slathering on the Mandom like he’s taking a shower in it, there are several quick cutaways to shots of his inner cowboy—tricked out in fancy fringed buckskin—fanning the hammer of a Colt pistol in a flurry of manly action poses. As if that weren’t enough surrealism for thunderstruck television viewers, an off-screen stallion starts whinnying like he’s about to mount a filly. (Or maybe that’s just the sound Bronson makes during the physical act of love.) Having fully marinated himself in Mandom, Bronson leans back in his leather easy chair, pornstache impeccably groomed, and narcissistically caresses his face as he pours every ounce of his artistry into the ad’s tag line: “Ummm. Mandom!”

Even repeated viewings of this two-minute slice of television nirvana can’t diffuse the Mandom magic, something that can’t be said about all of Bronson’s subsequent cinematic endeavors. It’s sheer class on every level: from the A-game performances of Bronson and Helton to the overwhelming homoeroticism to the impeccable evocation of a superficial, sybaritic lifestyle. It’s impossible to single out a defining money shot, as every frame dazzles with a brilliance that Orson Welles could only dream of. Perhaps the best part is the ending, with Bronson sitting alone in his tastefully decorated apartment and nary a female in sight. The narrative implications are left intriguingly open-ended, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s saving his money shot for Sam and the piano player.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BRADFORD DILLMAN

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:35:17 -0400

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST ARTICLES FROM CINEMA RETRO'S ARCHIVES

Bradford Dillman: A Compulsively Watchable Actor

By Herb Shadrak

In a career that has spanned 43 years, Bradford Dillman accumulated more than 500 film and TV credits. The slim, handsome and patrician Dillman may have been the busiest actor in Hollywood during the late sixties and early seventies, working non-stop for years. In 1971 alone, Dillman starred in seven full-length feature films. And this protean output doesn’t include guest appearances on six TV shows that same year.

Yale-educated Dillman first drew good notices in the early 1950s on the Broadway stage and in live TV shows, such as Climax and Kraft Television Theatre. After making theatrical history playing Edmund Tyrone in the first-ever production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1956, Dillman landed the role of blueblood psychopath Artie Straus in the crime-and-punishment thriller Compulsion (1959), for which he won a three-way Best Actor Prize at Cannes (sharing the award with co-stars Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles).

On the And You Call Yourself a Scientist! Web site, Dillman’s Artie Straus is described as “all brag and bravado, contemptuous of everything but himself, with his bridge-and-country-club parents, and his vaguely unwholesome relationship with his mother.”

In the early years of his career, Dillman starred in several major motion pictures, picking and choosing his roles carefully. He was featured in Jean Negulesco’s romance A Certain Smile (1958) with Rossano Brazzi and Joan Fontaine; Philip Dunne’s World War II drama In Love and War (1958) with Robert Wagner and Dana Wynter; and Tony Richardson’s Sanctuary (1961) with Lee Remick and Yves Montand, a rancid slice of Southern Gothic based on the novel by William Faulkner.

Yet in the early sixties, Dillman started taking any part that came along to support his growing family. From 1962 on, he guest starred in dozens of TV series -- among them Espionage, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Twelve O’Clock High, Shane, Felony Squad, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Marcus Welby, M.D., The Streets of San Francisco, Bronk, How the West Was Won and Fantasy Island.

In 1975, Dillman won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Drama Special for his performance as Matt Clifton in Last Bride of Salem (1974), an excellent tale of modern witchcraft. The 90-minute Gothic horror movie aired on ABC Afternoon Playbreak and was so well received that it was rebroadcast during primetime.

Over the years, Dillman appeared in scores of made-for-TV movies and theatrical releases, such as Walter Grauman’s drama A Rage to Live (1965) with the late Suzanne Pleshette; John Guillermin’s war story The Bridge at Remagen (1969) with George Segal; Hy Averback’s satire Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came (1970) starring Tony Curtis; and Jud Taylor’s horror-thriller Revenge (1971), with Shelley Winters. Dillman also played a psychiatrist who goes ape for Natalie Trundy in Don Taylor’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and a scientist battling firestarting cockroaches in Jeannot Szwarc’s Bug (1975) — the final film produced by legendary horror schlockmeister William Castle.

Dillman is now 78. After retiring from acting in 1995, he took up a second career as a writer. He is excellent at his new avocation, requiring no ghostwriters to tweak his prose. Dillman’s autobiography Are You Anybody? is a series of amusing anecdotes about his Hollywood years. He has also written a harrowing adventure tale entitled That Air Forever Dark, set in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. “It’s a terrifying account of the Jet Age meeting the Stone Age – Deliverance in a jungle setting,” the actor-turned-author says.

Dillman’s latest book, published in 2005 by Fithian Press, is a comedy of errors entitled Kissing Kate. “The novel is about an amateur production of Kiss Me Kate,” Dillman relates. “An out-of-work professional actor is hired to play the male lead opposite a wealthy community icon. Ultimately, of course, they end up in bed together, where a ‘catastrophe’ occurs and all hell breaks loose. I assure you that Kissing Kate is not in the least bit autobiographical!”

Fifty-two years after appearing on stage in O’Neill’s landmark theatrical event, Dillman is now a playwright as well. His Seeds in the Wind made its debut in May 2007 at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, California. The play is set in 1939 in Santa Cruz, California, during a weekend celebrating the 40th birthday of a society hostess' daughter. The interaction of the houseguests is both humorous and dramatic, and all manner of unexpected events occur, Dillman assures us.

The veteran performer spoke to Cinema Retro from his home in Santa Barbara, California.

Cinema Retro: You achieved international prominence in Richard Fleischer’s Compulsion, in which you were unforgettable as the frightening and magnetic Artie Straus, a wealthy law-school student on trial for murder in this taut retelling of the infamous Leopold-Loeb case of the 1920s. You had been playing romantic leads up until then, so this leap into villainy was quite a daring career move on your part.

Bradford Dillman: I had a commitment to Twentieth Century Fox to do two pictures a year and, as fate would have it, the timing of the filming of Compulsion coincided. Nothing to do with the moguls’ belief that I had talent. It was just dumb luck, pure and simple.

Compulsion (1959) with Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles

CR: Following Compulsion, you were often cast in villainous roles. In 1964, you co-starred with B-movie cult figure John Ashley (The Mad Doctor of Blood Island) in an episode of Dr. Kildare with the intriguing title Night of the Beast. What was that one about?

BD: I was the beast. I was such a bad guy I had my thugs hold Kildare down while I raped his girlfriend in front of his very eyes. When we came to the comeuppance scene, I learned that Richard Chamberlain had obviously never been in a fistfight in his life. The stunt men couldn't teach him how to throw a punch; I couldn't teach him. So we had a gentle comeuppance. He's a nice, sensitive man who has since come out of the closet.

With Carol Lynley, Robert Vaughn and David McCallum in the Man From U.N.C.L.E. feature film The Helicopter Spies (1968)

CR: In 1967, you were the guest villain on The Prince of Darkness Affair, a two-part episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E, later repackaged as a theatrical release – The Helicopter Spies (1968). You were great fun as Luther Sebastian, the Third Way cult leader who steals a rocket. Did you have any scenes with lovely Lola Albright?

BD: The Helicopter Spies has disappeared in the vortex of remaining brain cells. I don’t remember if I exchanged words with Lola Albright.

Continue reading "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BRADFORD DILLMAN"

"IT TAKES A THIEF" COMES TO DVD IN GERMANY

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:18:00 -0400

By Dean Brierly

The Briefing

“Let me get this straight, Noah. It Takes a Thief is finally out on DVD?”

“That’s right, Al. There’s just one catch — it’s available only in Germany. A company called Polyband just listed Season One on Amazon’s German affiliate.”

“Terrific.”

“Granted, you’ll need a region-free DVD player to watch the discs. But the good news is that the language options include English.”

“You sold me, Noah. Where’s my laptop?”

The Backstory

Yep, it’s finally happened. The coolest TV show never to be released on DVD has at long last entered the digital domain. Not in this country, of course. License holder Universal is still hedging its bets regarding the American market, for reasons known only to fools and madmen. It took the Germans, for crying out loud, to recognize the commercial DVD potential of It Takes a Thief, the action-adventure series that ran from 1968 to 1970 and starred Robert Wagner in his career-defining role as Alexander Mundy, master thief, international playboy and smooth cat extraordinaire.

Besides being must-see TV in the States, the series also proved a hit in Germany, where it debuted on November 18, 1969 under the title Ihr Auftritt, Al Mundy! (Rough translation: Your Appearance, Al Mundy!) One of the reasons for its popularity there was due to the dubbing, which made the lines funnier than they were actually written. This lighter approach was also reflected in some of the episode titles. “A Thief is a Thief” was Germanized to “A Chance for the Playboy,” and “A Spot of Trouble” became “More Champagne for the Ladies.”

The show’s premise was ingenious and irresistible: Mundy was cooling his heels in San Jobel Prison when Noah Bain, head of the secretive SIA spy agency, offered Al a get-out-of-jail card on the condition that he thieve for the government. Bain, played with gruff authority by Malachi Throne, regularly dispatched Al to glamorous European locales to steal secret formulas, defense papers, kidnapped scientists, and whatever else the SIA needed to appropriate in the interest of national security. Naturally, Mundy found time to purloin more than a few feminine hearts along the way. The result was a unique blend of crime and espionage that set the show apart from anything else on the television landscape.

Wagner’s charisma was, of course, integral to the show’s appeal. He was 38 when the series debuted (though he looked a decade younger), and had matured from the callow actor of the early 1950s into a versatile and sophisticated performer. Wagner’s physical grace allowed him to convincingly handle the show’s action imperatives — scrambling cat burglar fashion up and down buildings, throwing down with international spies and criminals, and sweeping an endless succession of nubile females off their lovely feet. Wagner maintained an unimpeachable cool in and out of trouble, and had few equals in the art of repartee. The show’s writers gave him plenty of opportunities to showcase the latter ability. Here’s a typical example from the Season One episode “When Thieves Fall In”:

Alexander Mundy: “What happened?”

Charlene Brown: “Chloroform with a vodka chaser.”

Mundy: “You’re not supposed to spray that stuff on yourself!”

Malachi Throne provided brilliant support as Noah Bain, a gruff, tough badass with no compunctions about sending Mundy into the most desperate and dangerous circumstances; yet who invariably had Al’s back when the chips were down. The series’ guest stars were the cream of the Hollywood crop, from seasoned veterans like Ida Lupino (“Turnabout”) to promising newcomers like Susan St. James (“It Takes One to Know One”) and Bill Bixby (“To Steal a Battleship”). The series’ creative DNA also boasted clever, literate scripts; inventive direction; quality production values; and Dave Grusin’s hipper-than-hip theme tune. Throughout its three-year run, It Takes a Thief effortlessly blended action, suspense, humor and style into a potent televisual cocktail that retains its intoxicating appeal four decades after its debut.

Continue reading ""IT TAKES A THIEF" COMES TO DVD IN GERMANY "

BOOK REVIEW: "THE THIRTIES" HAS A WEALTH OF LORE FOR LOVERS OF BRITISH FILMS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:45:00 -0400

The Thirties: An Intimate History by Juliet Gardiner

Published by Harper Press 2010

Hardcover 944 pages

Review by Adrian Smith

On 31^st December 1929 over 1000 children, unaccompanied by adults, packed into The Glen Cinema in Paisley, Scotland to watch a short Tom Mix western, some cartoons and The Crowd, an epic silent movie directed by King Vidor. Shortly after the programme started, and the natural rowdiness and noise began to die down, some of the children noticed smoke coming from the projection booth. The scream of “Fire!” caused major panic, and as the auditorium filled with both smoke and carbon monoxide there was a rush to the exits. Unfortunately the main exit had been firmly locked by the owners to prevent children from letting their friends in without paying. When the rescue operation was finally over 71 children were dead and many more ill or injured. This was the worst kind of tragedy to befall a small community, and it happened in a cinema.

This incredible story is used by Gardiner to open her fascinating new book on the social history of Britain as it went from prosperity to recession and into an inescapable World War. Although this book falls somewhat outside the main focus of Cinema Retro, it contains an insightful chapter on the development of film exhibition throughout the decade, and the growth of the “Picture Palaces” or “Dreamlands” across the country. She quotes some unbelievable statistics that would make any studio executive today weep with envy: in 1934 903 million cinema tickets were sold in Britain, and this had risen to over 990 million by 1939. This was an average of almost 20 million every single week. Compare that to the UK box office figures for 2009 - a mere 173.5 million. By 1938 there were nearly 5000 cinemas with some towns having over 100 each. There are some wonderful descriptions which put our modern multiplexes to shame. She notes the Astoria in Brixton which was built like an indoor fantasy of trailing vines, antique statues and a ceiling which changed like the sky from dawn to dusk, to starry night. As if that wasn’t enough they scented the auditorium with Yardley’s Lavender perfume. Others were designed to look like Egyptian pyramids, Baronial halls or mermaid’s palaces. To top it off, when the audience took their seats they were first entertained by a man in a white suit rising from the well of the cinema playing popular tunes on a translucent, flashing, multi-coloured electric organ.

Continue reading "BOOK REVIEW: "THE THIRTIES" HAS A WEALTH OF LORE FOR LOVERS OF BRITISH FILMS"

CINEMA RETRO COVERS MAJOR RAY HARRYHAUSEN LONDON TRIBUTE

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:58:46 -0400

Ray Harryhausen: Myths and Legends

By Adrian Smith

On the 29^th June one of the world’s most legendary filmmakers celebrated his 90^th birthday. To coincide with this, the London Film Museum is hosting a brand new exhibition devoted to the great man himself. Cinema Retro was fortunate enough to attend the event and join in the birthday celebrations, alongside such notable guests as John Landis, Terry Gilliam, Peter Jackson and special effects guru Rick Baker.

Gilliam was very clear at to why he was in attendance. “I’ve been a fan, like most people, especially my generation I think, because we grew up with his monsters, his creatures, his Greek mythology even. What I love about him is his handiwork. It’s not digital, with teams of people doing it. It’s Ray giving life to these things. That’s why I think this stuff works. It’s a performance. There’s something about that kind of handiwork that I just find extraordinary. It’s not real, and it seems to trigger off all sorts of childhood fantasies. You see something that’s clearly not real, but totally believable at the same time. We know that stuff is clay and rubber and stuff, and suddenly it’s given life. It’s magic!” So with all that said, will Gilliam be using stop motion in his next project, the much-anticipated The Man Who Killed Don Quixote? “No, I’m using computers! I need things done quickly and cheaply!”

After Ray had cut the ribbon in front of a wall of cameras we went into the exhibition itself. The first thing you see is a recreation of King Kong atop the Empire State Building. Although Ray Harryhausen is the main focus of this exhibition, he was keen to ensure that it presented a history of the animation art form as well. After all he has recently co-written a hugely informative book on the subject, A Century of Model Animation. Ray happily posed for photos, alongside his wife Diana and daughter Vanessa. At one point a spontaneous singalong of Happy Birthday broke out.

Continue reading "CINEMA RETRO COVERS MAJOR RAY HARRYHAUSEN LONDON TRIBUTE"

ALDO SANBRELL: A PERSONAL TRIBUTE BY CINEMA RETRO'S JOHN EXSHAW

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:00:00 -0400

BY JOHN EXSHAW

With the death of Aldo Sanbrell, who passed away in Alicante last Saturday (10 July), aged 79, another link to the great days of Italian film-making – and the Italian Western, in particular – has been lost. The only actor to appear in all of Sergio Leone’s Westerns, Aldo was the most prominent and recognisable of all those mean-looking hombres who rode the badlands and bit the dust of Almería in those far-off days when southern Spain was the Wild West – Italian style. Asked once by a British director if he “knew how to die,” Aldo replied, “Oh yes, señor, I have been killed in many film fights here in Almería. I have died for Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, George Scott . . . I have made 185 films and I have been killed in all of them. Yes, I know how to die.”

Aldo’s most memorable performances were as the hapless gang member, Cuchillo, framed and gunned down by Gian María Volonté’s Indio in For a Few Dollars More (1965), and as Mervyn Duncan, the Indian-hating scalp hunter of Sergio Corbucci’s Navajo Joe (1966). In the latter film, Sanbrell made an indelible impression in the opening sequence, gunning down an innocent squaw and then scalping her, his nostrils flaring with hate and bloodlust as his men launch a murderous assault on a peaceful Indian tribe. Having snarled, flogged, and killed his way through the rest of the film, Duncan finally receives his just desserts, dispatched with a tomahawk in the head hurled by a bewigged Burt Reynolds. A year later, Corbucci gave Aldo another showy, though less significant, role as a sword-wielding bandido in The Hellbenders.

Continue reading "ALDO SANBRELL: A PERSONAL TRIBUTE BY CINEMA RETRO'S JOHN EXSHAW"

DAVID SAVAGE INTERVIEWS REBECCA CONROY, DIRECTOR OF "SAHAJA SPRINGS"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:35:00 -0400

In the spirit of Cinema Retro's quest to help make audiences aware of worthwhile independent films, columnist David Savage reports on the new short Sahaja Springs.

If precious few directors have exploited the inherent comedy of the ashram -- a retreat for meditation, yoga and enlightenment -- it may be because, like the fashion biz and network television, for example -- these realms do an awfully good job of satirizing themselves.

One director willing to take a stab at sending up the yoga lifestyle is emerging indie director Rebecca Conroy, a recent graduate of Columbia University's graduate film program. Her hilarious short, Sahaja Springs, recently screened at the IFC Center in Manhattan, and has both tickled and angered audiences, depending on whom you ask. (Men seem to be amused; women, not so much, according to Conroy.)

The film's multi-thread narrative follows a group of ashram residents as they struggle to find inner peace promised by an Upstate New York ashram run by a faux-Indian, fraudulent yogi. That the character is played by a real-life Indian yogi, 92 year-old Kumar Pallana -- the Indian character actor with a recurring role in many of Wes Anderson's films such as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited -- is a good example of the film’s layered comedy.

Meanwhile, a male ashram resident – a hunky, magnetic loner who speaks in mystical yet baffling headscratchers – seems to be driving all the females crazy with frustrated lust and confusion.

It’s a smart, deadpan jewel from a young director who knows whence she speaks: Conroy drew upon her own experiences as a yoga follower, ashram-crasher and daughter of a hippie mother.

I sat down recently for coffee with Conroy and discussed the idea behind her yoga satire and “The Great Kumar”’s surprising theatrical history.

Continue reading "DAVID SAVAGE INTERVIEWS REBECCA CONROY, DIRECTOR OF "SAHAJA SPRINGS" "

DEAN BRIERLY REVIEWS TWO FILMS BY ANTHONY MANN

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 09 May 2010 12:57:00 -0400

RETR0-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

Our Man Brierly turns his sights on a couple of key films in the career of director Anthony Mann

Anthony Mann’s filmmaking career lasted nearly three decades, during each of which he mastered a different genre. He came to prominence in the forties with a string of film noirs (1948’s Raw Deal and 1949’s Border Incident but two among many) that rivaled Hitchcock’s for style, suspense and hard-boiled atmosphere. In the fifties, Mann applied his noir sensibility to a series of lean, hard-bitten Westerns starring James Stewart, Winchester ’73 (1950) foremost among them. As the sixties dawned, Mann proved himself one of Hollywood’s most adept directors of big screen blockbusters with the likes of El Cid (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). Linking such disparate films and genres was Mann’s trademark blend of narrative-driven visuals and keen psychological insight.

Although never regarded as an auteur during his lifetime, his films were popular at the box office and generally well received by critics, his last two features being notable exceptions. Both The Heroes of Telemark (1965) and A Dandy in Aspic (1968) have long been considered failures. The former is a war film about Norwegian resistance fighters; the latter one of the bleak spy thrillers common during the sixties. Intriguingly, Mann invests both films with a paranoid tone reminiscent of the nail-biting noirs he cut his teeth on during his first Hollywood decade. A close reading of the films also reveals their stylistic and thematic consistency with his previous, more celebrated work. Now that both are available as Region 2 DVDs, it’s time for a long-overdue reappraisal.

Continue reading "DEAN BRIERLY REVIEWS TWO FILMS BY ANTHONY MANN"

REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE AND CAREER OF RICHARD BASEHART

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 11:02:46 -0400

Basehart in Fellini's masterpiece La Strada. (Photo: Cinema Retro archives)

Cinema Retro columnist Herbert Shadrak recently spoke to Stephanie Kellerman, a friend of the Basehart family and webmaster of The Talented Richard Basehart shrine at www.richardbasehart.com

Cinema Retro: Was Richard Basehart an actor’s actor? Was his enormous talent only truly appreciated by other actors?

Stephanie Kellerman: Several actors commented that he was an actor's actor because they did appreciate his talent, but you would find an argument from his fans saying that his talent was only appreciated by other actors. As for me... I appreciated other actors because I liked the characters they played, but I really didn't have an interest in the actors themselves. With Richard, I watched him because I was interested in him and how he seemed to make each role his own. To me, when others acted, they seemed to play the same character in all their movies, different variations of themselves. They just had different names. Richard was one of the few actors who could make the roles he played so believable and the different characters came to life with their own personalities.

CR: Why was this great actor so unappreciated during his lifetime – and perhaps even now, 25 years after his death?

SK: I think that happened because of two reasons. One, he moved to Italy for a decade and was out of the public's eye in the USA. And two, he accepted the role of Admiral Nelson in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, with which he will be forever identified. If he had stayed in the U.S., I believe he would have become a greater star here. He is considered a much greater star in Europe. Also, I have received several comments over the years from people who emailed me at my Richard Basehart tribute site that they had no idea he had such range as an actor because they only knew him as Admiral Nelson, and were astonished when they went back and watched some of his old movies, which by now most everyone has forgotten about.

Incidentally, we wouldn't have had Richard as Admiral Nelson if he hadn't needed money to pay off Valentina Cortese after their divorce. She agreed to one last payoff and Voyage was his chance to get out of making any more payments to her. That means if he didn't have that expense, he wouldn't have taken the role and the roles he would have taken otherwise would probably more closely reflect what he had done in the past.

Continue reading "REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE AND CAREER OF RICHARD BASEHART"

REVIEW: "BEAUTIFUL DARLING: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CANDY DARLING, WARHOL SUPERSTAR"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:32:00 -0400

A new documentary examining the tragic and influential life of Warhol Factory star Candy Darling, entitled Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Warhol Superstar had its US premiere at the New Directors/New Films Festival, last Friday, April 2nd, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The writer and director, James Rasin, was present with key members of his crew, most notably Jeremiah Newton, who executive produced and whose shared life with Darling provided the main focus
of this revelatory, intelligent documentary.

Framed by a present-day narrative involving close friend Jeremiah Newton's efforts to give Candy's funeral urn a final resting place (in tiny Cherry Valley, New York -- the significance of which is never explained), the documentary recounts in vivid detail the fast-burning life of Warhol's most legendary Superstar. (The only one of Warhol's Superstars, by the way, paid tribute by two Lou Reed-penned songs for The Velvet Underground.) The filmmaker and his crew weave together early video clips, film footage, recordings, photographs, period music and and original score to create a dense narrative fabric, making it one the most thorough and authoritative biopics of the Warhol clan.

Continue reading "REVIEW: "BEAUTIFUL DARLING: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CANDY DARLING, WARHOL SUPERSTAR""

EXCLUSIVE! INTERVIEW WITH ACCLAIMED ACTOR NEHEMIAH PERSOFF

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 05:02:00 -0400

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

Nehemiah Persoff: From Jerusalem to Hollywood – and Beyond

By Herb Shadrak

Born in Jerusalem in 1919, Nehemiah Persoff went on to become one of the busiest character actors in Hollywood. His face is familiar to millions of boomers across North America from his numerous guest appearances on just about every TV series that aired from the 1950s through the 1990s. Persoff’s name may have been unfamiliar to many of these TV viewers, but his face was instantly recognizable. Filmspot.com describes Persoff as a “short, dark and stocky-framed actor who specialized in playing ethnic-type villains, although he frequently essayed sympathetic roles as well.” (Witness his heartbreaking moments with Maria Schell in Voyage of the Damned.) Yet he excelled as gangland figures like Johnny Torrio, mentor to Al Capone in the 1959 biopic, or mobster Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik – a recurring role on The Untouchables.

Persoff’s childhood was poverty-stricken, but there was constant singing, dancing and music in his home. He was a very creative and imaginative youngster, who always visited the circus when it came to the Holy City. “There was a large field in Jerusalem where the circus used to set up,” Persoff recalls. “It was a very small one-ring circus, but I loved it. Outside the circus was an Arab with a box on a stand with peepholes in it, and he had a small monkey on a chain with a hat. This was enough to make me stand there for hours watching. One day, the Arab let me look through the peepholes. There I saw a funny man with a derby and cane. He had a funny walk. It was Charlie Chaplin! Little did I know that 20 years later I would meet that man face-to-face!”

Persoff found himself drawn to the cinema at an early age. “Two outdoor moviehouses were opened on Zion Square: one was called Eden. It had a circle of bulbs that would light up one after the other. I used to walk down there barefoot and watch the cinema from a post on the street. From that height I could see the top of the screen for free. I think the other outdoor moviehouse was called Aviv. For its grand opening they showed Ben Hur with Ramon Novarro. There were pennants hung all over… I guess that was our version of a Hollywood opening.

“I find that at age 88 my mind goes back to my early childhood more and more. Jerusalem in the late twenties was a place like no other. I cannot imagine a 10-year-old more attached to his birthplace than I was. I was keenly aware of the love that people had for each other, the feeling that we were all tied to the same cause. The pioneers came with nothing but enthusiasm and a love for life and our native land. Their attitude was ‘to hell with worldly goods, that's not what's important in our lives.’”

And yet Persoff’s father, a silversmith and painter, felt he had no career prospects in Palestine. So the young Persoff emigrated with his family to the United States in 1929, just in time for the Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression. Persoff spent several years working as an electrician on the New York subway system, gradually taking an interest in acting in the 1940's.

“When I started acting, I was working in the subway and there was a rule that subway workers were not allowed to have any other job,” Persoff remembers. “So on the program of the play, I used the name Nick Perry. My reviews were great but no one knew it was me, so I got none of the glory. After that I always used ‘Nehemiah Persoff’.”

After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Persoff started seriously pursuing an acting career in the New York theatre. In 1947, Persoff’s big break came along, one that would lead to steady work in films and television for the next 52 years.

“My friend (actor) Lou Gilbert told me that if I wanted to audition for the Actors Studio, he would arrange it. I jumped at the chance. Elia Kazan was one of the busiest directors around, and to study with him and be in his pool of actors was every actor's dream. I was in summer stock playing the lead role in George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. I knew that Kazan was with the Group Theatre along with writer Clifford Odets. I thought of doing something from an Odets play but then reasoned that perhaps a more classic approach might work better for me, so I did a monologue from Shaw. Two weeks later, I received an invitation to come to the first meeting of the Actors Studio. I took my seat on a bench and slowly looked around. There were John Garfield, Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Montgomery Clift, Kim Hunter and Maureen Stapleton, among others. Kazan began to speak and told us his aim was to create a group of actors who work as he does, who speak his language, and that the people assembled in this room were the cream of the talent available. This was heady stuff for a nearly starving young actor. I studied with Lee Strasberg. He was brilliant and helped me find myself as an actor… I owe him much. Among other scenes, I did a Noel Coward piece with Kim Stanley.”

After the Actors Studio, Persoff never looked back. His film credits include Kazan’s On the Waterfront, The Harder They Fall (Humphrey Bogart’s last film), Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, Never Steal Anything Small (with James Cagney), René Clément’s This Angry Age (shot in Thailand), Green Mansions (with Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins), The Hook (with Kirk Douglas), A Global Affair (with Bob Hope), Ray Danton’s frightfest Psychic Killer, Barbra Streisand’s Yentl and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.

Persoff also guest starred on about 400 TV shows, including The Twilight Zone (playing a Nazi U-Boat captain in the classic episode "Judgment Night"!), Route 66, Ben Casey, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Mr. Novak, Burke’s Law, Honey West, Dan August, The High Chaparal, The Big Valley, The Legend of Jesse James, The Wild Wild West, Gilligan’s Island, Hawaii Five-O, Tarzan, It Takes a Thief, Land of the Giants and The Time Tunnel.

In the mid-1980s, Persoff began to pursue painting. Now retired from acting, he devotes full time to this avocation he has always loved.

Cinema Retro spoke to Persoff from his home in Cambria, California.

Continue reading "EXCLUSIVE! INTERVIEW WITH ACCLAIMED ACTOR NEHEMIAH PERSOFF"

"IT CAME FROM 1973!": GEORGE ROMERO'S "THE CRAZIES" GETS A YOUNG HOLLYWOOD UPDATE

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:10:00 -0500

By David Savage

It’s an angry time in America. Tea Partiers, Olbermann, Palin, Wall Street villains, an endless war in Afghanistan, mercenaries in Congress, flying terrorists, high unemployment and Twitter-addicted freaks.

So it’s either a perfect time to bring out a remake of George Romero’s 1973 horror classic The Crazies, or the timing is really curious, if this mainstream horror reboot’s aim is to encourage viewers to “enjoy some surprises and maybe forget their troubles for a couple hours,” says one of the producers, Rob Cowan. The movie opens in North America today.

The dramatic irony floating over the film – in which a small, idyllic Midwestern town descends into violence and mayhem when a water-born toxin infects half the population – might be the question whether Americans even need the excuse of a crazy-making virus to descend into anarchy. Aren’t we on the tipping point already?

I’ll leave that for viewers to discuss. Meanwhile, this remake from Overture Films features Timothy Olyphant (Live Free or Die Hard), Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill) and is directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara). The writers, Scott Kosar and Ray Wright, have reportedly updated Romero’s original concept from being told from the point of view of the townsfolk to the husband and wife team of David and Judy (Olyphant and Mitchell).

EXCLUSIVE CINEMA RETRO INTERVIEW: DAVID HEDISON REMEMBERS RICHARD BASEHART

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:52:00 -0500

In part two of Herb Shadrak's tribute to actor Richard Basehart, his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea co-star David Hedison reflects on working with Basehart on the popular Irwin Allen TV series.

By Herb Shadrak

Veteran actor David Hedison is best known for three roles: the ill-fated scientist Andre Delambre who switches heads with The Fly (1958), CIA agent Felix Leiter in two James Bond films – Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989) [in which he loses his leg to a shark] – and Captain Lee Crane, who, along with Admiral Harriman Nelson (Richard Basehart), commanded the high-tech submarine Seaview on the hit TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968), which the Boston Globe’s TV critic said was “like Star Trek with fish.” In this exclusive interview for Cinema Retro, Hedison recalls his admiration for Basehart and the highlights of working with him on the fondly remembered science-fiction action-adventure series.

Cinema Retro: Why did you want to work with Richard Basehart?

David Hedison: I had admired his film work for years. He was always so natural on camera and he had passion. You believed in his very human characters.

CR: Which of his film performances particularly impressed you?

DH: La Strada was heartbreaking. Moby Dick. Fourteen Hours. Time Limit. Richard had fabulous range and was always worth watching in anything he did.

CR: What transpired during your very first encounter with Richard Basehart?

DH: I had asked him to invite me up to his house. I wanted to meet him off the set, only the two of us and talk. I had some ideas for the series. Richard graciously agreed. I went up there. We talked. We hit it off, he had a lot of the same ideas I had and a similar working style. Richard didn’t take to everyone, but he liked me; my enthusiasm, I guess. I did want to work with him. He taught me so much during those four years.

CR: Was Basehart aware of your admiration for his work?

DH: Not at first, but we found we could work together easily enough and then we did.

CR: What did you learn from Richard Basehart in terms of acting technique?

DH: Richard had great concentration. At first, noise, a wrong line, any background distraction would throw me off. Nothing shook Richard. He was always camera-ready, knew his line reading. I wanted to be able to do that and after a while, I got better at tuning out the distractions. He made me work harder, like tennis with a much better partner. Richard pushed me to be as good as he was and some days I almost was.

Continue reading "EXCLUSIVE CINEMA RETRO INTERVIEW: DAVID HEDISON REMEMBERS RICHARD BASEHART"

BOOK REVIEW: "LOS ANGELES, PORTRAIT OF A CITY"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:09:00 -0500

By Adrian Smith

Over the last thirty years Taschen have consistently produced some of the most lavish and eye-catching photography books ever published. This latest book, Los Angeles: Portrait of a City by Jim Heimann and Kevin Starr, covers the history of L.A in photos, from the first known picture taken in 1862 through to the present day. Whilst those first few chapters of photos and maps are interesting, particularly to historians, for movie fans the real gold comes later on. There are photos reproduced here from a variety of collections, from personal archives to news media. There are even pictures taken by the actors themselves, such as this one that Dennis Hopper took in his car in 1961.

L.A. from the vantage point of Dennis Hopper's lens.

In the book you can see Edward G. Robinson in reflective mood as he sits surrounded by memorabilia in his office, or a bikini-clad Jayne Mansfield reclining in a pool with dozens of floating toy replicas. We can even be present at the first Academy Award ceremony in 1929. Some photos depict film making in its early silent days. It’s incredible to see the elaborate indoor/ outdoor sets built to ensure they captured as much light as possible, and it demonstrates that even then, like modern-day movie sets, there are always plenty of people standing around with no evident job role. There are also on set photos from some Busby Berkeley musicals, demonstrating the amazing set design and vast camera cranes needed to capture the choreographed action.

Continue reading "BOOK REVIEW: "LOS ANGELES, PORTRAIT OF A CITY""

CATCHING UP WITH SALLI SACHSE...YEARS AFTER THE BEACH PARTY ENDED

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:28:18 -0500

Salli in Ski Party

by Tom Lisanti

I interviewed former 60s starlet Salli Sachse about 12 years ago for my first book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema. Her name may not be familiar, but to fans of American International Pictures’ series of beach movies her face is easily recognizable. With her waist-long honey brown hair and adorable smile, Salli, literally plucked off the beach in San Diego, appeared in almost every beach party film beginning with Muscle Beach Party (1964) through The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) and everything else in between including Bikini Beach (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965).

Recalling her time with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, Salli remarked, "Frankie and Annette were very easy going and a pleasure to work with but they weren’t real beach people. Frankie was raised in Philadelphia so I don’t think he ever saw a surfboard in his life! And Annette refused to wear a bikini. She would only wear a one-piece but I think that had something to do with her contract with Walt Disney. Annette was such a straight girl—a good Italian Catholic. Because we grew up on the beach, a lot of us thought we were so cool compared to Frankie and Annette. I remember that on one movie we were filming some beach scenes late in the afternoon. It was really chilly and we were fighting the light. Wrapped in terry cloth robes, a group of us huddled together to keep warm. Carl the prop man handed us a bottle of brandy. We were surprised when Annette took a couple of swigs. She got a bit tipsy and was clowning around. It was the only time I ever saw her let herself go wild.”

When the beach films became passe during the turbulent late sixties, Salli graduated to playing a drag strip groupie in Fireball 500 (1966) to a biker chick in Devil’s Angels (1967) to her most famous role as the LSD freak-out girl opposite Peter Fonda in The Trip (1967) to playing a hippie paramour of rock star Christopher Jones in Wild in the Streets (1968). Unfortunately, along the way there was heartbreak when her husband Peter Sachse tragically died in a plane crash in 1966 while Salli was in Hong Kong filming The Million Eyes of Su-Muru.

Salli chucked her movie career in 1969 to concentrate on modeling then photography then studying art in Europe during the seventies. Returning to the U.S., she earned a Masters in Psychology and became a counselor for "at risk" teens.

In August 2006 Salli was reunited with beach party regulars the late Mary Hughes, Patti Chandler, and Linda Opie for a photo shoot celebrating surf culture in the 1950s and 1960s for Vanity Fair. Below is a photo taken by Salli's friend while visiting the shoot. Pictured are Mary, Salli, Patti and Linda.

Today Salli Sachse has a new web site where fans can peruse pictures of Salli from her Hollywood and modeling days or purchase her beautiful art work. And she is currently working on her memoir, which should prove to be a very interesting read.

Click here to order Fantasy Femmes of 60s Cinema from Amazon

Visit Tom Lisanti's retro web site www.sixtiescinema.com