Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s - Dean Brierly

FULL THROTTLE: 1960S JAPANESE ACTION CINEMA

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:21:00 -0500

By Dean Brierly

DETECTIVE BUREAU 2-3: GO TO HELL BASTARDS! (1963)

The early 1960s proved to be a transitional period for Japanese director Seijun Suzuki. After churning out numerous yakuza films for Nikkatsu throughout the 1950s, the director began to rebel against the creative limitations imposed by the studio. Fed up with clichéd scenarios and adherence to stylistic conventions, Suzuki began infiltrating subversive visual flourishes to make things more interesting for himself and his audiences. Nineteen-sixty-three is widely regarded as the year Suzuki fully became Suzuki, starting with Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! Although it doesn’t scale the delirious heights of the more famous Tokyo Drifter (1966) and Branded to Kill (1967)—whose visual and narrative anarchy got him fired from Nikkatsu—the film still turns the yakuza genre on its head through Suzuki’s hyperbolic approach.

Story

Jo Shisido stars as Tajima, a resourceful private eye who owns the Detective Bureau 2-3 of the title. For reasons never clearly explained, he manifests a deep-seated and simmering hate for the yakuza, an emotion that primes his motivational pump throughout the film. Following a munitions theft from an American military base, Tajima convinces the police to let him infiltrate one of two yakuza gangs battling for control of the local gun-running trade. Posing as an ex-con, he befriends a mid-level criminal named Manabe and gets close enough to the underworld hierarchy to identify the major players and the location of the guns. Even when his cover is blown, the quick-thinking detective improvises schemes to remain useful to the competing gangs—that is, until the bad guys lock him in an underground garage, pump gallons of motor oil into it and set it on fire. Tajima escapes the inferno with the aid of what has to be the world’s most powerful machinegun, then lights the fuse that ignites a battle royal between the rival gangs—a ferocious encounter fought with guns and samurai swords—that brings the film to a spectacularly convulsive conclusion.

Continue reading "FULL THROTTLE: 1960S JAPANESE ACTION CINEMA"

DEAN BRIERLY CELEBRATES CLASSIC QUOTES FROM GREAT ACTORS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:22:00 -0500

Cinema Retro columnist Dean Brierly has a great article on his blog: classic quotes from legendary actors and supporting actors. Here's a good example from Bela Lugosi:

(On Dracula) “In playing the picture I found that there was a great deal that I had to unlearn. In the theater I was playing not only to those spectators in the front row but also to those in the last row of the gallery, and there was some exaggeration in everything I did, not only in the tonal pitch of my voice but in the changes of facial expression which accompanied various lines or situations, as was necessary. But for the screen, in which the actor’s distance from every member of the audience is equal only to his distance from the lens of the camera, I have found that a great deal of repression was absolutely necessary.”(1930 Hollywood Filmograph interview)

Click here to indulge in many more

"IT TAKES A THIEF": THE DVD DEBRIEF

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:28:53 -0600

By Dean Brierly

The wait is over. The cult series It Takes a Thief (1968-1970), which starred Robert Wagner as Alexander Mundy, a world-class thief given a pardon by SIA director Noah Bain in return for plying his felonious trade on behalf of Uncle Sam, has finally arrived in a Region 1 DVD package. After years of DVD limbo marked by gray market bootlegs and an incomplete Region 2 release, multimedia company Entertainment One recently put out a deluxe, 18-disc box set featuring all 66 episodes from the entire three seasons.

The episodes have been digitally re-mastered, and while I haven’t looked at them all yet, the dozen or so I’ve watched are clear and sharp, with vibrant color and little video noise. Certain shots show their age more than others (these are typically stock shots), some nighttime scenes are a bit murky, and the amount of film grain is variable, especially in the season 3 episodes (which also exhibit some minor ghosting), but that’s understandable given the show’s age and the condition of the source material. I watched episodes from all three seasons on my 55-inch flat screen, albeit in the 4:3 ratio (which is how television series from the 1960s and ’70s should be watched), and was generally quite impressed with the picture quality. The audio is fine too, especially when I crank up the volume during the glorious title sequence.

Overall, the sound and video quality is a big upgrade from the 2010 Region 2 release from German company Polyband. (And Polyband only put out season 1 and half of season 2.) Even if Entertainment One had limited this to a bare-bones set, it would still be manna from TV heaven, but they’ve also stocked it with some terrific extras. Fans will be thrilled to learn that the set includes both the pilot episode, “A Thief is a Thief,” plus the long-unavailable, extended-length version of the pilot, which was released theatrically under the title “Magnificent Thief.”

In addition to that magnificent bonus, there is a 30-minute video interview with Wagner that touches on various aspects of the show’s production history, the creative team, the brilliant roster of guest stars, and his feelings about the character of Alexander Mundy. Wagner’s charisma remains as potent today as when he made the series, and he obviously retains a strong emotional connection to what was arguably his most famous role. The show’s abrupt and mystifying cancellation after season 3, despite solid ratings, took Wagner completely by surprise, and though he’s gracious about it, it’s clear he regrets the network’s decision. Listening to him wax reminiscent is pure gold.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s also a video interview with series writer and producer Glen A. Larson, who shares fascinating behind-the-scenes insights on the show’s inception, the differing styles of its producers, and the commitment to maintaining the scripts’ unique blend of narrative invention, suspense and sophisticated humor. Rounding out the extras are a collectible booklet with retrospective essay (full disclosure: penned by this Cinema Retro contributor), a limited-edition senitype (reproduced 35mm film frame) and 4-piece coaster set (for imbibing sophisticated cocktails while watching Mundy purloin secret documents and seduce beautiful girls).

The packaging is simple, functional and striking. The discs come packed in three sturdy foldout booklets (one for each season) that are liberally illustrated with rare publicity stills and cool screen grabs. The booklets themselves, plus the essay booklet, the senitype (which is set into a protective cardboard square) and the coasters, are kept in place in a cube-like box with an interior placeholder. It’s a bit unconventional, but works well enough.

Having already written extensively about the show on this site, I won’t dwell here on its creative DNA of action, espionage, humor and hedonism. Fans of It Takes of Thief are well aware of its ingenious premise, its jet set ambience, its swinging music, its urbane villains, and its smart and sexy women. They don’t need to be sold on its merits; they just want the opportunity to add it to their DVD collections. Suffice it to say that Entertainment One’s class treatment does justice to the legacy of this one-of-a-kind series and iconic star.

Click here to order discounted from Amazon

(Click here to read Dean Brierly's 2010 review of the German DVD edition and overview of the series)

Spy Guys & Gals: The Online Shrine for Espionage Fiction

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:36:00 -0500

By Dean Brierly

There are all manner of spy cinema websites scattered about the Internet, but only one that is devoted exclusively to the source material for the many espionage films that have taken up permanent residence in our collective consciousness. Most filmgoers rarely give thought to the literary antecedents of their favorite silver screen spy, yet there would be no James Bond, Harry Palmer or George Smiley if Ian Fleming, Len Deighton and John Le Carre hadn’t created them. Fortunately, one man had the perception to recognize this oversight, plus the expertise and dedication to create “Spy Guys & Gals,” a cyber shrine to the numerous fictional agents — male and female — that have populated espionage fiction for the past five-plus decades. His name? Masteller. Randall Masteller.

A lifelong devotee of spy novels, Masteller began researching the topic for a possible book in 2001, but eventually decided that a website was a more realistic option, and launched the site in early 2006, dedicating it to “… the many, many men and women who, at least in fiction, have defended our freedoms against all forms of enemies, foreign and domestic. Well, granted, a few of them were just in it for the money and many were only after the excitement, and sex played a huge role in the motivation of more than a few. But still, their actions helped not only preserve our way of life (on paper), but also brought us, the readers, many hours of escapism and vicarious pleasure.”

Continue reading "Spy Guys & Gals: The Online Shrine for Espionage Fiction"

"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 -0500

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.

"IT TAKES A THIEF" COMES TO DVD IN GERMANY

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:18:00 -0500

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 "

DEAN BRIERLY REVIEWS TWO FILMS BY ANTHONY MANN

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Sun, 09 May 2010 12:57:00 -0500

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"

STING LIKE A BUTTERFLY: MEIKO KAJI’S WANDERING GINZA BUTTERFLY FILMS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:34:00 -0500

Poster for Wandering Ginza Butterfly

By Dean Brierly

Actors in Western cinema may, if they’re lucky, achieve fame for a recurring role in a particular series of films. Basil Rathbone remains for many the definitive Sherlock Holmes. Sean Connery will always be Bond, James Bond. And Dirty Harry is still Clint Eastwood’s most indelible screen incarnation. But such career-defining roles generally come around only once in a Hollywood film actor’s career.

Not so in Japanese cinema, especially during the 1960s and 1970s, when it was common for an actor to be associated with multiple iconic screen characters. Indeed, for some performers, it was almost the norm. The amazingly prolific Shintaro Katsu not only played the blind swordsman-samaritan Zatoichi in 27 films and a long-running TV series, he also starred in the 16-film Akumyo (or Bad Reputation) series, as well as the Hanzo the Razor trilogy. Action stars Ken Takakura and Sonny Chiba were similarly renowned for playing more than one recurring character.

But this phenomena wasn’t limited to men. Matching her contemporary male peers in serial stardom was Japan’s greatest female action icon, Meiko Kaji, who starred in four Female Convict Scorpion films, two Lady Snowblood films, five Stray Cat Rock films, and two Wandering Ginza Butterfly films. Kaji’s screen persona was perfectly suited to such movies. Although not physically imposing, she projected a tensile inner strength that lent credibility to the strong, independent heroines she portrayed. She could dole out violent retribution with style and fury, but her characters were never overtly cruel—and they always adhered to a rigid moral code that included compassion for the weak and disadvantaged. Despite her astonishing beauty, Kaji (much like the French actor Alain Delon) never traded on her looks, exuding an emotional aloofness that seemed to preclude any interest in conventional notions of screen romance. This enigmatic reserve hinted at a dark sensibility, which, coupled with her unique combination of femininity and fearlessness, proved beguiling to film audiences during her heyday, and helps account for the widespread cult admiration she enjoys to this day.

Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1971)

Kaji had already made a name for herself with several Stray Cat Rock movies for Nikkatsu, but when that studio shifted to soft-core production in 1971, she immediately switched to Toei. Her first film for her new studio was Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1971), in which she plays Nami, a beautiful gambler and ex-girl gang leader just out of prison after serving time for the murder of a yakuza kingpin. Back on the streets, she returns to her old haunts in Tokyo’s Ginza section, where she forms a fast friendship with a charismatic pimp named Ryuji, gets her a job as a hostess at a posh nightclub, and has a family reunion of sorts with her uncle, who agrees to let her live in his billiard hall. Nami is determined to go straight, but eventually finds her good intentions unraveling in Ginza’s decadent, crime-ridden milieu.

Continue reading "STING LIKE A BUTTERFLY: MEIKO KAJI’S WANDERING GINZA BUTTERFLY FILMS"

PHOTOGRAPHING MARILYN MONROE IN "THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:41:00 -0600

Documentary photographer George Zimbel was in the right place at the right time the night a subway vent and a white dress conspired to immortalize Marilyn Monroe’s considerable physical charms.

By Dean Brierly

When Marilyn Monroe stood atop a New York City subway grating—her white dress billowing above her waist as co-star Tom Ewell looked on with lecherous intent in director Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch—she was already established as the era’s most potent sex symbol. But the film, and the subway imagery in particular, forever enshrined her as the screen’s quintessential love goddess.The scene was originally filmed during the early morning hours of September 15, 1954, at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street. Heavily publicized beforehand, it attracted a thousand or more spectators like iron filings to a magnet. Also on hand were Monroe’s husband, Joe Dimaggio, scores of photographers, and a sizeable contingent of New York’s finest called in to maintain order. Under Wilder’s relaxed but firm direction, the lead actors undertook repeated takes exiting the famous Trans-Lux Theater and exchanging flirtatious banter until the magic moment when Monroe’s dress is blown heavenward, revealing her million dollar legs and—scandalously for the era—white underpants.The scene’s repercussions were immediate and enduring. The combination of Monroe’s exhibitionism and the crowd’s loudly libidinous response resulted in reams of publicity for the film, helping to make it the biggest box office hit of 1955. But it also spelled the end of Monroe’s brief marriage to Dimaggio, who was more than unhappy at what he perceived as a public transgression of the bounds of decency and decorum. The scene was eventually re-shot under controlled studio conditions (ostensibly because crowd noise rendered the location footage unusable) and toned down, with Monroe’s dress never rising much above her knees. However, the overtly sexual nature of the original shoot lived on in the film’s promotional ads and in photos reproduced around the world.

Among the photographers gathered to record the history-making scene was a 25-year-old stringer for the PIX photo agency named George Zimbel. Although not a particular fan of Monroe, Wilder or the ensuing film, he jumped at the chance to cover the event. His memories of that night remain undimmed by the intervening decades. Zimbel was especially struck by the charged atmosphere generated by the crowd’s anticipation, even though he was under no illusions about the underlying reason for the shoot. “I hate the term ‘photo-op,’ but this was certainly the most important photo-op ever staged, notwithstanding George W. Bush landing on a battleship,” he says.

But such considerations vanished when Monroe arrived round about midnight in that famous white dress. (A dress that Zimbel says did “wondrous things as she moved.”) Initially, Wilder ran Monroe through a number of warm-up poses over the grating until he was satisfied she had the physical aspects of the scene nailed. It was during these warm-ups that the 20 or so photographers (among them Garry Winogrand and Elliott Erwitt) were allowed to take pictures. Monroe played to the onlookers as much as the cameras, and Zimbel recalls their shocked delight each time her dress flew up and revealed more of her than the public was used to seeing.

Though they came early in his career, Zimbel’s images of the event already demonstrated his hallmark combination of cinematic flair and emotional depth. Referring to these dual (but not incompatible) impulses, Zimbel says, “It is the way I see. I have the greatest respect for filmmakers. They are magical image-makers. I am not magic. I try to be real.”

Zimbel’s photographs (particularly the sequence on page 85) graphically celebrate Monroe’s indelible physical charms while also revealing additional contextual layers—her joy in performance, her awareness of being sexually commodified, and her complicity in and control of that process. Even after getting kicked off the set for photographing during a take, Zimbel continued to make evocative images from behind the police line. His astute use of a silhouetted foreground figure in “Serious Marilyn” subverts the actress’ public image by suggesting the vulnerability and isolation that often dominated her off-screen life.

Born in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1929, Zimbel began his photographic career at 14, was published in Life magazine at 19, and joined PIX at 20. He also studied that year at the New York Photo League with John Ebstel, who proved to be a pivotal early influence. “Ebstel let the honest man out of me photographically, and that man is compassionate and respectful of his subjects, a hallmark of the Photo League philosophy,” Zimbel says. “Respect is not a valuable commodity these days, exploitation is more popular, but that is who I am.”

The Monroe series represents but one chapter in a career inclusive of numerous photo essays for major publications and corporations; solo exhibitions in the United States, Canada and Spain; life membership in ASMP; and induction into the Royal Canadian Academy of Art. Now 79, Zimbel and his wife Elaine live in Montreal, Quebec. He still feels a connection to the images he made on Lexington Avenue back in 1954, and has no regrets about not trying to capitalize on them at the time. “They are now in nine major museum collections and have been in many exhibitions as well as private collections,” he says. “That makes me happy.”

Note: This article previously appeared in the September 2008 issue of Black and White magazine. For purchase information on Zimbel’s Monroe pictures, contact John Cleary Gallery, Houston, TX. Phone: 713-524-5070; email: info@johnclearygallery.com

FAMED PHOTOGRAPHER WILLIAM CLAXTON DIES; READ DEAN BRIERLY'S REVIEW OF HIS BOOK ABOUT STEVE MCQUEEN

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:30:00 -0500

Cinema Retro has just learned that famed photographer William Claxton has passed away at age 80. He was one of Steve McQueen's best friends and was afforded extraordinary access to his private life. Claxton commemorated these photos in a book, which has just been reissued by Taschen publishers. Here is Dean Brierly's review of the previous editon, which gives insight into the relationship between Claxton and McQueen.

Claxton took this photo of Steve McQueen and his wife Neile in 1962.

WILLIAM CLAXTON: MCQUEEN

(Taschen Publishing)

By Dean Brierly

What do you get when you combine a great American actor with a great American photographer? Arguably the coolest celebrity photo book ever published.Which is only fitting when the actor happens to be Steve McQueen, the cinematic icon who redefined the word “cool” during the 1960s, and the photographer is William Claxton, who photographed many of the hippest record covers in jazz history. The two men shared a close friendship during the early 1960s, a period in which Claxton photographed McQueen extensively, both at work on film sets and at play between films.

That kind of access would be impossible today, when a movie star’s contact with the media is meted out in small, rigidly controlled portions. The typical celebrity image that results is notable only for its vacuity. In contrast, Claxton didn’t need to rely on the whims of some handler to photograph McQueen, who would often phone Claxton early in the morning to invite him on motorcycle racing excursions in the desert. The two men also shared a passion for fast cars, and would frequently tool around Los Angeles in McQueen's Jaguar XK-SS.

On such occasions, McQueen let down his guard and revealed to Claxton’s trusted camera facets of his character less familiar to the general public than the ultra-cool persona—his warmth and empathy, his emotional vulnerability, his mischievous sense of humor. These qualities are also evident in pictures Claxton made on the sets of early McQueen films. The photographer captures the star joyously embracing a friend from his early hardscrabble years in New York during the filming of Love with the Proper Stranger; sharing a tender between-takes moment with his first wife Neile; and playfully riding a mechanical horse in a five-and-dime store on location for Baby, the Rain Must Fall in Wharton, Texas.

Naturally, Claxton also focused on McQueen’s trademark intensity: An electric image sequence of the actor participating in a cross-country motorcycle race in the Mojave Desert recalls McQueen’s breakout performance as the rebellious, motorcycle-riding prisoner in The Great Escape. The photographs underscore how much the actor’s onscreen cool was rooted in his physical being. His lithe, lean frame and catlike grace translated into the confidence and strength of character his fans responded to in such signature films as Bullitt and The Thomas Crown Affair.

A class act, Claxton never abused his friendship with McQueen, never exploited it for sensation’s sake. McQueen trusted Claxton to the extent that he even allowed himself to be photographed lighting up a joint. It’s impossible to imagine an actor of similar stature doing so today. (Not that there are any stars of similar stature working today.) Claxton, of course, refrained from publishing it until it could do no harm to the late actor’s reputation. Refreshingly—and fittingly, considering McQueen's down-to-earth personality—Claxton's book isn’t weighed down by pretentious essays. Instead, the photographer’s witty anecdotal comments are sprinkled throughout in unobtrusive caption form, supporting the pictures rather than competing with them. Most of the images are in black-and-white, with a smattering in color. They range from polished publicity portraits to gritty candid shots, many of them heretofore unpublished.

William Claxton's warm and spontaneous pictures tellingly capture Steve McQueen’s rugged individualism and unassailable self-assurance during the heady years of the actor’s nascent stardom. But perhaps more important, they convey the sheer, unadulterated joy McQueen took in the art of living life to the full, and there’s nothing cooler than that.

Click here for L.A. Times obituary of Claxton

Click here to order from Amazon

CINEMA RETRO EXAMINES THE NOTORIOUS "SCHOOLGIRL REPORT" FILMS

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:06:00 -0500

By Dean Brierly

The 1970s were defined by a mind-boggling array of cultural and political phenomena. Some were serious—the energy crisis, no-fault divorce, Margaret Thatcher. Others were silly—crop circles, Charlie’s Angels, disco. And some were simply sublime—the American Basketball Association, SCTV, the proliferation of oral contraceptives. Among the most popular, yet controversial, of the decade’s attention-grabbers was a series of German films that explored the sex life of schoolgirls. (Those easily offended by such movies should perhaps stop reading now.) Based upon a best-selling book by German psychologist Günther Hunold, the films were presented as cautionary tales filmed in a quasi-documentary style in hopes of giving them a veneer of social responsibility. The public service aspect took the form of on-camera interviews with teenage girls answering blunt questions about their sex lives. The series purported to inform the public (i.e., parents) about what their supposedly innocent daughters were getting up to behind closed doors, in public parks, in automobiles, in swimming pools…

What they were, when one came right down to it, were soft-core sex films featuring an ever-changing cast of nubile young German actresses (most of whom ironically appeared to be at least college-aged, if not older). While the films were undeniably erotic, they were written and directed with a light touch and imbued with an earthy, farcical humor (think Benny Hill at his sleaziest). Most of the actresses exhibited an unabashed attitude toward sex that somehow made all the shagging seem like the wonderfully natural act it is rather than something shameful and prurient. The formula evidently worked. The Schoolgirl Report series was an immediate and smash success in Germany, and proved equally popular as a filmic export. The 13 films made over a 10-year period were seen by millions worldwide, including here in the God-fearing yet pre-Moral Majority U.S.A.

Each film presented up to eight vignettes in which German schoolgirls encountered a variety of sexual situations, including first-time sex, interracial sex, promiscuous sex, voyeurism, masturbation, rape, incest, and that old standby, pupil-teacher encounters. The boffing and boinking was by turns erotic, humorous, disturbing and poignant. Each story had at least a modicum of subtext, variously centered on the girls’ search for self-affirmation, the freedom to act as they pleased, and a determination to be treated as adults. Seen in a larger context, the series can be read as a swinging sexual statement of revolt on the part of its youthful protagonists against their parents’ authoritarian, dare one say dictatorial, World War II-era generation. Achtung, baby!
As in the previous films, the fourth installment in the series, What Drives Parents to Despair (1972), begins with an unintentionally hilarious on-camera prologue, presumably delivered by Hunold himself. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are again. You’ll remember us if you’re among the 30 million people who saw our first three Schoolgirl Reports in 28 countries and turned them into a global blockbuster,” he intones, assuming an air of seriousness that fails to completely camouflage his inner perve. “Still, no film has ever been attacked as ours. But almost everything you saw came from authentic sources. Life writes the most interesting scripts. Of course, we will not claim that all schoolgirls behave the way they are portrayed in our films. But it would also be foolish to close your eyes to the facts.” Or to the hot teen action about to unfold, he might have added.

The vignettes revolve around an 18-year-old who seduces her math teacher in order to ace her final, then blows him off with a curt auf Wiedersehen; a 16-year-old who talks her boyfriend into posing as a doctor and making a “house call” so they can get it on upstairs while her naive parents watch television downstairs; a group of high school girls and boys who set up a profitable prostitution ring to better partake of Germany’s economic miracle; and a quartet of oversexed young lovelies who get more than they bargain for when they prick-tease an Italian immigrant into proving his virility. In a much harder-hitting tale, an African girl adopted by a German couple is the target of crude racial insults from her Aryan schoolmates—in the locker room shower, naturally. Later, the Deutschland dollies arrange for her sexual violation by their equally racist boyfriends. There’s nothing titillating about this sequence, which comes across as a strong anti-rape statement.
Another edgy story depicts a sexually curious teen virgin who harbors incestuous fantasies about her older brother. After spying on him making love to an older woman at a party, she begs him to deflower her, with predictable results. (No surprise considering the girl is played by Swedish exploitation film star Christina Lindberg.) In keeping with the series’ non-judgmental tone, the coupling is presented as a one-time-only adolescent experiment. The filmmakers don’t condemn the siblings as much as the socio-economic conditions that can give rise to such misdirected sexual development. And in the final story, as if to somehow reassure parents that not all schoolgirls are completely depraved, an 18-year-old waits until she is certain that her boyfriend loves her before giving up her V card.

The actual sex scenes truthfully aren’t all that exciting, at least, not by today’s XXX-on-demand standards, yet for their time they obviously fulfilled the needs of audiences from Berlin to Baden-Baden and beyond. And the sincerity of these at times awkward couplings takes viewers back to their own fumbling first attempts at sexual expression. That alone makes these films worth revisiting. Additionally, viewing the Schoolgirl Report films today is like opening a time portal onto a genuinely stylish era, one filled with beautiful young people following their natural instincts against a cultural background of casual drug use, space-age pads, trippy cars and the Hammond-driven sounds of Gert Wilden’s stunning jazz-rock music. For those who aren’t afraid to confront their own secret desires, this is trash cinema at its most diverting.

(Impulse Pictures has released the first three films in the series with letterbox transfers, original German language dialogue and English subtitles. For more info go to official web site)

DEAN BRIERLY REVIEWS THE KINKY ASIAN CULT FILM "MADAME O"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:08:00 -0500

MADAME O: DEVIL OF A DOCTOR

A restored Asian cult classic proves hell hath no fury like a woman wronged, especially one who wields a scalpel.

By Dean Brierly

“Dedicated to medicine…and the cold-blooded destruction of men!”

With a tagline like that, you just know you’re onto a winner. And Madame O (1967), an outlandish, pungent slice of celluloid kink, doesn’t disappoint. Ostensibly one of the cheap sex movies that flooded Japanese cinemas in the 1960s (and which eventually morphed into the notorious “pink” films in the following decade), Madame O transcends its tawdry provenance, deftly blending the sexploitation, revenge and noir genres into an oddly contemplative and affecting study of a woman slowly coming apart at the mental and emotional seams.

The film’s heroine is a beautiful gynecologist in her mid-30s with a thriving practice and a tragic past. As a 16-year-old girl, Saeko suffered a gang rape that left her pregnant, infected with syphilis, and saddled with guilt courtesy of a father who blamed her for provoking the assault. It’s enough to turn a girl into a retribution-minded man hater. “Before I realized it, I had grown into a woman who found pleasure only in revenge—revenge against men for the brutality they had shown me,” Saeko relates in voiceover. Her payback consists of picking up lonely men in tawdry bars, taking them into her bed, and cold-bloodedly infecting them with syphilis (a swift incision and swipe of bacteria-laden cotton) while they snooze in post-coital bliss. Poetic justice, through a swab darkly.

Saeko’s single-minded quest is untainted by notions of remorse or guilt at betraying the Hippocratic Oath. Indeed, inflicting rather than curing disease provokes an exciting and intoxicating dichotomy in her, another manifestation of her unbalanced psyche. Saeko also strikes back at men in more oblique fashion, surreptitiously tying her patients’ fallopian tubes so their husbands will begin to doubt their potency. Some might call that wrong. Saeko would just call it mixing business with pleasure.

Unfortunately, not all good things last forever. Saeko’s unabashed pursuit of vindictiveness and vengeance takes an unforeseen turn when she carelessly becomes pregnant by one of her victims. In one of the film’s most disturbing sequences, Saeko straps herself onto the operating table and self-administers an abortion, only to pass out from the pain. Dr. Watanabe, a recent addition to Saeko’s clinic, discovers her in this compromising position the next morning and, much to her relief, promises to keep her secret. She is further impressed by his selflessness and seeming lack of male predatory impulses. For the first time in her life, Saeko finds herself falling in love, to the point where she entrusts the good doctor with all the details of her sordid past. Watanabe remains supportive even after he witnesses a blackmail attempt by one of her former victims end in murder. Somewhat improbably, he promptly marries Saeko, who by this time seems convinced that not all men are devils. But wedded bliss is soon interrupted by a series of events that cast her white knight in an entirely darker light. The film shifts into noir territory at this point, with a succession of crosses and double crosses that culminate in bleak and nihilistic fashion.

Director Seiichi Fukuda, who made a couple dozen such sex films (almost all of them sadly lost), conjures highly charged widescreen compositions to evoke Saeko’s twisted odyssey of sexual revenge. His visual command is particularly effective during her nocturnal hunting forays. At one point, Fukuda treats the viewer to a provocative close-up of Saeko’s lips as she caresses them with lipstick, but the eroticism of the image is belied by her cynical voiceover: “I’m always exhausted after an operation, but cannot sleep. My nerves are raw. I’m on edge. I get up and go out into the streets and hunt for easy pickups. I find them. They’re pathetically easy to lure.”

Madame O is filled with such frissons, including the abortion sequence, which throbs with grindhouse intensity; and an eye-popping scene in which Saeko dispatches of a blackmailer’s corpse while clad only in polka dot bra and panties. Despite such suggestive visuals, Fukuda for the most part maintains a detached, non-judgmental tone. At times, the film has an almost documentary-like quality that is enhanced by its extensive use of black-and-white cinematography. However, occasional color sequences, seemingly inserted without narrative justification, keep the viewer off balance and subtly mirror the characters’ discordant emotional states.

Michiko Sakyo (also known as Michiko Aoyama) brings a studied calm and indomitable resolve to her characterization of Saeko, while hinting at the mental cracks in her façade. She also possesses the requisite physical characteristics of a sex film star, and seems comfortable letting it all hang out in the numerous but relatively restrained sex scenes that punctuate the narrative. Akihiko Kaminara is effectively creepy as her enigmatic husband, his face a mask of repressed greed and lust; while Yuichi Minato excels as the sleaze ball who meets a grisly fate when he tries to play extortion games with the deadly doctor. An added bonus is the presence of Roman Porno legend Naomi Tani as a voluptuous minx whose treacherous impulses fit right into the moral cesspool of voyeurism, adultery and murder.

Like the rest of Fukuda’s output, this perverse gem might also have been consigned to the waste bin of history if not for Radley Metzger’s Audubon Films, which distributed an English-language version of Madame O in the late 1960s and had the foresight to preserve what is the only remaining copy in existence. Exploitation connoisseurs can also thank Synapse Films for bringing the film to DVD in a pristine widescreen transfer that does full justice to Fukuda’s delirious vision. Madame O is a fitting testament to this unsung craftsman, one who infused Japanese genre cinema with a uniquely compelling blend of moral complexity and unbridled eroticism.

[Check out www.synapse-films.com for more transgressive cult classics on DVD.]

DEAN BRIERLY: "IT TAKES A THIEF" NOW PLAYING ON A COMPUTER NEAR YOU

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:12:00 -0500

By Dean Brierly

Alexander Mundy: “Let me get this straight…I can catch complete episodes of the entire first season of It Takes a Thief on hulu.com?”

Noah Bain: “Not quite, Al. But how does 14 out of the first 16 grab you?”

Alexander Mundy: “Terrific!”

Nobody could lay as hip an inflection on the word “terrific” as Robert Wagner when he starred as Alexander Mundy in the coolest adventure/espionage series of the late sixties, It Takes a Thief. During the show’s three-year run from 1968 to 1970, the suave and sophisticated Wagner was the hottest thing going, even edging James Coburn (temporarily, at least) in the hippest actor sweepstakes. As anyone among the Cinema Retro generation knows, Mundy was a world-class thief whose one mistake landed him in San Jobel Prison. The man who put him there? Noah Bain, head of a shadowy government spy agency known as the SIA. In the show’s pilot episode, Bain offered Mundy an expedient if unconventional way out: steal for the government in exchange for a full pardon. Along with the gig came a cover identity that appealed to every man’s inner hedonist: Mundy would pose as an international playboy replete with swank estate and a succession of beautiful SIA operatives to assist him. The catch was a Big Brother surveillance system inside the mansion and strict orders to keep hands off the girls. Needless to say, Mundy routinely circumvented the SIA cameras and subverted whatever scruples the ladies possessed.

When he wasn’t macking on Bain’s private reserve, Mundy kept busy pulling off a string of high wire capers in the world’s hottest jet set locations—all without breaking a sweat. Unlike the preening poseurs currently afflicting Hollywood, Wagner’s cool was organic and understated. As Alexander Mundy, he projected a breezy self-assurance untainted by arrogance or condescension, and maintained his sangfroid in the face of the most dangerous assignments Noah Bain threw his way, thanks to an unparalleled and seemingly inexhaustible skill set. Mundy could neutralize any security system, crack any safe, outwit any adversary and, not least, talk his way into the arms of just about any woman in sight. Little wonder he was the envy of every kid who came of age during the show’s original run.

As an actor, Wagner had been building up to this breakout role throughout the 1960s. The first intimation of his Al Mundy persona can be glimpsed in The Pink Panther (1963), in which he plays the smooth, womanizing nephew of jewel thief David Niven. When he discovers his uncle’s cat burglar kit midway through the film, one can almost sense the actor’s dawning realization of his future career path. Wagner followed up with strong performances in Harper (1966), How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1967) and Banning (1967), each role adding further gloss to his onscreen charisma. By the time Wagner did the pilot episode (titled Magnificent Thief), his combination of physical grace and urbane demeanor was smoother than a shaken-not-stirred vodka martini.

As great as Wagner was, however, It Takes a Thief wouldn’t have been half as effective without the powerful presence of Malachi Throne as Noah Bain. Who can forget Noah's immortal line during the scintillating split-screen credit sequence set to Dave Grusin’s badass theme tune: “Oh, look, Al, I’m not asking you to spy, just asking you to steal.” The stage-trained actor with the deep, distinctive voice was all over the cult TV map during the 1960s and ’70s. With his burly physique and stolid, slab-like face, Throne excelled at playing gruff authority figures, yet his keen intelligence and surprisingly wide emotional range added fascinating layers to his performances. The potent onscreen chemistry he and Wagner displayed gave a real edge to their characters' adversarial relationship. Bain was a hard ass with a ruthless streak and frequently threatened to ship Mundy back to prison if he stepped out line. Yet he also maintained a healthy respect for Mundy’s criminal talents, as well as a grudging affection for the master crook himself. And in his own conservative way, Noah Bain was kind of hip too, matching Mundy in glib repartee and delightedly quashing his amorous aspirations at every opportunity. In the episode “When Thieves Fall In,” Bain surprises Mundy and a female SIA operative in a forbidden clinch. “We were just playing chess,” the flustered agent explains. “You’re lucky I arrived in time,” Bain retorts. “One more move and he’d have had you mated.”

TV's other dynamic duo of the 1960s: Robert Wagner and Malachi Throne

Throne’s complexity and grit were sorely missed when he left the series after the first two seasons. Edward Binns did a competent job as Mundy’s new boss Wally Powers, but he just couldn't match the Malachi Man. Ironically, it was Throne’s own rebellious streak that resulted in his leaving the show. “They had this idea of shooting the whole season in Italy, but they wanted me to stay behind and give Wagner’s character…orders over the phone. I told them if I didn’t go I’d quit, and I did. The show didn’t last another half a season.”

Unlike some programs that take time to dial in their formula, It Takes a Thief was perfect right out of the box. The show’s basic premise, fusing the heist and espionage genres, was a stroke of mad genius. Watching Mundy conduct his felonious pursuit of secret documents, jewels, missing scientists and whatever else the SIA needed stolen was fascinating in itself, but the spy tropes worked into the mix made things even more intriguing, giving the writers greater creative latitude to explore fresh narrative directions. As a result, Mundy could channel the larcenous vibe of Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief while simultaneously tapping into the Cold War dramatics of such contemporaneous shows as I Spy and Mission: Impossible. But no matter which way the scenarios swung, they were all invested with the kind of light touch that seems impossible to reproduce today. All three seasons maintained a nicely judged balance of humor and drama, never veering into camp (like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. did during its third season) or becoming overly serious.

Despite its iconic status and the respect it commands from legions of faithful fans, It Takes a Thief, for reasons known only to the Home Entertainment Gods, has yet to appear on DVD. When one considers that seemingly every other television show from that era has made it to DVD (including the most mindless retro rubbish imaginable), one has to wonder what license holder Universal Studios is waiting for. Fans looking to get their fill of Mundy’s adventures have had to make do with videotapes or gray market DVD-Rs of dubious quality—until now. The good folks at www.hulu.com, a free video streaming site founded by NBC Universal and News Corp., have stepped into the breach by making available 14 season one episodes in their entirety, with limited commercial interruptions.

Many fans consider the first season the best of the three. The stories were more inventive, the suspense was wound a little tighter, and the humor shaded a bit darker. (Here’s Mundy’s sardonic take on an East European security official: “The cat with the ball-bearing eyes is the man currently starring in the Baltic police department’s theater of cruelty.”) The Mundy-Bain interplay was also at its most contentious and compelling (although this aspect became slightly diluted when Mundy became a freelance operative in the second season). Even the faux European locales, courtesy of Universal’s back lot, don’t detract from the show’s sophisticated, escapist allure. Watching episodes like “Turnabout,” “The Radomir Miniature” and “Locked in the Cradle of the Keep” is to be reminded of a vanished entertainment era that privileged intelligence, wit and style.

The program’s celebrated guest stars also made memorable impressions during the 1968 season. In “To Steal a Battleship,” Bill Bixby plays a rival thief who muscles in on Al’s assignment, mistakenly believing they’re both after a priceless necklace, when in fact Mundy is interested only in recovering NATO defense documents. Bixby is excellent as the conniving competitor, adding some darker colors to his standard nice-guy persona. Season one also featured two of Susan Saint James’ five guest appearances as Charlene “Charlie” Brown, another fellow thief and Al’s occasional love interest. In the aforementioned “When Thieves Fall In,” Mundy must steal a sable coat with a map of I.C.B.M. missile sites sewn into the lining, and so enlists Charlie’s help to pull a double switch. St. James and Wagner spark off one another like erotic electrons in this episode while trading one-liners with the timing of a seasoned comedy team. Mundy: “What happened?” Charlene Brown: “Chloroform with a vodka chaser.” Mundy: “You’re not supposed to spray that stuff on yourself!”

Such exchanges are typical of the series’ unbeatable mix of action, suspense, humor and that elusive and seemingly out of fashion quality known as style. Short of Robert Wagner once again donning his cat burglar garb and breaking into Universal’s corporate black tower to liberate the original copies of It Takes a Thief, Hulu will likely remain the best place to indulge your fix of this television classic. Here’s hoping that seasons two and three will soon follow, so that Alexander Mundy fans everywhere will have further occasion to say, “Terrific!”

DEAN BRIERLY REVIEWS THE EROTIC CULT FILM "SLOGAN"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:41:00 -0500

SERGE'S STIMULATING SLOGAN

As satisfying as any guilty pleasure, Slogan is known primarily as the film that brought together Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin between the sheets, both on and off the screen. Yet it’s also a comic and bittersweet examination of the darker side of desire. Cinema Retro takes a look at the Cult Epics DVD release of this overlooked classic.

By Dean Brierly

“There is a trilogy in my life,” Serge Gainsbourg once said. “An equilateral triangle, shall we say, of Gitanes, alcoholism and girls.”

Of course, Gainsbourg wasn’t the first artist to embrace such a decadent dolce vita, but few have done so with the style and commitment of the French singer-songwriter, poet and provocateur. Fewer still have exploited it to such evocative effect in their art. Gainsbourg wore his hedonism on his well-tailored sleeve, and liked nothing better than upsetting mainstream sensibilities through his outrageous lifestyle and his sexually charged, often-scandalous lyrics. The explicit description of an erotic encounter in his 1969 song “Je t’aime…moi non plus” even earned him a public rebuke from the Vatican, doubtless much to his delight. But Gainsbourg’s lyrics had depth as well as shock value. Shot through with equal parts cynicism and romanticism, they proclaimed him the 20th century’s Baudelaire.

Gainsbourg also indulged his creativity in visual terms. He made pioneering music videos, directed several movies, and acted in nearly 50 film and television productions. He first appeared in front of the camera in low-budget potboilers (including the sword and sandal epic Samson) that consistently failed to exploit his unique louche persona. In 1969, however, the phenomenon that was Serge Gainsbourg finally achieved appropriate celluloid representation in the film Slogan, a fascinating romantic drama-cum-advertising satire. Gainsbourg called it “the first film where a director finally had me act as myself, just as I am.”

It could hardly have been otherwise, as the film’s narrative prophetically mirrored events in the performer’s real life. Gainsbourg plays Serge Fabergé, a director of hip advertising films who, at 40 years of age, is in the grip of a midlife crisis. While attending an awards festival in Venice, he begins an adulterous affair with a free-spirited English girl named Evelyne (played by England’s free-spirited Jane Birkin) in a vain attempt to recapture his youth. Behind the scenes, Slogan was the vehicle through which Gainsbourg and Birkin met and embarked upon one of the most celebrated love affairs of the seventies. Birkin had already achieved her own measure of notoriety as a sixties wild child: She was one of the models who cavort naked with David Hemmings in the film Blow-Up, and was married to James Bond composer John Barry from 1965-68. She would remain Gainsbourg’s lover, muse and creative partner until leaving him in 1980.

Ironically, the two did not initially strike sparks, and Birkin was put off by Gainsbourg’s indifference and arrogance. An evening out in Paris to break the ice ended with the two in bed, but with Gainsbourg too drunk to consummate their new union. Nonetheless, the couple soon became inseparable. Their off-screen passion is almost palpably rendered in Slogan, in which they make a memorable, if unconventional, screen couple, with Birkin’s naive yet smoldering sexuality matched against Gainsbourg’s narcissistic, deadpan cool. Director Pierre Grimblat, who also wrote the screenplay, effectively captures the physical hunger of the lovers in a series of brief, evocative vignettes—a naked Evelyne striding seductively towards Fabergé, who lies expectantly in bed; Fabergé’s hand unzipping Evelyne’s top as she throws her head back in ecstasy; an amorous embrace in front of a roaring fire.

Yet the characters' smugness and self-absorption make it hard to empathize with them. Fabergé is entirely indifferent to the effect his philandering has upon his wife. His excuse—“I hate choosing because I hate making sacrifices”—sums up the selfishness at the core of his character. He also boasts a nice line in cruelty. After leaving his wife, he throws a party for their mutual friends at which he introduces Evelyne as “my little home-breaker,” taking delight in scandalizing his guests and embarrassing his inamorata. Evelyne is no saint, either. Fundamentally shallow and manipulative, she’s not above threatening suicide to exact greater commitment from Fabergé. She’s entirely a slave to her whims and desires, pursuing her pleasure with nary a thought for the lovers who trail despondently in her wake.

The film’s only sympathetic character is Fabergé’s long-suffering wife Françoise, played with brittle strength by Andréa Parisy. Françoise understands her man all too well: “You look young, but you’re not young. I remind you of that, so you get another opinion.” Accustomed to Serge’s infidelities, she patiently waits for him to become bored with his latest conquest and return to the safe harbor of marriage and family. Only when it’s apparent that he’s committed to chasing his sexual fantasy to the end of the licentious night does she reluctantly begin divorce proceedings.

Continue reading "DEAN BRIERLY REVIEWS THE EROTIC CULT FILM "SLOGAN""

MARTIN WOODHOUSE: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH WRITER OF "THE AVENGERS" AND "SUPERCAR"

nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:38:54 -0600

Cinema Retro's Dean Brierly serves up another fascinating, exclusive interview.

The Martin Woodhouse Interview

By Dean Brierly

PROLOGUE

Perhaps the most potent evocation of the 1960s was the book “Goodbye Baby and Amen,” with pictures by David Bailey and words by Peter Evans. Published in 1969, it paid stylish homage to the decade’s cultural icons and iconoclasts: from Jean Shrimpton to Terence Stamp, Christine Keeler to Marianne Faithfull, the Rolling Stones to the Brothers Kray. It’s a perfect tribute as well as a perfect time capsule. Well, nearly perfect. There is one glaring omission. Chap by the name of Martin Woodhouse.

If that name doesn’t immediately set bells of recognition pealing, it’s not because his CV is unworthy of inclusion in the decade’s creative pantheon. Woodhouse first drew notice in 1957-58 as a research scholar at Cambridge, where he built one of the world’s first pure logic computers. During the next two years, he did pioneering research on anti-aircraft missile-control systems while serving as a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Upon being demobilized, he joined his brother Hugh in writing all the first-season episodes of the Supermarionation TV series Supercar. (Who can forget such characters as Mike Mercury, Mitch the Monkey and Dr. Horatio Beaker, who was famous for taking forever to finish a sentence and spouting the catchphrase: “Satisfactory. Most satisfactory!”) Woodhouse subsequently graduated to writing for real actors, contributing a number of sparkling scripts for The Avengers that helped instill the show’s surreal, science fiction ambience and Cathy Gale’s fully liberated character. He penned a series of brilliant espionage thrillers between 1966 and 1976 featuring research scientist-turned reluctant spy Giles Yeoman (and his occasional CIA sidekick Yancy Brightwell). To top it off, mystery writer and critic Dorothy B. Hughes famously dubbed him “a swinger.”

Woodhouse in Alfie mode during the mod 1960s in photo taken for book jacket.

Woodhouse certainly looked the part, projecting unflappable cool from behind Alfie-like eyeglasses in his early book-jacket photos. One can imagine Bailey and Evans slotting him into their book between, say, Michael Caine (who would have been perfect casting as Giles Yeoman) and Jonathan Miller (another multi-hyphenate writer with a taste for dead-on-target satire). Unlike some of his more famous sixties contemporaries, Woodhouse not only survived that tumultuous era, but continued to push past creative and cultural boundaries in succeeding decades. He co-wrote (with Robert Ross) a trilogy of mid-70s alternate history novels centering on Leonardo da Vinci as a kind of Renaissance James Bond. In the 1980s he invented the solar-powered Lightbook, the world’s first e-book reader (for which he’s been dubbed “The Father of Modern Electronic Publishing). Recently, his time has been spent setting up an ambitious, large-scale charitable organization to distribute e-books (and by extension, education) to countless children in impoverished Third World countries. Woodhouse now resides in sylvan contentment in Haslemere, Surrey, England. He recently took time out from his altruistic and creative endeavors to share some of his memories with Cinema Retro.

So, what’s it all about, Martin?

Continue reading "MARTIN WOODHOUSE: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH WRITER OF "THE AVENGERS" AND "SUPERCAR""