Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Turner Classic Movies: 

Fridays in June at 8pm | 20 Movies

French director Jean-Luc Godard once famously said, “Cinema is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie.” Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke put it a different way: “Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth.” However one phrases it, cinema has long been considered the art of illusion, a complex blend of reality and artifice. Perhaps that is why moviemakers have often relished fraudsters and con artists as the actual subjects of their stories. TCM’s June Spotlight, “The Art of the Con,” showcases 20 such films every Friday in June, starting with one of the greatest: A Face in the Crowd (1957), directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg from his own short story. 

One of the most prescient American films ever made, Andy Griffith stars as an Arkansas jailbird named Lonesome Rhodes, who becomes a populist hero through radio and then television. (Schulberg drew inspiration for the character from TV host Arthur Godfrey and humorist Will Rogers.) Lonesome ascends to the heights of media, celebrity and political culture by fooling untold numbers of Americans who believe him to be an honest man of the people—and not a corrupt charlatan who is only interested in, as he puts it, “Mr. Me, Myself, and I.” While the movie did not find success and vanished quickly in 1957, its chilling predictions of television helping to blur the roles of entertainer, populist, influencer, pitchman and politician have long since come true.

In a lighter vein, Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (2002), a TCM Premiere, is a bright and entertaining telling of the exploits of a real-life fraudster, Frank W. Abagnale Jr., who became a virtuoso con artist and forger in the swinging ’60s. He cashed millions in fake checks while impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, prosecutor and much more. One of Spielberg’s most scintillating blends of comedy and suspense, the film makes perfect use of Leonardo DiCaprio’s charisma and talent in the role of Frank, with Tom Hanks as his foil Carl Hanratty, the strait-laced F.B.I. agent who pursues Frank with a Javert-like tenacity. A major hit of the 2002 holiday season, it also scored two Oscar nominations for John Williams’s score and Christopher Walken’s supporting performance.

A different kind of imposter can be found in the lesser known When in Rome (1952), an MGM production directed by Clarence Brown on picturesque Roman locations in beautiful black-and-white, one year before Roman Holiday (1953) did the same. Here, Van Johnson plays Father John X. Halligan, an American priest traveling to Rome for its 1950 Holy Year celebration. Aboard ship, he shares a cabin with Joe Brewster (Paul Douglas), a con man and escaped criminal. After docking in Italy, Joe steals Father Halligan’s robes and identification to get ashore safely, only for the police to quickly figure out what has happened and chase him to Rome. Father Halligan does the same, but with the goal of sanctifying Joe and turning him into an honest soul. Douglas is especially winning in his “role” as fake priest, getting away with saying blessings when asked but not exactly prepared to hear a woman’s request for confession!

Con men in Italy disguise themselves as priests in another film, too, on the second night of this series in The Swindle (1955), or Il bidone in its native Italian. The fifth feature film directed by Federico Fellini, it is one of his most underrated works. Three small-time swindlers played by Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart and Franco Fabrizi target the poorest and most gullible Italians by posing as priests and claiming that there is buried treasure on the peasants’ land, among other scams. But Fellini is more interested in probing the circumstances and psyches of the three scammers themselves, revealing deep currents of frustration, sadness and loneliness, with Crawford especially poignant as the grifter who tries for redemption. As “Variety” declared, “It is a bitter picture on a bitter subject.” The film was not well received at the Venice Film Festival, after which Fellini cut it down to 90 minutes. Released commercially while his previous film La Strada (1954) was still enjoying its lap of honor around the world, The Swindle was roundly rejected and was not seen in the United States until 1964. It has since been restored to its full runtime and reappraised as a much more consequential work. 

In The Flim-Flam Man (1967), filmed in Kentucky, grizzled con man and good-hearted rogue George C. Scott teaches the tricks of the trade to young army deserter Michael Sarrazin as they scam their way through the South—where “flim-flam” means swindle. Pursuing them is a sheriff played by Harry Morgan, with Sue Lyon of Lolita (1962) fame as the girl whose car they steal, only for her and Sarrazin to fall for each other. Blended with the comedy are well-timed action and chase scenes that are the work of second unit director and legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt. “The Hollywood Reporter” deemed The Flim-Flam Man “one of the best and most American comedies of recent years... a comedy with serious overtones about individualism and personal loyalties.”

By Hank Reineke

Some time ago I visited YouTube in search of a recommended video. The danger of visiting YouTube is that one invariably goes down the rabbit hole of “suggested” video prompts. So one wastes time watching linking vids on matters often unrelated to the original search. Well, it happens to me anyway. I’m not necessarily complaining as I’m often introduced to things tangential to my realm of interest. One of the more fascinating videos I encountered was a series of documentaries introducing folks who obsessively collected the trashiest of independent horror films on VHS, most produced in the 1980s and ‘90s during the golden age of home video.

In this age of Blu-ray and 4K and Hi-Def streaming, I was surprised to discover that there remained a sizable number of collectors who fetishize over these aging VHS relics, cassettes encased in clamshell or edge-worn cardboard sleeves. I was impressed by their collections: many had transformed their basements, bedrooms or attics into makeshift home video outlets ala Blockbuster or a 1980s mom and pop video shop. The singular devotion that these folks shared was in their obsession with low-to-no-budget, sleazy and blood-soaked horror films.

I wasn’t unaware that a huge number of independent horror/slasher films knock-offs were marketed in the 80s and 90s. Securing “big” studio home videos was an expensive investment for small-business shop owners needing to fill half-empty rental shelves. So start-up VHS distributors saw an opportunity to fill bare shelf space with cheap, exploitable product. It was, I guess, an example of entrepreneurial capitalism at its finest. Sifting through the YouTube docs, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that most of these rabid VHS collectors were younger than me – not necessarily young, mind you, just younger.

I too once carried a Blockbuster membership card, belatedly signing on after my wife and I had two small children to keep entertained with Disney product. I wasn’t much of a renter myself. I was old school and discriminating in my (then expensive) VHS purchases: as long as I owned a complete set of the James Bond films and the 1930s and ‘40s Universal horror classics in my personal library, I was mostly content. It was actually annoying to me that when visiting a video sales or rental shop that I needed to mine through scores of exploitative splatter films in my search of an equally obscure George Zucco or John Carradine Monogram flick.

Aside from loving John Carpenter’s Halloween and a few totemic similar titles of the era, I was never really a slasher-film guy. I would remain that way until my youngest daughter discovered the genre as a teen and began to nudge me into giving the slashers a chance. Thanks to such streaming outlets as Tubi and others, I’ve now watched an incalculable number of these blood-soaked indies, most obviously sourced from fuzzy VHS masters. Most, shall we say with all due respect to their creators, are of dubious cinematic value.

The worst suffer from terrible writing, pedestrian direction, awful effects and amusing, overly-emotive performances. Which, to be honest, often makes these films – many shot directly on video, some on 16mm – very entertaining vehicles for late-night popcorn-munching, couch-sitting fun. Many of them (IMHO) are pretty bad, but often entertaining in their awfulness. As a bonus (for us immature guys), a topless girl or two can usually be seen panicked and running through the woods from a masked psychotic serial killer carrying a grudge. To be fair, other films are surprisingly well-done despite being obvious no-budget productions – it’s really a testament to the resilient creativity of the filmmakers that they managed to pull it off. So, should anyone ask me if this indie-horror genre was an artful form, I’d say, unequivocally, “Yes:” with the caveat that most are more “Moaning Lisa” than Mona Lisa in brushstroke. I have friends who absolutely love this stuff – perhaps live for it - and their enthusiasm for these renegade maverick horror-films can, admittedly, be infectious.

I’m perhaps not the target-audience reader for Jason Paul Collum’s hefty 678-page tome They Made How Many?!: (Mostly) American Horror Franchises of the 20^th Century. Surely, the audience for this book would be those folks coveting their hoard of vintage VHS tape treasures. Collum’s study is, however, exhaustive in the best sense of the word. It’s not the sort of book I expect anyone will choose to read cover-to-cover. As constructed, the book is a remarkable reference of horror film franchises, some so obscure that some series would skip theatrical releases entirely, purposely produced for direct-to-home video release. Collum is well-suited to take up the task of cataloguing. An indie filmmaker himself, Collum has also authored two film books, was a contributing writer to Fangoria and a former assistant editor to such genre magazines as Femme Fatale and Cinefantastique.

This book has certainly introduced me to a number of franchises of which I was completely unaware – and perhaps should remain so. To name a few: Feeders, Psycho Sisters, Subspecies, Things, Vampires of Sorority Row, Violent Shit, Witchcraft… well, you get the idea. The listing of sequels to original productions is overwhelming to an admitted outsider like myself. Most of us can recall Stuart Rosenberg’s The Amityville Horror for A.I.P. But many of us have likely missed the staggering number of period “Amityville Horror” rip-offs that followed in its wake. Collum does not miss them, though he does argue some of the said films may or may not be considered actual sequels. Collum suggests there are marginally ten sequels to the original Amityville Horror pic of 1979 … but then lists thirty-five or so additional films (circa 2011 to 2023) with “Amityville” titles or references piggybacking off the public’s continuing obsession with the best-selling book by Jay Anson.

Though Collum dutifully also includes lists of the old school Universal and Hammer Studios classics, one gets the impression he is man of his own time, perhaps preferring the rental-era films of his youth. Each of his film entries provides basic information: director, writer and primary cast listings, a brief synopsis, and a few scattered “Fun Facts” relating to a certain film’s production, box office or an item of general arcana. I should also note this is the second edition of the book. This new one adds some fifty or so pages to the original, the book now bursting to 678 pages and weighing in at more than three-and-a-half pounds. There are a few proofreading errors here and there, certainly understandable given the elephantine page count.

Though primarily a reference work, Collum additionally provides extracts of interviews with thirty-two people associated with many of the films under study. Though there’s a couple of musings by the filmmakers themselves, the bulk of his interviews are conducted with the on-screen “scream queens.” The interviews make for the most engaging reading. By and large, the majority of actresses interviewed are proud of their association with the films in which they appear. But they often differ on how their appearances have affected their careers.

Melanie Kinnaman (Friday the 13^th, Part V) who meets gaggles of fans at her horror film convention signings, sees the enthusiasm for slashers as an all-ages phenomenon: there’s a generational “snowball effect” in their popularity as the films are introduced to new generations. Other interviewees confirm that meeting face-to-face with fans at conventions is usually a great, heart-warming experience, though one not without intrusions. In her experience, actress Lar Park Lincoln (Friday the 13^th, Part VII) cautions it’s not all love and roses: “The world is full of people,” she notes, “who can’t separate reality from fantasy.” She reveals of having been attacked not once, but twice, by fans, her home even once subjected to a bomb scare. While many actresses are pleased their early career work on these horror films have been remembered fondly, many wish their reputations exceeded beyond their springboard beginnings. Many have certainly gone on to do better things in the industry, but that work is rarely cited.

There’s plenty of contrast in memories shared. Though some admit they were - and remain - big fans of the horror genre, others suggest they simply are not. There are glimpses here and there of honest regret: Marta Kober (Friday the 13^th, Part 2, Slumber Party Massacre III) plainly describes the latter film as “terrible.” Pamela Susan Shoop (Halloween II) remains haunted by the nude sex scene for which she was conscripted. Though the bashful young actress had been promised a closed set during the two-day filming of that scene, she was aghast when nineteen crew members were present to look on. “The second day I cried all the way to the set,” she recalls.

Perhaps my favorite remembrance in the book comes courtesy of Melinda Clarke (Return of the Living Dead III). She perhaps best summed up the confusing experience shared by many of the young actresses who are now forever frozen-in-time as teenagers on theater and television screens: “Back then most horror films were going direct-to-video,” she recalls, “there was no real way for me to know how fans were reacting to it, of if anyone was even seeing it.” Jason Paul Collum’s They Made How Many?!: (Mostly) American Horror Franchises of the 20^th Century offers testimonial proof that plenty of movie fans were watching and cherishing these films back in the day. This book is a useful reference for those who continue to do so.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Film Forum in New York City.

JUNE 20 – JULY 3 AT FILM FORUM

POSITIVELY TWO WEEKS ONLY

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S

APOCALYPSE NOW

NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE
RARELY-SEEN 1979 ROADSHOW VERSION  
SUPERVISED BY COPPOLA

ALL TICKET BUYERS TO RECEIVE
FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL SOUVENIR BOOKLET

A new 4K restoration of Francis Ford’s Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW, in its rarely-seen original 1979 roadshow version, will run at Film Forum for two weeks only, from Friday, June 20 through Thursday, July 3.

Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, APOCALYPSE NOW stars Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne, and Marlon Brando as the renegade Colonel Kurtz.

American Zoetrope’s brand new restoration of the original 1979 film, which for the past 25 years has rarely been screened theatrically, is of the original “Roadshow” version, exactly as it appeared on first release. The Roadshow had no credits whatsoever; instead, ticket buyers were given a 12-page souvenir booklet. Each ticket buyer at Film Forum’s screenings will receive a limited edition glossy facsimile of the original booklet.

Says James Mockowski, American Zoetrope’s Film Archivist and Restoration Supervisor, “We’ve been to careful to protect and restore each one of Francis Ford Coppola's visions of APOCALYPSE NOW, including his 2001 REDUX and the 2019 FINAL CUT. We’re now proud to present the original 1979 Roadshow version, which looks and sounds exactly like the event film people first experienced by audiences almost 50 years ago."

HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER'S APOCALYPSE, the acclaimed documentary chronicling Coppola's disaster-strewn production of APOCALYPSE NOW, using hours of footage and audio interviews recorded by the director’s wife, the late Eleanor Coppola, will have its U.S. restoration premiere at Film Forum on July 4. A new introduction by Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola has been recorded especially for Film Forum.

"NOT MERELY THE GREATEST FILM
TO COME OUT OF THE VIETNAM EXPERIENCE, BUT ONE OF
THE GREAT WORKS ABOUT THE MADNESS OF OUR TIMES."
— The Guardian

“MORE CLEARLY THAN EVER ONE OF THE KEY FILMS OF THE CENTURY.”
– Roger Ebert

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(Cinema Retro's Author's Corner column invites authors to provide personal insights into their latest book.) 

By Christopher Shaw Myers

There is little in life that affects a child more than the loss of a parent. When that parent is a role model, a loving and supportive member of the family, the children mourn and feel sad for themselves, but they take away positive feelings for the rest of their lives. When, however, the parent is so troubled that he takes his own life, a very different set of feelings emerge. They mourn their loss, but at the same time they are engulfed by a mixture of emotions that are so personal and complex that they can neither be conveyed nor understood by someone who has not been through a similar experience.

“Anyone who tells you they were a happy child must have had a very boring childhood,” Robert Shaw once told me, “because nothing ever happened to them.”

To say that my uncle did not have a boring childhood would be an understatement. He and my mother – Robert’s little sister and best friend in life – survived events that would have hobbled others, if not outright killed them. If anything, their father’s suicide was the least of their troubles. When Dr. Shaw was lowered into a pauper’s grace, they had fallen to the bottom of the English class culture. They had no money, no means of support, and with World War II underway, resources were scarce.

And yet – and this is what inspired me to write a biography about my uncle – I never saw anyone laugh so hard as when Robert was talking about his childhood. I was five years old when my mother began taking me to visit him in New York City. Robert always seemed to be in town for a play, a movie premier, or some other event. I sat in restaurants and hotel rooms and listened to those two howl with laughter about their childhood years. Of course, it was not their father they were remembering – it was all the fun they had, hiking in Orkney’s rugged hills, pretending to be pirates on Cornwall’s rivers, shooting at passersby with Robert’s bb gun, or hitting a U.S. army officer with their water hose.

Mrs. Shaw was the reason her children not only survived, but thrived. When her dreams of an upper-class life vanished with the death of her husband, she transferred her ambition and focused on her children’s education. As a result, they attended Oxford, Cambridge, and other prestigious schools. Robert went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) and became an international movie star. In addition to his role as Quint in Jaws, he helped turn A Man for All Seasons into an Oscar winner with his unforgettable role as Henry VIII; he helped turn The Sting into another Oscar winner with his role as the Chicago gangster; and in From Russia With Love, where he was the blond-haired assassin, he helped launch the James Bond franchise, which continues to thrive to this day.

And Robert was more than just a movie star: he was also a gifted writer. His first novel, The Hiding Place, was made into a movie starring Alec Guinness and Robert Redford; his second novel, The Sun Doctor, won the Hawthornden Prize; his play, The Man In The Glass Booth, ran on Broadway for a year, starring Donald Pleasence, and was nominated for a Tony Award. And not to be forgotten is Robert’s contribution to Jaws, in which he both wrote and performed the famous USS Indianapolis speech.

In person, Robert was as magnetic as his screen personality, but he was also haunted by inner demons. Who wouldn’t be, given such an ‘un-boring’ childhood? His talent and his flaws were on equal display, and people tended to either love him or hate him – there was very little in between. With his brutal honesty, he might praise or ridicule you, depending on what he thought of your performance. Those who were confident enough to take his criticism in stride – and to dish it back – were carried along by his energy and hubris, and they always seemed to thrive. Richard Dreyfuss and Sean Connery come to mind.

In the end, those who knew Robert best always remembered one thing above all else: how much fun they had with him. ROBERT SHAW: An Actor’s Life On The Set Of JAWS And Beyond is my attempt to capture some of the magic he possessed. Whether you like him or dislike him after reading this book – whether you love his humor and authenticity or hate his brash arrogance – you will surely have a strong opinion of the man.

THREE CLASSIC CLINT EASTWOOD FAVORITES

NOW ON 4K ULTRA HD

DIRTY HARRY, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES AND PALE RIDER

NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH

HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. 

Three films from legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood – Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider (40th anniversary), will be released for the first time on 4K Ultra HD and Digital on April 29.

2021 marked the 50th year of Clint Eastwood’s partnership with Warner Bros., which began in 1971 with the release of Dirty Harry. Over the course of his remarkable career, Eastwood, a 4-time Academy Award winner, has received a number of lifetime and career achievement honors, including the Motion Picture Academy’s Irving Thalberg Memorial Award and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Cecil B. DeMille Award.  He has also garnered tributes from the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, the American Film Institute, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the French Film Society, the National Board of Review, and the Henry Mancini Institute.  He is also the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor, the California Governor’s Award for the Arts, and France’s Commandeur de la Legion d’honneur.

About the films:

DIRTY HARRY - 1971

Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood stars as no-holds-barred San Francisco cop Dirty Harry Callahan in this action thriller that began an action franchise. When detective Harry Callahan is assigned to pay extortion money to a serial murderer, the payoff goes wrong. Now with the life of a 14-year-old girl at stake, Callahan refuses to allow anything--including the law--to keep him from stopping the killer.

The film is directed by Don Siegel. The screenplay is by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, and Dean Riesner from a story by Harry Julian Fink and R.M. Fink.  The film is produced by Don Siegel.  Dirty Harry stars Clint Eastwood, Andy Robinson, Harry Guardino, Reni Santoni, and John Vernon.

Dirty Harry was selected in 2008 by Empire as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. The film was ranked No. 41 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years ... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies, and Harry Callahan was selected as the 17th greatest movie hero on 100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains. The movie's famous quote "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" was ranked 51st on 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes.

In February 2025, the 4K remaster of the film premiered at the Berlinale Film Festival as part of the Berlinale Classics program which showcases digitally restored film classics.

Dirty Harry 4K UHD contains the following new and previously released special features:  

Commentary by Richard Schickel

“Generations and Dirty Harry” - NEW

Lensing Justice: The Cinematography of Dirty Harry - NEW

American Masters Career Retrospective: “Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows”

“Clint Eastwood: The Man from Malpaso”

“Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Fighting for Justice”

Interview Gallery: Patricia Clarkson, Joel Cox, Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Evan Kim, John Milius, Ted Post, Andy Robinson’ Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Urich.

“Dirty Harry’s Way”

“Dirty Harry: The Original”

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THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES - 1976

Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood stars in and directs this fast-paced Western about the fight for vengeance by a Missouri farmer whose family is murdered in the last days of the United States' Civil War.

The film is directed by Clint Eastwood. The screenplay is by Phil Kaufman and Sonia Chernus and is based on the novel “Gone to Texas” by Forrest Carter. The film is produced by Robert Daly.  The Outlaw Josey Wales stars Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, and John Vernon.

The Outlaw Josey Wales was nominated for the Academy Award for Original Music Score. In 1996, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The Outlaw Josey Wales 4K UHD contains the following new and previously released special features:  

Commentary by Richard Schickel

“An Outlaw and an Antihero” - NEW

“The Cinematography of and Outlaw: Crafting Josie Wales” - NEW

“Clint Eastwood’s West”

“Eastwood in Action”

“Hell Hath No Fury: The Making of The Outlaw Josey Wales”

“Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Reinventing the West”

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PALE RIDER - 1985

With 1985's Pale Rider, Clint Eastwood returned to the western genre with a vengeance as the movie became the highest grossing western of that decade. Eastwood, who also directed the hit film, plays a nameless stranger who rides into a small California gold rush town (and becomes known as the "Preacher") where he finds himself in the middle of a feud between a mining syndicate and a group of independent prospectors.

The film is produced and directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack.  The film stars Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Christopher Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny, Richard Kiel, Doug McGrath, and John Russell.

Pale Rider 4K UHD contains the following new and previously released special features:  

“The Diary of Sydney Penny: Lessons from the Set” - NEW

“Painting the Preacher: Bruce Surtees and Pale Rider” - NEW

“Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Reinventing Westerns”

“Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story”

“The Eastwood Factor”

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By Ernie Magnotta

In 1995, Tommy Boy—a hilarious buddy comedy starring the bad boys of Saturday Night Live; Chris Farley and David Spade—was released to movie theaters and rightly became a favorite with filmgoers. A year later, Farley and Spade returned for their sophomore effort; another buddy comedy titled Black Sheep. Almost 30 years later, their second adventure has finally arrived on 4K/Blu-ray.

Black Sheep tells the story of loveable and goodhearted nitwit Mike Donnelly (Farley) who is dead set on helping his brother Al (Tim Matheson) become Washington State Governor. When Mike and campaign aide Steve Dodds (Spade) discover that the current governor (played by Christine Ebersole) has rigged the election, the two knuckleheads set out on a hilarious adventure to set things right.

Naturally, the enjoyable film, which was directed by Penelope Spheeris (from a screenplay by Fred Wolf), produced by Lorne Michaels and distributed by Paramount Pictures, features extremely humorous performances from Farley and Spade. But it also contains a top-notch cast the likes of Tim Matheson, Gary Busey, Christine Ebersole, Grant Heslov, Timothy Carhart and Bruce McGill, just to name a few.

Now, is Black Sheep as good or as funny as Tommy Boy? Absolutely not. But, in my opinion, it’s definitely worth a watch as it certainly has enough laughs to fill its short 86 minute run time. This is mostly due to the incredible chemistry between Chris Farley and David Spade. I just wish they had been able to make more movies together.

Kino Lorber has released Black Sheep on 4K/Blu-ray in a brand new HDR/Dolby Vision master from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The great looking and sounding Region 1 discs also give us the original theatrical trailer and an informative audio commentary by Penelope Spheeris which is moderated by film critic and author Simon Abrams. Recommended.

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The Australian video label Imprint will be releasing special edition Blu-ray sets for "Hang 'Em High" and "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" in July. Each edition is limited to only 2,000 copies and includes exciting bonus features. 

Pre-order from the web site.

(Prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter for your local currency.)  

By John M. Whalen 

In 1962 I was a sophomore in college in Philadelphia and one fine day Basil Rathbone came to the school to do a one-man show. He regaled us with tales of what it was like to work with the great stars of the past, reenacted a couple of scenes from his films, told how in those days the studio system kept actors working all the time, and how the world had changed so much since then. (You didn’t know the half of it Basil, baby!) Afterwards, he held a meet and greet in the student lounge. I wanted to talk to him but I couldn’t think of anything to ask him except something dumb like: "Is it true you taught Errol Flynn everything he knows about fencing?" Before I knew it I was shaking hands with him, asking if he taught Errol Flynn everything he knows about fencing. I really don’t remember that much more about my meeting with him, but I do recall what a sharp, dynamic guy he was even at age 70. Intimidating as well. Kind of like Sherlock.

Which brings me to this review of one of the more obscure, but nevertheless intriguing films in Rathbone’s career. Kino Lorber has released “Rio” (1939) a film from Universal studios directed by John Brahm (“Hangover Square”, “The Brasher Doubloon”) one of the many German emigres who fled to America to escape Hitler. “Rio” is a sort of film noir mixed with elements from movies like Boris Karloff’s “Devil’s Island" (1938), or Victor Jory’s “Escape from Devil’s Island” (1935). Rathbone plays Paul Reynard, a con man who has managed to swindle a group of Parisian bankers out of millions of dollars. He’s married to Irene, a French singer (Norwegian actress Sigrid Gurie), over whom he has almost hypnotic control. Also in the cast is big burly Victor McLaglen as Paul’s best friend Dirk, who also seems bound to Paul by the fierce magnetism of his personality. When Paul’s fraudulent activities are discovered, he displays complete confidence that he’ll find a way out of trouble, as he always has. Only things don’t turn out so good and Paul is not only found guilty, he’s sentenced to 15 years on St. Jacques Island, a French penal colony 30 miles off the coast of Brazil. Before he’s sent away, Paul tells Dirk to help Irene as much as he can. However, the cold nature of his personality is revealed when he tells Dirk that he told her not to wait for him. She should divorce him and go on with her life. He says he knows that giving her that option will only ensure that she’ll never leave him. He continues to manipulate her even from prison.

Conditions are miserable in the penal colony.The commandant there despises Reynard and is determined to crack his stony exterior by withholding Irene’s letters. Tough-minded as he is, Reynard begins to feel the mental strain and is determined to find a way out. Irene and Dirk, meanwhile have moved to Rio to be near Paul. She has taken a job singing in a small nightclub where she meets Bill Gregory (Robert Cummings), an American civil engineer who built a bridge there that collapsed. He was blamed for it, but he claimed it was corruption that destroyed the bridge, alleging greedy contractors used inferior materials. Unable to live down the public disgrace, he’s been drunk ever since the collapse occurred. During Carnival, however, he and Irene become close and she helps him rehabilitate by getting him to take on a new engineering project, rebuilding a dam.

So there it is. You got an iron-willed con artist determined to make a break from the penal colony; a woman trying to be faithful to her imprisoned husband, but who is beginning to fall in love with another man; a drunk trying to rehabilitate himself and earn a place back in society, and big old Victor McLaglen ready to help Basil and Ingrid get back together somehow. Pretty good set up.

“Rio” was written by a team of four writers-- Aben Kandel (“I Was a Teenage Werewolf”), Edwin Justus Mayer, Frank Partos, and Stephen Morehouse Avery, based on a story by Jean Negulesco (“How to Marry a Millionaire”, “Johnny Belinda”). They managed to pull off something rather unique for its time. By concentrating on the four main characters in the first part of the story, they avoided making just another plot- heavy melodrama about a man trying break out of prison. Director Brahm crafted a film about a totally amoral character who sees life not as a matter of right and wrong but as a challenge to his ability to dominate and control everyone around him. It was a unique role for Rathbone, who we’re used seeing either as an upright upholder of law and order (Sherlock) or flat out villains. Here his character is a mixture of good and bad, mostly bad,—an early noir antihero to be sure.

“Rio” was shot by Cinematographer Hal Mohr, who won an Oscar for “The Phantom of the Opera”. His use of shadow and light is an early example of German Expressionism as it began to evolve into film noir. Also appearing In the film are the Cisco Kid’s pal, Leo Carillo as a Rio night club owner who has eyes for Irene, along with other Universal regulars Samuel S. Hinds, Billy Gilbert, and Irving Pichel.

Kino Lorber presents “Rio” in a brand new 2K Master with an audio commentary track featuring film historian Samm Deighan, plus half a dozen trailers for other notable Universal B movies.

Recommended for those looking for something a little different.

Click here to order from Amazon

(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon.)

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Imprint, the Australian video company. Most of their releases are region-free.

Today marks FIVE YEARS since our release of Imprint Films Spine #1 - the worldwide Blu-ray debut of The War Of The Worlds (1953).

Thank you to every customer, contributor, and champion of Imprint Films, who has supported us on this first part of our journey. Because of you, we are still here - and we're not slowing down! Right now, we have new titles being signed, negatives being scanned, and a mammoth second half of 2025 in the works.

Help us celebrate this five-year milestone with 25% OFF SITE-WIDE NOW LIVE!

Plus, every order over $100 AUD receives a free exclusive Imprint Films Tote Bag - while stocks last.

Excludes New Release and Pre-Order titles. Discount applied automatically at checkout.

Must end June 3.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE SALE.

(Prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter for your local currency.) 

By John M. Whalen

In “Springfield Rifle,” (1952), a new Warner Archive Collection release, Gary Cooper stars as U.S. Cavalry Major Alex Kearney who is charged with cowardice when he refuses to issue a command to his men to open fire on some Confederate horse rustlers. His second in command, Captain Tennick (Philip Carey), reports him to his commander, Col. Hudson (Paul Kelley), who has no choice but to put the major under arrest and court martial him. He’s found guilty of treason, sentenced to a dishonorable discharge and marched out of the fort with a freshly painted yellow stripe down his back. Not only that, he’ll be shot on sight if he ever steps foot in a US Army fort again.

The film was released in October 1952, the same year Cooper appeared in his Oscar-winning role in Fred Zinnemann’s “High Noon,” in which he played a sheriff running around town looking for somebody to help him handle some bad hombres. Zinnemann’s intention was to show that law and order is a social responsibility, not just the problem of the man wearing a badge. (Howard Hawks would dispute that idea when he made “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne as a sheriff who believed if you were “good enough” you didn’t need any help except maybe for a drunk like Dean Martin and an old geezer like Walter Brennan). In “Springfield Rifle” it appears that this time Coop can’t go to anybody for help even if he wanted to. At least not anybody on the Union side.

So naturally what does he do? He goes to work helping the Confederates. What? Coop on the wrong side of history? Well, of course we know Gary Cooper would never do that. He’s a gold- plated hero in all his movies, so something sneaky must be going on here. And this is one aspect of “Springfield Rifle” that makes it interesting, despite an overlong, overcomplicated script and dull direction by Andre de Toth. Espionage becomes a key element of the story when Coop joins up with the rustlers who are getting ready to drive a herd of a thousand horses over the mountains into Colorado and then due south. Is he really joining them or is he actually a spy for the Union? Not hard to guess which.

But then we get a new problem when we learn that Coop’s young son, a private in the Army now has left home and is determined to track down his father and bring him to justice and thus cleanse the family name of his father’s disgrace. And then there’s Major Kearney’s wife who comes out to the fort from back east to find out what’s going on with her family. There’s more but that’s basically why “Springfield Rifle” is not the success it could have been. Too much “monkey business” as Chuck Berry liked to say. Too much going on with plot lines that get twisted and either don’t develop or have a payoff.

The script was by Charles Marquis Warren, Frank Davis and Sloan Nibley. All good writers. Warren wrote many a good western and created the classic TV series “Gunsmoke” and “Rawhide”. Nibley was a veteran writer for Republic Pictures, having turned out about half a dozen Roy Rogers feature films. His writing was always fast-paced but slowed the story down by introducing new twists, as there was always time for an unnecessary tune or two from Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers. But unnecessary plot complications? Never. So maybe the problem was there were just too many good writers working on this project. A lot of ideas but not enough glue to hold it all together.

On the plus side, “Springfield Rifle” has a host of well-known faces from the Warners stable in the cast, including: Lon Chaney, Jr., David Brian, James Milligan, Alan Hale, Martin Milner, Guinn “Big Boy’ Williams, and Fess Parker (uncredited). It was filmed in the usual familiar locations around Lone Pine, CA, Mt. Whitney, and The Bell Ranch in the San Fernando Valley with the cinematography of Edwin D. DuPar. The music score was provided by the ubiquitous Max Steiner, just one of over 300 scores he completed in his lifetime.

The Warner Archive presents “Springfield Rifle” on Blu-ray, but it doesn’t appear to be a fresh scan and while the picture and color are good it doesn’t exactly pop out of the screen at you. Along with the main attraction the disc includes several classic Warners cartoons, a Joe McDoakes comedy short, and a theatrical trailer.

Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store.

(John M. Whalen is the author of "This Ray Gun for Hire...and Other Tales". Click here to order from Amazon.)

The YouTube channel Black Film History presents the original trailer for Fox's 1964 western "Rio Conchos" starring Richard Boone, Stuart Whitman, Edmond O'Brien and - most significantly- football legend Jim Brown in his screen debut. Brown's screen presence was such that within a few years he would be a leading man and major boxoffice draw. The film itself is a rousing adventure, directed by the ever-underrated Gordon Douglas and set to a wonderful Jerry Goldsmith score. There are so many similarities to Fox's 1961 western "The Comancheros" starring John Wayne and Stuart Whitman, that some retro movie lovers are still debating whether "Rio Conchos" can be considered a remake. It's a topic we covered in an early issue of Cinema Retro. (Lee Pfeiffer)

Click here to order DVD double feature with "Take a Hard Ride" starring Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Sony:

THE ROMANTIC SCI-FI MODERN CLASSIC FROM DIRECTOR JOHN CARPENTER

4K ULTRA HD DISC

AVAILABLE AS A LIMITED EDITION 4K ULTRA HD STEELBOOK

MAY 27TH

SYNPOSIS

Director John Carpenter presents a romantic science fiction odyssey starring Jeff Bridges in his 1984 Oscar®-nominated role as an innocent alien from a distant planet who learns what it means to be a man in love. When his spacecraft is shot down over Wisconsin, Starman (Bridges) arrives at the remote cabin of a distraught young widow, Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen), and clones the form of her dead husband. The alien convinces Jenny to drive him to Arizona, explaining that if he isn't picked up by his mothership in three days, he'll die. Hot on their trail are government agents, intent on capturing the alien, dead or alive. En route, Starman demonstrates the power of universal love, while Jenny rediscovers her human feelings for passion. Written by Bruce A. Evans & Raynold Gideon.

DISC DETAILS AND BONUS FEATURES:

4K UHD DISC:

Feature presented in 4K resolution with Dolby Vision, restored from the original camera negative

Dolby Atmos + 5.1 + 2-Channel Surround

BLU-RAY DISC™

· Feature presented in high definition, sourced from the 4K master

· English 5.1 + 2-Channel Surround

· Special Features:

o Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Actor Jeff Bridges

o Deleted Scenes

o Behind-the-Scenes Time Lapses

o They Came from Hollywood: Revisiting Starman Featurette

o Making-Of Featurette

o Music Video

o Still Gallery

o Theatrical Trailer

CAST AND CREW

Directed By: John Carpenter

Produced By: Larry J. Franco

Executive Producer: Michael Douglas

Written By: Bruce A. Evans & Raynold Gideon

Co-Produced By: Barry Bernardi

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Charles Martin Smith, Richard Jaeckel

SPECS

Run Time: Approx. 115 minutes

Rating: PG

4K UHD Feature Picture: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 2.39:1

4K UHD Feature Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible) | English 5.1 DTS-HD MA | English 2-Channel Surround DTS-HD MA

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

Midnight Movie Series

Electric Dreamhouse (imprint of PS Publishing)

170 pages

Colour and B&W images

October 2024

ISBN 978-1-80394-364-0

RRP: £20

Review by Adrian Smith 

I Vampiri (Riccardo Freda, 1957) is, despite the gothic imagery used in the promotional material, a modern-day horror thriller about a journalist investigating a series of mysterious murders in Paris. Girls have been found drained of blood, and whilst trying to solve the crimes he soon becomes involved with the beautiful Giselle du Grande (Gianna Maria Canale), an aristocratic woman who is more than she seems.

I Vampiri (the literal translation is ‘The Vampires’) was released in the United States as Lust of the Vampire and is generally credited with being Italy’s first horror film. As such it was a change from the director Riccardo Freda’s usual fare; having initially worked in the film industry for the previous twenty years as a screenwriter and editor, Freda seemed to specialise in historical action adventures such as The Mysterious Cavalier (1948) and Spartacus (1953, several years before Kubrick’s version). He often told the story that this film was made as a bet with a producer that he could make a horror film of the kind that was made overseas but not in Italy, although Roberto Curti does explore Freda’s self-mythologising here and suggests the truth is more nuanced. With a script co-written by Freda and prolific screenwriter Piero Regnoli (with later additions made by cinematographer Mario Bava when he had to take over the production), I Vampiri has for a long time been little more than a footnote in the careers of both Freda and Bava, perhaps because it made barely a dent in the Italian box office at the time. However, with this new monograph and a recent restoration and Blu-ray release of I, Vampiri from Radiance Films, the time is right to revisit the film and discover its secrets.

This Rondo Award-winning book is another essential read from Roberto Curti, who is THE number one authority on popular Italian cinema. His is the life I aspire to – sitting around in Italy writing books about Italian films all day. This monograph covers every aspect of the film, plus its place within Italian horror history, something which Curti knows almost everything about. Having previously written an excellent biography of Riccardo Freda, Curti is well-placed to take a deep dive like this into one of his key works, also exploring Freda’s private life and his marriage to his frequent leading lady, Gianna Maria Canale. With plenty of accompanying imagery, this is an excellent piece of writing which makes the perfect companion to the new Blu-ray, and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about Italian cinema.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Los Angeles, CA - Bathe in supernatural suspense as Scream Factory celebrates 25 years of the 2000 all-star Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfieffer thriller with What Lies Beneath [25th Anniversary Edition], available on 4K UHD for the first time in America.

The celebratory release will entertain horror enthusiasts with brand new features including a 4K transfer from the original 35mm camera negative approved by Cinematographer Don Burgess, as well as “You Know: Uncovering What Lies Beneath,” a feature-length documentary including brand new interviews with filmmakers and cast, among other bonus features.

In this riveting supernatural thriller, Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer play a married couple who uncover a terrible secret ... a secret so disturbing it threatens to destroy them.

When Claire Spencer (Pfeiffer) begins seeing ghostly images and hearing mysterious voices in their home, her husband Norman (Ford) suspects it’s just her imagination — until the images turn horrifyingly real. Now, together they must uncover the truth, confront their worst fears, and find 'what lies beneath … with twisting and terrifying results

BONUS FEATURES FOR UHD/BLU-RAY

DISC ONE (4K UHD):

· NEW 4K Transfer From The Original 35mm Camera Negative Approved By Cinematographer Don Burgess

· NEW Presented In Dolby Vision (HDR-10 Compatible)

· Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 & 2.0

· Audio Commentary With Director Robert Zemeckis

DISC TWO (BLU-RAY):

· NEW 4K Transfer From The Original 35mm Camera Negative Approved By Don Burgess

· Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 & 2.0

· Audio Commentary With Director Robert Zemeckis

· NEW “You Know: Uncovering What Lies Beneath” – A Feature-Length Retrospective Documentary Including Brand-New Interviews With Robert Zemeckis, Producers Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke, Writers Sarah Kernochan and Clark Gregg, Cast Member Amber Valletta, Director Of Photography Don Burgess, Production Designer Rick Carter, Costume Designer Susie DeSanto, Composer Alan Silvestri, Visual Effects Supervisor Robert Legato, Special Effects Supervisor Shane Mahan, and Puppeteer Jason Matthews

· “Constructing A Thriller” Featurette

· Theatrical Trailer

Click here to order from Amazon

(Photo by Paramount Pictures and Skydance/Paramount Pictures and Skydance - © 2025 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.)

By Mark Cerulli

Hard to believe that the Mission: Impossible movie phenomenon began almost 30 years ago, but here we are, 8 films and $5 billion in box office gross later, Tom Cruise and the IMF team are reportedly taking their final cinematic bow with Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. If, indeed, it’s the IMF’s closing time, they couldn’t have ended the franchise any bigger. This is an edge-of-your-seat, “How’d they do that?” thriller that HAS to be seen on the big screen, preferably in IMAX.

Paramount Pictures invited CR to the IMAX headquarters in Playa Vista to see the film on their enormous screen and it was worth the trek. The film picks up where MI: Dead Reckoning Part I leaves off – the IMF team is still trying to stop “the entity”, a highly invasive AI rogue program that is about to trigger a nuclear winter. This film included easter eggs from many of the previous instalments – from flashes of Jon Voight (Mr. Phelps) to clips of iconic sequences and the surprise reappearance of actors from MI #1. The Final Reckoning’s filmmakers also cannily captured the world’s current political turmoil and disinformation, turning it into a plot point.

From the opening frame, the film is a non-stop action juggernaut, but two incredible sequences stand out – a recovery mission inside a sunken Russian sub that is both claustrophobic and terrifying and an aerial chase that can only be described as insane. (According to the press info, the stunning submarine scenes came from co-writer/director Christopher McQuarry’s childhood “obsession” with the 1968 cold-war submarine thriller, Ice Station Zebra.)

Tom Cruise… is once again, Tom Cruise - ageless, in peak physical shape, running at speeds that would leave an Olympic sprinter gasping and hanging off a speeding biplane – and yes, it’s really him a mile up in the sky. If the weight of saving humanity is weighing on him, he doesn’t let it slow him down.

Cruise is surrounded by seasoned actors at the top of their game – Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Hayley Atwell and the enigmatic Pom Klementieff who plays the manic French assassin from the previous film, now on the right side of things. (She really deserves a spot in a future Bond film.). Esai Morales reprises his role as a smooth and reptilian villain and Angela Bassett gives a powerful performance as a female President who refuses to cave under pressure.

The Final Reckoning marks Christopher McQuarrie’s 11^th collaboration with Tom Cruise. They have advanced cinematic storytelling so much that the star calls him “my creative brother.” Given the scope of the Mission: Impossible movies, filmmaking headaches are a given, but this intrepid duo embraces them. “Problems for Tom are always good for us. That just creates drama,” McQuarrie says. Talk about being Zen!

The U.S. military cooperated on this project, as there is literally an entire armada on screen – carriers, ospreys, jets and helicopters.

This is the kind of movie you swore they didn’t make anymore and one worthy of seeing on the biggest screen you can find. Mission Accomplished!

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Announcing The Hook and the Eye: a Felix Leiter adventure by Raymond Benson

Ian Fleming Publications is pleased to announce a new novel coming soon from 007 continuation author Raymond Benson. The Hook and the Eye focuses on Felix Leiter, James Bond’s trusted American friend and ally. This full-length novel will be released digitally in ten instalments, beginning on May 27th, recalling the serialisation of classic pulp fiction in the early twentieth century. This will be followed by the paperback publication of the full story on October 2nd.

Felix Leiter – James Bond’s trusted friend and ally – takes centre stage in a brand new adventure by legendary Bond novelist, Raymond Benson.

It is 1952. Felix has lost his job at the CIA and finds himself working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. What starts as a simple surveillance job turns into a matter of life and death when Felix stumbles upon a murder and a cabal of spies embedded in Manhattan. Hired to transport the impossibly beautiful and impossibly secretive Dora from New York to Texas, Felix is thrust into a non-stop adventure, where danger and deceit lie in wait around every bend in the road.

The Hook and the Eye is a mystery, a romance, a spy story, a road trip tale and a postcard of a lost Americana. It is also Raymond Benson at his very best.

IFPL’s Publishing Director Simon Ward commented “Raymond may be a Bond author, but he was born to write Felix Leiter. He came to us with a story – one filled with intrigue, mystery and danger – and it was exactly what we were looking for. We are thrilled to be working with Raymond again and we think the fans are going to love the journey he takes our favourite CIA agent on. I think it’s the best ‘Bond universe’ book Raymond has ever written.”

Author Raymond Benson added “Having worked on this project in secrecy since May 2024, I am now pleased and proud to finally present the first ever Felix Leiter novel, appropriately set in Ian Fleming’s timeline of the 1950s between the character’s appearances in Live and Let Die and Diamonds are Forever. As a native Texan myself, I’ve always had an affinity for 007’s close American friend.”

So how, and when, can you read this new adventure? Starting on May 27th the eBook serialisation will begin with ‘The Hook and the Eye: Episode 1’ containing the first four chapters of the novel. This will be followed every two weeks with a new episode, concluding on September 30th with the tenth instalment. Episodes will be released via updates to the original eBook file, so be aware that in order to read them you’ll need to either enable automatic file updates on your e-reader device, or manually download the updated files. Following the final ‘Episode’ release, we’ll also be publishing a physical paperback edition of The Hook and the Eye. This is currently available to pre-order, exclusively via our website.

Readers in the UK can pre-order the eBook direct from us (and can also access a special bundle price for both the digital and physical versions together), whilst readers around the world can pre-order from their preferred eBook retailer.

We’re very excited to share this thrilling story with you over the coming months.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Beloved character actor Joe Don Baker has died at age 89. The native Texan excelled in playing down-to-earth rural characters, often with comedic overtones. Baker's first screen role was in a 1965 episode of "Honey West". He would appear in many other television shows over the decades but it was his role as real-life Sheriff Buford Pusser that afforded him the leading role in a feature film, "Walking Tall". The 1973 production cast Baker's sheriff as an incorruptible lawman who makes it his mission to clean up widespread graft in a small southern community. This infuriates local crime bosses who carry out acts of violence that touch Pusser's family with tragic results. He goes on a one-man mission to bring the villains to justice. The movie was made on a small budget without an expensive marketing campaign but it immediately clicked with rural audiences and went on to be one of the great sleeper hits in movie history, grossing over $40 million in 1973 dollars. Baker was then in demand and would go on to play important supporting role in such films as "The Outfit", "Congo", "Charley Varrick", "The Natural", "Fletch", "Mars Attacks!" and the Martin Scorsese's 1991 remake of "Cape Fear". However, it was his association with the James Bond films that made him a pop culture favorite. He first appeared as the villain in Timothy Dalton's debut as 007, "The Living Daylights" in 1987. He would then be seen as Jack Wade, an American undercover ally to Pierce  Brosnan in his first Bond film, "GoldenEye" in 1995. Baker's homespun witticisms contrasted amusingly with Bond's British brand of humor and audiences responded enthusiastically. In fact, Baker made the character so popular that he would reprise the role in the next Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies"  in 1997. Baker retired from acting in 2012. 

For more about his life and career, click here

'

Description from the YouTube channel of Century 21 Films: 

"Head behind the scenes of 'Return of the Saint' in this making of documentary featuring star Ian Ogilvy (The Sorcerers, Witchfinder General, Upstairs Downstairs) and featuring narration by Roger Moore (The Saint, James Bond). 'Return of the Saint' ran for just one series from 1978 to 1979, but continues to delight fans over forty years later. In addition to Ian Ogilvy, 'The Saint Steps Into... The 70s' features interviews with executive producer Robert S. Baker (The Persuaders!, The Baron, Crossplot), production supervisor Malcolm Christopher (Minder, Superman IV, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Canterville Ghost), and writer John Goldsmith (The Protectors, Space: 1999, The New Avengers)."

In this vintage interview for the American Film Institute, Martin Scorsese reflects on seeing John Ford's "The Searchers" for the first time at age 13. He also provides some interesting observations about Ethan Edwards, played by John Wayne in the 1956 classic.

In 1961, Boxoffice magazine listed the All-American Film Favorites of 1960. The selections were based on a poll of theater owners in the USA.

FEMALE

1. DORIS DAY
2. ELIZABETH TAYLOR
3. SHIRLEY MACLAINE
4. DEBBIE REYNOLDS
5. JOANNE WOODWARD
6. DEBORAH KERR
7. AUDREY HEPBURN
8. MARILYN MONROE
9. SUSAN HAYWARD
10. INGRID BERGMAN
11. KIM NOVAK
12. SANDRA DEE

KIM NOVAK

MALE

1. CARY GRANT
2. JACK LEMMON
3. ROCK HUDSON
4. TONY CURTIS
5. YUL BRYNNER
6. FRANK SINATRA
7. WILLIAM HOLDEN
8. JOHN WAYNE
9. KIRK DOUGLAS
10. GLENN FORD
11. ROBERT MITCHUM
12. JERRY LEWIS

YUL BRYNNER

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Once upon a time a highly successful film director named Blake Edwards teamed with his very popular actress wife to make a big budget Paramount musical called "Darling Lili". Released in 1970, the WWI-era movie was a major flop. Edwards blamed studio head Robert Evans for having made significant cuts to the final version of the film, though Paramount maintained that the film's budget had gone out of control and they had to exercise their right to salvage it through whatever means necessary. Several years later, Edwards had a contentious relationship with MGM that  was exacerbated by the studio altering his final cuts of "The Carey Treatment" and "Wild Rovers". Hell hath no fury like a director scorned, especially a director who was not lacking in self-esteem. Ultimately, Edwards sought his revenge with the release of his notorious 1981 madcap comedy "S.O.B."  The movie is a take-down of the film industry, presenting an ugly picture of Hollywood as a place populated by crooks, shnooks, disreputable studio brass and disloyal hangers-on all willing to sell their souls to advance their careers. Doubtless, Edwards was done wrong by certain studio executives but by all accounts, he wasn't "Mr. Popularity" either. Edwards had fractious working relationships with many people including Peter Sellers, with whom he made several successful "Pink Panther" films despite the fact the men came to loath one another. I was having lunch with a former studio big wig in 2010 when I informed him that the news just broke that Edwards had died. His response: "It's a shame it took so long." Ouch! 

Edwards was indeed multi-talented. He was capable of directing successful dramas ("Days of Wine and Roses") and the occasional thriller ("Experiment in Terror") but his niche was comedy and for a period of years he produced some great successes including "Operation Petticoat" and "Breakfast at Tiffanys" as well as the best-received Inspector Clouseau films ("A Shot in the Dark" and "The Pink Panther".) By the 1970s, however, his films were under-performing. In 1975, more out of necessity than sentimentality, he and Peter Sellers returned to the "Pink Panther" franchise and scored three more hits. "S.O.B." was his most personal film, however, and allowed him to figuratively put his considerable list of enemies in his cross-hairs. Edwards wrote, produced and directed the film which boasted an impressive all-star cast, including Julie Andrews, who would break new ground in her career by famously baring her breasts (thus causing Johnny Carson to quip to Andrews that he was thankful to see that "the hills were still alive!")

The film begins with a comical suicide attempt by once-esteemed film director Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan), who can't cope with the demise of his career due to the catastrophic boxoffice returns on "Night Wind", his mega-budget family musical starring his wife Sally Miles (Julie Andrews). Felix bungles the attempt which will become a running gag throughout the film as fate keeps preventing him from taking his own life. Now suffering from a mental illness, Felix is convinced that he has heard advice from God about how to salvage his film and career. He approaches the Machiavellian studio chief David Blackman (Robert Vaughn, whose character is supposedly based on Robert Evans.) Felix offers to reimburse the studio for their investment in the musical so that he can own all the rights and reshoot it as a pornographic production complete with the songs intact, only with an S&M take. Blackman jumps at the chance to redeem his own reputation and agrees, but Sally is a tough sell. Her entire career has been built on playing sweet, innocent characters, much as Andrews's career was defined in the early days. She is appalled at Felix's mental state and the fact that he hocked their entire net worth to pull off this madcap scheme. She turns to the film's original director, Tim Culley (William Holden) for advice and he and their mutual friend, quack physician Irving Finegarten (Robert Preston) for counsel. They both convince her the daffy scheme might work and would prove to be a good career move. With Sally reluctantly immersing herself into a sex-filled musical, word around Hollywood gets out that Felix might actually be creating a potential blockbuster. This causes Blackman to renege on the deal. Felix now goes entirely off the deep end and "kidnaps" the reels of his completed film in order to thwart Blackman from exploiting him.

Movies that present Hollywood as a soulless climate are as old as the film industry itself but "S.O.B." is in a class of its own in this regard. There are no sympathetic characters. As Felix devolves into complete madness, his family, confidantes and friends all conspire to take advantage of him for their own selfish purposes. Edwards presents a Devil's Playground of cheating lovers, emotionless sex and untrustworthy partners. It was a parlor game back in the day to guess which real-life personalities were being portrayed on screen. For example, there was little doubt that Shelly Winters' obnoxious talent agent was based on the much-feared Sue Mengers. Loretta Swit, playing the film's most grating character, seems to be a compilation of every gossip columnist who Edwards grew to loathe. Other well-known stars are also used to good effect including Larry Hagman, Robert Webber, Robert Loggia, Marisa Berenson, Stuart Margolin and Craig Stevens. Ostensibly, the star is Richard Mulligan, who gives a very spirited performance that is ultimately undone by Edwards having him cross over into theater of the absurd. Because of the large cast, most of the actors don't get much screen time but those who do resonate very well especially Andrews, Holden, Preston, Webber and Vaughn. The latter has a show-stopping scene that almost rivals the unveiling of Andrews' prized bosoms when it is revealed that his character of the macho studio executive has a passion for making love to his mistress (Berenson) while he is attired in female lingerie.

"S.O.B." is genuinely funny but, as previously stated, Edwards goes overboard into silliness especially in the last third of the film. Until then the events that we witnessed have been mostly plausible but Edwards goes over the top and resorts to almost slapstick as well as introducing some characters such as a manic Asian chef and an Indian guru (played respectively by Benson Fong and Larry Storch) who would be far more at home in a Pink Panther movie. Still, it remains a biting satire that is mostly quite enjoyable- and it's all accompanied by a score from Edwards' frequent collaborator, Henry Mancini.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray looks gorgeous and contains the original trailer.

CLICK HERE to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Kino Lorber:

While making the transition from swinging ’60s nudie films to his signature gut-wrenching horror films of the ’70s, Pete Walker directed four hardboiled gems of contemporary British noir. Walker’s milieu was a criminal underworld of posh London nightclubs and tawdry amusement halls, of bisexuality and brutality, pop stars and pornographers. Die Screaming, Marianne stars Susan George as a free-spirited hippie chick caught in a nightmarish plot to rob her of an inheritance. Usually marketed (and dismissed) as erotica, Cool It, Carol! (aka The Dirtiest Girl I Ever Met) follows a small-town couple who seek adventure in the big city and find themselves involved in the smut film racket (a seedy business which also figures prominently in The Big Switch). Moon (Man of Violence) is an international heist film starring Michael Latimer as a James Bond-like gun for hire.

Product Extras :

• Die Screaming Marianne Audio commentary by director Pete Walker with film historian Jonathan Rigby
• Moon (Man of Violence) Audio commentary by film historians Kat Ellinger and Martyn Conterior
• "Pete Walker: An Eye for Terror," an interview by Elijah Drenner
• Original theatrical trailers

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"Because then there would have been no movie." 

By Lee Pfeiffer

I pretty much swore off of contemporary horror films some years ago, as gruesome elements increasingly subjugated genuine suspense. The last time I found a horror film to be quite scary was "The Blair Witch Project", which was so long ago that some people reading this might not have been born yet. I don't know what possessed me to return to the genre, but on a whim I decided to check out writer/director/producer Ti West's 2011 supernatural mystery "The Innkeepers". I'm glad I did because this is an old fashioned horror flick in the best sense of the term. I grew up in the Sixties but it isn't pure sentiment that has made me continue to regard films such as "The Innocents" and "The Haunting" as classics of the horror genre, or to sub-categorize them, the ghost story genre. A good director knows that such tales are all the more frightening if much is left to the imagination of the viewers. Today's audiences are used to being spoon-fed severed jugular veins spouting oceans of blood, but in the true classics the real terror is left unseen or only shown briefly.

"The Innkeepers" is somewhat unique among ghost stories in that it isn't set in the Victorian era and the events don't unwind in a remote, cavernous manor house. In fact, screenwriter West takes a different approach by setting the film almost entirely in The Yankee Pedlar, an actual moderate-sized historic hotel that is still operating on the main street of Torrington, Connecticut. (West had stayed at the Inn while filming his previous film "The House of the Devil" and it inspired him to write "The Innkeepers".) The only customers still occupying rooms are a nasty mom and her young son, who soon depart, leaving the remaining occupant Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis), a once popular actress who gave up the profession to lecture about the paranormal, as she claims to have psychic abilities. The inn is run by its only two remaining employees in its last days: Claire (Sara Paxton), a perky young woman in her twenties and Luke (Pat Healy), the 30-something cynic who looks at life through a cynical lens. (He's also understandably has an unrequited crush on Claire.) Both have a couple of things in common: they are both college drop-outs who are on career paths to holding low-paying, dead-end jobs. They also are intrigued by long-standing rumors that the inn is haunted by the ghost of a young woman named Madeleine who committed suicide there in the distant past. Luke has some sophisticated equipment that he feels will detect and record any apparitions or inexplicable sounds. So far, the effort has been a bust but the duo keeps up their investigations primarily just to pass the time of day and to avert boredom. Director West is in no hurry to get to the juicy stuff and the film is all the better for it, as it lets the viewer get to know these well-defined and likeable characters. On the final night, strange things begin to happen when Claire witnesses a key on a piano suddenly make a sound on its own. It's a one-off occurrence, though she had captured an audio recording. Despite their continued hunting, nothing else strange materializes. She consults with their guest, Leanne, who convinces Claire that she does indeed have psychic powers, specifically to foretell future events. She gives Claire a stern warning: get out of the inn immediately. In the grand tradition of ghost stories, Claire does not heed the advice and soon she's poking around the dank, dark basement until one last guest checks in. Played very well indeed by George Riddle, the man explains to Claire that he and his late wife had honeymooned at the hotel and he wants to spend the venue's last night in the same room in which the newlyweds had stayed. Claire consents and all hell ultimately breaks loose.

(Photo: Dark Sky Films)

I will not divulge any more about the plot because the fun of it all is trying to guess what comes next. I can say that both Sara Paxton and Pat Healy give terrific and very believable performances as the slackers who may be on the verge of proving the existence of the psychic phenomenon. Director West ratchets up the suspense as the chilling finale nears and it's all set to a marvelous and appropriately eerie score by Jeff Grace and creatively filmed by cinematographer Eliot Rockett. In between scares, the banter between our two protagonists is often quite funny but West never makes the mistake of allowing humor to interfere with the increasing suspense. It's also to West's credit that he places the haunted venue in the middle of a bustling small town, which would seem to rob the scenario of any real scares. After all, at any given point, passersby could be called in as witnesses at any given time. Yet, this doesn't happen because Claire and Luke are determined to carry out their investigations without interference.

"The Innkeepers" received a good deal of acclaim from horror fans when it was released but it never enjoyed wide distribution. Despite its rich production values, its budget was only $750,000. It may not appeal to younger viewers who have been weened on hockey mask-wearing slashers and other fiends who dismember helpless females. This is very much a more intellectual concept, well-executed in every respect. There is a shocking development near the end of the film and the natural consequence would have been for Claire to call the police. When asked by Luke why she didn't, she simply dismisses the question by saying she didn't get around to it. It's an illogical answer to a logical question but the real reason Claire doesn't call the police can be found, improbably, in a scenario involving director John Ford. In discussing the famous chase scene across the desert plains in his 1939 classic "Stagecoach", a journalist once asked Ford why the pursuing Indians didn't stop the stage by simply shooting the horses. Ford replied, "Because then there would have been no movie."

"The Innkeepers" is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Click here to order the Blu-ray from Amazon

A William Holden record album? Well, sort of. When Holden was one of the top boxoffice stars in the world, he loaned his name to this 1959 Warner Bros. record album that featured themes associated with exotic places around the world. Holden wrote the liner notes seen on the reverse side of the album, or allegedly he did. Supposedly he and music director Warren Baker based these themes on Holden's personal travels. 

For more, click here.

To play the album, click below on the far left button.

The YouTube channel Old School Cinema presents 8 underrated war movies that Martin Scorsese has recommended (though we haven't verified this claim). In any event, they make for an inpired assortment, from post-war European films to mainstream Hollywood fare. If you can forgive the narrator mispronouncing a couple of things, it makes for an interesting list of recommendations.

The stars arrive in Honolulu to commence filming on the screen adaptation of James Jones' best-selling novel "From Here to Eternity". The resulting film would win Best Picture of 1953 at the Oscars and gain Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress wins for Frank Sinatra (whose career was saved by his role in the movie) and Donna Reed. (Left to right: Frank Sinatra, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, James Jones and director Fred Zinnemann.)

Hope you have a mad, mad, mad, mad Mother's Day! There's nothing like taking mom out for a nice, relaxing drive!

By Lee Pfeiffer

I'm always somewhat amused when I read articles that look back on the 1960s as the decade in which cinematic Westerns went out of style. The theory is that the new screen freedoms appealed to younger viewers and indeed they did. "Easy Rider" and "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice", both released in 1969, would have never made it to theater screens in the prior decade. However, Westerns were far from dead. They may not have dominated movie screens in the manner they traditionally did, but the genre was still thriving and co-existing with the breakthrough films being made a generation of inventive young turks. Case in point: the year 1969, which saw the release of three classic Westerns: Henry Hathaway's "True Grit", Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" and George Roy Hill's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". The latter inspired an Emmy-winning documentary that has appeared on special edition videos of the film and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. The show was made during production of the film and narrated by George Roy Hill but it was not telecast until after the movie had been released to sensational reviews and boxoffice. Thus, when watching the show, it's from an interesting perspective, as the director admits he doesn't know how well his ambitious film will be received. In fact, "Butch Cassidy" would help to not only reinvent the Western in a hip, funny manner but would also inspire the countless "buddy" movies that would follow in its wake. They would all feature characters patterned after Butch and Sundance's habit of making quips even in the face of deadly threats. 

The program provides a master class in filmmaking, demonstrating how many talented people are crucial to bringing a movie to the screen. In this case, Hill constantly refers to the contributions of cinematographer Conrad Hall, already an esteemed industry veteran and composer Burt Bacharach, who decided to go with a contemporary-sounding score that worked surprisingly well. Hill's commentary isn't sanitized (though his expletives most certainly would have been censored for T.V. broadcast.) The challenges he faced are made clear starting with stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who were to play inseparable best friends. In real life, the two actors had not known each other prior to filming. Luckily, they bonded immediately. Hill seems to have been not so enamored with his leading lady, Katharine Ross, who he alludes to having some frustrations with and dismisses with some faint praise, not to be mentioned again despite being shown throughout the program. Hill demonstrates how he was open to hearing creative suggestions from his stars and sometimes going with their judgment. 

The most enjoyable aspects of the program, which was impressively directed by Robert Crawford, Jr., is the way it demonstrates the monotonous aspects of movie-making, which quickly strips the glamour away. If you have ever watched a major movie being filmed then you know most of the time is spent just waiting around as the director, actors and technicians discuss strategies and even the seemingly easy scenes require a great deal of preparation and the involvement of countless professionals. Hill also points out the magic of filmmaking through the use of deceitful methods. When Butch and Sundance make their famous jump into the rapids, the stars were filmed atop a cliff in Colorado but the actual jump was shot with two stuntmen at the famed Fox Ranch studio set in California, using the same lake where scenes from "Our Man Flint" and "Planet of the Apes", among countless others, were filmed.

George Roy Hill and his stars and crew thought they had a winner with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". They were probably wrong only in the sense that it transcended being a hit and became an all-time classic, reaffirming Paul Newman as an endurable leading man and launching Robert Redford to superstardom. None of them would realize that their second act would be even bigger, with their combined talents reunited for the Oscar winning Best Picture "The Sting" four years later.

Announcement from Imprint Films: 

Three Limited Edition Hardboxes, all strictly limited to 1500 copies each.

Pre-order now at www.imprintfilms.com.au - available individually, in an exclusive Bundle Pack, or in a MEGA Bundle Pack with all TEN July releases - shipping free internationally and presenting a saving of AUD $100. 

MALCOLM X (1992) ??

Denzel Washington stars in Spike Lee’s visionary biopic of civil rights activist Malcolm X, joining the Imprint collection in 4K UHD with Dolby Vision.

Praised by endless key filmmakers and critics, including Martin Scorsese and Roger Ebert, this masterpiece of cinema is a unique, essential, confronting vision of history, identity, and revolution.

Including brand NEW and archival Special Features.

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IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967) ????

In HDR and Dolby Vision for the first time worldwide!

Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger star in the mystery crime thriller In The Heat of The Night, joining the Imprint collection in 4K UHD with Dolby Vision.

The winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards, In The Heat Of The Night is a powerful examination of dignity and prejudice, becoming a staple of Hollywood that retains its longevity to this day.

Includes a Hardback Booklet and hours of Special Features.

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MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) ????

Worldwide first on 4K UHD!

"I'm walkin' here!"

Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight star in the undisputed classic drama Midnight Cowboy, making its worldwide debut on 4K UHD with Dolby Vision.

The winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Midnight Cowboy has achieved a legacy like few other films. A dissection of the nostalgia of the New York nightmare, this raw, uncompromising picture takes you inside the minds of two desperate men chasing dreams in a city that offers none.

Includes a brand NEW Audio Commentary, and the worldwide Blu-ray debut of 2022 feature documentary Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy.

(Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter for your local currency.)

Here is  rare behind the scenes production featurette for "4 for Texas", the 1963 Western comedy that starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ursula Andress, Anita Ekberg and Charles Bronson under the direction of Robert Aldrich. Click here to order the DVD from Amazon.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Warner Bros.:

THE ALTO KNIGHTS 

The Biographical Crime Drama Starring Robert De Niro and Directed by Barry Levinson Debuts on Digital on April 11 

Blu-ray and DVD Arrive on May 27 

Burbank, CA, April 10, 2025 – From Warner Bros. Pictures, “The Alto Knights,” starring Academy Award winner Robert De Niro in a dual role and directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson, will debut Digitally at home on April 11. 

The film follows two of New York’s most notorious organized crime bosses, Frank Costello (De Niro) and Vito Genovese (De Niro), as they vie for control of the city’s streets. Once the best of friends, petty jealousies and a series of betrayals place them on a deadly collision course that will reshape the Mafia (and America) forever. 

“The Alto Knights” was written by Oscar nominee Nicholas Pileggi (“Goodfellas”) and produced by Oscar winner Irwin Winkler (“Rocky,” “Goodfellas”), Levinson, Jason Sosnoff, Charles Winkler and David Winkler, with Mike Drake executive producing. 

De Niro stars alongside Debra Messing (“Will & Grace”), Cosmo Jarvis (“Sh?gun”), Kathrine Narducci (“The Irishman”) and Michael Rispoli (“Billions”), along with Michael Adler (“Peppermint”), Ed Amatrudo (“Till,” “Nashville”), Joe Bacino (“Kick-Ass”), Anthony J. Gallo (“The Irishman”), Wallace Langham (“Ford v Ferrari”), Louis Mustillo (“Cooper’s Bar,” “Mike & Molly”), Frank Piccirillo, Matt Servitto (“Billions”) and Robert Uricola (“Raging Bull”). 

Joining Levinson (“Rainman,” “The Natural,” “Wag the Dog,” “Good Morning Vietnam”) behind the camera are Oscar-nominated director of photography Dante Spinotti (“The Insider,” “L.A. Confidential”), production designer Neil Spisak (the “Spider-Man” films, “Dopesick”), Oscar- nominated editor Douglas Crise (“Babel,” “Dopesick”), Oscar-nominated costume designer Jeffrey Kurland (“Bullets Over Broadway,” “Tenet”), award-winning casting director Ellen Chenoweth (“Past Lives”) and composer David Fleming (“Hillbilly Elegy,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”). 

·         On April 11, “The Alto Knights” will be available Digitally at home on participating digital platforms including Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Fandango at Home, and more. 

·         On May 27, “The Alto Knights” will be available to own on Blu-ray and DVD from online retailers. “The Alto Knights” will also continue to be available in high definition and standard definition from participating digital retailers. 

DIGITAL ELEMENTS 

“The Alto Knights” Digital contains the following special features:   

·         One Legend, Two Mobsters - Featurette 

Click here to order from Amazon

Here's a sneak peek at the forthcoming 4K UHD release of Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars" Arrow Films UK release. It will be followed by releases of "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". The releases will include both legacy and new bonus materials.

Click here to pre-order

Cinema Retro has received the following press release: 

Oak Tree Books Acquires Cold War-to-Hollywood Memoir from Lidia Hitchcock

A GRIPPING BLEND OF COLD WAR INTRIGUE AND HOLLYWOOD REVELATIONS
INCLUDES CANDID ANECDOTES FEATURING STARS LIKE TOM CRUISE, LEONARDO DICAPRIO, AND SEAN CONNERY. PLUS LEGENDARY DIRECTORS STANLEY KUBRICK AND BRIAN DE PALMA.

PUBLISHING SEPTEMBER 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oak Tree Books has acquired worldwide rights to Escape to Hollywood, the memoir of Lidia Hitchcock, an Eastern-bloc film production manager who fled communist Prague and went on to build a prolific career working behind the scenes on major Hollywood blockbusters. The book was written with entertainment writer Gareth Owen.

Encouraged by Barbra Streisand, Hitchcock spent years planning her escape from Czechoslovakia before arriving in the West and building herself a new life. Over time, Lidia worked her way up to become a key figure in the production of blockbusters such as Cast Away, The Man In The Iron Mask, and the Mission: Impossible series. Lidia’s candid, often humorous memoir includes behind-the-scenes stories of working with Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Connery, Richard Gere, and Tom Hanks, as well as legendary directors Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma, and John Woo.

“This is the story I wanted to write for a long time, but never came to be until now,” says Lidia Hitchcock. “This account is a true story with nothing added or glamorised.”

Rights to the book were acquired directly from the author by Oak Tree Books publisher and CEO, Paul Andrews. Escape to Hollywood will be published in September 2025 and will feature more than 50 personal and production photographs.

“Lidia’s story is fascinating,” says Paul Andrews, publisher and CEO of Oak Tree Books. “It’s a Cold War escape thriller, a Hollywood ‘making of’, and a personal journey of resilience all in one. Her unique perspective working on some of the biggest movie productions offers insight, humour and humanity in equal measure. We’re honoured to be publishing Lidia’s remarkable memoir.”
Escape to Hollywood is a story that only Tinseltown could produce — a candid peek beyond the bright lights and red carpets, with a star-studded cast that would be the envy of anyone in show business.


About Lidia Hitchcock

Lidia fled communist ruled Prague in the 1980s in an edge-of-seat escape which was three years in the planning, and from arriving in the UK with little more than the clothes she stood in, Lidia went on to carve a very successful career in movies (behind the scenes) working on sone of Hollywood’s biggest hits, and ultimately marrying the head of Warner Bros. production, Paul Hitchcock.

Escape to Hollywood is Lidia Hitchcock’s first book.

About Oak Tree Books

Since the year 2000, Oak Tree Books — Andrews UK’s premium imprint — has all new high-quality titles, covering a range of genres from biographies, fantasy, horror and so much more! We also publish or re-publish often beloved books of characters and brands from to 70s and 80s for that nostalgic feel everyone adores.

About Gareth Owen

Gareth Owen is an entertainment writer and author who has collaborated with some of the biggest names in Hollywood on their memoirs.

By Todd Garbarini

A pilot for a television series that never got off the ground (no pun intended) and, perhaps mercifully, remained confined to the launchpad (still, no pun intended!), Tom Gries’s Earth II (1971), while boasting some above-average special effects clearly inspired by Douglas Trumball’s work on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), to say nothing of the casting of 2001 stalwart Gary Lockwood in a major role, begins promisingly and ends with a whimper. The central conceit behind the film is both admirable and hopeful. Taking place following the successful 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing (which on the surface – there’s that pun again – was taking a “giant leap for mankind” but actually designed to make America outshine the Soviets), a group of astronauts and citizens from around the world rally to create a separate nation aboard a space station called Earth II, itself a sovereign entity possessing inclusion in the United Nations. I can see Elon Musk championing a similar scenario with Space X in his on-going desire to save humanity by colonizing Mars. Earth II’s raison d’etre is in performing scientific research to benefit those back on Earth. David Seville (Gary Lockwood), not to be confused with the singer known for his association with Alvin and the Chipmunks (though in retrospect it would have made the whole affair far more entertaining if he was involved!), is the aloof leader of this project. Earth II is comprised of colleagues who work in a democratic fashion with all discussions being decided by the adult population on Earth. Weapons and references to violence of any kind have no place on Earth II. These notions come on the heels of John and Yoko’s “Give Peace a Chance” and harken back to Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series wherein our differences are what make us all human and deserving of celebration. That show was cancelled just two years earlier in a move that in hindsight was both foolish and short-sighted. Once the good intentions of the space station are set in place, you can bet your sweet bippy that trouble ahead is brewing. In this case, China deploys a nuclear warhead approximately 150 miles away with Moscow in its sights. In comes Frank Karger (Anthony Franciosa), who previously worked with Seville, to set things straight by creating a situation that locks horns with China. They debate as to whether or not they should force China’s hand and disarm the weapon themselves, however this can prove to be a conflict of interest behind Earth II’s sole reason for having been created in the first place. This is where the film falters as Karger’s well-meaning, but little-more-than-window-dressing wife Lisa (Mariette Hartley) takes it upon herself to dispense with the now onboard warhead. The idea is to direct it into the sun where it will melt prior to detonating. Unfortunately, she fails to consider the gravitational pull of Earth on the warhead, and this creates much tension to get the warhead back on track when her maneuver is discovered as it is now hurtling towards Earth instead. Care to guess how the movie ends?

Earth II, which aired on the ABC Sunday Night Movie on November 28, 1971, is now available on Blu-ray in a beautiful transfer from the Warner Archive. I have no recollection of ever having heard of or read about this tele-film despite it reportedly being produced with the full cooperation of NASA. The film suffers most through the long-winded and technical expository dialog scenes. Actor Lockwood reportedly had disdain for it for this very reason. Anthony Franciosa, a favorite of mine from the time that I saw him as author Peter Neal in Dario Argento’s Tenebre (1982), provides the film’s best performance as he challenges the status quo in favor of what he believes is right and just. The superior Gene Roddenberry-helmed The Questor Tapes (1974) would come along three years later, and that title is available from Kino Lorber.

Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin provides a decent score for the film, and if you are a fan of it, it was released on compact disc in 2010 by Film Score Monthly in their five-disc MGM television music compilation called TV Omnibus: Volume One (1962 – 1976).

Earth II is framed at 1.33:1, however the trailer is 16x9 and runs nearly three minutes. There are no other special features on the region-free disc, and it would have been nice to have had an audio commentary from either someone affiliated with the film or a film historian as, despite the many flaws, there is still much to admire here if you are a fan of outer space fare.

Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store

By Lee Pfeiffer

If you are a Cinema Retro reader, I'll go out on a limb and assume you are familiar with John Ford's 1956 masterpiece "The Searchers". The film was a hit when it opened but didn't gain the stature of being a classic until years later. Over time, film scholars began to reassess the movie and proclaimed it to be perhaps Ford's greatest work. Not surprisingly, the film has proven to be very popular over the decades in every manner of "new technology" video from VHS to laser disc to DVD and Blu-ray. In fact, Warner Brothers' Blu-ray editions have seemed to be as close to perfect as anyone could ask for. But now the much-beloved boutique label the Warner Archive has released the film as their premiere 4K edition.To be candid, there are perfectly reasonable debates ongoing in the video collector's communities about whether 4K upgrades are worth the investment, if one already possesses the Blu-ray release. The answer is: it depends on the release and your enthusiasm for the title. To be sure, there are plenty of 4K titles that can understandably be deemed to be not worth the cost of upgrading. However, "The Searchers" most certainly is. From the opening credits, which are simply titles that play out over artwork of a plain adobe brick wall, it becomes clear that this is as close to home video perfection as you will ever see. The opening frames of John Wayne's Ethan Edwards approaching the ranch house, photographed from a distance by the legendary Winton C. Hoch, are enough to make you tear up at the sheer beauty of the presentation...and things only get better from there. 

As is undoubtedly the case with many of our readers, I have seen "The Searchers" in every format numerous times, including on the big screen at festivals and art houses. I have to say that watching the Warner Archive 4K renewed the excitement of watching the film, making all aspects of this tale of tragedy and retribution seem as fresh as ever, thanks in no small part to Max Steiner's emotionally moving score. The 4K edition includes a remastered Blu-ray and ports over the legacy bonus features from previous editions including

• An audio commentary by director Peter Bogdanovich, one of the few people who could get John Ford to sit for an interview. Ford was known to be cantankerous with journalists and when he wasn't insulting them, he was providing a good deal of Irish blarney in telling tall tales that were a distortion of how some of his films were made. However, he liked Bogdanovich, who was a young man when he befriended Ford. Consequently, Bogdanovich's commentary is essential to understanding both Ford and "The Searchers".
  
• "A Turning of the Earth", the superb 1998 "making of" documentary by the late, great Nick Redman and his partners Brian Jamieson and Vince Stancarone.
• A 1996 on location introduction by Patrick Wayne, who recalls playing a supporting role in the film.
• A series of B&W T.V. promotional shorts about the filming of "The Searchers" from its initial release. Hosted by Gig Young, the staging is hokey and quite unintentionally funny with Young pretending he is actually at Monument Valley, when it's all too clear he is in a small studio set. Young's "location" appearances are interwoven with some valuable behind the scenes footage of the movie, so there's more value to these segments than the chuckles they evoke.
  
• The original theatrical trailer.
  

6-FILM JAMES BOND COLLECTION

(Cinema Retro's Author's Corner column invites authors to provide personal insights into their latest book.) 

By Thomas D. Clagett

“The French Connection has a street language no one can write,” said William Friedkin who won an Academy Award for directing that film, a police thriller about a New York City narcotics detective named Popeye Doyle investigating a massive drug smuggling operation. When I saw it, I knew Friedkin was a director to watch.

His next film was The Exorcist. This was not a horror film to me. It was a profound struggle between good and evil. After seeing it, I couldn’t stop wondering how Friedkin had done it.

Then he produced and directed Sorcerer. It remains, for me, one of the most muscular, visceral films ever made.

Friedkin made these three films back-to-back-to-back. The idea of writing a book about his films had taken hold. The reason is, I love movies; always have, and no one had done a thorough study of Friedkin’s films. I believe The French Connection, The Exorcist and Sorcerer are films as important and as significant as Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch.

When I met Friedkin at his office in Burbank in September of 1979 to discuss my proposal of a book on his films, he said he was not interested in participating “unless it’s honest, otherwise it’s just a waste of my time.” Relieved, I assured him that a serious study was exactly what I wanted to do. He then asked me what I thought of his films. I told him I had not yet seen his early documentary or television work. Then I began naming off his films, telling him what I liked, did not like, and briefly why. I felt nervous. He had asked for honesty. It was too late to stop now, and I wasn’t going to lie to him. He sat behind his desk, listening quietly, never looking away from me. When I finished, he said, “That sounds fair. I’d agree with that assessment.” So began years of research for this book.

I interviewed Friedkin and nearly 100 of his colleagues. They included producers, screenwriters, actors, cinematographers, production designers, film editors, costume designers, choreographers, assistant directors, location managers, key grips, property masters, sound mixers, sound effects editors, assistant film editors and more. All had stories to tell.

A brief sampling:

“There is a very fine line as to how far realism can go, and that fine line is what Billy was after,” said Marcel Vercoutere, special effects man on The Exorcist. “That was the reason we tested the exorcism effects and checked the makeup before we started shooting. That’s what was worrying him¾if they were believable.”

On The French Connection, William C. Gerrity, the first assistant director, recalled that Friedkin wanted the Brooklyn Bridge tied up with traffic for the climax to a scene where Doyle and his partner Russo are tailing a drug dealer. “We had no permission to do this, of course,” Gerrity said. “I said to Billy, ‘This is rush hour, kiddo. We can’t do this. We’ll be in trouble.’ He said, ‘I don’t care what it is. I don’t care how you do it. I want this bridge tied up, and I want them stuck in traffic, and I want to see the heavy get away,’ So we took two of our cars, faked them to be broken-down, and created such a traffic jam that we had traffic backed up from Brooklyn to Queens and, I think, everyplace else. The cops didn’t take too lightly to that.”

For The Brink’s Job, property master Barry Bedig said that “Billy wanted a horse-drawn beer wagon for a scene. I said, ‘We better get a horse from New York or Hollywood so it won’t spook.’ Billy said, ‘No, there’s millions of horses here in Massachusetts.’ This was a night scene that took hours to light. Billy says it would be great to have this horse pull the wagon out and we pan the car in. Well, there was this arc light staring at this horse. Sure enough, the horse spooked. Billy said, ‘Barry, what the fuck is wrong with this horse?’ Everybody is silent. I said, ‘Billy, I don’t know. I can only get the horse. You teach it to act.’ He just started laughing. And we got a horse from New York.”

On Killer Joe, Caleb Deschanel, the cinematographer, recalled the time “shooting a scene outside where a truck pulls up and we caught the reflection of the camera on the truck. I went to Billy when the take was done and I said, ‘You got to reshoot because we can see the camera reflected in the truck,’ and he said, ‘Don’t you realize that everybody out there knows we use cameras to make movies?’”

After the critical and commercial failure of Sorcerer, Bud Smith, who edited the film, recalled Friedkin saying to him, “You know, Bud, if it had been a success, we’d have gone back to the jungle and tried to make another film, a better one.”

Friedkin, long recognized for his dark, aberrant, visceral films, had a career that spanned more than 60 years (he died on August 7, 2023) and was marked by some of the most contentious and compelling successes and failures in American cinema.

Along with The French Connection, The Exorcist and Sorcerer, Friedkin’s films include The People Versus Paul Crump, an early documentary that saved a man’s life from the electric chair, Good Times (Friedkin said, “If I could I’d burn the negative...”), The Boys in the Band (“I had no particular desire to make a film about homosexuals,” Friedkin recalled. “It was just the best script to come to me at that time.”), Cruising (“The only faults Friedkin sees in ‘Cruising’ are his own inadequacies as a filmmaker,” said the Los Angeles Times), Deal of the Century (“Not every film works” goes the saying in Hollywood), To Live and Die in L.A. (“Coming off of Deal, Billy wanted to make a statement that hard-hitting filmmaking is his forte,” said Bud Smith, film editor), Bug (Friedkin called it “a comedy, pitch-black, … certain to offend audiences, even as it challenged their expectations”), Killer Joe (“The most disturbing film I’ve ever made,” Friedkin said), and his last film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial about which actor Keifer Sutherland said, “Working with William Friedkin was one of the great honors of my life.”

Back in 2003 when the 2^nd edition of my book was published, I sent Billy two copies. One I had inscribed thanking him for his help and encouragement, and the other I asked if he would sign for me. He did, and this is what he wrote: “To Tom - Who knows more about me than I do.”

I hope he would feel the same way about this third and final edition.

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(Mark Cerulli and Luciana Paluzzi. (Photo: Mark Cerulli).

 Cinema Retro's Mark Cerulli was invited to cover the world premiere 4K restoration of "Thunderball" at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in L.A. Here is his report:

Have you ever wanted to take a time machine back to the 1960s, even for a couple of hours? Turner Classic Movies (TCM) gave a Hollywood audience the chance last Friday when it premiered a brand new, pristinely restored 4K transfer of Thunderball as part of their annual TCM Classic Film Festival at the famous Chinese Theater. For two blissful hours, current turmoil and the price of eggs were left behind as James Bond – played by a 35-year-old Sean Connery at the top of his 00 game – saved the world from a nuclear plot. Even though it screened at 9AM, the theater was almost at capacity with a very vocal crowd that applauded the opening and closing credits and almost everything in between. The restored colors were vibrant and crisp, the underwater sequences looked stunning and were even better on a giant screen. The sound effects and, of course, John Barry’s magnificent score practically shook the seats.

(TCM host Eddie Muller interviews Luciana Paluzzi. (Photo: Mark Cerulli).

The entire Bond team was firing on all cylinders for this film, and it showed. After Goldfinger’s huge success, United Artists and the producers realized they had lightning in a bottle, so they lavished over $6M on the film – which grossed over $141M in 1965 dollars. The glimpses of an unspoiled Bahamas and a refined elegance that has faded from modern life are two of the film’s many attractions. Sadly, the original Café Martinique is long gone, Palmyra is in disrepair and the Coral Harbor Hotel is now a fenced off military property. Even Love Beach (where Vargas got the point) has been developed with houses on it. The sea wall Bond climbs on to observe Largo’s dive team is still standing in the sprawling Atlantis resort, but for how long?

After the screening, radiant Luciana Paluzzi joined for a quick Q&A with TCM's Eddie Muller. Smiling and full of energy at 87, she was only too happy to talk about making the film. Luciana was asked about working with Connery, who she described as “a man’s man” who preferred going out to dinner with the production crew than attend the high-end parties that were offered by Nassau society during their three month stay. She also noted that she maintained a friendship with the star for decades after, visiting his New York townhouse and Bahamas home. Having missed the original 1965 release and the epic 1970 Thunderball/You Only Live Twice double-feature, I try to catch Thunderball on a big screen whenever I can. Once again, “The Biggest Bond of All” didn’t disappoint.

By Doug Oswald 

James Cagney demonstrates his martial arts skills in the 1945 thriller “Blood on the Sun,” available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. The film opens in 1929 Japan where newspaper man Nick Condon (Cagney) comes into possession of the Japanese plan for world domination, the Tanaka Memorial. What follows is Nick trying to stay one step ahead of the Japanese government agents as he attempts to get out of Japan alive with the infamous document. The crawl at the start of the movie sets things up with Baron Giichi Tanaka’s “plan of world conquest depends upon secrecy for success.”

Believed to be authentic due to the actions of the Japanese during this period, the authenticity of The Tanaka Memorial is questionable at best and is widely believed today to be a hoax created by the Chinese. The alleged plan was used for propaganda purposes by the Allies throughout WWII.

Nick is editor of the Tokyo Chronicle where he writes and prints a story critical of Japanese aggression in China and the region. Japan and America were still 12 years away from the war in the Pacific, but Japan was only a couple years away from the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 which was the start of their regional domination.

Nick is seen practicing his karate skills when we first meet him and is soon confronted by Japanese agents and their thugs regarding his article. Later, when confronted by the publisher, Arthur Bicket (Porter Hall), about the validity of the article, Nick tells him, “I’ll write a retraction when they prove the story is false.” Nick exposes the plan with no hard evidence, but the Japanese government is convinced he has proof which endangers Nick and those working for the newspaper.

Nick’s friend Ollie Miller (Wallace Ford) starts flashing cash around a bar and drunkenly announces he and his wife are leaving for America. This gets the attention of the Japanese agents and Nick finds Ollie’s wife, Edith (Rosemary DeCamp), dead onboard thei ship. Ollie soon turns up at Nick’s home dying of injuries he received earlier and hands Nick an envelope containing the plan for Japanese conquest. When the Japanese agents arrive, Nick hides the envelope behind a framed portrait of the emperor knowing they will not touch it. Nick gets to demonstrate his karate skills only to be overwhelmed and arrested. He’s roughed up and the charges make it seem he was drinking, and the Japanese agents hide all evidence of the murder of Ollie and his wife.

Nick meets Iris Hilliard (played by Sylvia Sidney), a mixed-race Chinese agent, who appears to working on behalf of the Japanese government, but who might also be a double agent. She’s working for Premier Giichi Tanaka (John Emery), who rewards her with expensive jewelry. It turns out the Japanese don’t really trust Iris and they discover she has the envelope with the document which Nick hid in his apartment.

Robert Armstrong features as the villainous Colonel Hideki Tojo. Armstrong is almost unrecognizable beneath his makeup and teeth prosthetics as is Marvin Miller as Yamada, Leonard Strong as Hijikata, Frank Puglia as Prince Tatsugi, and John Halloran as Captain Oshima. The white elephant in the room is that all the actors playing the major Japanese characters are white actors wearing so called “yellow face” make-up. This was common for this period and the movie must be viewed with this in mind. Uncredited are two of the few Asian actors in the cast, Philip Ahn as Secret Police Captain Yomamoto and Joseph Kim as Hayoshi.

Also going uncredited is Hugh Beaumont as the deputy ambassador Johnney Clarke. Beaumont is mostly remembered today as the dad in “Leave it to Beaver.” However, did you know he’s the voice used on the recording for the U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock? I checked and his voice is still being used. I’ll always remember him from my Air Force days synchronizing our clocks at base operations.

James Cagney is one of the Hollywood greats and he’s excellent in this movie. The finale includes a three-minute fight scene in which Cagney demonstrates his martial arts prowess for the third and final time. The movie ends with Cagney saying to his Japanese foes, “Forgive your enemies, but first get revenge.”

Sylvia Sidney is another Hollywood great who continued to appear in films well into the 1990s including “Damien: Omen II” in 1978 and two by Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice” in 1988 and “Mars Attacks” in 1996. Rosemary DeCamp played Nellie Cohan, Cagney’s mother in the 1942 release “Yankee Doodle Dandy” despite being 11 years younger than Cagney. She appeared in many movies and TV series including “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” as Buck’s mother in 1981.

Released months prior to the Japanese surrender, “Blood on the Sun” is a thriller that would have been more effective as propaganda if it had been made in the late 1930s or early 1940s. The film is directed by Frank Lloyd, who is probably best remembered as the director of the 1935 version of “Mutany on the Bounty” with Clark Gable and written by Lester Cole, Nathaniel Curtis and Garrett Fort. Fort is best remembered for his writing credits on “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” in 1931. The film was produced by William Cagney, James’s brother, for their production company and was released by United Artists. The score is by the great Miklos Roza and it’s a good one. The movie entered the public domain in 1973 and made the rounds on broadcast television and home video in copies made from inferior release prints. Kino Lorber does the film justice with a very nice release on Blu-ray that looks and sounds terrific, clocking in at 89 minutes.

The Kino Lorber disc contains an audio commentary by film historian and writer Julie Kirgo and writer and filmmaker Peter Hankoff. Kirgo has provided dozens of enjoyable and entertaining audio commentaries for a wide variety of Blu-ray releases in addition to her many film essays. Hankoff is probably best known as the producer of two outstanding WWII documentaries, “The Cold Blue” and “Apocalypse ’45.” Hankoff and Kirgo make a great commentary team and provide insides into the production, the actors and the historical context of the period. Their commentary alone is worth the price of the disc. The disc also contains trailers for this and five other Kino releases. Highly recommended for fans of Cagney, early film noir and pre-WWII history.

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“SOUTHERN JUSTICE?”

By Raymond Benson

The final picture directed by the great William Wyler, The Liberation of L. B. Jones, is indicative of the type of “social awareness” films that Hollywood was making at that time, mainly between 1967 – 1973. These were movies that cast spotlights on such topics as racial injustice, civil rights, the Vietnam War, student unrest, and more controversial themes.

More interesting than the film itself is the trajectory of the author of the novel from which it was based, Jesse Hill Ford. Ford, who resided in a small town in Tennessee, published The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones in 1965 and it became a bestseller. But it was allegedly loosely based on people in the town, and they didn’t approve. When the movie came out in 1970, it poured salt on the wound. Ford found himself to be ostracized in his hometown. His own shooting of a Black man in his driveway found the author accused of murder—and then he became the recipient of the kind of “Southern justice” that he had written about in his novel (he was found “not guilty”—of course, Ford was white). Ford’s writing career faltered and years later the man ended his life by suicide.

Ford co-wrote the film’s screenplay with none other than Stirling Silliphant, who had won a writing Oscar for In the Heat of the Night (1967), another tale of “Southern justice” and a major Hollywood entry about racism in America. Suffice it to say that The Liberation of L. B. Jones is no In the Heat of the Night, although it attempts to be.

One of the problems—of the film, at least—is that there is no protagonist per se. Lee J. Cobb has top billing as the “mildly” racist attorney who handles many cases for the Black population in town. Prominent African-American actor Roscoe Lee Browne portrays the title character, L. B. Jones, and he is the man with whom the filmmakers want the audience to sympathize. But poor Mr. Jones is not with us for the entirety of the film. Other important characters are portrayed by a young Anthony Zerbe, Lola Falana, Lee Majors, Arch Johnson, and Yaphet Kotto, but none of them can claim the protagonist slot. Barbara Hershey and Brenda Sykes also make notable appearances.

Lord Byron Jones (Browne) is a wealthy Black undertaker in town. He has a young wife, Emma (Falana), who is having an affair with white, racist cop Willie Joe Worth (Zerbe). Jones hires Oman Hedgepath (Cobb) to represent him in divorce proceedings. But Emma hires her own lawyer, hoping to get a payout from Jones. The problem is that a divorce trial would reveal the affair between the white cop and the Black woman, which would cause Worth to lose his job (and he’s married with kids, too). Instead, Worth and his cop buddy, Stanley Bumpas (Johnson), take it upon themselves to “convince” Jones to drop the divorce. Naturally, the situation goes from bad to tragedy. In the meantime, a vengeful Sonny Mosby (Kotto) has returned to town with a gun in hand, hoping to extract payback from Bumpas for a long-ago unjust crime against him and his family.

The thrust of the picture is to show how, even in the late 1960s when the movie takes place, justice in the south is more of a “white justice.” Murders of Black citizens can be swept under the rug by all the white politicians, attorneys, and law enforcement personnel. The corruption here goes all the way up to the town’s mayor (played by Dub Taylor), and even the attorney we were hoping would stand up for Jones—Hedgepath—fails us.

Wyler and his screenwriters want the audience to feel outrage at the proceedings, and we do, but unfortunately there is no payoff in the film. It simply leaves us with the notion that this is the way things are and there’s nothing that can be done about it. It is no wonder that the movie was a critical and box office failure, despite strong performances by the entire cast and the well-meaning intentions of the filmmakers. That said, the movie manages to hold interest today, is never boring, and it gives us a look at many younger actors who went on to do bigger and better things.

Imprint (ViaVision) gives us the first Blu-ray release of the film in a wonderfully-restored high definition presentation that accents that early 1970s film stock look. There are no other supplements included on the region-free disk.

The Liberation of L. B. Jones could be of interest to fans of any of the cast members, of director William Wyler, and of Hollywood racial injustice pictures of the period.

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Cinema Retro has received the following press release from TCM. 

Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) original limited series “Two for One” returns with 12 nights of brand-new double features curated by some of the most celebrated filmmakers in Hollywood beginning Saturday, May 3. Each week, TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz will be joined by legendary guests including Kathy Bates, John Carpenter, and Lin Manuel Miranda to introduce the two films of their choice, offering commentary on the pairing’s cultural significance, its influence on other films, behind-the-scenes stories, and their own personal reflections. “Two for One” also explores the history, artform and allure of the double feature, a staple of moviegoing for decades.

Two Films. One Legendary Guest. Countless Stories.  

Film Schedule Below:

May

• Saturday, May 3 | Lin Manuel Miranda - The Bandwagon & All That Jazz  
• Saturday, May 10 | Jamie Lee Curtis - The Manchurian Candidate & Sweet Smell of Success  
• Saturday, May 17 | John Carpenter - Frankenstein & The Curse of Frankenstein  
• Saturday, May 31 | Kathy Bates - Bringing Up Baby & Stage Door 

June   

• Saturday, June 7 | Paul Giamatti - Carnival of Souls & Rosemary’s Baby  
• Saturday, June 14 | Brian Tyree Henry - Imitation of Life & The Learning Tree  
• Saturday, June 28 | Nathan Lane - Double Indemnity & Chinatown

July

• Saturday, July 5 | Joe Dante - The Night of the Hunter & The Fool Killer  
• Saturday, July 19 | Rosie Perez - Killer’s Kiss & The Harder They Fall

Visit tcm.com for more information on the full schedule, guests, and film information.  

“A CLERICAL ERROR”

By Raymond Benson

The Boulting Brothers (John and Roy) were a British filmmaking team (and identical twins!) active primarily in the 1940s and 50s. They mostly made acerbic satirical comedies, often with a social issue stance. They directed a handful of titles together, but usually either John or Roy would direct (Roy did the most), they both produced, and one or the other would contribute to the screenplays. Having formed their own production company, Charter Film Productions, in 1937, the brothers enjoyed a great deal of creative freedom and, at times, considerable success. Their films were not for everyone, but occasionally they made a classic.

Heavens Above! is a later period picture (1963) in which Peter Sellers stars as a vicar assigned to a small village. Other British character actors appear throughout, including Cecil Parker, Isabel Jeans, Eric Sykes, Miriam Karlin, Bernard Miles, Ian Carmichael, Irene Handl, Roy Kinnear, Miles Malleson, Kenneth Griffith, and others. African-American actor Brock Peters also has a strong supporting role and, given the setting and the rest of the all-white cast, he stands out a bit… on purpose.

Sellers is Reverend John Smallwood, a rather naïve but extremely sincere and pious prison chaplain. An administrative mistake (“I never thought of myself as a clerical error,” he would later say) sends him to be the vicar of the town of Orbiston Parva, when in fact a different Reverend John Smallwood (Carmichael) was supposed to have been given the job. The town is mostly supported (and run) by the wealthy Despard family, whose drug factory makes Tranquilax, a combination sedative, pain killer, and laxative. Money is what makes the town go ‘round, despite the presence of a rather large family of squatters, the Smiths, on land meant for company expansion. Sellers’ Smallwood immediately begins to chastise the town’s citizens for caring too much about money and citing Biblical passages to back up his sermons. At first the citizens are outraged by this upstart vicar telling them how to behave. When he hires a Black dustman (Peters) to be his church warden and then allows the Smiths—with all their many children—to live at the parish, things really get out of hand. But then Smallwood charms the Despard matriarch (Jeans) who decides to become charitable—an act that sends the company stock and sales plummeting. The citizens soon follow her lead and do the same. Suddenly, the commercial businesses of the town start failing, too… and an uprising against Smallwood begins. The archdeacon (Parker) and the bishop realize that a mistake has been made and then go about attempting to correct it.

The movie is indeed a sardonic and rather dark comedy about religion, politics, and charity versus capitalism. There is a lot being said in the film, much of which may make some of the more devout viewers uncomfortable. The others will be laughing aloud.

Sellers is surprisingly subdued here. He keeps his calm throughout, portraying a compassionate “good” man who is almost a foreshadowing of his Chauncey Gardiner in Being There (1979). He carries the picture with aplomb and confidence, a movie made just prior to his shot to international stardom in The Pink Panther (also 1963). Others, including Peters, Parker, Jeans, Kinnear, Malleson, Carmichael, and the adult Smiths (Sykes, Karlin, Handl) are all terrific and very funny.

Written by Frank Harvey and John Boulting, Heavens Above! is possibly one of the Boulting Brothers’ better pictures, although it feels a little too long—it could have perhaps lost a good twenty minutes and been just as effective.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release looks wonderful (the transfer is from StudioCanal) and comes with an audio commentary featuring authors and comedy historians Gemma and Robert Ross. The theatrical trailer and other Kino comedy trailers round out the package.

Heavens Above! is for fans of Peter Sellers, the Boulting Brothers, and British comedies of the 1960s.

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“SHE BOUGHT IT”

By Raymond Benson

NOTE: A few weeks ago we published a review of this title released by Kino Lorber Studio Classics. A different release from the excellent Australian label, Imprint, has offered another edition with the American Masters 2011 piece “Woody Allen: A Documentary” that we felt was worth reviewing. Much of the review of the film itself is repeated from Raymond’s earlier post.

Finally, after many years of the title being available only as a DVD, the Woody Allen classic comedy that’s not a Woody Allen film, Play It Again, Sam, is on Blu-ray, thanks to Imprint.

What did you say? you ask. That’s right. Woody Allen did not direct Play It Again, Sam. Herbert Ross, a renowned Broadway theatre dancer and choreographer who graduated to stage directing before moving into film, helmed the movie. Ross had previously directed the musical remake of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) prior to landing the job to direct Sam. Ross went on to direct such notable pictures as The Sunshine Boys (1975), The Turning Point (1977, an Oscar nominee), and The Goodbye Girl (1977, also an Oscar nominee).

But Woody Allen wrote it and stars in the film. It’s Allen’s sensibility all over it. It’s co-produced by Allen’s Rollins-Jaffe managerial production company. It’s a Woody Allen film in all but directorial credit. That’s not to say Ross didn’t do an excellent job adapting Allen’s stage play into a successful, popular film.

Yes, first it was a hit Broadway play in 1969. Its stars—Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, and Jerry Lacy—all moved over to the film’s cast. While much of the story’s action takes place in interiors (mostly apartments), director Ross managed to “open up” the material to include outdoor scenes and other locations such as bars and restaurants. Interestingly, the story takes place in San Francisco, not Allen’s familiar New York City!

The story focuses on Allan Felix (Allen), whose wife, Nancy (Susan Anspach), abruptly decides to leave him. Grieving and insecure, Allan leans on his friends Dick and Linda Christie (Roberts and Keaton) for emotional and social support. They are happy to help him, especially Linda. They try to fix him up with blind dates that don’t go too well (the one with Sharon (Jennifer Salt) is a particularly funny and memorable example). All Allan really wants is to “score” again to boost his fragile, shattered ego, and maybe—just maybe—fall in love with perhaps some reciprocity. A huge film buff, Allen gets advice from none other than a fantasy Humphrey Bogart (Lacy), who appears at various times to nudge him along. Bogart is one of Allan’s heroes (the movie begins with Allan rapturously viewing Casablanca in a cinema). As time goes on, though, (see what I did there?), Dick and Linda’s own marriage begins to show signs of fracturing due to Dick’s busy career and his tendency to put his job before his wife. Ultimately, Allan and Linda are drawn to each other. When they’re finally on the couch together in his apartment, Bogart insists that Allan deliver a corny, mushy line to her. He resists at first but finally he does… and she reacts favorably. “She bought it!” Allan deliriously exclaims to the audience. You can guess what happens next.

Play It Again, Sam was the first screen collaboration between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, and we can already see that this is a match made in heaven. The real life actors began dating during the run of the Broadway play in 1969 and they were a couple in the early 70s up to and including the making of this film. Afterwards, they split up but remained the closest of friends for the rest of their careers. The late Tony Roberts was also an integral part of this screen duo in these early years, appearing in several of Allen’s other pictures. It is the chemistry between these three actors that makes Play It Again, Sam such a delightful—and funny—motion picture.

Allen had directed two features prior to starring in this one, and he had already created for himself a screen persona best described as a Jewish, nebbish neurotic. His Allan Felix here solidifies that character, and one can argue that the actor/director played this character for the remainder of his career. While he delivers extremely witty and funny lines and displays priceless facial expressions, it’s notable that Allen engages in a great deal of slapstick—pratfalls and clumsy maneuvers that wreak havoc on his and others’ apartments. It’s easily one of Allen’s funnier performances.

Diane Keaton, a fairly new face on the screen at the time (it was the same year she appeared, virtually unknown, in The Godfather), is marvelous. She is so endearing, honest, gorgeous, and luminous, that it is no wonder that she became a star. Again, the rapport between Keaton and Allen is perfect. Of course, she would go on to make seven more films with Allen under his direction.

Tony Roberts is also hilarious, constantly having to phone the office to let them know where he is at a given time. “This is Mr. Christie. I’m no longer at 752-0420. I’ll be at 731-0711 for the next half hour, and then I’ll be at…” One might think this repetitive joke would get old, but it doesn’t. It becomes increasingly funnier as the movie goes on.

Being originally written as a play in 1969 and filmed in 1971 for release in 1972, yes, there are lines that some will consider inappropriate or politically incorrect today. But they are few and far between. For the most part, the dialogue is rich, intelligent, and very laugh-out-loud amusing. This is Allen’s writing at his best. And Ross’ direction isn’t bad at all.

Imprint’s all-region HD presentation is excellent. (Whether they used a different restoration of the film than the one by the earlier Kino Lorber release is unknown… to these eyes they are the same or very similar).

What elevates the Imprint edition is the inclusion of the excellent, over three-hour 2011 American Masters documentary film by Robert B. Weide, Woody Allen: A Documentary. This is perhaps the most intimate and close-up portrait of the writer/director/actor ever made. Presented in two parts, the documentary includes personal interviews with Allen, revealing his working habits and methods, interviews with key players in Allen’s life and career (his sister Letty Aronson, Diane Keaton, Louise Lasser, Tony Roberts, and many other actors; collaborators Gordon Willis, Juliet Taylor, Marshall Brickman, Douglas McGrath, and more; film critics Richard Schickel, Leonard Maltin, and more; Martin Scorsese, Dick Cavett, and other personalities. It’s a virtual treasure trove of New York and Hollywood talking heads who weigh in on Woody’s career.

Woody is candid about his relationship with Mia Farrow and what happened in 1992; however, the documentary was released prior to adult Dylan Farrow’s accusations… so this is not addressed. Primarily, though, the otherwise in-depth documentary dissects Allen’s Brooklyn upbringing, his early gag-writing and television years, the stand-up comedy era, breaking into films, and nearly a title-by-title retrospective discussion of Allen’s oeuvre.

Also included are several deleted scenes/outtakes from the documentary, including Allen amusingly answering “12 questions,” such as “What film do you like that you always defend and what film do you defend disliking?” An interview with director Weide is also part of the selection. Alas, there is no theatrical trailer on the Imprint edition.

In short, the inclusion of Woody Allen: A Documentary in this package is a must. Play It Again, Sam is for fans of Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, and early 1970s pictures that redefined the rom-com. Recommended.

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By Todd Garbarini

I was too young to watch Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. It was the sort of show that my parents forbade me to watch despite their never having seen it themselves. It was this “thing” that was on way too late and was occasionally referred to but never really talked about because the perception was that it was off-color and risqué. I only became aware of the cast members peripherally in the ensuing years when I saw scenes from John Landis’s Animal House (1978), Michael O’Donoghue’s Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979), Steven Spielberg’s 1941 (1979), and John Landis’s The Blues Brothers (1980) on television. Two of the show’s most popular segments, Mr. Bill, the clay figurine character, and The Coneheads both adorned elementary and middle school-aged students’ t-shirts for years. By the time I finally did manage to see new episodes in 1984, I felt that I was late to the party following the tragic passing of John Belushi in March 1982.

I became a fan of George Carlin that same year by collecting his comedy bits that were released by Flip Wilson and Monte Kay’s record label Little David Records (1969 – 1980) and was pleasantly surprised to see that he hosted the show’s premier episode on Saturday, October 11, 1975, originally simply titled Saturday Night. It is the 90 minutes preceding the show’s fateful debut that is the focal point of Jason Reitman’s frenetic 2024 film of the same name which posits a fictionalized account of creator Lorne Michaels’s full-steam-ahead mindset to create a show very few believed would make it past its first broadcast, let alone half a century.

Saturday Night, which opened, fittingly, on Friday, October 11, 2024 nationwide after limited runs in New York and Los Angeles, does an expert job of finding people who look very similar to the real-world counterparts they are portraying, in particular Dylan O’Bryan as Dan Aykroyd, Nicholas Podany as Billy Crystal, Nicholas Braun doing double duty as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, and Matt Wood as John Belushi. Gabrielle LaBelle, who portrayed Steven Spielberg’s alter ego Sammy Fableman in the 2022 film The Fablemans, based on Mr. Spielberg’s childhood, portrays Saturday Night’s creator, Lorne Michaels, racing between offices and sets while trying to placate the network suits and deciding which skits will make it to airtime and which will not. Fielding questions from staff members and dealing with lights that nearly kill two stars after they fall to the ground are just some of the situations he must deal with.

The action is shot on 16mm film, and it does a nice job of approximating the look and feel of the mid 1970s. I love the result. It possesses the type of visual warmth that one associates with film that is generally lacking from digital video recordings. The film was shot in continuity. Coming from a television production background at college and two local cable stations, I was thankfully never exposed to the stress levels as displayed onscreen here, however there were always jitters prevalent in the moments preceding a live broadcast. The film ends just before show time.

Saturday Night is now available on Blu-ray and comes with a wealth of extras. The cover art harkens back to the days of Mad Magazine with a Jack Davis-style collage of the onscreen characters. It reminds me of The Big Bus (1976) and Animal House (1978).

The audio commentary was recorded on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 on the Sony Lot, formerly the MGM Lot where The Wizard of Oz (1939) was filmed. Director Reitman explains that the film came about because he wanted to speak with the people who were in the building the night the show premiered and depict the hours before show time. What he found were different interpretations of people’s experiences, hence the loose fictionalized account of the transpiring events. He tells the story of how nobody he spoke to had the original script, except for Billy Crystal (who would join the show nine years later) from whom they copied and used in the film.

Cinematographer Eric Steelberg discusses the grain structure and the color palette of the films of the early 1970’s and how they approached capturing that in 16mm. They have succeeded smashingly.

Jess Gonchor is the film’s production designer who, along with sound mixer Steve Morrow, weigh in and discuss the challenges they faced regarding their contributions to the film. Saturday Night was shot on a set which was created with meticulous detail.

Trailers for the following films are included (strangely, no trailer for the title film featured): Gil Kenan’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014), Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money (2023), and Robert Zemeckis’s Here (2024).

The Making of the Movie of the Show That Almost Never Made It runs 16:23 and features comments from Jason Reitman, Gil Kenan, Gabrielle Labelle, Corey Michael Smith, Matthew Rhys, Ella Hunt, Matt Wood, Willem Dafoe, Lamorne Morris, Erica Mills, Joanne Perritano, Eric Steelberg, Dylan O’Brien, Cooper Hoffman, J.K. Simmons, Emily Fairn, Kim Matula, Rachell Sennot, Jason Blumenfeld, Jon Batiste, Danny Glicker, and Jess Conchor and provides interesting insight into how the film was made.

The Look of Saturday Night runs 2:10 and is an introduction to the characters in the film.

Super 8 From Studio 8H: Home Movies from the Set runs 4:49 and is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the cast and crew during breaks in the shooting schedule.

Creating Comedy Icons runs 10:52 and features the performers who portray Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Jim Henson/Andy Kaufman, Lorne Michaels, Rosie Shuster, Jacqueline Carlin, Dick Ebersol, and Billy Preston.

John Batiste: Scoring Live runs 1:21 and takes a much-too-short look at the creation of the score which elicits and complements the onscreen pandemonium.

The Blu-ray also contains a digital code for viewing through an app. 

It is worth nothing that Chevy Chase’s reaction to the film: he stated on the "Morning Joe" chat show that it is not an accurate account of what went on. Then again, how could it be if it was made by people who were not there? It is based on others’ recollections, and for that reason it is very entertaining.

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By Brian Hannan

This big-screen version of a small-screen hero is as pleasant a diversion as you can get. Nostalgia pretty much gives it a free pass and in any case the action, which punctuates the drama at regular intervals, was always going to be budget-restricted. Despite being in almost constant danger the insouciance of gentleman thief Simon Templar dictates that the pace is no more than languid.

As the title suggests, we’re in Mafia country, Templar (Roger Moore) drawn into a Cosa Nostra succession scenario as the result of a casual encounter with  former bank clerk Houston (Fulton Mackay), later found dead. Houston has cast doubts on the real identity of  Mafia Don Destiamo (Ian Hendry), one of several contenders to become the next Mafia overlord. Templar sneaks into Destiamo’s world by pursuing his niece Gina (Rosemary Dexter). Although outwardly respectable, Destiamo a bit too fond of using his cigar as a weapon of disfigurement, threatening his blonde English moll Lily (Aimi MacDonald) in this fashion.

Part of Templar’s attraction is that, although he has a nefarious side, he is happy to walk those mean streets and has a strict moral code. And he moves in such elevated circles that he has a nodding acquaintance with dying Mafia chieftain Don Pasquale (Finlay Currie) who has yet to pick his successor. The other part of his attraction is that he’s played with such suaveness by Roger Moore. For a good chunk of the time someone is trying to knife him, shoot him, blow him up, capture him, jab him with a truth serum, and generally trying to stop him. In fending off such attacks, or out-smarting the villains, there’s rarely a hair out of place. It’s not so much devil-may-care as devil-is-wasting-his-time with such an imperturbable fellow.

Although the action is pretty straightforward, Templar is not above a clever ruse – jamming a bus in a gateway preventing his pursuers continuing the chase – nor an old one such as tying sheets together to climb out of a window. While Malta stands in for Italy, the locations still look authentic enough, ancient stone buildings, the occasional horse pulling a cart. When the action/drama eases up, there’s always pleasant scenery.

Following MGM’s success in stitching together into a movie two episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television series (which of course had pinched the idea from Walt Disney’s cinematic re-presentation of Davy Crockett episodes) it was no surprise that ATV, then under the control of future movie mogul Sir Lew Grade (Raise the Titanic, 1980), decided to adopt the same idea. Although The Saint had been showing on British television since 1962, by the end of its run in 1969 it had stepped up to bigger budgets, 35mm and colour. Given each episode lasted around 50 minutes, it was relatively simple to devise a two-part programme shown over consecutive weeks on ITV in Britain and then release it throughout the rest of the world as a feature film. The first such project was The Fiction Makers (1968) followed by Vendetta for the Saint.

Roger Moore’s movie career had been in limbo since Romulus and the Sabines (1961) and there’s no doubt that his performance as Simon Templar and later in another glossier British television series The Persuaders (1971-1972) made him a candidate for James Bond. While his interpretation of Templar, especially the wry delivery, does bear some similarities to his incarnation as 007, that only holds true as long as you set aside the year’s supply of Brylcreem dumped on his hair, the shoulder-padded shoulders and the fact that he had not yet perfected his trademark move, the raising of the single eyebrow.

While no match for the quips prevalent in James Bond, Canadian screenwriter Harry W. Junkin – best known for his television work, his only other movies being a similar melding of television episodes of The Persuaders – and John Kruse (Hell Drivers, 1957) – had some neat one-liners. Despite the obvious limitations, director Jim O’Connelly (Berserk, 1967) does a decent enough job.

But Moore carries the show. Ian Hendry makes a passable villain but not a passable Italian. In general, not surprisingly since most characters were played by British actors, the accents are all over the place though Moore, courtesy of squiring Luisa Mattioli (later his wife) manages to deliver his Italian lines in an acceptable accent. Otherwise, the only one who comes close is Rosemary Dexter (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and that’s because she was Italian. Worth checking out in the supporting cast are Finlay Currie (Ben Hur, 1959) and Fulton Mackay (BBC series Porridge, 1974-1977).

You can find a lot wrong with this without looking very hard but if you switch off your over-critical faculties you will be pleasantly surprised.

(Brian Hannan is a columnist for Cinema Retro magazine. He also runs the web site The Magnificent 60s and is the author of numerous film related books including "The Making of The Magnificent Seven" which was adapted as special issue of Cinema Retro.) 

By Hank Reineke

It would be a stretch to accurately describe No. 1 of the Secret Service as the third of a series of five films featuring secret agent Charles Vine (aka “Bind”). In 1965 and 1966, at the zenith of the James Bond inspired spy-film boom, director Lindsay Shonteff would helm the first of these two Bond pastiches, Licensed to Kill (1965, aka The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World). Though Shonteff was not directly involved with the second of the series, Where the Bullets Fly (1966), both pictures showcased actor Tom Adams as a Connery-styled British secret agent. So it was surprising when, in 1976, Shonteff chose to resurrect the agent, a decade late of the once profitable and exploitable spy-film craze.

Technically speaking, British actor Nicky Henson’s spy, rechristened in No. 1 of the Secret Service as “Charles Bind,” is a different character all together. Though Henson reportedly signed a contract to reprise the role as agent Bind in two subsequent films, the actor, not unwisely, chose instead to return to the more dignified stratosphere of Shakespeare. Shonteff reportedly allowed Henson to break contract, unfazed by the actor’s departure. It was a minor annoyance. Shonteff was already plotting out Charles Bind’s next adventure, working titles provisionally sold as Number One in California or Orchids for No. 1.

Two years following No. 1 of the Secret Service, the director released his follow-up, now titillating titled Licensed to Love and Kill (1979, aka Undercover Lover and The Man from S.E.X.), with actor Gareth Hunt playing the role of Bind in a one-shot. Shonteff would helm one final spy comedy based on Vine/Bind character, Number One Gun (1990), with actor Michael Howe credited as a super spy simply referred to as “Number One.” Spy film wonks can argue over their vodka martinis whether or not these five films, strung-out over a period of twenty-five years, constitute an actual series. At the very least, one can say the films are cousins.

In the course of a ten-minute video essay included in this new Blu-ray set from Kino Cult, “The Irrepressible Lindsay Shonteff” (2024), writer-narrator Chris O’ Neill, helps set the stage of how No. 1 of the Secret Service came to fruition. The British studio film industry was suffering an acute economic downturn in the 1970s, production of higher-quality studio films in decline. This circumstance gave such savvy independents as the Canadian-born Shonteff open-door access to cinema bookings by delivering a stream of bankable low-budget – and sometimes tawdry - film product for exhibition. The gruff voiced Shonteff was neither an auteur nor a particular genre specialist: he churned out horror, western and war films, sex comedies and hippie-rock dramas in equal measure.

As there was a scarcity of roles available to actors due to the industry downturn, many well-respected players, by necessity, would take on roles not likely considered in better times. Taking advantage of the depressed economic situation, Shonteff managed to pull together an inarguable respectable cast for No. 1 of the Secret Service: a film which, quite frankly, was neither a particularly interesting nor reputation-enhancing project. In July of ’76 Shonteff hinted to Screen International, “We’re negotiating for what I think is a pretty exciting British cast. I can’t reveal the names until we finalise the three key performers we’re going for.”

Such negotiations broke his way. Shonteff’s greatest “coup” was convincing the dramatic actor Richard Todd – nominated by the Academy in 1950 as “Best Actor in a Leading Role” - to agree to appear in his film as the villainous Arthur Loveday. Nicky Henson (Charles Bind) and Aimi MacDonald (Anna Hudson) were perhaps not as famous as Todd, but were familiar faces to British television audiences. Other notables cast in supporting roles was Jon Pertwee (of Doctor Who fame) and Geoffrey Keen (“Rockwell,” as a Defence Minister at MI5). Keen, of course, soon afterward would play a very similar character (“Frederick Gray,” Minister of Defence) in six James Bond films.

As the starting date of production loomed, Shonteff – having recently suffered through a terrible critical response to his dramatic adaptation of Len Deighton’s Spy Story – was anxious to move on - and lighten things up. Though his 008 of the Secret Service (working title) was designed as just another James Bond knock-off, the director bragged he was determined his Charles Bind was “going to be every bit as good as the high-priced agent. We’ve got things in 008 that haven’t even been seen in features yet.”

The film was shot at a “frantic pace” as per documentarian O’Neill. Indeed, No. 1 of the Secret Service was shot in the spirit of “a live action cartoon,” with episodic sequencing ala a Looney Tunes “Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote” standoff. The film’s editor, John Luton, would describe Shonteff, both a friend and mentor, as a “low-budget guerilla filmmaker” and “rule-breaker,” a movie industry maverick who cut every potential corner possible. Shonteff shot his films entirely on location, sans soundstage rentals, formal permits or even with proper union cast and crew representation. Luton would describe Shonteff as a filmmaker “ahead of his time,” a “clever,” “good-hearted” boss with a “Mel Brooksian” sense of outrageous parody.

Luton first met Shonteff in 1966, having agreed to an uncredited actor’s casting in the director’s production of Run with the Wind. The twenty-one year old wasn’t particularly interested in acting: he was actually looking for industry entry as a prospective writer-editor. Luton would eventually accomplish his goal, successfully working in London as a television commercial editor. Luton’s very first opportunity to edit a feature film project came when Shonteff hired him to cut No. 1 of the Secret Service. The editor admitted to being a bit nonplussed when, after finishing his physical cut, discovered Shonteff went a bit overboard in post-production, looping in an assortment of crazy sound effects. Shonteff once humbly admitted to Luton of the artistic shortcomings of his oeuvre. They “Weren’t great pictures,” Shonteff reasoned, “but they were good enough.”

I suppose that assessment is a fair one. The scripting of No. 1 of the Secret Service is thin in construction, the storyline entirely subservient in tying together the film’s comedy and action sequences. The film’s screenwriter is credited as one Howard Craig, but it’s alleged this was simply Shonteff’s writing pseudonym. The project was something of a family affair, Shonteff’s wife, Elizabeth Gray, serving as the film’s producer. The plot revolves around the desire of multi-millionaire-villain Arthur Loveday to orchestrate the assassinations of high-finance figures. Loveday believes such men are crass arms profiteers, impediments to world peace.

By Hank Reineke

Singer-songwriter Janis Ian was born on 7 April 1951, the grandchild of Russian, Ukrainian and Polish immigrants. Her family would maintain a modest chicken farm in rural Farmingdale, New Jersey. As ancestors had suffered the indignities and harassments of pogroms directed at Jews in Czarist Russia, the American vision of both of her parents was of a democratic and just society that championed politically progressive ideals. As such, both her mother and father were actively involved in the civil and worker’s rights issues of the day. Sadly, these noble desires brought her father to the attention of the F.B.I. in the paranoid, dark days of the country’s McCarthyism. Though gifted on both piano and guitar and holding personal ambition to teach music, her father was unable to secure a tenured position in education due to F.B.I. interference in hiring.

With his great love of classic music and jazz, Ian’s father was the first to school his daughter on piano. Like many pre-teens of the era, Ian’s earliest music desire was to be a Beatle. But with the Cold War raging and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 offering fearful headlines, Ian began to tune into folk music orientated radio programs. She was introduced to - and greatly impressed by - the powerful voice of the folksinger Odetta whom she caught on a Harry Belafonte television program. Teaching herself guitar from her father’s copy of an old Lead Belly songbook, the young girl soaked in the musical influences surrounding her: a disparate mélange of blues, jazz, folk, classical and Elizabethan balladry.

Ian spent several summers at a children’s camp in upstate New York. It was there that she continued honing her guitar skills, discovering the solidarity of sing-a-longs when such politically left-performers as Pete Seeger would pass through to entertain the campers. Though Ian would leave high school while still in the tenth grade, she wrote songs almost from the beginning. Since she was musically gifted and well tutored, many of her compositions were more complex in structure than the usual three-chord bangs of her contemporaries on the folk scene. New York’s Broadside magazine was hosting Sunday afternoon singer-songwriter hootenannies at Greenwich Village’s Village Gate, the editors always interested in showcasing new artists. Though she was only thirteen-years-of-age, Ian was invited to the Gate to share the stage alongside the folk-singing, topical song heroes she had been listening to on radio: Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Len Chandler and Eric Anderson to name a few.

One of her earliest and most challenging songs was “Society’s Child,” a song addressing prejudicial attitudes regarding inter-racial relationships. Her talent was recognized immediately, one producer, George “Shadow” Morton, bringing her in for a formal audition. Though Atlantic Records had fronted the studio costs of producing Ian’s debut album, the label ultimately balked upon hearing “Society’s Child” and its AM radio-unfriendly, taboo subject matter. Though Morton was given permission to market the album to other interested parties, no fewer than twenty-two labels turned them down flat due to the inclusion of the controversial song. In 1966, the Verve Forecast label would formally sign Ian, releasing the artist’s first four albums and even bravely issuing “Society’s Child” as a 45rpm single.

The LP might have been lost in the shuffle of the folk-rock craze had it not been for the intervention of Leonard Bernstein, music director of the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein, a political liberal of note, would showcase Ian on an episode of his television program. Sales of Ian’s eponymously-titled album would soar due to the exposure. Not yet a seasoned stage performer, Ian found herself the scourge of racists who purchased blocks of tickets only to disrupt her concerts with bomb threats and angry shouts of “n****r lover.” Though shaken, Ian stood her ground, noting service and integrity was the responsibility of a true artist. Visiting the west coast, Ian was greeted warmly at Berkeley and made fast friends with the likes of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, both artists supportive of her vision and protective due to her young age.

Ian would move in and share a romantic relationship of four or five years with photographer Peter Cunningham, though she was already – perhaps not yet fully aware or accepting of it – bisexual. Comedian Bill Cosby caused her trouble early on by (falsely) outing her following their mutual appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The charge was brushed away and, at only seventeen years of age, Ian could already boast of a sold out concert at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall.

Shaken by the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968, a grieving Ian walked home sadly through Manhattan. A stranger offered her a consoling bottle of Coca-Cola, not telling her it was laced with acid. Ian would experience a particularly bad acid trip, hallucinating for four full days. She eventually needed the assistance of a Philadelphia-based psycho-therapist to help right her ship. She slowly returned to writing, Don McLean’s debut album - and particularly his Van Gogh tribute “Vincent” – having convinced her to re-focus her energies on songwriting.

Ian would record a trio of her best known albums for Columbia Records at 914 Studios in Blauvelt, NY, each under the direction of producer-engineer Brooks Arthur. The first of these, Stars (1974) burnished her songwriting credentials, several of her songs recorded by the likes of Cher, Roberta Flack, Nine Simone, Mel Torme and Glen Campbell amongst others. Her follow-up album, Between the Lines (1975) proved a true commercial breakthrough as the LP included Ian’s pensive and haunting “At Seventeen.” The song scored a #3 slot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, its success enabling an appearance on Johnny Carson’s late night talk show. Ian would later bring home the Best Pop Vocal Performance award at the annual Grammy Awards ceremony.

Ian would celebrate her twenty-first birthday on the west coast, entering into a new relationship with a woman. Though her sexuality was known to an inner-circle of close friends and collaborators, her personal life remained mostly off the media radar. That relationship would sadly be the first of a number of ill-fated pairings with partners of both sexes. Reflective of this difficult time, Ian’s third album for Columbia, Aftertones (1975) underperformed on the charts, her personal, elegant songs losing market vogue. Her relationship with Columbia cooled as the label turned their attention to such emerging rock-styled artists as Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.

There was a downturn in her professional and personal life. Producer Arthur and Ian would part ways following disagreement on the best path forward to promote her artistry. Then a headline-grabbing reporter publicly outed her bisexuality in a long piece published in the Village Voice. Ironically, that revealing article was published near the time the songwriter had separated from her partner, the girlfriend abandoning her for a male session drummer. Ian too would eventually meet (and marry) a man, but this relationship too would sour, this emotionally abusive husband even holding a gun to her at one point.

Cinema Retro has been made aware of a unique new book, "The Blofeld Files" by Peter Waelty and Stefan Appel, which chronicles the making of the 1969 James Bond classic "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". The book features Forewords by George Lazenby and Steven Saltzman and boasts over 700 photographs, many published here for the first time.

For full information and to order, click here.

By Fred Blosser

“The Black Tulip,” a 1964 release starring Alain Delon and Virna Lisi, is now available in a Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics. The film begins in 1789 as the French Revolution looms, a coming storm that the country’s counts, barons, and marquises casually dismiss. The lower classes simply need to be kept in line by hanging the troublemakers, they decide. A greater threat is the Black Tulip, a masked bandit who regularly stops their carriages and takes their valuables at sword-point. One nobleman, Baron La Mouche, suspects that the masked man is actually a fellow aristocrat, Guillaume de Saint Preux, and sets a trap to prove that his conjecture is right. When the Black Tulip attacks his coach, La Mouche crosses swords with him and slashes his cheek. The wound will mark de Saint Preux when the young man appears at the next dinner hosted by the Marquis de Vigogne. Exposing Guillaume as the bandit will make La Mouche a hero among his fellow patricians. It will also remove the handsome de Saint Preux as La Mouche’s primary rival for the sexual favours of the marquis’ wife, Catherine.

Fortunately for the one aristocrat and unfortunately for the other, Guillaume has a twin younger brother, Julien, on whom he prevails to take his place for as long as it takes his wound to heal. Guillaume needs Julien’s eyes and ears in de Vigogne’s inner circle so that he can plan his next robberies. The idealistic Julien admires Guillaume’s dashing personality and agrees to the scheme. The ruse enables the younger brother, who comes to sympathise with the common folk, to gather valuable intelligence for the rebels. Delon deftly plays both roles, or rather three roles: Julien, Guillaume, and Julien pretending to be Guillaume. Learning that royalist troops are on their way to suppress the uprising, Julien hopes that the shrewd, tactically minded Guillaume will help him foil the crackdown. But the cynical older brother throws cold water on his optimism. Guillaume reveals that he’s never had any sympathy for the underclass, and whatever wealth he steals from his peers, he keeps for himself. So it’s up to Julien to help the peasants without his experienced brother’s assistance.

“The Black Tulip” was widely released in Europe but a no-show in U.S. theaters, at a time when interest here in the swashbuckling genre pioneered by Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Fairbanks Jr., Errol Flynn, and Tyrone Power was at a low ebb. In the new Hollywood of the era, the French Revolution and costumed heroes were out, the sexual revolution and Brooks Brother suits were in. The genre would remain dormant for another decade, until the success of Richard Lester’s “The Three Musketeers” (1974) inspired a modest revival. Remakes of “The Three Musketeers” and other swashbucklers continue to appear sporadically, including parodies and oddities like “Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers” (1984), Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” (1993), and even “Barbie and the Three Musketeers” (2008).

The new Kino Lorber release of “The Black Tulip” will enable most viewers to see the movie for the first time. The opening credits cite Alexander Dumas as an inspiration for the premise and script, and indeed Dumas wrote a novel titled “The Black Tulip,” but as critic Simon Abrams observes in his audio commentary, the novel and the film have nothing in common but the title. Instead the storyline takes a little bit of this and a little of that from Dumas’ other popular works, from the swashbuckling fiction of his successors Rafael Sabatini, Baroness Orczy, and Anthony Hope, and especially from the five decades of earlier pictures based on those novels. Consequently, we have the lookalike imposter (“The Corsican Brothers,” “The Man in the Iron Mask,”“The Prisoner of Zenda”), the masked hero (any number of Zorro stories), and intrigue during the French Revolution (“Scaramouche,” “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” A Tale of Two Cities,” and two 1940s titles actually based if loosely on Dumas novels, 1945’s “The Fighting Guardsman” and 1949’s “Black Magic”). Some fans will have fun teasing out the influences, but others may conclude they’ve already been-there, done-that once too often, although counter-balancing assets include lavish production values and energetic performances by Delon, Lisi as Julien’s girlfriend Caroline in the rebel camp, Akim Tamiroff as the marquis, and Dawn Addams as his promiscuous wife. Fans of Girl Power will appreciate that the luminous Virna Lisi has as many scenes wielding a sword as Delon has, including a flirtatious match between Julien and Caroline in which she scores points as often as he does.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents “The Black Tulip” in its original French language version in a 2.20:1 aspect with sharp, rich cinematography and clear English subtitles. Besides Simon Abrams’ informative commentary, the disc includes the movie’s theatrical trailer and trailers for several other Alain Delon films on Blu-ray.

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(Fred Blosser is the author of "Focus on the Spaghetti Western #1:The Films of Tony Kendall". Click here to order from Amazon.)

“WHAT’S HE DOING ON A F-F-F-FORK LIFT TRUCK?”

By Raymond Benson

The Boulting Brothers (John and Roy) were a British filmmaking team (and identical twins!) active primarily in the 1940s and 50s. They mostly made acerbic satirical comedies, often with a social issue stance. They directed a handful of titles together, but usually either John or Roy would direct (Roy did the most), they both produced, and one or the other would contribute to the screenplays. Having formed their own production company, Charter Film Productions, in 1937, the brothers enjoyed a great deal of creative freedom and, at times, considerable success. Their films were not for everyone, but occasionally they made a classic… and I’m All Right Jack is absolutely one of them.

The picture did a great service for actor Peter Sellers, catapulting him into stardom on the British scene after a stellar radio career (The Goon Show) and several cinema appearances in the latter 1950s. Even though he didn’t have top billing, Sellers’ standout performance in Jack was noticed by Hollywood and, by 1963, he had migrated across the Atlantic.

I’m All Right Jack takes its name from a British slang phrase that is, according to Collins Dictionary, generally a smug remark that indicates complacent selfishness. The story has to do with the rather serious subject of unions in the U.K., and it’s a send-up of industrial working class sensibilities in the late fifties. It’s a sequel to the Boultings’ 1956 comedy, Private’s Progress, and Sellers’ costars, Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Terry-Thomas, Richard Attenborough, and Miles Malleson all reprise the roles they played in that picture. Sellers, though, won a BAFTA Best Actor Award for playing the trades union shop steward.

Stanley Windrush (Carmichael) is a well-meaning but ultimately naïve and oafish young man who wants a job in “industry.” After a few unsuccessful and comical landings at various factories, his uncle, wealthy Bertram Tracepurcel (Price) and his pal, Sidney DeVere Cox (Attenborough), push Stanley into an unskilled labor job at Tracepurcel’s missile factory. The union shop steward, Mr. Kite (Sellers) is at first in conflict with Stanley, but eventually becomes something of a mentor, even allowing Stanley to lodge at his home. There, Stanley becomes enamored with Kite’s daughter, Cynthia (Liz Fraser), and vice versa, much to Kite’s chagrin. However, the factory personnel manager, Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas) hits a roadblock with Stanley when the latter outperforms the other workers in a rigged time and motion study that was secretly instigated by Tracepurcel and Cox. When Hitchcock wants the rest of the workers to do as well as Stanley, Kite orders a general strike… which is what Tracepurcel and Cox want so that Cox’s own company can steal a lucrative contract with a Middle Eastern country. But soon tables are turned and all hell breaks loose among the trade unions… all over the country!

Yes, the plot is political and a bit complicated, but it also provides several scene-stealing moments for Sellers as he, at first, undergoes a slow burn, but then quickly escalates to red-faced anger (too bad the film is in black and white!). Carmichael, as Stanley, is the protagonist, though, and he, too, is quite winning as the insufferable fool who manages to be at the center of everyone’s frustrations. In fact, there are so many popular British character actors in supporting and cameo roles that anyone with a knowledge of UK cinema history will have a grand time spotting the players. Even Sellers pops up in a brief secondary role at the beginning of the movie.

Written by Frank Harvey and John Boulting with Alan Hackney, the dialogue is razor sharp. The film must have been considered for adults only at the time. One stuttering shop steward is aghast at seeing Stanley on the fork lift for the first time and shouts, “What’s he doing on a f- f- fork lift truck?” An opening scene at a nudist colony displays bare bottoms in the background action. And this was 1959!

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release is top-notch with an excellent transfer. It comes with an audio commentary by authors and comedy historians Gemma and Robert Ross. There is also an interview with actress Liz Fraser which highlights her roles in various British comedies of the era. The theatrical trailer for this and other Kino comedies round out the package.

I’m All Right Jack is for fans of Peter Sellers, other UK actors in the cast, British comedies, and the always interesting Boulting Brothers.

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