Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Warner Bros.:
THE ALTO KNIGHTS
The Biographical Crime DramaStarring 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:
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.
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.
David
Newman leads the NY Phil in a program that highlights the storytelling
power of John Williams's unforgettable soundtracks. Join us to celebrate
the music behind your favorite movie moments — Hedwig soaring above the
Hogwarts grounds, Indiana Jones saving the Ark of the Covenant, Elliott
riding his bike through the sky with E.T., and many more!
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
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.
Ford's film has aged very well indeed. Short of seeing the movie on the big screen, the Warner Archive 4K is a thing of beauty to behold....and yes, it's very much worth the upgrade.
Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store
Burbank,
CA (April 29, 2025) – THE
SEAN CONNERY COLLECTION fromMetro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), a
collection of six James Bond films starring Sean Connery as 007, will be
available to own on June 10 as a 4K UHD collection for the first time for the
ultimate at home movie-watching experience. The collection includes Dr.
No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You
Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever.
The
collection will be available in collectible steelbook packaging and as a
standard 4K collection.
These
six films will also be available on Digital from MGM.
The
action, the intrigue, the women… The films and THE Bond that established the
enduring franchise. Experience the spy thrillers that made Sean Connery
immortal like you’ve never seen them before in stunning 4K for the first time.
The films are part of the 5th highest grossing film franchise
of all time with more than $7.8 billion in worldwide box office revenues.
The
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs of THE SEAN CONNERY COLLECTION will feature Dolby
Vision® ultra-vivid imaging. When compared to a standard picture, Dolby
Vision® can deliver spectacular colors never before seen on a screen,
highlights that are up to 40 times brighter, and blacks that are 10 times
darker. With Dolby Vision®, you will feel as if you are inside the action
alongside 007 as the picture comes to life.
4K Ultra HD** showcases 4K
resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering
consumers brighter, deeper, and more lifelike colors for a home entertainment
viewing experience like never before.
(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 2nd 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.
(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.
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.
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.
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
Visittcm.comfor more information on the full schedule, guests, and film information.
PRESS
RELEASE | FOR RELEASE
ON:Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Media Contact: Bruce Crawford402-393-4884c165@radiks.net
Actor Bob Gunton
Coming to Omaha for Special Screening
of "The Shawshank Redemption"
Omaha, NE – [April 23, 2025]
–One of the most beloved films of all time, The Shawshank Redemption,
returns to the big screen for a one-night-only event on Saturday, May 17,
2025, at 7:00 PM at the Omaha Community Playhouse, presented by
noted Omaha film historian Bruce Crawford in his 52nd classic film
tribute.
Making this evening even more unforgettable,
actor Bob Gunton (pictured right), who portrayed the film’s infamous
Warden Samuel Norton, will appear live on stage for a special conversation with
Crawford. Gunton will also be available after the screening for a meet-and-greet
and autograph session. (Autographs will be available for purchase.)
Widely hailed as a cinematic triumph, The
Shawshank Redemption (1994) tells a timeless story of friendship, hope, and
perseverance. Nominated for seven Academy Awards and ranked among the greatest
films in history, it continues to inspire new generations of moviegoers with
its unforgettable performances and emotional depth.
Gunton, whose commanding presence helped
define the film’s emotional power, is also known for standout roles in Demolition
Man, Patch Adams, Argo, and hit television shows including Daredevil
and 24. A decorated U.S. Army veteran, Gunton also has a celebrated
career on Broadway, earning Tony nominations for Evita and Sweeney
Todd.
Tickets are $30,
with proceeds benefiting the Omaha Parks Foundation, supporting efforts
to preserve and enhance the city's cherished parks and recreational spaces.
Tickets are now on sale. For more
information or to purchase, call (402) 708-0075 or visit omahaparksfoundation.org.
# # #
MEDIA NOTE:For more information or to arrange
interviews, please contact Bruce Crawford at (402) 393-4884 or c165@radiks.net
About Bruce Crawford’s Film Salutes
Bruce Crawford’s classic film tributes have brought legendary films—and the
stars who made them—to Omaha audiences for over 30 years. His events are known
for creating unforgettable evenings that celebrate the power of cinema and
support meaningful local causes.
About the Omaha Parks Foundation
The Omaha Parks Foundation is committed to enhancing the city's parks and
recreation services for all residents. Proceeds from this event will help fund
initiatives that strengthen communities and improve quality of life across
Omaha.
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.
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.
Click here to order. Prices are in Australian dollars so use a converter for your local currency.
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.
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.)
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.
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 TheSmothers 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.
“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.
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.
Critics should always tread carefully when covering movies in the film noir genre. Generally speaking, these are complex plots with a number of twists and all too often reviewers tend to disclose too many spoilers. Having said that, I'll try to cover Crime of Passion in a manner that doesn't commit that cardinal sin. The film has a couple of elements that are common to the genre, most notably a femme fatale who plays upon the trust of her husband in order to engage in illicit activities. In this case, our leading lady is Barbara Stanwyck as Kathy Doyle, a liberated independent career woman who exists in an era that doesn't look favorably on independent career women. However, Kathy enjoys her position as a prominent and popular advice columnist for a major San Francisco newspaper. She answers her readers' queries in a witty and often sarcastic manner that has become her trademark. (Adding to the unique aspects of the character, Stanwyck was 50 years-old at the time.) Her life takes a change when she is visited by two L.A. police detectives, Lt. Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden) and Captain Charlie Alidos (Royal Dano). They want to enlist her help in flushing out a female murder suspect who is hiding in San Francisco. In short order, Kathy uses her sources and column to locate the suspect, gain her trust and convince her to surrender. In the course of the investigation, she and Bill form a mutual attraction. When Kathy's grumpy boss continues to disparage her contributions to the newspaper, she accepts a position with a New York paper and summarily quits her current job. However, she phones Bill and offers to make a one night stopover to see him in L.A. It is a decision that will have dramatic consequences for both of them.
Upon arriving in L.A., Kathy and Bill's reunion proves to be a torrid one....so passionate, in fact, that they spontaneously decide to quickly get married, despite Kathy's previous aversion to trying to find wedded bliss. This being 1957, as a condition of marriage, Kathy has to agree to quit her career and settle down in Bill's modest suburban house in Burbank. She readily does and is soon welcomed into Bill's social circle that consists almost entirely of fellow cops and their wives. The urbane Kathy soon tires of the monotony of her new social life which finds the cops sitting in one room drinking, smoking and playing poker while their wives sit in another room discussing boring domestic issues. The only factor that changes is the locations, as the friends alternate in hosting the get-togethers. Kathy is also becoming frustrated by Bill's lack of interest in achieving advancement in his police career. He's a laid-back, unambitious guy who is content at just being a good, honest cop. Kathy sees things differently and begins to hatch an elaborate secret scheme to ensure the couple's social status rises. She focuses on Bill's boss, Inspector Anthony Pope (Raymond Burr) and his wife Alice (Fay Wray). We won't divulge all the details but suffice it to say that her attempt to seduce Pope leads to terrible and unforeseen consequences that include betrayal, infidelity and finally murder.
The movie has some interesting historical and sociological overtones. In the post-WWII era, America had emerged as the world's only superpower. After enduring the Great Depression and the horrors of two world wars and the Korean War, the nation had settled into a period of relative affluence and comfort with the emergence of an empowered middle class. The government was trusted and benefits came to the working class, as suburbia boomed and people left the big urban centers in droves. Much of this was depicted in T.V. shows of the era which presented suburban life as middle-class bliss, ignoring the fact that not only were the picket fences pure white, but with few exceptions, so was the population that was shown. Movies, however, often had a darker view of suburbia. If television often over-sanitized it, films sometimes went overboard in presenting the new American lifestyle as defined by people who had too much money and leisure time, thus turning the American Dream into scenarios defined by greed and lust befitting the court of Caligula. Perhaps the most powerful example of this is director Martin Ritt's "No Down Payment" released the same year as "Crime of Passion". By the end of the 1960s, bored suburbanites were fodder for comedies that included the wife-swapping classic "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" from director Paul Mazursky.
"Crime of Passion" is by no means classic film noir but thanks to a terrific cast, it is an intriguing contribution to the genre....if one can get over a key plot weakness, namely, Kathy's overwhelming passion for Bill and her decision to quickly ditch her career in order to be with him. As played by Sterling Hayden, Bill is a normal working stiff and isn't a Rock Hudson lookalike. His manner is subdued and in terms of wit, he doesn't appear to be the Noel Coward of Burbank. There is never any logical reason for the cosmopolitan (and presumably sexually liberated) Kathy to fawn over him like a high school girl with her first crush. Nevertheless, Barbara Stanwyck plays the role to the hilt and is never less than mesmerizing on screen. The film, under the steady hand of Gerd Oswald, features a marvelous supporting cast, with Raymond Burr particularly good as yet another man in a stable relationship whose life is adversely affected by meeting Kathy. There's a good deal of talent behind the scenes, too, including screenwriter Jo Eisinger, who wrote "Gilda" and "Night and the City" and sound effects editor Verna Fields, who would go on to be an Oscar-winning film editor.
"Crime of Passion" is a flawed but entertaining film noir flick. It is currently streaming on Screenpix, though the print being used is underwhelming in terms of quality. Unfortunately, the American DVD from MGM is out of print and it hasn't been released on Blu-ray. Screenpix is an add-on streaming service available through Amazon Prime, YouTube, Roku and other major services.
(Trivia note: Turner Classic Movies' film noir host Eddie Muller has pointed out that the film marked the end of Barbara Stanwyck and Raymond Burr's association with the film noir genre. Burr would go on to star in the iconic "Perry Mason" TV series and Stanwyck would also star in a hit series, "The Big Valley" and would continue to appear occasionally on the big screen in supporting roles. Director Gerd Oswald would work with Burr again on numerous episodes of "Perry Mason".)
Ted Kotcheff, one of the most prominent Canadian movie directors, has passed away at age 94. Kotcheff became interested in directing after a trip to Broadway in 1953. Enamored by the shows he had seen, he decided to concentrate on a career in the arts. He emigrated to London where he directed live T.V. shows and theater productions. In 1974, he had gravitated to feature films and directed "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz", the acclaimed Canadian film that made a star of Richard Dreyfuss. The success of that film opened doors in Hollywood. Kotcheff provided Sylvester Stallone with his first post-"Rocky" hit, 'First Blood", the movie that introduced the character of Rambo. Despite the film being a boxoffice smash, Kotcheff declined to direct the sequel because he felt it glamorized the Vietnam War, which he opposed. Kotcheff's portfolio of films were distinguished by their diversity. Among them: "North Dallas 40", "Life at the Top", "Uncommon Valor", "Weekend at Bernie's", "Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe" and the acclaimed 1971 Australian film "Wake in Fright" (aka "Outback"), a truly unsettling and disturbing tale that won wide critical acclaim but which never enjoyed a wide international release. Kotcheff was also the Executive Producer of the long-running hit T.V. series "Law and Order:SVU". For more, click here. (Lee Pfeiffer)
Paperback (collector’s
hardback edition also available)
ISBN:
978-1-915316-43-1
RRP: £23.99
The list of people that Chris Alexander has
interviewed is quite extraordinary. In this book you can find, amongst others,
interviews with Maria Rohm, Gene Simmons, Gary Sherman, Anna Biller, Caroline
Munro, John Waters, Nicky Henson, Mink Stole, Luigi Cozzi, Judy Matheson, Lone
Fleming, Michael Winner (Alexander is clearly a brave man), Joe Dante, Werner
Herzog and Nicolas Cage, the latter providing a memorable experience when the
author gets an invite to Cage's private island in the Bahamas.
The tagline for Art! Trash! Terror!
states that the book explores “some of the most eccentric and unforgettable
movies in cult film history,” which is of course highly subjective. But it does
lead to a wide range of films (along with a whole section being dedicated to The
Twilight Zone (1959-1964) being discussed) from older classics like The
Pit and the Pendulum (1961), to relatively recent offerings like the
controversial The House That Jack Built (2018). The latter is a film
which caused festival screening walkouts and MPAA fury but is defended here are
as a black comedy which only the Danish “purveyor of bad taste,” Lars Von Trier,
could make.
It would be pointless to try and list them
all, so I’ll just mention that some of the other films which fall under the
umbrella of “eccentric and forgettable” include Kiss Meets the Phantom of
the Park (1978), Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (1960), Maximum
Overdrive (1986), Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), Who Can Kill a
Child? (1976), Contamination (1980) and Scream Blacula Scream
(1973). Any of these would be a great night out, but if like me you usually
have to watch movies like this on your own, reading Chris Alexander’s essays is
a good substitute for that chat you have with a friend after the movie has
finished and you’re trying to figure out what it was you just saw.
Art! Trash! Terror!
is an eclectic collection of essays, musings, reviews and interviews with a
heavy leaning towards horror, which, given that the author is the former Fangoria
editor-in-chief, is as it should be. The only negative aspect is that the
book is littered with spelling mistakes, some so egregious they would make Cinema
Retro’s copy editor explode with rage. Perhaps it helps give the book the
feel of a personal blog or diary rather than a polished, edited final product.
This writing is straight from Chris Alexander’s brain to the printed page, and then
straight into yours.
In the estimation of many film scholars the 1970s was the most
adventurous and liberating period in the history of the medium. The new
freedoms in regard to sex, violence and adult themes that had exploded
in the mid-1960s became even more pronounced in the '70s. Among the most
daring studios to take advantage of this trend was United Artists. The
studio had been conceived by iconic actors in the silent era with the
intent of affording artists as much creative control over their
productions as possible. UA had continued to fulfill that promise,
producing a jaw-dropping number of box-office hits and successful film
franchises. The studio also disdained censorship and pushed the envelope
with high profile movie productions. The daring decision to fund the
X-rated "Midnight Cowboy" paid off handsomely. The 1969 production had
not only been a commercial success but also won the Best Picture Oscar. A
few years later UA went even further out on a limb by distributing
"Last Tango in Paris". The studio fully capitalized on the worldwide
sensation the movie had made and the many attempts to restrict it from
being shown at all in certain areas of the globe. Like "Midnight
Cowboy", "Tango" was an important film by an important director that
used graphic images of sexual activity for dramatic intensity.
Unfortunately, not every filmmaker who was inspired by these new
freedoms succeeded in the attempt to mainstream X-rated fare during
those years that the rating wasn't only synonymous with low-budget porno
productions. Case in point: screenwriter John Byrum, who made his
directorial debut with "Inserts", a bizarre film that UA released in
1975 that became a legendary bomb. The movie had previously been released as a limited edition Blu-ray by the late, great boutique label Twilight Time and has been out of print for years. Now, the Warner Archive has released their own Blu-ray edition.
The claustrophobic tale resembles a filmed stage production. It is
set primarily in one large living room in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
The time period is the 1930s, shortly after the introduction of sound to
the movie industry resulted in the collapse of silent pictures (Charlie
Chaplin being the notable exception.) The central character, played by
Richard Dreyfuss, is not named but is referred to as "The Boy Wonder".
From our first glimpse of him we know we are seeing a man in trouble. He
is unkempt, dressed in a bathrobe and swizzling booze directly from the
bottle. We will soon learn that he was once a respected mainstream
director of major studio films and was revered by Hollywood royalty. Now
he is a has-been who has resorted to making porn movies in 16mm in his
own home. (Yes, Virginia, people liked to watch dirty movies even way
back then.) He is entertaining a visitor, Harlene (Veronica Cartwright),
a perpetually cheery, bubble-headed young woman who was once a
respected actress but who, like Boy Wonder, has fallen on hard times.
She is now a heroin addict who earns a living by "starring" in Boy
Wonder's porn productions. They make small talk and some names from the
current movie business are bandied about. Harlene tells Boy Wonder that a
rising star named Clark Gable is said to be an admirer of his and wants
to meet him. Instead of responding favorably to this news, Boy Wonder
seems unnerved by it. The implication is that he is locked in a
self-imposed downward spiral and lacks the self-confidence to attempt a
real comeback. Harlene also needles him about his sexual prowess. It
turns out that the king of porn films has long been impotent for reasons
never explained. As they prepare to film some scenes Harlene's male
"co-star" (Stephen Davies) arrives. He is nicknamed Rex, The Wonder Dog,
which seems to bother him especially when the Wonder Boy uses it to
intentionally disparage him. Like Harlene, Rex is short on brains but is
physically attractive. Boy Wonder seems to have a real resentment
towards him, perhaps because Rex is a powerhouse in bed while he can't
get anything going despite directing naked people in sex scenes. It
becomes clear that Boy Wonder and Rex don't like each other. Boy
Wonder ridicules Rex for performing sex acts on male studio executives
who he naively believes will help him become a star. However, their
relationship looks downright friendly compared to the interaction
between Harlene and Rex. When Rex is a little slow in becoming
physically aroused, Harlene mocks him mercilessly. This results in him
essentially subjecting her to a violent rape which thrills Boy Wonder,
who captures it all on film. Harlene doesn't appear to be any worse for
the wear, however, and blithely says she's going off to a bedroom to
rest.
The household is next visited by mobster Big Mac (Bob Hoskins), the
man who finances Boy Wonder's film productions. He is accompanied by his
financee Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), a pretty young woman who seems to
have a particular interest in the forbidden world of pornography. Big
Mac and Boy Wonder also hate each other. Big Mac berates Boy Wonder for
making his porn flicks too esoteric and artistic for their intended
audiences who just want a cheap thrill. However, for Boy Wonder the porn
films represent the last opportunity he has to demonstrate the
cinematic style and camera angles that once impressed critics and the
public. In the midst of their arguing, it is discovered that a tragedy
has occurred: Harlene has died from a heroin overdose. Everyone seems
nonplussed by the news and Big Mac's only concern is to ditch the body
somewhere quickly. Turns out Rex has a part time job in a funeral parlor
and can arrange for a gruesome plan in which they dump her body inside a
grave that is being prepared for another person's funeral the next day.
The plan is to dig a bit deeper, bury Harlene, then place a layer of
dirt over her and have the "new" body placed on top of hers. As Big Mac
and Rex leave to "undertake" this sordid task, Boy Wonder finds himself
alone with Cathy Cake. She wants to use the time to have Boy Wonder film
her in her own personal porn movie since Big Mac would never let his
"fiancee" do so with his knowledge. She finds the idea of sex on film to
be a stimulant but Boy Wonder won't have any of it. He knows that Big
Mac's volatile temper and ever-present bodyguard could result in him
being the next corpse in the house. Cathy Cake tries another tactic and
feigns interest in Boy Wonder. He lets his guard down and gradually is
seduced by her. She even manages to cure his impotence but the tryst
turns ugly when she learns he has not filmed it. Boy Wonder soon
discovers that his renewed pride and self-respect is to be short-lived
when it becomes clear that Cathy Cake actually loathes him and was only
using him in order to fulfill her porn movie fantasy. The ploy works to a
degree- her attention to Boy Wonder reawakens his sexual prowess but
when she learns the camera wasn't rolling, she cruelly tells him that
she only used him for selfish purposes. With this, Big Mac and Rex
return from their horrendous errand and catch Boy Wonder in bed with
Cathy Cake. The situation becomes dangerous with Big Mac threatening to
kill Boy Wonder and things only deteriorate from there.
Richard Dreyfuss seemed to have a personal
obsession with this film. He was very involved in all aspects of its
production and remained defensive about the movie after its harsh
reception from critics. The movie's complete rejection by reviewers and
the public might have hurt his career but Dreyfuss already had "American
Graffiti" and "Jaws" under his belt. Soon he would also star in another
blockbuster, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" followed by his
Oscar-winning performance in "The Goodbye Girl". The fact that so few
people ever saw "Interiors" actually worked to his advantage. However,
whatever motivated him to become involved in this bizarre project
remains a mystery. It's an ugly tale about ugly people doing ugly things
to each other. If there is a message here, I didn't receive it. There
isn't a single character you can identify with or sympathize with. They
are all self-obsessed cynics with no redeeming traits. That leaves us
with whatever values the performances afford us and it's a mixed bag.
Dreyfuss is miscast. He was twenty nine years-old when he made the film
and, despite his sordid appearance which ages him considerably, he is
still far too young to portray a once-great movie director who has
fallen on hard times. John Byrum's direction of Dreyfuss is unsteady. At
times he encourages him to underplay scenes while at other times he has
Dreyfuss chew the scenery mercilessly. Similarly, Stephen Davies plays
the brain-dead hunk Rex with flamboyantly gay characteristics one minute
then suddenly transforms into a heterosexual stud the next. Bob Hoskins
in what would become his trademark tough-guy gangster mode but gives a
solid performance. The best acting comes from the two female leads with
Veronica Cartwright especially good as the ill-fated Harlene. Jessica
Harper also does well in her thankless role. Both women seem at ease in
doffing their clothes and playing much of their scenes in a provocative
state. Cartwright even goes full frontal for the violent sex scene with
Rex while Harper spends almost the entire last act of the film being
photographed topless. Curiously, the willingness to appear nude onscreen
was considered the epitome of female emancipation in films during the
1970s but the practice has largely become frowned upon in more recent
years. In fact the days are long gone when virtually every major actress
had to appear naked on screen. Today, female emancipation is the
ability to play erotic scenes on screen without having to be completely
compromised.
Everybody loves the late, great John Candy.
Although he sadly passed away at the extremely young age of 43, he left behind
a comedic legacy that has entertained and will continue to entertain millions.
From his start as a member of the famed improv comedy troupe “The Second City”
to the beloved sketch comedy show SCTV,
to a string of classic comedies throughout the 1980s and 90s such as The Blues Brothers (1980), Stripes (1981), National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), Going Berserk (a guilty pleasure of mine also from ‘83), Splash (1984), Brewster’s Millions (1985),
Armed and Dangerous (1986),
Spaceballs (1987), Only the Lonely
(1991) and of course, Planes, Trains and
Automobiles (1987) and Uncle Buck
(1989), just to name a few, Candy never failed to make us laugh.
Recently, a well-loved Candy starrer, Summer Rental, was released on Blu-ray.
Summer Rental follows loveable Jack
Chester (Candy); a burnt-out air traffic controller who takes his family to
Florida for a much-needed vacation, but finds constant (hilarious) frustration
at every turn.
Solidly directed by comedy legend Carl Reiner
and released in August of 1985, Summer
Rental is a very enjoyable 80s comedy which is definitely worth checking
out. Besides a wonderfully charming performance from Candy, the movie also
features Richard Crenna and Rip Torn (who both steal quite a few scenes) as an
obnoxious rich sailing champion and a “pirate” who owns a restaurant boat,
respectively.
The talented cast continues as we have Karen
Austin (as Candy’s wife), John Larroquette, Richard Herd, Lois Hamilton,
Carmine Caridi and, as Candy’s children, Kerri Green, Joey Lawrence (in his
theatrical debut) and Aubrey Jene. Reni Santoni, Leigh French and Murphy Dunne
also show up, and the feel-good film further benefits from Ric Waite’s lovely
cinematography, Alan Silvestri’s terrific musical score, and a song by Jimmy
Buffett.
Summer Rental has been released on
a region one Blu-ray, comes in a brand new HD master from a 4K scan of the
original 35mm camera negative, and is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect
ratio. The movie looks and sounds fantastic and the disc also contains an audio
commentary by film historian Joe Ramoni as well as the featurette “Ear Candy:
The Music of Summer Rental” and the original theatrical trailer. Fun stuff.
Recommended.
Although I saw Best Defense theatrically way back in 1984, I remembered very
little about it. I loved Dudley Moore mainly because of Arthur, but I’m pretty sure my buddy and I went to this one because
of Eddie Murphy. Murphy, now a comedy legend, had scored big as a cast member
on Saturday Night Live and had also
just starred in the now classic films 48
Hrs. and Trading Places. I loved
all of it, so, when Best Defense was
announced, it was a no brainer that I would be there. As I said, I didn’t
remember much about the film except that I was mostly disappointed. And in the
over 40 years since its release, I’ve never bothered to sit down and watch it
again. Until now, that is.
Best Defense concerns Wylie Cooper
(Moore), an engineer who is working on a tank’s targeting system for the US
Army. Two years later, Lt. T.M. Landry (Murphy) finds himself in Kuwait testing
out the new tank. However, due to Cooper’s screw-ups, Landry loses control of
the vehicle and finds himself smack dab in the middle of a war zone.
Distributed by Paramount Pictures and based
on the novel “Easy and Hard Ways Out” by Robert Grossbach, Best Defense, which was directed by Willard Huyck and co-written by
Huyck and his wife, Gloria Katz (who also produced the movie), is, 40 years
later, unfortunately still a mess. A big problem is how obvious it is that
Eddie Murphy was never supposed to be part of this film and was added in later
due to his incredible popularity. The comedy king doesn’t even have scenes with
any members of the cast including Dudley Moore. It was still a smart move
because Murphy is the funniest thing in the movie. When he’s on screen, which,
sadly, isn’t that often, the film really comes alive. The rest of the movie,
however, is a bit slow paced and uninvolving in spots. Because of this, it
didn’t score well with test audiences which is why Murphy was called in.
It’s a shame that the film tanked (see what I
did there?) because it not only contained comedy giants Murphy and Moore, but
it also featured performances by wonderful talent like Kate Capshaw, George
Dzundza, Helen Shaver, Tom Noonan and David Rasche.
Still, the movie holds some kind of nostalgia
for me (as I’m sure it does with others who saw it on its original release or
on cable in the 80s) and, to be honest, I’ve seen worse.
Best Defense has been released in
a brand new HD master from a 4K scan of the 1984 35mm camera negative and is
presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio (1.85:1). I must say that the
film looks and sounds amazing, and the Region 1 disc not only gives us the
original theatrical trailer, but also an extremely informative audio commentary
by screenwriter/producer Alan Spencer and author/film historian Justin
Humphreys.
Some
guys have a hard time finding themselves in life, even with the advantage of a
comfortable upbringing.It isn’t a new
phenomenon.The son of a prosperous
Chicago businessman, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) floundered through his
twenties and early thirties in a series of short-lived, dead-end jobs.At age 37, with a growing family to support
on a meager salary, Burroughs threw the proverbial dice and began to write
imaginative adventure stories for the pulp-fiction magazines of the day.Burroughs found immediate success and never
looked back.Particularly lucrative were
his novels about Tarzan of the Apes, an infant raised by great apes in Africa
after his marooned parents died.Tarzan
eventually returns to civilisation to claim his inheritance as a British peer,
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, becoming a man who enjoys unfettered freedom in
the wild when the notion strikes him, while navigating the demands of polite
society as an urbane, globetrotting sophisticate other times.
Next
to creating this iconic fictional character, Burroughs’ most inspired move was
to register “Tarzan” as a trademark.That way, he retained Tarzan as his own intellectual property to
safeguard against anyone else stealing the name.The strategy also turned Tarzan into an even
bigger money-maker for his creator, as a property he could license to movies,
radio, and comic strips for a handsome fee.One such opportunity arose in 1932, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer approached
the author for the rights to make a movie titled “Tarzan the Ape-Man.”By then Burroughs had already approved seven
Tarzan movies, but all of them had been silent films, largely produced by
second-tier studios without MGM’s resources and respectability.
“Tarzan
the Ape-Man” was a great success, in part because of MGM’s rich production
values and in part because of good timing.1932 was the grimmest year of the Great Depression, when everybody
sought escapist entertainment at the movies.The release also slipped under the ropes before Hollywood began to crack
down on sex and nudity under a restrictive production code.Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller
as Tarzan and Maureen O’Sullivan as his sweetheart Jane (his wife in the
novels, their marital status unclear in the picture) wear revealing jungle
skimpies as they frolic in the rain forest.Perhaps to assert its own claim on the character within the limits of
the contract with Burroughs, the studio did away with most of the trappings of
the novels.Weissmuller’s Tarzan is an
athletic but inarticulate lug whose presence in the jungle is largely
unexplained, a far cry from the eloquent hero and imaginative backstory of the
books.
Some
critics say that Burroughs was unhappy with the MGM version, particularly in
regard to the portrayal of his brainchild as a lummox.Others disagree, citing evidence to the
contrary, including the fact that eleven more Weissmuller movies followed with
his approval.At any rate, the
opportunity soon arose for Burroughs to present a movie version closer to his
vision.The result was “The New
Adventures of Tarzan” (1935), a twelve-chapter serial.The film was released by Burroughs-Tarzan
Pictures Inc., an independent company headed by Burroughs and a veteran
Hollywood actor and producer, Ashton Dearholt.
Now
available on Blu-ray from the Film Masters Archive Collection, “The New
Adventures of Tarzan” finds the ape-man joining an expedition by an explorer,
Major Martling, into the jungles of Guatemala.Martling is searching for the fabulous Green Goddess, an idol worshipped
by a lost tribe of Mayans in a ruined city.The Green Goddess contains a fortune in jewels as well as “the formula
for an explosive more powerful than any known to modern science.”For modern viewers, the notion of an ancient
Mayan secret may bring to mind the crackpot Internet rumour from a few years
ago, that the world was fated to destruct on December 21, 2012, according to a
Mayan prophecy.
Martling
wants to make sure the formula doesn’t fall into the wrong hands of
war-mongers.Separately, a young woman,
Ula Vale, sets off on her own to vindicate her late fiancé, who died in a plane
crash in quest of the idol.Tarzan
doesn’t care about the jewels or the formula; he wants to rescue his friend
Paul d’Arnot (a pivotal character in the novels), who was marooned in the
jungle by the same crash that killed Ula’s fiancé.Meanwhile, a mercenary named Raglan sets off
on a rival expedition, financed by a backer who wants to obtain the mysterious
formula for sale to the highest bidder.Even if he finds the idol, Raglan still needs a code in hieroglyphics
that Martling possesses.Without the
code, the idol will blow up if someone tries to open it.If the synopsis sounds familiar, you may
remember it from “Tarzan and the Green Goddess,” a 1937 release edited down to
72 minutes from the 240-minute serial.The feature-length version was a perennial on the “Tarzan Theatre”
package that local TV stations broadcast weekly in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although
the script was an original work credited to Charles F. Royal and Edwin H. Blum,
and not an adaptation from any of Burroughs’ novels, it shares the same
narrative pattern as Burroughs’ plots: Tarzan is one of several characters who
wind up as a loosely aligned group of good guys competing against the bad
guys.This ensures a sufficiently large
cast for a rapid succession of cliff-hanger thrills in print or on the
screen.One character is attacked by a
lion, plummets over a waterfall, or faces death from a sacrificial dagger at
the end of a chapter.In the next
chapter, the character emerges safely as another is placed in jeopardy.In “The New Adventures of Tarzan,” there are
almost too many characters, two of whom—Martling’s daughter and her boyfriend,
along for the trek—hardly register.Along with d’Arnot, they mostly disappear from the later chapters once
it’s clear they aren’t needed.After the
quest for the Green Goddess is wrapped up, the final chapter concludes with a
holiday party at the Greystoke Estate in England.Bizarrely, everyone at the party wears Gypsy
costumes, including Tarzan as their host, Lord Greystoke, who escorts a
gorgeous blonde on each arm.
Burroughs
and Dearholt gained some publicity mileage from the fact that exterior scenes
of Tarzan and his friends mingling with crowds in the town of Puerto Barrios
and venturing into old Mayan ruins outside Quirigua were actually filmed in
Guatemala.For the most part, though,
the interiors were studio sets, and the jungle scenes were filmed in
California’s Jungleland USA theme park.In the final product, the footage from the diverse locations is
remarkably well integrated.Of the cast
and crew, Herman Brix as the handsome, well-spoken Tarzan is the only one
likely to be remembered today even by connoisseurs of Hollywood trivia.A former college athlete and Olympics
champion, Brix (1906-2007) followed the Tarzan film with further action roles
in classic serials like “The Lone Ranger” (1938), “Fighting Devil Dogs” (1938),
and “Daredevils of the Red Circle” (1939).After changing his screen name to Bruce Bennett, he moved on to
supporting roles in “Mildred Pierce” (1945), “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” (1948),
and “The Last Outpost” (1951), where he and Ronald Reagan were cast as
estranged brothers.Ashton Dearholt
played the villainous Raglan under the assumed name of “Don Costello,” and Ula
Vale was played by his protege Ula Holt.Nowadays, TMZ and Entertainment Tonight would jump on the story behind
the movie.Dearholt divorced his wife
Florence to marry Ula, and Burroughs divorced his wife Emma to marry
Florence.It was a musical-chairs,
backstage drama that would make a quirky, amusing film or limited series for
Netflix.Not to mention the
possibilities of humor from the logistics of hauling bulky 1930s camera
equipment to Central America.
The
Film Masters Blu-ray packs all twelve chapters of the serial onto one disc in a
newly restored print.Like the print
included in “The Tarzan Vault Collection,” a 2022 Blu-ray from The Film
Detective, reviewed by Cinema Retro HERE, the quality here varies from
excellent in some portions to serviceable in others, depending on the condition
of the source material.Viewing the
entire serial in one sitting may be a slog for modern viewers, even those
accustomed to binge-watching episodic TV series on streaming platforms and home
video.Chapter 1 is too long at nearly
50 minutes, even with several action scenes.The next 11 chapters are shorter, but each lags at the beginning with
footage from the preceding instalment to bring viewers up to speed.This was a necessity for watching each new
episode in weekly doses in 1935, but cumbersome today.The plot becomes repetitive too, as one
character and then another seizes the Mayan code and the explorers fall into
the hands of the Mayan cultists twice.
However,
thanks to home video, it’s easy to spread the chapters out as they were meant
to be seen, or to fast-forward over the repetitive parts if you prefer to watch
in fewer sittings.If you do, be careful
not to miss the scenes most indebted to the Burroughs novels, like the one
where a Mayan high priestess prepares to stab Tarzan on her altar (a standby
from at least four of the books), or those where the ape-man lifts his enemies
over his head and throws them away like so many used hamburger wrappers as more
rush in to attack him.Much of the humor
courtesy of a comic-relief character, George, is largely on the infantile level
of a snapping turtle latching onto the seat of George’s trousers, but
unsympathetic moviegoers could say the same about the comedy provided by
second-bananas like Rob Schneider, Tom Arnold, and Kevin Hart in most of the
action movies from the past twenty-some years.One passing conversation, though, is laugh-out-loud worthy on its own
terms.As Tarzan relays a warning from a
chattering monkey, Ula exclaims, “You mean that little ape talked to you?”
“Yes, of course,” Tarzan replies.After
all, he’s Tarzan.Who doesn’t know he’s
fluent in primate-speak?
The
Film Masters Archive Collection edition of “The New Adventures of Tarzan” is
presented at its proper 1.33:1 aspect ratio, with subtitles for those who don’t
have Tarzan’s keen jungle hearing.The
strikingly attractive cover art reproduces the original poster illustration for
the serial against a black background.There are no other supplemental features for the limited-edition
Blu-ray.If it sells well, perhaps Film
Masters will be encouraged to produce a second edition with special
commentaries and short “making of” documentaries like those on the other
collector’s Blu-rays in its catalog.
“The New Adventures of Tarzan” can be ordered HERE.
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Focus on the Spaghetti Western #1:The Films of Tony Kendall". Click here to order from Amazon.)
Many Cinema Retro readers have asked why the U.S. has never seen a DVD or Blu-ray release of Samuel Bronston's epic 1963 film "55 Days at Peking". The answer is that no one seemed to know who held the rights. At one time, Miramax owned them and they began releasing deluxe DVD collector's editions of Brosnan's films, such as "El Cid" and "The Fall of the Roman Empire". Both came in boxed sets and contained reproductions of the original tie-in comic books. At the time Cinema Retro learned from Miramax that they intended to release additional Bronston films such as "55 Days at Peking" and "Circus World". However, they never materialized. Miramax was experiencing many difficulties and ultimately Harvey Weinstein was in the midst of high profile legal cases. Based on this clip posted by Warner Brothers, we can now assume that the studio owns at least partial rights to the epic movie. The question is: will we ever see the deluxe video edition this film deserves? (Lee Pfeiffer)
Robert
McGinnis, one of the most prolific and gifted artists to ever ply the movie
poster trade, died on March 10th at age 99.Calling McGinnis merely “an artist" doesn’t do him justice – he was a creative
force of nature for over four decades and his work has permeated pop culture
like few others have.
Originally
from Cincinnati, Ohio, McGinnis’s natural talent was readily apparent, and he studied art
at Ohio State University before joining the Merchant Marine during WWII.After the war he apprenticed at Disney but
was soon drawn to the heady world of New York advertising back when Gotham was the
center of the profession.He found work
drawing paperback covers – a huge market in those days - illustrating over
1,200 of them at $200 a pop.(Enough to
buy a house and raise a family on.) Magazines came calling and he provided art
for Playboy, Time, The Saturday Evening Post and others.His distinctive style and flair for the
female figure soon caught Hollywood’s eye and McGinnis drew the iconic artwork for
1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s film poster.Four years later he would draw Sean Connery’s
likeness for the James Bond blockbuster Thunderball.United Artists and Eon Productions came back
to him (and illustrator Frank McCarthy, with whom he often collaborated) for You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s
Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the
Golden Gun and others.Aside from
007, McGinnis illustrated key art for Barbarella, Semi-Tough, the Matt
Helm films, Woody Allen’s Sleeper and the non-Eon 1967 spoof version of Casino
Royale, not to mention many others. His favorite was his painting of Walter
Matthau and Jack Lemmon for 1968’s The Odd Couple. When Hollywood art directors turned away from
illustration in favor of Photoshopped images, McGinnis found himself in demand
drawing book covers again, mainly for Hard Case Crime editions. Hollywood
called him back one last time in 2004 for The Incredibles. (Sadly, his
wonderful art wasn’t used theatrically, and was only produced as a limited run
for Disney/Pixar executives.)He also
returned to his passion of painting images of the Old West and became one of
the foremost artists of the genre.
Remarkably,
McGinnis was completely unfazed by his massive success, quietly plying his
trade in a small studio in Greenwich, Connecticut.As UA’s legendary Bond-era art director Don
Smolen once said, “The only person who doesn’t believe Bob is a genius is Bob.”
The movie-going public’s verdict has long been
in – and yes, Robert McGinnis was a genius and his work will outlive us all.
This new double of Agatha
Christie’sEndless Night with Picture Mommy Dead is the second release
of Kino Lorber Studio Classics “Peril & Distress” 4K series.Their first 4K series double was a pairing of
Robert Fuest’s And Soon the Darkness
with John Hough’s Sudden Terror.Kino previously issued all four films as
standalone Blu-rays circa 2019-2020, but are now combining the pics in the
collector-popular Ultra HD format.Visually the films, of course, appear even more razor-sharp than in
their previous high-definition formats.Whether one chooses to upgrade, in my view, is entirely dependent on a
given consumers’ enthusiasm for the films.
I previously reviewed Kino’s Blu-ray release of Bert I.
Gordon’s Picture Mommy Dead back in
February 2023.So I’ll tack on a brief
edited portion of my earlier comments following these thoughts of Sidney
Gilliat’s psychological-thriller Agatha
Christie’s Endless Night.(If one
wishes to read through my more thorough essay on Picture Mommy Dead - including the early casting and removal saga
of actress Hedy Lamarr - they can do so by clicking here).
North American fans may be a less familiar with Endless Night than those in the UK and
continental Europe.Though released in
the United Kingdom in October of 1972, Endless
Night was never given theatrical release in the U.S. As best as I can determine, the pic’s first widespread
American appearance was via a circa 1982/83 VHS release on the HBO/Cannon Video
label.As such, many of us can view and
assess the film without the baggage of nostalgia.
Endless
Night is, of course, based on a novel by the famed mystery
writer Agatha Christie.Christie was at
the height of her fame, the author’s books all best-sellers and a stage play of
The Mousetrap in continual run since
1952 on London’s West End.On 30 October
of 1967, Endless Night was published in
London by Collins Crime Club.Her newest
had reportedly taken the seventy-seven year old a mere six weeks to write,
though the story was worked from an earlier unused outline from the author’s
notebook.Critics noted Christies’ newest
was, stylistically, a “complete departure” from her usual works: the book was
written “without the built-in sales appeal” of Christie’s beloved detective
creations Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot.Some book critics described Endless
Night as a “horror comic,” others as “a study in wickedness” or as an
“exciting psychological suspense drama.”I would say the latter two descriptions fit best.
It would be impossible to recount the scenario of the book
or film in any detail without revealing major spoilers.The work is, after all, a mystery.Suffice to say the film version – our
interest here - revolves around one Michael Rogers (Hywell Bennett).Rogers is a young man obsessed with the fine
arts and looking to enjoy the luxuries of good life.His problem is that he’s, at best, an
average-guy of lower-middle-class status, someone with little money.He’s also afforded as an irresponsible person
of short-term employments, but one with big dreams of upward mobility.
Rogers’ situation drastically changes when he meets Ellie
Thomsen (Hayley Mills), an over-protected American girl studying voice at a
London conservatory.It’s soon revealed
that Ellie is no waif but in fact the “world’s sixth richest girl.”Though their union is frowned upon by Ellie’s
guardians, the two marry in a civil ceremony.They begin building the home of Rogers’ dreams on Gipsy Acre, a lovely
and serene parcel of land overlooking lush green fields and an ocean view.
The first one-third of the film comes off largely as a romance
pic, two young lovers struggling against those disapproving of their
relationship.Once Rogers’ dying Italian
architect friend, Santonix (Per Oscarsson), oversees the grandiose construction
of Roger’s ultra-modern home (complete with indoor water gardens, a pool,
retractable panels and floors etc.) one begins to sense something is
amiss.Throughout the film’s first half
we’re gradually introduced to a cast of mostly unlikeable, or, at the very
least, suspiciously odd, people.These characters include Ellie’s guardian
(Lois Maxwell) as well as Ellie’s dismissed former German-language instructor
but remaining primary confidant girlfriend, Greta (Britt Ekland).Also stalking about the periphery of Gipsy
Acres is Miss Townsend (Patience Collier).Townsend is an eccentric old crone, a “local seer” obsessed with
spiritualism who warns the young couple to abandon Gipsy Acres… without ever
really giving any concrete reason why they should do so.
Old pro George Sanders is also on hand as Andrew
Lippincott, a lawyer for Ellie’s guardians.The unusually sympathetic and friendly attorney is seemingly embarrassed
to carry out the task asked of him: to offer Michael a tidy sum of cash in
exchange for his consenting to a quiet, no-scandal divorce from Ellie.If this scenario thus far appears as little
more than a star-crossed, melodramatic romance, you’d be correct.But while the storyline meanders through long
periods of exposition, there is, at long last, a murder mystery to be
solved.Of that I can say no more
without ruining the pic’s twists and turns.My advice to first-time viewers of Endless
Night can be neatly summed up in two words:“be patient.” The twists are slow in coming, but do exist. The film’s script is a bit of a hodgepodge:
roughly four-sixths a romance, one-sixth a mystery and one-sixth a
psychological drama.
It was in late November of 1968 when it was announced
that British Lion Films had acquired the rights to bring Endless Night to the big screen.The film was to be made in partnership with Launder-Gilliat
Productions.Frank Launder and Sidney
Gilliat were well-established figures in Britain’s film industry.The two had met in 1937 and were presently in
the thirty-first year of their successful partnership in the film business, joining
the board of directors of British Lion in 1958. Endless
Night was to be their first new film in three years and the two were planning
to shoot at the moon.By the close of
1968, Gilliat was reportedly already working on his script for the film with his
expectation of production commencing in autumn of 1969.In actuality, the project was pushed back
several times, cameras not rolling on the film until 7 June 1971.
The two men weren’t too concerned over the many delays.In a September 1970 interview with London’s Guardian newspaper, it was reported the partners,
“think they have a very cinematic script” for Endless Night.They bragged
their script of minimal dialogue offered an, “interesting ambiguity of style,
in the sense that you’re never quite sure whether what is said is really meant
or really being said.”If this scripting
description seems a bit obtuse to you, you’re not alone.To be fair, psychological thrillers – of
which Endless Night is one - are
difficult to satisfyingly script, disturbances of the working of the inner-mind
easier to convey on page than on screen.
Endless
Night would open in October 1972 to cool critical reception in
the UK. Yorkshire’s Northern Echo
described the pic as “a moody, albeit ill-fated romance.”But the newspaper also charged even faithful fans
would need to acknowledge “Agatha Christie’s pen has run unaccountably dry in
the movie version.” The Observer
found the film “disappointing,” the film failing “to make the flesh stir, let
alone creep.”The Observer critic was also one of many who found the film’s finale a
confusing mess: “The post-preview reception gave rise to an unusual spectacle,”
he wrote, adding.“Several puzzled
critics surrounding the PROs, asking for the explanation of various loose-ends
left dangling by reckless cutting.”
The Leicester
Chronicle agreed.The finale of the
detective-less mystery Endless Night
was confusing, the film not constructed in the style of a traditional whodunit.The pic was castigated as “A prime example of
the thriller addressed to boobies.For
most of its length there is no murder and apparently no mystery.”The critic for the Evening Standard also commented on the film’s unorthodox structure
and meandering pace.He complained the
murder of one of the film’s main characters, “Doesn’t occur till three-quarters
way through.Up to then you’re wondering
irritably when things will get moving.”I
agree.The film as a mystery per se is, to
my taste, oddly non-involving.
The Evening
Sentinel was one of the few major new outlets to boldly express “no
reservations in recommending” the film.But even that praise came with a caveat.The most “tantalising” aspect of Endless
Night in the view of the Sentinel
critic was its murky, non-traditionalism.“You know there has to be a twist,” it was offered. “But you need a
crystal ball to see it coming.”
Perhaps the harshest criticism came from the “Grand Dame
of Whodunit” herself.In a retrospective
interview with the Los Angeles Times,
Christie shared her feelings regarding the cinematic adaptations of her
works.“Everything I have seen which has
been done for the cinema I disliked intensely,” she scoffed, the lone exception
being Billy Wilder’s “very well” done Witness
for the Prosecution (1957).Christie
admitted she much preferred the stage dramatizations of her works as, “there is
sort of a flattening out of things in film.I forget who filmed Endless Night,
which is a book of mine, but I was very disappointed when I saw it as a
film.It got flatter and less
interesting every minute,” she would lament, echoing the sentiments of most
film critics upon the pic’s release.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Titan Books:
Titan Books is
thrilled to announce Caligula: The Official Story of the Film by Thomas
Negovan, publishing September 30, 2025. The official retrospective
for the controversial erotic historical drama Caligula (1979), written by
Gore Vidal and directed by Tinto Brass.
Conceived by
screenwriter Gore Vidal as a depiction of absolute power corrupting
absolutely, Caligula depicts the ascent to emperor and subsequent
reign of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, nicknamed Caligula, one of
the most notorious rulers of ancient Rome, in 37 A.D. Shot as an erotic
historical drama by director Tinto Brass, the version released theatrically in
1979 was notoriously altered in post-production editing by producer - and Penthouse magazine
publisher - Bob Guccione, who added hardcore sex scenes featuring Penthouse Pets
that had been filmed separately.
Written by Thomas Negovan, producer of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (2023), Caligula:
The Official Story of the Film traces the film’s history, from the
original concept drafted by Roberto Rossellini, through the difficult
production, cinematic release and resulting legal battles to have the film
declared not obscene so it could be screened in mainstream cinemas. The story
comes right up to date, covering the different international versions of the
film released over the subsequent decades, and concluding with the 2023 Cannes
screening and release of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut. Illustrated with
stills from the original film and previously unreleased footage from the 2023
version, the book also includes unpublished behind-the-scenes photos of the
shoot from the Penthouse archives.
About the
Author: Thomas Negovan is an author, musician, filmmaker, and art
historian, and the reconstructionist of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut. His
Symbolist re-envisioning of the 1979 film premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film
Festival, earned an honorable mention in LA Weekly’s “Best Films of 2024,”
and has been praised by Malcolm McDowell as the epic version he had always
hoped for. His short film, Aurora, was hailed by Grant Morrison as
“haunting, eerie, and stylish.” Negovan’s book Le Pater: Alphonse Mucha’s
Symbolist Masterpiece and the Lineage of Mysticism received acclaim from
fantasy legend Michael Moorcock, who wrote an introduction praising it as
“profound and beautiful...a source of beauty and intellectual inspiration.”
Negovan lives and works in Chicago.
Val Kilmer has died from pneumonia. He was 65 years-old. The acclaimed actor was once a rising star and appeared in such hits as "Top Gun", "The Doors", "Batman Forever", "Heat", and "Tombstone". He was known for immersing himself in the characters he played and won praise from directors and critics alike. His talents were recognized at an early age, as evidenced by the fact he was admitted to study acting at the elite Julliard school in New York City. Unlike most screen actors who work their way up from bit parts in films, Kilmer had a starring role in his first movie, "Top Secret!" in 1984. The film was produced by the team who had brought "Airplane!" to the screen. Although the movie wasn't as a big of a hit, Kilmer scored by playing broad comedy as an over-the-top rock and roll singer based on Elvis Presley. In 1986, he co-starred with Tom Cruise in the blockbuster boxoffice hit "Top Gun" and and a few years later, his performance as doomed rock star Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's "The Doors" won him wide acclaim. In 1993, he was also praised his complex portrayal of the legendary Doc Holliday in the western "Tombstone". His career was sidelined by a couple of factors. He had a reputation of being difficult to work with, causing director John Frankenheimer to observe that there were two certainties in his life: that he would not climb Mount Everest and he would not work with Val Kilmer again. Ultimately, the plum roles began to dissipate along with his boxoffice clout. In 2015, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, which he battled valiantly and very publicly. He let it be known that he very much wanted to appear with Cruise again in the 2022 sequel to "Top Gun" and his pleas were heeded. He and Cruise were reunited in the film, though Kilmer's was seen only briefly due to his health challenges. For more, click here. (Lee Pfeiffer)
Move
over, Mickey, there’s a new mouse in town… Walt Disney’s charming Steamboat Willie
short appeared on silent era screens in 1928, introducing one of
entertainment’s most iconic characters – Mickey Mouse (and Minnie) – to the
world.Ninety-Seven years later, Willie
is public domain and filmmaker Steven LaMorte was quick to capitalize on the
premise by turning it into a clever and gory horror film. (LaMorte also
co-wrote the script with Matthew Garcia-Dunn.)
Cinema Retro
was in the house as Screamboat premiered in Hollywood to very
enthusiastic crowd that included many cast members and horror fans.A Staten Island native, LaMorte set his story
on the world-famous ferry where a pair of clueless marine mechanics
accidentally unleash a vicious mouse with an axe to grind.Sailing right into a foggy New York harbor, the
creepy rust bucket is full of late-night passengers – from a tired restaurant
hostess (Sarah Kopkin) to a hyper-obnoxious birthday girl (Kailey Hyman) and her
content creating buddies (Savannah Whitten and Poonam Basu) plus every other
commuter stereotype to be found in the middle of the night.The crazed mouse (David Howard Thornton,
known for his work as “Art the Clown” in the Terrifier franchise) starts
in the wheelhouse, then works his way through the ship, using a variety of
maritime implements to inflict injuries and mayhem.Standing between it and the hapless
passengers are the ferry’s motley crew lead by an everyman bro (Jesse Posey) and
an exhausted EMT (Amy Schumacher). Teen Wolf sensation Tyler Posey
rounds out the cast as the ferry company’s radio operator.A vein of dark humor runs throughout the
film, including several nods to the original inspiration - like the killer
mouse breaking into a Steamboat Willie-esque shuffle after dispatching a
victim and several animated sequences evoking the spirit of the cartoon.
Maybe
it was my two decades of commuting, but I embraced the vibe and setting
immediately and enjoyed the film for what it was – a blue-collar romp that,
like Titanic, took the audience on a wild ride throughout the ship. Of
course, Titanic didn’t have a screwdriver to the eyeball or one of the
most jaw-dropping dismembering scenes this commut-o-writer can remember.Disney execs might not be pleased, but horror
fans will be.
Screamboat
screams into Theaters April 2 from Iconic Events Releasing. The film is also available for streaming through these channels.
Before
Peter Sellers became well-known outside of Britain, the actor had made several motion
pictures (The Ladykillers, The Mouse that Roared, etc.) in his home
country. Two-Way Stretch, from 1960, in which he stars, represents the
type of British comedy in which Sellers often appeared that was prevalent of
the time. It’s almost an “Ealing Studios Comedy,” without being made by Ealing
Studios. The Ealing films of the 1950s are a literal thing but in many ways the
moniker also became a style of British comedy of the period.
Two-Way
Stretch was
directed by Robert Day, who was responsible for a terrific Alastair Sim vehicle,
The Green Man (1956), and other British pictures of various genres
leading up to perhaps his most well-known feature, She (1965). Stretch
was written by John Warren and Len Heath and made by British Lion Films with a
relatively low budget in glorious black and white.
The
story concerns three convicts in a British prison—which is presented to be
wonderfully lax in restrictions with prisoners enjoying all kinds of privileges.
It’s easy to become mates with most of the guards and even the warden.
Dodger (Sellers), The Dip (Bernard Cribbins), and Jelly (David Lodge) are
likable rogues, cell mates, and friends with various contacts on the outside.
Dodger’s lady, Ethel (Liz Fraser), is a hot number who often distracts the
guards during visits so that other visitors can pass contraband to the
prisoners. When Soapy (the wonderful Wilfred Hyde-White), a former partner in
crime whose actions caused the three men’s incarceration, shows up dressed as a
vicar, Dodger is suspicious. But Soapy convinces Dodger that there is a jewel
heist scheme in the works that is foolproof—the only requirement is that
Dodger, The Dip, and Jelly must escape from prison for a few hours, perform the
heist, and sneak back in to the prison. In fact, the caper’s success
depends on the boys returning to the slammer for reasons that would be spoilers
here. Throwing a monkey wrench into the plan is the one guard who is a thorn in
the side of the convicts, Officer “Sour” Crout (Lionel Jeffries), who plays
everything by the book.
This
enjoyable piece of whimsy is a fun ride for not-quite ninety minutes. Some of
the dialogue is laugh-out-loud funny, and the caper itself is clever. The
acting, especially, exhibits notable turns from Jeffries and Hyde-White. Oddly,
Sellers is quite subdued here. He is often the more serious leader of the prisoners,
keeping things in order, and staying on top of the shenanigans so that they
don’t go wrong. He does display his considerable screen presence, but the
laughs in Two-Way Stretch generally come from elsewhere.
Kino
Lorber presents a nicely restored feature that looks quite good. An audio
commentary by authors and comedy historians Gemma Ross and Robert Ross add
interesting background and texture to the proceedings. The theatrical trailer
(and other Kino trailers) is the only supplement.
Two-Way
Stretch is
for fans of Ealing-style British comedies, Peter Sellers, and such marvelous character
actors as Wilfrid Hyde-White and Lionel Jeffries.
Bruce Glover (R) with Putter Smith in "Diamonds are Forever". (Photo: Danjaq)
Actor Bruce Glover has died at age 92. His death was confirmed by his son, actor Crispin Glover, though no details were announced, according to Variety. Glover, who was born in Chicago, had an interest in performing since childhood. After being drafted into the U.S. Army at the end of the Korean War, he gravitated to Los Angeles and made a career of acting. He became a familiar face on T.V. and in motion pictures appearing in guest roles in popular series such as Perry Mason, Route 66, The Rat Patrol, Adam-12, Murder She Wrote, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Mission:Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man and The A-Team. Glover, who also taught acting in Los Angeles, also appeared in all three "Walking Tall" films as well as "Chinatown" and "Hard Times" and other feature films. His most memorable role was as Mr. Wint, the charming-but-murderous villain who menaced Sean Connery in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds are Forever". Glover was paired with musician Putter Smith, who played Wint's lover Mr. Kidd. The two made for a comical couple whose genteel dispositions masked their devotion to using exotic methods to kill their victims. For more about Bruce Glover, see the interview below from "James Bond Radio".(Lee Pfeiffer)
Congratulations to Cinema Retro's own Raymond Benson whose latest literary venture returns him to the world of Ian Fleming and 007- with an intriguing twist. As you undoubtedly know, Raymond was one of the successors to Fleming, having written many official James Bond thrillers. Click here to read the official announcement from Ian Fleming Publications.
In August of 1964, legendary writer Stan Lee
and just as legendary artist Steve Ditko devised a new villain to do battle with
their greatest creation, The Amazing Spider-Man. The villain’s name: Kraven the
Hunter. Kraven, an expert trapper who sees the web-slinger as the most
dangerous game and believes that, by defeating him he will become the greatest
hunter who ever lived, first appeared in the Marvel comic book Amazing Spider-Man #15. The character
was a hit with readers and Kraven quickly became a major foe of Spidey’s for
decades to come. As part of Marvel/Sony’s trend of giving some of Spider-Man’s
villains their own live-action blockbuster film (Madame Web, Morbius, Venom), Kraven’s epic movie was released this
past December and was appropriately titled
Kraven the Hunter.
Directed by J. C. Chandor and written by Art
Marcum, Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk, Kraven
tells the story of Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), son of
cold-blooded drug trafficker Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe). After being
seriously injured by saving his half-brother Dimitri (Fred Hechinger) from a
lion attack, Sergei gains the physical abilities of an animal, refuses to take
over his father’s empire and instead, uses his newfound powers to hunt
criminals.
Although I read Marvel comics voraciously as
a kid (and loved them all), I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the
Kraven character. I remember him appearing many times in the books, but I don’t
think the movie follows the storyline of the comics. I could be wrong, though.
It’s been over 40 years since I read a comic book, so the writers could have
been inspired by a later Kraven story. No matter what the case is, Kraven the Hunter is not up to the
standards it should be and that probably has to do with the studio tampering
I’ve been hearing about. It somewhat suffers from clichés and I felt like the
characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. Still, although far from
perfect, I don’t think the movie is as bad as people have been saying. However,
one wonders how this film would have turned out if the work of director Chandor
and the writers were left alone.
Kraven has a group of
wonderful actors, though. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is fine in the lead role. He
just isn’t given enough to work with. The great Russell Crowe is also fun to
watch while the talented Ariana Debose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola and
Christopher Abbott portray legendary Marvel villains Calypso, the Chameleon,
the Rhino and the Foreigner, respectively.
Kraven the Hunter has been released on
Blu-ray and the film is presented in its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio. For the
most part, the audio is very good (except for the movie’s few bits of
noticeable ADR). The same goes for the visuals (excluding the mediocre CGI
sequences). The disc’s special features are as follows: “Deleted & Extended
Scenes”, “Becoming Kraven”, “Beast Mode: The Stunts of the Hunt”, “Outtakes
& Bloopers”, “Kraven’s First Hunt: The Direction”, and “Allies &
Antagonists: The Killer Cast”. The Blu-ray also comes with a digital copy and a
slipcover.
Amazon has announced that two movie industry heavy hitters will be producing the next James Bond movie. Amy Pascal and David Heyman will oversee the production of the next film, though no start date or casting decisions have been announced. The last 007 blockbuster, "No Time to Die" was released in 2021 and was a major hit even though many of the world's movie theaters were still closed due to Covid. Longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson still own half of the franchise but recently sold the creative rights to Amazon. That means that the decisions regarding the return of Bond to the big screen will be entirely decided by Amazon. Pascal and Heyman, two of the industry's most highly regarded producers, issued a statement indicating they are well aware of the responsibility they are taking on for guiding the legendary film series that began in 1962:
“James Bond is one of the most iconic characters in the history of
cinema. We are humbled to follow in the
footsteps of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson who made so many
extraordinary films and honored and excited to keep the spirit of Bond
very much alive as he embarks on his next adventure.”
“What
does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his immortal soul?”
So it says in the Bible, but nowhere in world literature,
or for that matter in world cinema, is that verse better or more painfully
dramatized than in British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom’s “The Claim” (2000),
now available in a special edition Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. The film is an
adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge” with the setting
transposed from England to the snowy gold mining country of the Sierra Nevada
in 1869. (Think “McCabe and Mrs. Miller). Scottish actor Peter Mullan (“Trainspotting”
(1996), “My Name is Joe” (1998)), plays Daniel Dillon a man who singlehandedly
built a town in the snowy wilderness called Kingdom Come. His word is law and
everybody respects him. He’s well-liked and even those who face punishment at
his hands willingly abide by it. As one townsman notes after a public
scourging, “Most other town bosses would have put him to death.”
Dillon shares his world and his bed with Lucia (Milla
Jovovich), a Portuguese singer who runs the local whorehouse. Their
relationship is not completely based on money—at least not on Lucia’s side. For
Dillion it’s a relationship based on a realistic assessment of the brutal,
unforgiving world they live in.
The story opens on a day that is about to shatter the
world Dillon has created, a day when a secret he has held for 20 years will
become public. A caravan of travelers comes trudging through the snowy main
street of Kingdom Come, bringing with it the seeds of Dillon’s demise. Two of
the travelers are Elena Burn (Nastassja Kinski), a woman who is dying of
Tuberculosis, and Hope (Sarah Polley), her lovely young daughter. Upon their
arrival, Elena gives Hope a string of rosary beads and tells her to go and give
it to Dillon, while she finds a place for them to stay. Elena goes to Dillon
and gives him the rosary and he stands frozen in his tracks. Hope walks off to
join her mother and Dillon cries out:“Hope? You’re Hope?”
Also in the newly arrived caravan of travelers is Donald
Dalglish, (Wes Bentley) an engineer for the Central Pacific Railroad. He’s come
to decide where the tracks will go for the new line. Will they go further down
in the valley below or come through Kingdom Come? Dillon is banking on the
tracks coming through town, which will bring him even more riches. Already he
owns the town’s bank, in which rest hundreds of gold bars. Having a railroad
stop in Kingdom Come would make him a very rich man.
And to think it all started with a small claim he bought
20 years ago. And therein lies the story. How he bought the claim and what he
paid for it comes out in flashbacks and present day action that keeps you spellbound.
Michael Winterbottom is a painstaking director, but he’s reluctant to reveal
everything all at once. Characters come and go, we may not even know who they
are, and little incidents of everyday life are shown, while the Big Thing is
moving inexorably forward, unstoppable.
Mullan as Dillon is fascinating to watch as he devolves
from a king-like figure, the master of all he surveys, to a hopelessly
desperate man unable to stop the forces of time and evolution that will destroy
him. Milla Jovovich is captivating as the Polish whore who sings a pretty good
song and really loves Dillon for who he is and not how much gold he has.
Nastassja Kinski gives a grim performance as the ill woman who brought Dillon
the rosary, which Winterbottom uses as a key to unlock the door to all the
mysteries of the past. And Sarah Polley as Hope is the living, flesh and blood
symbol of the cruel naiveté of innocence. Finally, Wes Bentley as the railroad
engineer is a younger version of Dillon, seemingly heroic, but perhaps as
corruptible as Dillon in the end.
“The Claim” was filmed on location at Fortress Mountain,
Alberta, Canada with some footage shot on the Durango and Silverton Narrow
Gauge Railroad in Colorado. There are two scenes in the film that are
absolutely mind-blowing. One is of a horse on fire running across a snowy
landscape. The other, reminiscent of Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo” (1982),
shows a three-story octagonal house being pulled through a snowy forest by
dozens of men, shot from a distance with only the gabled roof of the house
visible above the tree line. All this natural splendor and brutal vitality was
shot in 2.35:1 aspect ratio by award winning Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler (“Code
46,” “The Mauritainian”). The music score was composed and conducted by Michael
Nyman, who has composed operas and film scores for Peter Greenway and Jane
Campion (“The Piano”). Kino Lorber has also included an excellent audio
commentary by writer and filmmaker Scout Trafoyo that is almost as dramatic and
emotional as the film itself. The Blu-ray disc also includes a multi-channel
soundtrack option for those of you so inclined and the theatrical trailer.
“The Claim” is a remarkable movie and the KL Blu-ray is a
“must have” addition to anyone’s collection.
On May 18, 1953, Roger Corman was at breakfast reading
through a copy of the morning edition of the Los Angeles Times.There, on
the bottom left of the first page, was an article titled “Tiny One-Man
Submarine Driven by Pedals Demonstrated at Avalon.”The report continued on pages two and three, the
latter offering full-page photos of the so-called “Metal Fish.” (A reproduction
of the page is featured in the twelve-page booklet accompanying Film Master’s
“Newly Restored” Blu-ray Special Edition of Monster
from the Ocean Floor). In the photos
a pilot, equipped with an artificial lung and sea mask, was readying to navigate
Aerojet General’s Mark III electrical-capable submersible bicycle prototype.
Intrigued by the mini-subs novelty, an impressed Corman
telephoned an Aerojet executive.He
explained he was an independent film producer planning to photograph underwater
sequences for his next project.He
wished to incorporate the submersible into his film but, of course, had no cash
for a rental.As recounted in his memoir
How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood
and Never Lost a Dime, Corman suggested a deal.Should the exec allow usage of his, “one-man
sub for free I’d give the firm publicity and a credit in the film.”In those simpler times, such an offer,
apparently, was enticement enough.
There were a few obstacles.The first, and biggest, was that Corman had no
script nor provisional underwater spectacle on his drawing board.In fact, Corman had only one film to his
credit, for co-producing and selling his original story for $3,500 to the
Allied Artists.Corman recalled being
less-than-enthusiastic watching that pic, Highway
Dragnet (1954), at a sneak preview event, certain his budding Hollywood
career was now “destroyed.” He believed had he held some measure of control
over the production of the film, the pic might have been “shot more
efficiently.”
Things would be different next time.With free-use of the Mark III settled and in
desire of acting as his own producer, Corman wrote an outline for a
science-fiction opus titled It Stalked
the Ocean Floor, hiring television writer, William “Bill” Danch, to write a
screenplay from his treatment.Danch was
offered “almost no money” up front but was promised “a piece of the profits” - should
there be any.Corman estimated he’d need
approximately $12,000 to produce the film, using the $3,500 he made from Highway Dragnet as seed money.Though his own parents refused to assist in
financing his opus –they countered they’d already helped pay his way through
Stanford for a degree in Industrial Engineering – Corman managed to cobble
together an additional $6,500 from school friends.
Still two-thousand dollars short, Corman approached actor-writer
Wyott Ordung to direct.Though Ordung already
had two screenplays to his credit (Robot
Monster (1953) and Combat Squad
(1953), he desperately wanted to helm a feature film project.If Ordung agreed to invest two-thousand
dollars of his own savings into Corman’s prospective film, he would be given
the director’s chair.Ordung accepted.Well, that’s Corman’s memory of the
fundraising, anyway.In the course of a
1984 interview with Fangoria, Ordung
suggested it was he who, “raised the money” to produce the film at a cost of $39,000,
“initial shooting” accounting for $19,000 of the total budget.Ordung also suggested Danch’s script for
Corman’s sea monster opus was provisionally titled The Flaming Sea.
Regardless of how the money was actually raised, a workable
budget was secured. In the coming weeks Corman created Palo Alto Productions: a
$25 per month office space above Sunset Boulevard’s Cock ‘n’ Bull restaurant.His film was mostly produced under the radar
of Hollywood, little notice given to the production in the trades.One of the few notices was a one-sentence mention
in Variety, October of 1953, noting
Ordung was to begin work on a film, now titled The Sea Demon.
The actual final budget of Monster from the Ocean Floor has long been debated.Corman suggested the pic’s production budget –
minus post-production lab fees and music - was $12,000. Variety suggested the picture was produced on an investment of
$15,000, with Roger’s brother, Gene, a film-industry agent, musing the film
cost some $35,000 to bring it to the attention of distributors.If nothing else, Gene Corman’s financial figure
somewhat coincides with Ordung’s remembrance of a $39,000 budget.
Roger Corman calculated the twelve thousand only figuring
in “film, equipment rental, editing, music” and minimum-scale union salaries for the actors and technical
crews.With the film’s production budget
so threadbare, Corman knew the crew needed to shoot in a tight ratio of
1:3.That is, one-third of all exposed
film needed to be seen on screen and not left on the cutting room floor.To achieve this, the production would require
a brisk six-day shooting schedule with total oversight of Corman as producer.
To that end, Corman was the earliest to arrive on “set” –
his “soundstage” being the beachside and waterborne locales of Santa Clara doubling
as the Mexican coastline.The film, in
fact, offers no interiors, save for a single scene photographed inside a boat’s
cabin.Out of frugal necessity, Corman acted
as the film’s key grip, unloading the majority of film equipment – cameras,
lights, props etc. – so cameras could begin to roll immediately at sunrise
without delay.Likewise, he was also the
last to leave, dismantling everything once the day’s shooting had
concluded.Corman was aware should he
leave such tasks to a union film crew, overtime pay would be required… and that
assuredly wasn’t going to happen.
There were further obstacles to hurdle following
completion of principal photography.Corman required an additional $5,000 to pay for the processing of the
black-and-white footage and to see delivery of the film’s final print.He was able to dodge this potentially crippling
issue when the sympathetic, generous president of Consolidated Lab offered to complete
work on the film on a deferred payment basis: Corman would speculatively pay
all lab costs from the film’s post-release earnings.Ordung recalled sound editor Jack Milner as
the true, unsung “hero” of the picture. The director reminisced the film’s
sound recording speed was not properly synched to the footage shot, requiring
Milner to “re-cut the sound word for word.”
There were at least three economic-minded distributors
interested in purchasing rights to Monster
from the Ocean Floor: execs at Realart, Herbert Yates at Republic and theatre-chain
owner Robert Lippert.Gene Corman managed
to negotiate a very decent distribution deal with Lippert, the businessman agreeing
to pay $110,000 dollars for Monster
as a “pick-up:”when a production
company - such as Corman’s Palo Alto - is reimbursed by the distributor for production
costs in trade for a percentage of a film’s total profit.
The savvy Corman brothers had negotiated with Lippert with
a bit of card playing sleight of hand, intimating the production budget of Monster had been costlier than it
actually was.Upon realizing he had been
misled in regard to the film’s actual vs. $110,000 production cost, Lippert allegedly
tried to downgrade and readjust his offer... which may have happened but,
again, it’s not clear if the original contract between the two parties was
honored or not.Corman acknowledged it
was Lippert who suggested they change the film’s title from It Stalked the Ocean Floor (or The Sea Demon) to the more commercial Monster from the Ocean Floor.The distributor thought the word “stalked”
was “a bit too literary.” Corman conceded this simple change in verbiage, “may
have helped” the film’s earnings at the box office.
Upon its release Monster
from the Ocean Floor was paired with a curious number of non-genre related properties,
all Lippert-acquired:The Queen of Sheba, Heat Wave, The
Desperado, The Cowboy and Long Wait
were among the pic’s co-bills.Whether
topping the bill or offered as a support feature, The Monster from the Ocean Floor was a modest box-office success.The tag lines for the great one-sheet poster
designed for promotion promised, “A
crawling bestial creature of the Atomic Age… Creeps from the depths of the Pacific
to challenge the world!” or “Up from
the Forbidden Depths Comes a Tidal Wave of Terror!” or “Terror Strikes...!From Beneath
the Sea.”Such ballyhoo worked.By February 1956 – twenty-one months
following the film’s premiere of May 1954 - Variety
estimated Monster had already managed
to rack a healthy domestic earning of some $185,000.
Though no one necessarily got rich from their share of Monster earnings, the creative team all
profited in one manner or another.Lippert
agreed to front Corman $50,000 to finance his next indie feature as producer, The Fast and the Furious (1954).Director Ordung would found his own indie
production company, Valor Pictures.Coincident with the release of Monster,
Ordung began to prep his own action drama The
Sporting Life.That film, under the
amended title of Walk the Dark Street
(featuring Chuck Connors) would see release in 1956.
Screenwriter William Danch, who had once written dramatic
and comedy scripts for such radio stars as Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Henry Fonda,
Robert Young and Dorothy Lamour, left the U.S. for a year’s stint as a writer
for Radio Free Europe. There he would work with Hungarian exiles to produce
anti-Communist broadcasts for audiences behind the Iron Curtain.Lippert would subsequently enjoy a second
bite at the apple when, by the close of 1960, Variety reported – much to the chagrin of his cinema operators – the
savvy businessman “sold a total of 150 post-’48 films” to the National Telefilm
Association for television broadcast.
Monster
from the Ocean Floor offers a good dose of low-budget 1950s
sci-fi.“The ocean can be dangerous,
Julie, very dangerous,” warns Stanford-trained marine biologist Steve Dunning
(Stuart Wade).He should well know: a
few scenes earlier, Dunning’s one-man submersible had collided into Julie Blair
(Anne Kimbell) as she swam peacefully in a cove off the Mexican coast.Then again, Julie was already warned of the danger
present.In the film’s first scene,
Julie learns from a Mexican child that a mysterious creature was haunting the
waters.
“The sea makes much unhappiness,” the child tells her,
lamenting his own father was killed by “a big devil” lurking beneath the cove’s
waters.When Julie shares the boy’s
story with Dunning, he shrugs it off as superstitious local nonsense.But being a do-gooder American guest in the
region, Julie chooses not to dismiss the possibility of a sea monster lurking
below.She routinely scuba dives to
investigate the possibility herself.
Sure enough, Julie encounters an unusually large-size
octopus with a single cyclopoid eye.She
tells Dunning of her discovery and the two theorize that radiation leakage from
the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests might have caused a mutation.In the meantime, an abalone diver, a burro in
a straw hat, and a beloved dog have been pinched by the creature that absorbs victims.To make things worse, a superstitious old
crone, Tula (Inez Palange) deputizes the otherwise recalcitrant Pablo (director
Ordung) to sacrifice blond bombshell Julie to appease the monster.The film concludes dramatically with Julie
struggling under sea against the slimy tentacles of The Monster from the Ocean Floor.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Meetup Group:
Instagram: @toliveandletdieinla
Email:liveandlet007@gmail.com
"To Live and Let Die in LA" is a monthly meetup
here in Los Angeles. We plan monthly events themed around the Bond lifestyle
(cocktails, trivia, dinners, screenings, etc.). It's definitely growing, and
the Bond community here in LA is having a great time with it.
Screening Series:
This will be a bi-monthly regular screening series
featuring a variety of Bond adventures throughout the year. There will be
a themed pre-show, as well as introductions. All the titles shown will be in 4K DCP format and the venue “The
Culver Theater” will be selling themed drinks and martinis to boot.
Tickets for the first three screenings are already available for
purchase, and can be found at the links below:
The 1970s gave us a plethora of B-movies
which showed nature rising up and attacking humans. Fun films such as Bug (1975), Grizzly (1976), Day of the
Animals, Empire of the Ants and
Kingdom of the Spiders (all 1977) flooded both 70s drive-ins and hardtop
theaters. In addition to these creatures, bees seemed to get pretty pissed off
and they appeared in the 70s Made-for-TV films; Killer Bees (1974) The
Savage Bees (1976), as well as
the theatrical works The Bees and the
all-star disaster flick The Swarm
(both 1978).
However, in 1973, there was one classic, but
somewhat forgotten B-movie (pun intended) which featured our honey-making
friends in a more unique way than just having the insects attack humanity. This
film, titled Invasion of the Bee Girls,
had a bit more imagination and, luckily for us, it has just been released on
Blu-ray.
Solidly directed by Denis Sanders from a fun
script my Nicholas Meyer (who disliked certain changes that were made to his
screenplay), Invasion of the Bee Girls
(aka Graveyard Tramps for its 1981
re-release) deals with government inspector Neil Agar (played by the late,
great William Smith) who investigates a series of male deaths which, at first,
seem to be from heart failure due to sexual exertion. Agar soon learns that a
crazed scientist named Dr. Susan Harris (the lovely Anitra Ford) has created a
bee serum mutated by radiation that transforms local women into monsters who
mate with men before killing them. (Yes, I laughed out loud as I wrote that
sentence.) Can Agar stop the doctor’s horrific plans or will he too succumb to
the irresistible seduction of the bee girls?
Invasion of the Bee
Girls
is an enjoyable movie that moves along at a pretty brisk pace and, at 85
minutes, never overstays its welcome. It’s also filled with wonderful
performances from a veteran cast. You may not recognize some of the talent by
name, but trust me when I tell you that you’ll immediately recognize their
faces. In addition to William Smith and Anitra Ford, we have terrific turns
from Victoria Vetri, Cliff Osmond, Wright King, Katie Saylor, Beverly Powers,
Anna Aries, Cliff Emmich and Jack Perkins.
The entertaining horror/sci-fi creature
feature also benefits from cinematography by the legendary Gary Graver and a
memorable music score from Emmy Award winner Charles Bernstein.
Kino Lorber has released Invasion of the Bee Girls on a region one Blu-ray in its original
(1.85:1) aspect ratio. It is number 24 in their Kino Cult Series and this high
definition transfer looks terrific. The disc also contains theatrical trailers,
radio spots and an audio commentary by film historians Alexandra
Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, as well as a collectible slipcover featuring
the original poster artwork. Check it out. Buzz-buzz!
Cinema Retro's Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer was recently invited by Paramount Home Entertainment to discuss "Tommy Boy" with the film's director Peter Segal in conjunction with the release of the 30th anniversary 4K and Blu-ray editions, which are released on March 25.
CR: I'm a big fan of TommyBoy, so I'll just
cut to the chase. How did the project come to you?
PS: I had worked with Chris Farley a couple of times before
this movie. I did an HBO special with him and Tom Arnold. Then I did an episode
of a show that we did for ABC called TheJackieThomasShow.
I knew that Chris was the funniest guy I'd ever met, and I thought, if ever I
did get an opportunity to make a movie, that I would love to have it be with
him. Soon thereafter, a script came to my desk called BillytheThird:AMidwestern, and it was the genesis of this project. (The film
ultimately became Tommy Boy.- Ed.)
CR: Now, you had some real challenges. The script was being
rewritten. You didn't have a finalized vision of the ending, apparently. You
had a relatively low budget, and you had two leading men who were basically
novices to the film business. How did you cope with all of that?
PS: [laughs] It was hard, but you know what, hearing you
describe those ingredients, yes, you'd have to be nuts to take that on, but it
was really about Chris. It was a challenging situation, with him splitting time
with the SNL season because we took too long during the interim time
between both seasons to work on the script. But it was just an opportunity to
work with this guy who, like I said, I worked with a couple of times before and
I just couldn't wait to try to figure something out with him.
CR: Did Chris and David Spade find it difficult to adapt from
TV into feature film format?
PS: Yes, they both got a little annoyed with me, not that I
did a lot of takes, but on SaturdayNightLive, when you're in front of a live audience, you do one
take, you have multiple cameras, and you're done. On Tommy Boy, it was three,
four, five, six takes in one direction, now we're going to turn the camera
around, three, four, five, six takes in that direction. They would get bored.
They had to learn that that's what it was like making a movie. It also did
sometimes give us some interesting moments that we wouldn't have had without
their boredom. For example, Fat Guy in A Little Coat- in that scene
Chris only spoke the words, and that was a bit that he would do in the SaturdayNightLive offices, putting on people's coats and saying
"Fat guy in a little coat, fat guy in a little coat." He got bored
during the coverage of David, and he made it into a song. I didn't know this
until my editor the next day said, "Oh my God, did you look at the
dailies?" I said, "Well, I was there. I'm pretty sure I know what
happened." He goes, "No, but you weren't paying attention to Chris.
When he was off camera he was singing. You’ve got to go back reshoot it,
turn the camera around, get him to sing the song." So we did. That was
because of boredom and it led to something.
CR: Improvisation was encouraged on your side?
PS: Absolutely. It's always encouraged. The worst thing that
can happen is it hits the cutting room floor, but I always want to try
something.
CR: You said that, although Chris had these terrible habits
that we know about later in his life, he behaved himself on the set. He was
dedicated to making this film work.
PS: I think this was the best experience of his professional
career because he was now a leading man. He was clean and sober during
production and he was enjoying the work. After the success of TommyBoy,
there was a lot of pressure on him. He got offers right and left. He was caught
up in making money instead of really waiting for the right project, and I think
he was becoming frustrated with the way things were going.The fact that I look
back on this experience and we're still talking about this movie 30 years
later, it gives me a nice feeling in my heart because we're not celebrating
something that was bad for his life. We're celebrating something that was
really good for his life.
CR: That's a good way of looking at it. I wanted to ask you
also about the contributions made by cinematographer Vic Kemper and editor Bill
Kerr.
PS: Vic Kemper was a great cinematographer. We needed a
strong hand because I knew that as much as I love to plan and storyboard
everything, which I did for that movie, that things were going to be changing a
lot, because, as we've discussed, there wasn't a complete script. You can't be
a cinematographer and plan and do prep without a screenplay. Bill Kerr happens
to be my best friend. This was his first major motion picture. It was, I would
say, a blast working with him. Of course, it's a blast because it's always a
blast working with your best friend. It was comforting working with him because
he knew how hard it was for me to be away. At the time, I had two children
and they were one and three. When they would visit on the set, they would've
actually grown since the last visit, and I'd get really down. Being able to go
to the edit room was almost like going to my therapist. I couldn't have done
this without either of those guys.
CR: Also, David Newman's contribution. He delivered a
wonderful score. You would not think of him associated with a comedy such as
this, but it's a wonderful score.
PS: Thank you. David did a wonderful job. (Paramount CEO) Sherry
Lansing originally thought that this was just going to be scored with a garage
band. Then when she saw the first cut, she said, "That's not the movie I
bought. This has a lot more heart. You scored it with James Newton Howard (who
scored the comedy Dave-Ed.), and other big composers as temp tracks. I
think we need to give you some more money. You need to get an orchestra
now." We hired David, but he had only three weeks to put it together. You
can recognize the movie Dave in here. I had a meeting with (that film’s
director) Ivan Reitman a few years after TommyBoy came out, and
the first thing he said when I walked into his office was, "Nice score!"
[laughter]
PS: I could hear the similarities myself.
CR:. The film didn't perform spectacularly
when it first opened, but its reputation really grew when it came out on home
video. You were surprised to find out how well it sold.
PS: The movie did open (in theaters) at number one. We (ultimately)
made $31 million domestically, because
it wasn't even released internationally, and that was fine. It was successful,
but where the movie's real success, as you were mentioning, was on home video,
which at the time meant VHS. At the 10th anniversary, Paramount sent out crews
all over the country to interview the cast and everything. They were doing
quite a bit and I said, "Wow, this is a lot for the 10th anniversary of
this movie. Why such a fuss?" They said, "Well, this is a top 10
seller for us." I said, "What does that mean? This year?" They
said, "No, of all time." I said, "Wait a minute. You mean
Paramount Pictures with RaidersoftheLostArk
and TheGodfather… Top 10???" They go, "On VHS,
yes." That's where this movie made its bones really.
CR: Many people consider the film to be a genuine comedy
classic. What do you attribute that to, Peter? Why do you think it's resonated
with so many people of different generations over so many years?
PS: I think because it has a sweetness to it. It's not just
about the jokes. There's a softness to it that is also showing a different side
of Chris Farley that I don't think he showed in any of his other movies. Just
as RebelWithoutaCause was to James Dean, this
movie is to Chris. He didn't get to make a lot of movies, and because this one
is an original character, that meant a lot to him and his relationship with his
father in real life. Also, his friendship, obviously, with David Spade, that
comes through. I think it becomes the secret sauce. That’s why we're still
talking about this movie.
(Special thanks to Sharon Ramirez and Deborah Thompson.)
We all know that popular crooner Al Martino landed a key role in "The Godfather" as Johnny Fontane, a character who was clearly inspired by young Frank Sinatra. Suffice it to say, Sinatra was not pleased. Martino had no acting experience and was hired against the wishes of director Francis Ford Coppola, who argued that a seasoned actor should play the role of Fontane. However, producer Al Ruddy stuck with Martino. The web site Legsville.com features a "lost" 1991 interview with Martino that was conducted by writers Burt Kearns and Rafael Abramovitz (who has since passed away.) The interview was never published until Kearns came across the interview transcripts in 2022. Kearns published it on the Legsville site under his copyright. Martino spins some eye-popping tales regarding the behind-the-scenes friction on the film. Some are difficult to believe but that doesn't mean Martino's recollections are necessarily inaccurate. Click here to come to your own conclusion. (Lee Pfeiffer)
Here are some American radio spots for director Sam Peckinpah's controversial 1971 film "Straw Dogs". These spots provide audience responses to seeing the film.