The Warner Archive has released a Blu-ray of the 1961 comedy Bachelor in Paradise which features the considerable star power of Bob Hope and Lana Turner. As with most Hope vehicles, this is a low-key affair that was designed to please his core base of fans. If the film doesn't break any new ground for Hope the actor, it at least provides plenty of yucks from his trademark wisecracks. Hope plays Adam Niles,an international playboy and best-selling author who has gotten rich by writing books about the sex lives of different nationalities and cultures. When devastating tax troubles force him to return to America, he reluctantly accepts an assignment to help offset his staggering debt to the government. Niles' publisher concocts a scheme whereby he will go undercover to research and write about the sex lives of Americans. He ends up moving to a suburban community known as Paradise, where he assumes an alias and goes about assessing the love lives of his neighbors. The presence of a single man among so many married couples causes an instant scandal, especially when Niles begins wooing neighborhood wives to his lectures about how to improve their sex lives. (This being 1961, it is unsurprising that his conclusions all revolve around what women can do to entice their men. No reciprocal protocols are expected). Before long, husbands are marching on Niles' home like the villagers storming Frankenstein's castle. His main ally is Paradise manager Rosemary Howard (Lana Turner) who puts her career on the line to defend Niles' right to live in the neighborhood, even as she rejects his heavy-handed attempts to seduce her.
Bachelor in Paradise, directed by Jack Arnold and boasting a
score by Henry Mancini, is a surprisingly racy premise for a Hope movie.
Released during an era when the terms "suburbs" still conjured up
images of wife-swapping and orgies, the movie looks positively quaint by
today's standards. Women prance around in house dresses as they
endlessly ponder what more than can do to please their hard-working
hubbies. Some of Hope's zingers still connect and his chemistry with
Turner is considerable. The movie also benefits from a terrific cast of
supporting actors including sexy Paula Prentiss, Jim Hutton, Janis Paige
(as the neighborhood nymphomaniac), Don Porter and the always wonderful
John McGiver. The film isn't a comedy classic but provides enough
genuine laughs to merit viewing. An original theatrical trailer is
included.
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Here's a fun video essay from Turner Classic Movies about sci-fi movies that are regarded as "camp". The emphasis is on some obvious choices: "Plan 9 from Outer Space", "Queen of Outer Space" and "Barbarella"- but it also covers the lesser known cinematic disaster, "The Apple". The video addresses the debate over whether a film can be intentionally designed as "camp" or if that designation only comes about as an unintentional consequence.
There were passing
moments when watching this gorgeously curated Blu-ray of Phil Tucker’s cult 3-D
masterwork Robot Monster (1953) that
I mulled its reputation as cinema’s most fabled wreck was undeserved.Surely, I thought, I’ve cringingly sat
through worse sci-fi films produced before and since.But then some particularly awful line of dialogue
(delivered woodenly, of course), or a bizarre plot turn, or a not-so-special
effect, or an inexplicable episode of dinosaur wrangling would interrupt my
musings, causing a return to sober reality.Phil Tucker’s low-low-low
budget monster-piece is a crazed vision, to be sure.But acknowledging that, Robot Monster is most certainly not
one of the world’s worst films: it’s too entertaining to be dismissed as such.On the same token, it’s undeniably one of the
most desperate and unhinged cinematic artifacts lensed by an indie Hollywood film-outfit
of the ‘50s.
The sullied reputation of Robot Monster is the result, no doubt, due to the merciless
flailing of the production by the smirking Medved brothers - Michael and Harry –
who infamously skewered the film in their pop-culture, eminently readable and
caustic tomes The Fifty Worst Films of
All Time (1978) and The Golden Turkey
Awards (1980).Still the film’s space
helmet and gorilla-suit sporting “Ro-man” (as listed in the film’s end credits)
– has somehow managed to become as
visually iconic a totem of 1950s sci-fi as the gigantic robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still (2oth
Century Fox, 1951) or the Metaluna monster in This Island Earth (Universal-International, 1955).
As is so often the case, the backstory to the creation of
Robot Monster is perhaps more
interesting than the artifact produced.The
screenplay was written by Wyott “Barney” Ordung.The Californian was trying desperately to
break into the film business, initially as an acting student working
occasionally in walk-on roles, often uncredited.In a 1983 interview with the late film and
3-D historian Ray Zone, Ordung recalled it was in 1952 when he was approached
by Tucker – who he’d known casually from working on a previous picture – to write
the script for Robot Monster.Ordung recalled he was originally tasked to
play the role of the “Ro-Man” – at least in earliest test footage photography.
Ordung’s script for Robot
Monster would serve as his springboard into the world of professional
filmmaking.Following that film’s
release, the Californian would script the war film Combat Squad (1953) as well as another sci-fi guilty pleasure Target Earth (1954).Still (mercifully) unproduced is the script Ordung
wrote directly following the release of Robot
Monster.That prospective film was,
according to Sun Valley’s Valley Times,
to feature Ordung’s “3-D comedy” scenario based on “Mildred Seamster’s
Hollywood beauty salon.”The plot would
“deal with the varied individuals who patronize a beauty salon and their
interesting escapades.”Oy.
That film would not materialize, but it was of little
matter as Ordung would soon receive his first directing credit when Roger
Corman tapped him to helm Monster from
the Ocean Floor (1954).Though Ordung
had not previously helmed any sort of film production, it was an offer and
partnership of economic necessity.Corman agreed to allow Ordung to direct on the condition he contribute
$2,000 of his Robot Monster earnings
to the new film’s budget and work for “a piece of the picture.”Hey, a break’s a break.
First-time director Phil Tucker too was looking for his first
big break in the film industry and was of the mind that Robot Monster just might be the ticket.But his experience working on Robot Monster was, alas, bittersweet.Less than two months following the release of
that film, Tucker was found in Fairbanks, Alaska – of all places - shooting his
non-union follow-up epic: the seventy-five minute Venusian “science-fiction
thriller” Space Jockey – a film never
released and now thought lost.Tucker grudgingly
told a journalist in Fairbanks that with only Robot Monster to his credit, he had already soured on the politics
of Tinseltown.
“The movie industry is stifled in Hollywood,” he director
complained.“They tell you what to
write, how to produce it, when to direct it, who [to] put in it and when to try
to sell it.It’s a tight little island of rulers and it’s
a hard place in which to breathe free.”Tucker did confess he wasn’t trying to be a true auteur in any sense of the word: “I’m not trying to create
art.I’m trying to make money,” he
offered plainly.
The primary stumbling block to Tucker’s earning any
monies was New York-born Al Zimbalist, the executive producer and guiding hand
of Robot Monster.The movie was the first of the films Zimbalist
would oversee as producer – and occasionally as “writer,” though that was mostly
as concoctor of “original stories” and little more.Throughout the 1950s and a bit beyond,
Zimbalist delivered such bargain-basement fare as Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Miss
Robin Crusoe (1953), King Dinosaur
(1955) and Monster from Green Hell
(1957) to the pleasures of a mostly undiscerning cinema-going audience.It was also Zimbalist who steered Robot Monster to go the then popular 3-D
filming route.It was an unusual decision
for an indie film to be shot on a shoestring budget.
It made some sense.Hollywood’s production of 3-D films was at its zenith in 1953.Box
Office would note in April of 1953 that no fewer than sixty-two films to
offer the 3-D treatment were either completed, in production or in the planning
stages.Practically every major studio
was readying a slate of 3-D cinematic fare: Columbia, Paramount, RKO Radio,
United Artists and Warner Bros. among them.By far, 20th Century Fox was leading the way with a scheduled
twenty-two 3-D films on the drawing
board.There were only a couple of
independents in the mix, having chosen to dip their toe in the 3-D pool.Al Zimbalist and Phil Tucker’s “newly
organized” Third Dimension Pictures was one of them.
The trades reported on March 21, 1953 that Zimbalist was to
employ a unique “Tru-Depth system of 3-D” photography for his in-the-works Robot Monster project. Then, a mere week
following the start of the film’s
production, Box Office noted that Robot Monster had completed shooting… though no release date had yet been set.Zimbalist was so pleased with the results of
the “Tru-Depth” system, that in April of ’53 the Hollywood maverick announced
the formation of his “Tru-Stereo Corporation.”The company would “make available a stereoscopic 3-D system to
independent producers.” “Tru-Stereo” would serve as an affordable,
budget-conscious alternative to the more expensive 3-D systems used by the
Hollywood majors.
In fact, there were no fewer than twenty-two competing 3-D systems being used by filmmakers by late
spring of 1953.(“Tru-Depth” had since been
rechristened as “Tru-Stereo.)”The
Tru-Stereo 3-D was proffered as being similar to the others: it too employed
two cameras to create the three-dimensional effect.But the system also boasted “an authentic
interlocking control which is said to insure against faulty
synchronization.”Robot Monster had also boastingly employed “a newly developed
stereophonic sound system devised by the Master-Tone Sound Corporation.”
The first casting notices for Robot Monster were announced in March of 1953.Handsome leading man George Nader was reportedly
hired to play the role of “Roy” following his appearance in the still
unreleased pic Miss Robin Crusoe.Nader’s performance in that film impressed
Zimbalist who worked on the same as associate producer.Roy’s love interest, Alice (Claudia Barrett)
hadn’t much big-screen experience, but had been steadily working on any number
of early television series.The film’s
egghead professor would be played by the long-working Ukrainian actor John
Mylong, his children, Johnny and Carla, by stage-kids Gregory Moffett and
Pamela Paulson, respectively.
The role of the professor’s wife went to Selena Royle, an
actress with a familiar face due to her long run as a dependable player at MGM.Royle was happy to get the role – any role –
as she had recently been blacklisted in the pages of Red Channels, “the American Legion’s list of 200 motion picture
workers suspected of communist leanings.”Her crime was the organizing and serving of free meals to the
un-and-under employed actors in and around New York City during the throes of
the Depression.Royle vowed to fight the
accusations, telling journalist her post-blacklist acting income had dropped
from six figures to a mere three figures by mid-summer of 1952. Robot
Monster would be one of her two final feature film appearances, Royle and
her husband choosing to immigrate to Mexico in 1957.
Imprint, the Australian-based video label, has announced some more forthcoming releases. All Blu-rays are region-free. Please keep in mind that prices quoted are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter to see what the price is in your local currency.
Enjoy the full presentation of the 1967 crime comedy "Eight on the Lam" which teams Bob Hope with Phyllis Diller, Jonathan Winters and two Bond Girls: Shirley Eaton and Jill St. John. (To watch the film in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube.")
The old adage that good things come in small packages applies to movies, specifically "B" movies. They were once a valued staple of the film business during the eras in which local theaters generally showed double features. "B" movies were sometimes the top-billed feature but more often than not they were produced simply to provide programming for the bottom half of the bill at a low cost. This is not to diminish their worth. Most of these productions were quite entertaining and some have gone on to be regarded as cult classics. "The Gun Runners", a 1958 United Artists film, is not a cult classic but it is a "B" movie and it is quite good, largely because this story about a deep sea fisherman has director Don Siegel's firm hand on the tiller. The screenplay is derived from two Ernest Hemingway sources: a 1934 short story, "One Trip Across" and his classic novel "To Have and Have Not" which was brought to the screenin 1944 by director Howard Hawks and star Humphrey Bogart. Only a few years later, it had been remade as "The Breaking Point" starring John Garfield. For whatever reason, the producers assumed there was still fertile ground to be exploit in Hemingway's tales and this loose adaptation also owes some obvious inspiration to John Huston's 1948 classic "Key Largo". Despite the hodgepodge nature of its source material and a micro budget, "The Gun Runners" is engrossing throughout.
Audie Murphy stars as Sam Martin, a down-on-his-luck deep sea fisherman who operates a charter boat out of Key West. Sam is happily married to Lucy (Patricia Owens), a devoted wife whose passion for her husband results in the film having a somewhat edgy content in terms of sexual innuendo, as the young couple can barely keep their hands off each other. Sam's home life may be blissful but he's in deep debt due to slumping rentals of his boat. On an excursion to Havana during the midst of the revolution (which was in progress when the movie was filmed, though California locations are stand ins for Cuban locales), Sam is approached by a couple of shady revolutionaries who want to employ his boat for illicit purposes. Sam rejects their overture but within seconds, he witnesses an inquisitive police officer brutally murdered by the men. He flees Cuba before anyone can place him as an eyewitness. Back home, his fortunes continue to decline and he fears having his boat foreclosed on. Good fortune seems to smile upon him when a wealthy man named Hanagan (Eddie Albert), accompanied by his beautiful young mistress Eva (Gita Hall), wants to pay to charter Sam's boat for a princely sum- with the caveat that they make an unauthorized nighttime visit to Havana without getting a travel permit. Sam takes an immediate dislike to the perpetually jovial Hannigan and doubts his story that he and Eva simply want to sample the nightlife in Havana. Sam reluctantly agrees out of financial desperation. Once in Cuba, however, Hannigan is actually secretly meeting with revolutionaries, who pay him a large sum of cash in return for promising to deliver a cache of weapons to them on his next visit. Things get hairier from there when Hannigan uses financial blackmail to force Sam into making a return visit to Cuba in order to drop off the weapons. In the "Key Largo"-like finale, he finds himself on board the small vessel with Hannigan and his gang of cutthroats (including sadistic Richard Jaeckel) who have every incentive to kill him once the mission is complete. Of particular interest is the screenplay's attempts to remain politically ambivalent in dealing with the Cuban revolution, though the writers clearly seem to paint the rebels in an unfavorable light. (Only a few months after the film's release, the Batista regime would fall to Castro's forces.)
Director Siegel was known for making his films lean and mean and this is no exception. Working with a threadbare budget, he manages to squeeze considerable suspense out of the scenarios with nary a wasted frame of film or a superfluous line of dialogue. Audie Murphy suffices in the lead role, but the part calls out for someone with a harder edge. The film benefits from a marvelous cast of supporting actors with Everett Sloane especially good as Sam's elderly, wino first mate who he keeps on simply out of sentiment. There are also bit parts by Jack Elam and John Ford regular John Qualen. The two female leads are very good but Gita Hall steals the show in the traditional role of glamorous femme fatale, a young woman who is mortgaging her future for the trappings of luxury by serving as Hannigan's mistress. (If she were in a higher profile film, she may have gone on to stardom.) By far the best performance is given by Eddie Albert, who makes for a larger-than-life, smarmy villain. The diversity of this actor is often overlooked. He could play light comedy (he was great in "Green Acres") with exceptional skill while also delivering dramatic performances that are equally impressive.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray features the original trailer with an English track but Italian titles (go figure) and some bonus trailers. I don't want to overstate the merits of "The Gun Runners" but as a "B" movie it exceeds expectations. Recommended.
The 1961 MGM Western A Thunder of Drums has been released by the Warner Archive. The film was regarded as a standard oater in its day but has since built a loyal following who have been eager to have the movie available on the home video market. What sets A Thunder of Drums apart from many of the indistinguishable Westerns of the period is its downbeat storyline and intelligent script, which was clearly geared for adults as opposed to moppets. There's also the impressive cast: Richard Boone, George Hamilton, Charles Bronson, Arthur O'Connell, Richard Chamberlain and Slim Pickens among them.The film opens with a sequence that was very unsettling and shocking for its day: an Indian attack on a tranquil homestead. A little girl is forced to witness the gang rape and murders of her mother and teenage sister. The plot then shifts to the local fort where commandant Boone is overseeing an understaffed cavalry contingent that has to find and defeat the marauding tribe, which has already slaughtered numerous settlers and soldiers. The Indians are window dressing in the story: nameless, faceless adversaries who are not given any particular motivation for their savagery. (These was, remember, far less enlightened times and such conflicts were generally presented without nuance.)
George Hamilton is the by-the-book West Point graduate assigned to the fort as Boone's second-in-command. He gets a frosty reception from minute one. Boone tells him he doesn't meet the requirements of a seasoned officer who can survive in the hostile environment. The two men spend a good deal of their time in a psychological war of wills. Adding to Hamilton's discomfort is the discovery that his former lover, Luana Patten, is not only living at the remote outpost, but is engaged to one of his fellow officers. The two rekindle their own romance and this leads to scandalous and tragic results.
The film is based on a novel by popular Western writer James Warner Bellah and probably represents the career high water mark of director Joseph Newman, who was destined to toil for decades helming B movies. He gets vibrant performances from his cast. The ever-watchable Boone is in his predictably crusty mode, cynically second-guessing his officers and men, tossing out insults and sucking on an omnipresent stogie. Boone was so dominant in every role he played, one wonders why he never reached a higher status as a reliable box-office figure. Hamilton is in his standard pretty boy mode, but holds his own against macho men Boone and Charles Bronson, who is cast against type as a somewhat dim-witted character of low scruples. Singer Duane Eddy, who was a teenage pop star at the time, made his film debut here with a degree of fanfare, but it was obviously last minute stunt casting as Eddy is given virtually nothing to do except strum a few chords on his guitar. The film boasts some magnificent scenery and some rousing action sequences that are more realistic than those found in most Westerns of the time. A Thunder of Drums isn't art or even a great or important Western - but it is fine entertainment and the Warner Archive edition looks terrific. A Blu-ray edition is overdue! The only bonus feature is the original theatrical trailer is included (the one seen above is of inferior quality to the trailer featured on the disc, but it does give a good overview of the film).
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With Russia currently dominating world news in an unfavorable way and authoritarian political figures making headlines even in democracies, it's relevant to look back on the 1983 crime thriller "Gorky Park", which has been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. The film was based on Martin Cruz Smith's international bestseller and was unique in its day because it centered on subterfuge within the Soviet law enforcement system and was set primarily in Moscow. Director Michael Apted had hoped to be the first major Hollywood studio production to shoot within the Soviet Union but unsurprisingly he was turned down due to the fact that the story dealt with systemic corruption throughout every layer of the government. Apted settled for the next best thing, shooting in Finland and Sweden, both of which make convincing substitutes for the USSR. Transforming the lengthy, complex novel to a screenplay could have been no easy task, even for acclaimed screenwriter Dennis Potter ("Pennies from Heaven"). Although the film has a leisurely running time of 128 minutes, there are still some portions of the story that are not fleshed out enough to be easily understood.
The movie gets off to a gripping start when three young people drift away from the crowd at a winter festival in Moscow's Gorky Park. They are shot dead shortly thereafter, although we don't know why or by who. Police detective Arkady Renko (William Hurt) is first on the scene and he discovers that the snow-covered bodies have been horribly mutilated with their fingers removed and their faces skinned so that their can be no recognition of the victims. This leads to some particularly gory scenes in which a pathologist skillfully manages to recreate their facial features using synthetic skin. In a country and political system in which everyone is justifiably paranoid, Renko begins to suspect that the KGB might have been behind the killings and are looking to set him up as a fall guy. An interesting cast of characters is gradually introduced. Irina Asanova (Joanna Pacula in her screen debut) is a glamorous actress who was a friend of the victims. Renko cannot persuade her that they are dead, as she has been assured that they escaped into exile by Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin). He's a well-connected, rich American businessman who deals in the lucrative trade of sable furs. Renko is immediately suspicious that Osborne, with his bought-and-paid for allies in Soviet law enforcement, is somehow tied to the murders. This results in a few of those scenes moviegoers love in which the hero and villain banter words, using euphemisms to represent their actual thoughts as they engage in a duel of wits. The more dedicated Renko becomes in solving the crime, the more he realizes his is putting his own life in danger. He later gets assistance from an American visitor, William Kirwill (Brian Dennehy), a detective who is in Moscow to try to solve the murder of his brother, who was one of the three victims. Together, he and Renko begin to unravel a tangled web of corruption, deceit, betrayal and more murders.
"Gorky Park" enjoyed good reviews at the time of its release but it was a boxoffice disappointment. Viewing the new Blu-ray, I found it more intriguing and enjoyable than I had previously- even though the plot gets very complicated and so many characters are introduced that by the end of the movie, I can't say for sure why the original three murder victims were killed. The movie was an important early starring role for William Hurt and he's adequate in the role but rather bland at times, although he and Pacula engage in the kind of steamy sex scene that was de rigueur at a time before movies became largely devoid of eroticism. Pacula gives a very fine performance that earned her a Golden Globe nomination and Dennehy steals every scene he's in, although the premise of an American detective thinking he will have free reign to operate in one of the most oppressive societies in the world is a bit of a stretch. Ian Bannen is a welcome presence as Renko's superior officer, who may be in the pocket of Osborne. As the American fur trader, Lee Marvin is terrific in a marvelous late-career role. It must be said that the largely British cast of supporting actors retain their natural accents, which proves to be a distraction since they are supposed to be playing Russians. Hurt supposedly complained about this because, for the sake of consistency, it forced him to adapt his own version of a British accent, which seems like a hybrid with American English. It doesn't work at all and it's surprising that a skilled director like Apted didn't simply encourage his cast to adopt Russian accents. The production design is rich and expensive-looking but James Horner's score, which was acclaimed in some quarters, sounds dated and very much from an era in which synthesizers were employed ad nauseum.
For those of who came of age during the Cold War period, the film is a reminder of how every aspect of Soviet life was put under scrutiny, with paranoia instilled in citizens to keep everyone off-balance and reluctant to trust anyone else. Despite the Putin regime's quashing of many societal freedoms, today's Russia still enjoys far more freedoms and prosperity than it did when "Gorky Park" was made. Michael Apted's direction is first-rate. Dennis Potter's screenplay excels at showing what life is like in an authoritarian state, where the trappings of democracy are undermined by the fact that everyone knows that there are people who follow the people who follow them. What I found surprising and refreshing is that Renko, who is aware of and frustrated by the Orwellian aspects of his country, remains a dedicated law enforcement official who proudly serves the Soviet state. "Gorky Park" is not a classic but it is a compelling and offbeat thriller that holds up today.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray looks very good, indeed. Cinematographer Rolf D. Bode's cinematography really impresses, as he shot the film in a rather washed out, colorless manner to reflect the blandness of the Soviet state. The release is one of the few from KL that doesn't include a commentary track, but there is an excellent 16-minute recent interview with Michael Apted, who says he rarely revisits his own films but did so in this case. He says he was surprised at how well the film has held up but expresses his frustration that, despite good reviews, the movie was not successful at the American boxoffice, though it did well internationally. Apted recalls the challenges of trying to replicate Moscow in Helsinki and speaks well of his cast and crew. He says that Lee Marvin, though appearing healthy on screen, was in intensive care in a hospital just prior to filming, as he suffered from emphysema. He relates that Marvin was especially enthused about the film because it gave him a rare opportunity to play a character who was sophisticated and highly cultured. The Blu-ray also includes the original trailer, a teaser trailer and TV spots for "Gorky Park" and an extensive number of trailers for other action films available from KL.
A personal observation: it should be noted that the interview segment with Michael Apted was produced by Walter Olsen, co-founder with his brother Bill of the Scorpion Releasing video label. Scorpion had partnered with KL in recent years to release many under-radar-films on Blu-ray. Walter passed away in May just months after his brother died. Those of us who value their contributions to the home video industry mourn their passing.
On September 27, the Australian video company Imprint/ViaVision will release a 4-film box set showcasing films starring George Peppard. Here are the details:
With his dashing good looks and
irresistible charm, George Peppard became one of the most iconic actors of the
1960s.
Enjoy four forgotten gems from his
prolific career for the first time on Blu-ray in Australia:
P.J. (1968)
Pendulum (1969)
The Executioner (1970) – Worldwide first on
Blu-ray!
Newman’s Law (1974)
Limited Edition 4-Disc Hardbox. 1500
copies only.
P.J.
(1968) – Imprint Collection #252
Peppard faces off against Raymond Burr
(Rear Window) when he becomes entangled in an affair with deadly
consequences in P.J.
Private eye P.J. Detweiler is
reluctant to protect the mistress of a millionaire from attacks by his client’s
wife and greedy family. In truth, P.J. is walking into a deadly intrigue in
which he is to play a central part.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a 2K scan
NEW Audio Commentary by film historian & author Toby Roan
Audio Commentary by critics Howard S. Berger and
Steve Mitchell
NEW Interview with author & screenwriter Courtney Joyner on the
career of director John Guillermin
NEW Video essay on George Peppard & John Guillermin
Theatrical Trailer
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Pendulum
(1969) – Imprint Collection #253
George Peppard embarks on a relentless
quest for justice in this thrilling classic.
Cynical Washington, DC, police captain
Frank Matthews risked his life to catch a young rapist and murderer. But the
psychopath is set free when a civil liberties’ attorney proves to the Supreme
Court that Matthews never read the killer his rights. When Matthews’ wife is
found murdered alongside her lover, and he becomes the prime suspect, Matthews
decides his best option is to capture the real killer himself.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080P High-definition presentation on Blu-ray
Special Features TBC
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
The
Executioner (1970) – Imprint Collection #254
Worldwide first on Blu-ray!
Joan Collins, Keith Mitchell and Judy
Geeson also star in The Executioner, the nail-biting thriller and
worldwide first on Blu-ray.
When a covert operation in Vienna goes
awry, British Intelligence operative John Shay suspects his colleague, Adam
Booth, may be a double agent. Appointing himself executioner, Shay kills Booth
and then assumes his identity to obtain conclusive evidence that Booth was a
traitor.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080P High-definition presentation on Blu-ray
Special Features TBC
Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Newman’s
Law (1974) – Imprint Collection #255
The creator of Banacek, Anthony
Wilson, and George Peppard reunite in the gritty police drama Newman’s Law.
When a hard-nosed LA cop is booted from
duty after being falsely accused of extortion, he goes rogue to investigate an
organised crime case, uncovering a conspiracy that might extend to the highest
levels of his own department.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a 2K scan
NEW Audio Commentary by film historian Steve Mitchell and
producer/screenwriter Cyrus Voris
NEW Interview with director Jeff Burr on the career of director Richard
T. Heffron
Radio Spots
Theatrical Trailer
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Any pre-order titles will be
dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special
features and artwork are subject to change.
Imprint limited editions tend to sell out quickly. Click here to pre-order. (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter to see what the price is in your local currency.) The Blu-ray set is Region-Free.
Most rock 'n roll movies of the 1950s and 1060s were rightly regarded as disposable entertainment. With a few exceptions, they were low-budget attempts to cash in on the new fad before it might fade away. Elvis Presley's films were cinematic gold for a while but even they began to fade with the release of director Richard Lester's two Beatles films, "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", both of which brought innovation and style to the genre. The Monkees' feature film "Head" would also go boldly where no rock 'n roll flick would. "The Cool Ones", however, appears to have been made by people whose sensibilities were stuck in amber. Despite being released in an era when rock music was being defined by groups with a cutting edge, this musical comedy, released in 1967, has the hallmarks of similar films made a decade before. In short, it's a movie designed for hipsters but made by middle-aged squares.
The film centers on the adventures of Hallie Rodgers (Debbie Watson), a dancer seen on one of those "Shindig"-type TV series designed to appeal to teenagers by presenting musical groups performing their latest hits live on stage. Hallie feels she has true star power but the show's arrogant producer, played by Phil Harris, refuses to give her a chance to sing on the program. In an act of defiance on live TV, Hallie steals the microphone from guest performer Glen Campbell and belts out a song. As she is chased around the stage by production executives, she engages in wild mannerisms that the audience mistakes for a new dance. She's summarily fired but later learns she has gained a following and that her moves on stage are now the latest dance craze called "The Tantrum". (I'm not making this up, folks.) She then attempts to woo one-time teen idol Cliff Donner (Gil Peterson) to form a duo. Cliff has fallen on hard times and is currently performing in a failing nightclub run by avuncular British export Stanley Crumley (Robert Coote). The moody Gil is smitten with Hallie but is reluctant to try to regain his former stardom. Ultimately, he concedes when the sees the enthusiastic response from their duets, which help revive Stanley's nightclub. With Stanley as their manager, they set about promoting the act by performing The Tantrum in front of growing audiences. At this point, they are approached by Stanley's estranged brother Tony (Roddy McDowall), a legendary record producer who travels with his own posse and who enjoys a rabid fan base himself. Tony takes control of the act but his sheer narcissism and arrogance results in tension between Hallie and Gil, who break up and reunite more times than I can recount. The bizarre production gets even stranger with a closing act by Mrs. Miller, who was a sixtyish everyday woman whose cover version recording of Petula Clark's "Downtown" became a novelty hit that elevated her to temporary fame.
"The Cool Ones" is awful on every level, but it's so awful it has the virtue to keep the viewer glued to the screen to see if it becomes even more awful. The songs are mostly awful despite being the creations of notable talents Lee Hazlewood and Billy Strange, although the best of the lot, "This Town", would be a well-received recording by Frank Sinatra a couple of years later. The depiction of teenagers is awful, presenting them as brain-dead zombies who instinctively embrace every new song and dance move they experience on a TV show and instantly turn into raving mobs of fans. Young people are presented in an inoffensive, sanitized manner. No one smokes (cigarettes or anything else) and they're all satisfied sipping tonics and sodas in nightclubs. Cripes, to think this film was sandwiched between the release of "The Wild Angels" and the Woodstock festival....The direction by Gene Nelson (who displayed some talent in other films and TV series) is awful and so are the performances, with Debbie Watson overacting and Gil Peterson, who looks like a human Ken doll, underplaying with predictably boring results. They make for the least erotic couple seen on screen since the Ma and Pa Kettle series. But the scene-stealing awful performance is provided by Roddy McDowall, who chews the scenery and everything else in sight while presenting an over-the-top caricature of a fussy, demanding gay man. But since film producers felt that teenagers shouldn't know that gay people exist, a plot device is inserted in which we learn Tony's unseen girlfriend is pregnant, which sends him into an even greater hissy fit that only reinforces the gay stereotype. Only dear old Robert Coote emerges with some dignity intact. The film does have colors that jump out of the screen and it is fun to see location footage of old L.A., which is marvelously photographed by legendary cinematographer Floyd Crosby, whose achievements include "High Noon". This would be his final film. The dance numbers are also well-choreographed by Toni Basil, who would go on to have the hit record "Mickey" in the 1980s. In the end, however, the movie makes those Frankie and Annette beach pictures look like biting social commentaries on life in the 1960s. I expected young Mickey Rooney to show up on screen shouting, "Hey, kids- we can put the show on in the barn!!!" The film was released as the bottom attraction on double features. There was probably no damage to anyone's career because few people saw it.
In viewing "The Cool Ones", I came to the conclusion that I had to disagree with Huey Lewis and the News in that it isn't hip to be square. The film is available on DVD from the Warner Archive. It's a nice transfer and includes the original trailer. The DVD is region-free so that bad movie lovers everywhere can enjoy the film.
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Justly acclaimed as one of the greatest film noir movies ever made, director Don Siegel's 1958 thriller The Lineup has been reissued by Sony as part of their burn-to-order DVD collection. The DVD carries over the bonus extras from the film's initial release in a Sony noir boxed set from 2009. Siegel makes the most of his modest budget, eschewing studio sets for actual San Francisco locations that add immeasurably the authenticity of the story and the action sequences, which are among the most ambitious of the era. The film derived from a popular TV series of the same name and features the star of the show, Warner Anderson, as a San Francisco detective, Lt. Ben Guthrie. His sidekick, Inspector Al Quine was originally played in the show by Tom Tully but the part in the film is played by Emile Meyer, whose mug perfectly suits the style of the movie. The "Macguffin" of this caper movie is an ornate doll loaded with heroin that has been carried into the United States by an innocent tourist (Raymond Bailey, the future Mr. Drysdale of "The Beverly Hillbillies".). The doll ends up in the hands of an equally innocent little girl and her mother who were on the same cruise ship. However, this is just a necessary plot device to present a fascinating character study of a team of criminals who are assigned to fly from Miami to San Francisco to claim the doll and deliver the drugs to a mysterious crime lord. Things go awry from the first few frames of the movie when an attempt to steal the tourist's luggage goes wrong, resulting in the death of a crime syndicate courier who bungles the first attempt to get the doll. The resulting action follows the desperate attempts by the Miami crooks to secure the missing drugs. Their lives depend on it because if they fail, the mob will suspect they have double-crossed them and kept the heroin for themselves. The criminal team is among the most psychotic ever seen on film. Dancer (Eli Wallach) is the younger man being groomed by his older mentor, Julian (Robert Keith, father of Brian Keith) to be his heir apparent. The two men are outwardly charismatic and friendly, but as the story progresses, we realize they are merciless sadists who will stop at nothing to get what they want. When they kidnap the young girl and her mother, we get a glimpse at exactly how devoid of human emotions they are.
The caper story, expertly penned by the great Sterling Silliphant, follows the efforts of the detectives to get to the drugs first-- but the cops are mere window dressing, as Siegel is clearly saving the best scenes for his hit men. Wallach and Keith rival that great pairing of Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager as the creepy criminal team in Siegel's memorable 1964 remake of The Killers. On one level, Keith is acting as a father to a younger man who might be seen as an adopted son. However, it doesn't take much to see that Siegel has introduced a very clear homoerotic element to the story which becomes even more apparent when the pair end up in a "social club" and hotel that very obviously caters to homosexual men. In case there is still too much subtlety for the viewer, the place is named the Seaman's Club! (In one of the film's best remembered sequences, Wallach "offs" a would-be lover in a steam room.) The film is packed with inventive sequences that are still somewhat shocking today. It's rather amazing that some of these scenes were not diluted by squeamish studio executives. A helpless woman and her young child are kidnapped and menaced, a man in a wheelchair is thrown to his death and any number of innocent people are put in harm's way by the relentless criminal's quest to secure the missing dope. Most impressive is the climax of the film wherein Siegel films an exciting car chase that culminates on an unfinished stretch of freeway. It will have you on the edge of your seat (look for an amazing bit of stunt work in which a car is driven at high speed within feet of dropping off the end of the construction site.) All the earmarks are evident for what would become trademarks of Siegel's films: the story moves quickly, there isn't a wasted frame and the performances are terrific.
Sony's DVD boasts an excellent transfer and some very interesting extras, though the studio once again undermines the latter features by not even bothering to mention them on the packaging. There is an interview with Christopher Nolan, who discusses the influence of noir films on his own work. There is also a feature length commentary track hosted by Eddie Muller of Turner Classic Movies and The Film Noir Foundation and bestselling crime novelist James Ellroy, whose work includes L.A. Confidential. Muller is extremely informative, conveying fascinating information about the film and the San Francisco locations. However, Ellroy, who describes himself as "The White Knight of the Far Right" wears out his welcome pretty quickly. His efforts to come across as politically incorrect become blatantly pretentious, as he peppers his comments with expletives and makes homophobic jokes with regularity. Even Muller seems a bit taken off balance by him. Nevertheless, Sony deserves kudos for allowing Ellroy's controversial commentaries to remain intact. If you can put up with Ellroy, you'll get some great insights into the film and Siegel's methods of working.
The Lineup is American film noir at its best.
(This DVD is "all region", meaning it will play on any international system).
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Kino Lorber has released a new Blu-ray special edition of director Marcel Ophuls' landmark 1969 documentary "The Sorrow and the Pity". Here are the official details:
From its
first release at an underground theater in Paris, this account of France’s
occupation under the Nazi regime has been acclaimed as one of the most moving
and influential films ever made. Director Marcel Ophuls interviewed the
residents of Clermont-Ferrand who remembered the occupation, as well as
government officials, writers, farmers, artists, and German veterans. Here, in
their own words, is the story of how ordinary citizens and leaders alike
behaved under military siege. Originally refused by French TV, the film
garnered international success and acclaim – including an Oscar nomination for
Best Documentary – while shattering the myth of an undivided and universally resistant
France under the Vichy government. A triumph of on-the-ground filmmaking, The
Sorrow and the Pity (1969) remains gripping, appalling, and exhilarating for
its unflinching view of humanity.
THE
DC COMICS SUPERHERO COMES TO LIFE IN WES CRAVEN’S CULT CLASSIC FILM, MAKING ITS
DEBUT ON 4K ULTRA HD!
Deep
in Florida's darkest everglades, a brilliant scientist, Dr. Alec Holland (Ray
Wise, Robocop) and a sexy government agent, Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau, John
Carpenter’s The Fog) have developed a secret formula that could end world
hunger and change civilization forever. Little do they know, however, that
their arch nemesis, Arcane (Louis Jourdan, Octopussy) is plotting to steal the
serum for his own selfish schemes. Looting the lab and kidnapping Cable, Arcane
douses Holland with the chemicals and leaves him for dead in the swamp. Mutated
by his own formula, Holland becomes “Swamp Thing” - a half human/half plant
superhero who will stop at nothing to rescue the beautiful Cable and defeat the
evil Arcane... even if it costs him his life.
DISC
1: 4K ULTRA HD SPECIAL FEATURES:
2023 4K
Restoration (16-Bit Scan of the Original Camera Negative) of both the US
Theatrical PG Version and Unrated International Version of the film
presented in its original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio in Dolby Vision / HDR
Audio: DTS-HD
Master 2.0 Mono, Spanish Mono
Optional English
Subtitles
Audio Commentary
with Writer/Director Wes Craven moderated by Sean Clark (Theatrical / PG
Version)
Audio Commentary
with Makeup Effects Artist William Munns moderated by Michael Felsher
(Theatrical / PG Version)
Collectible “4K
LaserVision” Mini-Poster of cover art
DISC
2: BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:
2023 HD
Restoration of both the US Theatrical PG Version and Unrated International
Version of the film presented in its original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio
Audio Commentary
with Writer/Director Wes Craven moderated by Sean Clark (Theatrical / PG
Version)
Audio Commentary
with Makeup Effects Artist William Munns moderated by Michael Felsher
(Theatrical / PG Version)
Audio: DTS-HD
Master 2.0 Mono, Spanish Mono
Optional English
Subtitles
"Tales From
the Swamp" (Remastered) with Actress Adrienne Barbeau (HD, 16:56)
"Hey
Jude" with Actor Reggie Batts (HD, 14:30)
"That Swamp
Thing" with Len Wein, Creator of Swamp Thing (HD, 13:19)
"Swamp
Screen: Designing DC's Main Monster" featurette (HD, 20:32)
"From Krug
to Comics: How the Mainstream Shaped a Radical Genre Voice"
featurette (HD, 17:34)
Posters &
Lobby Cards - Photo Gallery
Photos from the
Film - Photo Gallery
William Munns’
Behind the Scenes Pictures - Photo Gallery
Behind the
Scenes Photos by Geoffrey Rayle – Photo Gallery
Theatrical
Trailer (HD, 1:31)
* Special
Features May Not Be Rated, Closed Captioned Or In High Definition.
This title will be released on July 25. Click here to order from Amazon and save 30%.
Rightfully or wrongfully, I’m going to concentrate this
review of Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi from the
Vault Blu on two of this Blu-ray set’s decidedly lesser films:Creature
with the Atom Brain (1955) and The
Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959).This is partially due to the fact that the set’s two most prominent
titles, 20 Million Miles to Earth and
It Came from Beneath the Sea, were
previously issued by Mill Creek back in 2014 on their twofer Ray Harryhausen Creature Double Feature
from the same transfers. Though Creature with the Atom Brain is making
its U.S. Blu debut on this set, the film has seen a previous Blu issue on the UK
import Cold War Creatures: Four Films
from Sam Katzman.So only The Thirty Foot Bride of Candy Rock is making
a worldwide debut on Blu with this set.
All four films in this new set come, as per the title,
from the vaults of Columbia studios. Creature
earlier appeared on the commentary-free DVD set Sam Katzman: Icons of Horror Collection (2007).As I am not privy to the sales figures of
that set, I can only surmise should Mill Creek release a Sci-Fi Vault Vol. 2 on Blu, we might see the “missing” Katzman titles
sprinkled into a future U.S. set.This Mill
Creek set is not an “all Katzman” edition (ala Icons).The workhorse
producer has no connection to either 20
Million Miles to Earth or The Thirty
Foot Bride of Candy Rock.
It’s with no disrespect to the late, great special
effects wizard Ray Harryhausen that I’m not going to do a deep dive into 20 Million Miles to Earth and It Came from Beneath the Sea.Though these two films are genuine and iconic
sci-fi classics, both have previously gotten the Mill Creek Blu treatment and
also received transatlantic Blu releases as well.So I can’t imagine anyone interested in these
Harryhausen-associated titles not already in possession of copies.Fair to say, if you own Mill Creek’s previously
published twofer, their reappearances here are redundant.
This new set, priced at an MSRP of $29.99, is – happily -
available far less expensively from any variety of on-line retailers.In some sense, it’s a bargain.This recent edition does offer a new and informative audio commentary on It Came from Beneath the Sea, courtesy
of Justin Humphreys and C. Courtney Joyner.So if you’re an enthusiast of commentary tracks, that’s a checkmark in
the plus column.On the other hand,
there’s no audio commentary included on 20
Million Miles to Earth, a film no less deserving of annotation.So that’s a checkmark lost.
Oddly, Edward L. Chan’s Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), an arguably less-deserving
film, does come with a commentary
track – this time courtesy of film producer-writers’ Phoef Sutton and Mark
Jordan Legan.It’s nice to have a
commentary supplied by two established screenwriters since Creature producer Sam Katzman had conscripted the great Curt
Siodmak (The Wolf Man) to script his low-budgeter.The often curmudgeonly Siodmak was a pretty
productive scripter, memorably knocking off no fewer than nine sci-fi/horror programmers
for Universal 1940-44 – and many other original scenarios for other studios.
Though Siodmak provides a decent enough script for Creature, director Kahn’s film proves a
B-film guilty pleasure a best.On their
commentary, Sutton and Legan provide a breezy, lighthearted narration filled
with the usual, occasionally colorful, anecdotes, often based on their rattling
off resumes of the film’s various cast and crew member.To their credit, the two honestly acknowledge
the film’s shortfalls, mulling that “the first four and a half minutes are the
best thing about it.”The film is a bit
of slow-going unless one has a sense of nostalgia about it.
It was late October 1954 when Variety reported that Katzman had tapped Kahn to direct Creature, the first of the producer’s
first sci-fi feature film forays. News
of actor Richard Denning signing on to star was reported the following week.Similar to Katzman, Kahn was a film industry
workhorse, a director not identified with any one particular genre.In the 1950s, Kahn helmed war films,
westerns, gangster pics and teenage melodramas. But he also managed to put the
fright into the “Frightened Fifties,” cranking out no fewer than eight serviceable
sci-fi pics in a four-year period:beginning
with She Creature (1956) and finishing
with Invisible Invaders (1959).Actor Denning provided a face familiar to
50’s sci-fi fans: the actor had lead roles in The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Target Earth and The Black
Scorpion, to name only a few.
It was Columbia’s intention to bill the more pedestrian Creature as the supporting feature to It Came from Beneath the Sea.In June 1955 it was reported the double-bill was
to be first rolled out to thirty-one theaters in and around the Los Angeles
area.Both films would be produced under
the aegis of Katzman’s Clover Productions.Though Kaufman’s low-budgeted independent offerings weren’t expected to
bring in boffo box-office numbers,
Columbia’s accountants were aware the absence of big name stars and inflated
production costs brought better returns on investment.
A trade paper reported bluntly that Columbia, “feels it’s
better to make a 15% to 25% profit on a picture than to stand to lose 50% to
75% on a wholly-made studio picture.”While
Katzman’s pictures for Columbia (Creature
with the Atom Brain, The Giant Claw, Zombies of Mora Tau and The Werewolf) might not have produced
great art, they did bring in worthwhile returns on investment. It Came
fromBeneath the Sea, the far stronger
film (with a bigger budget) managed great
business, helped in part by a combination of Harryhausen’s screen magic, word-of-mouth
excitement and a supportive radio-television-print campaign of $250,000.Though It
Came fromBeneath the Sea was not
the first “giant” monster movie of the 1950s, it was among the earliest, and
this monstrous sci-fi sub-genre would blossom throughout the 1950s and well
into the 1960s.
Which leads us into our discussion of the final “giant” film
offered on this set.The working title
of Sidney Miller’s The 30 Foot Bride of
Candy Rock was originally titled The
Secret Bride of Candy Brock.The
film’s co-screenwriter, Arthur Ross, was familiar writing for films featuring
gargantuan(s): he had already helped craft the screenplay for Columbia’s The Three Worlds of Gulliver, a soon-to-be-
released pic in 1960.But Candy Rock was to serve primarily as a
vehicle for comedian Lou Costello.Though
his 1940s heyday was behind him, the roly-poly actor had been introduced to a
new generation of fans in the ‘50s through airings of The Abbott and Costello Show television series.
The
30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock was to be the comedian’s first feature
film project following the dissolution of his partnership with Bud Abbott in
July of 1957.That pair’s final film, the
saccharine comedy-drama Dance with Me,
Henry (United Artists, 1956) was generally dismissed as a tired re-play of
routines long gone cold.Now, as a solo
player, Costello was hoping that Bride
might reestablish his box-office prowess.This indie production, shot on the Columbia studios lot, saw Costello’s
manager, Eddie Sherman, serving as the film’s executive producer.With such leverage Costello was even able to
gift a small role to daughter Carole.
Producer Lew Rachmil suggested to a reporter from London’s
Picturegoer that Costello’s titular
bride, Dorothy Provine (a 22 year-old blonde that stood 5’ 4” tall), was a
“born comedienne – nearly as funny as Lou at times.”Provine was a relative newcomer to Hollywood,
having worked only two studio soundstages, one for The Bonnie Parker Story and for a two- episode role as a twelve
year old (!) on TV’s Wagon Train.Provine told gossiper Erskine Johnson that
she hadn’t “missed a day’s work since I arrived in Hollywood, but I was always
scared about every job being my last job.”She needn’t have worried, following Bride
the actress was picked to star alongside Roger Moore as a regular character on the
television series The Alaskans and
would also have a prominent role in the 1963 Cinerama comedy It’s a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World.
In conception, Bride
seems little more than Lou Costello’s attempt to lampoon the popularity of the ongoing
“giant monster” craze.Whiling away his
days in an amateur laboratory, Costello’s rubbish collector and would-be inventor
Artie Pinsetter (‘a world-famous scientist who’s not famous yet”) is determined
to unravel secrets: primarily he wishes to learn how the prehistoric beasts that
once roamed a local region known “Dinosaur State Park” had achieved gargantuan
sizes. He’s investigating an ancient Native American belief that these
creatures achieved such measurement due to a mysterious stream of steam
emissions emanating from a canyon cave.
To this end he has constructed an elaborate electronic contraption
that he calls “Max.”His invention is part
time machine – due to its ability for “changing time curves” - and part
straight man.Pinsetter hadn’t needed to
go through all the trouble of mechanical tinkering.Walking through the canyon, girlfriend Emmy
Lou (Provine), accidentally walks through a plume of canyon steam and finds
herself having gained an additional 25 feet in height.The steam, we are told, is the castoff of atomic
energy escaping from the bowels of the earth.
To make matters worse for Pinsetter, we learn Emmy Lou is
the niece of the town’s self-involved and self-important bank president/gubernatorial
hopeful Raven Rossiter (Gale Gordon, of Our
Miss Brooks fame).Rossiter doesn’t
care much for Pinsetter, and his ill-tempered behavior provides much of the
film’s lukewarm comic tension.But ultimately,
the film’s concentration is whether or not the townies – and alarmed Pentagon
officials – can escape the problems wrought by Costello’s foolish inventions or
of his skulking thirty-foot bride.
Shot in the fanciful descriptions of “Wonderama” and
“Mattascope,” Bride is not a great
film by any measure.But having said
this, it’s an innocuous 73-minute nostalgia trip that admittedly brought a
number of head-shaking smiles to my face.The film is an innocent bit of nonsense, a “family-friendly” movie that
I’m certain brought fun to kiddie audiences of its day.My favorite time capsule moment occurs when
an airborne Costello nearly collides with the Soviet Union’s recently launched Sputnik 1 satellite.
Sadly, Lou Costello would not live to see the finished
film released to the public.The
legendary film star would die of a heart attack, just days shy of age 53, on
March 3, 1959 – a mere ten weeks following his first day of shooting on Bride in November of 1958 (production wrapped
a mere month later).On March 24, 1959,
executives at Columbia announced the aforementioned title change.The film was still in editing by June of 1959
– as was the Three Stooges’ sci-fi comedy Have
Rocket, Will Travel. In July Columbia shared plans to package Bride as a late summer trip bill of such
other family fare films as Rocket and
Ted Post’s The Legend of Tom Dooley.
There were studio previews as early as July 7, but when Bride finally was unleashed on movie
screens it was not as one-third of the aforementioned package as scheduled - but
rather as the under bill to Disney’s Darby
O’ Gill and the Little People or Have
Rocket, Will Travel.Though there
were no critical raves for Bride –
truthfully the film was undeserving of such praise – most reviewers found the
film harmless and wholesome family entertainment.Which it was.I suppose it would have been in poor taste to completely dismiss the value
of the final film of one of Hollywood’s most beloved – and successful –
actor-comedians.
In any event, Mill Creek’s Sci-Fi from the Vault collection has made The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock available for the first time on Blu-ray.Previously the film had only appeared on VHS
by Columbia/Tri-Star in 1986 and – with a far lesser transfer - on the cheapie
Good Times label in 1988.Its first
digital appearance was a 2010 release as a DVD MOD from Sony/Columbia Screen
Classics.So, regardless of merit, it’s
nice to get this one on Blu.Its
appearance here should interest fans of both Abbott and Costello-related
productions as well as collectors of vintage 50s Silver Age sci-fi.There’s also a light-hearted but informative
audio commentary for Bride provided
by the Monster Party Podcast team.Think
of a few wise-cracking - but informative - movie-buff friends sitting on the
couch alongside you.The commentary adds
a bit of color to an otherwise monochrome film.
To its credit, the set also includes two bonus features
well worth a look:Daniel Griffith’s 25-minute
doc They Came from Beyond: Sam Katzman at
Columbia as well as his 14:30 minute doc Fantastical Features: Nathan Juran at Columbia.The former gives us a thumbnail tracing of
Katzman’s career in film.The producer
knocked out dozens of serials for Victory and Columbia - including Superman (1948) and Batman and Robin (1949) - from the mid-1930s on.He later moved on to producing features for Monogram
– a studio described here as Hollywood’s “lowest echelon” - where he enjoyed
the first of his feature film successes.
Katzman’s films for Monogram and others were usually made
on shoestring budgets with tight shooting schedules.The producer didn’t necessarily favor the
horror sci-fi genre during his 40+ years working in Hollywood.But having employed Bela Lugosi on the 1936
serial Shadow of Chinatown, Katzman
managed to bring the now underworked and underappreciated actor to Monogram for
a series of guilty pleasure, fan-favorite cheapie horror-melodramas.But Katzman was not shy on capitalizing on whatever
fad was capturing public fancy. His filmography included everything from ghetto
dramas, gangster pics, East Side Kids/Bowery Boys comedies, westerns, sword and
sandal epics, early rock n’ roll pics – even a couple of Elvis Presley films (Kissin’ Cousins (1964) and Harum Scarum (1965) .
In the mid-1950s, sensing sci-fi was proving popular with
audiences, Katzman scored big as the Executive Producer on such less penny-pinching
epics as It Came from Beneath the Sea
and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
(1956).Both of these films featured the
completely amazing stop-motion special effects of the great Ray Harryhausen,
with whom Katzman was happy to collaborate.In all likelihood, it’s the appreciative audience of so-called “Monster
Kids” that continues to stoke interest in Katzman’s work.
The second bonus doc, Fantastical
Features, has C. Courtney Joyner and Justin Humphreys taking a brief look
at the films of the fast-shot flicks Nathan Juran directed for Columbia.Though not necessarily a horror/sci-fi film
director, Juran had previously helmed The
Black Castle (1952) for Universal and, more importantly, for that studio’s
great giant insect epic The Deadly Mantis
(1957).Once moving to Columbia, Juran
managed a number of sci-fi/fantasy epics including such cinematic touchstones
as 20 Million Miles to Earth, Attack of
the 50 Foot Woman (1958) and The 7th
Voyage of Sinbad (1958).
For the most part, all of these black-and-white films
look great for their age, though they’re not entirely pristine: one can expect
a few not terribly distracting scratches or speckling throughout.Personally, I’m not sure how many more times
I will revisit Creature with the Atom
Brain or The 30 Foot Bride of Candy
Rock – they’re not great films - but it’s still nice to add these titles to
my ‘50s sci-fi film collection.You’ll
have to decide if they’re worth adding to yours.
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The working title of the Universal-Jewel silent
six-reeler The Trap (1922) was Wolf Breed – for reasons that will soon
become apparent.Lon Chaney’s feature
role casting was reported during the first week of September 1921, the film
reportedly to be based on a scenario by Lucien Hubbard. The film was apparently
still in production during late September/early October of 1921.Newspapers were reporting that immediately following
Chaney’s completion of Wolf Breed, the
actor “will appear in The Octave of
Claudius for Goldwyn.” That film would in fact be made, but released as The Blind Bargain (1922), directed by
Wallace Worsley - who would later helm Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.Along with London after Midnight
(1927), The Blind Bargain is
inarguably the most sought after of the actor’s lost films.
The
Trap,
by any measure, is a more modest effort than any of the aforementioned trio of
films.The photoplay features Lon Chaney
as Gaspard the Good.His character is so
named as he is a kind and gentle soul.He’s a simple-living, always smiling, bubbly effervescent personality - a
man of good-standing in the small idyllic French Canadian mountain village of
Grand Bellaire.But Gaspard’s usual pleasant
demeanor will soon sour.Returning to
the village from a recent trip, Gaspard discovers that he has not only lost his
girlfriend Thalie (Dagmar Godowsky) to a seemingly well-to-do carpetbagger
named Benson (Alan Hale), but also to his unregistered claim to his pappy’s
hyacinth gemstone mine. Gaspard tries his best to sublimate his personal sorrows,
one title card noting while “The morning sun was no more radiant,” the broken-spirited
Gaspard managed to hold “no malice” within his heart.For a time, anyway.
But things change in the intervening span of seven – yes,
seven – years.The cad Benson has suffered several reversals
of fortunes, beginning with a calamitous cave-in dooming his mining
operation.We also learn Benson has not
been a particularly loving husband to sweet Thalie who we watch as she succumbs
to a fatal illness.Her husband coldly
dismisses his wife’s deathbed lethargy to “laziness.”Sitting astride Thalie’s bedside is her grieving
five-year old son with Benson, “The Boy” (Stanley Goethals).Gaspard too has suffered a shocking reversal
– a shift in personality as the last few years events have left him bitter.Though Benson’s recent streak of bad breaks
should have brought Gaspard a measure of satisfying yin and yang closure, it’s
simply wasn’t enough to erase the sting of his personal anguishes.
So seeking a more punishing revenge on Benson, Gaspard
convinces a local tavern tough that the carpetbagger has been saying awful
things about him.The enraged brute
attempts to assail Benson who unexpectedly defends himself with a pistol shot –
a crime for which he is sentenced to the gallows.But this sentence is later commuted to a
prison sentence when the brute survives the shooting.In the interim, and as per Thalie’s deathbed
wish, Gaspard has taken custody of her son - for whom the bitter ex-lover intends
to administer a misplaced vengeance.But
in short time the innocent “wee waif” reawakens the good in Gaspard’s heart who
becomes a doting model foster parent to the child. But when Gaspard is informed that Benson has
been released from prison with plans to collect his biological son, a
distraught Gaspard - fearful of losing the boy - sets up a diabolical snare involving
a trap door and a starving wolf lying in wait.
It’s a melodrama for sure.In its review of May 20, 1922, Billboard suggested while the storyline
of The Trap was overly “trite,” the
film itself was visually appealing with “most picturesque locations” and
“photography showing some rare and perfect gems of outdoor beauty.”(The film was actually photographed not in
the Canadian wilderness but in the tranquil and majestic canyons of Yosemite
National Park).Chaney’s “remarkable
impersonation” of the French-Canadian Gaspard was noteworthy, even though the
review concedes “the vehicle is not sufficiently strong to do justice to the
ability of the star.”This contrasts
with the view of Variety’s critic who
thought director Robert Thornby’s excessive use of full-frame close-ups of
Chaney – which allowed a bit too much melodramatic over-emoting on the actor’s
part – was nothing if not “tiresome.”Personally,
I disagree with this assessment.Though
there are no shortage of such close-ups, Chaney’s facial expressions on screen enable
the actor to convey emotions of sorrow, joy, malice and anger in a visual manner
that no title card could ever convey as successfully.
That said, The Trap
was an idiosyncratic picture in some sense, and certainly an archetype of the
tortured character roles Chaney would more famously play in the future.Many silent pictures of the day were structured
around romantic angles in their scenarios.But following Gaspard’s loss of both mine and sweetheart Thalie (the
actress being the daughter of the famed Lithuanian-American classical pianist
Leopold Godowsky), the film drops any pretension of romantic conciliation or
renewal.The movie instead focuses on
Chaney’s dark, methodically-plotted and coldly calculated plan of revenge.
Two
of the West’s most legendary figures search for the demon buffalo that
haunts them both! They called him Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson,
Breakheart Pass). The Prince of Pistoleers. A frontier adventurer and
killer of men. Now, in his last years, he is an old gunfighter plagued
by fears and driven by a need to make peace with himself. The white
buffalo is his constant nightmare. He must find the fabled beast and
destroy it…before it destroys him. He was Crazy Horse (Will Sampson, One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). The greatest of all Sioux chiefs. A
warrior of dignity and pride. Now, as a father who searches for the
legendary albino buffalo so that the spirit of his dead child can go to
heaven, he will stop at nothing to obtain the sacred white pelt. J. Lee
Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear, Murphy’s Law) directs this
heart-stopping, one-of-a-kind western with a brilliant supporting cast
that includes Jack Warden (Billy Two Hats), Clint Walker (More Dead Than
Alive), Slim Pickens (Blazing Saddles), Stuart Whitman (The
Comancheros), John Carradine (Stagecoach) and Kim Novak (Vertigo).
Product Extras :
Brand New HD Master - From a 2K Scan of the 35mm Interpositive
NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Paul Talbot, the author of the BRONSON'S LOOSE! Books
Cinema Retro has received the following press announcement:
FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, in
all of its brilliant glory, arrives for the first time on 4K Ultra HD digital
and disc August 1, 2023 from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Writer/director John Hughes’ seminal comedy about a high
school student’s wild adventures in the Windy City during a single, magnificent
day off continues to be enjoyed, quoted, and revered. The enduring
classic captures the uproarious antics of Ferris and his friends as they relish
the freedom of being not quite grown up.
This remastered 4K Ultra HD release features Dolby
Vision™ and HDR-10, as well as Dolby Atmos® audio for a wonderfully immersive
and liberating experience*. The release also includes John Hughes’
original director’s commentary, which has not been available on disc since the
first DVD release in 1999, along with access to a digital copy of the film and
the following legacy bonus content:
Commentary with Director John
Hughes
Getting the Class Together: The Cast of Ferris Bueller's
Day Off
The Making of Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Who is Ferris Bueller?
The World According to Ben Stein
Vintage Ferris Bueller: The Lost Tapes
Matthew Broderick stars as the delightfully charming
Ferris who, with his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) and best bud Cameron (Alan
Ruck), ditches school to enjoy one perfect day as a kid with no
responsibilities. In 2014, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF was added to the
Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, which serves as a compendium of
films that have been judged to be culturally, aesthetically or historically
important.
*Dolby Atmos enabled devices are also required to
experience Dolby Atmos at home. To experience Dolby Vision on 4K Ultra HD
Blu-ray Disc, a Dolby Vision enabled TV is required with a Dolby Vision enabled
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player.
*Dolby Atmos enabled devices
are also required to experience Dolby Atmos at home. To experience Dolby Vision
on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc, a Dolby Vision enabled TV is required with a Dolby
Vision enabled 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player.
The fifteenth annual New York City Independent Film
Festival was held during the week of June 4 through 11 at Manhattan’s
Producer’s Club on West 44th Street, a few blocks west of Times
Square.The week-long festival would
host the screenings of over two hundred indie films. Co-Directors John Anderson and Bob Sarles' absorbing and
authoritatively assembled music doc Born
in Chicago, screened on the festival’s final day, doesn’t pretend to serve
as the definitive nor most academically-minded treatise on the history of blues
music in America.Such studies as the seven-episode
PBS series The Blues (2003) had
already touched lightly on many aspects of multi-layered history of the blues
in America.This film’s primary interest
lies elsewhere.
The state of Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues and
home of some of the music’s greatest practitioners is, of course, referenced
early on in Born in Chicago.But the fertile musical and agricultural area
surrounding the Mississippi Delta region serves merely as the pregnant preface of
what’s to come.There’s no mention that
I can recall of the high-end music of band leader W.C. Handy, the
self-proclaimed “Father of the Blues,” or of Ma Rainy, “Mother of the Blues” or
even of such a master figure as songster Charley Patton, the acknowledged progenitor
of the rough and tumble country blues.
Alan Lomax’s 1941-1942 Library of Congress recordings of one
McKinley Morganfield (soon to be rechristened as “Muddy Waters”) down on
Stovall’s Plantation near Clarksdale, MS is briefly referenced in Born in Chicago, but only in
passing.The film recalls Waters as merely
one of the many immigrant blues singers who, among non-musical travelers and those
feeling racism and economic hardship, would abandon Mississippi - and neighboring
states - to seek employment in Chicago’s burgeoning meat-packing and steel industries.
The blues singers arriving in the Windy City would often perform
for pocket change on Chicago’s fabled Maxwell Street, and there’s a bit of
historic film footage included in the film to document it.But ultimately Born in Chicago assumes that a knowledgeable blues aficionado is already
conversant with the complex reasons that Chicago would birth the raw and
immeasurably emotive electric blues.Born in Chicago soon time-jumps from a
basic introductory primer to a particular moment in history – a period roughly
encompassing 1964 through 1970 - when public interest in the blues music would peculiarly
shift along color lines.
Though the blues was created by black artists for a
primarily black audience, by the mid-1960s it was lovingly embraced by a cabal
of young, white and often gifted musicians. In some sense these mostly suburban
youngsters were oddballs.Not only were
they complete outsiders to African-American life and musical culture, but estranged
from even their own middle-class heritages.The best of them were determined to apprentice with the real-deal blues masters
whose recordings they had painstakingly studied and cherished.
Such Chicago blues artists as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf
(aka Chester Burnett), and Little Walter Jacobs were at their musical – if not money-earning
career peaks – in the 1950s.Though
Chicago boasted any number of record labels pressing 78 rpm discs of the talent
grinding their music out almost nightly in such saloons as Pepper’s Lounge, Silvio’s,
Smitty’s Corner, Big John’s, the Blue Flame Lounge, and Frost’s Corner, it was
Chess Records that emerged the most important and iconic.Though label co-founder Leonard Chess appears
in an archive footage interview alongside his son Marshall, Born in Chicago wisely chooses not to revisit
the company’s backstory.That’s a tale
already told in several docs as well as in Darnell Martin’s ill-disguised
Chess-mirror fiction-feature Cadillac
Records (2008).
There’s lots of archival footage threaded throughout Born in Chicago.Some of the film’s moodiest and most intimate
saloon environ images come courtesy of several reels of silent B-roll 8mm color
footage shot by drummer Sam Lay and his wife.Lay is an important figure here due to his key role in the blues tradition’s
transition: he not only worked the South Side taverns with nearly all the blues
giants but was also a founding member (along with bassist Jerome Arnold) in the
inter-racial Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
Though not a concert film by any means – all performances
featured in Born in Chicago are
offered in truncated form - there are extended clips of Muddy Waters and Howlin’
Wolf to offer insight into the power of their stage presence and hypnotic
powers.This inclusion is not
unreasonable as the two singers were the figurehead totems of the Chicago blues
scene of the 1950s.Muddy and Wolf were
also among the most generous and least suspicious of interlopers. They were
appreciative of the enthusiasm and interest of these young, white blues
revivalists and allowed them to share the stage and showcase their talents.
Of course, Muddy and Wolf didn’t singularly or together
create the Chicago blues scene.During
the course of Born in Chicago we’re briefly
introduced to a number of the first and second wave Chicago’s bluesmen, as well
as the iconic sidemen who helped create the sound: Otis Spann, Yank Rachel,
Robert Lockwood, Willie Dixon, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Rush,
Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Magic Sam, Walter and Big Walter “Shakey” Horton all pass
through the film in either image or musical snippet, all honorably referenced as
“engines” of the scene.
Though the blues was derived partly from African musical traditions,
the blues as the world knows it today was birthed in the area of the
Mississippi Delta.Chicago blues was, at
the very beginning anyway, mostly an electric, highly amplified extension of
that earlier homegrown music, improvised out-of-necessity to cut through the
din of celebratory patrons gathered inside cramped and sweaty neighborhood
taverns.
The 1950s was the decade Chicago’s blues scene was at its
creative peak.The musicians who arrived
in Chicago during the great migration from the southern U.S. quickly bonded to
a natural audience.They were warmly
embraced by audiences that were once – and now again - neighbors.The musicians and their fans shared similar customs,
life experiences and musical interests, and such familiarity allowed Chicago’s
blues scene to thrive during the 1950s.
But by the early 1960s, the musical tastes of black
audiences began to shift, particularly among younger listeners.This group held no bonding memories or immediate
connections to blues or rustic southern musical culture.The rhythm-and-blues and soul of Sam Cooke,
Jackie Wilson, and James Brown was in emergence and such artists were now the most
favored of black audiences.It wasn’t
long until the Motown and Stax labels would supplant Chess as the recording
mecca for black artists.
But just as black interest in blues was seemingly on the wane,
there was a sudden curious interest in the art by young, rebellious and hip
Midwestern middle-class whites.Their
passion for the music was often ignited by their discovery of late-night
broadcasts of blues and old-school R&B found on the far ends of their radio
dials.Many of these disciples – which would
include such 1960’s blues and rock luminaries as Barry Goldberg, Michael Bloomfield,
Nick Gravenites, Paul Butterfield, Corky Siegel, Harvey Mandel, Charlie Musselwhite,
Elvin Bishop, Steve Miller and Bob Dylan – are all featured in Born in Chicago.It could be argued they were actually re-born in Chicago.
In any case, this is the time period under analysis in Born in Chicago.Liberal and open-minded students attending (or
merely hanging on the fringes) of the University of Chicago – the campus itself
nestled within the city’s Southside – played a role in the blossoming blues
revival.Through the interventions of on-campus
folk music clubs Chicago U. would stage not only small folk-music gatherings
but several important folk music festivals – several showcasing such blues artists
as Willie Dixon, Memphis Slim, Big Joe Williams and blind street singer Arvella
Gray. This new interest in folk-blues
music brought many students and scene hanger-on’s to Chicago’s pawn shops in
search of guitars and friends and subsequent musical fellow travelers.
The most dedicated – and talented of these musicians –
would reverse “integrate” these black-only Southside blues taverns - often under
the suspicious and unwelcome gaze of black patrons in attendance.But both Muddy and Wolf and their respective
band members would embrace such musicians as guitarist Michael Bloomfield and blues
harpist Paul Butterfield et.al. once they realized these searching white
youngsters – many demonstrating superlative musical talent – were looking to absorb,
as best they could, the essence and emotional comport of the blues.
Lee
Marvin is an American soldier suspected of aiding the enemy during the Korean
War in “Sergeant Ryker” released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. Shortly after the
release of the “The Dirty Dozen” in 1967, Universal saw fit to repackage a two-part
1964 Kraft Suspense Theatre courtroom drama “The Case Against Paul Ryker” and
release it as feature film in theaters. As can be seen from the art reproduced
on the Blu-ray cover, Universal was selling the release as an action-packed
military movie not unlike “The Dirty Dozen” which was a big hit for MGM. Marvin
also won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1965’s “Cat Ballou,” and became an in
demand A-list star in a series of popular movies that followed. “The Dirty
Dozen” pushed him into superstar status and one can hardly blame Universal for cashing
in by repurposing the two-part TV episode as a theatrical release.
The
production follows the trial of Sergeant Paul Ryker in 1951 during the Korean
War. Ryker’s just been found guilty of treason and is sentenced to death for
collaborating with the Chinese. He returned to his unit with the fantastic
story of being sent on a secret mission behind enemy lines to gather
information. The problem is the general who allegedly sent him on the mission
died while Ryker was gone and a mysterious letter left by the general was never
found. What follows are attempts by his wife and defense attorney to gather
evidence after being granted a retrial. Most of the “action” is limited to
Ryker’s jail cell in Tokyo and consists mostly of courtroom drama and in a
flashback the one action scene involving his wife and lawyer.
Marvin,
no stranger to portraying military characters, served in the Marine Corps
during WWII and was wounded during the Battle of Saipan in 1944. He’s very good
here as Ryker and there are a couple of scenes when Marvin is about to jump out
of the screen going from calm to crazy and back again in a matter of seconds. Marvin
died way too young at age 63 leaving many memorable classic movies in his list
of credits.
The
production also features top notch performances from Bradford Dillman as
Captain David Young, Ryker’s defense attorney, Peter Graves as Major Frank
Whittaker, the prosecutor, and Vera Miles as Ann Ryker, the estranged wife of
Sergeant Ryker. The cast also features a fine cast of character actors who will
be familiar to anyone who watched broadcast TV and movies in the 60s and 70s
including Lloyd Nolan, Murray Hamilton and Norman Fell to name just a few.
Buzz
Kulik, a veteran television director with a few feature films to his credit,
directed the original “Kraft Suspense Theatre” two-part episodes which was
originally broadcast on October 10th and October 17th of 1964. Kraft Theatre
lasted for two seasons from 1964 to 1966 spanning 59 episodes, filmed at
Universal Studios and broadcast on NBC. Interestingly, a spinoff series
released by ITV titled “Court Martial” featured Dillman and Graves in their
“Ryker” roles as military lawyers and it ran for 26 episodes from 1965 to 1966
with the setting changed from the Korean War to WWII Europe.
The
1968 movie release does not fulfill the promise made on the poster art: “Lee Marvin
Explodes into action as Sergeant Ryker.” We do see plenty of Ryker getting
angry while sitting in his jail cell and in the courtroom. The bulk of the action
consists of his lawyer and his wife riding in a Jeep and attacked by the enemy
in Korea as they search for evidence in Ryker’s case. The movie, which clocks
in at 85 minutes, would be easy to dismiss as a theatrical release, but it plays
rather well on the small screen. The Blu-ray looks and sounds terrific and a nice
surprise for me was the score by John Williams.
Extras
include the trailer for this and other Kino Lorber releases. Also included is a
fascinating audio commentary by film historian and filmmaker Daniel Kremer who
details the history of made-for-television productions which were released
theatrically. The Blu-ray is worth the purchase for the audio commentary alone.
What would have been nice is the option to watch the made for television
version, but I’m happy to see this version on Blu-ray. Highly recommended.
By the year 1972, the esteemed Billy Wilder was licking his wounds
over the boxoffice debacle that was "The Private Life of Sherlock
Holmes". Wilder's revisionist depiction of the legendary sleuth is
precisely what Holmes fan clamor for today, but to a generation that
defined the depiction of Holmes and Watson by the low-budget film series
starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, there was little enthusiasm to
see an all-too human Holmes with all-too-human failings. Wilder blamed
the poor reception for the film on the fact that the studio had
overridden his objections and made major cuts to the movie. Years ago,
some of the missing footage was discovered and the altered film was
accepted favorably by reviewers and retro movie lovers. Still, at the
time, Wilder was not used to suffering the humiliation of public
rejection of one of his movies. After all, he had given us classics such
as "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment", "Sabrina", "Double Indemnity"
and "Stalag 17". Wilder was eager to return to his comedic roots and for
his next film, "Avanti!" and he enlisted long-time collaborator Jack
Lemmon to star and his esteemed writing partner I.A.L. Diamond to
co-author the script with him. The stars seemed be aligned for another
Wilder comedy hit, but it didn't work out that way, to put it mildly.
"Avanti!" was another critical and commercial failure and this time it really hurt.
Henceforth, the few films Wilder would direct would all be bombs,
marking an inglorious end to an otherwise glorious career. Yet,
"Avanti!" deserved a better fate. It's certainly Wilder in an inspired
mode even if the inspiration came from a flop Broadway comedy production
that he and Diamond kept the basic plot premise of but otherwise
rewrote.
Wilder and Lemmon had enjoyed such audience-pleasing hits as "Some
Like It Hot", "The Apartment", "Irma La Douce" and "The Fortune Cookie".
Lemmon is well-cast as Wendell Armbruster, Jr., the son of a titan of
American industry who has just died in an automobile accident in Italy
where he went every year for a month-long personal sabbatical to cleanse
his body and soul. Wendell is already in a state of nervous panic when
we first see him on board the flight to Italy. He has just a few days to
arrange to bring his father's body back to Washington, D.C. where a
high profile televised funeral will take place with the President and
other world dignitaries in attendance. (It's never explained why the
Armbruster family self-imposed such a tight deadline for retrieving the
body and staging the funeral.) Wendell idolized his father as the symbol
of American family values and conservative political doctrine; a robust
Republican who socialized with Henry Kissinger and who was devoted to
Wendell's mother. Upon arrival in the quaint coastal town where his
father died at his favorite small hotel, Wendell is greeted by the
manager, Carlo Carlucci (Clive Revill), an unflappable local "Mr.
Fix-It" with a penchant for reassuring words and an ability to move
mountains to carry out impossible tasks. However, Wendell is in for a
shock when he meets Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), a working class girl
from East London whose mother also died in the same car crash as Wendell Sr.
Turns out the two were lovers who met for the past ten years at the
hotel, where they were adored local legends. Thus begins a madcap farce
in which Wendell has to deal with the emotional revelation that his
father was an adulterer while at the same time keeping family members
and the public in the dark about the scandal. Pamela has a different
attitude. Unlike Wendell, she knew of the affair long ago and assures
Wendell that the two were madly in love and could fulfill their
fantasies through their annual reunion. Wendell also learns that his
ultra conservative father would join his lover for daily nude swim.
If the conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that comedies must run
under two hours, Wilder was happy to ignore it. "Avanti!" clocks in at
144 minutes. It's as though he was celebrating the leisurely Italian
lifestyle depicted in the film, a lifestyle that can be both
simultaneously maddening and idyllic. Do we have to tell you that
Wendell and Pamela lock horns only to become lovers themselves, even
going so far as to replicate the dear departed's daily nude swim in the
best-remembered scene from the movie? Despite the lengthy running time,
the film is never boring and the performances are all top-notch with
both Lemmon and Mills in fine form. However, the scene-stealer is Clive
Revill in a remarkably funny performance. You'll swear you're watching
an Italian actor instead of a native New Zealander who made his mark in
British film and stage productions. The movie is peppered with some
genuine Italian character actors, as Wendell becomes embroiled with a
local group of poverty-row mobsters. Wilder and Diamond also mix in an
amusing murder and blackmail plot. There is a late appearance by the
marvelous Edward Andrews as a U.S. State Department official who arrives
to resolve Wendell's problem of getting his father's body back home in
time for the funeral. For all the laughs, however, there is a poignancy
to the story, as Wendell learns to love and admire Pamela, who has
initially disparages because of her "weight problem." This is an
uncomfortable aspect of the movie not only because Juliet Mills most
decidedly did not have a "weight problem", but she endures (as women did
during this era) constant barbs and insults and even makes
self-deprecating jokes about her non-existent girth.
"Avanti!"
may not be classic Wilder, but it's very good Wilder and that's enough
to merit a "highly recommended" designation.The film is currently streaming on Screenpix, which is available to Amazon Prime subscribers for an additional fee of $2.99 a month.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER KINO LORBER BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON
Iconic DC Super Hero Film Being Released as a Multimedia Living
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Includes 4K UHD Feature Film and Special Features, Interactive
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Burbank, CA, June 5, 2023 – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, in
partnership with content blockchain pioneer Eluvio,
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The release of Superman Web3 Movie Experience
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Superman Web3 Movie Experience is a multimedia NFT
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owners can watch the film in 4K UHD on desktop, mobile, tablet or TV, access
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previously released special features and an image gallery featuring stills and
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the feature film – Superman: The Movie Theatrical Version; Superman:
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About Warner Bros. Home
Entertainment
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) distributes the
award-winning movies, television, animation, and digital content produced by
Warner Bros. Discovery to the homes and screens of millions through physical
Blu-ray Disc™ and DVD retail sales and digital transactions on major streaming,
video-on-demand cable, satellite, digital, and mobile channels. WBHE
is part of Warner Bros. Discovery Content Sales, one of the world’s
largest distributors of entertainment programming.
About Eluvio, Inc.
Eluvio (https://eluv.io)
is the content blockchain for the creator economy. The Eluvio Content Fabric is
a utility blockchain network for owner-controlled storage, distribution, and
monetization of digital content at scale. It provides live and file-based
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experiences. Examples of companies and creators whose content blockchain
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Eluvio has received numerous industry awards including the prestigious
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recognized with 11 US patents. Follow Eluvio at @EluvioInc or on
LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/eluv-io.
CELEBRATE
100 YEARS OF WARNER BROS. WITH TWO CLASSIC FILMS
EAST OF EDEN AND RIO BRAVO
WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
PURCHASE THEM ON 4K ULTRA HD DISC AND DIGITALLY AUGUST 1
Burbank, Calif., May 30, 2023 – As part of the
year-long centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner
Bros. Studio, two iconic classics from the Warner Bros. library – East of
EdenandRio Bravo- will be available for
purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital August 1.
East of Eden, directed by Academy Award
winner Elia Kazan and starring James Dean, and Rio Bravo, directed
by Honorary Academy Award winner Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, will be
available to purchase on Ultra HD Blu-ray™Disc from
online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally
from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu and more.
Working in partnership with The Film Foundation, both films were
restored and remastered by Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services:
Motion Picture Imaging and Post Production Sound. Since its launch
by Martin Scorsese in 1990, The Film Foundation has restored more
than 900 movies.
The Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc will include each feature film in 4K
with HDR and a Digital version of the feature film.
Ultra HD Blu-ray showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range
(HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more
lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing experience like never before.
For the complete 4K Ultra HD experience with HDR, a 4K Ultra HD TV
with HDR, an Ultra HD Blu-ray player and a high-speed HDMI (category 2) cable
are required.
About the Films:
East of Eden
In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels
he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of
their father Adam. Carl is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the
war, to how to get ahead in business and in life, to how to relate to his
estranged mother.
The 1955 period drama is directed by Elia Kazan from a
screenplay by Paul Osborn and based on the 1952 John Steinbeck novel of the
same name. The film stars James Dean, Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Burl
Ives, Richard Davalos, and Jo Van Fleet.
East of Eden was nominated for 3 Academy
Awards with Van Fleet winning for Best Supporting Actress. East of
Eden was named one of the 400 best American films of all time by the American Film
Institute. In 2016, the film was selected
for preservation in the United States National Film
Registry by the Library of
Congress as being "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant".
Rio Bravo
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a
disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail
the brother of the local bad guy.
The 1959 American Western film is directed by Howard
Hawks. The screenplay is by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett and is based on
the short story “Rio Bravo” by B.H. McCampbell. The film stars John Wayne, Dean
Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond.
In 2014, Rio Bravo was selected for preservation in
the United States National Film
Registry by the Library of
Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant.”
Ultra HD Blu-ray Elements
East
of EdenUltra HD Blu-ray contains the following previously released
special features:
Commentary by Richard Schickel
Rio BravoUltra HD
Blu-ray contains the following previously released special features:
Anna May Wong has been commemorated with a three-film box set from Kino Lorber. Wong was a popular presence on the silver screen in an era in which most Asian screen characters were played by non-Asians. Here is the breakdown of information about the the Blu-ray set that coincidentally features Anthony Quinn in all three movies.
This collection features three Hollywood classics from
the 1930s starring screen icon Anna May Wong.
DANGEROUS TO KNOW
(1938)
Screen legend Anna
May Wong (Picadilly) reprises her acclaimed Broadway role in this romantic
crime drama from the pen of Edgar Wallace (Chamber of Horrors). Racketeer Steve
Recka (Akim Tamiroff, The General Died at Dawn) rules his town and the sultry,
silk-gowned Madam Lan Ying (Wong) with an iron hand. But when he falls for the
enchanting Margaret Van Kase (Gail Patrick, Death Takes a Holiday), a socialite
not impressed by his power nor his wealth, he makes frantic efforts to win her
and turns his back on the loyal Lan Ying. Dangerous to Know comes elegantly
directed by Robert Florey (The Crooked Way) with the sparkling supporting cast
of Lloyd Nolan (Portrait in Black), Harvey Stephens (The Cheat), Roscoe Karns
(Night After Night), Porter Hall (Murder, He Says), Hedda Hopper (Little Man,
What Now?), Ellen Drew (If I Were King) and Anthony Quinn (The Ghost Breakers).
ISLAND OF LOST MEN
(1939) – Screen legend Anna May Wong (Daughter of Shanghai) clashes with J.
Carrol Naish (Sahara) in this rousing remake of 1933’s Carole Lombard/Charles
Laughton starrer White Woman. Cabaret singer Kim Ling (Wong), the daughter of a
Chinese general who has been accused of absconding with government funds,
arrives in the Straits Settlements. There she meets Gregory Prin (Naish), a
half-caste gunrunner and head of a jungle empire where he treats the Malaysians
ruthlessly. She agrees to accompany him in search of her father, as she has
several reasons to believe Prin is responsible for the general’s disappearance.
Directed by Kurt Neumann (The Secret of the Blue Room, The Fly) and co-starring
Anthony Quinn (Road to Singapore), Eric Blore (Road to Zanzibar), Broderick
Crawford (Seven Sinners) and Ernest Truex (His Girl Friday), Island of Lost Men
is a torrid mix of thrills, mystery and adventure.
KING OF CHINATOWN
(1939) – Screen legend Anna May Wong (Shanghai Express) co-stars with the “czar
of a city of sin,” Akim Tamiroff (Desire), in the ripping crime yarn King of
Chinatown. Violence and death stalk the Chinese faction of a big American city,
but one man, Dr. Chang Ling (Sidney Toler, Shadows Over Chinatown), and his
daughter, Dr. Mary Ling (Wong), defy the gangsters who are responsible, and,
against terrific odds, bring peace to their oppressed neighbors. Wong gives a
powerful and pioneering performance as a respected surgeon faced with a
shocking moral dilemma. Directed by Nick Grinde (Million Dollar Legs), shot by
Leo Tover (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and featuring J. Carrol Naish (Beau
Geste), Philip Ahn (China), Anthony Quinn (The Last Train from Madrid),
Bernadene Hayes (Dick Tracy’s Dilemma) and Roscoe Karns (It Happened One
Night).
Product Extras :
Brand New 4K and 2K Masters
NEW Audio Commentary for DANGEROUS TO KNOW by Film Historian Samm Deighan
NEW Audio Commentary for ISLAND OF LOST MEN by Entertainment Journalist/Author
Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
NEW Audio Commentary for KING OF CHINATOWN by Film Historian David Del Valle
and Archivist/Film Historian Stan Shaffer
King of Chinatown Theatrical Trailer (Nitrate Restoration in 4K)
If you haven't seen the news about the new "Superman" 4K boxed set, here is the Warner Bros. press release:
CELEBRATE 100 YEARS OF WARNER BROS. WITH ONE OF
FILM’S MOST ICONIC CHARACTERS - SUPERMAN
SUPERMAN
1978 – 1987 5-FILM COLLECTION FEATURING
SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, SUPERMAN II, SUPERMAN II: THE
RICHARD DONNER CUT, SUPERMAN III, AND SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR
PEACE WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME AS A REMASTERED COLLECTION IN 4K
RESOLUTION WITH HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
PURCHASE THE COLLECTION ON
4K ULTRA HD COMBO PACK AND DIGITALLY
As part of the year-long
centennial celebration for the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros.
Studio, five films featuring the iconic DC Super Hero Superman – Superman:
The Movie,Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner
Cut, Superman III, and Superman IV- will
be available for purchase in a five-film collection on 4K Ultra HD Disc and
Digital on April 18.
Based on the DC character created by
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the Superman films star Christopher
Reeve as the legendary “Man of Steel.”
On April 18, the Superman 1978 – 1987 5-Film
Collectionwill be available to purchase on Ultra HD
Blu-ray™ Disc from online and in-store at major retailers
and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google
Play, Vudu and more.
The
Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Packs will include an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the
feature films in 4K with HDR, a Blu-ray disc with the feature films and special
features in HD, and a Digital version of each film.
Ultra
HD Blu-ray showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider
color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a
home entertainment viewing experience like never before.
For
the complete 4K Ultra HD experience with HDR, a 4K Ultra HD TV with HDR, an
Ultra HD Blu-ray player and a high-speed HDMI (category 2) cable are required.
Burt Reynolds was a movie star who became a
“Hollywood Legend” the hard way—he earned it. He started out in small roles on
TV in the 50s and 60s, went to Europe and made some spaghetti westerns, just
like his pal Clint Eastwood. He had his own TV series (“Hawk” and “Dan August”)
and gained stardom on the big screen after playing Lewis, one of the four guys
in “Deliverance,” who run into bad luck at the hands of some good ol’ boys in
the Tennessee backwoods. He became a superstar with the release of “Smokey and
the Bandit” (1977), which he starred in with Sally Field and Jackie Gleason.
His career ended with “The Last Movie Star,” (2017), where he basically played
himself, a faded legend, who still manages to hold onto his dignity. He was
about to play a small role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time . . . in
Hollywood (2019)” but died in 2018before filming began.
His career had a lot of peaks and valleys. “Heat”
(1986), now available on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber, while an entertaining movie
with Reynolds at his charismatic best, was definitely not one of the peaks.
Considering it was written by Oscar-winning writer William Goldman, (“All the
President’s Men” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”) and directed by
Dick Richards (“Farewell My Lovely”), it should have been a lot better than it
is. Reynolds plays Nick Escalante (also known as “Mex”), a Las Vegas bodyguard
who dreams of one day leaving the rat race in the States and going to Venice,
Italy to enjoy La Dolce Vita. Hmmm. That sort of reminds me of another guy
William Goldman wrote about once, only he wanted to go to Bolivia. Anyway as
“Heat” begins, Mex takes on a couple of jobs that he probably should have known
better than to accept. One has him protecting a nerdy dude by the name of Cyrus
Kinnick (Peter McNichol), who thinks he needs a bodyguard in case he wins big
at the casino. Mex doesn’t last long on the job when he discovers Kinnick’s
idea of big winnings is $50, and he quits. The other is a call for help from
Holly (Karen Young) a Vegas hooker, an old friend of his, who was beaten and
raped in a casino hotel room by three guys. She asks him to help her get
revenge.
Mex (you probably couldn’t use that nickname
today) finds out the rapist is a punk Mafioso by the name of Danny DeMarco
(Neill Barry), who has two musclebound bodyguards of his own. Mex never carries
a gun, but he’s known for being an expert with anything that has a sharp
cutting edge. He pays them a visit and takes all three of them down with
nothing more than the sharp edge of two credit cards and a few flying kicks, a-la
Bruce Lee. He calls Holly up from the lobby and she takes a pair of scissors
out of her purse and leaves Danny with a little souvenir on his private parts.
She finds $20,000 that Danny had flashed around to tease Mex with earlier and
offers half to him. He turns it down and tells her to leave town. It turns out
Danny is connected to a local Mafia boss by the name of “Baby.”
Holly leaves town but manages to get 10 grand to
him, which becomes a plot device that reveals that Mex has a gambling addiction
problem. He takes the money, turns it into $100,000 at the Blackjack table run
by a dealer named Cassie (Diana Scarwid), and ends up losing it all. So now we
know why Mex has trouble paying the airfare to Venice. Kinnick shows up again
and asks if he can just hang out with him so he can learn how to be a cool
tough guy like him. Sounds dumb, doesn’t it? It is. Somehow, even though
there’s a meeting with “Baby,” and later an action setpiece with Danny and some
new goons he’s hired, the story loses momentum.
Part
of the problem is Goldman’s script, which is all over the place, with enough
story elements for at least two different movies. Or maybe they planned to spin
it off into a TV series. But the biggest problem with “Heat” is what was
happening behind the scenes during production. “Heat” was originally to be
helmed by Robert Altman. That deal fell through, so they brought in Dick
Richards to direct and for some reason Richards and Reynolds didn’t get along.
It got so bad that a fight erupted and Reynolds punched Richards in the face.
Richards left the picture after directing only 13 percent of it and sued
Reynolds. “That punch cost me half a million,” Reynolds said. Television
director Jerry Jameson was brought in to finish the picture without receiving a
credit.
It’s
too bad in a way that Altman didn’t take the job after all. Goldman’s
screenplay, with all the various story ideas bouncing around in it, would
probably have been right up Altman’s alley. He might have come up with
something on the order of his earlier hits “The Long Goodbye” (1973) or
“California Split” (1974).
Kino
Lorber presents “Heat” in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio in a very clean
1920x1080p transfer. A rollicking audio commentary is provided by action film
historians Brandon Bentley and Mike Leeder. The disc also contains previews of
a number of Burt Reynolds films available from Kino Lorber. In case you’re
wondering if Mex ever get to Venice… I’ll never tell. But, if he did, let’s
hope he made out better than that other guy did in Bolivia. Recommended primarily for Burt Reynolds fans.
It's easy to look back on the Blaxploitation film craze of the 1970s
as a short-lived period that spawned some cinematic guilty pleasures.
However, time has been kind to the genre and if retro movie buffs view
some of the films that emerged during this era they will undoubtedly
find more artistry at work than was originally realized. Case in point:
"Truck Turner", a 1974 action flick released at the height of the
Blaxploitation phenomenon. I had never seen the film prior to its
release on the new Blu-ray special edition from Kino Lorber Studio
Classics. It's a violent, brutal film filled with ugly characters and
"heroes" who deserve that moniker only because they aren't quite as
abhorrent as the cutthroat antagonists they face. Yet, there is
something special about "Truck Turner". Amid the carnage and frequent,
extended action sequences, there is real talent at work here. Most of it
belongs to Jonathan Kaplan, the director who had recently emerged as
yet another promising protege of Roger Corman. In fact, Kaplan had just
recently completed filming another Blaxploitation film, "The Slams" with
Jim Brown, before being drafted into "Truck Turner". The idea of a
white, Jewish guy directing a Blaxploitation film may seem weird today
but at the time, most of the creative forces behind these movies were
white guys, an indication of just how few opportunities existed in
Hollywood for black filmmakers in the 1970s. The movies were also
largely financed by white studio executives who benefited the most
financially. Yet, it cannot be denied that the genre went a long way in
opening doors for a lot of talented black actors and musicians, who
often provided the scores for the films. Until the release of "Shaft" in
1971 (which was directed by a black filmmaker, Gordon Parks),
most of the action roles for black characters seemed to be hanging on
the durable shoulders of Sidney Poitier, Jim Brown, Harry Belafonte and
the great character actor Woody Strode. Suddenly, there were a great
number of opportunities for black actors and actresses to display their
talents on screen. The vehicles in which they toiled were often
low-budget potboilers, but it did increase their visibility and name
recognition. More importantly, black action characters became
commonplace henceforth.
"Truck Turner" has emerged as a genuine cult movie in the decades
since its initial release. The movie's oddball appeal begins with the
casting of the titular character, who is played by legendary soul
musician Isaac Hayes in his screen debut. While Laurence Olivier
probably never lost sleep over Hayes's decision to enter the movie
business, his casting was a stroke of genius on the part of the
executives at American International Pictures, which specialized in
exploitation films for the grindhouse and drive-in audiences. Hayes had
recently won the Academy Award for his funky "Theme From 'Shaft'" and
had an imposing and super-cool physical presence. He also proved to be a
natural in front of the camera. His emotional range was limited but he
exuded an arrogance and self-confidence that the role required. Turner
is a skip tracer/bounty hunter employed by a bail bond agency in the
slum area of Los Angeles. A stunning opening shot finds literally dozens
of such agency dotting the urban landscape- an indication of how out of
control crime was in the city during this period. Turner and his
partner Jerry (Alan Weeks) agree to take on an assignment to track down a
local notorious pimp and crime kingpin named 'Gator' Johnson (Paul
Harris), who has skipped bail, thus leaving the agency's owner Nate
Dinwiddle (Sam Laws) on the hook for the money. Turner and Jerry pursue
'Gator' in one of those requisite high octane car chases that were
seemingly mandatory in 70s action movies. This one is quite spectacular
and features some dazzling stunt driving. 'Gator' is ultimately killed
by Turner and this leads to the main plot, which concerns his lover,
Dorinda (Nichelle Nichols). She was 'Gator's partner in a lucrative
prostitution business. The two pimped out beautiful young women who they
keep as virtual prisoners on a large estate. Dorinda is the Captain
Bligh of madams, routinely abusing her stable of girls and demeaning
them at every opportunity. She is enraged by Turner's slaying of 'Gator'
and offers a bounty for his murder: half of her stake in the
prostitution ring. The offer draws more than a few professional
assassins to her doorstep, all of whom promise they can kill Turner.
However, the only one who seems to have the ability to do so is Harvard
Blue (Yaphet Kotto), a soft-spoken but vicious crime boss who would like
nothing more than to make easy money from a major pimping operation.
With a small army of assassins, he sets out to make good on his promise
to kill Turner.
Like most action movies of this genre, the plot points are
predictable. As with Charles Bronson's character in the "Death Wish"
films, virtually every person who befriends Turner comes to great
misfortune. This kind of predictable emotional manipulation is par for
the course when you're watching 70s crime films and doesn't overshadow
the fact that there is a great deal of style evident in "Truck Turner".
The dialogue is saucy and witty. For example, Dorinda describes one of
her "girls" as "Kentucky Fried Chicken" because "she's finger-lickin'
good!" and another as "Turnpike" because "you have to pay to get on and
pay to get off." If you think that's politically incorrect, consider
that every other line of dialogue has somebody calling somebody else a
nigger. Then there's the character of Truck Turner, who - like his
fellow cinematic tough ass crime fighters of the era ranging from Dirty
Harry to 'Popeye' Doyle to John Wayne's McQ- seems oblivious to the
fact that he is endangering an abundance of innocent people in his
obsession to get the bad guys. Turner engages in carjacking and
threatens the lives of people who he feels aren't cooperating fast
enough. He also has a sensitive side, though, as we see in his scenes
with the love of his life, Annie (Annazette Chase). She's recently
completed a jail term and only wants to settle down with Turner to live a
quiet, normal lifestyle. Good luck. When the contract is put out on
Turner, she becomes a potential victim and is terrorized by Harvard Blue
and his gang. The film concludes with some terrific action sequences,
the best of which has Hayes and Kotto going mano-a-mano inside the
corridors of a hospital. They chase and spray bullets at each other amid
terrified patients in wheelchairs and on gurneys and in one scene,
carry the shoot out into an operating room with doctors in the midst of
working on a patient! The finale, which centers on Kotto's last scene
in the movie, is shot with such style that it almost approaches being
(dare I use the term?) poetic. The supporting cast is first rate with
Alan Weeks scoring strongly as Robin to Turner's Batman. Annazette Chase
is excellent as the ever-patient object of Turner's desire and, of
course, Kotto is terrific, as usual, managing to steal scenes in his own
unique, low-key way. The most enjoyable performance comes from Nichelle
Nichols, who is 180 degrees from her "Star Trek" role. As the ultimate
villainess, she seems to be having a blast insulting and threatening
everyone in her line of vision. Her final confrontation with Turner
makes for a memorable screen moment, to say the least.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray is up to the company's usual high standards
in all respects. Old Truck never looked better on screen and there are
some welcome bonus materials. Director Kaplan provides a witty and
highly informative audio commentary, relating how American International
was more interested in the soundtrack album they would be able to
market than the film itself. (Hayes provides the impressive score for
the film, including some "Shaft"-like themes.). He also said that he was
originally drawn to the project because he was told the film would star
either Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine or Robert Mitchum! Nevertheless, he
speaks with great affection for Hayes and his colleagues and points out
various character actors his used in the film including the ubiquitous
Dick Miller, James Millhollin, Scatman Crothers and even Matthew Beard,
who played "Stymie" in the Our Gang comedies. Another welcome bonus is
director Joe Dante,obviously an admirer of the film, in discussion at a
2008 screening of "Truck Turner" at the New Beverly Cinema in L.A. He's
joined by director Kaplan and stuntman Bob Minor. The reaction of the
audience indicates this film enjoys a loyal following. There is also a
segment from Dante's popular "Trailers From Hell" web site that features
director Ernest Dickerson introducing and narrating the original
trailer for the film. The trailer is also included in the Blu-ray, as
well as a double feature radio spot ad for "Truck Turner" and Pam Grier
as "Foxy Brown". In all, an irresistible release for all retro movie
lovers.
HAROLD RAMIS’ ROAD TRIP COMEDY FILM STARRING CHEVY CHASE AND
BEVERLY D’ANGELO WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 4K RESOLUTION WITH
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR)
Own it on 4K Ultra HD and Digital on June 27
Burbank, Calif., May 10, 2023 – National Lampoon’s Vacation,
directed by Harold Ramis and starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo as Clark
and Ellen Griswold, will be released on Ultra HD Blu-ray and Digital
on June 27. As Warner Bros celebrates its 100thanniversary, this film is highlighted as a studio gem on
its 40thanniversary.
The 1983 classic comedy film from Warner Bros. Pictures was
written by John Hughes and was based on his short story “Vacation ’58 which
appeared in the publication “National Lampoon.” The film was produced by
Matty Simmons and also stars Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid, John Candy, Anthony Michael
Hall, Dana Barron, and Christie Brinkley in her acting debut. National
Lampoon’s Vacation also features special appearances by Eddie Bracken,
Brian-Doyle Murray, James Keach, and Eugene Levy.
Ultra HD* showcases 4K resolution
with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering consumers
brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing
experience like never before.
National Lampoon’s Vacationwill be
available on Ultra HD Blu-ray for $33.99 SRP and includes an Ultra HD
Blu-ray disc with the feature film in 4K with HDR and a Digital download of the
film. Fans can also own National Lampoon’s Vacationin 4K
Ultra HD via purchase from select digital retailers beginning on June
27.
About
the Film:
Everything
is planned, packed – and about to go hilariously wrong. The Griswolds are going
on vacation. In the driver’s seat is Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), an Everyman
eager to share the open road and the wonders of family togetherness. Myriad
mishaps, crude kin (Randy Quaid), encounters with a temptress (Christie
Brinkley), financial woes, Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) on the roof, one security
guard (John Candy) and 2,460 miles later, it’s a wonder the Griswolds are
together. There’s never been a family vacation like it. Except maybe yours. And
that helps explain why National Lampoon’s Vacation remains so
popular… and so very funny.
Ultra HD Blu-ray Elements
National Lampoon’s VacationUltra HD
Blu-ray contains the following previously released special features:
·Commentary
with Chevy Chase, Randy Quaid, Matty Simmons, Harold Ramis, Anthony Michael
Hall, and Dana Barron (98 Minutes)
DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION ELEMENTS
On June 27, National Lampoon’s Vacation 4K UHDwill
be available to own for streaming and download to watch anywhere in high
definition and standard definition on favorite devices from select digital
retailers and will be made available digitally on Video On Demand services from
cable and satellite providers, and on select gaming consoles.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
On May 30th Rain Man, the
winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay
(Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow), Best Actor (Dustin Hoffman)
and Best Director (Barry Levinson), makes its 4K Ultra HD format debut
with a new restoration (a just completed 4K high definition 16-Bit Scan of the
original camera negative) approved by Levinson and presented in its original
1.85:1 Aspect Ratio in Dolby Vision / HDR.
Rain Man stars Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise as estranged brothers
on a road trip unlike any other across America. Charlie Babbitt (Cruise) has
been given the news that his recently deceased father has left his entire
fortune to his autistic brother Raymond (Hoffman), who he did not know existed.
In a crass bid to grab some, if not all of the inheritance, Charlie abducts
Raymond and what begins as a money-making scheme for Charlie turns into a
journey of discovery between brothers who are worlds apart.
The two-disc 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
35th Anniversary Edition is packed with supplemental material including three
audio commentaries (one with director Barry Levinson, one with co-writer Barry
Morrow and a third with co-writer Ronald Bass). Along with the commentaries,
there are several making of / behind the scenes featurettes including: The
Journey of Rain Man featurette, Lifting the Fog: A Look at the Mysteries
of Autism featurette, a deleted scene, and the original theatrical trailer.
To pre-order titles, visit the Imprint web site. All prices are in Australian dollars. Use a currency converter to see the price in your local currency.
Although it’s not
necessarily thought of as initiating the cycle of late 70s and then 1980s teenage
sex comedies, The Graduate, from Embassy Pictures in 1967, is clearly an
inspiration for the later films about awkward virginal guys caught up in
farcical narratives of dream, drive, and desire. The success of The Graduate
enabled its production company head, impresario Joseph Levine, to broker a
merger of Embassy with Avco, and it was the newly named Avco-Embassy that about
a decade after The Graduate brought out the virgin teenage guy comedy, The
Chicken Chronicles. From the same year (1977), The Van, a broad
farce about a guy who revamps his van as a love-machine likewise suggests the
first glimpses of a trend, one that got its fullest recognition soon after in
the wildly successful Animal House from the following year, along with
later iterations like Porky’s (1981) and its sequels, all produced by
Melvin Simon who also was the producer of The Chicken Chronicles.
Ironically, although The
Graduate has a stronger reputation in cinema history as a serious work of
social-cultural engagement within the fervent and foment of the 1960s, it’s
actually the raunchy low-class gross-out virgin-comedies that come after it
that engage in any manner with the politics of the time. To be sure, the ups
and downs of Benjamin’s relationships in The Graduate address in their
own manner the claims of the Sixties to show that “the personal is the
political” (especially for young women like Elaine Robinson, so mistreated by
Benjamin when he first takes her out on a date), but one would be hard-pressed
to find much direct reference to the times (we see some hippies as mere
background when Benjamin and Elaine go out on that date).
In contrast, Animal House
takes on the jockeying for power in the contemporary college system while Porky’s
addresses redneck racism in the South. And from a very early scene where we
hear tough news about the times on the car radio of protagonist Dave Kessler
(Steve Guttenberg), The Chicken Chronicles, set in 1969 and continually referencing
the war in Vietnam, keeps bringing the real politics of the day into its
seemingly personalized story of one guy’s quest for sexual fulfillment. Most
poignant is a moment where one of Dave’s co-workers at the fried chicken outlet
he works at (hence, the film’s title) learns that her brother has died in Nam.
An African-American woman, she had enjoyed a lively moment of dancing with her
team, and she is a figure that we, and the white employees and boss, admire.
Her last moment in the film comes when the take-out’s boss (Phil Silvers, the
classic comedian) tells her to go home so she can mourn properly. A cut shows
her waiting at a bus stop when Dave comes by in his car and offers her a lift:
she demurs (is she worried about a white guy being seen driving her into her
neighborhood?) and he drives off and we see her get on the bus and exit
off-screen, out of the film.
No other scene in The
Chicken Chronicles is like this one in its explicit and quite non-comedic
acknowledgement of the times. But many other scenes are like it in their very
fleetingness. In fact, it is probably misleading to insist too much on any
consistent desire of the film to offer social commentary. Like the later broad
and buffoonish sex comedies, The Chicken Chronicles operates by a sort
of scattergun approach, taking on any and all topics, large and small, relevant
or irreverent, and jumping here and there to random new scenes for the sake of
immediate effect. While there’s an overall narrative thrust (pun not intended
although noted!) – the goal of the protagonist to lose his virginity – the film
is a deliberate hodgepodge, hoping that whatever’s onscreen at the moment will
work at the moment. Whether this or that scene works depends then on individual
taste: for instance, if you like to see stuck-up kids get theirs by falling
into the suburban pool, that will be your moment of hilarity; if you like hints
of relevance, there are enough of those in the film to keep you going. It’s
noteworthy that while few mainstream critics reviewed The Chicken Chronicles
– and the rare ones that did didn’t like it much – one thing these
commentators did single out as intriguing was the fact that Dave Kessler’s
parents are unseen in the film and communicate with him only by speakers dotted
throughout their house (a contrast to the very different generational
alienation of The Graduate where the problem for Benjamin Braddock is
that his parents are too visible, too fatuous in their overbearing advice).
Ironically, the scattershot
approach of The Chicken Chronicles is (no doubt, unintentionally) echoed
in its commentary track, by cult film historians Lee Gambin and Emma Westwood,
which is itself frenetic and all over the place. (Curiously, Westwood is not
listed on the Blu-ray back cover.) At one point, the commentators even have to
remind themselves to talk about the film at hand, as they go off on all sorts
of tangents (for example, that the director had an interest in documentary
leads to a digression about cinema verité maverick D.A. Pennebaker while a
mispronunciation of “chutzpah” occasions discussion of Jewishness in film). While
the commentary track talks of the actors (especially Phil Silvers), it does so
by going at length into their filmography or videography, and the film
frequently gets left behind. Luckily, one of the few moments where the
commentators actually converse about the film unspooling before them has to do
with the multiracial and multiethnic nature of the casting, an important aspect
of the film’s random attention to politics (in this case, a politics of
identity). The commentary track is one of the only special features on the
Blu-Ray, along with a trailer.
To the extent that, like
other examples from teen sex cinema, The Chicken Chronicles targets an
audience that would come increasingly to appreciate the raucous non-coherence
of individual moments around the central narrative premise, the film, and now
its Blu-ray release, probably work best for its projected target audience. To
state an obvious truism, if you like this sort of thing, you’ll like this early
example of it.
Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Film Chest.
The film noir genre, which became a staple for movie fans
during its heyday in the 1940’s & 50’s, was based on a tough and gritty
environment and revolved around those who lived it. It was raw, without much
margin for how things went down or who would end up surviving the fallout.Films
stylized with elements of film noir have surfaced over the years and perhaps
one of the best is the Mickey Spillane stories of Mike Hammer, which offered a
more contemporary version of the format.Mike Hammer, Private Eye brings us to
the late ‘90’s.
Stacy Keach plays the wiser, tougher, more sarcastic and
blunt-worded private eye who offers a salute to the early years with his felt
fedora. A bevy of beautiful women still abound in his world, and over-the-top
measures with the use of his fists, wits, and savvy tenacity against deceptive
enemies are the norm. Still, there is a balance, with Keach managing his
character that’s both serious and, at times, more lighthearted with some campy
humor.
This 26-episode series (along with the original trailer and episode
synopses) includes a new sexy blonde secretary (Velda) played by Shannon Whirry
and the introduction of a sidekick (Nick Farrell) played by Shane Conrad. Kent
Williams returns with a strong portrayal of Deputy Mayor Barry Lawerence and
Peter Jason plays Hammer’s closely aligned police captain, Skip Gleason.Stacy
Keach has spent a career making Mike Hammer his own character, and without question,
he has succeeded. Private Eye (1997-1998) is a fast-paced, no nonsense Hammer
series that will delight the many fans of Mickey Spillane’s character and again
prove that STACY KEACH IS MIKE HAMMER!
This Kino Lorber 4K Restoration Blu ray of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame is likely as
good as we’re going to get.Universal
Studio’s official 1923 program heralded Hunchback
as Hugo’s “Mighty Epic of a Mighty Epoch” and, truth be told, director Wallace Worsley’s
film never delivers less than promised. It is, above all, a spectacle. In August of
1922 when announced Universal-Jewel was to begin lensing the film, newspapers
reported it had been Lon Chaney’s “life’s ambition” to bring Hugo’s tale – and
the story of the novel’s titular tortured soul Quasimodo - to the big screen.
Chaney’s Hunchback
would not be the first cinematic adaptation of the famed 1831 novel.Esmeralda,
a ten-minute long French adaptation was brought to the screen as early as in
1905. Albert Capellani’s 1911 French
silent (Notre-Dame de Paris) would also
precede the Universal version, but that film too was a modest production running
a mere twenty-six minutes in length.The
first feature length-effort was Fox’s romantic The Darling of Paris (1917) featuring silent-screen-siren Theda
Bara.A British version of 1922 preceded
Chaney’s by only a year – though, again, only as a short of some thirteen
minutes.All but the 1911 version are
now presumed lost.
If Universal was not the first to bring the epic to the screen,
producer and studio co-founder Carl Laemmle promised a production unmatched in size
and scope.Universal would front a
budget of some $1,250,000, bringing in some 2800 artisans to work on the film’s
massive sets.The centerpiece was to be
the cathedral of Notre Dame, built practically to scale.Universal promised, “The cathedral at Notre Dame is an exact replica in every infinite
detail of the cathedral as it looked in 1482, an extraordinary feat and an
archeologic, historical and technical triumph.”
Such an ambitious project was going to require an
ambitious production team.In October of
1922, gossips whispered the studio was “anxious to have D.W. Griffith direct” Hunchback.On the surface, Griffith would seem a natural
choice.He had, after all, helmed such
pictures as Birth of a Nation (1915)
and Intolerance (1916), both showcase
spectacles of large scale and huge casts.In the end, Universal would announce, January 1923, that Worsley would
direct – with assists by “ten assistant directors and twenty-eight field
captains.”Worsley and Chaney already
had a good working relationship: the two having already combined their talents
on The Penalty, The Ace of Heartsand The
Blind Bargain. This new collaboration would spend six months in pre-production
and one year in filming.
Everything was crafted bigger-than-life. The make-up
appliances for Quasimodo, the film’s monstrous bell-ringer, were painstakingly crafted
by Chaney in a series of three-and-a-half hour sessions.The September 1923 issue of Pictures and Picturegoer magazine
enthused Chaney had promised “something even more startling than usual in the
way of make-up.” Alongside that of Erik, The
Phantom of the Opera (1925), the twisted and feral Quasimodo remains the
most iconic example of Chaney’s make-up artistry.
Biographer Michael F. Blake’s Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Thousand Faces (Vestal Press, 1990)
and A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney’s Unique
Artistry in Motion Pictures (Vestal Press, 1995) remain the two most
essential reference books on the man and his films, but they weren’t the first.There were earlier “serious” circulating books
on the actor:Robert G. Anderson’s Faces, Forms Films: The Artistry of Lon
Chaney (1971) came first, N.L.
Ross’s Lon Chaney: Master Craftsman of
Make Believe following more than a decade later. That said, Blake’s sister
volumes remain the most reliable and error free sources of Chaney marginalia.Blake occasionally proffers stern judgements,
some fair and some maybe not so, on preceding Chaney biographers, but all books
mentioned above are worthwhile reads and contain excellent bibliographies.
Blake opens his 1995 study with the declaration “Lon
Chaney was not a “horror actor.”Though this is essentially true, Blake – who contributes
seven pages of booklet notes to this new Kino Blu – sighs the actor’s association
with the horror genre is terribly overblown.He argues this mistaken union was due to the actor’s famous ghastly
make-up creations.It’s doubtful the
audience of eleven and twelve year-olds who sought out these cheap newsprint monster
movie magazines of the 1950s and ‘60s had actually ever saw a Lon Chaney silent film.But the reproduced published stills would fire imaginations, giving
Chaney Sr. instant cult status as a “horror film” icon. At the very least, I think
it’s fair to say that the genre mags were instrumental in keeping Chaney’s
legend alive at a time when few other outlets were interested.
It was that way for me at least.I’m not sure when I first learned the name “Lon
Chaney.”But it was likely through
photographs or an article in the pages of Famous
Monsters of Filmland magazine.I had
become obsessed with Famous Monsters when
chancing upon a used copy of their May 1967 issue at a school “white elephant”
sale.The magazine sent me scouring the
listings in TV Guide in search of the
films I was first introduced to in the pages of “FM.”It was through Famous Monsters I was first introduced to silent films – many of which
I find even today to be as fascinating as any talkie.
In trying to learn about silent films, I discovered
Daniel Blum’s A Pictorial History of the
Silent Screen (1974) at my local library.It was an oversize hardcover held in the reference section.Since I couldn’t bring it home to read at leisure,
I spent hours in the library looking through the hundreds – maybe thousands of
stills – reproduced therein.My
knowledge of and interest in film history really began there.While combing through the pages for Chaney info
(there wasn’t a lot, if I recall), I discovered Chaplin, Keaton, Pearl White,
Fatty Arbuckle, the Keystone Cops and hundreds of others.
It was around this time I also managed to catch Robert
Youngson’s affectionate silent-era doc Days
of Thrills and Laughter on television.As with Blum’s book, I don’t believe Chaney, again to my great disappointment,
was even mentioned in the doc.Youngson’s
emphasis was mostly on the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin, “Fatty”
Arbuckle,” Snub Pollard and Ben Turpin.Though
a rare, brief clip of Boris Karloff in King
of the Congo (1929) further fueled my interest in early cinema, Chaney –
frustratingly – would remain a man of mystery.
Knowing what I know now, the notoriously private and
reclusive actor – non-ceremoniously interred following his passing, age forty-seven,
in a Glendale sepulcher – would have likely preferred it that way.At age nine I finally had the opportunity to catch
Chaney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
on WNET-13, Manhattan’s PBS-TV affiliate.Hunchback was the last title to
be featured on the network’s “The Silent Years” series (each segment introduced
by Orson Welles) in September of 1971.
OK, I apologize. I have digressed. I will also confess
it’s taken me quite some time to finally getting around to view this Kino issue
of Hunchback. I was gifted a copy
back in the autumn of 2021 but chose to put the Blu-ray aside – for the time
being, anyway.I had already planned to
attend a genuine film element screening of Hunchback
at a local cinema that October, one complete with live organ
accompaniment.That night, sadly, proved
to be a projection booth disaster.The
theater ran the last two reels in reverse so inter-titles appeared Cyrillic and
completely unreadable.God bless Ben
Model, the silent film historian/organist accompanying the program.He calmly and expertly navigated through this
maelstrom with amazing poise and finesse, salvaging what would have been
otherwise a completely disastrous evening.
There’s no point in discussing here the plot of Worsley’s
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s a
more-or-less faithful rendering of the Hugo novel.This is a century old film, one I find as
entertaining today as it was a hundred years ago.Yes, the acting often is – as was the order
of the day – visually exaggerated and overly emotive, but the story remains a
compelling one.The scenario really
revolves around Esmeralda, the soft-hearted street dancer, and not the tragic
Quasimodo.To his credit, Chaney – though
top-billed – recognizes this and admirably serves as an essential member of the
ensemble, not as the film’s principal player.
This Kino release has been cobbled together from the best
existing prints available, so there are temperature and tinting changes from
section to section.But it’s a beautiful
4K restoration and while surviving element damage is not totally absent, the
film looks remarkable all things considered.This edition also features a lively and original musical score.This new soundtrack is composed and performed
by Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Laura Karpman, both Julliard-trained artists and
the previous recipients of Grammy and Emmy Award nominations/victories.
Over this millennium, The
Hunchback of Notre Dame has been re-made on any number of occasions.The best recalled of these are RKO’s 1939
version featuring Charles Laughton or the French-Italian 1956 version featuring
Anthony Quinn and Gina Lollobrigida.Folks of my generation might better recall these two post-Chaney re-tellings,
especially if they have little interest in silent cinema.Younger folks were likely first introduced to
the tale via Disney’s 1996 animated musical adaptation – a film whose cartoon
Quasimodo most resembled Laughton’s pitiful, less grotesque caricature.Having said that, Chaney’s Quasimodo, despite
age, will forever remain the most iconic.
A few notes on this generous bonus materials supplied on
this set.Included is a vintage, silent Life in Hollywood newsreel that features
a birds-eye view of the massive Universal City lot, described on an inter-title
card as “the strangest city in the world.”Once on soil, we watch as a procession of Universal’s silent-era stars
and starlets’ parade out of a studio canteen.Most of these names are now sadly lost to the memory of all but a small cabal
of film historians.The newsreel,
running approximately eight and a half minutes in length features a small clip
of Chaney – sans costume and make-up - demonstrating a bit of acrobatics on the
exterior of the Notre Dame structure.
The set also features a thirteen-minute silent reel of
“Mabel and Bill Dumphy’s Visit with Hazel and Lon.”This is sourced from 16mm footage shot during
the couple’s visits with Chaney, his wife Hazel, and their wire-haired terrier
Sandy, at rest during the family’s residencies in Soboba Hot Springs and
Saratoga.The Soboba footage is
primarily interesting in its moody capture of the former’s Riverside County
hamlet’s Spanish mission-styled architecture and terraced landscapes.There’s not much Chaney in the Soboba
footage, aside from Lon looking out pensively over the hillside, or playfully
tugging at Sandy the dog’s tail in another.
The Saratoga footage documents additional glimpses of the
Chaneys at home.We watch as Chaney and
guests mill about a backyard garden, the reclusive actor letting down his guarded
reserve.We watch as Lon playfully
wrestles a giggling Hazel on the lawn or smoking and drinking with friends.The latter clip is of interest due to the recognizable
presence of Lon’s son, Creighton (strategically “re-christened” Lon Chaney Jr. following
his father’s passing), smiling as he too puffs away on a cigarette in the
background.The set also features an
audio-commentary track by Farran Smith Nehme, a film historian and critic whose
work has appeared in such publications as Film
Comment, The Wall Street Journal, Village Voice and New York Post.The set
rounds off with a generous gallery/slideshow of publicity materials and
production stills.
One hundred years following the date of its production,
Worsley’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame
admittedly puts the “retro” in Cinema
Retro.But despite the film’s age,
its heart still beats soundly.Anyone
interested in film history should visit this film at least once in their
lifetime, and this Kino Blu-ray might just be the best conduit for one to do
just that.
When
asked to name a Pre-Code melodrama starring Charles Laughton as a sadistic
megalomaniac in a tropical setting, most movie enthusiasts are likely to cite
“The Island of Lost Souls.”As H.G.
Wells’ Dr. Moreau, who turns animals into humans through appalling surgery in
his “house of pain,” Laughton’s performance in the 1932 Paramount film remains
a classic of horror cinema.“White
Woman,” which followed from the same studio in 1933, isn’t nearly as well
remembered or as outrageous.Still, it
provided another delicious role for Laughton and offers wonderful insight into
the tactics used by Hollywood in the Pre-Code era to exploit audiences’ demand
for lurid escapism, while skirting the watchful eye of censors.The film, based on a stage play and directed
by Stuart Walker, is available as a Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics,
from a new 2K master.
Laughton’s
character, Horace H. Prin, is a predatory merchant who holds a monopoly on
trade in the hinterlands of Malaya, then a British colony.In town he encounters Judith Denning (Carole
Lombard), a young woman shunned by her fellow expatriates.Already the subject of salacious rumours, she
learns that she’s about to be deported as an undesirable after going a step too
far, performing torch songs in a “native cafe.”The stiff-necked governor is unmoved by Judith’s plea that she’s broke
and has nowhere else to go.Judith
attracts Prin’s attention and he offers her an escape to “something better” by
accompanying him to his remote outpost.There, he promises, she’ll live in style.
Once
she accepts his proposal, she realizes she’d have been better off taking her
chances with deportation.Horace
exploits the tribes with whom he trades, holds his employees in virtual slave
labor, and once he has Judith in his control, he treats her with biting
scorn.One of his clerks, David Von Elst
(Kent Taylor), a disgraced military officer, falls in love with Judith, and she
with him.Horace enjoys watching them
squirm with no hope of escaping his domination.The two are trapped because the river is the only feasible way out of
the jungle.Prin owns the only boats,
and headhunting tribesmen lurk along the trail by land.When David is banished upriver to one of
Horace’s warehouses, Judith’s troubles come to a head.A new employee arrives, Ballister (Charles
Bickford), a roughneck who doesn’t bother to hide his intention to make time
with Judith:“I’ve watched those sweet
eyes of yours . . . and other things,” he tells her.“C’mon baby, what do you say?”Prin takes note but he’s more curious than
anything else.How far will Ballister
press his crude advances, given that he doesn’t fear Prin, Prin doesn’t fear
him, and Judith treats both men with icy contempt?
In
2023, when it takes a lot to create a sex scandal worthy of attention, the
backstory of “White Woman” appears more quaint than shocking.The cafe that draws the governor’s
displeasure is about as raucous as your neighbourhood Applebee’s, its Chinese,
East Indian, and dissolute European clientele apparently more interested in
chatting among themselves than ogling the gorgeous blonde who plays the piano
and sings on stage.Judith might as well
be performing Billy Joel tunes at a piano bar in Iowa City.But this was about as far as the filmmakers
could push the envelope in those days of restrictive erotic and racial
conventions.A franker explanation for
the fuss and bother—that the hapless Judith is actually a prostitute who hangs
out at the cafe to solicit sex from men of color—would have been a non-starter
even in the Pre-Code era.
Things
liven up whenever Laughton appears as the chortling, smirking, and preening
Prin, wearing a cheap tropical suit, a straw boater, Jheri curls,a bushy, bristly moustache, and an East End
London accent.Prin is one of Laughton’s
great grotesque characters, a monster shaped by a terrible start in life.“You ‘aven’t spent any part of your childhood
in the slums, ‘ave you?” he asks Judith.“Well, I ‘ave.”Thanks to his
early lessons in class prejudice, he luxuriates in his ability, via wealth and
influence, to intimidate the “bloomin’ snobs” who run the colonial
government.The same passive-aggressive
rage fuels his treatment of Judith, whom he exploits, isolates, and emotionally
abuses.Inferentially, she is a surrogate
for all of the beautiful women who spurned him when he was young and poor.That she refuses to act the victim only
intensifies his abuse.If critics
haven’t explored this facet of the picture as a feminist statement years before
modern feminism emerged, they should.
The
Kino Lorber Blu-ray greatly improves on the movie’s previous home video
release, a 2014 manufactured-on-demand DVD in the Universal Vault Series.As a special feature, the KL edition includes
informative audio commentary by director and film professor Allan Arkush and
film historian Daniel Kremer.It’s
difficult to argue with their criticism of Stuart Walker’s static,
unimaginative blocking of scenes, but in fairness, most movies adapted from
stage productions in the early days of talkies suffered from the same
shortcoming.Walker showed a little more
flair in 1935’s “Werewolf of London.”
The
Kino Lorber Studio Classics’ Blu-ray edition of “White Woman” can be ordered
HERE from Amazon.
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)
I reviewed the Universal print-on-demand DVD of “The
Mississippi Gambler” (1953) for Cinema Retro eight years ago. I didn’t give the
film, starring Tyrone Power, Julia Adams, and Piper Laurie, very high marks.
Now Kino Lorber has released it anew on Blu-Ray. Aside from an audio commentary
by film historian Toby Roan, and better color because it’s Blu-Ray, it’s
basically the same experience. I can’t think of much new to say about it, so
here’s some of what I wrote back when, along with some final thoughts on the
current state of the home video market.
Here’s the original review I wrote 8 years ago:
I watched The Mississippi Gambler (1953) DVD from Universal
while recovering from a root canal, hoping a good rousing Tyrone Power flick
and three fingers of Kentucky bourbon, would cure my pain. Boy, was I wrong.
Watching this slow, soap opera-ish movie, with a cast of characters that belong
in an old Carol Burnett Show sketch, was like having the root canal all over
again. Admittedly, the Technicolor was good, and Julie Adams was great (which
she always was) but the script by Seton Miller was a complete turnoff with one
of the worst endings I've ever seen. The characters were mostly boring and
despicable. The plot was ham-fisted melodrama served with a mint julep.
Direction by Rudolph Mate’ was lethargic and unimaginative.
Basically, it's one of those stories about four people
all in love with the wrong person. But Miller added some very weird touches to
the familiar story line. Piper Laurie plays Angelique Dureau, a snooty,
neurotic iceberg who is way too close to her brother Laurent (John Baer) for
comfort. She uses him as a shield against intimacy with any other man, as
Tyrone Power, playing the titular gambler Mark Fallon, explains to her. For no
comprehensible reason at all, other than the plot demands it, Fallon falls
madly in love with her. Why? She's a pouty, petulant, porcelain imitation of a
woman.
Her brother, Laurent, is a miserable weasel, a man with
no honor and thus a perfect foil for the upright and honorable Fallon, who is
not only good with a deck of cards, he's also the son of one of New York's
finest fencing masters. (Zorro rides again!). The three of them meet on a
Mississippi riverboat named The Sultana. Pardon a digression while I note that
this was the same paddle boat on which Yancy Derringer, a few years later,
would ply his poker skills in the CBS television series starring Jock Mahoney.
Fallon's goal is to run an honest gambling table and
eventually open his own casino. He teams up with Kansas John Polly (John
McIntyre), a seasoned veteran of many a three card Monty game. In a game of
poker, Laurent loses his sister's diamond necklace to Fallon. Fallon tries to
give it back to her later, but she pretends she told her brother to wager it.
In the next scene she confronts the weasel and cries, "How could you do it
without asking me?" This obviously gets the star-crossed- lovers off on the
wrong foot. Fallon wins big that night but he and Polly barely escape being
killed by a gang of crooked gamblers and have to jump off the boat when the
captain gets near the riverbank. They walk to New Orleans, after losing all
their winnings in the river. But they have a good laugh about it.
At about the second act mark,enter Julie Adams (billed
here as "Julia Adams") as Ann Conant. She's the member of another
weird brother/sister duo. Her brother, Julian (Dennis Weaver, believe it or
not, with a sort of New York high society accent) sits down to play with
Fallon, saying he heard he played an honest game. He quickly loses every cent
he brought with him, then goes out on deck and shoots himself. The Captain and
Fallon discover he has a sister on board, and Fallon feels responsible and
wants to help her. She says he must have gambled away the money his company
gave him to take to New Orleans. Fallon, noble fellow that he is, lies and says
no he gave that money to the captain for safe keeping. He takes Ann to New
Orleans where and sets her up in a hotel. It complicates his plans to romance
Angelique but what's a story without complications.?
Meantime in New Orleans he runs into fencing expert
Edmund Dureau (Paul Cavanaugh) and guess what? He turns out to be Angelique and
Laurent's father! Of course, he invites Fallon to his home where he meets them
again. In one of the lamest scenes in the whole film, when they have a moment
alone, he tells her that he knows he and she are in love with each other and
always will be. "I could have you thrown out of this house for speaking to
me like that,” she exhorts. He replies, "You don't have to run me out. I'm
leaving tomorrow." And he adds: "You’re not ready for marriage. And
you won't be until the day you come to me." She calls him an egotistical
cad. And here's the punchline. "Yes", Fallon says, "I suppose it
sounds that way. But it's the only way a woman can be truly happy with a
man".
What? Did women in the 50’s really buy this tripe? Can
you imagine George Clooney trying that line on Catherine Zeta-Jones, or
Catherine Heigel? He'd get his ass kicked. I won't go on with any more of the
plot, but you can be sure it involves some fencing and a duel with pistols at
the Dueling Oaks. Funny thing about Power's fencing scene with Paul Cavanaugh.
Both men wore fencing masks through the entire scene, which makes me wonder if
either one did any of the fancy sword work, even though Power was in reality a
very good fencer. In another fight scene between Fallon and Laurent on the riverboat,
it is so obviously two badly matched stuntmen carrying the action. Power was
only 39 when he filmed “The Mississippi Gambler,” but he looked older and a bit
tired. Maybe he wanted to take it easy. He'd made many great films by then but
would only live five more years. He'd make seven more films in that time, all
better than “The Mississippi Gambler,” including “The Sun Also Rises,” and
“King of the Khyber Rifles.”
Nevertheless “The Mississippi Gambler” was a big
financial success. Lucky for Power, because his wife, Linda Christian divorced
him after losing out to Piper Laurie for the part of Angelique. She never
forgave Power for not getting her the part, and also, allegedly, for having an
affair with Anita Ekberg, who played an uncredited part as a maid of honor at
Angelique's wedding to another of her suitors.
. . . So that’s the review I wrote 8 years ago. The new
Blu-ray release, as noted earlier, contains nothing new except a commentary by
Toby Roan. Frankly, even Roan’s commentary doesn’t warrant spending the money
for the new edition. His comments merely consist of providing biographical info
on each and every actor, no matter how insignificant his role. Oh, look, here’s
John McIntyre. He was a regular on the Naked City TV series. There’s Paul Cavanaugh,
he was in a Tarzan movie. And that’s Guy Williams who played Zorro on TV. And
on and on and on. I turned the commentary off after half an hour.
The home video market is disappearing before our eyes.
Streaming has become the consumer’s first choice for watching movies at home.
Go into Target or Best Buy and what used to be row after row of DVDs for sale
has shrunk down to a few shelves, hidden behind the flat screen TV display
area. If companies like Kino Lorber hope to stay in business they have to
provide extras that aren’t available through the streaming platforms to make it
worth their while. So any of these commentary tracks are very welcome, even if
this one falls short.
When it comes to Kino Lorber’s “The Mississippi Gambler,”
as I said in the original write up, I'd rather put on a Yancy Derringer DVD and
watch him at the poker table with Pahoo Ka Te Wah standing behind him with his
shotgun hidden under his poncho, ready for action as the Sultana winds its way
down the Big Muddy. Rollin’ down the river.
Kino Lorber has released a Blu-ray edition of the little-remembered
1970 romantic comedy "How Do I Love Thee?" The film's primary
distinction is the interesting teaming of Jackie Gleason and Maureen
O'Hara. By this point in his career, Gleason was a force of nature in
the American entertainment business. When his variety show went off the
air, CBS couldn't induce him to do another series so the network
actually paid him not to work for any other network. When you get paid a
fortune not to work, you know you're doing something right.
Gleason had settled in Miami Beach in the early 1960s as one of the
demands he made of CBS in return for doing his variety show. The
location offered what Gleason liked most: sun, golf, plenty of drinking
establishments and no shortage of beautiful young women. Gleason's
impact on elevating Miami Beach's popularity was notable. It was widely
believed that the city's rebirth as a hip destination as opposed to a
retirement destination was due in part to Gleason referring to Miami
Beach as "The sun and fun capital of the world!". Gleason, like his
contemporary Dean Martin, had long ago tired of working very hard. If
you wanted him, the mountain had to come to Mohammed, so to speak. Thus,
it's no coincidence that "How Do I Love Thee?" was filmed in Miami
Beach, thereby ensuring Gleason prime opportunities for maximizing his
play time and minimizing his work before the cameras. (Gleason had a
photographic memory and famously refused to rehearse very much, often to
the consternation of his co-stars).
The film focuses on the character of Tom Waltz (Rick Lenz), a
twenty-something professor who is rising up the ladder at his
university. He's a got a nice house and a beautiful wife, Marion
(Rosemary Forsyth) but when we first meet him, he's filled with anxiety.
Seems that while visiting the "miracle" site of Lourdes in France, his
father Walt (Jackie Gleason) has suffered a major health crisis. Tom's
mother Elsie (Maureen O'Hara) implores Tom to race over to France and
visit his father, who seems to be dying. Tom wants to go but Marion
reminds him of the lifetime of contentious situations he has endured
with his father and tells him that this is just another method of Walt
trying to gain attention. Indeed, as we see through a series of
flashbacks, Walt is a real handful. He owns his own moving company but
still has to break his back loading and lifting furniture all day long.
He has a pretty fractious relationship with Elsie, largely due to her
strong religious convictions that conflict with his atheism. As young
boy, Tom witnessed a lot of fighting in the household. When he
accompanied his dad on jobs, he discovered that his father is not the
devoted family man he thought he was- especially when he witnesses Walt
trying to seduce a ditzy social activist and amateur photographer
(Shelly Winters in typical over-the-top Shelly Winters mode) who is one
of his clients. Walt is similar in nature to Willy Lohman of "Death of a
Salesman" in that both men are past their prime but working harder than
ever to provide for their family. Walt is a good man, but he's subject
to self-imposed crises generally related to his short temper, drinking
habits and flirtatious nature. Ultimately, Tom opts to take the trip to
Lourdes, even though Marion is threatening to divorce him over his
decision. The majority of the tale is told in flashbacks that present
some moderately amusing situations and some poignant dramatic scenes as
well. There's also a good dose of sexual humor, typical for comedies of
the era that were capitalizing on new-found screen freedoms.The
direction by old pro Michael Gordon ("Pillow Talk") is fine but the
screenplay, based on a novel by Peter De Vries, punts in the final
scenes, tossing in an improbable extended joke about cars going amiss on
their way to a funeral and a feel-good ending that wraps everything up
quickly in a style more befitting a sitcom episode of the era. Still,
the performances are fun with Lenz and Forsyth quite good as the young
couple and Gleason and O'Hara registering some genuine chemistry on
screen.
The Blu-ray transfer is generally fine but around the 80-minute mark
some speckling and artifacts appear during the final reel, although it
isn't distracting enough to bother the average viewer. The bonus extras
don't include the trailer for the feature film but do present trailers
for other KL comedy releases including "Avanti!", "The Russians are
Coming! The Russians are Coming!" and " The Adventure of Sherlock
Holmes' Smarter Brother".
Enjoy this vintage documentary, "Steve McQueen: Man on the Edge", narrated by his friend James Coburn, with whom he starred in "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape". (To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube".)
Now available from Imprint, the Australia-based video label. (The Blu-ray set is region-free.) Since these limited edition titles tend to sell out quickly, we suggest you order ASAP.
Essential
Film Noir: Collection 4 includes five acclaimed and much sought after classics: Rope of Sand
(1949), Appointment with Danger (1950), The Enforcer (1951), Beware, My Lovely
(1952) & Jennifer (1953).
Limited 4 Disc Hardbox
edition with unique artwork on the first 1500 copies.
Rope of Sand (1949) - Imprint Collection #210
After a two-year
hiatus, Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster) returns to the same African city where he
was tortured and left for dead at the hands of a sadistic Police Commandant
(Paul Henreid). Originally innocent of all charges, Mike is back to claim the
diamonds he had supposedly stolen two years ago. He enlists the help of an
alcoholic stranger (Peter Lorre) and the doctor (Sam Jaffe), who had helped him
back to health. The diamond syndicate head (Claude Rains) recruits a nightclub
temptress Suzanne Renaud (Corinne Calvet) to seduce and betray Mike as an
alternate to brute force.
This suspense-noir
classic was directed by William Dieterle (Dark City).
Starring Burt
Lancaster, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid & Sam Jaffe.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio
commentary by film historian Samm Deighan
NEW Interview
with film professor Jose Arroyo
Trailer
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
Appointment with Danger (1950) - Imprint Collection #211
Postal Inspector Al
Goddard (Alan Ladd) is assigned to investigate the murder of a fellow officer.
The only witness to the crime is Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert), who
identifies the photograph of one of the assailants. This leads Goddard to a
seedy hotel where he learns that the assailant is a member of a gang headed by
Earl Boettiger (Paul Stewart), and he soon discovers that the gang is planning
a million dollar mail robbery. This classic film noir also features the stars
of Dragnet, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, as Stewart's Henchmen.
This was Alan
Ladd's final Film Noir and was directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited).
Starring Paul
Stewart, Alan Ladd, Phyllis Calvert, Jan Sterling & Jack Webb.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio
commentary with professor and film scholar Jason Ney
NEW Interview
with Film Noir specialist Frank Krutnik
NEW Video
featurette on director Lewis Allen
Trailer
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
The Enforcer (1951) - Imprint Collection #212
Humphrey Bogart (The
Maltese Falcon) is in fine form as a crusading District Attorney out to
convict the head of a vicious murder-for-hire ring. But when his star witness
is killed, Bogart must race against time to find the evidence he needs to bring
down the mob boss. Told in a series of flashbacks, this tense, tough-as-nails
crime thriller on the cutting edge of film noir was based on actual Murder,
Inc. Trials.
Stylishly directed
by Bretagne Windust (June Bride) with un-credited help from Raoul Walsh
(Pursued) and beautifully shot by the great Robert Burks (North by Northwest).
Starring Humphrey
Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia & Everett Sloane.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio commentary
by noir expert and Film Noir Foundation board member Alan K. Rode
Original
aspect ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English subtitles
Beware, My Lovely (1952) - Imprint Collection #213
Helen Gordon (Ida
Lupino) hires Howard Wilton (Robert Ryan) as a handyman to do chores around her
house. She doesn't know what she's let herself in for. Insecure and paranoid,
Wilton thinks everyone, including Helen, is against him. He suffers from memory
lapses and extreme mood swings. She's soon a prisoner in her own house after
Wilton locks the doors and tears out the telephone. His mood swings from
violence to complacency but after Helen gets a message to the police via a
telephone repairman, she finds he is still in the house. ...Beware, My Lovely.
Starring Robert
Ryan, Ida Lupino, Taylor Holmes & Barbara Whiting.
Premier Blu-ray
release worldwide.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
NEW Audio
commentary with professor and film scholar Jason Ney
NEW Interview
with author and programmer Pamela Hutchinson
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
Jennifer (1953) - Imprint Collection #213
Agnes Langsley (Ida
Lupino) gets a job, through Jim Hollis (Howard Duff), as caretaker of an old
and vacated estate. The owner's cousin, Jennifer, was the last occupant and
mysteriously disappeared. Agnes soon begins to believe that Jennifer was
murdered and that Jim, whom she has fallen in love with, is responsible.
Starring Ida
Lupino, Howard Duff & Robert Nichols.
Premier Blu-ray
release worldwide.
Special
Features and Technical Specs:
1080p
High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from a 2021 4K scan
Original
Aspect Ratio 1.37:1
Audio English
LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional
English HOH subtitles
Any pre-order titles will be dispatched in the week
leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special features and artwork are
subject to change.
Writer Olivia Rutigliano knows a thing or two about Sherlock Holmes and she's put that knowledge to good use in this article that ranks the best, worst and strangest portrayals of the master detective on screens large and small. This isn't the usual slapped together, meaningless list created to serve as click bait. Rutigliano provides insightful background information on every conceivable portrayal of Holmes and includes stories in which the main character merely thinks he is Holmes. She also includes animated and animal portrayals of Holmes. Chances are you won't have heard of many of the more obscure international inclusions, which makes them even more interesting to read about. Click Hereto do so.
Scorpion has released a Blu-ray edition of the 1979 Canadian disaster movie "City on Fire". If you've never heard of it, don't feel bad- neither had this writer and I thought I was quite familiar with the genre which arguably began with the release of "Airport" in 1970. The success of that film spawned similarly-themed adventures that generally found all-stars casts threatened by water, fire, animals and other forces of nature. Producer Irwin Allen hit two home runs with "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno", the latter representing the artistic and commercial peak of the short-lived but highly popular genre. At its height even second-grade disaster flicks could make sizable profits (a low-grade Japanese import titled "Tidal Wave" was a hit after it was "Americanized" with some brief footage of Lorne Greene included.) By the late 1970s, however, fickle audiences had tired of the sheer predictability of the disaster movie premise. The release of "Star Wars" incited a new interest in sci-fi but there were still some attempts to pump life into disaster flicks even if most of the passion and creativity had been drained from these productions. "City on Fire" is about, as you might have guessed, a city on fire. The unnamed city (actually Toronto) is the setting for a catastrophic blaze that starts as an act of sabotage caused by a disgruntled employee at a large chemical plant that has been foolishly located in the center of the urban metropolis. The seemingly minor act of mischief quickly escalates when raw fuel pours unchecked into the city's water supply. A spark ignites a huge inferno that rapidly isolates a major part of the city in a ring of fire that makes it almost impossible for firefighters to penetrate, thus leaving it to the potential victims to find their own methods of escape. Most of the action takes place inside a major hospital which is being evacuated even as the flames make it unlikely that many of the staff and patients will be able to reach safety. In order to do so they must navigate a deadly gauntlet of fire.
"City on Fire" lacks the big budget production values of the more successful disaster movies but director Alvin Rakoff and production designer William McCrow get around that obstacle in very commendable ways. Rakoff does utilize the old stand by of using actual disaster footage from news broadcasts in certain instances and uses a jittery camera to provide a sense of impending danger to otherwise stagnant buildings, at times making it look like Don Knotts was the cameraman. However, the production design is quite good and Rakoff handles the action scenes very commendably. There are some cheesy special effects, primarily scenes of the skyline burning, but the up-close action footage is spectacular at times and the movie features some of the best stunt work I've seen including many instances of the stuntman's worst nightmare: the full-body burn. The biggest star in this budget-challenged production is Henry Fonda, then in the winter of his career and seemingly content to play characters of authority who sit around offices and control rooms barking orders over telephones (i.e "Meteor", "Rollercoaster" and "The Swarm"). Old Hank would prove he still had his mojo with his final film, "On Golden Pond", that saw him win an Oscar, but in the years leading up to that he was happy to pick up quick pay checks with supporting roles in populist fare. Here he plays the stalwart fire chief trying to cope with the loss of an entire city. Barry Newman is the playboy physician who is trying frantically to save his hospital which is in the direct line of fire. He's also juggling a strained relationship with old flame (pardon the pun) Susan Clark, a glam socialite who had once been his lover. Meanwhile, she is involved in an illicit affair with the mayor (Leslie Nielsen) and is unaware that there are incriminating photos that are about to be used to blackmail both of them. Shelley Winters is wasted in a throw-away role as a bossy nurse who acts a lot like Shelley Winters and James Franciscus is a TV news producer who is trying to keep wall-to-wall coverage on the air despite that the fact that his star anchor, an aging diva (Ava Gardner) has turned up drunk right before the broadcasts. One of the more rewarding aspects of the film is that it affords meaty roles to actors who are generally relegated to second-tier status. They all perform admirably but it's impossible to view any of Leslie Nielsen's pre-comedy career performances objectively. He became such a master of brilliantly spoofing his own acting style that when you view his dramatic work you keep waiting for punchlines and slapstick gags that never materialize. The film follows all the conventional elements of the standard disaster movie (i.e children in peril, a pregnant woman who goes into labor during the crisis, lovers reunited, etc.) I half expected the climax to feature the heroes trapped aboard an upended ocean liner while being menaced by a shark. However, I must say that I very much enjoyed "City on Fire". It boasts an intelligent script, fine direction and reasonably good performances. There is also an almost complete lack of humor, so you won't see Fred Astaire as a charming con man or an unbilled Walter Matthau getting soused in a bar in the midst of an earthquake. The sense of gravitas is in keeping with the dramatic scenario of people stranded within a ring of fire. The movie came a day late and a dollar short to capitalize on the disaster movie trend. It's not as slick or polished as the best entries in the genre but it's better than many others including Irwin Allen's career-ending turkeys, "The Swarm" and "When Time Ran Out".
The Scorpion Blu-ray contains a notice that the transfer was put together from various sources. There are a few blotches here and there but the Blu-ray generally looks fine. Bonus features include a TV spot for the film and a trailer gallery of other Scorpion releases. Recommended.
The James Bond-inspired spy movie boom of the 1960s resulted in the films of this genre generally fitting into one of two distinct categories: tongue-in-cheek spoofs played largely for laughs (the Flint and Matt Helm series) and gritty, realistic depictions of espionage that stripped away any glamour from the spy trade ("The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "The Deadly Affair", "The Venetian Affair", "The Ipcress File" and countless others.) Straddling the line between the two genres was writer/director Val Guest's 1966 film "Where the Spies Are" starring David Niven, who seemed impeccably suited to capitalize on the movie craze. The film was based on the novel "Passport to Oblivion" by James Leasor, a straight-up thriller set in Beirut, Lebanon when it was a thriving holiday destination for wealthy Europeans to the extent it was known as "The Paris of the Middle East". The movie opens with the abduction and murder of an MI6 agent, Rossiter (Cyril Cusack) in Beirut. He's been investigating a Soviet-inspired plot to murder the head of state and install a puppet government. The British are especially concerned because they depend upon the friendly government of Lebanon to provide Great Britain with substantial amounts of oil (some things never change.) When Rossiter goes silent, MI6 boss MacGillivray (John Le Mesurier) needs to send an agent to Beirut to investigate his disappearance. He decides he needs a non-professional who has no trace to the agency to act as an operative. He recalls using the services of Jason Love (David Niven) twenty years earlier in the war. It seems that Love proved to be reliable in successfully pulling off a dangerous mission. Love is now a well-off physician living a happy bachelor lifestyle with a posh house and a vintage, valuable roadster that he takes pleasure in driving through the country lanes. MacGillivray uses Love's sense of patriotism (and a bribe to buy him an even more valuable and rare roadster) as an incentive for him to agree to visit Lebanon, ostensibly to attend an international medical conference. It's supposed to be an easy job with Love simply nosing around and trying to find some clues as to Rossiter's fate, but you know how things usually turn out in missions of this type.
When Love disembarks from his plane in Rome to await a connecting flight to Beirut, there is quite a stir in the terminal because world famous fashion model known simply as Vikki (Francoise Dorleac) is being photographed for a fashion spread in a major magazine. They meet cute and Love is understandably distracted by her beauty. After turning on the charm, she confides in Love that she is actually one of the MI6 contacts he will meet on his mission. Love is so shocked that he is too late to catch his flight- and lucky for him that he didn't because minutes after takeoff, the plane explodes, killing everyone on board. (Inexplicably, the incident directly over the airport doesn't seem to generate much reaction from the people at the airport.) Love attributes the disaster to a mechanical flaw and arrives at his hotel in Lebanon- the same one that Rossiter had a room at. He's pleased to find that Vikki is there, too, and is as enthused about getting under the covers as he is. Their romantic fling is later disturbed by an assassination attempt and Vikki informs Love that the destruction of the airplane might have been a plot to kill him. He soon meets Parkington (Nigel Davenport), another MI6 contact- a career agent who is depressed and cynical about intelligence work. He copes by hitting the bottle hard but he proves to be a valuable ally to Love in tracing Rossiter's fate. Ultimately, Love finds himself in further peril and having to resort to his own defense mechanisms (and a couple of spy gadgets, of course) in order to survive. The finale finds him trying to thwart the assassination as well as escape Soviet kidnappers who bundle him aboard a plane bound for Russia.
"Where the Spies Are" starts off with the implication that it will be a comedy in the Flint/Helm mode with Niven playing a comic fish-out-of-water character embroiled in a larger-than-life adventure. However, the laughs are few and far between once he sets off on his mission. The film still offers some witticisms and subdued laughs, but it turns primarily into a thriller including a larger-than-life action scene atop ancient ruins. The movie was directed and co-written by Val Guest, a reliable old hand at making highly enjoyable mid-range films that weren't designed to be blockbusters or win awards. He keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, accompanied by a lively score by Mario Nasciembene. Niven is perfectly cast and delivers his usual charismatic and charming performance. Dorleac is given some mod fashion wear to show off and makes for a suitable love interest. She was set to follow her sister Catherine Deneuve as the next "it girl" in films but tragically died in 1967 in a car crash shortly after completing her final film, the spy thriller "Billion Dollar Brain". The film benefits from some exotic on-location scenes in Lebanon, with interiors shot at the old MGM Studios at Boreham Wood, England. However, it suffers from some crude special effects and the all-too-obvious use of miniatures and rear screen projection. Similarly, Niven's stunt double doesn't pass muster, as he doesn't resemble the actor in the slightest even from afar.
The film features any number of people associated with James Bond films. Niven, of course, would go on to star as Sir James Bond in the 1967 spoof version of "Casino Royale" which was co-written and co-directed by Val Guest. Wolf Mankiewicz, who had been an uncredited contributor to the script of "Dr. No", co-wrote the screenplay for "Where the Spies Are" as well as "Casino Royale". The titles were designed by Robert Brownjohn who also created the classic titles for "Goldfinger" and "From Russia with Love". Among the actors who were associated with at least one Bond movie include Eric Pohlmann (who provided the voice of the unseen Blofeld in the early Bond movies), Paul Stassino "("Thunderball"), John Le Mesurier ("Casino Royale" as "M"'s chauffeur), George Pravda ("From Russia with Love"), Bill Nagy ("Goldfinger") and Geoffrey Bayldon ("Casino Royale"). Also, former Bond star George Lazenby starred as Jason Love in an audio book adaptation of "Passport to Oblivion" available on Amazon Kindle. "U.N.C.L.E." fans will also enjoy seeing "Girl from U.N.C.L.E." star Noel Harrison as an MI6 agent and will get a laugh out of one of the passwords used in the film, "Love from Uncle", which could not have been a coincidence since it was an MGM production.
Val Guest had obtained the screen rights to "Passport to Oblivion" and several literary sequels in the hopes that a series of Jason Love films would go into production. However, the film didn't elicit much excitement from moviegoers or critics and, thus, a series never went into production. Not helping matters was MGM's decision to recut Guest's final version of the film without his permission, which supposedly infuriated him. Nevertheless, if you have a soft spot for spy movies of the 1960s, you'll probably find the film as enjoyable as I did.
The region-free Warner Archive DVD proves that this title is in dire need of a Blu-ray upgrade. The color quality is all over the place, ranging from satisfactory to wild deviations to various garish tints, giving it a Frankenstein-like quality in that it seemed to have been cobbled together with bits from several prints. That probably wasn't the case, but it is nevertheless the effect. The Archive is doing some great work upgrading even "B" titles so let's hope "Where the Spies Are" is on their list for future Blu-ray release. The only bonus feature is the original trailer which is narrated for some reason by a guy who sounds like an extra from an old WB gangster movie.
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For those of us who are hopelessly addicted to spy movies of the
1960s, the Warner Archive provides a gift: the first DVD release of "The
Scorpio Letters", one of the more obscure 007-inspired espionage films
of the era. Produced by MGM, the movie was shown on American TV in early
1967 before enjoying a theatrical release in Europe. It seems the
studio was trying to emulate the strategy that it was employing at the
time for its phenomenally popular "Man From U.N.C.L.E." TV series. That
show had proven to be such a hit with international audiences that MGM
strung together two-part episodes and released them theatrically. (Three
films were released in America but a total of eight were shown in
international markets.) As "The Scorpio Letters" was produced with a
theatrical run in mind, it has a bit more gloss than the average TV
movie, which was then a genre in its infancy. Nevertheless, it still has
all the earmarks of a production with a limited budget. Although set in
London and France, you'd have to be pretty naive to believe any of the
cast and crew ever got out of southern California. Grainy stock footage
is used to simulate those locations and there is ample use of the very
distinctive MGM back lot, which at times makes the film resemble an
episode of "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." What the movie does provide is some
nice chemistry between its two lead actors, Alex Cord, who had recently
acquitted himself quite well in the underrated 1966 big screen remake
of John Ford's "Stagecoach" and Shirley Eaton, then still riding the
wave of popularity she enjoyed as the iconic "golden girl" from the Bond
blockbuster "Goldfinger". The two play rival spies in London, both
working for different British intelligence agencies, though whether it
is MI5 or MI6 is never made clear.
The film is based on a novel by Victor Caning that had been adapted
for the screen by the ironically named Adrian Spies, who had a long
career working primarily in television. (Curiously, his one credited
feature film was for the superb 1968 adventure "Dark of the Sun" (aka
"The Mercenaries".) There is nothing remarkable about his work on "The
Scorpio Letters". In fact, Spies provides a rather confusing plot. The
film opens on a jarring note with a man taking a suicidal plunge from
his apartment window in London. Turns out he was a British intelligence
agent and the reasons for his suicide are of great interest to the
higher ups in the spy business. Alex Cord plays Joe Christopher, an
American ex-cop who now does work for one of the intelligence agencies
run by Burr (the ever-reliable Laurence Naismith). Burr orders him to
get to the bottom of the suicide case and in doing so, Joe gains access
to the dead man's apartment just in time to encounter a mysterious man
stealing a letter addressed to the dead agent. A foot chase ensues that
ends with both men getting struck by a London double decker bus (yes,
MGM had one of those laying around the back lot.) Still, Joe manages to
steal back the letter the man had swiped and finds it is obviously a
blackmail attempt made against the dead agent by a mystery person who
goes by the name of Scorpio. From there the plot gets rather confusing
and becomes one of those thrillers that is best enjoyed if you stop
trying to figure out who is who and just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Joe flirts with Phoebe Stewart (Shirley Eaton), who works in another
intelligence agency. It appears her boss and Joe's boss are constantly
trying to undermine each other in the attempt to solve major cases.
Phoebe makes an attempt to seduce Joe, but he correctly suspects that
she is trying to compromise him for information he knows about the case.
Inevitably, a real romance blossoms but the love scenes are pretty
mild, perhaps due to the fact that this film was made with a television
broadcast in mind. (The plot invokes the old joke of having the would-be
lovers get interrupted every time they attempt to get it on.)
Joe gets a lead that takes him to Paris where he discovers that
Scorpio is the man behind a shadowy spy network that uses agents
employed as waiters in an upscale restaurant. I imagine the reason for
this is explained somewhere along the line but it's just one more
confusing element to the script. Joe infiltrates the spies/waiters gang
in the hopes of finding out who Scorpio is. Meanwhile, in the film's
best scene, he is exposed, captured and tortured. There is even a
modicum of suspense as there appears to be no logical way he will get
out of this particular death trap. Refreshingly, Joe is no 007. He makes
miscalculations, gets bruised and beaten and often has to rely on the
intervention of others to save him. (In the film's climax, finding
himself outmanned and outgunned, he actually does the logical thing and
asks someone to call the local police for help.) Ultimately, Scorpio is
revealed to be one of those standard, aristocratic spy villains of
Sixties cinema. In this case he is played by the very able Oscar Beregi
Jr. If you don't know the name, you'll know his face, as he excelled in
playing urbane bad guys in countless TV shows and feature films of the
era. There are numerous kidnappings, shootouts, double crosses and red
herrings and one bizarre sequence that is ostensibly set in a French ski
resort in which the ski lift is inexplicably in operation even though
it's summer. Additionally, the California mountains look as much like
France as Jersey City does.
Despite all of the gripes, I enjoyed watching "The Scorpio Letters".
It's an entertaining, fast-moving diversion, directed with unremarkable
efficiency by Richard Thorpe (his second-to-last film). Cord makes for a
very capable leading man, tossing off the requisite wisecracks even
while undergoing torture. Eaton possesses the kind of old world glamour
you rarely see on screen nowadays. Together, they make an otherwise
mediocre movie play out better than it probably should. (A minor trivia
note: this represents the first film score of composer Dave Grusin, who
would go on to become an Oscar winner.)
The Warner Archive DVD transfer is very impressive and the film
contains an original trailer, which presumably was used in non-U.S.
markets.
Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store
ViaVision's Imprint line will release a limited edition, region-free (1,500 units) Blu-ray boxed set commemorating director Walter Hill. Suggest you get your pre-orders in early, as Imprint limited edition sets usually sell out fast. This set will be released in July.
Here is the official announcement:
Walter Hill has been directing films
for almost 50 years and has established himself a reputation of delivering
thrilling, gritty, and highly stylized films.
This special edition set collects five
films and one landmark miniseries from one of the most important and
influential filmmakers of modern cinema.
Hard Times (1975)
The Driver (1978)
The Long Riders (1980)
Extreme Prejudice (1987)
Johnny Handsome (1989)
Broken Trail (2006)
Featuring performances from some of
Hollywood’s greatest actors including Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Bruce
Dern, Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman & Robert Duvall.
Limited Edition 8-Disc Hardbox. 1500
copies only.
Hard
Times (1975) – Imprint Collection #164
In the middle of the Great Depression,
Chaney (Charles Bronson, Death Wish) is just looking to catch a
break. When he meets Speed (James Coburn, The Magnificent Seven), a
promoter of bare-knuckle street fighting, Chaney thinks with his fighting skill
and Speed’s savvy, he might have a chance. But Speed has his own problems, and
what seemed like a sure thing is not as simple.
This gritty, compelling drama is the
directorial debut of Walter Hill.
Starring Charles Bronson, James
Coburn, Jill Ireland & Strother Martin.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
Special features TBC
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
Audio English DTS-HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0
Optional English subtitles
The
Driver (1978) – Blu-ray & 4K – Imprint Collection #165
Ryan O’Neal plays the Driver, an
ice-cool getaway “Wheel Man” for hire. Bruce Dern is the detective who becomes
obsessed with catching him. The more O’Neal leaves tantalising clues at the
crime scenes, the more Dern becomes a man possessed with catching his prey.
This cult neo-noir thriller is
presented on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray.
Starring Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern,
Isabelle Adjani, Joseph Walsh & Ronee Blakley.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
4K UHD Disc
NEW 4K restoration by StudioCanal
Walter Hill Masterclass – featurette
Interview with Walter Hill
Alternate Opening
Original English Trailer
Original German Trailer
13 Original Teasers
Blu-ray Disc
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
NEW Audio Commentary by film historian and critic Matthew Asprey
Gear (2022)
NEWCut to the Chase – interview with actor
Bruce Dern on The Driver (2022)
NEWTeeth Bared – interview with actor Rudy
Ramos on The Driver (2022)
NEW Simplicity in Motion: Editing The
Driver – interview with editor
Robert K. Lambert (2022)
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional English HOH subtitles
The
Long Riders (1981) – Imprint Collection #166
The Long Riders is Hill’s version of the story of the James-Younger
gang. Held as heroes by many, and much celebrated for its attacks upon the
railroad, the gang became the most famous band of outlaws in the country. They
were eventually brought to ruin by the Pinkerton detective agency, losing many
of their number in the ill-fated Northfield, Minnesota bank raid.
Four sets of real-life brothers – the
Carradines, the Keachs, the Quaids and the Guests – star in this classic
western.
Starring Keith Carradine, James Remar,
Dennis Quaid, Stacy Keach, Robert Carradine & David Carradine.
Special Edition 2-Disc Set.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
Disc One
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
Audio Commentary by film historians Howard S.
Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
NEW Audio Commentary by film historian Toby Roan
Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Mono
Optional English HOH subtitles
Disc Two
Interview with actors Keith Carradine and Robert
Carradine
Interview with actors Stacy Keach and James Keach
Interview with actor Randy Quaid
Interview with actor Nicholas Guest
Interview with director Walter Hill
Interview with composer Ry Cooder
Interview with producer Tim Zinnemann
Outlaw Brothers: The Making of The Long Riders – documentary
The Northfield Minnesota Raid: Anatomy of a Scene – featurette
Slow Motion: Walter Hill on Sam Peckinpah – featurette
Extreme Prejudice stars Nick Nolte as tough, no-nonsense Texas ranger
Jack Benteen, whose childhood friend Cash (Powers Boothe) is now a ruthless
drugs baron on the other side of the border. Jack finds himself recruited by
the CIA to eliminate Cash, who allegedly has secret government documents.
Starring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe,
Rip Torn, Maria Conchita Alonso & Michael Ironside.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
NEW Audio Commentary by film critic / author Walter Chaw
NEW Audio Commentary by film historians Daniel Kremer and Nat
Segaloff
Audio commentary by film historians C. Courtney
Joyner and Henry Parke
Interview with director Walter Hill (2010)
Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with
music historian John Takis
The Major’s Agenda – interview with actor Michael Ironside
The War Within – interview with actor Clancy Brown
Capturing The Chaos – interview with director of photography
Matthew F. Leonetti
Theatrical Trailer
Vintage Electronic Press Kit
Photo Gallery
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
Optional English HOH subtitles
Johnny
Handsome (1989) – Imprint Collection #168
Severely-deformed petty criminal
Johnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) is double-crossed in a robbery and left to take
the rap on his own. He is stabbed in jail and sent to hospital, where a prison
doctor decides that plastic surgery and a fresh start will lead Johnny on the
path to reform. However, when the handsome new Johnny emerges from prison, his
potential fresh start in life is hampered by his desire to get even with the
man who put him away.
Starring Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin,
Morgan Freeman & Forest Whitaker.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
NEW Audio Commentary by film critic and author Walter Chaw (2022)
NEW Audio commentary by film critics Daniel Kremer and Scout
Tafoya (2022)
NEW Interview with actor Peter Jason
Codes to Live By: Walter Hill on Johnny Handsome – featurette
Wordsmith – interview with writer Ken Friedman (2010)
Eye of the Beholder – interview with makeup artist Michael
Westmore (2010)
Action Man – interview with stuntman Allan Graf (2010)
Theatrical Trailer
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Audio English LPCM 2.0 Stereo
Optional English HOH subtitles
Broken
Trail (2006) – Imprint Collection #169
Set in 1897, Print Ritter (Robert
Duvall) and his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Haden Church) become the reluctant
guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte’s
attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to
deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals, intent on
kidnapping the girls for their own purposes. Classic Western action takes
centre stage in this dramatic miniseries!
This critically acclaimed miniseries
is the winner of four Emmy Awards.
Starring Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden
Church & Greta Scacchi.
Special Features & Technical
Specs:
1080p high-definition presentation on Blu-ray from
a restored 4K master
Broken Trail: The Making of a Legendary Western – featurette
Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
Audio English DTS HD 5.1 Surround + LPCM 2.0
Stereo
Optional English subtitles
Any pre-order titles will be
dispatched in the week leading up to its aforementioned release date. Special
features and artwork are subject to change.
Click here to to order. (Prices are in Australian dollars. Use currency converter to see value in your local currency.)
In reviewing "Fuzz" when it opened in 1972, Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted that the film looks more like a dress rehearsal than a finished movie and was obviously intended to appeal to viewers who had a limited attention span. In contrast, Roger Ebert said he was put off by the exploitive elements of the movie poster, but in the end called it a funny, quietly cheerful movie. I guess I land in the same ballpark as Ebert, although I'm not without criticism of the film, which was based on author Ed McBain's popular "87th Precinct" novels that explored the excitement and absurdities found in a modern, big city police department. The film has an impressive ensemble cast: Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch (reunited after co-starring in "100 Rifles"), Tom Skeritt, Jack Weston and Raquel Welch, who appears rather fleetingly despite her prominent billing. Oh, and the bad guy is played by Yuel Brynner, who appears rather late in the film in a limited number of scenes.
The film is primarily played for laughs and it's scattershot plot jumps around at a dizzying pace. The action takes place in the aforementioned 87th Precinct in Boston, a run-down venue located in a troubled part of the city. The plot focuses on a harried group of cynical detectives who report to their equally cynical, burned-out boss, Lt. Byrnes (Dan Frazer). The precinct is depicted as decrepit and as worn-out as its inhabitants. There's a lot of chaotic action going on throughout the day with various local miscreants and eccentrics clogging up the works, much to the frustration of the burned-out cops. The plot sees seasoned veteran cops Steve Carella (Burt Reynolds), Bert Kling (Tom Skerritt) and Meyer Meyer (you read that right) (Jack Weston) trying to cope with the chaos- as well as the arrival of a strikingly beautiful policewoman who has been assigned to the precinct, Eileen McHenry (Raquel Welch). Among the cases being investigated simultaneously are the identities of the creeps who have been setting local hobos on fire, a serial rapist, various petty crimes and a late-breaking, high-profile threat posed by an unknown man who phones in death threats aimed at local public officials.When the ransom he demands isn't paid, said officials are bumped off in a high profile manner despite intense efforts by the police to thwart the plots. The villain is known as The Deaf Man (Yul Brynner), a sophisticated brute with the persona of a Bond villain, who employs a small team of loyal and very competent crooks to help him carry out the various assassinations.
Director Richard A. Colla employs the Altmanesque gimmick of having characters talk over each other in a Tower of Babel-like scenario, but in the context of a chaotic police department, the tactic works. The air of realism is accurate. During this era, my father was a cop in Jersey City, a stone's throw across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Like most urban areas during this era, it was a city beset by plenty of problems. Whenever I would see him at the precinct, I witnessed the kind of mutual ball-busting humor cops would engage in. I realized it was their way of coping with the pressures of the job and "Fuzz" captures this environment perfectly. The screenplay by Evan Hunter, who wrote the source novel under the nom de plume Ed McBain, is rather episodic and some plot lines are left to dwindle as the cops try to solve any number of on-going threats to the city. Raquel Welch's character is subjected to the predictable sexist comments, but, refreshingly she is spared any exploitation scenes (except for one fleeting moment) and acquits herself well as this valiant public servant. The whole messy scenario comes together in a very clever ending in which all of the unrelated characters end up converging on a local liquor store where the cops are holding a stakeout. The mayhem that ensues is both funny and exciting and ties some of the loose ends together. A comic highlight finds Reynolds and Weston dressed as nuns in a stakeout to capture the rapist.
The cast is first-rate. Reynolds is in top form and he gets fine support from Tom Skerritt, Jack Weston (particularly impressive), Dan Frazer and James McEachin. Don Gordon is among the bad guys, and as with any of his screen appearances, he's a welcome presence. Reynolds breaks the wise-cracking mode in a touching scene that shows him with his wife, a deaf mute played by Neile Adams. Yul Brynner adds his customary classy presence in his limited screen time.
Reynolds and Welch could not have been pleased with the marketing campaign for the movie: a Mad magazine-style ad that capitalized on Reynold's recent centerfold in Cosmopolitan and had Welch depicted in a bikini, although she appears in no such attire and is demurely dressed in the film. (Her character disappears mid-way through the movie and inexplicably doesn't show up again.) Nevertheless, Reynolds would finally rise to major boxoffice status later in the year with his superb performance in "Deliverance" and Welch would graduate to intelligently-written roles that proved she was more than a pretty face.
"Fuzz" is an imperfect movie but it's a lot of fun. Recommended.
(The film is currently showing on Screenpix, which is available by subscription through Amazon Prime, Roku and Apple TV.)
"The Pink Jungle" is a Universal production from 1968 and it looks it, with plenty of backlot sets doubling for authentic foreign settings. The studio always clutched the purse strings rather tightly when producing mid-range fare such as this, but it doesn't mean these films were devoid of value. This particular production was based on a 1965 action adventure novel titled "Swamp Water" by Allan Williams, which is regarded as a straight-forward thriller. The film adaptation with a script by Charles Williams eschews the thrills in favor of laughs. The film opens in one of those conveniently unnamed-but-undesirable South American countries where we find James Garner arriving in a one-horse town. He's fashion photographer Ben Morris who is there to do a quick shoot before returning to the States. The subject of his fashion spread soon arrives: supermodel Alison Duguesne (Eva Renzi), and she's more than a bit put off by the primitive environment. Things go downhill from there. They find they are stranded when the only local helicopter is stolen. They are introduced to the local corrupt police chief, Colonel Celaya (Fabrizio Mioni), who is looking to squeeze them for any bribes he can get. Then there is Raul Ortega (Michael Ansara), a local shady character in his own right. I won't bother with detailing how all of these characters affect the story, as we're not outlining "Citizen Kane" here. Suffice it to say that both Ben and Alison find themselves on defense all the time among this stew of swindlers and killers. Things kick into high gear when they meet Sammy Reiderbeit (George Kennedy), a South African with an American accent (!). He's a volatile nut case who embroils them in a seemingly madcap scheme to find a hidden diamond mine. He has access to a map that supposedly outlines where it is located but it requires an arduous and dangerous journey to reach the area- and there are all sorts of villains on their trail trying to obtain the map at any cost.
"The Pink Jungle" is played strictly for laughs with Garner playing a typical Garner role: a man of action who can dispense punches and quips with equal skill. Kennedy plays a typical Kennedy role: a loud, crude boisterous type who is more brawn than brains. They form one of those uneasy partnerships to set off to find the gold only to encounter another disreputable character, McCune (Nigel Green) who joins the team even though no one trusts him. The first section of the film is shot entirely on the Universal backlot, though the art directors- Al Ybarra and and Alexander Golitzen- do succeed in making the seedy buildings seem convincing. Things only open up when the characters hit the mountains and desert (entirely filmed in California and Nevada). It's clear that Universal designed this movie for quick playoff. I'm not even certain it ever played as a main feature, as I recall as a kid seeing it as the bottom half of a double-bill with "Lady in Cement". Writing in his memoirs many years later, Garner dismissed the film thusly: "I made this thing for the money and I'm lucky it didn't wreck my career". That seems a bit harsh. If one approaches the film with modest expectations, they might be rewarded with some modest pleasures. Garner is always fun to watch and Eva Renzi, fresh from her success in "Funeral in Berlin", makes an appealing leading lady whose flirtatious relationship with Ben remains chaste, probably because they spend most of their time dodging assassination attempts. George Kennedy dominates every scene he's in as the cigar-chomping, erratic, yet likable madman who is obsessed with finding the diamond mine. Nigel Green's appearance mid-film adds some intrigue and he's fun to watch. Director Delbert Mann, like his cast members, would not have put this film near the top of his credentials. (He had directed the Oscar winner, "Marty"). However, his workmanlike direction here keeps the pace lively and the action flowing. Oh, and the ending does provide a bit of a surprise revelation.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents the film in a reasonably good transfer. The only bonus extra is the original trailer (which plays up George Kennedy's recent Oscar win for "Cool Hand Luke") and a gallery of other trailers for KL action movie releases.
Seven years after his blockbuster success producing the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure, Irwin Allen revisited the same story for a sequel, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. The 1979 film represents all the reasons that sequels to most hit films are generally disdained. Yes, there was The Godfather trilogy to buck the trend, but there were also those God-awful sequels to Jaws. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure opens the morning after the capsizing of the cruise ship. Michael Caine is Mike Turner, the financially destitute captain of a small vessel who is facing bankruptcy after losing his cargo in the same violent storm that destroyed the Poseidon. On board his boat are his first mate Wilbur (Karl Malden) and Celeste Whitman (Sally Field), a perky but klutzy young drifter the men have befriended. They stumble upon the capsized wreck of the Poseidon and Turner immediately smells financial opportunity in the tragedy. If he can make his way through the hull and down to the purser's office, he can raid the safe and abscond with the riches that are inevitably stored there. This is the first of any number of absurdities in the script. With the Poseidon the worst maritime disaster since the Titanic, Turner and his crew discover that, with the exception of one French copter that is conveniently leaving the scene upon their arrival, there is literally no other sign of the international rescue forces that would be omnipresent at the scene. Instead, after rescuing the few people who managed to make it onto the hull in the preceding film, those forces are in no hurry to get additional manpower to the scene in order to search for additional survivors before the ship sinks the bottom of the ocean. Inexplicably, while the rescue forces can't make a timely arrival at the scene, a small craft under the command of Captain Stefan Svevo (Telly Savalas) does. Svevo claims he is a doctor who is there with his crew to enter the ship and search for any survivors. (Absurdity #2: Svevo is about to undertake this arduous, grimy and potentially deadly task while attired in a snow white designer suit!). Turner buys his story and forms and uneasy alliance with Svevo and his team, who are also clad all in white and resemble some of those bands of henchmen from the old Batman TV series.
Once inside the ship, movie magic takes over and the group finds every chamber to be brightly lit, thus making it possible to move about freely. True, there is the hazardous task of finding your way around an upside down vessel, but that problem is solved when they conveniently find a map that lays out precisely where everything is located. Soon, Turner discovers what even the most naive viewer has already realized: that Svevo is actually a villain with his own agenda. In the third major absurdity, we learn that the Poseidon was transporting plutonium that Svevo wants to acquire for nefarious purposes relating to bomb- building. As if that isn't enough, it turns out the ship was also transporting a huge shipment of assault weapons and stockpiles of ammunition. It's a wonder there was any room for those joyous conga lines to dance around on that fatal New Years Eve.
Since a hallmark of any Irwin Allen film is the presence of respected actors peppered throughout the production, it isn't long before familiar faces start popping up in every room, like those celebrities who used to stick their heads of windows and make wise-cracks on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Slim Pickens, in full scenery-chewing hayseed mode, comes stumbling out of nowhere, drunk and protecting a precious bottle of wine. He pretends to be a Texas tycoon but it turns out he was the ship's wine steward and regards the bottle of expensive vino as a symbol of his life long dream to acquire the lifestyle that has always eluded him. Then there is Shirley Jones, who emerges and announces that she is a registered nurse, which is certainly more practical to the group than if she were a butcher by trade. Angela Cartwright is a young woman who was on the cruise with her father, a bull-headed Archie Bunker type played by an unusually over-the-top and embarrassing Peter Boyle. Every Allen film needs a sympathetic older couple to wring a few tears from from the audience so this time we have Shirley Knight and Jack Warden substituting for the previous film's Shelly Winters and Jack Albertson. Allen throws in the kitchen sink by making Warden play a blind man. Not to be politically incorrect, but the sequences of Warden stumbling around the upside down wreck of the Poseidon with a cane and wearing sunglasses begins to resemble a Monty Python sketch. Then there is Veronica Hamel as the prerequisite "bad girl" who slinks around in a drenched evening gown showing ample cleavage- oh, and Mark Harmon has a major role as a young hunk who finds love with Angela Cartwright in the bowels of the sinking ship. If that isn't enough, we learn that lovable ol' Karl Malden's character is terminally ill and the symptoms manifest themselves while he's holed up in the upside down ship. (Somehow Allen showed restraint by not introducing killer sharks to the mix.)
Irwin Allen had the good sense to have seasoned directors Ronald
Neame and John Guillerman direct his two biggest blockbusters, The
Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno and they remain enormously
entertaining films. However, he became convinced that he could save a
few bucks by doing the job himself. Thus, the man known for making
disaster movies became better known for the man who made disastrous
movies. The first slip was The Swarm, a 1978 flapadoodle that we always
refer to as the worst "Bee" movie of all time. The movie was a bomb but
that didn't teach star Michael Caine and co-star Slim Pickens a darn
thing, since they re-teamed with Allen right away for Beyond the
Poseidon Adventure. (Many years later, Caine said he was ashamed of this
period of his career when he took virtually any job in order to earn an
easy pay check.) With Allen back in the director's chair, Beyond was
destined to be another camp classic and it has the look and feel of a TV
movie. Caine looks understandably embarrassed, Field is in Flying Nun
cutesy mode and Savalas channels his inner Blofeld as the villain. Allen
packs in everything from an ax murder (!) to a full blown shoot-out in
which every day people turn out to be as adept at handling machine guns
as Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. There
are some reasonably impressive sets on view but many of the special
effects are sub-par. The most hilarious are found in the opening frames
in which we see Caine at the helm of his storm-tossed boat in the midst
of a hurricane. The sequence was apparently filmed with the ship on
rockers and the violent rainstorm was simulated apparently by having
some guy off camera spray garden hoses. It's quite possibly the
cheesiest effect I've ever seen in a modern, major studio production.
The Warner Archive has released Beyond the Poseidon Adventure only on DVD. With the film itself a dud, there is at least the
saving grace of an interesting bonus extra: a vintage 22 minute TV
special about the making of the film. It affords some excellent behind
the scenes views of the production and makes it clear that a lot of
talented people put a great deal of work into creating films that often
turn out badly. There are also some nice trailers for the main feature,
The Swarm, Twister and The Perfect Storm. Even bad movies need some love, so how about a Blu-ray release of "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure"?
CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM THE CINEMA RETRO MOVIE STORE
Way back in 1971 when I was in high school, there seemed to be a tidal wave of soft-core porn flicks, mostly imported from Europe and dubbed rather crudely into English. I never sought to spend the paltry contents of my wallet on these tame sex movies movies because I lived directly across the river from Times Square and that offered my friends and I the real forbidden fruit in sleazy, grind house movie theaters. Age was no barrier as long as you were willing to pay the then tidy sum of $5. However, the softcore Euro imports did find enthusiastic audiences in places where there weren't many alternatives to finding cinematic "adult entertainment". The films were generally rated "X" but were pretty tame, stressing humor to overcome objections from local killjoys who thought the idea of seeing some naked people on screen would condemn their entire community to eternal damnation. One of the most profitable of these films was the 1969 release, "The Stewardesses", which was so tame that it could be shown on Disney+ today. Nevertheless, these films afforded women to get a few cheap thrills without having to suffer the stigma of being seen entering a theater showing hardcore fare. Thus, plenty of couples enjoyed the opportunity to share in date nights that somewhat pushed the envelope in terms of general standards. The films were generally bestowed with memorable titles, which is why I remember the newspaper ads for "Dagmar's Hot Pants" and similar fare such as "The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried". The good news is that some of these films have been lovingly presented on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber, in collaboration with Code Red. When a screener arrived of "Dagmar's Hot Pants", I took an immediate interest, remembering hot pants as one of those short-lived fashion trends of the 1970s. For those readers who were not around way back then, the gimmick with hot pants was a simple one: they were very short and very tight and left little to the imagination. Although my high school had a very liberal dress code (jeans and T shirts were the norm), I do recall one of my female classmates pushing the envelope by wearing hot pants to class. That was a bridge too far and she was summarily sent home to change into something less offensive, much to the consternation of her male classmates. At least hot pants were provocative and sensible, as opposed to the male fashions of the era such as the leisure suit and safari jacket, the latter of which was a dress/casual abomination that looked as though it was designed to allow a man to hunt elephants in the morning and then attend a swank cocktail party in the evening without changing attire.
I looked forward to viewing "Dagmar's Hot Pants" simply to see an abundance of this long-forgotten fashion trend glorified on screen. Alas, I was snookered, as was anyone back in the day who paid to see the film. You see, there are no hot pants in "Dagmar's Hot Pants". They are neither shown nor discussed. It was simply a case of a shamelessly deceptive marketing campaign to capitalize on a recent fashion trend. Oh, well.The film itself presents lovely Diana Kjaer in the title role, playing a fabulously successful young woman who has emerged as one of Copenhagen's most in-demand hookers. Dagmar's daily schedule of meeting with clients from around the globe is frantic and she sometimes has to call on the services of fellow prostitutes to assist her in meeting some of the more unusual demands of her customers. The film takes a humorous view of all this, as we see Dagmar patiently keeping a straight face while interacting with oddball clients ranging from two goofy Japanese businessmen who want an orgy to horny local businessmen of some esteem, including a doctor who pays Dagmar to initiate his teenage son in the ways of the world. The only "normal" client Dagmar services is a member of Copenagen's Vice Squad, who ensures she doesn't get busted in return for sexual favors. One of her adoring clients is a gruff, but rich American businessman played by Robert Strauss...yes, that Robert Strauss who had earned an Oscar nomination for Billy Wilder's "Stalag 13". It's a bit uncomfortable seeing the sixty-something actor engaging in a sexual dalliance with Dagmar but presumably the lure of a quick paycheck and a trip to Copenhagen made for an offer Strauss couldn't refuse. If Robert Strauss has always figured into your fantasies, then your ship has come in. Throughout the story, Dagmar is keeping a big secret as she arranges to leave her lucrative business for a top secret venture. "That's it!", I thought- she's going into the hot pants manufacturing business, but alas, the answer is somewhat more mundane and disappointing. There are a couple of minor efforts to introduce some dramatic scenes into the slapstick. Dagmar lends her desperate brother money so that his girlfriend can get an abortion. There is also a tense scene with her quasi-pimp, a scary fellow who threatens her if she doesn't obey his wishes. In this sense, the film differs from similar movies of this type by at least acknowledging that the life of a call girl isn't all fun and games.
As is usual with these films, there are some interludes showing the star walking through the lovely streets of Copenhagen in an obvious attempt to add an exotic appeal to the production. Diana Kjaer manages to keep her clothes on occasionally but for the most part she is seen showering or chatting on the phone sans any cumbersome garments. I must say the dubbing in this film is a bit better than most and Code Red and Kino Lorber have provided a good looking transfer from a 2K master. You have to admire companies that take such efforts to preserve and present even minor films such as this.
The only bonus extra is an English language trailer that continues the sin of false advertising by saying "Dagmar's Hot Pants" is the name the title character has given to her prostitution network. In fact, there is never any mention of Dagmar's Hot Pants anywhere in the film. However, if these tame sex comedies from the distant past appeal to you, this is one of the better in this genre. I now hopefully await a Blu-ray release of "The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried"!.
Lewis Gilbert's 1964 film The 7th Dawn is available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. Longtime readers will remember that Gilbert discussed
the movie in an exclusive interview with Matthew Field in Cinema Retro
issue #18. The movie had previously only been available in the U.S. as a burn-to-order MGM DVD. This is a thoroughly engrossing,
adult drama with an unusual setting and story background. The movie
begins on the final day of WWII and centers on three disparate friends:
an American named Ferris (William Holden), a French woman, Dhana
(Capucine) and a Malayan, Ng (Tetsuro Tamba) who have led guerilla
forces against the Japanese occupation in Malaya. The three close
friends are jubilant in victory, after having suffered from fighting in
the jungle for extended periods. At the end of the war, Ng goes off to
Moscow to pursue communist political training. The apolitical Ferris
stays behind, with Malayasia now under British occupation. He thrives as a
local rubber plantation owner, and Dhana is his lover, despite her
frustration with Ferris' womanizing. The story advances to 1953, with
Malayans now impatient for independence from England, which is easing
toward granting their demands, but at a snail's pace. Ng returns to
Malaya to try to instigate communist-inspired violent uprisings. To his
sympathizers, he is a freedom fighter. To the British, he is a terrorist
and the most wanted man in the nation.
Ferris is shaken from his cynical desire to remain removed from the
political situation when Dhana is framed and charged by the British for
assisting the terrorists. She has a choice: lead the authorities to Ng's
hideout in the jungle or be sentenced to death. Dhana, who has always
been as attracted to Ng as she has to Ferris, refuses to give him up.
Ferris is faced with the ultimate dilemma: betray his best friend by
capturing him and turning him into the British, or face the prospect of
his lover being executed. Adding to the complications is the presence of
Candace (Susannah York), the comely young daughter of the British
governor who is also in love with Ferris and who concocts a scheme that
might save Dhana, despite the fact that it places her own life in
danger.
The 7th Dawn is a superb movie on every level, although it was
not particularly successful on its initial release. Unlike most of the
simplistic, special-effects driven action films of today, this movie
deals with basic human dilemmas such as the meaning of friendships and
the price of loyalties. The four leads are outstanding and Holden, in
particular, gives one of the most impressive performances of his
career. York and Capucine give touching performances, as well, and Tamba
(who would go on to star as 'Tiger' Tanaka in Lewis Gilbert's 1967
James Bond film You Only Live Twice) is particularly impressive
as a man who is torn between political ideology and his affection for
his friends. The political drama is played out in an engrossing manner,
as one witnesses the bumbling, if sincere attempts by the British
bureaucrats to try to win the hearts and minds of the locals through
tragically misguided methods. The film builds to a harrowing conclusion
as Ferris and Candace venture into the jungle in an attempt to capture
Ng before the death sentence can be carried out against Dhana. The last
half hour of the movie is especially riveting and packed with suspense
and Gilbert's direction is truly impressive. The film benefits from the
lush landscapes photographed by Freddie Young and a beautiful musical
score by Riz Ortolani.
Put this one on your "must see" list.
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray boasts an impressive transfer, though bonus materials are relegated to a trailer gallery. It would have been a good idea to include a commentary track, but considering the Blu-ray is a big step up from the previous DVD release, we won't complain.
In
“Secret of the Incas,” a 1954 release from Paramount Pictures, Harry Steele
(Charlton Heston) and Ed Morgan (Thomas Mitchell) are rival opportunists in
Cuzco, Peru.Both are searching for the
Sunburst, a fabled Incan artefact said to be hidden in the “lost city” of Machu
Picchu.“Not too many people go to Machu
Picchu,” Harry says.Today, when
tourists descend on the ancient Incan capital in droves, you would have to
wonder if he’d ever heard of Expedia.But the observation was true enough in the early 1950s when the ruins were
far off the beaten path.In those days,
most small-town Americans would have regarded a visit to New York or Miami as
an exotic excursion, never mind finding the time, money, or inspiration to fly
to the Andes.
Harry
has the edge in the quest for the Incan treasure, having appropriated a broken
chunk from an idol.The fragment
contains part of a pictograph which, when fitted to the rest of the carving on
the remainder of the statue, reveals the method for finding the hiding place of
the Sunburst.Putting the two together
isn’t a problem, requiring Harry only to follow a tourist group into the museum
where the fractured statue sits on display.But getting over the Andes to Machu Picchu to claim the Sunburst, “a
hunk of gold with 119 pure diamonds and 243 other precious stones,” is another
matter.This challenge is solved when
Elena (Nicole Maurey) arrives in Cuzco, a refugee from communist Romania.Elena is as grasping as Harry, whom she views
as her meal ticket to the U.S., while Harry uses her as bait to steal a small
private plane from the Romanian counsel, who flies into Cuzco to arrest
her.In Machu Picchu, Stanley Moorehead
(Robert Young), an archeologist directing a dig for the tomb of the last Incan
king, falls in love with Elena.Harry is
more amused than put out.His real
concern is Ed, who has followed by pack train and carries a gun.
The
Indians in the surrounding villages regard the Sunburst with spiritual awe,
believing that when it is found, the discovery will mark the rebirth of the
Inca nation.But Harry and his rival
only care about the fortune they can realize when they pry the jewels off the
relic and melt the gold into ingots.“We’ll
sit around and pluck it over like a roasted chicken, piece by piece,” Ed
gloats.The two agree on a fifty-fifty
split for the Sunburst, but given their mercenary natures, it’s about as
tenuous a deal as a division of spoils between competing bounty hunters in a
Spaghetti Western.Cast against type if
you remember them strictly for their signature roles, Heston and Mitchell are
excellent.Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, as
one of Machu Picchu’s Indian caretakers, has a sly screen presence and three
vocal numbers, which may be three too many for those who only want to get on
with the story.But Sumac was a
marketing draw comparable to having a performance by Lady Gaga or Adele in a
2023 movie.Largely forgotten today, she
was a star in the early 1950s “exotic music” genre pioneered by Les Baxter and
Martin Denny, with performances at Carnegie Hall and best-selling LPs on the
Billboard charts.Heston appears in some
exterior scenes of Cuzco and Machu Picchu, having participated in a month-long,
pre-production location shoot, but he, Mitchell, Young, Mourey, Sumac, and the
supporting Hollywood cast are missing (or represented by stand-ins at a
distance) from scenes where crowds of actual Peruvian Indians congregate at
Machu Picchu.Eagle-eyed viewers are
likely to notice the seams, but for most of us, it’s part of the fun to watch
old-school escapist pictures like this and tease out the real locations from
the studio sets.
“Secret
of the Incas” was absent from official U.S. home video release for
decades—neglectfully so, according to critics who have cited it as an influence
on “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a precursor to the James Bond franchise in the
double entendres that Harry trades with an appreciative housewife of means from
Michigan, Mrs. Winston, played by the great Glenda Farrell.When Mrs. Winston greets the strapping Harry
by commenting, “My, you’re a big one,” and looks forward to his “services” as a
tour guide, you know she has more in mind than a dinner reminder to her tourist
group.“I’ll be right outside your
door,” he assures her.
A
new Blu-ray edition from Kino Lorber Studio Classics makes up for the film’s
long absence with a remastered print licensed from Paramount, from a 4K scan of
original negative elements.The rich
colours of the Indians’ shawls and serapes are eye-popping in restored
Technicolor.Maybe the movie’s omission
from prior video formats, especially the inferior VHS process, and more
especially the even worse VHS/EP/SLP budget format in which Paramount briefly
released a handful of its archival titles in 1992, wasn’t such a loss after
all.
The special features
on the Blu-ray include an informative audio commentary by Toby Roan, previews
of related KL titles, and sharp SDH captioning.
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". UA 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 was released some years ago on Blu-ray as a limited edition by the now sadly defunct Twilight Time label. To my knowledge, it isn't available in that format today, although it is streaming on Screenpix, the subscription-based service that can be accessed through Amazon Prime, Roku, YouTube and Apple TV.
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 was said to have had 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
is squarely 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.
If John Byrum's
debut as a director is problematic, so, too, is his script. There is a
lot of name-dropping about the great figures in the movie industry who once socialized with the Boy Wonder but it all seems pretentious and
unconvincing right down to the constant attempts by Boy Wonder to avoid
meeting the unseen Clark Gable. In fact, aside from some fleeting
references the "Flapper Look" styles worn by the women, the film could
have been set in the 1970s. Byrum has the characters indulge in
vernacular that is far too contemporary for the 1930s. The only wit
that is apparent concerns Big Mac's plans to build roadside restaurants
that would all look the same and serve identical fast food. ("Big Mac"-
get it?) Beyond that, there are few attempts at humor and most of those
pertain to unspeakably cruel behavior and mutual humiliation. There
seems to be no purpose for the film's existence beyond the desire of the
participants to be in a porn movie. Given their status in the industry
that was obviously not going to happen so they banded together for a
quasi-porn movie and shrouded it in the protective layer of
intellectualism. This gave them all the cover of being artistes and
Richard Dreyfuss the opportunity to nibble on Jessica Harper's nipples
while pretending there was some greater purpose to it all. In reality
the film's most cringe-inducing scene has Dreyfuss and Harper having an
extended conversation about her private parts, which are referred to
repeatedly (almost to an absurd degree) in gutter language as those the
actors were pre-teenagers using naughty words for the first time.
There are said to be people who consider "Inserts" to be an underrated gem. But for this
writer, it represents an interesting but woefully misguided experiment
by some very talented people who should have known better.
Here's a chance to watch director Andrew V. Mclaglen's highly enjoyable 1979 adventure "ffolkes" starring Roger Moore as a grumpy but courageous leader of a private commando team. He's quite the opposite of his 007 persona: he loathes female companionship and loves cats. The film has a marvelous supporting cast including James Mason, Anthony Perkins and Moore's ol' pal David Hedison. (To watch in full screen mode, click on "Watch on YouTube.) T
