CHINATOWN

BY DOUG OSWALD

James Garner is an American Army intelligence officer who is one of the men behind the planning of D-Day when he’s kidnapped by the Germans in neutral Portugal just days prior to the invasion of Normandy in “36 Hours,” released on Blu-ray as part of the Warner Archive Collection. Major Jefferson Pike (Garner) is sent on a routine intelligence gathering mission to Lisbon, but it turns out to be a ruse by the Germans to kidnap Pike in order to get him to reveal the invasion plans. They drug him and transport him to Germany where Pike wakes up six years later in a U.S. Army hospital suffering from amnesia. It’s 15 May 1950 and the war has been over for several years, but Pike can’t remember anything after his night in Lisbon.

In reality, it’s still a few days before D-Day and the Germans have created an elaborate deception in order to convince Pike he’s receiving treatment at a military hospital in American occupied Germany. The Allied invasion was victorious and the war is over. Pike’s doctor, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor), is in reality a German psychiatrist who developed the elaborate plan in order to gather the invasion plan date and location for Nazi Germany. A base camp filled with fake Americans and German nationals are roaming the grounds to set Pike at ease and disorient him at the same time, but also to convince him he is indeed located at an American military hospital in Germany. The Germans have gone to elaborate steps to make the trap work by dying the edges of his hair gray and putting drops in his eyes to trick him into believing he needs prescription glasses in order for Pike to accept he has aged six years. There are fake newspapers in his room, pictures of his parents, American books and a fake radio station plays American “oldies” from the 1930s and early 40s. He also learns he’s married to Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint), his nurse for all these years and a Jewish concentration camp survivor. Gerber has 36 hours to complete his plan, but he is under extreme pressure from Gestapo agent Werner Peters (Otto Shack) to use torture in order to retrieve the information in Pike’s head.

The movie plays like an episode of the television series “Mission: Impossible” which started production two years later in 1966. The switch here is the bad guys perform a sting operation on the good guy. Things begin to unravel after Pike discovers an important detail the Germans overlooked in the charade. Character actor John Banner, a familiar face from television’s “Hogan’s Heroes,” appears as a local German border patrol agent who plays a key role in the finale.

I remember my first viewing of this WWII mystery classic on television in the late 1970s, before cable, satellite dish and home video. I love how the movie creates tension with knowledge of history ever on our mind and knowing this is a mystery rather than science fiction for we know the Nazi mission will fail. Or will it? Maybe Pike will reveal the D-Day invasion plans. Or maybe he will reveal too much and the German’s will not believe his statements. Either way, the viewer is like a fly on the wall - a voyeur of sorts following the action in secret as everything sorts itself out. There’s tension because we care about the protagonists and want them to succeed.. The film is directed by George Seaton, who also wrote the screenplay based on a story by Carl K. Hittleman and Luis H. Vance. Unknown to the production team, the plot for “36 Hours” was similar the short story “Beware the Dog” by Roald Dahl. As a result the production had to pay Dahl to avoid a lawsuit. As previously stated, the movie itself can be seen, in hindsight, as an influence on the style of “Mission: Impossible” with elaborate deceptions, disguises and triple crosses.

Garner is terrific as always. He had the ability to play likeable Jim Garner with his everyman masculinity while giving a believable and sympathetic portrayal to each unique character. Rod Taylor is equally likeable, even when playing a Nazi doctor. It’s hard not to root for him just a little despite the fact that his plan, incredible as it is, is so ingenious. Eva Marie Saint is an actress who appeared in a variety of movie roles through the 50s and 60s and an Academy Award winner as Best Actress for “On the Waterfront.” She’s always believable and understated with her natural acting style if not a little too glamorous in the role of a Nazi concentration camp survivor in this movie. She would team with Garner again in the 1966 classic racing movie “Grand Prix.” Otto Shack is terrific as the obligatory Nazi Gestapo agent ready to use torture to get the D-Day information. The supporting cast and sets work well enough to make the viewer believe that Pike would be convinced he was behind enemy lines.

Released in 26 November 1964 by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer in the UK (27 January 1965 in the US), the movie features an outstanding score by Dimitri Tiomkin and terrific widescreen black and white photography by Philip H. Lathrop. The light, dark and shadows give the movie a dream-like feeling as we join Pike in his nightmarish vision and possible alternate version of history. Yosemeti National Forest in central California stands in nicely for the Bavarian forest on the Swiss border. The production company had to remove any evidence they were in the park or that they transformed the Wawona Hotel into the military hospital in order to secure permission to film on location in Yosemeti. Certainly this was a cost saving measure, as filming on location in Bavaria may have been a budget issue. The movie clocks in at tight 115 minutes. The only extra on the disc is the trailer. This is a great addition on Blu-ray for James Garner fans and anyone looking for a well told mystery.

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Joe Dante's "Trailers from Hell" is bottled in Bond again with director Brian Trenchard-Smith analyzing the second 007 blockbuster, "From Russia with Love" and providing some interesting anecdotes within a very abbreviated time frame. By the way, are we the only ones who ever noticed a major curiosity about the "FRWL" trailer? Every major participant is credited by name on screen except for the film's star, Sean Connery. That wasn't the only blooper associated with the film: actress Martine Beswick was a victim of a careless mistake in the opening credits and was listed as "Martin Beswick". Director Terence Young felt badly about the error and made it up to Beswick by providing her with a far bigger role in the fourth Bond film, "Thunderball". 

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

The YouTube page "A Word on Entertainment" features host Rob Word's interview with actress Rosemary Forsyth, who recalls filming the under-rated 1965 film "The War Lord" starring Charlton Heston and Richard Boone.

BY JOHN M. WHALEN

If you’ve ever read one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels, you know that there has always been a big difference between Tarzan as he is in the movies versus Tarzan in the books. For some reason Hollywood has never really been able to get the character exactly right. As much fun as the Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker Tarzan movies are, for example, they really didn’t get close to Burroughs’ concept of the ape man. The real Tarzan didn’t speak Pidgin English for one thing. He actually spoke fluent English and French. He was as at home in an English Tea Room as the son of a British Lord, as he was in the prehistoric land of Pal-ul-don. While the movies showed Tarzan as protector of the animals, and friends with cute chimpanzees, in the books Burroughs present a world where death usually came on four feet, although man was often the most treacherous enemy. It was a jungle out there, and it was survival of the fittest, baby.

In 2016, Warner Bros. attempted to restart the Tarzan series with the $180 million “The Legend of Tarzan.” The film made double its budget at the box office worldwide, but it didn’t excite audiences or studio heads enough to continue with a sequel. So it looks like Tarzan will be on sabbatical for a while. Part of the reason for the film’s failure was the script’s presentation of Tarzan. They got the outer dimensions of the character right, but included too many politically correct ideas that weakened the Burroughs concept. For one thing, Tarzan lost too many fights, with both humans and apes. You don’t get to be King of the Jungle by losing fights. But I think it was the total reliance on CGI to create Tarzan’s Africa that was the main reason for the film’s failure. Except for the occasional aerial footage shot over the jungles of Gabon, the entire film was shot on sound stages in England. The movie lacked the reality that a fantasy like Tarzan needs to be believable.

Which brings me to the subject of this review. In the opinion of most true Tarzan fans there has only ever been one Tarzan film that really captures what Tarzan is all about. It’s not perfect, but it’s probably the closest they’ll ever get. In 1959, producer Sy Weintraub took over the Tarzan franchise from Sol Lesser after it was moved to Paramount Pictures. Weintraub injected the series with new energy and new ideas. He wanted to make an “adult” Tarzan flick and he wanted to shoot on location in Kikuyu, Kenya.

He hired a top flight cast of British actors to play the villains in the piece. Anthony Quayle, whose acting experience ranged from potboilers to Shakespeare, was cast as the main villain, Slade, an escaped con and old enemy of Tarzan. Next up, none other than 007 himself, Sean Connery, in an early role as O’Bannion, a tough Irish gunman, who, being too young for the Irish Rebellion, decides there are no causes worth fighting for because “They don’t pay well.” Next is Nial MacGiniss as Kruger, a German diamond expert who doesn’t want to be reminded of the old days of the Third Reich. Al Muloch plays Dino, captain of the boat the gang is riding up river, who has a strange attachment to a locket he wears around his neck. And finally, Italian actress Scilla Gabel as Toni, Slade’s girl. There’s plenty of internal conflict and tension among these five on board a small jungle boat as it makes its way up river to a diamond mine.

The film starts with the theft of explosives from a compound run by a doctor friend of Tarzan’s. The gang needs the gelignite to excavate a diamond mine located upriver, just north of Tarzan’s tree house. It’s interesting to note that the script by Berne Giler is based on a story written by Les Crutchfield, a veteran writer who wrote 81 Gunsmoke radio scripts, and was himself an explosives expert and a mining engineer before he started writing. Explosives figure prominently in the plot.

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"ALTMAN’S DOWNTON UPSTAIRS ABBEY DOWNSTAIRS”

By Raymond Benson

The magnificent Robert Altman whodunnit (or, as Altman and team called it, “who cares whodunnit?”), Gosford Park, has received a top-class Blu-ray restoration and re-issue from Arrow Academy, and it is a gem.

Originally released in 2001, Gosford Park took its cue from the immensely popular BBC television series, Upstairs, Downstairs—about the dramas that exist in a stately British manor between the “upstairs” folk—the wealthy upper-class family that owns the property, and the “downstairs” people—the servants and staff who run the household. Throw in a dash of Agatha Christie, and a heaping helping of Robert Altman’s ensemble improvisatory magic, and you have the director’s only full-fledged British production. Interestingly, the screenwriter, Julian Fellowes (who won the Oscar for Original Screenplay) went on to create and write the next immensely popular BBC television series, Downton Abbey, which resembles Gosford Park in many ways.

Film historians will certainly recognize the homage Altman makes in his direction of the piece to Jean Renoir’s 1939 masterpiece, The Rules of the Game, a similar masters/servants ensemble work that Altman was known to admire. The tone and broad canvas with many characters and their subtle ribald and clandestine liaisons was surely a blueprint on how to do Gosford.

The work began when actor/writer/producer Bob Balaban suggested a collaboration on a film, and the idea to do an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery became the desired goal (Balaban co-produced the picture and has a prominent role as one of two Americans in the nearly all-British cast). And while the murder mystery is at the core of the film, it’s really not that important. After all, this is an Altman film. It’s more about the characters, the relationships, and the exploration of what the British class system was like in the early 1930s when the U.K. was holding on to centuries-old mores and values that would soon slip away.

The story concerns wealthy businessman Sir William (Michael Gambon), who is married to younger Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas), whose sisters are married to men struggling to stay in or begin business with Sir William. One weekend, all the relations and a few guests are invited to have a “hunting party” (much like in The Rules of the Game), so the house if full of people and the servants are very busy. But nobody likes Sir William. After all, he has a history of impregnating servant girls and forcing them to either give up their babies to orphanages or leave their employment. (The picture has an added layer of meaning in today’s #MeToo climate!) So, when he’s found dead—apparently stabbed with a kitchen knife—no one is very surprised. In the last act of the story, we learn the secrets and lies of several characters, and how these all played into the scheme.

The cast is impressive. Maggie Smith (as a wickedly opinionated older relation who depends on an allowance from Sir William) was nominated for Supporting Actress, as was Helen Mirren (who plays the head housekeeper). Also on hand are Alan Bates, Emily Watson, Charles Dance, Clive Owen, Tom Hollander, Ryan Phillippe, Eileen Atkins, Derek Jacobi, Richard E. Grant, and many other familiar faces of British TV and film. Jeremy Northam portrays the real silent-film actor Ivor Novello, and Stephen Fry appears as a bumbling police inspector.

The brilliant cast and wonderful script aside, Gosford Park is assuredly Altman’s film. His style of overlapping dialogue, moving cameras throughout the house and picking up bits of business and dialogue here and there, and presenting a tapestry of words and images in which the viewer must piece together, is in full force. It works beautifully. In fact, Gosford was Altman’s second-highest grossing picture (after M*A*S*H), and it was nominated for the Oscar Best Picture and Director.

Arrow’s brand new 2K restoration from a 4K scan, approved by director of photography Andrew Dunn, looks marvelous. There are three audio commentaries—one with Altman, production designer Stephen Altman, and producer David Levy, and a second one with writer Fellowes. A third one is new to the release, featuring critics Geoff Andrew and David Thompson. Supplements include a new introduction to the film by Geoff Andrew, brand new cast and crew interviews, and port-overs from the previous DVD release: featurettes on the making of the film, deleted scenes with Altman commentary, and more. The package comes with a reversible sleeve containing the original poster art backed with new artwork by Matthew Griffin. In the first pressing of the product only, a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Sheila O’Malley and an archival interview with Altman is included.

Gosford Park was perhaps Altman’s last great picture, one that stands proudly alongside his other classics like M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, and Short Cuts. Pick it up!

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By Todd Garbarini

Following the financial success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13^th (1980), movie studios were making slasher films in large quantities. They didn’t necessarily want to, they just knew that there were scores to be made at the box office. Producers and directors alike were trying to come up with the next big franchise to keep pumping out money makers for years to come. The success of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) directly inspired The Toolbox Murders (1978). Likewise, Maniac (1980), released in New York City on Friday, January 30, 1981 (the same day as David Cronenberg’s Scanners), was the result of a brainstorming conversation between the film’s eventual director Bill Lustig and his friend Frank Pesce (who can be seen as the restaurant manager in James Toback’s 1978 film Fingers and as fugitive Carmine in Martin Brest’s 1988 comedy Midnight Run. His life story was also the subject of the 1991 comedy 29^th Street, directed by George Gallo who, incidentally, penned Midnight Run). The idea was to make a horror film that could be billed as “Jaws on land.” Jaws (1975), of course, changed the cinematic landscape and how movies are distributed and promoted using catchy tag lines, effective advertising campaigns, and rolling out a film in hundreds of movie theaters at once. It also provided the basis for obvious and cheap imitations and rip-offs. Maniac isn’t so obvious to the untrained eye.

Shot back-to-back in the fall and brutal winter of 1979 with much of the same crew from Friday the 13^th, Maniac stars the under-rated, under-utilized and, unfortunately, late Joe Spinell, an actor of considerable range who, despite his intimidating stance and demeanor, was actually a thoughtful and exceedingly nice personality on the set and behind-the-scenes, always eager to help fellow performers. Here he plays Frank Zito, a middle-aged man who lives alone in a New York City apartment amid toys and mannequins who double as his friends and personal company following a childhood ruined at the hands of an overbearing and physically abusive mother whom he lashes out against when he comes into physical contact with women. Following in the footsteps of the slasher films of the time, Maniac’s theme of an outcast with sexual hang-ups has provided more than enough fodder as a theme for disturbed young men who engage in ruthless killing sprees. Frank converses with the mannequins which are adorned with the real scalps and clothing of women who met their end at his hands, thus giving credence to the notion that serial killers keep trophies of their victims, a point spouted by Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs ten years later. Not all his victims are women, however. One night he follows a couple and shoots the man (Tom Savini!) point blank with a double-barreled shotgun before adding his girlfriend to his macabre collection. On another night he spots two nurses at a hospital (one of them is played by former porn actress Sharon Mitchell) and follows one of them into a subway bathroom in the film’s creepiest and most unsettling sequence.

A chance encounter with a photographer named Anna (Caroline Munro, who actually got her start as an actress after someone took her photograph and entered the winning image into a contest) leads him to her apartment. Anna doesn’t appear to be the slightest bit concerned that he obtained her name and address from her camera bag and invites him in! They soon begin a platonic friendship, but one of Anna’s model friends, Rita, catches Frank’s eye at one of her photo shoots and soon meets a terrible end. Anna is oblivious to this fact until she accompanies Frank to his mother’s grave with flowers and all hell breaks loose and heads towards an ending that is inspired until the final shot which is often relegated to the domain of slasher films, most notably Michele Soavi’s 1987 stylish giallo classic Stagefright.

Maniac developed a notorious reputation for its then-shocking violence, angering feminists from coast to coast. While it’s still fairly disturbing even by today’s standards, there is an argument to be made that AMC’s The Walking Dead is infinitely more savage. Shot on 16mm, the film holds up very well and has now been made available on Blu-ray in a three-disc set that includes a transfer mastered from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

This Valentine’s Day, give the special people in your life a gift they’re sure to love: film collections featuring their favorite movie stars.

The new Audrey Hepburn 7-Movie DVD Collection features the luminous actress in beloved classics including Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady, Funny Face, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Paris When It Sizzles and War and Peace. This is a sensationally affordable gift that sparkles like diamonds. Click here to order from Amazon.

The new Paul Newman 6-Movie DVD Collection boasts classic films highlighted by Newman’s Oscar®-nominated performance in Hud. The collection also includes dramas Road to Perdition and Fat Man and Little Boy, the comedy/drama Nobody’s Fool, the romantic comedy A New Kind of Love, and the acclaimed whodunit Twilight. Click here to order from Amazon.

The Mark Wahlberg 5-Film DVD Collection celebrates the charisma and range of one of today’s biggest stars. Featuring action-packed thrills, dark comedy and drama, the collection includes Shooter, Pain & Gain, The Fighter, The Italian Job and The Gambler. Click here to order from Amazon.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Broadway legend Carol Channing has passed away from natural causes at age 97. To call her inimitable would be a misstatement as Ms. Channing was one of the most impersonated stars of all time. With her shocking white hairdo, expansive smile and gravelly voice, she endeared audiences and inspired careers for countless entertainers on the drag queen circuit. Channing became a Broadway star in 1949 with "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and later became inextricably linked to the title role in the 1964 Broadway smash "Hello, Dolly!", for which she received the Tony Award. She was frustrated however, when she was not cast in the film versions of either musical, losing the roles to Marilyn Monroe and Barbra Streisand respectively. Ms. Channing also starred in her own television variety series in the 1960s. Surprisingly, she appeared in only a handful of feature films. She earned a Golden Globe and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the 1967 movie musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and was among the all star cast in director Otto Preminger's bizarre 1968 comedy flop "Skidoo". Seemingly ageless, Channing performed on stage for decades often in revivals or road productions of "Hello, Dolly!" in which she starred over 4500 times. For more click here.

Bloom with Clint Eastwood in "High Plains Drifter".

Veteran actress Verna Bloom has died at age 80. Bloom made her screen debut as the female lead in Haskell Wexler's acclaimed 1969 film "Medium Cool". Her performance gained her much traction in the film industry and she went on to star opposite Clint Eastwood in "High Plains Drifter" and "Honkytonk Man". She also memorably appeared in director John Landis's "National Lampoon's Animal House" playing the dean's wife who had a penchant for bedding college students. Her other film credits include "Badge 373", "The Hired Hand", "The Last Temptation of Christ" and the Frank Sinatra TV movie "Pickup on Cherry Street". Click here for more.

RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES

“BLOOD AND PRESTIGE”

By Raymond Benson

(Portions of this review are reprinted from the article “Playboy Goes to Hollywood,” by the same author, which appeared in Cinema Retro, Volume 2, Issue #5, 2006.)

The Criterion Collection has seen fit to release on Blu-ray and DVD (separate packaging) Roman Polanski’s striking film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, originally released in 1971. Not very well received at first, the picture’s reputation has grown over the years such that it is now arguably considered the definitive version of the “Scottish play” on celluloid (although Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 Throne of Blood is certainly a contender). Gritty, realistic, and violent, Polanski’s vision is dark and troubling—as the story is meant to be.

It’s possible that some of the negative press it received in 1971 was due to the fact that it was the first major motion picture produced by Playboy Productions, with Hugh M. Hefner serving as executive producer, while Playboy executive Victor Lownes II served as assistant executive producer (Andrew Braunsberg, a close friend of Polanski’s, was credited as producer). The film came about as a result of the friendship between Polanski and Lownes. The director had been recovering from the tremendous amount of grief he had suffered after the murder of his wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson family in 1969—he needed something that would help purge himself of the ugly and violent images in his head and heart. Shakespeare’s controversial and bloody play seemed to be the right vehicle. (Some say the play is unlucky—there are still theatre people who refuse to refer to it by name.)

Indeed, making the film was something of a catharsis for Polanski—there were a few occasions in which he unwittingly referred to the lead actress as “Sharon.” Adapted by renowned playwright and critic Kenneth Tynan, Polanski’s Macbeth became a poster child for the handful of ultra-violent pictures to be released in 1971—the same year as A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, and Straw Dogs. The blood flows freely in Macbeth—a decapitation is even presented most realistically—but to focus solely on the film’s violence does not do it justice. The film is a remarkably faithful adaptation of the play.

“Corporate was initially against the idea,” Hugh Hefner said in a 2006 interview for Cinema Retro. “It was not a very commercial undertaking, and I knew it wouldn’t make any money. Victor made a strong case to do it and I agreed with him. It was more of a prestige thing for Playboy. Playboy and Shakespeare? Who would have thought?”

The film was made in Scotland, of course, and featured mostly unknown but highly talented stage actors—Jon Finch as Macbeth, Francesca Annis as Lady Macbeth, Nicholas Selby as Duncan, Stephen Chase as Malcolm, Martin Shaw as Banquo, and Terence Bayler as Macduff. At one point during production, Polanski ran over schedule and over budget, causing the insurance backers to drop the guarantee. Hefner had to fly to London, take stock of the situation, and personally guarantee the completion of the film with Playboy Productions’ money.

Back home in the States, Hefner viewed the dailies at the Playboy Mansion. Hefner remembered, “For my birthday that year, the cast—on film—suddenly stopped the action of a scene and began singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.”

The film did receive a number of very positive reviews and a few awards, too—it won Best Picture from the National Board of Review and won a BAFTA for Costume Design. “Of course, as I predicted, it didn’t make any money,” Hefner said. “In fact, it lost money. But we didn’t really care. It was a good picture and I’m proud of it. I believe since its release the film has gone into the black.”

Criterion’s new 4K digital restoration, approved by Polanski, with 3.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is assuredly the best possible presentation of this remarkable film. The dreary Scottish landscapes are gorgeous in their own way, and you can feel the mud and slop in every scene. Extras include a new documentary featuring interviews with Polanski, Braunsberg, Lownes, and actors Annis and Shaw; a 1971 documentary featuring rare footage of the cast and crew at work; an interview with Kenneth Tynan from a 1971 episode of The Dick Cavett Show; and a segment from the 1972 British TV series Aquarius featuring Polanski and theatre director Peter Coe. Critic Terrence Rafferty’s essay in the booklet rounds out this exceptional package from The Criterion Collection.

Grab it! Just don’t ever pronounce the name of the play aloud!

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BY TIM MCGLYNN

“Life’s a banquet, and most sons of bitches are starving to death!”

The Warner Archive has just released the Blu-ray version of Mame, 1974’s film version of the hit Broadway show. The musical itself was based on the play Auntie Mame starring Rosalind Russell, also a film and also available from the Warner Archive.

On paper, this movie had “hit” written all over it with Mame’s Broadway director Gene Saks on board along with Bea Arthur (Saks’ wife) and Jane Connell reprising their stage roles. The popular score by Jerry Herman was augmented with a new song, Loving You. Phillip H. Lathrop was the cinematographer, Onna White staged the production numbers and veteran composer/arranger Fred Werner supervised the music.

The casting of the title role created controversy at the time as the star of the Broadway version of Mame, Angela Lansbury, was overlooked in favor of television and film legend Lucille Ball. It was decided at the time that Ms. Ball would draw a larger audience as film musicals had been sputtering at the box office. Previous efforts such as Paint Your Wagon, Hello Dolly and Lost Horizon had been financial disasters, and the studio wanted to stack the deck in favor of Mame breaking this trend.

Lucille Ball had never been known as a singer and at age 63 she may have not been as nimble on her feet as she was in earlier musicals. One just has to remember her taming the cat dancers with a whip in MGM’s Ziegfield Follies in 1946. Ms. Ball’s performance as Mame Dennis is still enjoyable and, if anything, is somewhat restrained. Scenes involving a comic foxhunt with Mame riding sidesaddle and a disastrous stage debut could have turned into Lucy Ricardo style slapstick, but were wisely held in check by director Saks. Ms. Ball conveyed warmth, strength and gentle humor in her performance as the eccentric, but lovable aunt.

The story follows the young and recently orphaned Patrick Dennis being sent to New York to live with his only living relative: his father’s sister Mame, a free-spirited bachelorette socialite. Mame instantly takes a liking to her nephew and vows to show him all the culture and unconventional personalities of Manhattan during the late 1920s. Her friends include a stage actress of dubious talent, the headmaster of a Bohemian nudist school, a less- than- successful stockbroker and a loyal houseboy.

Mame’s escapades with Patrick are made aware to his guardian, a conservative bank president, who sends the child to boarding school. Despite this setback, Auntie Mame remains the main influence on her nephew’s upbringing, and the story tracks their relationship through Patrick reaching adulthood and his preparations to marry. Along the way Mame encounters the stock crash of 1929, employment in customer service, marriage to a Southern aristocrat and a sudden tragedy. Her one constant through everything is her loving relationship with young Patrick.

A fantastic supporting cast includes Bea Arthur as actress Vera Charles, Jane Connell as Patrick’s nanny Agnes Gooch, Robert Preston as Mame’s love interest Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside, George Chiang as the houseboy Ito, Joyce Van Patten as Southern belle Sally Cato, Bruce Davison as the adult Patrick and John McGiver as Mr. Babcock, Patrick’s guardian.

Musical highlights include the beautifully staged title number sung by Robert Preston, a touching duet, My Best Girl, between Mame and Patrick, the hilariously wicked Bosom Buddies, where Mame and Vera confirm their lifelong friendship and a genuine holiday moment with the charming We Need a Little Christmas.

The script by Paul Zindel does drag a bit in the second act as adult Patrick contemplates marriage. There is an awkward jump as one wedding is called off and another takes place. Zindel does include many of the one-liners that made the stage version so humorous. Chiang, the houseboy answers a call from Mame’s financial adviser asking “he wants to know what to do with your stocks before he jumps out the window.” Vera enters the room after an all-night binge and declares: “Somebody has been sleeping in my dress!”

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Actress, producer and director Penny Marshall has died at age 75 from complications with diabetes. In addition to starring in the iconic 1970s sitcom "Laverne and Shirley", Marshall was a trailblazer as a female director who broke barriers by helming big studio productions that became major boxoffice hits. Among them: "Big", "A League of Their Own" and "Awakenings". Comedy played a major element in Marshall's life. Her career was jump-started when she was cast as Oscar Madison's secretary in "The Odd Couple" television series. She and Cindy Williams introduced the characters of Laverne and Shirley on the "Happy Days" TV series. The lovable but unsophisticated blue collar ladies became so popular that a spin-off series was created for them to star in. The show proved to be a ratings smash, running for eight seasons. It was the brainchild of Marshall's brother Gary Marshall, who was a major force in the entertainment industry. Marshall gradually fulfilled her dream of becoming a director at a time when doors were largely closed to females who wanted to enter the profession. However, she proved she could bring in big budget productions on time and her direction was instrumental in making them major boxoffice hits. Marshall was once married to Rob Reiner, himself an actor and director who had become popular on an iconic 1970s sitcom, "All in the Family". For more on her life and career, click here.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Actress and director Sondra Locke has died at age 74. She passed away in November but for reasons unknown, her death wasn't reported until six weeks later. Locke first gained attention in the film industry when she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the 1968 film "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter". She worked steadily in films and television in supporting roles until 1976 when she co-starred with Clint Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales". The film formed the basis of a long-time working and personal relationship between Locke and Eastwood. They would go on to co-star in five more films together but their relationship was an increasingly tumultuous one, complicated by the fact that although Locke was living with Eastwood, she was married to another man in what she described as a platonic marriage. Ultimately, the couple's personal troubles resulted in their breakup and a high profile palimony suit against Eastwood by Locke. It all became fodder for the gossip columns with Locke publicly accusing Eastwood of mistreating her both emotionally and financially and claiming he pressured her into getting two abortions. The palimony suit was eventually settled when Eastwood arranged for Locke to get a deal at Warner Brothers to direct and act in films she would develop. However, this, too, resulted in lawsuit when Locke claimed that the one feature released under the deal, the 1986 film "Ratboy", was virtually buried by the studio, which never gave the green light to any of her other projects. Locke filed suit accusing Eastwood of concocting a phony production deal with Warner Brothers that was designed to ensure that none of her films went into production. After a high profile trial in which Eastwood was compelled to give testimony, he made an undisclosed financial settlement with Locke. Although Locke claimed to take satisfaction from a woman prevailing over one of the industry's most powerful men, her career never recuperated, though she did present her side of the story in her autobiography titled "The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly". In recent years, she had been battling bone and breast cancer. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest related to the illnesses. For more click here.

“A STOLEN MASTERPIECE”

By Raymond Benson

In a fascinating interview supplement contained on this amazing new release by The Criterion Collection, film historian Joseph McBride calls The Magnificent Ambersons one of the great Hollywood tragedies in that the film we got from writer/director Orson Welles was not the one he intended. It is widely known that RKO Radio, the studio behind the production, deleted forty-three minutes from Welles’ final cut, reshot the ending, and released the film their way—all against Welles’ wishes—and then promptly destroyed the cut footage so that the movie could never be reconstructed.

The Magnificent Ambersons is a stolen masterpiece.

That said, the film is still a great movie. In fact, it earned Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Agnes Moorehead), Best Cinematography (Black & White, by Stanley Cortez), and Best Art/Interior Set Decoration (Black & White).

Ambersons, based on Booth Tarkington’s 1918 novel (Welles claims that Tarkington was a “friend” of his father’s), the picture was the director’s follow-up to Citizen Kane. Once again featuring some of the Mercury Players (Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, and Moorehead) and new casting choices (Dolores Costello, Tim Holt, Anne Baxter), the production of Ambersons went well, with the picture going only a little over budget. Welles delivered a 148-minute cut—and then Pearl Harbor happened. Welles was appointed by Nelson Rockefeller to be a goodwill ambassador to Latin America so that he could attempt to persuade South American countries from entering the war on the Axis side.

Welles dutifully went to Brazil and started shooting a film (It’s All True, another picture sabotaged by RKO) and was essentially unavailable to receive notes and requests from RKO regarding Ambersons. RKO, unhappy with the film, then took it upon themselves to change it to suit their needs, and there was nothing Welles could do about it. The picture released in July 1942 was 88-minutes in length.

Would a Magnificent Ambersons that is an hour longer be a better film than it already is? We can only assume. For one thing, the ending was drastically different. Welles’ version was cynical, dark, and ironic. Given the wartime climate, RKO wanted a more upbeat ending—never mind that it really doesn’t make sense that the characters suddenly change entire attitudes they have held throughout the film. Never mind that the final half-hour of the movie feels choppy, rushed, and out-of-rhythm from the first hour. The 88-minute version is what we have and must live with.

It should be stated again—The Magnificent Ambersons is still a great picture.

The story concerns the wealthy Amberson family in the early 1900s Indianapolis. Beautiful Isabel Amberson (Costello) marries Wilbur Minafer (Don Dillaway) instead of Eugene Morgan (Cotten), but she regrets it… and she and Morgan carry torches for each other for the remainder of their days. Enter Isabel and Wilbur’s bratty son, George (Holt), who terrorizes the town with his bad manners, arrogance, and boorishness. Things get complicated when he begins to woo Morgan’s daughter Lucy (Baxter) and at the same time insult and humiliate her father. All the while, Wilbur’s sister Fanny (Moorehead) also carries unrequited love for Morgan and inserts herself into the already-touchy situation.

Ultimately, Ambersons is about the downfall of a respected and wealthy family to that thing called Progress—namely, the invention and proliferation of the automobile and other industrial evolutions. Welles makes an ecological statement with the picture (back in 1942!) which is something else RKO was unhappy with, seeing that American industries had to ramp up to support the war effort.

Criterion’s new 4K digital restoration looks marvelous, and it contains two separate audio commentaries with scholars Robert L. Carringer and James Naremore, and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

The packaging is first-rate. The numerous and excellent supplements alone make the product a 5-star purchase. Especially interesting and informative are the new interviews with (previously mentioned) McBride and one with film historian Simon Callow. Both men relate different insights into the history of the production and the editing debacle. Director Welles appears on a 1970 segment of The Dick Cavett Show (along with second guest Jack Lemmon) for an often-hilarious and always-entertaining half-hour discussion. New video essays on the cinematography and Bernard Herrmann’s uncredited score (that was also chopped up with RKO’s editing), by Francois Thomas and Christopher Husted, respectively, are a welcome addition.

Also included is the silent version of Ambersons, originally called Pampered Youth (1925), and re-edited for the U.K. as Two to One (1927). If that wasn’t enough, we get two Mercury Theatre radio plays: the 1939 adaptation by Welles of Ambersons (with Welles playing the role of George), and a 1938 adaptation of Seventeen, another Booth Tarkington creation. There’s more, such as audio interviews with Welles by Peter Bogdanovich and at an AFI symposium, and the theatrical trailer. The booklet comes in a stapled “manuscript” that resembles a typed screenplay. It contains essays by authors and critics (Molly Haskell, Luc Sante, Geoffrey O’Brien, Farran Smith Nehme, and Jonathan Lethem), and excerpts from a Welles memoir.

The Magnificent Ambersons, even in its sadly truncated form, further illustrates the genius that was Orson Welles. This Criterion release is a must-have.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER

Some of the best private eye thrillers tend to be complex and sometimes incomprehensible affairs. Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep", for example, had a plot that could not be comprehended even by the people who made the film, but it ranks as one of the great movies in the crime genre. Similarly, director Arthur Penn's 1975 mystery "Night Moves" (the title is- appropriately enough- a metaphor) sat on a shelf for over a year before it went into general release, only to be greeted by an apathetic public. There were some prescient critics like Roger Ebert who foresaw the film's enduring qualities but, for the most part, "Night Moves" didn't get much attention in a year in which the likes of great films like "Jaws", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Barry Lyndon" were in release. The movie began to gain steam over the decades with the critical establishment and is now considered to be a classic by many, thus its arrival on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive is much appreciated by retro movie lovers.

The film reunited Gene Hackman with Arthur Penn after their triumphant work on "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967). Hackman was a supporting character in that film but received an Oscar nomination. In "Night Moves" he is the front-and-center star, in almost every scene and he dominates the movie with a superb, laid-back performance that is so natural that it reminds us of how Hackman's genius was to make you think you are watching a real-life person. He plays Harry Moseby, an L.A. private eye who isn't down-and-out like most of his cinematic counterparts, but is not setting the world on fire, either. He's a complex man haunted by bad childhood memories and he's got some contemporary problems, as well. His wife Ellen (Susan Clark) is bored and frustrated that Harry is too remote and spends far too much of his time on low-paying cases. He catches her having an affair but it's clear her lover (Harris Yulin) is more of a distraction than a passion. While Harry is trying to reconcile with Ellen, he's hired by Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), a one-time minor starlet with a knack for marrying rich men. She wants Harry to find her wayward, runaway 16 year-old daughter Delly (Melanie Griffith), with whom she has a terrible relationship. Seems Arlene is dependent upon the funds from a trust that her late husband set up for Delly. As long as Arlene lives with the girl, she can continue residing in a mansion and enjoy a lavish lifestyle. However, once Delly turns 25, the spigot is turned off and Delly gets control of her fortune. The case leads Harry to the Florida Keys where Delly's stepfather, Tom Iverson (John Crawford) (divorced from Arlene) runs a charting plane service. He's surrounded by plenty of unsavory types, some of whom are employed as stuntmen in the movie business. At least two of them- Marv Ellman (Anthony Costello) and Quentin (James Woods)- have had sexual flings with the free-spirited Delly. Harry discovers Delly living openly with Tom Iverson and she resents having to be brought back to L.A. by Harry. She tells him her mother only views her as a source of income. While at Tom's place, Harry also becomes involved with another female with a troubled past, Paula (Jennifer Warren), who had once been both a stripper and a hooker before latching onto Tom and helping him with the plane charter business.She speaks in riddles and her dialogue with Harry is marvelously coy. (When she asks him where he was when Kennedy was assassinated, he replies "Which Kennedy"?).

Alan Sharp's terrific screenplay is witty and complex and chances are that when some of the mysteries are resolved, you'll end up scratching your head wondering what it all meant. "Night Moves" is a film that requires a few viewings before it all makes sense but that's part of the delight in seeing it for the first time. The dialogue crackles with bon mots and there are numerous intriguing sub-plots that sometimes overshadow Harry's primary mission, which, it turns out is explained in part by a MacGuffin. Hackman is superb, as is Arthur Penn's direction. The film has a moody, menacing atmosphere throughout, aided considerably by Bruce Surtees' typically dark cinematography. The supporting cast is letter-perfect with Jennifer Warren outstanding in an early screen role (she should have become a much bigger star, though she has found success as a director.) Also seen in an early role, James Woods impresses substantially in his limited screen time. Susan Clark (long underrated as an actress) is very good indeed, as is veteran character actor Edward Binns and Janet Ward. Young Melanie Griffith also impresses, though, ironically she played essentially the same role in another gumshoe flick that same year, "The Drowning Pool".  I also admired the jazzy score by Michael Small. The finale of the film is most memorable. It's not only suspenseful and exciting but also intriguingly ambiguous with Harry on a boat literally spinning in circles, as the viewer may well be in terms of comprehending what has just occurred.

Because the original film elements of "Night Moves" were in decline, the Warner Archive spent a good time of time and money to restore the movie to its initial grandeur. The results paid off with an excellent transfer that does justice to Penn's artistic vision. Kudos to all involved. There are also some bonus extras: an original trailer and a vintage featurette, "The Day of the Director" that provides some very good behind-the-scenes footage of the movie in production.  However, the Blu-ray cries out for an audio commentary to allow analysis of the film's many complex aspects. Perhaps a future release will include one. For now, this is a "must-have" for your video library.

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"THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS IN THE JUNGLE"

BY EVE GOLDBERG

The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams’s last great play, was turned into a 1964 movie which, in its day, was as famous for its behind-the-scenes spectacle as for what actually appeared on screen.

Today, Iguana is rarely mentioned alongside the other classic Tennessee Williams film adaptations: Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Suddenly, Last Summer. Despite a tremendously talented cast, compelling characters, and a can’t-look-away examination of our anguished, redeemable humanity, Iguana is often neglected.

So, it’s high time for a fresh look at this movie — with a focus on its journey from stage to screen.

The Play

"Shannon!" shouts Maxine Faulk from the veranda of her run-down hotel on the coast of Mexico. Thus opens Tennessee Williams’ 1961 play. The setting is 1940. Recently widowed Maxine greets her old friend, Reverend Shannon, a disgraced minister who has been reduced to leading low-rent bus tours. He is currently shepherding a group of middle-aged Baptist women through Mexico. Shannon is in crisis. He has become sexually involved with Charlotte, a 17-year-old girl on the tour, whose jealous, closeted chaperone, Miss Fellows, is determined to get him fired. Already locked out of his church for having an affair with a young Sunday School teacher, Shannon is at the end of his rope. In a desperate attempt to stop Miss Fellows from phoning the States and exposing him, he pockets the ignition key and strands his charges at Maxine’s secluded hotel.

Vacationing at the hotel is a pro-Nazi German family who stay glued to the radio throughout the play, gleefully reporting on Hitler’s progress. Soon, another unexpected visitor arrives: the beautiful spinster artist, Hannah Jelkes, escorting her 97-year-old grandfather, “the world’s oldest practicing poet.” To eek out a living, Hannah sketches and her grandfather recites poetry as they wander the globe. Right now they are broke. Shannon convinces Maxine to let the pair spend the night at her hotel.

Earthy, sensual Maxine wants Shannon to stay on at the hotel and fill her late husband’s shoes. Persistent Charlotte wants to seduce him. Vengeful Miss Fellows wants to get him fired. Shannon wants some peace of mind. As he fights against his own desires for both Charlotte and alcohol, he becomes increasingly distraught and emotionally unstable. He finally falls to pieces after the bus driver wrests the ignition key away from him and leaves with the women to continue their tour. To prevent Shannon from running down to the beach to take that “long swim to China,” Maxine ties him up in a hammock on the verandah. During a stormy night of soul-searching (while strapped to the hammock), Shannon connects deeply with the serene and understanding Hannah. He admits to his “spooks,” she to her “blue devils.” Hannah, who has never had sexual relations, describes to Shannon what she calls her “love experience” with an underwear salesman. When Shannon asks whether she was disgusted by the man’s request to hold a piece of her clothing, Hannah replies with the most famous line of the play: “Nothing human disgusts me, unless it’s unkind, violent.”

As a result of the profound communication and connection Shannon experiences with Hannah, his torment subsides. He frees himself from the hammock. Then, at Hannah’s request, he cuts loose the iguana which is being held captive under the verandah by Maxine’s houseboys. At the end of the play, Hannah’s grandfather finishes his final poem and dies; Hannah leaves to travel alone; and Shannon reluctantly agrees to stay on with Maxine and help her run the hotel.

Night of the Iguana opened on Broadway with legendary Bette Davis in the role of Maxine. The play was well-received, and ran for 361 performances. It won the New York Drama Critic’s Circle award for Best Play, and was nominated for a Tony for Best Play. However, unhappy with the production and her role, Davis left the show after a few months. According to the actress, “There was no camaraderie, no sense of kinship, no attitude of pulling together to make the play work.” According to Tennessee Williams, “If she had ever truly had a command of her talent on the stage, she had lost it by that time.” Davis was replaced by Shelley Winters. Still, Davis hoped to play Maxine on screen. It was not to be.

The Stars

When producer Ray Stark brought a screenplay for Night of the Iguana to John Huston, the director was immediately interested in making the movie. “I was a great admirer of Tennessee Williams,” said Huston. “I had seen the play and liked it, with reservations.”

At that time, Huston was at the peak of a long and illustrious career. His prior films included such popular and critical hits as The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, and The Asphalt Jungle. In the sexist vernacular of the day, Huston was known as a “man’s man” — he was a former boxer, unrepentant boozer, and lover of women, danger, and adventure — who enjoyed making his films in exotic, challenging locations. He was also one of the most literate of American filmmakers. He had been a contract writer at Warner Brothers, penning adaptations of great novels including Moby Dick and Red Badge of Courage. In Iguana, he saw an opportunity to explore Tennessee Williams’s meaty theme of “loose, random souls trying to account for themselves and finally being able to do so through love.”

Huston hoped to cast his movie with big-time stars: Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, and Sue Lyon.

Richard Burton was just coming off mega-movie Cleopatra, where he met, co-starred, and began a torrid affair with Elizabeth Taylor. The stunningly beautiful Taylor was the top female box office attraction in the world. Burton, an acclaimed Shakespearean actor, had become a screen sensation with starring roles in Look Back In Anger and Becket. Both Burton and Taylor were married to others when they began their affair — Taylor to crooner Eddie Fisher whom she infamously “stole” from girl-next-door actress Debbie Reynolds. At a time in American culture when divorce, much less extra-marital affairs, was still semi-taboo, the public couldn't get enough of "Liz and Dick." Their scandalous relationship and glamorous lifestyle captivated millions. Their photos and personal lives were constant fan mag fodder — solid gold for the Hollywood publicity machine.

If anybody could rival Liz Taylor in both the beauty and scandal departments it was Ava Gardner. Brought to Hollywood more for her looks and legs than her acting ability — which, according to the actress herself, was close to zilch — Gardner signed a contract with MGM at age 19. She then progressed from pin-up girl, to small roles in B movies, to femme fatale icon. She exuded a magnetic, sultry sex appeal. And she was gorgeous. According to Humphrey Bogart, "Whatever it is, whether you're born with it, or catch it from a public drinking cup, she's got it."

Gardner gained additional fame for three high-profile marriages to three high-profile celebrities: actor Mickey Rooney, band leader Artie Shaw, and no-introduction-needed Frank Sinatra. The tumultuous Frank-and-Ava marriage was chronicled in the press as avidly as the Liz-and-Dick affair. After six years of a passionately volatile relationship, Gardner and Sinatra divorced in 1957. By the time Iguana came around, Ava Gardner was 44 years old and living in Spain where she hung out with Ernest Hemingway and a bevy of bullfighters. Huston decided that her unique blend of beauty, maturity, and lusty sensuality made her ideally suited for the role of hotel owner Maxine.

As for Bette Davis, who openly coveted the role she had pioneered on Broadway, Huston decided she wasn’t right for the part. He felt she came across as “too threatening” for the kind of Maxine he had in mind.

When 18-year-old Sue Lyon was cast in Iguana as seductive teenager Charlotte, she had exactly one film credit to her name: the title role in Lolita. 'Nuf said.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Deborah Kerr already had 42 films under her belt. She had played a troubled nun in Black Narcissus; a neglected military wife in From Here to Eternity (iconic beach make-out scene with Burt Lancaster!); a widowed school teacher in The King and I; and the tragically romantic heroine in An Affair to Remember. She had been nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress six times. On screen and off, Kerr had gained a reputation as a class act. Huston thought she'd be perfect as the chaste painter Hannah.

"We went to see them, one after another" Huston wrote in his memoir, Open Book. "Richard, in Switzerland, promptly accepted; likewise Deborah in London. That took us to Madrid and Ava Gardner." According to Huston, Gardner was unsure whether she had the ability to do the part. However, after the requisite wooing, she agreed to be in the film.

Now the stars were set. The press closed in. The fun was about to begin.

The Production

"We've got more reporters up here than iguanas." -- producer Ray Stark.

In 1964, when Iguana's cast and crew descended upon it, Puerto Vallarta was still a small fishing town with a few hotels; 24-hour electrical service had only recently arrived. Eight miles up the coast, accessible only by boat, was an isolated rain forest peninsula called Mismaloya. High atop the cliff at this lush, mosquito-infested spot is where Huston decided to film Night of the Iguana. A strong believer in location shooting, he thought the wild, sweaty atmosphere of Mismaloya would visually reflect the inner tumult of the movie's characters. He also hoped that the challenging environment would force the actors out of their comfort zones and enhance their performances.

Up on this jungle mountaintop, a construction crew built the movie's weathered hotel set. They also erected 40 bungalows to house the 125 cast and crew members who would live there for the entire 72-day shoot. In addition to living quarters, the crew built an editing room; a large kitchen, bar and restaurant; water tanks and an electrical plant; plus various paths and roads. All materials and supplies had to be carried up 134 earthen steps from the beach to the cliff-top location. It took 280 men and 80 burros to complete the task.

As construction of the miniature city proceeded, Huston and his co-writer, Anthony Veiller, worked on the script.

Finally, Iguana's cast arrived in Puerto Vallarta. As did more than 100 members of the press and paparazzi. Fascinated by the high-wattage gathering of filmdom glitterati, reporters expected plenty of behind-the-scenes fireworks. Especially because Burton was accompanied by his lover, Elizabeth Taylor. With sexy co-stars Ava Gardner and Sue Lyon roaming the set, the press assumed that Taylor wanted to keep an eye on Burton. "I trust Richard completely," she told reporters. "It's just that I don't trust Fate. After all, Fate threw us together on Cleopatra."

And there was plenty more to feed the gossip-hungry public: Burton brought along his publicist, Michael Wilding, who had been Liz Taylor's second husband. Teenager Sue Lyon was visited on location by her 25-year-old fiancé, actor Hampton Fancher III. And Ava Gardner took up with several hunky beach boys. Director Huston, married at the time, was accompanied by his mistress, Zoe Sallis. Deborah Kerr brought along her husband, writer Peter Viertel, who had once been Ava Gardner's lover. Viertel was the author of White Hunter, Black Heart — a novel based on the making of The African Queen — which featured an unflattering portrait of a Huston-like movie director.

Before filming began, Huston assembled his stars, plus Taylor and Stark, and presented each one with a velvet-lined box. Inside the box was a derringer pistol and five gold-plated bullets. Each bullet was engraved with the name of one of the others. A photo from that moment shows the assembled group examining their pistols and sharing a hearty laugh. The atmosphere was loose and fun — regardless of what the press hoped for.

While most of the cast and crew lived at the Mismaloya mini-city for the duration of the shoot, top stars Burton, Kerr, Gardner, and Lyon stayed in Puerto Vallarta.

Wrote Kerr about their accommodations in town: "Never have there been such raucous donkeys, such snuffling and screeching pigs, such shrill and insistent roosters and babbling turkeys. Top this off with a thick sauce of mariachi music, plus phonographs and radios at full blast, season with firecrackers and rockets at all hours of the night, and you have a fairly tasty idea of what the sleeping conditions are like in this tropical paradise."

Early each morning, the stars boarded motor boats to make the 25-minute ride to Mismaloya. Documentary footage shows Deborah Kerr being carried by a crew member, who is waist-deep in the surf, and being placed in a waiting boat.

Lines were drawn on the first day of shooting when Kerr and Lyon announced that they expected the set to be "dry." Burton, a devout alcoholic, said this was "preposterous." He ordered a bar to be set up at each end of the crude staircase which connected beach to cliff-top. Huston and Gardner, both committed drinkers, did not object. Thus, beer and tequila flowed freely during the shoot. Burton took his first drink early each morning before the cameras rolled. Gardner had a personal icebox stocked with her favorite Mexican beer. For her part, Elizabeth Taylor ordered gourmet hamburgers imported daily from the U.S. and brought up to the set.

Despite prodigious alcohol consumption, filming progressed fairly smoothly. While the press anticipated juicy sex scandal and interpersonal catastrophe, the most serious mishap of the production was actually due to the sub-standard materials used to construct the housing at Mismaloya. One night, assistant director Tom Shaw was standing on his balcony when it collapsed. Shaw broke his back and had to be flown back to the U.S. for surgery. Fortunately, his injuries healed and he would work with Huston again.

Sissy Spacek rose to stardom with her Oscar-nominated performance in the 1976 film version of Stephen King's supernatural bestseller "Carrie"- but the actress reveals how the odds were against her getting the role. Among the obstacles: a previous strained relationship with the film's director Brian De Palma and the fact that studio executives were lobbying for De Palma to cast another actress in the role.  Spacek  was still determined to land the role and her strategy was to go to the audition looking as "disgusting" as possible. Click here to read.

BY TODD GARBARINI

I was three years-old when John Llewellyn Moxey’s The Night Stalker premiered on the ABC Movie of the Week on January 11, 1972 and it took me nearly twenty years to catch up with it on a late night rerun on a local ABC-TV affiliate. Featuring the terrific late character actor Darren McGavin in the role of Carl Kolchak, an intrepid reporter who wants to print the truth regardless of what his editor says after finding himself in the midst of several murders, The Night Stalker, penned by the great Richard Matheson based on an unpublished novel, is a delightful slice of early 1970s spooky entertainment fare that is most definitely a product of a time that was populated by groovy music on the radio, TV dinners, and little kids getting tossed around in the backs of mammoth station wagons. The Las Vegas of 1971 when this movie was shot is much different from the Las Vegas of 2018. For one thing, the bulk of filming takes place in what is in present day known as the Fremont Street area. Much of Vega$, the television series starring Robert Urich that ran from 1978 to 1981, was also filmed in this location as well, so it will no doubt look familiar to viewers.

Kolchak is like a cross between photographer Arthur (Usher) Fellig, better known as Weegee, and Jeff Daniels’s Will Macavoy on HBO’s The Newsroom. He wants the scoop but he wants to tell it the way it is: truthfully. We are introduced to him after the events have occurred and the action is told in flashback as Kolchak, unshaven and nearly impecunious in a run-down motel, is writing a book about the events that have happened. Someone, or something, is stalking the residents of Las Vegas and draining them of a portion of their blood. The authorities (Kent Smith and Claude Akins) are keeping a tight rein on Kolchak so as to avoid public embarrassment and panic. The suspect is Janos Skorzeny (Barry Atwater), a creepy-looking man who bears a resemblance to Jonathan Frid of Dark Shadows fame.

Kolchak gets into frequent and boisterous arguments with his editor Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland, forever known as the deus ex machina psychiatrist at the end of 1960’s Psycho) about letting people know the truth, especially if they are in danger of dying at the hands of Skorzeny, who appears to be a vampire following failed attempts to shoot him dead after his break-in of a blood bank at a local hospital. Vincenzo wants to keep the newspaper’s reputation clean and urges Kolchak not to print such events for fear of frightening the public. Far from being the first television series to deal with vampires, it exercises restraint in the depiction of violence against women, though the results do not shy away from showing some blood – this was, after all, the era of the televised Vietnam War. One of the earlier victims is a young woman whose mother is played by actress Virginia Gregg, who provided the voice of Mother in Psycho and Psycho II. Carol Lynley plays a prostitute, though her profession is only alluded to in her introductory scenes. She is a lady friend of Kolchak’s, with modern parlance applying the moniker of “friends with benefits” to their relationship; she’s twenty years Kolchak’s junior and urges him to read up on vampires. Kolchak eventually makes his way to Skorzeny’s lair in an effort to get the story on his own and uses standard items from his Anti -Vampire Kit such as a crucifix and the sun through broken glass in an effort to kill him (or it). A twist has Kolchak leaving Vegas with his tail between his legs at the urging of the authorities, his determination to tell the truth at its strongest when he ends up at the motel that we saw him at the start.

BY MARK CERULLI

Customers at London’s Bond in Motion exhibit could be forgiven for wondering about the steady stream of distinguished-looking people heading through the vehicle displays towards a private area – but they were witnessing a bit of James Bond history in the making. On on Thursday, October 11^th, the Ian Fleming Foundation, EON Productions, IFF founder Doug Redenius and this writer  hosted a remarkable book signing for Charles “Jerry” Juroe, the executive who ran publicity on 14 Bond movies, from Dr. No right up to the dawn of the Pierce Brosnan era. His memoir, Bond, The Beatles and My Year with Marilyn is just out from McFarland Press. (Shameless Plug: Doug and I “line produced” it and the book is a fascinating read, not just for Bond fans but for anyone interested in movie history.) For 50 years, Jerry knew, worked with or encountered “Anyone who was anyone”. From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, Mary Pickford to John Wayne, William Holden, Alfred Hitchcock and, yes, the Fab Four. Jerry even crossed paths with the legendary Howard Hughes. Bond was only part of Juroe’s remarkable career – he served as Marilyn Monroe’s publicist (not an easy gig!) when she was making The Prince And the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier in England. Jerry was an executive at United Artists, Paramount and other major studios. Movies aside, Jerry is also a World War II veteran who took part in one of the most significant military actions in modern history – the D Day Invasion.

 Credit: Danny Gibbons.

The event’s guest list included many prominent alumni from the Bond series – director John Glen, line producer Anthony Waye, Oscar-winning production designer Peter Lamont, talent such as Carole Ashby, Valerie Leon, Jenny Hanley, Margaret Nolan, Caron Gardner, Sylvana Henriques and Terry Mountain, Roger Moore’s daughter Deborah, Harry Saltzman’s son Steven, former EON marketing executives Anne Bennett and John Parkinson, along with a number of staff members from EON, who graciously provided all manner of support for the event. (The signing was preceded by a private lunch for Jerry arranged and attended by Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson) American actor Billy Zane was on hand – meeting up with Peter Lamont who created the stunning sets for the “little” film they made together in 1997, Titanic. The Bond community was well represented with Cinema Retro’s Dave Worrall, From Sweden with Love’s Anders Frejdh, Some Kind of Hero authors Ajay Chowdhury and Matthew Field, Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan author Mark O’Connell and French Bond Club co-founder and Bond historian, Laurent Perriot in the crowd. Designer Mark Witherspoon was a photographer.

Above: Actor Billy Zane and director John Glen.Credit: Mark Cerulli.

Doug and I each made a brief address – reading well wishes from the likes of Pierce Brosnan and top Hollywood publicist Dick Guttman (a protégé of Jerry’s) then turned the floor over to the Man himself. Jerry, long famous in the industry for his tough exterior, was visibly moved. He thanked everyone for coming and simply wished them “My longevity” (he’s 95) which got a big round of applause. Many hadn’t seen Jerry – or each other – in decades so as the old saying goes, “There was a lot of love in the room”. One thinks that actors and filmmakers hang out with each other constantly, but in reality they do a film then it’s on to the next project and they may never work with the same people again. Since working on a Bond film is arguably a highlight of any career, these few hours in each other’s company were priceless- an All Time High, for real. It was a privilege to be there.

(Photos copyright Mark Cerulli. All rights reserved.)

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BY FRED BLOSSER

As movie censorship relaxed in the early 1970s, Mel Welles’ horror film “Lady Frankenstein” added sex and nudity to the familiar Frankenstein formula of the single-minded and arguably demented scientist who creates a monster and lives to regret it. In the 1971 production, now available in a handsome, fully loaded Blu-ray edition from Nucleus Films encoded for Region B, Dr. Tanya Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) returns home to the family estate after completing medical school. Having inherited the family obsession, she is determined to help her father (Joseph Cotten) realize his long-frustrated ambition of creating human life in his laboratory. When Baron Frankenstein and his associate Dr. Marshall (Paul Muller) balk at including the refined young woman in their gory experiments, she fiercely overrides their objections: “Stop treating me like a child! I’m a doctor and a surgeon.” Frankenstein and Marshall successfully reanimate a creature that they’ve stitched together from plundered cadavers, but events take a turn for the worse, and soon a suspicious police officer, Inspector Harris (Mickey Hargitay), begins nosing around the Frankenstein castle.

“Lady Frankenstein” was filmed in Italy and independently marketed in Europe, where Rosalba Neri, Mickey Hargitay, and Paul Muller were popular actors in genre movies. In the U.S., it was distributed by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Inexplicably, New World billed Rosalba Neri as “Sara Bay” in the American credits and promotional materials, and depicted the exotically beautiful brunette actress as a blonde in the poster art. Like many other exploitation films from the same period, notably New World’s own series of Women-in-Prison productions like “The Big Bird Cage,” it professes to have a feminist message while at the same time including a fair amount of female nudity to meet the expectations of the grindhouse audiences to which it was pitched, here and abroad.

The feminist aspect is clear when Tanya discusses the resistance she faced in the conservative halls of higher learning. “Was it difficult, very difficult, being my daughter?” her father asks sympathetically. “Sometimes,” Tanya responds, “but mainly because I was a woman. The professors still have a lot of old-fashioned ideas about a woman’s place.” In the wake of recent news events, many of us will sympathize with Tanya’s dilemma and reflect that things haven’t changed a lot in the male-dominated corridors of power, either in the two hundred years since the early-1800s setting of “Lady Frankenstein,” or indeed in the forty-seven years since the film was made.

However, as the story progresses and Tanya takes center stage, she begins to employ sex, seduction, and murder to achieve her ends. You may start to wonder: do her ruthless and increasingly cruel methods invalidate the movie’s claim to advance a feminist theme . . . or underscore it? When one character is murdered in cold blood at her suggestion while she has sex with him to distract his attention, does the film idealize -- or objectify -- Rosalba Neri’s bare breasts and ecstatic facial expressions? When the infatuated, middle-aged Marshall professes his love for her, does Tanya practice gender bias in reverse by suggesting that she respects his intellect, but she’d respect it more if Marshall were also young and handsome? The answers, I suppose, depend on your interpretation of female empowerment.

BY BRIAN GREENE

Shampoo (1975) is a movie that can leave a viewer unsure as to what they just watched. Was it merely a vanity project for Producer/Co-Screenwriter/lead actor Warren Beatty, who plays a babe magnet L.A. hairdresser who juggles his three main girlfriends while haplessly attempting to go into business for himself? Beatty portrays George Roundy, a flashy dressing, motorcycle riding lothario who deftly manipulates the hearts and sexual appetites of the beautiful women who constantly want to throw themselves at him and his hair dryer. Or is it a social satire, a la The Graduate, that exposes the flaws in American life by showing us the sexual/romantic dysfunction in the homes of the upper crust? One of Beatty’s character’s love interests is the wife (Lee Grant) of the business tycoon (Jack Warden) he hopes will finance his would-be new spa. Is it a screwball sex comedy that aims for occasional emotional profundity? The second of the hairstylist’s two lady friends is the tycoon’s mistress (Julie Christie), and the third is that woman’s close friend (Goldie Hawn). Or is the movie primarily a commentary on the American political climate of the late 1960s, and its damaging impact on the citizenry? The story takes place over one 24-hour span, that happens to be the day Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election.

The answer is that Shampoo is a little of each of those things. Which leads to the question of whether it was successful in developing any or all of its themes. The feature’s overall quality has been a debatable point over the decades. Roger Ebert felt it came up short, summarizing that it “wasn’t confident enough to pull off its ambitious conception,” “wasn’t as funny as it could have been in the funny places,” and “it’s not as poignant as it could be in its moments of truth.” In the pages of The New York Times, meanwhile, critic Nora Sayre positively savaged the movie, charging that it ultimately sank into “a slough of sentimentality” while also calling it pretentious and dumb. Other reviews have been kinder. It’s been called “a sharp satire” by Time Out, and “one of the last true moments of personal expression in American cinema” by Elaine Lennon in Senses of Cinema, etc.

It can be hard to know what we’re supposed to make of the main characters. Roundy is shown to be a user, and his three girlfriends, while likeable-enough people, are hardly role models feminists of the day could have seen as on-screen heroes. So are we supposed to find all of them laughably shallow people, tragic figures victimized by their own egos and emotional needs, or are they simply authentic representations of a womanizing hairstylist and the kinds of people with whom he would be likely to consort? Director Hal Ashby, who struggled while working alongside the overbearing Beatty in Beatty’s open-to-interpretation role as Creative Producer, seems to have felt distantly sympathetic to the characters. Ashby said of them, “They’re not people I spend time with, but they’re people I’ve looked at and felt sorry for. So I spent a lot of time being very kind to those people. The other way’s easy. To make fun of people is easy. Life isn’t that easy.”

Something else with which Ashby had to tangle during the making of Shampoo was the often volatile artistic relationship between Beatty and Co-Screenwriter Robert Towne. Beatty and Towne were engaged in a creative power battle over the film’s content starting back from when it was only an idea being bounced around between the two of them. Once Ashby was brought in, he found himself often acting as referee between those two. Towne was actively involved on the set, to the point where Goldie Hawn came to feel like she was working under three different directors. Despite this circus atmosphere, though, and despite Ebert’s and Sayre’s critiques, and despite what some see as its foggy intentions, Shampoo took in a slew of nominations at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Lee Grant won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Kino Lorber continues its welcome habit of unearthing cinematic rarities and making them available to retro movie lovers. Case in point: "Tiger by the Tail", a long-forgotten crime thriller filmed in 1968 as an independent production but not released until 1970. The film is the epitome of a good "B" movie from the era: lean, fast-moving and efficiently made with an impressive cast. The movie is typical of low-brow fare from the 1960s. It's primary purpose was to shot quickly and turn a modest profit. Many of these films, which often played as the second feature on double bills, had the asset of affording leading roles to actors and actresses who rarely had the opportunity to get top billing. Such is the case with this film which features Christopher George in the leading role. He plays Steve Michaelis, a recently discharged U.S. Army Vietnam War veteran who is returning home to New Mexico. However, he makes a nearly fatal pit stop in Mexico and the opening scene is a bit of a shocker.  He's a about to bed a local beauty when two thugs enter the room and a brutal fight ensues that he barely escapes. This seems like an irrelevant scene, given all that follows, but we find out later its pertinent to his fate. Steve arrives in New Mexico where he reunites with his older brother Frank (Dennis Patrick), who raised him after their parents died. While Steve is down-and-out and broke, Frank has prospered as the majority share holder in the local horse racing track which fuels the local economy. The two men have a frosty reunion that is strained even further when Steve discovers that his former girlfriend Rita (Tippi Hedren) is now romantically involved with Frank. Nevertheless, the two men reconcile and things appear to be heading in the right direction. However, fate takes a tragic turn when the racetrack is robbed and Frank is murdered in cold blood. This sets in motion a complicated series of events. Steve learns he will inherit his brother's share of the racetrack stock, something that doesn't sit well with Frank's partners who inform Steve they intend to use a legal loophole to pay him off at a bargain basement price and assume total control of the operation. Steve soon discovers that he may not even get that money, as it becomes apparent someone has ordered him to be killed. Worse, he is being framed for the murder of his brother. The film follows the formula of old film noir crime thrillers and that isn't a bad thing. We see him use his wits and considerable fighting ability to thwart attempts on his life as he tries to find out who is out to get him. The logical suspects are the racetrack shareholders, a group of greedy elitists who don't want to be in business with him. Red herrings abound and Steve learns he can't trust anyone including Rita who informs him she wants them to resume their relationship now that Frank is in his grave.

"Tiger by the Tail" feels and looks like a TV movie of the era and that isn't a coincidence. Director R.G. Springsteen was best known for his work in television where he excelled in directing episodes of classic western  series, and his colleague on those shows, writer Charles A. Wallace wrote the screenplay for the film. (This would prove to be Springsteen's final work in the film industry before his death in 1989.) Springsteen's direction is workmanlike in some areas but more inspired in others. He milks a good deal of suspense from the plot and keeps the action moving at a brisk pace across the movie's 99 minute running time. Springsteen, perhaps because of budget limitations, shoots virtually every scene in a real location which adds authenticity to the production. The film boasts a good cast of supporting actors, all in top form: Lloyd Bochner and Alan Hale as the greedy stockholders, Dean Jagger as a Scrooge-like banker and most intriguing, John Dehner as the local sheriff (in an excellent performance) with a penchant for using twenty dollars words in his vocabulary and who, along with his hot-headed deputy (Skip Homeier) may be complicit in working with the bad guys. Steve's only friends are Sarah Harvey (Glenda Farrell), the perky owner of a gun and souvenir shop who performs ballistics tests in the shop and New Mexico State Trooper Ben Holmes (R.G. Armstrong) who offers Steve whatever limited advice and support he can. The singer Charo (yes, that Charo) is cast in a superfluous role to provide a couple of songs in a local bar and to add a bit of additional sex appeal when we aren't gawking at Tippi Hedren sunning herself poolside in a bikini. As a leading man, Christopher George is top-notch. He's handsome, rugged and capable with fists and a gun as he takes on seemingly insurmountable odds. George should have been a success on the big screen. He was coming off a run in the hit TV series "The Rat Patrol" but never quite got his opportunity to shine on the big screen. "Tiger by the Tale" represents one of his few leading roles in a feature film, though he impressed as villains in the John Wayne westerns "El Dorado" (1967) and "Chisum" (1970). He died in 1983 at only 51 years of age from heart complications.

The Kino Lorber transfer is impressive, as usual, though there are some occasional speckles and artifacts. However, it's doubtful that there are many pristine prints of the film floating around, given its lowly stature. The Blu-ray features a very good commentary track by film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson, both of whom show a good deal of respect for the movie and all involved in its production. They are especially kind to Tippi Hedren, pointing out that she was long underrated as an actress. (She unfairly took most of the blame for the failure of Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie" in which she starred.) The release also includes a gallery of other action films and mysteries available from KL, though no trailer is included for "Tiger by the Tail". I don't want to overstate the movie's merits. It certainly isn't a lost classic but I suspect you'll find it far more impressive than you might have suspected. Recommended.

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RETRO-ACTIVE: THE BEST FROM THE CINEMA RETRO ARCHIVES. 

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" has long posed a conundrum for film critics and historians. How do you assess a film that is brilliantly made but which promotes a hateful message? The 1934 production which was created as a love letter to Adolf Hitler and his rapidly-rising National Socialist movement has been relatively shunned at film festivals and the art house circuit over the decades. It's undoubtedly been most widely seen in classrooms and on home video. Yet the passing of time has allowed the film to be more actively shown in recent years and it is nearly always accompanied by an introduction that rightly explains its relevance both to the period in which it was made but also as it pertains to today's world. Director Riefenstahl had been a popular actress in German cinema who had caught the eye of Adolf Hitler, who was quite the movie fan (his favorites included "Gone With the Wind" and Laurel and Hardy.) Riefenstahl had recently become a pioneer as one of the first women to enter directing in the era of sound films. Hitler commissioned her to film the Nazi party's annual meeting in Nuremberg in the expectation that it would bolster the movement as well as increase the fanatical cult of personality that was already attached to him. Hitler had tried to overthrow the German government a decade earlier but ended up in jail. He turned this to his advantage by becoming a martyr to the cause and writing his personal bible Mein Kampf from his jail cell. By the time he was released, even those who had prosecuted him were trying to curry favor with the future dictator. Hitler ran for office and won the election to become Germany's chancellor. In reality he had most of the political power but was prudent enough to bide his time until the ceremonial head of state, Von Hindenburg, passed away from natural causes. Hitler knew that the public would not abide him disrespecting the beloved Von Hindenburg, who was regarded as a national war hero.As it had so many times in these early days of Hitler's rise, fate cooperated with his interests. Von Hindenburg passed away and Hitler went full throttle to establish himself as a virtual dictator. His first order of business was to eradicate Germany's fragile hold on democracy, first attacking the free press and then nationalizing it as a propaganda arm. The nation had come out on the losing side in WWI and was suffering terribly from onerous war reparations that had to be paid to the Allies, who were basically using Germany as a cash cow. Hitler quickly put to rest the last remnants of the loathed Weimar Republic and combined the offices of chancellor and president, thus giving himself unchallenged power over the country. He then persuaded the Reichstag to voluntarily cede most of their powers to him, thus making the series of checks and balances in the government a rubber stamp for Hitler's policies. Hitler still had important goals to fulfill. It was important to mobilize the nation as a fighting force in the expectation of war. However, he was bound by the Treaty of Versailles which mandated that Germany's armed forces number no more than 100,000 men. Hitler got around this by organizing numerous civic and political groups and turning them into paramilitary organizations. In this way he was able to train millions of Germans as soldiers even if they carried picks and shovels instead of rifles. Hitler also did some controversial "house cleaning" within his party by personally ordering the murders of SA head Ernst Rohm and his top lieutenants. The SA was Hitler's personal bodyguard but had grown to the size of an army. He worried that Rohm had political aspirations of his own and that he might orchestrate a coup. On the so-called Night of the Long Knives, the top echelon of the SA was systematically executed. Hitler appointed a more benign stooge, Viktor Lutze, as the new head of the SA. Hitler's biggest challenge was to ensure that he and Lutze could convince the rank and file SA men to stay loyal to the party and Hitler himself. This he intended to do at the Nuremberg rally, where he would give speech extolling his appreciation of the SA. The ploy worked and any dissension never spilled over into a threat to Hitler. 

"Triumph of the Will" presents a sanitized picture of all these dastardly goings-on. What emerges is a nation that is completely behind Hitler and the Nazi cause. This was nonsense, of course. There were countless people who opposed the regime and over the course of the next few years they would pay dearly for their protests against the demise of German democracy. Nevertheless, as a propaganda piece the film is probably unrivaled in its impact. Although the movie was shown internationally, it didn't quite have the alarming impact one might have assumed. The Western democracies still thought of Hitler as primarily a quirky crank whose influence would be confined within Germany's borders. Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was a master of using cinema as a tool of manipulation. Not wanting to alarm the Allies before Germany had been rebuilt militarily, the film was given rather non-threatening sub-titles to accommodate its international showings. Meanwhile, within Germany, the messages were more ominous. When viewing the film even today one gets the feeling that Germany was an invincible power. One can only imagine the trepidation Allied troops must have felt when they finally had to go up against what had become a seemingly unstoppable war machine. The clues were in the film. The legions of robot-like paramilitary adherents are presented as fanatical loyalists to the new dictator. In fact the "real" armed forces were featured so slightly in the film that they raised protests. To appease them, Hitler commissioned a second film by Riefehstahl titled "Day of Freedom" (also included in this set). The movie has her trademark use of imaginary camera angles but it amounts to basically a sop to the armed forces by showcasing their prowess through military training exercises. More powerful are the scenes in "Triumph of the Will" that carefully showcase Hitler as a demi-god. He is seen traveling to Nuremberg by the small plane he favored for use in his political campaign stops. (Hitler was the first politician to eschew the traditional whistle stop train tours in favor of using a plane in order to cover more territory.) The images of his plane flying through the spectacular cloud formations are truly stunning. We also watch him as he stares down at the massive rally forming in expectation of his arrival. When Hitler does arrive at the rally he is preceded by a small army of his top officials who were being formally introduced to the German people through this film. In retrospect, they formed the perfect "Rogue's Gallery" and would go on to perpetrate some of the most heinous crimes of the 20th century. Most paid for their sins with their lives though others were sentenced to jail terms in the aftermath of  the war. When Hitler takes to the podium he uses his trademark practice of starting his speech in a low voice but gradually rising in tone and emotion into a virtual scream. The most disturbing part of the film occurs when all of the countless thousands of participants march past the podium and pledge their  loyalty, not to Germany, but to Hitler personally. The film then concentrates on the ancillary fanfare that took place during this seminal week in the nation's history as we watch torchlight parades march past Hitler's hotel balcony where he looks on approvingly. At all times Riefenstahl diminishes the notion of individualism in order to present Hitler in an almost superhuman manner. He is photographed from angles that make him seem literally larger than life. 

The Synapse Blu-ray, which features a restoration by Robert A. Harris,  contains some valuable extras, the most informative being a feature-length commentary track by Dr. Anthony R. Santoro, an expert on German history. Santoro's calm, laid-back manner is somewhat jolting at times, given the gravity of what we are viewing, but he provides excellent information regarding the nuances of these scenes and the fate of the individual Nazi top brass.Where the track falls a bit short is in Santoro's discussions of Riefenstahl and her legacy. He acknowledges her talents as a director but doesn't put much meat on the bone in regard to her personal life and legacy. (She lived until the age of 101 and never fully repented for her association with Hitler, nor was she ever prosecuted. She would defensively point out that she never actually joined the Nazi party, which is indeed surprising.) She would go on to make another important propaganda film for Hitler in 1938, "Olympiad", an equally whitewashed account of the 1936 Olympics that were held in Berlin and which also managed to elevate Hitler as a star attraction even though he was largely a bystander. Arguably, "Olympiad" was the more important and effective film as it was meant to appease foreign concerns about the atrocities that were just being implemented in Germany. Some of the slack from the commentary is addressed in excellent liner notes written by director and film historian Roy Frumkes, who delves deeper into Riefenstahl's fascinating life. Frumkes points out that the film should not really be considered a documentary because many of the "spontaneous" scenes were staged by Riefenstahl and some were shot repeatedly in order to get the desired footage. The new 2K restoration is impressive on all counts and does justice to Riefenstahl's astonishing camera angles. This presentation also boasts newly interpreted English sub-titles that accommodate the film's original German language version. It's beneficial to watch the film first then view it again with Dr. Santoro's commentary to provide context.

Compromised genius: Riefenstahl directing Triumph of the Will.

"Triumph of the Will" is indeed a major cinematic achievement- but tragically it promoted the greatest evil of the 20th century. The mind reels at what Leni Riefenstahl could have achieved had she not been compromised by her political beliefs. More importantly, the movie clearly illustrates that democracies are fragile states that can deconstruct under the influence and spell of one man.

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BY TODD GARBARINI

In the days before the home video revolution made its way into my family, the only way to see a movie on television was to either watch it when it was aired or beg my grandmother to ask her brother to record it for me on his $1200 Magnavox video tape recorder. Just before Halloween in 1983, she told me of a movie that she had seen in a local theater in 1954 called The Maze, which starred one of her favorite actors, Richard Carlson. Channel 5 in New York was showing it at 2:30 am and we later viewed it at her brother’s house on VHS. I recall a TV trailer for Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession airing during the commercial break, oblivious that it would become one of my favorite horror movies seven years later.

The Maze, which was released in 3-D in July 1953 and played at the RKO Albee Theater in Brooklyn, NY with William Beaudine’s Roar of the Crowd with Howard Duff of all things, has all of the charms that one associates with B-movies of the 1950s. After a brief 1979 theatrical re-release of The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) in 3-D, the format was experiencing a resurgence at the box office beginning in the early 1980s with Ferdinando Baldi’s Comin’ at Ya!, which I was so disappointed to see was rated R! The Maze is a film that lacks action, something that was all too familiar in the 3-D resurgence and exactly what you want from the format. There is a lot of talking and discussions up until the very end, and this review contains spoilers regarding the very ridiculous denouement, so you’ve been warned!

Richard Carlson plays a Scotsman with no Scottish accent named Gerald MacTeam on vacation in Cannes. He’s engaged to his girlfriend Kitty (Veronica Hurst) and the pair seem perfectly happy until he receives a letter from William, his Uncle Samuel’s butler, informing him of his uncle having taken sick. Despite not having a relationship with his uncle (a Baronet), Gerald feels a moral obligation to go to his side and pushes aside his initial reluctance to help. Uncle Samuel resides in the foreboding Craven Castle, a stately manor bereft of modern conveniences such as electricity or telephones and it isn’t long before he passes away, his obituary capturing Kitty’s eye despite no communication from Gerald. Kitty is perplexed by his silence until he writes her some weeks later, “releasing” her from the engagement.

Kitty and her aunt make their way to the castle and Gerald is unsurprisingly distressed to see them both. He also looks like he’s aged fifteen years and is unceremoniously aloof. Kitty and her aunt stay the night, and Kitty discovers a hidden passage (remember the hidden room in 1979’s The Changeling?) that leads to a lookout tower which reveals a hedge maze in the rear of the castle (think 1980’s The Shining) and detects strange noises and movement in the middle of the night. The remainder of the film attempts to keep this secret from the audience and when its revealed to eyes 66 years hence, it’s difficult not to laugh. The “secret” is a frog-like monster who used to be the castle’s master and meets an untimely death following a horrific illness. In the end, Gerald is able to return to a normal existence.

University Press of Kentucky

464 pages

Published 15 December 2017

ISDN: 978-0-8131-7425-9

REVIEW BY ADRIAN SMITH

Born in 1896, as a teenager Barbara La Marr, then Reatha Watson, lead something of an adventurous life. Her father worked in the newspaper business, and the family moved home constantly, almost inevitably contributing towards the turbulence and seeming inability to settle down that plagued her life. At the age of sixteen, now living in California, her elder sister and her husband kidnapped Reatha, causing a minor scandal, with some accounts stating that Reatha had helped plot the kidnaping herself in a desire to flee her oppressive parents. Reatha was already an incredibly luminous and attractive young woman, and she was regularly spotted in the nightclubs of Los Angeles dancing, drinking, and generally behaving in such a way that soon brought the wrong kind of attention. For her own protection a court declared that she was “too beautiful” to be on her own in the city and was ordered to leave Los Angeles.

This did nothing to assuage her ambitions however, and she attempted to turn this publicity into a Hollywood career. Having had stage experience as a child, she appeared as an extra in several films within the still developing Hollywood studio system. Being somewhat disappointed by her perceived lack of success, she went on to develop a career as a dancer, and performed in nightclubs around the country, attracting men wherever she went, until the strain on her health proved too great and she headed back home to California. Reatha Watson was incessantly creative and decided to try her hand as a writer. Her first attempt at a novel found its way into the right hands, and in 1920 the Fox Film Corporation produced The Mother of His Children (Edward J. Le Saint), the success of which lead to her becoming a staff writer for Fox.

Aware of the negative publicity attached to Reatha Watson, it was around this time that she changed her name to Barbara La Marr, and she was overjoyed to back in Hollywood, even if it was on the other side of the camera. However, that state of affairs did not last long, and she was soon invited to screen test and began appearing in small roles again. Her friendships with A-list stars soon lead to bigger roles, and within just three years she was playing major roles in The Three Musketeers (1921, Fred Niblo) alongside Douglas Fairbanks, in The Prisoner of Zenda (1922, Rex Ingram) with her good friend Ramon Novarro, and in Hollywood satire Souls for Sale (1923, Rupert Hughes), the cast-list of which reads like a Who’s Who of the silent era. La Marr often found herself cast as a ‘vamp,’ a Hollywood type popular in the pre-code films, and as such she was often dressed in amazing jewelled costumes and over-the-top headwear whilst tempting men to their fate, often being punished for such licentiousness by the end of the film. Despite being kind, overly generous and unselfish towards everyone she knew in her real life, this Hollywood ‘vamp’ image began to follow her wherever she went, and the Hollywood gossip press loved to tell tales of her somewhat scandalous personal life, the truth of which is laid out in this meticulously researched biography by Sherri Snyder.

“BEAUTY AND BRAINS”

By Raymond Benson

One of the unsung heroines of the 20^th Century—her fame as a Hollywood star notwithstanding—is actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Few have known about her extraordinary proclivity to invent stuff, and even less are aware that she came up with a patent (in collaboration with a musical composer, no less) during World War II for a communications system that was later adopted and is still used today.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, a wonderful documentary on the woman’s life and career, deliberately emphasizes that Lamarr’s scientific knowledge and technical imagination takes precedence over her Hollywood legacy. And while Lamarr appears to have maintained an upbeat attitude throughout the decades, the motion picture reveals that her struggles were many. Lamarr was troubled, misunderstood, and too many times ignored for her efforts beyond being a “pretty face.”

Pretty she was indeed. Lamarr was one of those Hollywood beauties who turned heads and dropped jaws. She was talented, too—a competent leading lady with on-screen charisma and a chemistry with (most) of her co-stars. Unfortunately, the Hollywood moguls, namely Louis B. Mayer at MGM, refused to cast her out of the pigeon-holed slot of “glamour girl.” Only after she broke away from the studio and took better control of the kinds of roles she played did she begin to display a wider range. Perhaps her most well-received role was that of Delilah in Samson and Delilah (1949), for which she campaigned in person to director Cecil B. DeMille. “I am Delilah,” she told him. He believed her.

Lamarr, who was from Austria, had made a controversial picture there in 1933 entitled Ecstasy, in which she frolicked about in the nude. A love scene focused on her face, which portrayed, well, an orgasm. Looking at these clips today, they all seem tame; but then—they were extremely potent. This “scandal” followed her to Hollywood and seemed to forever taint her career in a hypocritical business that exploited young starlets all the time. Nevertheless, she persevered and made a name for herself, becoming one of Tinsel Town’s biggest stars of the 1940s.

More significant, Bombshell contends, is that Lamarr should have been more appreciated for her brainpower. In the early days of the war, prior to the U.S. involvement, Lamarr teamed up with avant-garde composer George Antheil to come up with a way for battleships to communicate with torpedoes and guide them to their targets. The system was called “frequency hopping,” and was based on the way player piano rolls were constructed. If radio signals to a torpedo jumped around in frequency, the Germans would be unable to block the transmissions. The couple received a patent for the idea. Unfortunately, the Navy poo-pooed the notion and shelved it. It was discovered later, after the patent had expired, that the system was indeed developed and put into use. Lamarr and Antheil never profited from their invention, but apparently the system became the basis for much of today’s communications technology in GPS and WiFi.

Writer/Director Alexandra Dean assembles a fascinating portrait of Lamarr in a lean 88-minute feature that relies on vintage footage, film clips, and interviews with family members (Lamarr had a tumultuous love life—she was married six times), filmmakers and film people (Mel Brooks, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Osborne, Diane Kruger, Gillian Jacobs), and the scientific community. Dean doesn’t pull punches when it comes to some of Lamarr’s more problematic history—her studio-inflicted addiction to drugs, an arrest, the abandonment of an adopted child, and her rejection of her Jewish past. Mostly, though, the film is a celebration of a remarkable woman with an astonishing sense of self, curiosity, and innovation.

Kino Lorber’s 1920x1080p Blu-ray looks marvelous, and the vintage film clips are especially sharp and clear. The soundtrack is 5.1 Surround with optional English SDH subtitles. Special Features include an interview with director Dean, outtakes of interviews with Brooks, Jacobs, and Osborne, and trailers.

For anyone interested in Hollywood and/or World War II history, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story provides worthwhile, revelatory viewing.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

BY TODD GARBARINI

Alfred Sole is a production designer who has carved out a nice career for himself in Hollywood, most notably on the television shows Veronica Mars (2004-7), Castle (2009-16), and the reboot of MacGyver (2017-18). Long before he chose that line of work however, he dabbled in the world of film directing. His first film, the 1972 hardcore sex “comedy” Deep Sleep, must be seen to be believed because despite a few flourishes of cinematic style and several humorous sequences involving dialogue, it’s just a hardcore sex romp featuring folks no one in their right mind would want to see naked let alone copulating. There is absolutely nothing in this film to suggest that he would next direct one of the greatest and most thematically disturbing thrillers of our time, 1976’s Communion, not to be confused with the Christopher Walken/alien-probe-up-the-old-dirt-road 1989 outing based on Whitley Strieber’s 1987 “non-fiction” book of the same name. His subsequent films, 1980’s Tanya’s Island with the late and impossibly gorgeous Denise Matthews (credited as “D.D. Winters”) and 1982’s star-studded comedy Pandemonium both fared poorly at the box office, hence his career change. Thankfully Communion, with its high cinematic style and deceptively low production budget, refused to die.

In her screen debut, Brooke Shields plays Karen Spages (rhymes with “pages”), the younger sister of Alice Spages, the latter brilliantly portrayed by New Jersey-born actress Paula Sheppard. Karen is favored by everyone around her and can do no wrong, mostly because Alice is a, forgive the pun, holy terror. Alice teases Karen, locks her in a building to scare her, and mistreats her communion veil. Why the horseplay? Alice was conceived out of wedlock and is not entitled to receive the Holy Eucharist. As if this is her fault.

On the day of her first communion Karen is brutally murdered right in the church and all suspicion points to her sister after she finds the discarded veil and wears it to the altar. This sets in motion some truly well-acted scenes wherein the identity of the killer is constantly in question. Everyone suspects Alice, even her neighbor Mr. Alphonse (Alphonse DeNoble), an obese monstrosity you must see to believe. Karen and Alice’s mother Catherine (Linda Miller) is grief-stricken and meets her ex-husband Dom (Niles McMaster) at the funeral. Afterwards, there are suspicions about Alice’s whereabouts during Karen’s murder and Alice submits to a polygraph which she mischievously pushes on to the floor. Her Aunt Annie (Jane Lowry) battles with her sister and the latter accuses her of hating Alice because of her sinful status. Annie refutes this until she herself is attacked in a shockingly bloody sequence and fully believes that Alice is the killer.

Alice takes place circa 1961 as evinced by the production design, the old-style cars, the calendar on the wall, and the prevalence of a poster of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) that can be seen if one really looks for it. Originally reviled amid concerns that it’s an attack against the Catholic Church (how can it not be?), the film was met with lukewarm box office. Director Sole was rumored to have stated that the church was simply the milieu he wanted to set the story against, but the commentary infers otherwise. It’s one of the most Catholic-themed films I’ve ever seen, even more so than William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). It has a look, a feel, and an atmosphere all its own. This film is quite simply one of the best low-budget American horror films ever made. It boasts a superbly eerie score by Stephen Lawrence who scored a handful of other films. Yours Truly has been wishing for a soundtrack album of this music for years, however one has yet to surface. Great editing, wonderful set design, and excellent music all come together to make Alice an enjoyable shocker that can easily be viewed more than several times.

This film has had a strange history. Filmed in Mr. Sole’s hometown of Paterson, NJ in the summer of 1975, Alice premiered in Paterson (Lou Costello’s old stomping grounds) under its original title Communion on Saturday, November 13, 1976 at the Fabian Theater (now the Fabian Building). The event was met with much fanfare, however a subsequent theatrical release failed to stir much interest. Communion was dropped by the original distributor, picked up by another, retitled Alice, Sweet Alice, re-cut and redistributed in 1981 as Holy Terror and played up Ms. Shields’s participation in response to the success of the previous year’s The Blue Lagoon. It then made its way to cable television and local independent stations where the bulk of us caught up with it. Later on it was relegated to VHS collecting dust in discount bins beginning in 1985 with Goodtimes Home Video, seemingly forever to be lost within the public domain due to a legal snafu. I bought it for ten dollars, which was unheard of in an era when the MSRP on a VHS tape was roughly eighty dollars. In 1998, the film received a laserdisc release from the Roan Group which sported a highly entertaining audio commentary from director Sole and the film’s editor, Edward Salier. The film was given two DVD releases later on, which ported over the commentary. Even without the benefit of Sole's discussion, one can easily see the influence that Nicolas Roeg's astonishing Don’t Look Now (1973) has on this film.

BY TODD GARBARINI

This has been a good year for fans of model and actress Laura Gemser. Recently, Severin Films released a deluxe Blu-ray package of two of her films, a soundtrack CD, a really cool t-shirt and an enamel pin, the last item appearing to be something that is new and all the rage nowadays. We’ll take a look at the two films featured in this collection.

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)

Laura Gemser, the high cheekbone-chiseled, dark-skinned Indonesian goddess born Laurette Marcia Gemser who appeared opposite Jack Palance in Emmanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra (1975), returns in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals as Emanuelle. Here she’s a photojournalist who goes undercover at a mental hospital with a 35mm camera hidden within a creepy children’s doll that takes photos when the eyes open and close. She’s looking to expose the hospital’s treatment of the infirmed and witnesses a horrific event wherein a patient tries to eat one of the nurses. Yes, you read that right. A tattoo on the patient’s torso of a cannibal tribe’s logo stuns Emanuelle. She comes to find out that the woman was raised by a tribe of cannibals called the Apiaca. Eager to pursue this story, she consults with her newspaper editor, an older man who is looped so poorly you practically never see his mouth move. In fact, the whole movie is looped with foley effects and dialogue that all sound so unnatural but hey, that’s part of the fun of these movies. The story compels Emanuelle to seek out Dr. Mark Lester (Ms. Gemser’s late real-life husband, Gabriele Tinti) who agrees to accompany her on a journey to investigate the Apiaca. Before she leaves on her trip, however, she decides to make love to her boyfriend in full view of the New York skyline, but this is the last we see of him as she appears to be smitten with the older Dr. Lester. Mechanical and joyless softcore sex scenes proliferate, even after the point following their arrival in the jungle to pursue the tribe. They are offered assistance by a group of others who go with them: Reverend Wilkes (Geoffrey Copleston), Isabelle (Mónica Zanchi), an overly emotional Sister Angela (Annamaria Clementi), Donald Mackenzie (Donald O’Brien), and his wife Maggie (Nieves Navarro). They are on a mission to locate Father Morales who is supposedly the only person not from the Amazon who has ever had any contact with the tribe. Unfortunately, they only discover his remains, which sets poor Sister Angela into a terrible emotional state.

Poor Donald can’t seem to satisfy Maggie anymore, so when they stop to make camp she elects to get it on with natives in the jungle. As one would expect from director Aristide Massaccesi, better known as Joe D’Amato, the sex scenes are overdone, artificial and completely lacking in passion. Even Emanuelle’s multiple romps do little to exult in the wonder of her lithe figure. If ever there was an award for Best Mechanical and Robotic Sex Scene, director D’Amato would surely win every time.

Naturally, the more the group hikes further into the jungle the more they expose themselves to potentially being captured and eaten. This horrific fate befalls several of the party, but Emanuelle thinks of an ingenious way to escape once they are surrounded. The ending is silly and predictable, but you pretty much know what you’re getting with this acting troupe.

As difficult as it may seem to believe, cannibal films enjoyed a high level of popularity back in the 1970s and 1980s, so it was inevitable that they would make their way into other genres. If the title is unfamiliar to U.S. audiences, it should be. Though shot in the summer of 1977, Last Cannibals didn’t make its way to American shores until 1984 when it was dumped on VHS under the title of Trap Them and Kill Them. Like most exploitation films of the period, some of the action is shot in the streets of New York City and it’s a real hoot to see what Manhattan looked like 41 years ago. One shot has the comedy Kentucky Fried Movie displayed prominently on the marquee of the long-gone Rivoli Theatre which was known for its extended showcases of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Jaws (1975).

The film has just made its way to Blu-ray via of Severin Films and the results are so far above what we’re used to from VHS bootlegs that it looks like a different movie. Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and given a 2K transfer from a good print that significantly brightens up the image, Last Cannibals looks good enough to make one dump the inferior and murky VHS bootlegs of over thirty years ago.

This disc has an unusual amount of extras for this sort of title. Up first is The World of Nico Fidenco which runs twenty-seven minutes. Signor Fidenco is the film’s composer and he has written an upbeat score for the film. He’s very interesting to listen to and describes how his stint in the military got in the way of his original ambition which was to be a film director. After he was discharged, he learned the guitar and studied singing and this led him to composing music for film. He collaborated multiple times with director D’Amato. (Note: if you’re a fan of the score, the first 3000 Blu-ray pressings in a special edition contain a separate compact disc of the score. The end of this review will fill you in on how to order it).

A Nun Among the Cannibals: An Interview with Actress Annamaria Clementi (twenty-three minutes). While watching the interview, I couldn’t believe that the woman speaking to the camera was the same woman who played Sister Angela in the film. She was roughly twenty-three when she shot the film, and is now sixty-five(?!) in the on-screen interview. This bespectacled beauty could easily pass for thirty-eight. Perhaps the interview was shot years ago? It looks new to me. She talks about how shy and aloof she was with lead actress Gemser, and how director D’Amato wanted to put her in his next seven films which she declined(!), as well as a chance encounter with Robert DeNiro when shooting in New York City. She also explains that she was approached by Pino Pellegrino, the man who would become her agent, casually on the street and he asked her if she wanted to become an actress. Remarkably, she trusted him and they had a good working relationship.

Dr. O’Brien MD: This eighteen-minute interview with Donald O’Brien who played Donald Mackenzie reveals how he got his start in acting, like most performers do, in the theatre. I was amazed at how much he had aged whereas the aforementioned Annamaria Clementi looked so much younger.

From Switzerland to the Mato Grosso runs nearly nineteen minutes and features Monika Zanchi whom genre fans will remember from the nutso 1977 outing Hitch Hike with Franco Nero and the incomparable David Hess. She also appeared in the ridiculous Spielberg spoof Very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (1978).

The last featurette is called I Am Your Black Queen which runs just over eleven minutes and is a poorly-recorded audio interview with Laura Gemser which is subtitled. She talks about how she began, like most attractive young actresses do, by modelling. This is how genre favorite Caroline Munro got her start. Her first film, Free Love, was released in 1974. Perhaps not so surprisingly, she refers to her embarrassment over her nude scenes. Of the few movies that I have seen of her, she rarely if ever looks comfortable in her own skin, almost as if disrobing is a chore.

Last of all is the requisite theatrical trailer.

As I mentioned earlier, the first 3000 copies of this Blu-ray also include a soundtrack CD of the film’s score. The running time on the 31-track CD is one hour. It can be ordered here as part of The Laura Gemser Deluxe Bundle which includes a second film, Violence in a Women’s Prison.

“LIGHT, SHADOW, AND MARLENE”

By Raymond Benson

I love it when The Criterion Collection produces a lavish boxed set containing multiple features, an abundance of supplements, and a thick and illustrated booklet. What better collection is there than one featuring the six Hollywood films made between 1930 and 1935 by Josef von Sternberg and starring the exquisite Marlene Dietrich? Hats off to producer Issa Clubb for overseeing what could be one of Criterion’s better products.

These adventure-romances showcased a star who immediately defined the word “exotic”—a German-born, English-speaking, beautiful, sultry, seductress who could act, sing, and dance. Like Greta Garbo, who had arrived in Hollywood during the silent era, Marlene Dietrich exhibited a European mystery to American audiences of the early Depression years. Her self-styled (with the help of her trusted director, von Sternberg) gender-bending wardrobes and mannerisms, her sometimes ambiguous but often overt sexuality, and her allure of “knowing something we didn’t” made her an overnight star… for a while.

As documented in the various supplements that appear over the six Blu-ray disks in the set, Dietrich and von Sternberg enjoyed a successful and acclaimed period during the Pre-Code days. It seemed, though, that as soon as the Production Code went into effect in July 1934, the popularity of the star and the director’s films waned. For the second half of the 1930s, Dietrich, like several other leading ladies, became what was termed “box-office poison”—that is, until she made a booming come-back in 1939’s Destry Rides Again.

Dietrich and von Sternberg first worked together in the 1930 German-produced picture, The Blue Angel, which was filmed in both the German language and in English. The director, already an established filmmaker in Hollywood, convinced his studio, Paramount, to bring Dietrich over and sign her to a multi-picture contract. The young star left Germany on the night The Blue Angel premiered in her native country. Paramount held the U.S. release back until after the exhibition of her first official Hollywood production, Morocco (also 1930). This initial appearance in America proved to be a sensation. The English-language version of The Blue Angel was released a month later, and Marlene Dietrich had arrived.

The historical importance of the films in Criterion’s new collection can be broken down into three words—light, shadow, and Marlene. Josef von Sternberg was a master of visual imagery in motion pictures at a time when black and white cinematography was evolving as an art form. A cameraman himself, he was one of the few directors in Hollywood who knew how to light a set and photograph it (in fact, he is not only the director but also the cinematographer of the sixth title in this set, The Devil is a Woman). Von Sternberg’s use of German expressionism—heavy on the shadows, high contrast between light and dark—did wonders for Marlene Dietrich’s cheekbones. An actress was likely never photographed so beautifully as in those first few films—not even Garbo. The greatest pleasure of the Dietrich & von Sternberg boxed set is the gorgeousness of its images. While von Sternberg certainly had much to say about how his films were photographed, many kudos must be given to the other two cinematographers he worked with—Lee Garmes (three titles) and Bert Glennon (two titles).

Davis with fellow Rat Pack members Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop in Las Vegas, 1960, for the filming of "Oceans Eleven". The Pack would film in the daytime, then perform sold-out evening shows at the Sands casino.

BY LEE PFEIFFER

Entertainment legend Lionel Ritchie is joining the production team that is intent on bringing the remarkable life story of Sammy Davis Jr. to the big screen. The film will be based in part on Davis's 1965 bestselling memoir "Yes, I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr.". Davis led a dramatic life and career beginning as a child star in Vaudeville and progressing over the decades to be one of the most popular entertainers in the world. He conquered the mediums of stage, screen, records and television. Davis also broke barriers during the Jim Crow era of segregation in the American south. After gaining even more fame and fortune through his affiliation with Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack, Davis did the unthinkable: he dated white women, including Kim Novak. He would later marry Swedish actress May Britt. Their union lasted eight years. Davis was not without other controversies, however. While he enjoyed mainstream success in the 1960s, civil rights activists accused him of being soft on the issue despite Davis having marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. There were also criticisms that he was too willing to cater to Sinatra's whims because of his co-starring status in "Oceans Eleven", "Sergeants 3" and "Robin and the Seven Hoods". Still, by anyone's account, Davis's life is rich fodder for a major film production. Click here for more.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release:

Silver Spring, MD; May 31, 2018 – Acorn Media Enterprises (AME), the UK-based development division for the Acorn TV brand of RLJ Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: RLJE), has partnered with Free@Last TV to develop the first ever scripted biopic of legendary comic Benny Hill, who despite immense popularity led a lonely life. The series is in development as 2 x 90 minutes/4 x 45 minutes with Caleb Ranson (Midsomer Murders, Distant Shores) writing the series. The biopic will follow Benny Hill’s life from the mid-1930s through his tragic death in the 1990s.

Earlier this year, Acorn Media Enterprises with Free@Last TV announced Acorn TV’s first sole commission with the return of Agatha Raisin, Series 2 starring Ashley Jensen (Love, Lies & Records, Catastrophe), which begins filming this summer.

“Lonely Boy: The Benny Hill Story” is an original drama that spans the life and times of Benny Hill from his early days as a part of a double-act to his heady height of fame as the most-loved British prime-time comedian lauded on both sides of the Atlantic. The series will chart his tragic decline and fall in the late 80’s as a new generation of rising stars usurped his shtick.

Lonely Boy will follow the journey of a cripplingly insecure young lad with a single-minded desire to make people laugh, through the dying last days of variety and who is ultimately saved from obscurity by television. The series will also examine the double-standards of the tabloid press.

Helping him achieve his goal will be a surrogate family; a ‘brother’ in comedy writer and lifelong friend Dave Freeman and a ‘father’ in producer/director Ken Carter – and later Dennis Kirkland. These men believe in Benny when no-one else does. They help him, hone him – emotionally and professionally.

An uplifting, deeply moving story with a universal truth at its core; how our parents, for good or bad, shape who we are.

‘Lonely Boy’ takes its name from one of Benny Hill’s classic 1960’s hits and was developed by Free@Last TV’s David Walton in partnership with writer Caleb Ranson.

The series consultant is Hilary Bonner who was the co-author of the Benny Hill biography 'Benny & Me' with Benny's long-term TV collaborator Dennis Kirkland. 

Barry Ryan, Creative Director of Free@Last TV noted, “Benny Hill is a lost national treasure and a much-misunderstood man. Our drama will reignite his legacy and address some of the misconceptions about the man and his material while also chronicling the dying days of variety entertainment and the birth of television”.

Writer Caleb Ranson said, “When I was a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s I loved Benny Hill, his skits and wordplay and especially his songs. Then as I got older, like the rest of the country, I fell out of love with him. Why was that? What happened? Around the world he’s still revered but here in the UK, he’s all but forgotten. A punchline to a bad joke. I want to reclaim him from the comedy dustbin of history, to explore the Benny nobody knows, the ahead of his time comedy genius of the 50s and 60s and why in his twilight years he fell so hard and so quickly out of favour”.

Shane Murphy, Managing Director, Acorn Media Enterprises, said, “After developing a great working relationship with Barry and David during the first series of Agatha Raisin, we’re excited to embark on a different project with them. Benny Hill remains one of Britain’s most well-known comics but his tumultuous and often heart-breaking life behind the scenes has never been told. Caleb has written a fascinating first few episodes and the series is sure to attract a stellar cast, led by the multi-layered role of Benny.”

Free @ Last TV was founded in 2000 by Barry Ryan and David Walton. The company has produced over 450 hours of television for a variety of channels including Gina Yashere: Gina Las Vegas, Martina Cole’s Lady Killers and the comedy-drama Agatha Raisin. The company has a full development slate including Reginald Hill’s thriller ‘Death of a Dormouse’, ‘The Charles Paris Mysteries’ and ‘Spilsbury’ written by award-winning writer and actress Nichola McAuliffe. http://www.freeatlasttv.co.uk

Acorn Media Enterprises commissions, co-produces and acquires a diverse slate of international dramas for Acorn TV, North America’s most popular streaming service for British and international television. This news follows Acorn Media Enterprises and Acorn TV’s recent commission announcements for the straight-to-series order of British drama London Kills Series 1 and 2 as well as a co-production announcements for Aussie comedy Sando and Irish comedy Finding Joy from Amy Huberman, as well as the licensing of hit British police procedural No Offence, Jack Irish, Season 2 starring Guy Pearce, and Welsh drama Hidden. Read recent announcements at https://www.rljentertainment.com/press-room/

In 2018, Acorn Media Enterprises has already featured five North American co-productions and Acorn TV Originals with Series 3 of universally adored BBC comedy Detectorists starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones; Kay Mellor’s ITV drama Girlfriends starring Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey), Miranda Richardson (Stronger, And Then There Were None), and Zoe Wanamaker (Agatha Christie’s Poirot); Irish legal drama Striking Out, Series 2 starring Amy Huberman; record-setting Welsh thriller Keeping Faith starring Eve Myles (Torchwood, Broadchurch); and Aussie family comedy Sando.

Called “Netflix for the Anglophile” by NPR and featuring “the most robust, reliable selection of European, British, Canadian and Australian shows” by The New York Times, Acorn TV exclusively premieres several new international series and/or seasons every month from Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, and other European countries.

BY TODD GARBARINI

In the summer of 1992 I visited a neighborhood thrift store that rented obscure videos of movies made all over the world. Foreign films on laserdisc imported from Japan were transferred to VHS and rented long before “online downloading” became a household term. One of the films was relatively new yet unfamiliar to me although the cover art featured actress Jennifer Connelly on it. I already knew of her from her roles in Dario Argento’s Phenomena (1985), Seven Minutes in Heaven (1985), Labyrinth (1986), Some Girls (1988), and The Hot (yowzah) Spot (1990), but this title looked quite different. Etoile, the French word for “star”, is the title of director Peter Del Monte’s relatively unknown and overlong 1989 dramatic thriller that easily calls to mind Darren Aronofsky’s superior Black Swan (2010) due to its theme of a troubled ballerina. I would almost consider Etoile to be a “lost” Jennifer Connelly film in that most people are unaware of it. Even this video tribute to her on Youtube skips it completely. Although Italian and filmed in spoken English, the film was not released in either Italy or the United States. Ms. Connelly, who premiered at the age of twelve in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984) as a dancer, plays Claire, a New York-based ballerina visiting Budapest to audition for Swan Lake. Like in the opening of Phenomena, her character is arriving in a foreign land by way of aviation and finally by taxi. She bumps into a fellow New Yorker named Jason (Gary McCleery) after dropping her slipper in the hotel she is staying at. He’s instantly smitten with her, and who wouldn’t be? At just seventeen, Ms. Connelly is utterly breathtaking. The ballet school is run by Marius Balakin (Laurent Terzieff, who bears a striking resemblance to Pierre Clementi for those Bertolucci fans of you out there). Claire ventures out into an old, decrepit theater and dances alone until she locks eyes with Balakin who is sitting in a seat, looking around at the theater. She bolts. In the meantime, Jason is learning the antiques business from his Uncle Joshua (an unlikely Charles Durning), but cannot stop thinking about Claire and sneaks off, accompanying her on a sojourn to an abandoned old house that used to belong to a ballerina who danced in Swan Lake. Compelled to succeed, Claire decides to audition.

At this point the film takes a turn into seemingly supernatural territory when Claire finds flowers delivered to her room and addressed to “Natalie”. Despite her best efforts, she cannot locate anyone else in the hotel with that name. In the middle of the night, she receives a visit from her teacher’s choreographer and another dancer; understandably freaked out, she then decides to return to New York. While at the airport, a P.A. page for a one “Natalie Horvath” sends her into a trance and she almost willingly assumes the “role” of this person and transforms into a ballerina, with no memory of Claire, her former self. Jason locates her sitting by a lake and is hurt and bewildered by her demeanor and failure to recognize him. Determined to get to the bottom of this, he goes to great lengths to uncover this very obvious transformation that he is powerless to explain let alone comprehend.

Director Peter Del Monte’s best-known film to Americans is indubitably Julia and Julia, the 1987 Sting-Kathleen Turner outing that was touted as the first film to be shot in high definition (it was later transferred to 35mm for theatrical exhibition). The premise of that film also called into mind the sanity of the protagonist, however here Claire merely appears to be a confused and unwilling participant in a world that simply pulls her into it. Although Claire and Jason’s love story isn’t very compelling, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him and ended up rooting for him. The ending is trite, even by the director’s own admission, which he found unsatisfying. Jurgen Knieper, the film’s composer who has done some wonderful work for Wim Wenders, provides a very effective and haunting score that remained with me days after seeing the film, in particular the main theme. The cinematography is also quite stellar as Acácio de Almeida’s camera reveals much more than the laserdisc ever showed, mostly because this new transfer to DVD is made from a new 2K scan of the original film elements with extensive color correction performed. The image is framed at 1.85:1.

The DVD from Scorpion has several extras. First up is an eighteen-minute interview with the film’s director who discusses the challenges that he was forced to deal with while making the film. He took the job as the producer gave him an advance, which is something that he never had before. However, there were many disagreements regarding the film’s tone, etc.

The second extra is an on-screen interview with the film’s executive producer, Claudio Mancini, who has far less positive things to say about the cast and the whole experience. This runs just shy of ten minutes.

The final section contains trailers for the following films: Etoile (1989), Barbarosa (1981), City on Fire (1979), Steaming (1985), and Ten Little Indians (1974).

I would recommend Etoile wholeheartedly to Jennifer Connelly completists.

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BY LEE PFEIFFER AND DAVE WORRALL 

Actress Eunice Gayson, who made screen history by playing the first love interest of James Bond on the big screen, has passed away at age 90. Gayson played the sexy, single woman Sean Connery's 007 encounters at a high end gambling club in the first Bond thriller "Dr. No" in 1962. Gayson's character set the standard for future "Bond Girls" by portraying an independent, self-assured woman who had no pangs of guilt in regard to engaging in a sexual relationship for the pure pleasure of it. In fact, it is she who seduces Bond, turning up in his apartment and putting a golf ball while clad only in one of his shirts. The character, Sylvia Trench, also appeared in a brief love scene with Bond in the second film in the series, "From Russia with Love". Gayson got the role because she had worked with director Terence Young previously in the 1958 production "Zarak". The original idea was to have Trench appear in each of the films as a recurring character but that idea was dropped when Young, the director of the first two films, temporarily left the series and Guy Hamilton took over. Gayson also appeared in the Hammer Films production "The Revenge of Frankenstein" as well as many other feature films and TV series including "The Saint", "The Avengers" and "Danger Man". On a personal level, we at Cinema Retro mourn her passing. Eunice was a lovely, talented lady with a wonderful wit and sense of humor. We treasure the many hours we spent with her over the years and we are grateful that we saw her again recently at the memorial service for her old friend, Sir Roger Moore, which was held at Pinewood Studios last October. Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have issued the following statement:

"We are so sad to learn that Eunice Gayson, our very first 'Bond girl' who played Sylvia Trench in DR. NO and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE has passed away. Our sincere thoughts are with her family."

For more about Eunice Gayson's career, click here. 

BY BARBARA IRVIN

The date was Wednesday, March 27, 1974. The film premiering that night at Radio City Music Hall was Mame. This first public screening of the lavishly produced and choreographed story, which took Broadway by storm in the 1960s, was a laborious experience for everyone involved. With its much anticipated release, cast and crew alike showed up to offer their support and to delight in the audience’s appreciation. Even the star, Lucille Ball, attended this highly publicized event. For the first time, fans got a different glimpse of their favorite television personality. That evening, she arrived not as the ravishing redhead people were used to seeing, but as a black-haired beauty in a white dress, which was quite short and just happened to be featured in the film. Moviegoers were getting a preview of what was to come.

And what an entertaining extravaganza it was! The alluring ambiance in every scene, as well as the divine dancing and sensational singing, kept viewers enthralled for the entire two hours and twelve minutes of the picture. Everybody except the critics, of course.

For the most part, the reviewers did not have nice things to say about Mame or its featured players. Some noticed the sentimentality that came through during certain moments, such as the scene in which the main character and Patrick, her young nephew, sing “My Best Girl”. However, the majority of them failed to properly acknowledge a movie that took two years to complete and cost around $12,000,000 to produce. This was especially true with Lucille Ball’s performance. Considering the faith Warner Brothers had in their chosen leading lady, the negative notices were a major letdown to the studio and to the actress herself.

Playing Mame meant so much to Lucille. She saw the role as her last chance to prove to the world that she possessed what it took to be a glamorous movie star. Never one to pass up an opportunity, Lucille made it her ultimate goal to win the producers over. Indeed, they saw something special in her that no other actress could radiate.

Once she nabbed the covered part, Lucille put a lot of effort into creating her own interpretation of the character. Unfortunately, all of this hard work came to a halt when she broke her leg while skiing in Colorado. Lucille felt bad about holding up production. When producers learned about her fear of being replaced, they quickly assured her they would wait for her return.

With projects featuring such big names as Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, Warner Brothers cranked out movies that were popular among the younger crowds. When the company purchased the rights to the musical version of Mame, they envisioned it as a picture everyone could enjoy. Therefore, finding a seasoned entertainer who had plenty of clout became necessary. At the time, Lucille was one of the most influential women in Hollywood, due to her achievements behind the scenes as much as on camera. This factor made it practically impossible for her fellow contenders to be chosen over her.

All of the power in the world could not prevent the barrage of crass comments made by the critics. They took aim at everything from her gravelly voice to her extreme thinness. Despite the harsh remarks, Lucille refused to let her anguish interfere with the promotional tour she embarked on soon after filming wrapped. She willingly posed for photographs, endured the mundane task of answering repetitive questions asked by inquisitive reporters, and appeared on talk shows like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Phil Donahue. Suddenly, the most recognizable female in the field of physical comedy was popping up everywhere.

The cheerful facade occasionally slipped, allowing her candor to reveal itself. Blaming photographers, Lucille once admitted to a journalist that she felt old. Tired of seeing unflattering images of herself every time she picked up a newspaper or magazine and the press stomping on her already crushed ego, she vented her vexation at anyone who would listen.

Having devoted such a huge chunk of time to understanding the inner workings of an outspoken woman began affecting what she said when discussing other topics as well. Always thought of as brash, the ordeal that came with making and advertising Mame only hardened Lucille, solidifying her opinion of the changing industry. Interviewers expecting her jocular side were shocked when she unabashedly addressed her abhorrence for movies containing excessive nudity and sex.

Those familiar with the bygone era of the studio system comprehended Lucille’s belief that family friendly films had the capability to restore traditional values that they felt had been tossed aside for far too long. This wholesomeness started when she worked at MGM. Louis B. Mayer prided himself on preserving the pristine illusion so meticulously maintained by all who flourished under his supervision.

Mame took on a deeper meaning for those who could remember that simpler, carefree time in history. Just as they had done during the Great Depression, people forgot about their worries and eagerly embraced the energy exuded on camera. They listened with a gleam in their eyes and hope in their hearts as Lucille sang the lyrics to “Open A New Window”.

Women related to her optimism. They felt the movie catered to their tastes. In actuality, it was produced with them in mind. When speaking about Mame, Lucille expressed a strong urge to please the ladies who waited in line to see the film. She wanted them to know it was their picture. Finally given the respect they deserved, their gratitude poured out. If only Lucille Ball and Mame had received the same reverence.

(Considered highly knowledgeable in the vintage film era, Barbara Irvin has written for Classic Images. Most recently, she wrote a very detailed profile about Angela Lansbury and her husband, Peter Shaw. This is her first article for Cinema Retro.)

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